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Guess what? Sci Fi Channel has finally greenlit the Battlestar Galactica prequel series Caprica.

Fans who are afraid of losing a solid science fiction show after BSG ends can have something to look forward to. A pilot had been completed as a TV movie that would have aired in 2009 after the last 10 episodes of Galactica finishes airing in the Spring, but now that Variety reports that it is officially a series, they might hold back on the pilot until the series in ready in 2010. What's more, it looks like they're aiming the ball a little higher with this one.

Caprica is set in the same universe as BSG, but for the most part unrelated to each other. This is because the show is set 50 years before the Cylon attacks, focusing on the rivalry between two powerful Caprican families, at a time when their technology is flourishing. It stars Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson and Polly Walker; and it will have the BSG writing staff to continue their work.

Fans of Battlestar Galactica know that the show is far from escapist SF fluff. The hard-hitting series often tackles contemporary social, theological and political issues; the premise of the show itself a bold examination of the effects of 9/11 on the American society, government and military. Caprica looks to continue that approach, but this time without those cool spaceship aerial battles.

"We want people to come to this who have never heard of Battlestar Galactica," Sci Fi president Dave Howe told Variety. "I think, because [Galactica's] backdrop was space and spaceships, there was a barrier to entry for some viewers. Caprica has none of that. It's an intense family drama set on an Earthlike planet, in the near future, speaking to a lot of the ethical dilemmas that we as a human race are going to have to face very shortly."

So, what, like a futuristic The Wire? Given BSG's gritty storytelling, that might be too far off of a comparison.

Before BSG came along, the Sci Fi Channel was mostly known for syndicating geeky shows and producing crappy B-movies. Battlestar Galactica took on the tired TV space genre and gave it a modern makeover, suddenly giving people a space opera with genuinely fantastic writing, acting, and relevant themes. Since its debut, Sci Fi has produced a few fun shows to watch, but nothing really as critically noteworthy as Galactica.

I doubt that they'd change their ways from cheesy monster movies and supernatural reality shows anytime soon (and really, god bless them for staying on it instead of going completely mainstream and off-topic like G4 did), but maybe—and this is a big maybe—they'll take a chance and let Caprica be the first in a series of more character-driven sci-fi shows. Save the special effects budget for hiring production teams that can provide "hard" sci-fi that uses the genre the way masters like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke did: studying how human emotions function in imaginative scenarios. Surely, having more shows on the quality of Galactica would make the channel a worthy competition to channels like HBO or FX. They could offer the same daring programming, but with a nerdier slant.

That, or we can look forward to more ECW.