Hatch wrote, co-directed and executive-produced a Battlestar Galactica trailer, called The Second Coming that won acclaim at science-fiction conventions. He produced the trailer to pressure Universal into creating a new series of Battlestar Galactica that would have been a direct continuation of the original series. Original actors John Colicos (Baltar), Terry Carter (Col. Tigh) and Jack Stauffer (Bojay) appeared in the trailer along with Hatch himself. It is presumed that the actors would have appeared in the series itself. Hatch also believed that he could persuade Dirk Benedict to return and play Starbuck.
He also co-authored a series of novels based on continuing the voyage of the Battlestar Galactica with his character (Captain Apollo) replacing Adama as Commander of the Galactica.
However, Battlestar Galactica returned to television screens as a re-imagining, rather than the sequel for which Hatch had campaigned. Initially, Hatch was bitterly disappointed by this turn of events and was highly critical of the prospective new series on his web site. However, Hatch developed a respect for Ronald D. Moore, the new series' producer, when he appeared as a featured guest at Galacticon (the Battlestar Galactica 25th anniversary convention, hosted by Hatch) and answered questions posed by a very hostile audience. [1]
In 2003, Hatch was offered and accepted a recurring role in the new Battlestar Galactica series. He plays Tom Zarek, a terrorist turned politician, who spent twenty years in prison for blowing up a government building; Hatch has said the character was presented to him as a Nelson Mandela figure, and that he views Zarek as challenging the status quo and working for the common man. In an irony probably intended by the show's producers, Hatch/Zarek spends most of his first episode in heated debate with Captain Apollo, the role that Hatch had played in the original series. He has appeared in several further episodes of the series as a guest star.
In 2004, he stated to Sci-Fi Pulse that he had felt resentment over the failure of the Galactica continuation and was left "exhausted and sick... I had, over the past several years, bonded deeply with the original characters and story... writing the novels and the comic books and really campaigning to bring back the show". After accepting the Zarek role, "it was a very deep and profound struggle for me to let go and realize that I was not the creator of the series and it didnt belong to me... Ive finally come to terms with and accepted that."