It's an interesting story with more than a few surprise twists, and Mark Altman and Edward Gross set out to tell that story through extensive interviews with the producers, writers and cast of all the different iterations of the franchise, from the pilot of the original Battlestar in 1978 through the release of the "experimental" TV movie Blood & Chrome in 2013. Altman and Gross had written several previous books in a similar vein, namely two for Star Trek and one on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and since this one have gone to write similar tomes for James Bond, Star Wars and John Wick.
The format simply has the interviewees talking about their experiences without any questions being interposed, with brief linking passages as the only editorial intrusion into the text. The interviews are a mixture of those carried out specially for this book and excerpts from magazines at the time, useful to get the input of creatives who are sadly no longer with us, such as Lorne Greene (who played Adama in the original show). Glen Laron's input is sadly mostly missing, as he passed away in 2014, over three years before this book was written, and his contributions are largely lifted from interviews from the time. His son David, who as a child was an extra on the original show, provides some much-needed context on his father's approach to making the series.
The book spends 230 pages analysing the original show and Galactica 1980, and these contain some of the most deranged and entertaining parts of the book. ABC wasting vast sums of money because it couldn't decide on whether it was making a TV movie, a mini-series or an ongoing TV series is fairly ridiculous, but the circumstances and limitations of making Galactica 1980 are even more insane. Memorable stories abound, like Lorne Greene, fed up with yet another awful script, taking a large quantity of alcohol into the writers' room to get everyone "relaxed" so he can find out what's really going on. It's also interesting to see the frustrations of Richard Hatch, who played Apollo in the original show and Tom Zarek in the reboot. Hatch felt the original show had a lot of potential but wasted it through bad writing and terrible budget limitations, leading to his own aborted attempts to relaunch the show in the 1990s.
The bulk of the rest of the book is spent on the reboot show, understandable as it was much more successful and lasted far longer. With the entire cast still with us, and with Ron Moore providing a large amount of new interviews for the project, there's also a lot more resources available to cover the show. If you're a hardcore fan of BSG 2.0, you'll probably be familiar with most of the stories here (Eddie Olmos threatening to walk off the show if an alien appears, the producers' attempts to make everything think they'd really killed off Starbuck blowing up in their faces). A more interesting strand is the perspective of Mark Stern, a senior executive at SyFy, who argues for the reasons behind some of the "network interference" the network undertook during the show's lifespan. The book also fully confirms that they could have gone for a fifth season, but Moore and fellow showrunner David Eick were frustrated by SyFy's late renewals so decided to end the show in its fourth season. The show also expands a little more on the semi-contentious finale, and how Eick and Stern argued for an explanation to be provided over Starbuck's death and enigmatic return, whilst Moore did not consider it necessary.
A further, brief section skims over the making of both Caprica and Blood & Chrome before signing off with an evaluation of the entire franchise.
The book is overall a fascinating read, and the account of making the original show is of great value as there's a few stories there that I hadn't heard before. The stuff on the newer BSG didn't have as many surprises, but there is some useful information in there and some of the stories by the actors (especially Olmos, Katee Sackhoff and James Callis) are hilarious. The relative paucity of material on Caprica is a shame, as the show's 19-episode run was riven by network interference and disagreements, leading to a change of showrunner. We get some information on that, but it is very brief and none of the cast of Caprica are interviewed themselves, which feels like a missed opportunity. I'm assuming this is down to the book's length, as at 720 pages they were probably pushing the limits of what the publisher could accommodate anyway.
The best bit of the book is the account of the making of Galactica 1980, where some solid writers (including "proper SF" authors Chris Bunch and Allan Cole, of Sten fame) are given insurmountable requirements by the studio, such as having almost no budget for the visual effects the show was famous for, and the need to include a bunch of kids in the plot, as well as limited or no violence due to the earlier timeslot, and not being able to afford a large cast or most of the cast of the original show. For the most reviled part of the franchise, the story of its making is surprisingly compelling.
So Say We All: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Battlestar Galactica (****) is a well-written, well-edited account of the making of three TV shows in the same franchise, with some great interviews and analysis by the creators on what they were trying to accomplish. There are some gaps that could have perhaps been a little bit better filled in, but this is chunky tone that retains interest over its whole length, and may well inspire a fresh rewatch of the show.
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