Syfy issued this statement: “The remaining first run episodes of Caprica – airing Tuesdays at 10/9c – will be removed from the schedule as of next Tuesday, November 2. These final five episodes of the season will be re-scheduled to air at a to be announced time in the first quarter of 2011, and will conclude the run of the series.”

This bombshell hits just days after news of Syfy’s ordering for a new Battlestar Galactica spinoff pilot — titled Blood & Chrome.

Programming head for Syfy Mark Stern offered, “Despite its obvious quality, Caprica has not been able to build the audience necessary to justify a second season.”

While well-regarded by critics, Caprica frustrates sci-fi fans with its pacing and lack of being themed in outer space. With Blood & Chrome, Syfy hopes to launch a series that’s more in line with the action-filled original series.

Read the rest at UGO –>

Set 58 years before Battlestar Galactica, Caprica follows two rival families – the Graystones and the Adamas – as they grow, compete, and thrive in the vibrant world of the peaceful 12 Colonies, living in a society close to our own. Entangled in the burgeoning technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe-to-toe, blending action with corporate conspiracy and sexual politics. Caprica will deliver, intrigue, political backbiting and family conflict in television’s first science fiction family saga.

Daniel Graystone, a computer genius, is owner of a large computer corporation that is spearheading the development of artificial intelligence. He and his wife Amanda, who’s a brilliant surgeon, are both relentless in their scientific pursuits. The Adama clan is helmed by Joseph Adama, a renowned criminal defense attorney and father of future Battlestar commander William Adama. When tragedy strikes both families, lines are drawn that will determine the fate of the human race.

Here’s the poster:

Granted, this isn’t the most original idea. In fact, the inspiration came from an old website (I mean, it’s so old, it’s still hosted on geocities!) by a guy named Paul Chen who chronicled the web’s best Asian action figures. Unfortunately, homeboy’s site hasn’t been updated in a decade, and action figures have gotten way better (and more Asian American, natch!) in the years since.

So rather than just listing each and every action figure of an Asian character that’s sitting at your local Toys ‘R’ Us, I gave myself some criteria. First off, either the character or the actor portraying that character immortalized in plastic has to be Asian American. That means Ken Watanabe as Asian R’as Al Ghul from Hasbro’s Batman Begins or McFarlane Toys’ Yao Ming don’t count. Sorry guys.

The other criteria I look for in an action figure are sculpting, likeness accuracy, and points of articulation.

So without further ado, let’s start with #5, which is actually a tie!

#5. Sulu from Diamond Select Toys/Sulu from Playmates

How could we talk about Asian American action figures without talking about the granddaddy of Asian American sci-fi: Mr. Sulu? There have been several Sulu action figures from various companies over the years, but for the sake of this blog post, I’ll stick with this 6-inch fig from DST’s Star Trek Classics line. When it comes to Trek action figures, I think Diamond and Art Asylum are unrivaled. I love the scale and detail in all their figures, and the sculpt on this Sulu in his classic uni is the spitting image of George Takei!

Back in the late ’80s/early ’90s, my brother and I used to collect the 4-inch Next Generation figures from Playmates. The detail and articulation on those toys weren’t the greatest (which is likely the case for most toys of that period), but there is definitely a sense of nostalgia that kicks in when thinking back to those figures. So I was (sort of) excited to learn Playmates was returning to the world of Star Trek to do figs for the reboot that came out last May. And to be honest, these weren’t the greatest toys. The 3 3/4-inchers left a lot to be desired and the detail on the 6-inch scale was not as impressive as their DST analogs. Still, we were treated to our very first John Cho action figure. Now, if only they’d make action figures for the rest of the Better Luck Tomorrow crew and my collection will be complete!

#4. Athena and Boomer 2-Pack from Diamond Select Toys

Wow, another DST figure? Trust me, this has nothing to do with the fact that I used to work at Diamond! Anyway, I’m putting Boomer and Athena here even though I don’t watch Battlestar Galactica. What’s that? How can I make that claim and still be allowed on a site like PopCultureShock without having my geek credit card cut up into a million pieces? And where do I get off recommending an action figure of a character from a show I don’t even watch? Good questions, all. First off, I’ve always meant to watch BSG, but just never got around to it. So it isn’t like I’ve purposefully shied away from it like I did with, say, everything in the Whedonverse (blasphemy!) As for the second question: my justification for putting this Grace Park 2-pack on my list is, well, because it’s a Grace Park action figure. Duh! Plus, there are two of them.

#3. Data from Mezco Toys/Short Round from Hasbro

That’s right. Number 3 on my list is Jonathan Ke Quan, baby! Now, while it could be argued that his two most iconic portrayals–Short Round from Temple of Doom and Data from Goonies –are essentially Long Duk Dong for the tweens of the ’80s generation, I have to disagree. First off, Data was the man in The Goonies. And secondly, Short Round is the heart and soul of Temple and is the best sidekick Indy’s ever had. That’s right, Shia! I said it.

Anyway, even though Quan hasn’t worked in several years, the last couple have been good for him, at least from an action figure point of view. First off, Mezco released a series of Goonies figures and didn’t skimp on the accessories! I mean, he comes with the Pinchers of Peril for chrissakes! As for Short Round, I’ve been wanting 3 3/4 scale Indy figures since I was a little kid (hell, I actually remember Kenner’s short-lived Raiders figures) for no other reason than to have Indy and Han Solo standing next to each other on my desk. So, when they expanded the line that came out in ’08 to include Short Round, I was so there. But, what was even cooler was the Short Round Mighty Mugg that was exclusive to Entertainment Earth. Seriously. How dope is this?

#2. Tunnel Rat (1987) from Hasbro

I think it’s safe to say G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero was the be-all-end-all action figure/comic/cartoon franchise of my childhood. I mean, I loved He-Man and the Super Powers and the Real Ghostbusters and Thundercats… Okay, I loved every toyline in the ’80s, but there was something special about Joe vs. Cobra (so the fact that I’ve gotten to know and hang out with Larry Hama in the last few years is, like, mind-blowing). I knew that a Joe had to figure on this list somehow. I could have gone with easy ones like Storm Shadow or Quick Kick. And I was this close to putting Snake Eyes here. But in the end, I had to go with Chinese-Trinidadian Tunnel Rat. And not the “Resolute” one that came out this year. I’m talking old school. The one with the “Win a Fridge Action Figure” sticker on the card! Not only was Tunnel Rat’s likeness based on Hama himself (though the bio on the filecard, like most of the one’s in the collection, was based on a friend of Larry’s), but the dude’s got the coolest specialty: explosives! Not the resident martial artist or ninja. Nicky Lee was the dude who blew sh*t up! And you don’t get more Asian American than that.

#1. Bruce Lee series from Enterbay

Tops on the list have to go to the coolest sixth-scale action figures I’ve ever seen. And ironically, my favorite Asian American action figure is one I don’t (and will probably never) own: Enterbay’s Bruce Lee series of figures. Unless, you had $200-$300 you wanted to give me, that is. Still, I’ve seen these bad boys up close and personal, and they are worth every dollar that I don’t have to spare.

Enterbay has done several Bruce Lee figures now. There are two from Enter the Dragon, one from Game of Death, one from Way of the Dragon, and a Kato from Green Hornet. But my personal favorite is the one modeled on Bruce as Chen Zhen from Fist of Fury.

Not only are these the best, most intricate sixth-scale bodies, like most 12-inch figures, each one comes with a plethora of accessories and outfits. To wit, the FoF Bruce comes with two different head sculpts and three(!) different hair sculpts (seriously), two different tailored, cloth outfits, five sets of hands, a pair of nunchucks, a premium wooden diorama, and the infamous “Sick Man of Asia” wooden sign that Bruce so famously cracks in two!

And the best part? Enterbay’s exclusive 360 Eyeball system, which allows you to pose his eyes! I know I’m a sucker for articulation, but that’s just crazy!

Keith is the Editor-at-Large of the groundbreaking graphic novel anthology SECRET IDENTITIES and Outreach Director for SIUniverse Media. Visit the official Secret Identities blog to keep up with Keith and the rest of the SI team

“The Plan” is a direct-to-DVD film for “Battlestar Galactica” that promises to answer one of the more obvious questions from the series run: what exactly was this “plan” that the Cylons had, as referenced endlessly in the first couple seasons? Fans have been waiting a long time for this particular story, as told from the perspective of the Cylons. But as the old saying going: while all answers are replies, not all replies are answers.

So it is with “The Plan”.

After the second season episode “Downloaded”, which represented the beginning of the philosophical changes within the Cylon that would ultimately lead to their civil war, I noted in my review that it was fundamentally flawed. Caprica Six and Boomer had come to an epiphany that the original Cylon “plan” was wrong, and that they had to find a new path for their people. The problem was simply this: without a solid understanding of what the original Cylon direction was, any such epiphany carried little weight. Context is king.

The context was confusing because the actions of the Cylons were often contradictory. The overwhelming suggestion was that the Cylons wanted to wipe out the human race once and for all. However, they never seemed to take the necessary steps to achieve that goal after the initial annihilation was completed. The survivors were hunted down, both on Caprica and the Colonial fleet, but there was never the kind of relentlessness that could (and, story-wise, should) have led to a Cylon victory.

More to the point, the various hints from Head-Six and others, right down to Starbuck’s experience at the Farm, made it seem very possible that the Cylons wanted to cut the human population to a small but manageable size to eliminate a threat, while keeping enough alive to conduct the breeding experiments. After all, the Cylons conducted their experiment between Helo and Sharon/Athena over the course of the entire first season. The inability of the Cylons to reproduce was a vital concern.

That dichotomy was never explained, even though the creation of Hera was always treated as an important plot point for the series. And all those hints over the course of the series that the Humans and Cylons could only survive together eventually paid off. That being the case, the Cylon “plan” didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, even if it was only valid up until the point that the plan changed in “Downloaded”.

So this particular film needed to address that issue. If the goal was to explain the Cylon “plan” and fill those plot holes with reasonable explanations, then the story would have to delve into the motivations of the Cylon leadership structure prior to the attack on the Colonies and make sense of the actions that took place afterward. Not so much what happened on Galactica alone, but rather, the various activities seen on Caprica: the Helo/Sharon experiment, the Farm, and so forth.

In that regard, “The Plan” is a spectacular failure. It completely ignores the many inconsistencies within the Cylon agenda as it was depicted, and instead tries to simplify the Cylon “plan” and align it with the genocidal verve of the Cavil models. Some minor complications are added to the equation, but on the whole, most of the elements of the story were items that needed little or no explanation.

According to this story, the Cylon “plan” all evolved out of Cavil’s desire to punish his parents, the Final Five. He sent the Final Five to live among the Colonies to see how humanity’s sins justified the judgment of their creations. He believed that the Cylons were meant to finish the war that the Final Five had brought to an abrupt halt without mercy. As far as he was concerned, he expected the Final Five to be resurrected among their “children”, ready to acknowledge that they were wrong.

But that was already clear from the fourth season of the series itself. It didn’t need to be explained. What needed to be explained was the divergence from Cavil’s perspective. Surely there were many more copies of Cavil back with the Cylon fleet and Occupation forces after the attack. Why not focus on the debates between those versions of Cavil and the models that wanted to experiment with the survivors to foster reproduction? That would have allowed the writers to reconcile the various Cylon activities that didn’t fit the “destroy all humans” mold.

Instead, we got a story that served to connect the dots. All of the Cylon activities in the first season on Galactica were revealed to be the product of one Cavil’s orchestrations behind the scenes, culminating in his conversation with Chief Tyrol at the end of the second season. While it does make all of those seemingly disparate acts more substantial, it also doesn’t change very much.

After all, the end conclusion is that the other models, even with Cavil’s urging, couldn’t follow their orders because, like the Final Five, they came to love humanity. Cavil didn’t understand the powerful nature of love, because it was something he associated with humans, and therefore something he sought to reject. It makes sense, given what we know happened and what we know of Cavil.

But that only makes the error in focus more obvious. Cavil’s lack of understanding of love, and the difference between Cavil and the other models, would have fed beautifully into debates within the leadership of the Occupation. The models that oversaw the Helo/Sharon experiment could have justified their activities in spite of Cavil, thus placing that subplot within a clearer context.

The writers had the perfect means of making that happen. The Cavil that wound up with Anders and his resistance group could have been in regular contact with the Cylon Occupation forces. In fact, it’s hinted that the Cavil on Caprica is in contact with them. So why not shift more of the focus on Cavil’s debates, especially when Caprica-Cavil ultimately decides that the plan to exterminate humanity was flawed? For that matter, it’s never entirely clear why or how Caprica-Cavil changes his mind; he just seems to do so in order to align with what was seen in “Lay Down Your Burdens”.

I will give the writers and Olmos credit for taking what could have been a glorified clip show and weaving it into a suitable story. Like “Razor” before it, it manages to tell a side-story without too many contradictions to the original material. The approach is confident, the effects are spectacular, and most of the new footage matches the original footage very well. But “Razor” promised to tell the story of Pegasus and did so. “The Plan” tells a good story with a near-perfect lead in Dean Stockwell’s dual-Cavil performance, but it makes a point to dance around its stated purpose.

So the bottom line is that “The Plan” doesn’t actually address the elements that it should, and instead seems to justify the improvisational nature of the series (and therefore, the apparent discontinuities) by pointing out that the Cavil on Galactica was forced to improvise. In other words, the point of “The Plan” is there was no plan. That makes the title about as misleading as it gets.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10

PCS: You’ve directed a couple of episodes of the series, as well as a few movies, American Me and Jack and Marilyn of course. But how did you first approach the Battlestar people about saying, Hey, I want to direct an episode of the show, and want to take it from the acting to the directing?

EJO: Actually it was them that came up to me and asked me if I would be willing to direct. Right after the initial mini-series was over, and we were getting into the regular episodic series, by the second show, they asked me to direct the ninth show of that season

PCS: Directing a TV movie/DVD movie is more to take on, and ‘The Plan’ is obviously big in scope. What challenges did you find directing the movie that you weren’t expecting say from directing the individual episodes?

EJO: I think it was one of the highest honors I’ve gotten in doing the show, being asked by the studio to direct the film. The film is definitely the most ambitious work I’ve done on the Battlestar Galactica front. It definitely encompasses perspectives that we all knew could become needed, which is the Cylon’s point of view, the why and how they did what they did. So to me, it became a very strong commitment to the decimation of humanity, and showing what happened. So the first half hour is just brutal. And the second from there on out, you start to see the outcome of this, and why it happened the way it did.

PCS: I’ve noticed from the stills and whatnot, this DVD version seems to be a little bit… racier than the TV version of Battlestar. Was that a conscious effort on your part, to push the envelope?

EJO: It’s definitely was something that’s a reality of the piece that should have always been there. I think had it been done for another kind of network, more cable, pay-per-view cable, it would have been a more intense ride than on Syfy. Not that SyFy didn’t deserve it, and they got a full, strong emotional ride, we’re just talking about the visuals being more honest to the moments we’re talking about. So in other words, the reality is a little bit stronger in the DVD version.

PCS: With The Plan, the main series, and even Caprica [the prequel series], do you feel like there are other stories to tell from the Battlestar universe?

EJO: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of them, and I’d love to be able to do that. It’s up to the owners of the properties to see where they go. I know that Glen Larson is right now in the middle of creating the full-length motion picture that will be released in theaters. We’ll see how that works out… And I wish him nothing but success, because he deserves it.

PCS: Is there a moment in The Plan that you are particularly proud of?

EJO: The performance of Dean Stockwell, and all the performances across the board are just unbelievable – what these actors have given us, the reality that they created. And of course the newest one, the newest artist that came in to work with us, Lymari Nadal, actually got presented in the miniseries for one split second, and then she never worked again on the show. She came back to become a character [in 'The Plan'] that we not only appreciate, but that we’re thankful that we got to meet her, and got to understand her. Its an amazing contribution to the show, and it connects so well. It’s unbelievable. It’s very beautifully scripted by Jane Espenson, too, so my love to the writers of this program especially.

PCS: Last, and probably least, with Tahmoh Penikett, Michael Hogan, and Jamie Bamber all appearing on Dollhouse this season, when will you be showing up?

EJO: I think I’m going to come in probably in the seventeenth season.

PCS: We’ll be sure to set our DVRs for that.

But for those of you with a brain, you might need some further reasons than sound-alike names, so herewith, the top five reasons Edward James Olmos should run for President in 2012:

Brought to you by Battlestar Galactica: The Plan available 10/27 on DVD & Blu-ray

#5: He Knows How To Cross The Aisle

Though it took a while, Olmos knows how to create a strategic alliance with the enemy if it’s for the betterment of mankind.

#4: He Knows How To Find Earth

This is an important, but underrated skill for a President. If you can’t find Earth, you’re going to have a hard time identifying the countries on it, let alone where DC is. And who’s better at finding this planet than Olmos, who found it before anyone else?

#3: He’s Got Some Great Ideas About Repainting The White House

…Though maybe you want to keep that paint can away from him if he’s been on a bender.

(At 1:39 — (hyper)jump to it!)

#2: Olmos Cares About Fitness

Some people might say this has nothing to do with Edward James Olmos. Some people might say this is just an opportunity to mention the time Jamie Bamber (playing Olmos’ son, Lee Adama) pranced around in a fat suit, before losing all the weight off screen between two scenes. To them, I say… Well, probably. But if you remember, Olmos did growl at him to get those pounds off. Let him growl at the whole country, I say!

#1 He’s Already Slept In The President’s Bed

What’s the one question that always comes up in a Presidential election? Experience. Has Olmos been President? No. Does he have intimate knowledge of the President’s, um, shall we say, office? Heck yeah… If you know what we mean wink wink wink.

But sadly, the girls’ encore appearance here (November issue) is just okay. I mean, Grace Park doesn’t even look like herself in some of these shots, does she? Again, feel free to disagree in the comments.

Looks aside, though, the ladies do talk a good game:

“Since the new Battlestar movie is coming to DVD before TV, can we expect some R-rated action?

Tricia Helfer: There will certainly be a lot more explicit action on the DVD. And I refuse to have a body double, so you will see a little bit of skin from me as the Six character. There’s also a new character you’ll see in some very intense sex scenes.

Grace Park: Yeah, there’s going to be a T & A version. Though maybe I should say T, C & A, because it’s not just girls this time…”

Sex scenes or no, I’m totally looking forward to The Plan! Note that SyFy won’t be showing it until 2010, so the DVD/download release will be the only way to see the film until then!

Some photos from: JustJared.com

Yeah, so for those of you who watch Battlestar Galactica, you may have seen an ad for KFC’s Frak Pak, a contest where you can win BSG schwag, plus a year’s supply of KFC. A couple of thoughts here:

1) For me, a year’s supply of KFC is probably one piece, maximum. If that.

2) Do you think they know what Frak means?

The second part is the bigger thing, as, excuse my language here, “frak” is a network television stand-in word for “fuck.”

KFC is offering you a chance to win their exclusive “Fuck Pak.”

I mean, for godsakes, KFC, think of the children. Any way you take this, it doesn’t work:

- It’s a Fuck Pak, for fucking. Like, you’re going to have a lady over Friday at 10pm, watching the latest episode of Battlestar, and she’ll be so turned on by your massive amount of Colonel’s Original Recipe, she’ll jump your bones. There are several things ridiculous about this scenario, not least of which is that if anyone tried to do that during BSG, I’d kill them.

- It’s a Fuck Pak, like, “Oh fuck no! A pak!” Which also doesn’t work, because I don’t think KFC wants people to be upset about their prize pack, and I don’t think anyone is scared of it, if you use that emphasis.

In any case… The only way this could be worse is if they changed their name to Kentucky Frakkin’ Chicken. Though maybe also funnier.