After some 35 weeks of wait, the third season of "Battlestar Galactica" is finally set to premiere on SciFi Channel Friday night. And if the media hasn't given the talented men and women behind the scenes enough pressure, the fact that this season could determine whether "Battlestar Galactica" becomes a permanent part of television greatness, or be known as simply nothing more than a one-hit wonder, is ever-present on people's minds.

Producer David Weddle has been through it all, and as we rejoin humanity on New Caprica, things are only going to get more exciting.

"I think the first five episodes are the best work we've ever done," Weddle told SyFy Portal's Michael Hinman. "Characters you love will die, others will betray themselves and others, still others will have their hearts and psyches broken, and others will be propelled on paths they never dreamed possible. So go to the bathroom now, because you're going to have to hold it for a long time."

When we left the Battlestar Galactica, the Battlestar Pegasus and the ragtag fleet at the end of Season 2 back in March, the Cylons found the planet that President Baltar (James Callis) said they would never find, and sent occupying forces to the planet. Some have compared this shift to more recent events here at home like Sept. 11, 2001, and the American occupation of Iraq, but Weddle says it goes even beyond that.

"Obviously, the mythology of our show is influenced and informed by the post-9/11 world we live in," Weddle said. "How could it not be? But we have tried very hard not to make the events and characters in our show a direct one-to-one allegory of today's events. In this way, we hope it will serve as an allegory for the entire human existence.

"Certainly, you can find parallels to the moral dilemmas and crises our characters face in World War II, the American Civil and Revolutionary Wars, the Punic Wars, and the Greek siege of Troy." Weddle said he and writing partner Bradley Thompson have two-volume sets of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles, and refer to it often.

"I find many parallels in Homer's epic, and in works like Euripides's The Trojan Women to the stories we tell on 'Battlestar.'"