After weeks of hand wringing and panicked message board posting, the Sci Fi channel has announced that the critically acclaimed Battlestar Galactica will be getting a fourth season. Ratings dipped when the network moved the show to Friday night for the first half of season 3, but apparently the people in charge still have faith in the show. According to the article, it’s moved over a million DVD sets to date, a number that logic would say would be much higher if the damn things were more reasonably priced, but hey, whatever works, right?

Note - there’s at least one minor, minor spoiler in this article, so click over at your own risk.

The show’s audience has always been modest, especially when compared with those for basic cable’s “The Closer” and “Nip/Tuck,” which typically reach double or triple the audience of “Battlestar Galactica.” Since moving to 10 p.m. Sundays, the science-fiction show’s episodes have averaged 1.7 million viewers overall and 1.1 viewers ages 18 to 49, the key demographic targeted by advertisers.

But “Battlestar Galactica” stands as one of the most critically acclaimed series on television. It also won the prestigious Peabody Award and was counted among the American Film Institute’s top 10 outstanding TV programs two years in a row. Critics often describe the show in lofty terms, referring to it as a multilayered allegory for a post-9/11 world that raises questions about the ethics and politics of war.

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