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Battlestar Galactica Season 2 Premiere
fanblade writes "As if slashdotters needed another reason to stay home on a Friday night, the 20-episode second season of Battlestar Galactica premieres tonight at 10/9C on the Sci Fi Channel. The series, a 're-imagining' of the original 1978 TV series by the same name, made history as the highest-rated original Sci Fi Channel program ever. The first episode of the second season, 'Scattered', won't be televised in the UK until October, but I seriously doubt that will be a problem for the show that 'killed broadcast TV'. There's also excellent coverage on Wikipedia for those eager to brush up or catch up on the first season."
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Lately there has a been a resurgence of classic sci-fi shows, such as this and Dr Who. While it is great to see younger audiences exposed to such fantastic television programming, I have to wonder what effect this will have on new sci-fi shows. Will we just keep rehashing the old (but classig and very good) series, or will new ideas and new series be able to develop? Will enough resources be spent by the networks and studios to promote the creation of new series, rather than just cloning the previous ones?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
"Starbuck is supposed to be a womanizing man, not a womanizing woman!
I wish these London playhouses would spend enough resources to bring in some truly creative people and get some new ideas rather than just rehashing the same old stories over and over and over again. I mean, really, how many more beatings can this dead horse really take?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Atlantis is much better if you don't have to sit through all the dreadful acting. You can usually cut out half a show or more and still get the general idea of what happened.
I'm waiting till about season 3, if the crew hasn't gelled by then it will be off my list completely.
Sean
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
Also, don't forget the Podcast of commentary that is available for the episode.
It's almost like they want us to download the torrent instead of tuning it to watch.
this site really is news for nerds!
Season 1 was so dark and depressing that I could only make it through the first 3 episodes. Thankfully I found dr who to fill my sci-fi fix. Also the 'verite' style camera work didn't work for me.
music lover since 1969
I can't wait for the "reimagining" of Galactica 1980...oh wait, yes I can.
Geek Of The Day, "A geeky place for geeky faces."
I Won't be happy until I see the new series of Doctor Who premiered in the U.S. Canadians are lucky because they've already seen Doctor Who 2005 series 1 and they're slated for series 2 as well. We have to suffer the crap that our networks spew at us and SciFi is certainly no saviour. They program the worst SciFi (all action masquerading as science fiction) I've ever seen in my life. I mean, come on!!! Mansquito? Give me a f*cking break! Where is the thinking man's SciFi channel? I'm sick of all these macho programs that SciFI puts on claiming to be science fiction. Science fiction is not about wars, and guns and action. It's about using your mind and technology to solve problems in a world that is almost but not entirely like your own. Philip K. Dick did the best science fiction and SciFi repeatedly shits all over his stuff.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
That night in 1978 that Battlestar Glactica premired, they were showing the movie King Kong on another network. It was a very big night for tv when I was kid. But then disaster struck:
They interrupted both shows because Isreal and Egypt were signing a peace agreement. And my mom sent me to bed.
Egypt and Isreal had been fighting for hundreds of years... couldn't they have waited one more day? Think of the children.
Ouch, that hit kinda close to home.
Of course, with TiVoToGo, "watching TV" is just another label for me sitting in front of my laptop. *sigh*
But seriously (?), the new show is excellent -- give it a try if you can find the spare hour here or there.
My frickin' MythTV box isn't up and running yet!!! I've still got to recompile the kernel three times, reinstall lirc drivers twice, and then wipe the drive and reinstall Gentoo all over again before I can successfully record BG for my Saturday morning viewing pleasure!!
Without having seen the first season (yet)?
I've heard nothing but good things about this show and I want to start watching it!
Execute? [Y/N] _
Maybe we should try locking any wikipedia pages before actually releasing the news post into the /. wild?
--Excyl
I think the Cylon meant either Zack (Apollo's brother) or Bill Adama's wife (Apollo's mother). I would expect that either would screw with a few heads.
A lot of factors go to the social makeup of who watches TV throughout the week. I think however the factor that sci-fi tapped into that's not sociological is the fact that all the other networks put crap on friday anyway.
On the other days there might be good shows a geek wants to watch. Don't make me pick between galactica and CSI, that would kill me to have to chose only one or the other. CSI wins out over stargate in my mind too, so why pick a fight you can't win?
So given a choice between crap and a fine sci-fi show, I'll pick sci-fi thank you. It makes the choice as to what to watch a lot easier for sci-fi fans who actually like more than just sci-fi.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
If only Stargate had a budget like Galactica, then we would really see some great sci-fi. As it stands, we have to watch a show that must conserve their gate splash scenes to cut costs.
It still doesn't get any better than Sci-fi Friday.
All we needed was one on Battlestar Gallactica... thanks Slashdot!!!
Mozilla stole tabs from NetCaptor. So what? Right?
One thing I really like about BSG is that the weapons are realistic and the visual effects are outstanding. The missile salvos are really really cool. Unlike Star Trek, Star Wars and SG-1, the BSG folks use guided weapons. In those other shows, in the future, the engineers have forgotten how to make guided or tracking weapons. They just shoot stuff randomly and most of the time they miss. The Stargate Atlantis finale from last season was a prime example. The marines show up with 'rail guns' that they are so fracking proud of. But then they just spray out into space with no radar tracking or anything else, hitting nothing. Jesus, a 20th century Phalanx is way better than the crap they have.
Oh, Babylon 5 was one of the few good ones also. The way they tracked the beam weapons and sliced things up was believable and cool.
I re-watched an episode in HD on Universal HD.
:)
The problem I had with the HD version was that the '3-rd person' camera effect they use to simulate the viewer 'spying' on the action is too shaky to watch on a large screen!
Seriously, I was getting dizzy watching it on my projector (about 110"). I never noticed it at all on the 27" low-def screen my TiVo is hooked up to.
Well, maybe it's more of a function of large screen than HD per se, but I haven't justified replacing the small TV with a hi-def unit yet
I actually prefer it this way.
I've watched some Stargate Atlantis, but could never stick with it. There's no moral ambiguity in the show; the main character, the Colonel, responds to everything with a clear-cut moral choice. Everything has to be done based on principle - no compromise with reality, and it always seems to work out in their favor.
Battlestar Galactica portrays things in a much more "gray" way, forcing characters to make terrible choices where there's no morally superior answer (i.e. in "33" when they blow up the Olympic Carrier). This, mixed in with the Cylons looking like humans, feeling like humans, makes the entire of the show even more amigious, which is what sets it apart from most of the other shows on TV. There's no clear cut enemy - no clear "us" and "them," and thus, much more realistic. Even with the advanced technology/sci-fi nature of the show, it manages to portray human behavior/moral dilemmas much more realistically than the mainstream shows set in the present time on Earth.
I'll paraphrase a quote I heard from somewhere, "I'd rather watch plausible human behavior in an implausible setting than watch implausible human behavior in a plausible setting."
For some reason it's not too well publicized, but the Season 1 DVD should be available in about 2 weeks from Best Buy. Link to Best Buy
Good news, everyone! BSG Season 2 will be on in Canada, starting January 14th, 2006.
That'll be just fine, as long as everyone on the internet promises not to talk about BSG on any forum or blog until then... okay?
Arrgh. I think BitTorrent is about to become much more popular in Canada.
Why do I need a sig? I never post.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
that's easy:
unplug it... oh, wait...
"It's the little touches that make a future solid enough to be destroyed" --William S. Bourroughs
I don't need a reason to stay home on Friday nights. I need a reason to go out on Friday nights, and there just aren't any.
Besides, I'm this>close to getting my Tauren Druid up to level 34!
It's the land of the brave, and the home of the free
Where the less you know, the better off you'll be.
(sorry, voice work isn't acting)
... _just their voice_.
Uh, as an actor who has done TV, movies, and radio, let me tell you that the people who do voice-only work _well_ are definately acting.
In fact, they're often far better than people who don't do VO work. why? because the people who do it are used to telling the entire story, and showing the entire range of the character with... get this!
Hard to believe, but it's true!
Just ask some real actors...
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Many of the more thoughtful notes that come under the heading of 'I hate BSG because...' seem to revolve around issues of not understanding certain basic concepts that were laid out in the mini-series. THE MINI-SERIES IS REQUIRED VIEWING! If you're willing to give it another shot, check out the mini-series on DVD first. It explains a lot of things. Also know that this is really complex TV. Some episodes leave me mentally exhasting when I think of the things they are talking about and how they relate to today's world. If you are looking to be spoon-fed, you might want to go elsewhere.
Of course it's dark and gloomy. For me, that's part of what makes it so great. It's REALISTIC in that reguard.
In the show timeline they are only something like a month out from the END OF THE WORLD as they knew it. Try and put yourselves in their shoes. How much fun are you going to be having if your entire world has been destroyed, billions of people killed, and you're running for your very life from beings bent on destroying you?
This is serious TV. I was left mentally exhausted by many eposides last season. They dealt with so many issues that have relevance to many topics in present day life.
BSG is the best thing on TV, period.
Wow. I'm not even sure how to respond to that. If the world thought as you do, there would be no literature...no television...no fables...no dreams...nothing of any real value.
There is a quote that goes something like 'the only thing new in this world is the history you don't know'...I think it's from Harry Truman.
That can be exteneded to fiction. It gives us the opportunity to think 'what if' about a number of scenarios. You get to try things out, see an example of how people might react, see how it might play out. In the case where it applies to a real world scenario, you may have already seen the effects of what not to do, and take a different path.
It's entertainment and it's educational all in one shot. How cool is that?
Podcast != MP3
Podcast == Audio(mp3 or aac or ogg) + XML (RSS)
The difference being that the podcast was automatically downloaded and synced to my iPod when I put it in the cradle last night.
It's not: it's science fantasy. The script is awash with mystical references that make me wanna puke. They might as well have reanimated C.S. Lewis and put him to work in a darkened back room writing script for it, and I don't care for the result any more than I did Lewis' books when I was a kid.
Network TV will probably never have anything resembling SF ever again, but if this is the flagship that the Sci Fi Channel has to offer, I'll do without television altogether, thank-you-very-much.