Idea To End 'Battlestar Galactica' Came Early On

"Somewhere midway through the second season, we started to seriously think what the end of the series itself would be, where it was heading, and what it all meant," said Moore, who participated in a phone conference with reporters on Friday with Eick. "In between seasons two and three, we were talking in earnest that if we do end it next year, what would it be? And we decided that yeah, this is the right time to do it."

All of that came to a head near the midpoint of Season 3 when the fleet visits the algae planet and Chief Tyrol (Aaron Douglas) discovers the Temple of the Five.

"The temple gave D'Ann (Lucy Lawless) the glimpse of the Final Five that triggers the beacon that points the way to Earth," Moore said. "At that point, you're promising the audience that you were moving toward revelation. By the end of the season, we had taken that moment to decide that we were going to reveal four of the Final Five, and one of the characters had been to Earth and seen it.

"That's probably the moment when we started feeling it. If we don't start moving in that direction, you get to a place where you just feel like you're jerking off the audience or treading water instead of just moving forward and pushing limits. We didn't want to be in that position."

Reports of the impending demise of the critically acclaimed SciFi Channel show had circulated the Web since last February soon after the network officially announced a partial season order for the fourth season. SyFy Portal reported days after the announcement that the network was looking to possibly add nine more hours to the overall order, but if they did, it could actually signal the end of the series rather than a continuation.

Then last month, series stars Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff told reporters at the Saturn Awards that this would be the end of the show following the fourth season, something Eick initially denied.

Talk about this story