As fans of Battlestar Galactica will recall, every episode began with a short synopsis: “The Cylons were created by man. The rebelled. They evolved. There are many copies. And they have a plan.” But... did they? Or was that just a big tease? Turns out it’s the latter, and now we know why: because an executive producer thought it sounded cool.
At the ATX Television Festival, executive producer Ronald D. Moore and a fair amount of the cast reunited to reminisce about the show, which started with the nuclear annihilation of the vast majority of the human race and got more depressing from there. The Los Angeles Times recapped the major parts of the panel, including the origin story of that little bit of text:
Moore said this was, essentially, just something co-executive producer David Eick thought sounded cool, that audiences would love and that they could figure out later. They never did and, said Moore, “For the next 14 years of my life people have asked me ‘What was the plan?’” In short, “There was no… plan.”
Yeah, that became evident by the time that “All Along the Watchtower” started playing.
It doesn’t really change anything good or bad about the series. Some shows have a very strict vision that they execute, but most shows are adaptable to whatever the best version of the story is. That said, maybe a plan would have helped people understand the finale better. Or at least prevented the season where Helo (Tahmoh Penikett) seemed to be switching jobs weekly.