Believe it or not, more than two decades have passed since Battlestar Galactica premiered on the The Sci-FI Channel, and the show has bounced around different streaming services in the years since its four-season run ended in 2009. The legacy is strong, however, and not because Katee Sackhoff is one of the most memorable Big Bang Theory guest stars. Sackhoff and her BSG costar, Tahmoh Penikett, have opened up about the show's lasting impact that Edward James Olmos predicted... even though they didn't believe him at the time.
Sackhoff and Penikett were in their early 20s when they debuted as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace and Karl "Helo" Agathon, respectively. Both had some TV credits to their name at the time, but no breakout hits and certainly nothing that shot them to pop culture fame like BSG would starting in 2004. In contrast, Edward James Olmos was in his late 50s and had a long list of film and television credits to his name before he debuted as Bill Adama on BSG.
Looking back while speaking to Katee Sackhoff on her The Sackhoff Show podcast, Tahmoh Penikett said:
We were kids when we started it, and we're still in this realm. We're still talking about this incredible show that we did that long ago. Eddie and Mary [McDonnell] both knew, Eddie especially. He said from day one, 'This will be the most important thing you ever do.' And I'm so proud to say that.
If anybody in the cast would have known about about what works and what doesn't in showbiz, I definitely would have named Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell even before hearing Tahmoh Penikett's comments. Of course, at the time, shows from The Sci-Fi Channel (now known as Syfy) weren't really known for lasting legacies and reaching broad audiences, so the young stars didn't totally appreciate Olmos' comments. Sackhoff shared:
I remember at the time he said that, and being like, 'Go fuck yourself.' Because also, I don't believe that something I do at 23, I don't want to be that high school quarterback looking back... And luckily we've all worked since then, to the point where we can say, 'I've worked. I've had a career. I'm not the high school quarterback, but I am the professional athlete that looks back and won the Super Bowl in like my third year.
Both actors have certainly accumulated their own long lists of credits in the years since Battlestar Galactica, with Katee Sackhoff even jumping from a TV show about the military set in the future to a TV show about the military set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away thanks to her role as Bo-Katan in The Mandalorian. One of my personal favorite roles of Penikett's has to be his recurring role as Gadreel in Supernatural Season 9. Suffice it to say that they now know that Edward James Olmos knew what he was talking about!
Tahmoh Penikett went on to confirm that they now understand that Olmos "wasn't trying to demean or sabotage the rest of our careers or saying we wouldn't amount to more." The Dollhouse vet said:
What he was saying is the quality, the importance of this story and how long it would last, the longevity of it, would be tremendous. And he understood that. Being the humanitarian that he is, a man who's leant his name and his character and his compass to so many different things. He understood the weight and the importance of the show, so much so that it's crazy. It's like he was Nostradamus. He knew, he said to us, he said to me over and over again. 'Twenty years from now' – and he was saying this is the first fucking season – 'people will be talking about this show.' And we are talking about it more than ever.
While Olmos' wisdom about the legacy of the show may seem supernatural a la Nostradamus, there's a reason why he joined Battlestar Galactica after turning down Star Trek, and it wasn't because he suddenly came around to starring in a show set in space. He clarified to The A.V. Club that he didn't want to be part of sci-fi in the sense of "four-eyed people, or weird jellyfish people, or weird outer-space people" or "Creature From The Black Lagoon-ish type of people," but was won over by the "writing," the "storytelling," and the "originality of the story itself."
Despite his version of BSG technically being a reboot, the remake is wildly different from the original to the point that I don't think anybody could argue that the 2004 series didn't have plenty of originality. There have also been rumblings of another reboot in recent years, with executive producer Ronald D. Moore having one stipulation. No reboot or sequel has been produced at the time of writing, but at least Katee Sackhoff and Tahmoh Penikett have come around on Battlestar Galactica being the "most important" thing they'd ever do.
