I can see it now: Ronald D. Moore -- who I respect as one of the better story-tellers currently working in television -- sitting in his office with fellow Battlestar Galactica executive producer David Eick late one evening. It's been a long day, the sun has gone down, and the show's ratings continue to disappoint, respective to the show's quality and critical acclaim. All of the network's ratings are down across the board, but SCI FI is aggressively producing new shows that cost them a lot, lot less to make.

"I don't want to get cancelled," Moore may have said.

Of course this scenario has played out only in my mind, but it illustrates my utter astonishment that the two writer-producers would make the decision to bring their hit show to an end after just four seasons -- seasons that are already shorter than an average TV season (20 episodes, versus 22 or 24 -- though the first season was just 13) -- because they felt that the story was naturally bringing itself to a conclusion.

Yes, they never intended to go on and on for as long as they could get renewed. Yes, Galactica is an arc-based show and doesn't do many stand-alones. (When it does, they aren't that good.) But four years? Seventy-three episodes? That's less than the original Star Trek, which is infamous in its premature cancellation fate.

I just don't buy that Moore and Eick have run out of stories to tell, or that this beautiful story is simply "entering its third act" and there is nothing they can do about it. Yes, a story can absolutely take on a life of its own ... but they are its writers, and they are in control of the story and how expansive (or, in this case, diminuative) it is allowed to become. I see only two possible explanations for the announcement this week that they are bringing the show to an end with the 2008 season.

First, it's entirely possible that they went into Battlestar with no intention to do it long-term. Moore has been writing, producing, and creating TV shows for a lot of years (he came to the show off of Carnivale, following an abandoned Dragonriders of Pern series), and he just may not be the sort of producer who wants to stick with the same universe for a decade. And that's fine. The two also may have simply gotten excited about their new projects (Eick is producing NBC's new reimagining of the classic science fiction show Bionic Woman).

But from what little I have gotten to see of the world of television production, as an admitted outsider, it seems more likely that the producers of Battlestar Galactica are attempting to preemptively avoid cancellation. It may be that, behind the curtain, SCI FI Channel has told them in no uncertain terms that Season Five is a long-shot. (Our friends at SyFy Portal recently speculated, following the 13-episode renewal, that if the network extended the fourth season to 20 episodes it would be a sign that they plan to end the show. A few weeks later, that extension is just what they did.

That's my gut reaction to this recent news. It will probably never be proved, and I don't see the producers ever fessing up to it (without a decade or two between them and the end of the show). But it really feels like Battlestar Galactica is going to go out on its own terms because its producers see the writing on the wall. Here's hoping that it's final year is also its finest.

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