Some Battlestar Galactica fans love the show so much they want to visit the "real" Caprica, the cylon-occupied planet portrayed in Sci Fi Channel's hit show.
Valorie Hoye, a resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, where the series is shot, makes the perfect tour guide.
Hoye founded the Meetup.com group The 13th Colony in January. Since then, she's led Battlestar fans on three "Caprica scouting missions" to sites around Vancouver that serve as the show's outdoor backdrops. The group's members have also served as informal tour guides to visitors from as far away as Massachusetts -- helping facilitate trips that, to true Galactica geeks, are tantamount to an Elvis fan's pilgrimage to Graceland.
"You're standing there where Helo was standing," Hoye said of visiting a spot where a Battlestar scene was shot. "It's a way to let your imagination take flight. Most of the reaction seems to be finding it and going, 'Wow, that's really cool.' Then we haul out our cameras and take photos."
Fans of quirky TV shows seem especially susceptible to this type of feverish dedication. Mystery lovers followed Twin Peaks' siren call to the Pacific Northwest locations where David Lynch shot the show. Cosplayers dress as their favorite geek characters and Trekkies are famous for their Star Trek conventions.
It's only natural that Battlestar would be next. While most of the show's scenes are shot on one of 13 sound stages in the off-limits Vancouver Film Studios, a crucial minority immortalize locations around the city that Canadians call "Hollywood North." At least two Google Earth mini-atlases of the top Battlestar locations have also been compiled.
The best place to start, Hoye said, is downtown at the distinctive Vancouver Public Library.
"As a feature in the city, it actually dominates the skyline around it and is built kind of like the Roman Colosseum," she said.
In June, Hoye and her group set off on a scouting mission that turned up some of downtown Vancouver's more obscure locations that frame tense chase scenes and shootouts with the Cylon overlords of Battlestar's colonial base planet, Caprica.
Two months later, a couple from Easthampton, Massachusetts, contacted Hoye outlining their plans to visit the real-life setting for Caprica in October.
Battlestar fan Michael Dow said that when filming starts again on the final season, which is slated for broadcast in April if the Hollywood writer's strike doesn't interfere, the time will be right for a geek pilgrimage.
"Since (Battlestar) Season 4 is going to be the end of it, this will be our last chance to go where they make it, while they're making it," he said.
Dow's wife, Michelle Aguilar, an equally avid fan of the series, planned the itinerary for their trip to Vancouver and arranged to meet up with The 13th Colony during the jaunt.
Guided by Hoye and her 73-member group's experience, Aguilar and Dow spent five days as Battlestar tourists tracing through the series' downtown locations. They also hit Vancouver's two major universities, the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, which together provide most of the show's outdoor shots.
"If you're a big enough fan, and these places have become imprinted in your brain, it's really neat to see them right in front of you," Aguilar said.
As the Pacific Northwest enters its rainy season, even 13th Colony locals will be putting off scouting missions till at least spring, Hoye said.
"We'll probably be doing more episode-viewing parties over the winter," she said.
(The two-hour extended episode of Battlestar Galactica: Razor airs Saturday, Nov. 24, on the Sci Fi Channel.)
