"Battlestar Galactica" Fourth Season Renewal Increased To Full 22 Episodes

In a rather bizarre unexplained shift, SciFi has changed its mind about "Battlestar Galactica." Initially, the channel had renewed the show for only 13 episodes, the equivalent of about half a season. It's the channel's most expensive series (by far), the ratings had remained relatively modest after moving to Sunday nights and the series was approaching 80 episodes, just about enough for running it nightly in reruns. Obviously, the end of the road for the show was nigh. But just a few weeks later, SciFi has bumped up the number of episodes to a full season of 22 shows. No word on what made them change their mind -- maybe the cost of keeping everyone intact for half a season was so expensive anyway that an extra nine episodes wasn't exactly a doubling of the budget and they figured, why not? In any case, their signature series lives on.