Friending Sci Fi’s ‘Battlestar Galactica’

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Talk about frakin’ cool.

To help die-hard fans count down to the final episodes of ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ Tara Gelsomino has created Battlestarbook: the epic Sci Fi Channel series told through faux Facebook status updates:

The Facebooking of ‘Battlestar’ has become an Internet hit, much to the surprise of Gelsomino, an imaginative acquisitions editor for an audiobook publisher. Ironically, the 33-year-old Rhode Islander was never much of a sci-fan fan until last spring, when she was persuaded by relentlessly glowing reviews to rent past seasons of ‘Battlestar’ on DVD and catch up on the cult series. Soon she was hooked just as surely as Apollo on Starbuck.

‘I was blown away by what a smart, character-driven show it was,’ she said. She also liked the reverse gender politics and feminist portrayals, particularly what she called Katee Sackhoff’s ‘fearless and phenomenal’ portrayal of Starbuck.

Soon after reading DeeDee Baldwin’s Austenbook and observing a flurry of friends changing their relationship status to ‘It’s Complicated,’ she decided to spoof the ever increasingly complex web of relationships on ‘Battlestar’ with a specific news feed for the show.

‘I couldn’t help thinking that if they were all on Facebook, every single one of them would have an ‘It’s Complicated’ status,’ she said.

The result was Battlestarbook. The response from sci-fi sites such as i09.com and The Escapist stunned Gelsomino, who has been lobbied for sequels. ‘Battlestar’ concludes its run this spring -- unless the Cylon regeneration ship turn its sites on extending the life of the cult series.

‘I’m considering doing more episodes,’ Gelsomino said. ‘Colonel Tigh is just itching to be Superpoked -- pre-eyepatch, of course.’

-- Jessica Guynn