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."

Comments

Wow, the US are behind...

[lverrall]

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.

Gaius Baltar or Shannon "Boomer"

[Marxist Hacker 42]

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.

Re:Gaius Baltar or Shannon "Boomer"

[Leo McGarry]

There is no "Imperious Leader." You misunderstood the closing scene of the pilot.

And I'd suggest you check out Ron Moore's latest blog entry. He goes to great length to explain that the intricate technological details behind the 33-minute thing just don't matter. He says:

A deeper truth is, I was never interested in coming up with an explanation for Why? Never. I mean, I suppose I could've come up with a sufficiently important-sounding bit of technobabble that would've made sense (you see, the Cylon double-talk sensors tracking the Olympic Carrier's nonsense drive signature needed 15 minutes to relay the made-up data wave through the pretend continuum, then the Cylon navigational hyper silly system needed another 10 minutes to recalculate the flux capacitor, etc.) but what would that have really added to the drama? How does explaining that 33 minute interval help our understanding of Laura's terrible moment of decision, or bring us to any greater knowledge of Dualla's search for her missing family and friends, or yield insight into Baltar's morally shattered psyche?

If you're the kind of person who wants to hear lengthy technical explanations of incidental plot points -- and there's nothing wrong with those people -- don't waste your time with this show. This is not a genre show. It's a character-driven drama that just happens to be set in space and include robots.

A breath of fresh air

[Sanity]

I consider myself to be a pretty discerning sci-fi fan, and this show is pretty-much perfect. The characters are interesting, imperfect, complicated. The stories are interesting, even the bad-guys, the Cylons, are intriguing (some of them are religous zealots, others are obsessed by sex!).

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.

Re:A breath of fresh air

[Attaturk]

I'd have to agree. I've been watching it regularly over here in the UK since it started. It's actually bloody good.

I was a total skeptic, having become completely disillusioned with Sci-Fi TV in general. I used to love Sci-Fi TV when I was younger but the genre has really been flogged to death over the last decade or so. When I heard about the BSG remake my colleagues and I all had a good laugh at its expense.

Many months ago I came across the torrent for the mini-series premiere and downloaded it for no apparent reason. Very late one night after a long work session I fired it up pretty much out of boredom. By the time the first part was over I was absolutely hooked - not to mention stunned that even someone with my initial perspective had been conquered by it.

I hate TV. I dunno what it's like over there in the U.S. right now but given the state of it when I was last visiting, I can only assume that it's even worse than it is here - full of remakes, so-called 'reality TV' and unoriginal nonsense. Even the 'educational' stuff and documentaries are patronising and ill-informed. Anyway, my point is that over the last couple of years I've become aware of two - and only two - programmes worth watching. The Daily Show is one of them and BSG is the other. Without these two programmes I could quite happily throw my TV out the window. Actually come to think of it, I have to download my Daily Show so BSG is the only thing saving the TV set.

Of course this series still has some low points but there are a helluva lot fewer than any other Sci Fi series we've seen in recent years. Huge huge thumbs up. I strongly recommend that even the most hardened cynic puts aside their fears and check it out.

Re:this show rocks pretty hard

[wertarbyte]

Not yet, but the colonials (humans) practica a polytheistic religion similar to ancient greek (or rome), while the cylons favour a single god. Although still unclear, these facts seem to be a major point in the confrontation.