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There are plenty of science fiction heroes with confidence and certainty. James Callis wanted Dr. Gaius Baltar to be different. When he was cast on Battlestar Galactica, Callis was hoping he could use the opportunity to bring more uncertainty to the sci-fi genre.

“I was pretty new to science fiction as a genre, but what I felt was that there was a certain kind of action that people in science fiction shows where everybody knew what they were doing. Do you know what I mean? There didn’t seem to be very much uncertainty,” Callis says during a panel at Space Con 2025.

“I wanted to bring to the genre a little uncertainty. It would seem in Star Trek that everyone always knows where they’re going, if it’s the bridge or this place. So then, for me on Battlestar, I don’t know what the Battlestar is. I don’t know how to get from the lab to another place. So, I was trying to throw in a mix of, I suppose, like a fish out of water, or somebody who doesn’t know the right answer immediately. They’re not heroic, because everybody around you is.”

“And so, through the uncertainty of not knowing what was going to happen next, I think through that there’s a lot of drama, and there’s a lot of humanity.”

Here's how to watch Battlestar Galactica in order.