The show is inspired by Syfy’s previous reboot series…

Battlestar Galactica is coming back. Again. NBCUniversal’s forthcoming streaming service, Peacock, has secured the services of Mr Robot and Homecoming creator Sam Esmail for a new take on the iconic sci-fi yarn, where the human race battles to stay afloat after a devastating attack by the Cylons, a race of ruthless sentient machines and synthetic organic beings.

The original 1978 Battlestar Galactica show was previously rebooted as a Syfy miniseries in 2003, before going on to become a bigger TV project in 2004 that lasted for four seasons and starred Edward James Olmos, Katee Sackhoff and Tricia Helfer. Esmail’s new series will be “an updated, more modern look at the world as told through the lens of the sci-fi favourite” and is “inspired by Syfy’s 2004 series developed by Ron Moore, and not based on the 1978 original from creator Glen A. Larson.”

Esmail has been chatting about why he decided to pursue the project with THR.

“[Ronald D Moore’s Battlestar Galactica] was this sci-fi show that didn’t feel incredibly sci-fi-y,” he explained. “It was grounded. I felt like I was watching a war film — so allegorical because it really was talking about 9/11 and the post-terrorist attack environment in a really human way. It was groundbreaking television in how serialised it was before that became popular among the other dramatic shows.”

But Esmail, who is only producing the project, had to urgently take to social media after it was initially reported that his new Battlestar Galactica series would be a reboot, which is not the direction he’s gone in.

“The word ‘reboot’ was used when we were first talking about it, and I cringed. Ronald Moore, he just hit it out of the park with his series, so why would I even want to touch that? I talked to him and said, ‘A, are you OK with this? And B, if you are, how do we proceed?’ He said he was OK with it as long as it wasn’t a reboot — which was in line with what I was thinking. But the world of Battlestar Galactica is so rich, the mythology is so interesting, that I think there is a lot to pick from and explore.”

The search is now on for a writer to make this idea come to life.

More as it develops…