"Battlestar Galactica" may be getting ready to end next month, but fans will have William Adama to kick around for a while longer -- even if Edward James Olmos is being replaced with a little kid.

After a period of debate that made some wonder if Treebeard from the "Lord of the Rings" was in charge of making a decision one way or the other, SciFi Channel finally gave the "Battlestar Galactica" prequel series "Caprica" a go. The catch? Fans will have to wait until 2010 before they can see it.

Network president Dave Howe said that while "Battlestar" was more of a space opera, he hopes "Caprica" can draw a broader audience, especially as it takes more of a family drama appeal, according to Variety.

"'Battlestar Galactica' was absolutely our flagship show," Howe told the trade publication. "It put us on the map and helped transform the perception of the network."

But in order for "Caprica" to succeed ... it will have to find a larger audience, Howe warned.

"We want people to come to this who have never heard of 'Battlestar Galactica,'" he said. "I thin, because its backdrop was space and spaceships, there was a barrier to entry for some viewers. 'Caprica' has none of that. It's an intense family drama set on an Earth-like planet, in the near future, speaking to a lot of the ethical dilemmas that we as a human race are going to have to face very shortly."

Production for the series is set to begin in the summer in Vancouver, British Columbia where "Battlestar" was shot. There seems to be no plans to air the already-produced pilot in 2009 as originally planned, providing credence to a previous Airlock Alpha story that producers were concerned about airing the pilot without further episodes ready to follow it, as it didn't have the same standalone quality as the backdoor pilot for "Battlestar Galactica" did in 2003. (original story)

Waiting until 2010 will have another benefit, said Mark Stern, who runs original programming at SciFi Channel and Universal Cable Productions: Re-assembling many of the writers who made "Battlestar" what it is, after many of them moved on to other projects.

At the same time, it will allow parent NBC Universal test out its new cable studio.

"There will be a lot of coordination between the studio and the network, not just on production, but how the series is launched as well," Stern said.

The actors who starred in the pilot will return for the series, including Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson and Polly Walker. As previously reported, the series takes place before the first Cylon war, in a Caprican society that looks more like a cross between high-technology and 1950s fashions. It will tackle religion (continuing the monotheistic versus polytheistic societal struggles), terrorism, and the rise of the Cylons themselves.

The original pilot was greenlit last March. Additional scripts for a possible series were ordered last July.

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