Battlestar’s McDonnell Has Spoilers

Mary McDonnell, who plays President Laura Roslin on the SCI FI Channel original series Battlestar Galactica, offered SCI FI Wire a spoiler for the upcoming fourth and final season: that her character will have to deal with a recurrence of the cancer she thought was cured.

“I can only you tell that, as we all know, I have to struggle once again with the cancer,” McDonnell said in an interview at the network’s upfront presentation to advertisers in New York earlier this month. “That’s a whole different level of struggle than we have seen so far. I [also] have to struggle with the ideas that one commits to as a leader and whether or not they have value. Those are kind of the broad strokes, and other than that I don’t know yet.”

Filming on the final season was interrupted by the recently settled writers’ strike; production will resume shortly in Vancouver, Canada, on the remaining new episodes of the final season.

McDonnell said that she’s eager to return to work. She said that she’s sad that such a “real gift” of a job will soon end but “very excited” about completing the saga on the show’s own terms.

“I find that the energy going into the last nine [episodes] and knowing that we’re completing the telling of the story is a very unusual experience on television,” McDonnell said. “You have the choice to go ahead and finish the story, and it’s very specifically laid out to be bookended. So on that level I’m thrilled. I think it’s a great idea.” The fourth season of Battlestar Galactica kicks off on March 28 at 10 p.m. ET/PT with two back-to-back half-hour specials, with the first new episode, “He That Believeth in Me,” premiering the following week, April 4, at 10 p.m. –Ian Spelling