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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!
BattleStar Galactica episodes on btefnet
At least you know when not to take a bathroom break.
*DrugCheese rants*
I hereby lift my Starbucks Grande Latte to the success of this awesome science-fiction tv show.
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.
Scifi channel should start airing episodes when the rest of the world does, with the internet people who are actually interested in the series have most likely already seen the released episodes. Once the media execs realise that the internet has basicly tied the entire world on one release schedule they'll actually see the true ratings for the episodes.
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.
"the new series is darker and grittier than the original"
is that really saying much? Mary Poppins is darker and grittier than the original series also.
come on fhqwhgads
You could not come right out and say a "beowulf cluster of boomers", could you?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The story of 33
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
Hey, Baltar, I've got your Cylon detector right here. (pause to make out with Cylon chick) It's called a blacklight. (hang on, gotta fap again) If your pants are glowing with stains from busting one out every five minutes (damn, that feels great!) and everyone else on the ship is grossed out by it, odds are you're under Cylon influence.
Now if you'll pardon me, I've gotta go boink this hot imaginary chick in the red dress again. See you after the commercial.
It's beened aired elsewhere already. I've downloaded adn watched the first 11 eipsodes. Looks like they were recorded from some British channel.
If a million monkeys randomly pounded on keyboards, they would all log into AOL.
Aint it cool news have compiled a list of comments from american media, and they are almost all very positive.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
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 guess in a world where Britney Spears or Adam Sandler can have millions of devoted fans, even the original Battlestar Galactica can have them, too.
The scene in the new miniseries, with a horizon filled with mushroom clouds and desperate people blindly fleeing, by itself kicked the ass of the entire original series.
And don't even argue with me or I'll bring up Galactica 1980. AND I'll bitch slap your sorry ass, punk, and then make you cook me a steak.
--- Ban humanity.
Actually two episodes are airing tonight. '33' at 9pm ET followed by 'Water' at 10pm ET.
I welcome our new Cylon overlords. Especially if they are hot as that blonde chick.
Reject Fear - Embrace Hope
(phone rings)
"This is Jack Bauer."
"Jack! The Cylons-"
*BOOM*
--- Ban humanity.
I'd just like to know?
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
To provide some context I've been a long time sci fi viewer like many of you. I enjoyed the original series but was never a fanboy about it. However, I became somewhat put off when it appeared Moore rebuffed Hatch's attempt to revive the show because he wanted to pursue his own revisioning of the series. I was also a fan of Farscape and wasn't thrilled about how that series demise was handled. However, the ads looked good and I checked out the miniseries. While I have some reservations about small nit-picky things I think it's one of the best sci fi series I've seen in a long time. I *may* have already checked out a few of the episodes as well via the use of time travel. *cough* They're even better than the miniseries. The series has an intensity and sense of urgency and drama that I've found lacking in other series. This may be my preference for more "hard" sci fi which must sound laughable to those of you who remember the original series. Give it a chance - I think most of you will be happy you did!
I got to see the SkyOne airings and I must say this is currently the best drama on TV. It's certainly funny when appropriate, it's very sexy, and it's definitely good science fiction, but the levels of dramatic tension are astounding. Each episode of the first 11 I've seen has impressed me with new surprises layered atop steady, logical plot advancement--evading cylons, finding supplies, rooting out spies, rebuilding fleet organization, casting off old releationships due to new circumstances. But always there's tension, drama, a sense of the importance of survival. It draws you in and makes the viewer feel this frenetic struggle to survive.
And understanding the Cylon motivation has proven to be a philosophical, religious tangle. They're not one-dimensional machines--they seem to be acutely self-aware and trying to discover more about the nature of their souls, so to speak. The whole series is a major accomplishment and a departure from formulaic, one-dimensional sci-fi.
"It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."--Andrew Jackson
The series has actually been airing in Europe for the past several months. For those Americans that were too impatient to wait, the episodes been available off your favourite torrent sites for some time now.
So far, 11 of the season's 13 episodes have aired and been made available online in TV, PDTV and HDTV formats.
As well as being in higher resolution/quality than your average TV broadcast, these online copies are commercial-free.
Personally, I recommend downloading them and watching them on your computer, but also tuning your television on to the sci-fi channel and muting the sound, so that Sci-Fi gets paid for these shows and they may be able to continue producing them.
/dev/random
Showrunner Ron Moore has started a blog where he comments on each episode - here is his comment on Why 33 ?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
...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.
The entire series is not built around the 33 min problem.... its just the one episode.
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.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
I've seen the first 8-9 episodes and I'm loving it. What I like about is that it has a certain "reality" to it that most other sci-fi episodes have not. It looks like it won't resort to standard cheesy sci-fi plot fillers when they run out of original material. Cheesy plot fillers being time travel, parallel universes, holodecks, body switching (shudder). Star Trek regularly uses these plots, Stargate does this also but manages it a bit better because it doesn't take itself too seriously and Farscape is just.. on acid.
B5 was good though.
ps. I haven't seen a single episode of the original series, I'm still hoping bsg keeps it a bit more "down to earth" than most other scifi
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?
The mini-series pilot was released in Canada in summer 2003. atings were good enough to make a series out of it. Because of the expense, a British station helped fund the show on the condition that they air it first.
In December 2003, the pilot showed in the US and UK. Starting in January, the mini-series episodes (of which 13 have been produced) started airing.
Last weekend, NBC aired an edited (cut from 4 hours to 3) pilot at primetime. The Sci-Fi channel (owned by Universal [which owns NBC as well]) is showing in two parts, the origional, full pilot. It is also showing old episodes of the original show. The new version is going to start being aired in the US now as mentioned in the story.
The producers made a plea on one of the Sci-fi Channel web forums to not download the show since the survival of the series (i.e. Season 2) of course depends on ratings. Even with a business degree, I simply cannot understand why companies stagger the release dates on movies, music, or software so much. Let both sides of the pond see the series at the same time and you'll get the viewers and won't screw yourself since people will get the content they want anyway. In the binary newsgroups (alt.binaries.dvdr) someone has posted 3 DVDs of the series (each containing 3 episodes) with some pretty good menus. I've watched them and think it is a well done series, and think '33' is a good first episode. Even after seeing it, I will have my TIVO pick up the episodes since I know TIVO collects anonymous statistics for the ratings systems. To make sure the show is recorded as being played, I'll just start the episode before turning off my TV for the day, ensuring that it gets marked as being watched, with even commercials being displayed at normal speed!
At least the studio talking heads are not pulling some bonehead move like they did with 'Firefly' in that the episodes were all resead out of order, thus cunfusing the initial audience and obviously causing an untimely death. Maybe with the movie, the series might have a new chance at life if it does well.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
Suprnova was good for it. Actually the show is quite good. I would say less cheesy than the original. The biggest difference is that Boomer and Starbuck are girls. But the plotline is quite interesting.
The battle scenes are good as well but this whole "shaky cam" thing gets annoying especially the quick zoom they do a lot.
Worth watching I would say but YMMV
Unless you have a Neilson box. TVs don't report in what you watch. At least mine doesn't... I hope... (glances at tv in fear) ... Gotta go!
It pulled me out of my suspension of disbelief every time.
Never destroyed my fantasies about Maren Jensen however.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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
I never really got into it, It was too crude and garish (CG, costumes, alien make-up). And the story (what I saw) wasn't compelling enough to help me suspend my disbelief and get over that.
That's one good thing a bout the new BG, IMO. They don't try too hard to create a complete and completely different world. They sketch it out, focus on character development and pacing, and move on. You can buy a lot of the props in your local office supply, but because you really don't notice, such is the strength of the script. (There's one scene in a later episode where Baltar is using a calculator-like thing, it's actually a collapsible travel alarm clock just like one I used to have. But it's just a quick cutaway shot, so it doesn't matter. Look at headsets and such as well, they're generally cobbled together from $5 earphones.)
No doubt if it does well and lasts a couple of seasons it'll jump the shark and acquire bumpy-headed humanoid aliens and I'll lose interest, but right now it's creating its world through its characters, not a constraining backstory involving N years of alien history. This to my mind is a good thing, because it makes for good sci-fi but also makes it accessible on the level of drama.
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Unless you are a Nielson family, whether or not you watch or not doesn't matter.
The cake is a pie