‘Another Life’: Katee Sackhoff on Why Niko Won’t Be Comfortable on Earth for Long

If you’ve made your way through Another Life Season 2, great. If you haven’t, Katee Sackhoff urges you to binge, not savor.

“People are like, ‘I’m just taking my time. I’m taking my time,’ Sackhoff tells TV Insider. “And I’m like, ‘Don’t take your time.’ The Netflix algorithm knows if you’ve been bingeing and it assesses how quickly you binged it to mean how much you liked it or not. So I just keep telling people, ‘Watch it faster, watch it faster, and then watch it again.’ Because it helps us get a third season.”

But if the Netflix sci-fi drama isn’t renewed, “we really did wrap up that second season really nicely, and I’m really happy with it,” the star says. The finale ended with Niko (Sackhoff) back on Earth with her family, the alien threat neutralized, and plans to explore the other planets out there.

Here, Sackhoff discusses where Niko’s head is at the end of Season 2 and shares her hopes for a third season.

Season 2 is such a good binge. You need to see what happens next after each episode.

Katee Sackhoff: Yeah, absolutely. This season is so fast-paced and so much fun, and it really sets it up to have a third season. And you see what the third season could be — and future seasons after that. It really feels like the first two seasons were just a start or just a taste of what the show could be about and setting up the future seasons.

How’s Niko feeling about her life in space and on Earth at the end of the finale?

Niko is so, so, so complicated. She desperately wanted to get home to her family. But she loves being out in space and she loves exploring and she loves science and she loves all of the unknown that is out there, for better or for worse. So for Niko to be home, I don’t necessarily know that that would make her comfortable. I think that is what we’re setting up potentially for future seasons: I don’t know how much time Niko will spend on Earth.

Eike Schroter/Netflix

Niko and Erik (Justin Chatwin) are not only still together in the finale, but we also see them working together. With so much uncertain on the show, there is a bit of stability in that relationship.

It needed the counterpart. It needed the Earth storyline. Our show is very much what’s happening in two separate places that both affect the other without the benefit of communication, and so it needed that balance for sure. Their relationship is not uncomplicated. They haven’t spent a lot of time together in the last six to eight months. When she left, Eric was not happy with her. So I think their relationship is like any normal relationship. It requires work and choosing each other every day. We see them do that multiple times this season, and hopefully, it would continue.

Their reunion was sweet, the joy and relief to be in one place together again.

Yeah. And also there is an aspect that feels a bit uncomfortable too. And I love that. You feel this “I love you. I’m hugging you, I’m kissing you, but we have so many things to do right now that are much more important than us standing here and reuniting with each other.”

 

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We got the wonderful Battlestar Galactica reunions with Rekha Sharma and Kate Vernon, which I imagine could continue in a third season because Niko’s relationship with her mom will likely change going forward.

I have no idea. We would really have to figure out what the third season is. But I would imagine that we’ll have some peppering of some BSG alumni, for sure.

Is there any dream casting of any alumni you’d like to bring on?

No, not really. [Laughs] We had such a wonderful time in Battlestar that sometimes it’s easier to leave things where they were, if you spent too much time working with other actors. There are so many of the characters from Battlestar that are in my mind as one thing. And I think that I, as an audience member, want to leave them there.

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Is there anything that you’d like to see in the third season for Niko?

I’ve always wanted to see what her life would be like if she chose to go out into space and not come back, what that looks like, and what space exploration looks like in a relatively present-day storyline. We’ve got all of these space exploration stories that are set in a far, far future timeline. What Another Life does, which is really cool, is it provides the opportunity to see what things could be like if we went into space in the next five to 10 years.

Another Life, Seasons 1-2, Streaming Now, Netflix