"Battlestar" gets grounded by Sci Fi

By Nellie Andreeva

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The upcoming fourth season of Sci Fi Channel's "Battlestar Galactica" will be its final one after all.

After months of speculation, the show's producers are set to make the announcement at a press conference Friday.

Ending "Battlestar" with the upcoming 22-episode fourth season was a creative decision made by the hit show's executive producers Ronald Moore and David Eick.

"This show was always meant to have a beginning, a middle and, finally, an end," Eick and Moore said in a statement Thursday. "Over the course of the last year, the story and the characters have been moving strongly toward that end, and we've decided to listen to those internal voices and conclude the show on our own terms. And while we know our fans will be saddened to know the end is coming, they should brace themselves for a wild ride getting there -- we're going out with a bang."

The fourth and final season of "Galactica" will kick off in November with "Razor," an extended two-hour episode, with the rest of the season slated to run beginning in early 2008.

Sci Fi executive vp original programming Mark Stern said the channel's brass "respect the producers' decision to end the series."

For months, Sci Fi had dispelled rumors about "Battlestar" ending its run after the fourth season.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the show's stars, Edward James Olmos, was quoted as saying that the upcoming batch of episodes were definitely the last ones. Sci Fi issued a statement denying such a decision had been made.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter