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New Battlestar Galactica Series Starts Tonight
Snaller writes "Tonight the Scifi channel begins airing the new reimaged Battlestar Galactica series. Having run to rave reviews in the UK, the new series is darker and grittier than the original, and showrunner Ron Moore aims for a more adult narrative with comments on issues such as terrorism, security, freedom, religion and what it means to be human in a series which is essentially one long story arc. The entire cast from the 2003 mini series is back and the first episode, called '33', picks up almost where the mini series left off: The humans are still on the run, but each time they come out of hyperspace, the Cylon armada catches up 33 minutes later ... every 33 minutes. When we join the crew this has been going on for five days."
Any plans to rerun the miniseries so that those of us that missed out can get the backstory?
Inquiring Tivos want to know!
UK viewers are about half the way through this series already... and we're getting Stargate first... Makes a change.
Stick with Galactica for a few weeks. It'll get better, honest.
I'm willing to bet the 33 minute problem will come down to isolating one of these two- or both- to fit in with the story line.
But now this raises an interesting question: At the end of the miniseries, it appeared that the Imperious Leader was wearing Shannon "Boomer"'s body model. Could similar models be networked? Thus providing a locator beacon every time they leave hyperspace- that it takes the cylons 33 minutes to home in on?
If I was Adama, I'd set the next hyperspace jump for exactly 29 minutes....always in the same general direction but enough off so that it was unpredictable....until I was so far out that the cylons could NEVER catch up.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
This show is in a different league to Stargate SG1/Atlantis, Enterprise, and the rest, and certainly doesn't need to rely on lazy nostalgia for the original.
so, i've seen the first 10 or so episodes, and let me tell you, this show has restored my faith in the sci-fi genre. after so many bad seasons of "enterprise" it's nice to know there are still some people out there who can do it right. I highly recommend this show to just about anyone.
I'd just like to know?
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Yup, I'm running MythTV, it's no different to play back downloaded shows than recorded shows.
And since I have a 16:9 TV, I actually get to use the full screen. I probably could zoom in with the US broadcast, but I doubt I'll ever be able to get the quality of image from the UK downloads.
...that SCI FI TV needs...becuase its been terrible lately...
I thought me had it with Farscape for a bit, but it feel apart. It was good for the first couple seasons, but then it went off track and the casual watcher (to survive a show needs to be accessible the casual watcher) couldn't keep up with the plot twists and the cast changes. This killed the show...
Enterprise is so far off course its going to exit the galaxy. Its good but its not trek, and its pulling concepts out of the trek archive that only the hardcore trekkies can follow to try to survive...not a good plan. What they need is a good hardcore war, but its not really in the cards because of Trek Cannon for the time period.
StarGate I still love but lately it just seems a bit Earth bound, I have hopes for the second half of the season. And we know there will be a 9th now...the replicators in the new human form lurk and I think this is the way to bring new interesting plots the G'uld, have run thier course for now...
Atlantis is good, but I think its still finding its stride...I'm not in love with the chracters or plots yet, and the main baddies have not really put in a serious appearence since the Opening....
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Having seen episodes 1-11, this is by far the best SciFi I have ever seen. Second would be Farscape. Third would be Stargate Atlantis and SG1.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
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in response to all this, since I've never seen any of the Battlestar shows, I logged on to Netflix and added all the original series plus the miniseries. The original series, for those who don't know, is ten discs in length -- and I scrolled down my queue, and every single one was listed as "Very Long Wait." Not short wait, not "Available Now" not even "Long Wait." "Very Long Wait."
That is, except for Disc 6 -- next to that entry, it says "Available Now."
What the hell is wrong with Disc 6 that nobody wants it?
That's not true at all. In fact, the effects for this show were inspired more by "Black Hawk Down" than by "Firefly." But they have a very "Firefly" look to them because they were done by the same people working at the same effects houses.
Keep your eye on Zoic. They're doing amazing work.
Some of the best parts of "The Return of Starbuck" went into an episode of the new series called "Act of Contrition."
The writers of the new show really go out of their way to give nods to the old show. Some are overt, but there are lots more that are too subtle for all but the most observant to notice. For instance, during the miniseries, Adama gives his monster speech at the funeral. At one point he says, "'Life here began out there.' Those are the first words of the sacred scrolls." Some may remember, of course, that the first words of the prologue of the original 1970-whatever pilot were "There are those who believe that life here began out there." Incredibly subtle stuff.
And the writers are right up front about the ways that their interpretation of the premise differs from the original. The first words of both the pilot and every regular episode come in the form of a title card that opens the show. The card simply says: "The cylons were created by man." It's like saying, "Here's how it is, take it or leave it." I respect that.
There's lots of stuff like that. It's fun to keep an eye out for it.
It only killed the show for the casual viewer. Plot twists & cast changes made the show dynamic, not moribund in its storyline. Nothing stops a viewer from buying DVD sets now (or whatever) and catching up.
The problem with SG-1 (besides being moribund) is that the charm of the show was the character dialog and chemistry, and that is falling apart with Hammond, Dr. Frazier, and especially O'Neill leaving. (It would be dead without Jackson, but he's back.) I'm not against semi-radical change, but change itself won't keep a show alive. I feel inner conflict generates the best entertainment, but there definitely is less of that now. And I think making Carter the SG-1 leader really screws up the role she used to do, and she's not going to fill O'Neill's boots with his role.
What's really gives me a bad feeling is grafting on Ben Browder and Claudia Black (from Farscape) onto SG-1. Don't get me wrong, I luuurve them as actors. But you can have great actors and still produce crap. And recycling characters personalities you love threatens stagnation.
My feeling is that they should have made a cleaner slate and threw the Farscape refugees onto Atlantis. Even if you think the SG-1 theme hasn't been played out (and I don't), the character development definitely has. They should have had a cleaner break, retired SG-1, and reattempted a new SG-1 with different themes and actors. They are sort of doing that now, but no clean break is going to compound the problem. They're looking to use the soap opera formula to maintain the show. Soap operas have a tendency to produce crap. Its a Berman-like move.
Enterprise sucks. It is not remotely good. A galactic war will not save it. And there was plenty in the Trek cannon for wars. (Hellooo, Romulans.) Enterprise is the corporate rape of a great sci-fi TV show. Or look at Enterprise as wasp larva and Trek as the unfortunate silkworm.
Atlantis? eh. It suffers from the sequel syndrome for mediocrity. And I don't like how they are writing Dr. McKay. He has to be a central character (given the sci-fi nature of the show and that he's the only non-vanilla personality). You can't make him an incompetent, craven clown in one episode, and a noble goto guy in another episode.
With Atlantis, they try to keep the SG-1 accoutrements, and then do a Voyager. I think they're better off doing a DS9. They'd really be better if they just did something new.There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
It's great that we can download stuff off the net... but in reality that could hurt the possibility of a second season.
The TV companies, MPAA, etc always complain bout people downloading episodes/movies from the net before they've been release in the respective country (hell, they even complain about people in a country where a series has been shown spoiling plot-lines for people in countries where it hasn't shown). This, of course, is one of the main reaons for the regionalisation of DVDs... not that it does any good since anyone who was going to import stuff will have deregionalised their player anyway.
Here's a stunning thought, and I'm sure noone at the TV companies or MPAA have thought about it... How about they release the series and films at the same time across the world. I'm sorry, but if you release a series in one country 6 months before it's release in another, I think you can expect people to get impatient and download it.
The difference of course with Galactica is that it's all reversed - usually in the UK we have to wat over 6 months for TV shows to come over from the US, now the US is getting a taste of what we have to put up with all the time.
Having said that, and to stay slightly on topic: my view of the new Galactica (which they keep describing as totally action packed in the trailors) is that there isn't enough action and it's taking rather too long for the story to develop. I can quite see people losing interest in it - nowhere near as good as FireFly which had a very good balance between action and story IMHO... Hey, we haven't even seen anyone flying a Viper in the last few episodes, and Baltar's imaginary cylon has been plain annoying from the start.
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