Battlestar Galactica Resurrection Effort Described

MistGhost writes "A background story of the effort, both by Richard Hatch, and Ron Moore to resurrect Battlestar Galactica (NYT link so remember to lie on their free registration). Now that the show has started it's second season (at least here in the States) this article appears. " I sat down with the Tivo last night and really enjoyed the premiere. I think the SG-1 retooling as real potential too- that show has been stale for a long time.

Comments

expensive to produce?

[matt21811]

From the article "The most expensive-to-produce program of its day, at $1 million per episode" Thats funny. My strongest memory of the original BSG was how, in nearly every episode, there was a fire on board the ship and they reused the exact same footage of firefighters putting it out every week. Even at 8 years old I knew that was the producers being cheap. The only other program that I recall doing this so much was Astro Boy. I think there was a Simpsons episode that satirized the technique. Anyone know which one?

Re:expensive to produce?

[Monte]

Could be worse. I distinctly remember on Lost in Space there was a shot of the Jupiter II coming in for a landing on the Planet du Jour. Then when it was time to take off for space, same scene, but run the film backwords.

Roger Corman would be proud.

Re:expensive to produce?

[OS24Ever]

Or the same viper shot peeling away to the left or right just by reversing the footage.

Or the uses of the Apollo command module seperating from the third stage as a missle launch

My Dad insisted there was some footage from an old disaster movie or two tossed in there

Re:expensive to produce?

[AndroidCat]

Or the original BSG dogfights. The Cylons never once figured out that if they had seat-belts, they too could reverse thrusters and not get shot from the rear like they did every episode.

Re:expensive to produce?

[Balthisar]

Worse! What movie was it I saw (it was MST2K show) that recycles BSG footage for the movie? And the movie was NOT related at all to BSG!

Re:expensive to produce?

[ssj_195]

"Space Mutiny", if I recall. "Ugh! She's presenting like a Mandril!". One of the classic episodes :)

Re:expensive to produce?

[UnknowingFool]

I think there was a Simpsons episode that satirized the technique. Anyone know which one?

There was a Simpsons where they satirized reuse of cartoon backgrounds. I think it was the one where Bart and Lisa became writers for Itchy and Scratchy. They put Grandpa Simpson's name on the episodes because the producers outright dismissed ideas from children. In it, Lisa and Bart and Grandpa walk past the same doors and the same janitor over and over discussing how studios reuse things to save money.

Re:expensive to produce?

[oogoliegoogolie]

Hey, $1 million dollars was alot of money back then. Winning $1M back then you could retire and still splurge without blowing all of it. Nowadays it cuts your retirement down by 10 years.

I was around the same age and I remember the same scenes being used over and over also:the same shot of Galactica burning in space after a cylon attack, the same cylon attack force, the same explosions, the same cylon mothership, and so on.

Even so, back then at that age that show still looked way cool!

I think there was a Simpsons episode that satirized the technique

I think it was one where Bart and/or Homer went to the Itchy and Scratchy animation factory, and as they were walking the same background went by a few times, Flintstone style.

Re:expensive to produce?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or better yet, why do people write "alot", which isn't even a word!? Strangely, they never write "alittle".

Re:expensive to produce?

[Len]

But consider how much more they had to do than other TV shows. A typical TV show didn't have any fires on set, or motion shots of detailed spaceship models. And the furniture, costumes and props could be borrowed from Universal's warehouse instead of buying or making everything especially for the show.

Re:expensive to produce?

[ScrewMaster]

John Dykstra (of the original Star Wars fame) was responsible for those Viper shots. Supposedly, he did a ton of footage of Vipers in various situations before getting burned out with the show and going on to other things. The stuff he did shoot was recycled for the duration of the series.

And yeah, I'm pretty sure some of the scenes of panicked people running for their lives were recycled from older movies, since the clothing seemed remarkably Terrestrial.

Re:expensive to produce?

[Rallion]

Ah, so then the new series is just carrying on the tradition... (I'm a little young to have known the originals.)

The new series reuses lots of footage. Viper combat landings are always the same. That's the most obvious one, because it happens very often. A lot of other space battle stuff is reused too. I know I've seen the same shots of missiles flying at the Galactica more than once, and certainly the same shots of the Galactica's guns coming to bear. I can think of others, but I think I've made the point.

Not that I mind it the slightest bit, I still think it's one of the best series on TV right now -- I just can't help but notice that it reuses more footage than any other show I've ever seen.

Re:expensive to produce?

[mogalpha]

And the robotic dog, Muffit! What was the point of that?! They blew probably 100k on the slowest-walking animatronic dog ever (supposedly research into having robotic pilots and firefighters I think).

Re:expensive to produce?

[Sparr0]

Where do you live? If $1mil fell into my lap today I would own, outright, four 8-unit apartment buildings (2bed/1bath) next month with an income in the neighborhood of $4800/mo (conservative estimate: half occupancy, $400/mo, 1/4 of income to maintenance). 6% gains on $1mil isnt awesome, but it would be reliable and liquid for the next 20 years, and I could live in one or two of the apartments.

Re:expensive to produce?

[Luigi30]

It was a midget in a suit. Animatronics weren't advanced enough in 1978 for a walking figure.

Re:expensive to produce?

[ericdano]

Very true. They do need to have a couple of different landing scenes, and they keep using the same one. And the same holds true for the Flack guns coming to bear. But in the new season, they had some new shots of Cylons coming out of the Base Star. That was damn cool. Plus, there was a lot of new battle footage.

Looking forward to next weeks episode. Cylons aboard Galactica! Woohoo!

Re:expensive to produce?

[hhawk]

Reusing footage didn't mean they were cheap; just meant that level of production was expensive...

Re:expensive to produce?

[Kupek]

Ha, I just watched that episode on DVD a few days ago. The funny thing is, they used that technique (unironically) earlier in the episode when the head producer throws his name plate at the Harvard guy.

Re:expensive to produce?

[On Call OS]

Astro Boy! Who cared how expensive?! That was my all time favorite cartoon of all time. Remember the little whic-whauc sounds when he walked? In the 60's that was the epitome of sound effects for afternoon cartoons... might be the true origin of my geekishness.... Thanks for resurrecting Astro Boy in my mind. We need more people... uhhhh, bots like him.

Re:expensive to produce?

[JordanH]

Or better yet, why do people write "alot", which isn't even a word!?

Maybe it's because allot is a word, which would sound close to the same as 'a lot' and you might see allot often.

While there's no word similar to alittle, I wonder if people often make the mistake to write "be little" when they mean "belittle"? I can't say that I've ever seen it, not to belittle anyone, but maybe someone smart enough to use belittle in a sentence correctly wouldn't make that mistake.

Of course, what do I know? I commit the crime of using it's when I mean its alot.

Re:expensive to produce?

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

It's been my experience that people who use "alot" instead of "a lot" without knowing that it's wrong generally don't know what there is such a word as "allot," or what it means either.

Re:expensive to produce?

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

You're probably right about the Viper landings in combat. But the footage with the Flak guns coming around is too cool for me to complain about it being reused.

"I just can't help but notice that it reuses more footage than any other show I've ever seen."

It also focuses more on plot and character development than any other sci-fi show I've seen recently. So I don't really mind.

Re:expensive to produce?

[peruvianllama]

You're right on the money - for anyone interested, it's called The Front, season 4 episode 19. The scene in question is about fourteen minutes in, although Lisa and Bart are walking with Roger Meyers (the I&S exec), not Grandpa.

Re:expensive to produce?

[CuriHP]

Actually it was a chimp.

Re:expensive to produce?

[The Infamous Grimace]

I think there was a Simpsons episode that satirized the technique. Anyone know which one?

Episode 11 - Bart Gets Famous
Bart's walking down a hallway with Krusty, who's explaining how studios sometimes reuse scenes to save cash. The same doorway and cleaning woman cycle across the background.

(tig)

Re:expensive to produce?

[The Infamous Grimace]

Oops, wrong episode. Disregard in it's entirety.

(tig)

Re:expensive to produce?

[0111 1110]

Winning $1M back then you could retire and still splurge without blowing all of it.

Maybe in the US/UK if you plan to have a family, but there are many countries where you could live very comfortably on 1/4 of that for at least the next 40 years. And that's without any bank interest or investments. I make less than 10k a year. So even working for the next 30 years would net me less than 300,000. So that would seem more than enough to retire on. But then I don't have a family *cough*.

Re:expensive to produce?

[NORGCO]

As a comparison, here it was competing against a british show called Blakes Seven, which substituted PLOT and CHARACTERS for all the stuff they couldn't afford and it was a much more interesting show. I mean the bad guys space suits were Belstaff motorcycle wet weather gear with a gas mask, and the various bases were all the same abandoned oil refinery shot from different angles... As to the new BSG, well: 1/ how are the cylons hacking in when there is no outside connection - They are not on the internet after all, and putting a firewall/bastion server on any inter-ship datastream would seem more sensible than giving up networks IN the ship!! 2/ The total lack of attention to basic military concepts is annoying. The Vipers don't seem to fly/fight in any formation at all, and no attempt is made to get them into one. Adama, as the captain of the Carrier, has no right to give orders directly to pilots, - all those special mission to Starbuck... - he has to go through the CAG, who has equal rank with him, at least that is USN practice. The Task Force commander, who commands both of them, is required to be a separate person, because the workload is too high for one person to do both, and there does not seem to be one for the refugee fleet. Who is in charge? 3/Why, after the death of the whole govenment except one minor cabinet member WHO IS DYING AND KNOWS IT didn't they IMMEDIATELY start selecting/electing an new government. This is not trivial, a society of 50,000 people like the fleet is equal to Classical Athens or Sparta in size, and WON'T WORK without a government. Why did it take a revolt by a KNOWN TERRORITST for The President to realise 'hey I'm dying of cancer, maybe we should have an election before I croak?'

Re:expensive to produce?

[Kuros_overkill]

There was also an episode of Family Guy, where they did the scrolling backgroud thing excessivly, untill it got to a point where Peter and Brian (IIRC) walked onto the Bedrock set. (Flintstones for all you under 20's) Stopped, looked at each other, then slowly backed away.

Re:expensive to produce?

[cakesy]

...and I could live in one or two of the apartments.

wow, how fat are you?

Re:expensive to produce?

[Luigi30]

Midget, chimp, same thing.

Re:expensive to produce?

[elrous0]

The stuff he did shoot was recycled for the duration of the series.

And also for the follow-up series, and for several forgettable movies--most notoriously Space Mutiny (which at least made for a funny MST3K episode).

-Eric

Re:expensive to produce?

[elrous0]

Midget, chimp, same thing.

They only started using the chimp after they discovered it was less likely to hump Dirk Benedict's leg than the midget.

-Eric

Battlestar Ponderosa

[Monte]

Am I the only person on the planet who remembers the original Battlestar Galactica as being a steaming pile of crap? Aside from being a rather blatant attempt by Glen Larceny (who also brought us Tron^w Automan and American Werewolf^w Manimal), the plots were the utmost juvenile tripe.

My theory is that you had to be about ten at the time to think BG was actually cool. Once you're past the nostalgia, does it really stand up? There was an awful lot of silliness involved. For example, the man who single handedly sold the humans out to the Cylons got what ammounted to kitchen duty. That'll teach him!

While I haven't seen all of the new BG, what I have seen I've liked very much.

And one thing I will say for Glen Larson: putting Erin Gray in spandex ("Buck Rogers") was, indeed, friggin' genius. Kudos for that.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[OS24Ever]

Battlestar Galactica had it's moments that do stand up to the test of nostalgia (I was 7 and 8 in 1979), however Battlestar Galactica 1980 was a steaming pile of crap then, and even more so now. I was so glad 1980 aired while my mom was in the 'TV IS BAD FOR YOU!' stage and wouldn't let us watch television.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[nabil_IQ]

I do rememeber the original BSG. Although it had some "cheap" production shortcuts and somewhat sloppy story line, I enjoyed it back then, I still rememebr having nightmeres about the Cylons (remember the old Cylon roboots, they were cool :P) attacking me!.

The new series is AMAZING, it's the best show on TV today. I watched season one like 1000 time (I have downloaded the episodes after giving up on the DVD release anytime soon) on laptop on my daily commute, and still can watch it more.

season 2 seems like it's going to be just as good as the first season. Friday's episode was pretty damn good. Loved it!

To sum it up, the new BSG is something very well worth watching. And I recommend it to any and everyone. Cool visuals, smart story, sexy charcters. what else a geek would ask for ?

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[EqualOrLesserValue]

Space shows are up against reality shows and they don't seem to be doing well in the competition (note the demise of Star Trek: Enterprise). That they dared start this while ST:E wasn't doing well means the studio believes in it strongly enough. ST:E was the only sci-fi I watched until I got hold of the pilot to BSG. I quickly gave up on ST:E. It has a certain mood, I'll warrant, that might take watching the premiere a couple of times. A bit of an attempt to fake a documentary in style. But this certainly isn't the BSG of the 1970s.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[PakProtector]

Star Trek: Enterprise died not because it couldn't compete against reality shows, but because there are far fewer Blind, Rabid Star Trek Fan-boys than there are Star Trek Fans, and the Fans will not tolerate the kind of abuses to a series that the Fan-boys will take, just so they can get another hit of their favorite crack, no matter how badly cut with filler it is.

That is why Enterprise failed. It was a good idea, but horribly executed, like an axemen who hits the guy in the back instead of hard on the neck when he's on the block.

In other words, Enterprise was a brutal massacre of Star Trek.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[blueZhift]

I still remember BG fondly, though I too was just a kid so I guess it was at the right level! ;-) But BG 1980 was horrible, even from a juvenile perspective and I have categorically deleted most of it from memory!

The new series though, I think is the best SF on TV right now. Indeed, I'd say it's one of the best action dramas period. If they keep up the good work, I think they've a shot at the best SF TV series of all time, which I currently would award to Babylon 5. But the new BG is much better much earlier than B5 was, so they have the inside track.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[jarich]

Space shows are up against reality shows and they don't seem to be doing well in the competition (note the demise of Star Trek: Enterprise).

???

Enterprise was on Friday night, up against Stargate! It was killed by a better show... it might have had a chance on another night.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[master_p]

I don't know if BS was crap, but Starbuck was (and still is) one of the coolest space pilots ever, and that includes Han Solo.

And the guy blew off Cylons while smoking a cigar! in space! how much cooler can one get???

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[Planesdragon]

That is why Enterprise failed. It was a good idea, but horribly executed, like an axemen who hits the guy in the back instead of hard on the neck when he's on the block.

Actually, it was at least two different good ideas, and they jumped back and forth too much.

A series about the first Warp 5 starship would have been cool.

A series about the temporal cold war told from a little guy's perspective would have been cool.

Trying to be both was just foolish.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[JordanH]

I really really enjoyed how Enterprise attempted to tie up what I saw were loose ends with regard to the Vulcans.

How do you explain the Vulcans? They apparently had space flight for a very long time (thousands of years?) - because of the existence of the Romulans which was lost to all memory. They are physically very robust (long lived, super strong, acute senses), extremely intelligent, highly focused, yet they were only marginally advanced from humans at the time of Cochrane? It just doesn't make sense.

Enterprise grapples with this head-on and satisfyingly, I think. Vulcans are unbelievably arrogant and not particularly curious all leading up to extreme calcification.

I also liked the "Enterprising" way they dealt with the tech they had at hand. I love the grappling hook and the annoying squeek in the Captain's floor.

But... it suffered with a lot of painful extended plotlines and bad writing. I only watched the first few years and then they kept moving it's time around in my market, I lost track of when it was on and didn't care anyway...

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[snilloc]

It WAS on another night. (Wednesday?) They moved it to Friday in order to kill it. This is the unfortunate reason that the saveenterprise movement was doomed from the get-go. It didn't matter how much money they might have raised, or even numbers of donations, Paramount wanted it dead long ago.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[ericdano]

Yes. That whole show was about Star Buck. Didn't one watch it to see what antics he'd pull? Or what girls he'd fall for? Or what scheme he had?

I loved Star Buck.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[Animats]

It was heavily criticized at the time. Earth is under attack, the Captain has the last powerful military force, and he parks the ship and goes AWOL looking for his wife. That's cowardice in the face of the enemy. They shoot officers for that.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[ms1234]

My theory is that you had to be about ten at the time to think BG was actually cool. Once you're past the nostalgia, does it really stand up?

Why yes, I was ten. Yes, the show rocked. Now that I'm over 30. No, just another show. Same with Star Trek The Original Series. Go figure why I always waited for it to come on TV.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[admiralh]

I was about 15 when BG came out. The pilot was one of the best 2 hours of TV ever.

Then the regular show started. The quickest "jump the shark" in TV history. I think I watched about three episodes.

As for ST:TOS, it was and still is different from every other show on TV. It had an optimistic vision of hunanity's future. War was never the answer, you might have to fight to get to the answer, but you never saw Kirk walking through the remnants of the civilization he just destroyed.

Yes, ST:TOS has elements that date it (Kirk's "babe" of the week, for example), but it's still the most forward-looking and humanity-affirming show that TV has ever produced.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[gothzilla]

The original series had 65 million viewers during it's first episode. The new series had about 4 million. The original series was far from crap and the numbers say it all. Maybe when you look back on it now it seems that way, but at the time it was an amazing tv show.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[Monte]

The original series had 65 million viewers during it's first episode. The new series had about 4 million.

That was then. This is now. Back then the primary video delivery system for most people was a set of rabbit ears (or, if you were really upscale, a Rota-Tenna on the roof). When your channel lineup consists of 6 stations, a friggin' test pattern will get ratings.

Plus the network hyped the living begeesus out of the series. What was it up against, Mork and Mindy? Three's Company? The Star Wars Holiday Special?

Having lived through the 70's I can tell you with onitoligical certitude that US television at the time was a vast, vile, steaming heap of crap.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[tm2b]

Huh? What TV show are you talking about? It ain't Battlestar Galactica.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[macshit]

Oh come on, it was the '70s! Just be glad they didn't figure out a way to introduce roller-disco as a major plot thread.

I was about that age when the original came out, and remember being constantly a bit disappointed how tacky everything was... However I think one reason I was disappointed was the clear sense of something grander underneath, which had been overwhelmed by the pressures of commercial television (studio boss: "More roller-disco!").

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[0111 1110]

In other words, Enterprise was a brutal massacre of Star Trek.

And it didn't help that Mr. Quantum Leap (aka Scott Bakula) was the captain or that the theme song and intro sequence were enough to make you cover your mouth and run for the nearest toilet, hoping to avoid the (ultimately unavoidable) loss of lunch. That female vulcan was hot though. Probably the best looking character in any of the Star Treks. Too bad they can't show breasts on American TV.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[RubberDogBone]

Yeah, thanks to Erin, I went into puberty about two years early.

Lynda Carter didn't hurt either tho.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[beardz]

I watched season one like 1000 time (I have downloaded the episodes after giving up on the DVD release anytime soon) on laptop on my daily commute, and still can watch it more.

Heh, you'll be happy to know that the Season 1 Boxed Set has been out in Region 2 since March 28th ;)

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[0111 1110]

Having lived through the 70's I can tell you with onitoligical certitude that US television at the time was a vast, vile, steaming heap of crap.

Got your back on that one. I wish my young brain had not been subjected to Charlies Angels, The Love Boat (ouch), Fantasy Island, Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman, or The 6 Million Dollar Man. And what was with that whole 70s Bigfoot obsession? Lots of movies and TV shows about it including an episode from The 6 Million Dollar Man and The Night Stalker. Maybe it had something to do with the 70s fascination with supernatural horror (based on Christian mythology). Remember In Search Of with Leonard Nimoy? For me that symbolizes that decades fascination with stuff like that.

Doctor Who with Tom Baker, ST:TOS, and those campy Roger Corman-esque and Japanese (Toho Studios etc.) guy-in-rubber-suit Saturday afternoon monster movies (late 70s) were the high points of that TV era for me. Even cartoons like Speed Racer and Felix the Cat seem less embarrassing than 70s network TV. And the 'good' shows like Night Gallery and Night Stalker would be considered unwatcheable by modern standards. I have heard that there is one TV movie from that era, an ABC Movie of the Week about witches called Crowhaven Farm that stands out as the best television of that era. But it is impossible to find a copy. So I can't confirm it.

I can still remember coming home from school and flipping on my old telly that took more than a minute to 'warm up'. The so called remote had big rectangular buttons that seemed to use a loud clicking sound to turn it on and change the channels. I think simulating the clicking sound could shut the TV off.

Luckily I had a friend with a DEC PDP-11 by the late 70s. So that offered some degree of entertainment in the form of early computer games like Super Star Trek and Adventure (Collosal Cave).

Perhaps the biggest mind-rape of that era was the music and the hideous clothes (which ironically young girls of the current era seem to have copied). A decade that includes the Bee Gees and Barry Manilow playing on 8-track tapes, The Hardy Boys, platform shoes, bell bottoms, velour v-neck and button down shirts with those long pointy lapels, truly is (or should be) an embarrassment for everyone who had to live through it.

Even the feathered hair, skin-tight Jordache jeans, leg warmers (remember Flash Dance?) and synth-pop of the early 80s were a huge step up the evolutionary ladder for western culture. I don't know if it was a worldwide phenomenon or just in North America and Western Europe. I have to wonder what East Asian or South American culture, for instance, was like at that time.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[nabil_IQ]

Lucky europeans :P

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[Evil Pete]

Amen to that. When I saw it I was willing to watch anything that was even vaguely SF. No matter how bad. But I mentally gagged on BG. So pitiful it became my standard of bad SF ... oh except maybe for the tv series about Buck Rogers (shudder!). Didn't Larsen even say at one point that they had created a library of clips of space battles so they didn't have to do any more special effects? Well it showed.

So to see such an amazingly good recreation of it is a complete and very welcome surprise. I think the remake will join my small list of amazing SF on tv: A for Andromeda, Night of the Big Heat (not the terrible movie remake), Outer Limits (original), Star Trek, some of the X-Files.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[Rallion]

Wouldn't the ratings for the first episode be the absolute least meaningless stat about a show's popularity and quality? Wouldn't the ratings for the SECOND episode be far, far more telling?

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[tweek]

Damnit I happened to *LIKE* Automan. I always thought I imagined the whole series because no one else had ever heard of it.

I will agree that while I have some memories of BSG, the show wasn't THAT big of a deal. Other than the fact that it was sci-fi different that Star Trek.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[Fishstick]

Yeah, it was.

There is a sequence in the (original series) pilot where Adama takes the Galactica out of the battle and returns to, what is it, Caprica?

He is sifting through the rubble of his home looking for his wife. Apollo is there and they confront an angry mob of survivors demanding to know "where they were when the Cylons attacked".

It is then that Adama pulls it together and gives the "let the word go forth..." speech telling everyone to get into ships to follow him into space.

SCI-FI rebroadcast the original series a couple months ago. I set up a season pass on the TiVo, but then cancelled it after watching the pilot again. It is amazing how much crappier the characters, dialog, story and effects seem after a couple decades roll by.

As a kid of 12 or so, I loved that show. I got a few chuckles watching it again after all this time, but that barely lasted through the first hour.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[Fishstick]

Yes, it was Lynda Carter who first made me curious about the female body. I cam remember staring at her outfit wondering what was in there.

Think I was 12. That was a whole lot o woman. I had no clue.

Re:Battlestar Ponderosa

[Kuros_overkill]

To be fair, they (the network + paramount + Bermen) kept the show on the air through 3 years of crap. Then, when in finaly got better (ie, listening to the fans, Ditching the Time Travel (tm)*) cancelling it. Enterprise failed because They (see list above) WHANTED it to fail! * Registered trade mark of Bermen Enterprises (pun intended)

nytimes login

[Warp!]

Courtesy of http://www.bugmenot.com/

username: debater20057
password: antimatter

Re:nytimes login

[Anonymous Coward]

In the interests of national security, I changed the password.

Signed.

Homeland security department.

Re:nytimes login

[moonbender]

I find it easier to just copy-paste the link into a Google search, readily accessible in most browsers. Google will pick up that it's an URL and offer it back to you as a hyperlink. Click it and, voila, there's the article, courtesy of the NYT and a Google referrer address. The downside is that you have to repeat the procedure for every page.

Re:nytimes login

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir, are a cunt.

But right click, BugMeNot, and I'm in.

Re:nytimes login

[strider44]

Firefox extensions to the rescue!

Re:nytimes login

[moonbender]

That's nice, but totally different. I'm not reading the Google Cache of the NYT article. It's just that NYT doesn't require you to have a log in if you get there by the way of a link from Google (ie your HTTP referrer URL is from there).

Re:nytimes login

[RDW]

'The downside is that you have to repeat the procedure for every page.'

One workaround for this article is to feed Google the printer-friendly link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/magazine/17GALAC TICA.html?8hpib=&pagewanted=print (though you lose the pictures).

Re:nytimes login

[BobSutan]

Thanks for the tip. I just assumed that it wouldn't work and never bothered to give it a try.

Re:nytimes login

[ceejayoz]

One workaround is to register a false-info account on NYTimes.com and thusly not have to bitch about registration every time one comes up.

Ten seconds of effort, no more complaints, and the NYT sees a doubling in their Eskimo shemale demographic.

Most sci fi is stale right now

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Sci fi has been stale for a long time. We're looking for the next big fix to kick it off. In the past we had "flying cars and silver panties for clothes in the year 2000". Now all we have is special effects and soaps in space.

When the next big thing comes along we'll see sci fi pick up, but untill then people will keep trying and failing to make anything but Star trek Mark 12 or the latest "lets hop planets" type fodder.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[AndroidCat]

Now we've got the mass infantry and space battles with overdone CGI. Boring! (And the attempts to make it unboring are worse.)

Bot #1138: "Sir, why are firing missles with little droids that slowly disect fighters? Why don't we just, like, blow them up?"
General Grabass: "Count Dorkula thinks it's more cinematic. Shut up! *cough*cough*"
Bot #1138: "Roger roger!"

Strong in the Plot, they are not.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[Traa]

I agree that Sci fi _on tv_ has been stale for a long time. But I don't understand why. I have been reading a lot of modern sci fi and I think the genre has come really far and is growing and maturing at an ever increasing pace. There are a lot of amazing stories out there. Fresh, modern, witty and full of edgy ideas about possible futures.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[Mister Transistor]

The problem is there are only a few sub-genres of Science Fiction to choose from; Gadget Stories (Techology/SFX), B.E.M. (Bug-Eyed Monsters/Aliens), Time Travel/Parallel Worlds, and a few other "borrowed" genres like detective stories, etc.

All you have left then to work with is to mix in the "Human Experience" into these stories (The Soaps, The Planet-Hopping).

There's not a whole lot left in the fairly narrow field that hasn't been 1) thought of in the 1930-1950's and 2) covered and re-covered.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[0xC0FFEE]

I've said it several times, once the Star Wars saga is over and the Studio have finished their soul searching (seeing as they can't effectively go directly to the bank with past brands) we'll start getting amazing sci-fi.

Blockbuster sci-fi has gone the "more realistic special effects" direction for some time now at the expense of storylines and actual character development. (As a side, am I the only one to have been completely blown away at the initial scene of the latest Star Wars?) Spielberg has done a great disservice by not being bold enough but just so. Maybe he doesn't want to risk his emerging production company yet? Nobody else stepped up to the plate. Matrix was probably the last film that wowed audiences just by the special effects (and the music). Special effects are so good now that you won't see them as a good enough reason to head to the theatre for that 12$ ticket and 16$ soda/pop-corn combo.

I've missed the first season of Galactica and catched up by downloading the episodes on the net. The 2 special episodes are truly fantastic. The first season has the making of a good series. Unfortunately, since I've watched the first season back-to-back, I could see how diluted the content is compared to the special episodes. This must be the Studio wanting to milk to good ideas as much as they can. This is the Star-Trek disease and honestly I'll probably put up with it as I don't have better options.

What I am longing for is self-contained, one-time features. I don't mind spending 3 hours or more (whatever is needed to finish the story, don't do the Revolutions gimmick). I don't want to invoke past cliches like BladeRunner and 2001, but there need to be more exploration of genres. Spielberg is kinda trying to try, ,but always settle for the good ending. Good sci-fi is intrinsically watched multiple time and is a natural DVD bestseller. As is usually the case in our society, good investment leads more surely to profits. So take that to heart Studios!

As to whether I'd like to see a movie version of Galactica. I don't know, the rebirth of Galactica clearly show how the fans are not the best judges and that the green light shouldn't be given according to fan's opinions.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[AndroidCat]

The money people will hate the idea of self-contained, one-time features. Any that fail will be used as examples of why it's a bad idea, and any that succeed will be pressured to squeeze a sequel or five out of them.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[0xC0FFEE]

The trust of my argument is that a good sci-fi movie is watched multiple times leading to truly awesome DVD sales. I sample what is released and buy what I like. I'm not going to buy Fantastic 4 or even Spiderman (I'm probably protesting for not having the Ramones version of the theme song here). Also since DVD sales have insane profit margins, that business proposition of creating a lasting, self-contained product makes a lot of sense.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[macmattman]

I think that does a disservice to many great shows. Specifically, Firefly was an unbelievably good show that was cancelled due to Fox not knowing what to do with it. I also think that The Tick was an example of a great show, that some may not define as SciFi, that was cancelled way too early. I'm sure others can think of more examples. Matt

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[ManoMarks]

99% of TV is crap, and always has been. The only reason SciFi gets this special treatment from us is because this is a nerd forum.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[wolverine1999]

Try watching the new Doctor Who series. It's a breath of fresh air.... interesting tv with great characters and emotional issues, plus enough sci-fi to blow your mind off. It is amazing how RTD (the producer) managed to reinvigorate the show and combined old aspects with new ones, and came up with various gems of episodes.

Christopher Eccleston played the Doctor in the first year of the new show, now David Tennant is taking over the role (the Doctor has regenerated).

A third series has been announced too.

From GallifreyOne:
The BBC's audience research for the first series of "Doctor Who" has shown some major developments for the channel. The series average to date, in final numbers, has been 8.2 million viewers and a 40% share; episode one had the highest audience for a new Doctor (jointly held with Tom Baker's debut in 1974) and the second highest launch of a new series (behind season 17 in 1979). The show strongly skewed toward both children and 35-44 year old age brackets, with an average overnight AI (audience index) ranking of 83, higher than normal for BBC drama. 63% of viewers said their main reason for watching episode 1 was because of the trailer, while 22% said their main reason for watching episode 6 was to see the Daleks. However, 68% said it was because they were enjoying the series. Over 90% of viewers polled say the Doctor Who is "good family viewing" but 19% had concerns about children being scared by the series, highest amongst older women. Just 6% of parents who watched Doctor Who wouldn't allow their children to watch. 59% of the audience think Doctor Who is better than other drama,a nd a massive 82% of the audience are "Very likely" to watch the new series, with a further 14% are quite likely.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[oldwolf13]

I recently got into the new Doctor Who, and was enhoying it quite a bit.

Then at the season finale when they brought the daleks into it I was disappointed. I was not a fan of the original, but I do remember it, and I never liked the look of the daleks... I like the idea of them.. but they're just old looking and cheesy.

I figure they only kept the look as to not piss off the fans, where as I thought this was one time modernizing could help it.

They look like some weird futuristic roomba or something.

I forgave the show for this, and even though I knew it would happen, was very sad to see Christopher Eccleson go, as I thought of him as a quintessential Doctor.

All in all though, it has me coming back for season 2.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[SuiteSisterMary]

Master! Buzz droids are landing on your fighter! Why not just USE THE GD FORCE TO KNOCK THE LITTLE BUGGERS OFF?!

Silly Padawan, the Force is only used to knock over BIG robots, open doors, retrieve itty bitty objects, and choke people. Oh, and lightning.

Of course, Master. Forgive me.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I followed all of the new Doctor who and I'm looking to get the novels soon.

It was nice and some decent sci fi but it didn't explore other worlds enough IMO. But it's something to work from.

But then look at the rest of the stuff BBC are making and you'll see theres a lot of crap to balance it.

1 good series (well very old series retooled) doesn't save a genre.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[AussieVamp2]

As a side, am I the only one to have been completely blown away at the initial scene of the latest Star Wars?

-- Nope, by far the best part of the movie. Glad I saw that on half price Tuesday, that is for sure! First part worth seeing on a big screen though.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[limekiller4]

You must have missed Philip K. Dick.

Twenty years and going pretty strong. Even the crap versions of his works are decent.

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[Kuros_overkill]

The problem is, two really great Sci-fi shows were introduced latly (within the last 3 years) They both got canned, Fast: futurama and Firefly. New and fresh doesn't sell adds, because dim witted people who buy stupid crap don't watch fresh and inventive stuff, their minds cannot handle it. They like their little ruts where every thing stays the same untill they die. sorry, didn't mean to rant... just to point out that new, fresh and inventive Sci-fi tends to get canceled, while the rehashed shit gets green lighted every time. But why should it be any different from any other genera

Re:Most sci fi is stale right now

[stjobe]

Could you be kind enough to give some examples?
I find Ken Macleod, Richard Morgan, China Mieville and Charles Stross to be a few of the better contemporary SF writers, but I sure would appreciate any tips on other good SF writers.

Re:New SG-1

[stuffisgood]

I too really enjoyed the new SG-1...

Probably more than I enjoyed any of the episodes of the last season.I particularly Farlah's comments on our limited gene-pool when Cameron and Daniel are side by side (Don't they look just a bit similar???).

SG

[l3v1]

I'll probably be OT for this but: I think the SG-1 retooling as real potential too... now, you really think SG-1 transformed into Farscape-1 can make the sometimes rockingly good [and soemtimes dullish] SG series "better" ? I, for one, am happy that it lasted 8 seasons long, and I'm done with it. If I want to watch Farscape, I watch it. Now there's only two more things missing from the new SG-1: a little fella resembling a numb duck and a large pinkish fella with tentacles.

As for the BG2k season 2, I was very happy to learn back then that there will indeed be more to follow the originally said 13 episodes. I hope this second season will be just as good as the first one turned out to be. Good job people, keep it comin' !

Re:SG

[strider44]

I was a bit offput by the first episode of the new series. I didn't think it had the feel of Farscape, definitely not. The actors are just actors (Claudia Black's characters are ever so slightly different...)

I was actually bothered by how much it felt like Battlestar Galactica. Don't get me wrong, I like Battlestar Galactica, but Stargate should be Stargate, that's why I watch it. Obviously CmdrTaco loves BG, but unlike him I don't want every show to feel the same.

Re:SG

[ericdano]

What? How did it "feel" like Battlestar? I thought the new season felt like typical Stargate, except that Ben and Claudia injected some life to it. The dialogue was great. It has extreme potential. I'm excited.

Re:SG

[smchris]

Claudia Black will be a hard sell for me. She hasn't played a character I've seen that I'd want staying around on a Sunday afternoon.

Samantha Carter, on the other hand, is one of TVs archtypal nerds. How many SG-1 episodes _aren't_ outlined as:

Field research
Analysis (often by Samatha Carter)
Decision-making conference
Action

With Doc long gone, Samantha effectively gone, the nerd factor rests on Daniel. Unless Black's character turns out to be a closet quantum physist, the central structure of the programs might be expected to devolve into bang-bang action and Black's sexual quips. Yes, without Hensen's non-humanoid aliens.

Re:SG

[barc0001]

It "felt" like Battlestar Galactica? WTF? Where was the shakycam? The holocaust of humanity and the desparate clawing of the few survivors to exist?

Claudia Black's characters are ever so slightly different...

Well, one was a straight-laced, take-no-crap ex-military warrior type (Aeryn Sun on Farscape), and the other is an irreverent, joking, good-life loving con woman (Vala on SG-1). Yeah. Exactly alike. Carbon copies! I mean, they both have black hair and all, how different can they be?

Personally, I LIKED the new SG-1 opener. Season 8 was getting quite stale. The new characters should bring it some life. And the interplay between Jackson and Vala was quite enjoyable.

SG-1 is stale, Taco?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you looked at your site? Hello, 1999 called.

Re:SG-1 is stale, Taco?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello called, it wants its world back

Sorry, programmer at the helm. (comma optional)

Re:SG-1 is stale, Taco?

[Cylix]

Actually...

I was thinking it really more like Farscape meets SG-1. So "Farscape: SG-1"

I'm kinda digging it. Although I would prefer the original crew... I'll settle for this twisted surprise.

Ron Moore is reason for show's success.

[MtViewGuy]

Let's face it folks.

The BIGGEST reason why the new version of Battlestar Galactica is so good is that one of its creators (Ronald D. Moore) has strong experience doing excellent work with a sci-fi TV series. After all, some of very best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space 9 was done with his assistance.

That's why Enterprise sorely missed Moore's presence. If Ron Moore had been Enterprise Executive Producer I guarantee that we would be waiting with baited breath for the upcoming season, that's to be sure.

In personally think years from now, the Ron Moore-created version of Battlestar Galactica will go down as one of the truly great sci-fi TV series of all time

Re:Ron Moore is reason for show's success.

[Monte]

After all, some of very best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space 9 was done with his assistance.

One could very easily consider that "damning with faint praise". But then [o! Blasphemy!] I'm not a Trek fan.

Re:Ron Moore is reason for show's success.

[Danathar]

Yup...you are exactly right. Ron Moore was the best thing to happen to Trek...and the worst thing when he left.

Re:Ron Moore is reason for show's success.

[RobinTucker]

Geeks...am I the only person who watches BG in the hope of seeing Trishia Helfer naked?

Re:Ron Moore is reason for show's success.

[jaywee]

When I've seen the BSG miniseries for the first time my first thought was "voyager-should-have-been".

Re:Ron Moore is reason for show's success.

[0111 1110]

RDM is good and not just as a producer. Perhaps more importantly as a writer: for 33, Water, and the Kobols Last Gleaming pt1 teleplay and pt2 story and teleplay. So it's not fair to only think of him as a producer. He is also one of the best writers for the series. I can only speculate whether he is also the one who directly determines the overall story arc for the the team of writers to follow.

But don't forget to give credit to David Eick (story for Kobols Last Gleaming pt1), Michael Angeli (writer for Six Degrees of Seperation - s1e07), as well as Michael Rymer and Robert Young (s1e07 director) for their excellent directing skills. These are the people (in addition to the actors) mostly responsible for raising this show to a level far above most television.

And then there is the amazing pilot/mini-series that got everyone's attention. RDM did the writing for that along with Christopher James and Michael Rymer did the directing. IMO, only episodes 07 and 12 rose anywhere near to the film quality of the pilot. The rest were just somewhat better (to varying degrees depending on the writer) than most TV scifi. A lot of the tension of 'The Terminator meets Blade Runner at the end of the world' was lost once the series started, at least for me. I can only guess that maintaining all the episodes at pilot quality would be too expensive. Or at least that's what I would like to think.

Season 2 shows no sign of getting back to that level either with the military strategy writers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle kicking things off. Not that I thought s2e01 was actually bad. It's just nowhere near the potential of the series relying on cliched just-in-the-nick-of-time military scenarios to build tension and suspense. Michael Rymer is above the level of virtually any TV series director, but even he can only do so much with the script he is given.

I am looking forward to some scripts by RDM, David Eick, and Michael Angeli. I can only hope that they have written at least some of the shows for season 2. Even Toni Graphia is preferable to Carla Robinson, Jeff Flaming, and the Thompson/Weddle team. I so hope that Robinson and Flaming no longer write for this or any other scifi show. I don't need to see any more comedy variety shows, court dramas blatently copied from ST:TNG episodes, top gun rip-offs, or spaceship hulls patched with flight jackets before high-G maneuvers. The quality of the show depends on the quality of the writing.

Re:Ron Moore is reason for show's success.

[0111 1110]

After all, some of very best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space 9 was done with his assistance.

I have only seen like one episode of ST:DS9. So I can't speak to that. But I don't think he wrote the best eps of ST:TNG. He did write some very good ones however like The Chase, Yesterday's Enterprise, First Contact, Thine Own Self, and All Good Things. But he also wrote episodes like Relics, Chain of Command, and Redemption, which were not my cup of tea.

My favorite ST:TNG episodes include: 11001001, Elementary Dear Data, Time Squared, The Royale, Q Who, Remember Me, Clues, Identity Crisis, Violations, Cause and Effect, The Inner Light, Time's Arrow, Ship in a Bottle, and Frame of Mind. RDM didn't write any of those.

Still, he certainly is one of the best television SciFi writers around. He has also written a few Carnivale episodes that were pretty good (i.e. "The Day That Was the Day"). I am going to download some of his ST:DS9 episodes if I can find them.

Where's Boxy...

[__aaclcg7560]

The article had a picture of the robot dog that used to follow Boxy around. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Boxy in the new series since an early episode in Season 1. From the very beginning, I thought the storyline would eventually have Boomer, the Chief, and Boxy as a family unit. I guess that scenario is out the window since Boomer is a Cylon, the Chief has to keep his pants zipped, and Boxy disappeared.

Re:Where's Boxy...

[Surazal]

Boxey will come back... he apparently, um, grew a bit. "Shot up like a weed" was the term used IIRC.

I did like the one line he was given in the new show.

Colonel Tigh: Hey kid, where's your mother?
Boxey: She's dead. Where's yours?

Re:Where's Boxy...

[Rallion]

Who honestly cared to see Worf have a romantic relationship with Dax?

Heh...sci-fi geeks who actually don't have anything approaching romance in their real lives, maybe.

Oh, come on, you know it's true.

Re:Where's Boxy...

[0111 1110]

The writers are generally geeks

However that is not really the case for some of the writers for the new BSG. Several of them used to write for lawyer TV shows and that kind of thing. The writers for the season 2 premiere were previously story editors, not writers (except for the previous season). They are used for the 'military strategy' episodes. Maybe they have military experience or have done previous work with military oriented shows.

Personally I hate this whole team-of-writers, different writer for every episode style of American TV writing. I think the British style of one writer per season makes for far better television. They should at least trim things down to the three best writers. A huge team of them is just ridiculous. How can you expect consistency that way? It's not so bad for planet-of-the-week episodes, but not a good strategy for a continuous story arc.

Re:Where's Boxy...

[Snowspinner]

Yes. It's dreadful for a continuing storyline. Which is why Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Alias, Lost, Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls, and Babylon 5 all sucked.

Oh.

Wait.

DAMMIT!

Re:Where's Boxy...

[0111 1110]

Okay I can see arguing for B5 and maybe Firefly and maybe even Lost (although as a scripted Survivor that's a stretch), but the Gilmore Girls?! Buffy?! What have you been smoking? And do you have any for me? ST:TNG may be my favorite SciFi series but quite of few of those episodes sucked big time. It's not the actors or the directors but the writers that I hold responsible. It's not impossible to write a TV series with all great episodes, but you just don't see that on American television due to this too-many-cooks-spoil-the-broth problem with the writing here. It is not necessary. Even the best American television suffers from this unevenness. I guess there's not much point in writing good episodes when the audience can't tell the difference. That's why it is the dawn of the reality show era in this country. But then television has almost always been 99.9% pure shite since it was invented. It's all about appealing to the LCD (Lowest Common Denominator).

Re:Where's Boxy...

[bill_mcgonigle]

At least one excellent season of B5 was written by JMS basically sitting down and typing until his fingers bled. Season 4, I think (perhaps the best one).

Re:Where's Boxy...

[julesh]

I'm not sure about all of those, but good job proving the GP's point: Buffy, Angel, Firefly and B5 all had most of their episodes written by a very small team.

it's = it is

[1u3hr]

the show has started it's second season

Sigh.

Re:it's = it is

[Forthan Red]

He was watching Lost in Space reruns the day they covered the difference between "its" and "it's" in school.

Re:it's = it is

[Dogtanian]

> > the show has started it's second season

> Sigh.

An apostrophe *can* indicate possession in most cases; but note that "its [second season]" is an exception to the rule; i.e.

"The man's car"
"The boy's toy"
"The Slashdotter's pr0n collection"
"The Slashdotters' pr0n collections"
"Its second season"

Why?

Re:it's = it is

[johnwroach]

because "it" is a pronoun.

stupid language...

Re:it's = it is

[Daniel Dvorkin]

"His car."

"The house is hers."

Etc.

IOW, as another poster pointed out, "it" is a pronoun, and pronouns don't take the possessive apostrophe. I'm not saying it makes sense, but that's the way it is.

Re:it's = it is

[Anonymous Coward]

The pronoun "one" takes a possessive apostrophe, as a "a room of one's own".

Re:it's = it is

[Rob_Bryerton]

Did you ever stop to think that you're corrections of other peoples' miss-speling's is just as annoying to us as the bad spelling and punctuation is too you?? Maybee its' just me, but somehow I doubt it.

Re:it's = it is

[KutuluWare]

Two reasons:

1) To prevent confusion with the contraction of "it is".

2) Because possessive pronouns do not follow this convention. The possessive nature of these words is implicit.

I find it somewhat odd that no one can ever remember the different between "its" and "it's", but you never see people say stuff like "He didn't take hi's medicine today.". His/her(s)/its are all the same part of speech.

Re:it's = it is

[Dogtanian]

Because "it's", short for "it is", trumps the possessive usage in this case.

What the *hell* are you talking about; or rather, what the hell did you think *I* was talking about?

"It's" is wrong if we're talking about "its second series"; I didn't claim that there should be an apostrophe there, nor did I disagree with that usage --> "It is".

I *did* however ask why "its second series" doesn't have an apostrophe like "the boy's car", etc. (and got the answers).

Re:it's = it is

[Dogtanian]

I find it somewhat odd that no one can ever remember the different between "its" and "it's", but you never see people say stuff like "He didn't take hi's medicine today."

Because "its" sounds like the "it" being discussed, whereas "his" doesn't sound like "he" ("hi" has a totally unrelated meaning), nor "her" like "she".

Re:it's = it is

[1u3hr]

Did you ever stop to think that you're corrections of other peoples' miss-speling's is just as annoying to us

There are so many trolls and crap flooders and assorted monomaniacs here that I find it hard to believe mine significantly degrades your experience, and if it does, tough. You can make me a "foe" and give foes a -6 on your scoring; you'll never see me again.

NB -- I hardly ever make a post correcting another poster's typos and grammatical errors; life is too short. I make enough typos myself. I do feel that the editors of this site, who collect a cheque for doing this, should be held to a basic standard of literacy, and pointing out their failure to do so may prod them to do so (a faint hope, I know). My seven-year-old daughter would not get a passing grade if she wrote as carelessly as they do.

Re:it's = it is

[elrous0]

Why?

It's what happens when you let a bunch of smelly pig farmers on a cold, rainy island develop a language. Can you really blame the Romans for leaving?

-Eric

Bring back Silver Panties!

[bubbaD]

We tend to forget the really bad stuff,but basically sci-fi television/movies has always been a refuge for hacks and wannabes.
Plan 9 from Outer Space can be legally downloaded http://www.archive.org/details/Plan9FromOuterSpace
Don't hold you're breath waiting for sci-fi to "pick-up." Just look for good shows, some of them will happen to fit the sci-fi genre!

The best thing about BG

[strider44]

The one thing I love about BG is that the spaceships are physically accurate. They have thrusters all over the ships in different directions to subtly change course and they conserve momentum. When an enemy is behind them they just use the thrusters to flip around and shoot backwards.

I remember cringing in Stargate when they expressed a ship's top speed in miles per hour.

Re:The best thing about BG

[Quack1701]

The thrusters my be realistic, however, any pilot with those bright lights shining in their face would be blind to the dog fight! Also, how many vipers can they lose from week to week before they start having a major resource issue?

Re:The best thing about BG

[drxray]

No, it's because space ships don't have a top speed! There's no friction to slow them down, they can accelerate forever; or at least until they run out of fuel.

Re:The best thing about BG

[drxray]

"Einstein disagrees with you ;)"

A spaceship can accelerate forever, and the stuff outside the windows will keep going past faster if you keep accelerating. When you get near light speed stuff comes at you at just under the speed of light, but the more accelerating you do the more length contraction occurs so you can i.e. cross the galaxy in less subjective time. It's just that for someone on Earth you'll take the same time to cross the galaxy whether it takes 500 subjective years or 500 subjective seconds.

Re:The best thing about BG

[RickPartin]

In the Podcast commentary the producer said they keep close track of how many Vipers still exist. He said they would work some sort of Viper reproduction in the second season.

Re:The best thing about BG

[Zak3056]

Also, how many vipers can they lose from week to week before they start having a major resource issue?

This is actually taken into account by the show. If you read the blog/listen to the podcasts, they mention that there are n many ships available, and no replacements magically appear. At some point, they will have to find a way to replenish them.

Re:The best thing about BG

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I think it's pretty clear that, except for the "jumps," the BSG universe is Newtonian -- i.e., no starship battles at "Warp 2.3" or whatever. And I rather like that the writers seem to have at least some idea of the sheer scale of interstellar space. (As opposed to the old series; I still remember the line, "Sir, the Galactica hasn't been pushed to light speed for some time," after they'd been hopping around various star systems.) The "we've lost the fleet!" subplot in the season 2 premiere was a bit contrived from a plotting POV, IMO, but believable and scary in and of itself.

Re:The best thing about BG

[Odocoileus]

NO, a ship can only go as fast as its propellent exits from the engine.

Re:The best thing about BG

[Monte]

Assuming, of course, that it's not interested in getting back to the carrier. Which would be a bad assumption for a fighter craft, I think :)

So 1/4 total fuel to get accelerate to "top speed", 1/4 to decelerate to zero, 1/4 for "top speed" back to the carrier, and the last 1/4 to keep from making a big mess on the flight deck :)

But your point is right on, given fuel constraints, there certainly is a "top speed".

(I guess the "maximum range" would depend on how big a lunch the pilot packs before they leave)

Re:The best thing about BG

[magarity]

No, it's because space ships don't have a top speed! There's no friction to slow them down

You seem to be mistaking space for something that's perfectly empty. The practical top speed of a spaceship is the max speed at which it can ward off the miscellaney particles floating around in space. A hydrogen atom at 150kmps relative velocity is a dangerous thing. If a spaceship can't deal with that, its top speed is less than 150kmps.

As for friction, perhaps you missed the article a couple of months back about Voyager slowing down because it exited the sol system's bowshock and was in interstellar space being slowed by all the particles therein?

Re:The best thing about BG

[ucblockhead]

Your assignment: take a five ton rock. Put it in a skating rink. Put on skates. Push against the rock. Notice how you move much faster than the rock.

Re:The best thing about BG

[Tremo]

The fighters in Babylon 5 also conserved momentum and would spin and shoot sideways and backwards.

I really liked that series.

Re:The best thing about BG

[Crayon Kid]

The one thing I love about BG is that the spaceships are physically accurate. They have thrusters all over the ships in different directions to subtly change course and they conserve momentum. When an enemy is behind them they just use the thrusters to flip around and shoot backwards.

Say, that's very clever... Umm... until you start thinking they should've better put some lasers all over the ships pointing in different directions... Then you realise you're talking about TV shows and commercial movies, which like to take miss Physics and miss Common Sense out back in the bushes, screw their brains out and leave them crying in shame in the woods, until a bear stumbles over them, horribly mauls them both and finally pisses all over their corpses (from different directions).

Re:The best thing about BG

[drxray]

kinetic energy = 0.5*mv^2 = 0.5*1.67e-27*(150000)^2 = 2e-17 joules i.e. not very much.

Hydrogen at that speed isn't going to blow a hole in your spaceship, though of course it could at highly relativistic speeds. Interestingly 2e-17 J is not far off being enough to ionise an atom, so if you have a ceramic hull I guess it might degrade it. But as far as kinetic energy goes dust is more of a problem.

But, yeah, OK, there is some friction in space.

Re:The best thing about BG

[trendyhendy]

Even small dust particles can be bad news. See, for example, the spaceship in Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth which uses a big block of ice as a shield.

Re:The best thing about BG

[magarity]

kinetic energy = 0.5*mv^2 = 0.5*1.67e-27*(150000)^2 = 2e-17 joules i.e. not very much.

The formula for jules needs meters per second, not miles (if you're from a metric using country, my apologies for the confusion over 'm'), so .8C (the speed I was aiming for) is:
.5 * 241401600^2 * 1.6x10^-24 (just the electron is 2x10^-27; don't forget the proton!) which comes to: 4.6x10^-8 Joules.

The average density of hydrogen atoms in interstellar space is .1 per cubic centimeter. I'm WAAAAY too lazy to work out how many hydrogen atoms a spaceship with a 10 meter diameter would hit in a second at that speed and will just leave it as an exercise for the reader. My guess is that it's in the tactical nuclear weapon range.

And as for anything big enough to be called "dust", well, if you have to ask, your spaceship isn't ready for it.

Re:The best thing about BG

[magarity]

Well, maybe I'm not too lazy; I get 872k Joules. What do you get?

Re:The best thing about BG

[Fishstick]

Pilots are apparently the more pressing shortage.

I think they ended up with more than their original compliment of fighters when the original fleet carriers were all destroyed and the fighters out in space had nowhere to go but Galactica, IIRC.

But yeah, they seem to lose a lot of them.

Reminds me of Star Wars when what, 3 or 4 fighters survived Yavin? Where does the alliance go to buy more in a galaxy controlled by the empire?

Re:The best thing about BG

[blindseer]

What I didn't like about that episode was the immediate Cylon invasion of the network while they were computing the new "jump" coordinates. They didn't seem to think of unplugging the Wi-Fi hub some one left running in the command center.

Re:The best thing about BG

[Grishnakh]

Say, that's very clever... Umm... until you start thinking they should've better put some lasers all over the ships pointing in different directions...

There's some problems with that. First, humans aren't very good at controlling projectile weapons in any direction other than that which they're looking: straight ahead. While it might be nice to have some sort of weapon pointing backwards in case there's a Cylon on their tail, they simply aren't going to able to aim it accurately.

Second, extra weapons add a lot of extra mass. For example, the cannons in modern jet planes carry a significant weight penalty, and more importantly the amount of ammunition they carry is limited to only 20-30 seconds' worth I believe, because ammunition is so heavy and takes a lot of space. For a very small, agile fighter craft, there simply isn't enough room for extra guns and their ammunition to be placing them in all directions.

It's really easier having guns pointing straight ahead and making the ships highly maneuverable so the pilots can quickly point them in any direction needed.

Re:The best thing about BG

[Feezle]

I thought the "we've lost the fleet" thing was pretty cool. I don't know how long "jumps" are supposed to be, but suppose you jump a lightyear or so and your direction is off by a degree. You'll end up about a 100 billion miles away from were you're supposed to be, and it will take your sensors days to detect the rest of the fleet. The writers do seem to have the scale thing right.

BTW, I love those old Navy "bitch boxes" (intercoms) that pass for communications gear on the bridge.

Re:The best thing about BG

[cbeaudry]

I beleive they used the computer systems on the planet surface to help plot their trajectory in 12 mins instead of 12 hours.

Doing so required them to leave themselves open to a cylon cyber-terrorist attack. =)

Hence why they setup all the firewalls and such.
As soon as they had the computing done, he did unplug the wifi underneath the desk no less, by pulling 4 plugs.

Re:WTF - Strange

[AndroidCat]

Use a fast pipe and snort the whole first season with P2P. Then everything will make perfect sense.

I love the new BG, but...

[jockm]

And for that matter Carnivale (one of Moore's other recent efforts). But if left with a free hand, do Moore's projects always have to have a messiah?

Re:I love the new BG, but...

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

But if left with a free hand...

Are you sure it's safe to say that on /.?

Re:I love the new BG, but...

[FullCircle]

Thanks, I didn't realize Carnivale was Moore's work.

I hated to see that show go off the air, but it does save me money. I don't need HBO anymore.

I have to say that Moore has my respect at this point. Three series he's had major influence are some of my all-time favorites: BSG, DS9 and Carnivale.

Re:I love the new BG, but...

[nickstance]

Carnivale (one of Moore's other recent efforts
Sorry, but Daniel Knauf was responsible for Carnivale (also one of my favorites) Gotta love The Little Man From Another Place

Re:I love the new BG, but...

[jockm]

Ron Moore was one of the writers of the show, and the executive producer

Re:I love the new BG, but...

[nickstance]

I realize that Ron Moore has an executive producer credit and co-wrote several episodes, but then again, MacGyver has an executive producer credit on SG-1 but that doesn't mean he has squat to do with the show (other than making O'Neill cool). All I was responding to was the statment that "... if left with a free hand, do Moore's projects always have to have a messiah?" I would think that the fact that Hawkins is a Messianic character is something that the creator of the show is responsible for (otherwise it is just a story about some carnies in the dust bowl).

Re:New SG-1

[strider44]

In what way is her accent strange mate?

SG Atlantis and Bstar Galactica

[Danathar]

After being disappointed when Babylon-5 and Farscape went away I remember wondering if there was EVER going to be another Sci-fi series like those two.

The BEST scifi (and fantasy) explores the human condition in situations that cannot or do not exist today. In this way an author is able to explore aspects of emotion and dichotomy by creating situations which bring seemingly unrelated ideas into conflict. Even in sci-fi with Aliens there will always be a "human" anthromorphic undertone or the Alien will have characteristics of Terran life (mental or physical since currently humans have no real evidence of what a REAL alien would look or think like). Ron Moore Understands this.

If you take out exploring the human condition...then you get a show with lots of cool equipment and places but is easily forgettable.

This is why I think sci-fi/fantasy is a VERY interesting genre. They are limited only by imagination...but are ALWAYS about humans (US) because they come from human imagination.

On a different track....I'm particularly impressed with SG Atlantis. Usually it takes a season or two for me to become "comfortable" with the characters (case in point...Voyager took 3 seasons)..but after just one season the characters on Atlantis have "jelled" and are interesting. This is a GOOD thing! I'm conflicted about them contacting earth so soon though it might have been more interesting if they had kept them back for a couple of seasons.

Its to be seen if the addition of the stars from Farscape will breath new life into Stargate SG-1...but I'm hopeful since both actors have shown they know their craft from Farscape. Remember that Law and Order has shown that a show can go on indefinitely if you rotate actors in over time that are good. I would not be surprised if SG-1 tries for this (or Atlantis).

Re:SG Atlantis and Bstar Galactica

[FullCircle]

When I heard about Atlantis, I didn't understand how they could spin off so late in the game. Now it looks like an attempt to build a safety net for the franchise knowing that RDA was leaving the show.

Finding a replacement for RDA had to be the worst job ever. He was the face and personality of the show. Bringing in Ben Browder seems like a good decision based on his acting personality. His cocky, slightly confused John Chriton character always reminded me of a younger, more tormented version of Jack from SG-1. Not having the rest of the cast immediately want to follow him was perfect. He will have to prove himself worthy of trust and friendship. As long as he is given a chance to grow his character on SG-1 like he did on Farscape and the SG-1 and Farscape fans can keep the shows separate I think it could work.

Bringing in Claudia Black might break the mix. Her character is vastly different than her Farscape character (other than the leather, not that I'm complaining). She's more like a smarter version of the Chianna(sp?) character, without the ticks. She's a loner who will do anything (legal or not, uses her sex appeal) to get what she wants or needs as opposed to a outwardly stern, inwardly insecure moral soldier. It's hard to pass up excellent acting tallent when it comes along, especially for a scifi show. Making her a supporting character was a good idea. Possibly after Browder is accepted she could join the main cast to ween in the Farscape actors a little at a time. There are plenty of good actors left from Farscape so I wouldn't be suprised to see more of them pop up on Atlantis or SG-1 in the future just as they have borrowed actors from Star Trek from time to time.

I have to say that the spin off idaea worked very well. Atlantis turned out different enough to allow unique story lines while still keeping the Stargate feel. The choice of actors was done well too. All of the primary cast are convincing, interesting and work well together. The male lead in Atlantis (sorry, don't know his name) could have been a viable replacement for RDA instead of Browder.

Overall, I think that both strategies will be successful. Not an easy thing to pull off.

Re:SG Atlantis and Bstar Galactica

[SSHGuru]

I am glad the contacted earth so early. One of my fears would be that this would be like Voyager... Gilligans Island in space. Every time they are close to contacting or getting home they come up with a storyline that makes them fail. Atlantis had the intelligence not to go this route which makes it a very good series.

Recycled Footage in BG

[Savage650]

My Dad insisted there was some footage from an old disaster movie or two tossed in there

Yep. There is (among other things) footage from the movie Silent Running. Watch for the colony ship with the Eco-Domes .. it looks a lot like the Valley Forge.

And, regrettably, there is the re-re-re-reused shot of a jettisoned dome being blown up. Unfortunately, that particular shot isn't just "random spare footage" but one of the key scenes of Silent Running. It makes me cringe every time ;-(

Re:Recycled Footage in BG

[cybpunks3]

I thought they shot a lot of new footage with the same model, though. I don't think it's all reused footage. A lot of it is motion control which didn't exist back then.

Sex education

[Anonymous Coward]

And one thing I will say for Glen Larson: putting Erin Gray in spandex ("Buck Rogers") was, indeed, friggin' genius. Kudos for that.

I was just a wee tyke when that show was on. I remember I was a confused little boy and couldn't figure out why my wee-wee got big and swollen whenever Erin came onscreen. So I asked my dad about it and he explained what was going on. If it hadn't been for Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century, my sex education probably wouldn't have happened for many years.

Re:Sex education

[luna69]

Oh come one, someone mod this back up.

This is funny, unless you're a prude/mormon/granny/etc.

Bah to the SG-1 retooling

[Dozix007]

As an avid Stargate fan (yes, that is right, I could probably retell every episode, and yes... I am probably bias) I have to defend my favorite series from the little "stale" quip by CmdrTaco.

The view of SG-1 as stale is ridiculous... I think most viewers don't find appeal with it because the show WAS not turning into the next generation MTV\OC\BS crap. I personally am a big fan of Season 5-8, unlike some others. I think the sarcastic humor and Sci-Fi mix is awsome. I am not a fan, however, of the attempted OCafication (a word, which means teeny-bopperafication) of Stargate with the perpetual appeasement of 16 year old pale boys who won't watch a show if it doesn't have some reference to sex every sixty-nine seconds.

Re:Bah to the SG-1 retooling

[sculder]

I have to agree. I think SG-1 is missing something now that I have seen the first ep of the 9th season (missing a lot, actually). One glaring omission is the theme music! I am all for change, but using that "theme" after having the beautiful theme it had for eight years is just lame.

Since Richard Dean Anderson is pretty much leaving SG-1, Amanda Tapping off for a while having a baby, they had to bring in people to fill the gap. Beau Bridges doesn't do it for me. His brother Jeff would have been a better choice. However, I recognize that he may not want to do television. If Michael Shanks was not on board anymore, I would've probably skipped watching it until I knew at least Amanda was back. Chris Judge is spectacular, but if he were the only original character left, I can't justify watching it.

If they wanted to pull the Farscape people to the SG-1 fold, they didn't do a great job with the first ep of SG-1 this season. Part of the appeal of Crichton's character was his cocky attitude. His character in SG-1 was just trying too damn hard to be liked. If the Farscape fans haven't already latched onto SG-1, they probably won't now with the characterization they have made for Ben Browder and Claudia Black. Claudia's (hopefully just recurring) character on SG-1 is just plain annoying - almost as bad as Jar Jar in ST:Ep I. Will ya stop it talking about making babies and having disappointing sex with Jackson? Is that a ploy to draw in the more raunchy crowd? We didn't need any of that to have a great show before, we don't need it now, thank you. BTW, I am not a prude - love the sexual power that Number Six holds over Baltar in BG.

I think the job that Richard Dean Anderson did with the O'Neill character is a big reason that this show took off the way it did. I am aware that RDA wants to spend more time with his family and that is his decision, not the network's. However, without him, I am unsure how it will continue. I hope it doesn't turn out to be like the last season of the X-Files...almost a complete waste of time.

Re:Bah to the SG-1 retooling

[FullCircle]

I agree with most of your comments, but I have to admit (as another rabid fan who owns and knows every eppisode) that parts of season 7 and most of 8 got a little more off track with each try. The end of season 8 was a train-wreck. It was corny and should have been done as a one-parter goof eppisode.

Possibly this was due to RDAs being pregressively MIA and seeming onset of alzheimer? Tealcs(sp?) jive turkey hair and sudden personality change?

The earlier seasons were far smarter. I never put my finger on the OCafication, but you make good points.

Maybe with a renewed lead (IMHO, a worthy replacement) season 9 will not disappoint.

Re:Bah to the SG-1 retooling

[emarkp]

I'm an avid SG-1 fan and I think you're on crack. Season 8 was desperately trying to figure out what it was trying to do. I thought the Claudia Black ep in season 8 was the single worst hour of scifi I'd seen in a while (but then I gave up on Voyager and Enterprise fairly early).

I tried to watch Farscape a few times but couldn't get interested. I only know Black's name because someone else mentioned it, and I find her character intensely irritating. The entire character seems to be pandering to the same crowd that 7-of-9 was in Voyager. If she becomes a regular, I'll probably lose interest in the show. Oh well, with SG Atlantis and Monk both on Friday nights, that's one less hour of Tivo for the weekend that's already got some good viewing.

Re:Bah to the SG-1 retooling

[Nothinman]

Not that I dislike Claudia's character at all, but I'm 99% sure that Claudia will only be on the show for the first half of the season. She's mainly there because Amanda is out on maternity leave.

Also, Farscape was probably the best Sci-Fi show ever. The problem was that it turned out to be almost one big story, so you have to watch it straight through from the beginning to understand what's going on.

Re:Bah to the SG-1 retooling

[barc0001]

The entire character seems to be pandering to the same crowd that 7-of-9 was in Voyager.

Yeah, because that's never been done on SG-1 before, right?

Claudia Black's character in SG-1 is a con artist, and uses the sex appeal to help work it. Nothing wrong with that as motivation for her to dress like that. As for worst episode of season 8, I'm going to have to go with the "holodeck malfunction"-esque plot of the one where Teal'c is trapped in that game. Or, from a "what the hell are you on?!" moment bad, Carter playing along with RepliCarter enough to give the replicators the ability to resist the Ancient weapon was terrible. That SHOULD have been, Teal'c and Carter step through the gate to to meet RepliCarter, Teal'c raises gun, BOOM! end of that threat.

Bright lights in the helmets

[Quack1701]

Thus far I am enjoying the BSG series, but I wonder why they feel the need to put bright lights in the helmets of the pilots. They would not be able to see a thing and the cylons would easily destroy every viper.

Re:Bright lights in the helmets

[Starsmore]

Really? I always thought it was like a forcefield or energy shield or something to protect them from the rigors of space, because it sure didn't look like those faceplates had actual faceplates. :)

SG-1 Stale?

[Blitzenn]

I loved Richard Dean Anderson in Star Gate. If anything, I think they are going to have to pull off some briliant writing to save the show now. I do like that they stole the Farscape cast for the sho and that is a plus, but without that Anderson humor, well, it won't be the same.

I also don't put an once of credit into anything that blowhard Richard Hatch has to say. What a dork he is.

Re:SG-1 Stale?

[0111 1110]

I loved Richard Dean Anderson in Star Gate.

Are you old enough to remember MacGyver? I just couldn't give Stargate: SG1 a chance due to picturing him as a character from a painfully bad 80s network TV show. Just seeing him makes me cringe. Ouch. I also don't tend to jump at watching TV series based on bad movies. The least the writers can do is come up with a semi-original storyline. The same is true for ST:E. I can't watch it without picturing Scott Bakula in Quantum Leap, yet another painfully bad 80s TV show, alongside his ridiculous cigar-wielding sidekick (Dean Stockwell). Both series should have avoided these well known actors. There are plenty of good, unknown actors. The younger audience won't recognize them anyway and the older audience will be reaching for their vomit bags. I just couldn't get past it for either series.

Re:SG-1 Stale?

[BoneFlower]

Honestly, it was getting tiring. If you've watched the whole series like I have(I've missed maybe five episodes), you would see that RDA is getting really fucking bored with it. His heart isn't in it, this was showing way back in Season 7.

It's about time to replace him. He was good, but his time had passed. Trying to get him as a significant part of the show for another season just wouldn't have worked.

Re:SG-1 Stale?

[cybpunks3]

You can call them bad, but MacGyver ran for a long time and was quite popular. Quantum Leap was also popular within its target demo, although I do think Bakula was miscast for Enterprise. The Quantum Leap character was always somewhat of a nerd and Bakula, despite having a decent physique, is the kind of "sensitive nerd" type.

No, they're using zoom...

[Cyno01]

Watch a tv show, a movie, anything nowadays, nobody uses zoom. I think it works for these sci-fi shows, when the distances they're 'shooting' are in the hundreds of kilometers. You try to hold a camera steady enough to not get any shakes at that distance. I suppose you're also annoyed that the ships dont woosh through space like tie fighters either?

Re:No, they're using zoom...

[Rob_Bryerton]

I think it works for these sci-fi shows, when the distances they're 'shooting' are in the hundreds of kilometers.

That argument sort of falls flat when the Parkinson-cam is used in every action shot, including internal shots in small rooms... I agree it looks cool for the long outside (space) shots, but otherwise it is very distracting, sometimes almost inducing motion sickness.

False memories

[Werrismys]

Incidentally, I've been watching Galactica for last week or so.

There is no "fire in every episode." The first 10 or so episodes are painful on the effects department, but then the effects improve dramatically.

They do reuse old footage in every battle. Hell: during the credits they show the same explosion twice! But it gets a lot better mid-season.

Re:False memories

[ericdano]

Indeed. But don't go looking for the series in the 80s where they find Earth. Its a total DOG.

Re:New SG-1

[cbreaker]

I thought the last couple seasons of SG-1 were really good.

We know the characters. They've developed them all very well. So, they were able to concentrate on the story more instead of character development.

I've always liked how they continue to bring back the re-occuring characters. It really gives you a feeling that the show is "bigger" in a way.

But I like Ben Brower and I like Claudia Black, so I definately think they will bring new life into the show, keeping it going.

The show has definately changed though. Although it's always been a Science Fiction show, it has kept it's feet on the ground of viability. However, now there's spaceships, shields, and super space guns. It's fully engulfed in the SciFi space drama now.

It does make sense though; they've aquired technologies and made friends enough to build space ships and such.

It's a good progession of the show.

Starlost

[kwandar]

I'm not sure anyone remembers the Starlost series - only about 16 episodes. Poorlyl imlemented unfortunately, but the concept was really great. It would be nice to see a revival of the Starlost, done properly.

Re:Starlost

[fmayhar]

And if you have the misfortune to actually see one of the episodes (I promise you that you will only ever want to see one), look for the "created by" credit.

"Cordwainer Bird."

HE had a great story about the show and his involvement in same in the afterword to Edward Bryant's novelization of his original script, Phoenix Without Ashes, that went into detail. A truly archetypal story of what shouldn't ever happen.

More at the Wikipedia entry, among other places.

Re:Starlost

[Anomalyst]

Ah, yes. Starlost. It starred Keir Dullea who portrayed "David Bowman", protagonist in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I have a penchent for amusing myself by answering the phone, deeping my voice and asking "May I help you?" which was the prompt from the library interface and have never had anybody question or identify the source of the phrase and share in my amusement.

Re:Starlost

[kwandar]

I remember him - the fuzzy looking guy!! :)

Re:Starlost

[uberdave]

I'd love to get a clip of that. I have a friend who works at CTV, and he says the originals are stored in a vault somewhere, but he doesn't have access to them. I loved the ship, too. It takes three days to walk across one of the biodomes. The article lists it as being 200 miles (over 320km) long.

By the way, the AI starts off with "May I be of... assistance?" before going to the "May I... help you?".

Re:BSG Homebrew Game

[Tuna_Shooter]

For those of you that are interested, a buddy of mine is building a "homebrew" version of the old BSG. Kinda cool.... find it here http://www.aaa-multimedia.com/colonial%20warrior.h tm/

Re:BSG Homebrew Game

[Tuna_Shooter]

Or here http://www.aaa-multimedia.com/colonialwarrior.htm/

Re:Retooling?

[Dachannien]

RDA has been only marginally involved with the series since he moved to Los Angeles (the series is shot in Vancouver, BC). I say this even though he was the lead cast member at the time. The writers were somewhat hamstrung by RDA's tendency to phone in his performances as of late, and having him shuffled off to a distant supporting role may restore to them the latitude they need to take the series in a new direction (heh heh, I love that joke). RDA's billing as producer won't have any real impact on the creative process of the show.

I was a bit concerned by Amanda Tapping's relative absence from the season premiere, though. I'm hoping it's just related to her pregnancy and she'll be back in full force later.

good press

[globaljustin]

this 'next big thing' you speak of just may be the Sci-Fi channel and its original programing.

'Battlestar Galactica' and 'SG:1' aren't really my favorite shows of all time, but they are well-produced. Getting good press like this frees up the show creators to make better shows.

If the Sci-fi channel plays its cards right, it could get permission to do the next Star Trek or something.

It's Frackin' Good!

[mixmasterjake]

Speaking of re-use, is anyone else starting to cringe at the number of times they use the word "frackin'"? (for those not watching the show, apparently in place of the f--- word)

Re:It's Frackin' Good!

[badboy_tw2002]

Apparently you don't know any sailors. Ever hear the term "swear like a sailor?" While Sci-Fi doesn't want to ruin its chances of advertizing or syndication to broadcast (where they can't say "fuck"), I think its a pretty cool way to keep the language "realistic" (Yes, people swear, OMG! Especially soldiers! Heavens to betsy! We can show people blowing themselves up, but don't say a naughty word!) and pays hommage to the original series.

Re:It's Frackin' Good!

[mixmasterjake]

Yes, I'm a bible thumpin' ninny offended by the use of the word "frackin'" on Battlestar Galactica and hanging around on slashdot!

I meant that it's the lameness of the word "frackin" that bugs me. The word frackin' just doesn't have anything near the power of good, old-fashioned "fuckin'" I think it would be more powerful if they just left that word out altogether. "Damn it, Jim!" sounds more profane. Frackin' seems more appropriate for, say, a Scooby Doo cartoon.

Amanda Tapping preggers

[coyote-san]

Many people seem to have missed a critical fact. Amanda Tapping was pregnant and was unavailable for filming for the first five episodes of this season.

She was starting to show at the end of the last season. That's why "nerd Sam" was always wearing a loose sweater and even seemed a little chunky. It was to cover her belly, not (just) characterization.

Claudia Black will be around at the start of the season, but she's not a permanent addition. At least not yet. She would make an interesting addition since she can be far wilder than every other regular character.

Re:Amanda Tapping preggers

[aka_big_wurm]

Thank you some one else had to know this besides me

And SG1 was not stale maybe a slump but its still my fav show.

My two cents on Claudia Black is, what the big deal? She looks nice and talk about sex alot, I am not a horny teen boy any more so her bits are not funny...

Re:Amanda Tapping preggers

[Anonymous Coward]

> Many people seem to have missed a critical fact. Amanda Tapping was pregnant and was unavailable for filming for the first five episodes of this season.

So, umm, someone's tapping Amanda?

/one ticket to hell, please.

Re:New SG-1

[ericdano]

Oh my, totally cool. Ben and Claudia. Back together. Talk about chemistry.

I'd love to see them have a SG team with Ben, Claudia, Christopher, and Michael. That would be most excellent.

Ben is going to take the show up a notch or two. It's obvious already.

Re:New SG-1

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Yeh, there are a few problems with Stargate. But I love how they actually try to do strategy with it. In how many seasons of TNG/Voyager did they never just beam the damned photon torpedo onto the enemy ship's bridge? Assistant Deputy Director of the FBI Skinner as a starship captain?

Also, can someone explain to me how the hell they can fly to Atlantis, when it takes insane energy requirements to open a stargate wormhole?

Sci-Fi is lost, but starting to be found

[Shihar]

I think one of the problems that Sci-Fi is running into is that viewers better understand what is fantasy and what is realistic. Sci-fi can take one of two directions. You can either go in the Star Wars direction where you basically throw realism to the wind and have World War II fighters dog fighting each other in space, or you go the 2001 a Space Odyssey rout. Going the 'realistic' rout is hard. How do you deal with the fact that given just another 100 years computers are going to be significantly smarter then humans? Hell, how do you deal with the fact that there simply might not BE any humans? It is a tough place to write it, and I imagine an even harder place to film in.

BSG is great because it has managed to error more on the side of 2001 then Star Wars. Sure, you can poke holes at it, but for the most part they strive to make a world you believe could exist. I don't know about you, but I watched the first season, and every time the humans won, I was left thinking, "Nah, they didn't win, the Silons are just fucking with them for their own purposes." I believe that the Silons are smarter and better then the humans, which is how it should be. You could almost call BSG an exploration of a Post-Human universe.

Whatever the case, I think sci-fi writers have their work cut out, especially if they don't take the slap stick Star Wars rout. You already see them starting to work around these problems with the sudden glut of post singularity and post human books coming out. Given a few more years we might see some truly great stuff starting to hit books, and eventually the TV and movies.

Re:New SG-1

[Anonymous Coward]

However, now there's spaceships, shields, and super space guns. It's fully engulfed in the SciFi space drama now.

It does make sense though; they've aquired technologies and made friends enough to build space ships and such.

I think a lot of it has to do with their budget too. :) If you watch the first season of SG-1, it really wasn't that impressive graphics-wise. There weren't any major battles that involved a lot of graphics, just a few shots of a mothership and some gliders every so often. But if you watch this first episode of season 9 again, take note of the amount of CG in the flashback sequences.

What I think really makes you feel the way you feel is that everything in the series--except maybe the stargate itself--began grounded on reality, so to speak. A bunch of Air Force people jump through this wormhole not knowing where or when they'll end up. As the series progressed, the story featured technology that's supposedly developed by the military based on items the characters had brought back. While this makes sense story-wise, it's more or less departed from reality. Now, instead of going into new worlds with just our guns, we also have spaceships that are ours (rather than stolen from some alien civilization's) to lend us support.

Atlantis is sort of like that, which perhaps contributes to why it isn't quite as appealing as SG-1. That, and SG-1's first few seasons (the rockier ones) were on Showtime, and so by the time it hit mainstream television, it was already mature.

Re:BSG Homebrew Game

[ManoMarks]

And now it's gone. Did you kill his site? Or did he quickly pull it down?

Re:He's full of it

[SisyphusShrugged]

I suppose the cheap looking pseudo-medieval outfits they endlessly recycle on SG1 are infinitely superior.

Re:New SG-1

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

So they can't return, until Atlantis gives back the ZPM?

Re:New SG-1

[Gilgaron]

In Star Trek, shields blocked transporters. If the enemy didn't have shields up, there's no need to beam the torpedo aboard anyway. You almost never see point defense in Star Trek battles.

Re:He's full of it

[Jasin Natael]

The BSG similarities are because it's not really an alien civilization, just an alienated one. The original BSG was based rather strongly in Mormon mythos. It is from this that the Mormon "Kolob", the planet where God resides and from whence all human and alien civilizations are spawned, became Kobol, mother planet for the thirteen colonies (including the distant Earth).

You can draw whatever conclusions you would like from there, but the whole point of the (original) series was to draw as many parallels as possible and make the colonists truly seem like long-lost brothers adrift in the larger universe. While some of the fashion doesn't fit in a strict Sci-Fi sense, it makes the characters seem decidedly less alien, which is one of the most basic goals of the series.

I do, however, agree that SG-1 isn't really stale. It's gotten to a point that most other shows will never reach -- one where a contemporary government has become somewhat comfortable with the presence of alien races, and where the actors have been on the show long enough to actually pull off the appropriate level of familiarity. It's still got quite a few fluff episodes and the acting isn't as good on a dramatic level as some other shows, but it's definitely far better than we've come to expect from Sci-Fi on TV.

Jasin Natael

Toss Hollywood

[rctay]

Farscape was filmed in Australia, SG1 and SGA in Canada, and BSGv2 in the UK. May be getting away from the stale LA crap helps. The point was to cut costs, but maybe it had another effect. SoCal is enough to suck the life out of anything.

Re:Toss Hollywood

[The Mgt]

BSG2K is filmed in Canada ISTR.

Re:Toss Hollywood

[barc0001]

Yes, down the street from my house, as a matter of fact, in Burnaby B.C.

Re:BSG Homebrew Game

[KDR_11k]

No, he added a / after the filename which makes the URL invalid. Correct is http://www.aaa-multimedia.com/colonialwarrior.htm.

battleStar

[Deliveranc3]

I'm worried because the plot seems to be painting itself into a corner plot wise.

I'm worried about thing....

computer network on BSG?

[cashman73]

Overall, I enjoyed the first episode of BSG season 2. But I can't seem to understand the writer's logic of how the cylons could infiltrate the computer network that Lt. Cmdr. Gata set up for solving the hyperspace problem and locating the fleet. It seems to me like they just set up a simple network with small amount of PCs, connected by wires (no "wi-fi", or the BSG equivalent). If that's the case, then how the frack would the cylons even know that there was a network to hack into?!?!

Perhaps they were able to detect some type of electromagnetic signature of the computers connected to it and break in from there, but if they were able to do that, why couldn't they just attack each one of the galactica's computers separately, several episodes ago during the original battle?

Maybe Boomer put some kind of bug in the computer system? Or perhaps the cylons are just super Xc3113n7 l337 h4Xor5! ;-)

Re:computer network on BSG?

[KutuluWare]

It seems to me like they just set up a simple network with small amount of PCs, connected by wires (no "wi-fi", or the BSG equivalent). If that's the case, then how the frack would the cylons even know that there was a network to hack into?!?!

One of the key points in the pilot episode of the mini series was that Galactica's way antiquated computer equipment is the very reason it survived the Cylon attacks.

The more advanced, newer battlestars had complex networked computer systems. Perhaps not quite "sentient and speaking with the voice of the ship's chief nurse" advanced, but well beyond what Galactica does. The cylons are able to take over the ship's computer systems, and any other electronic stuff in the vicinity, from a good distance.

Galactica's systems are all essentially running standalone, with the humans providing the required communications between them. Think of the difference between a dozen PCs on the Internet vs. a dozen on a Sneakernet -- which group's getting compromised first?

The implication is that the Cylons, as soon as they get within thinking distance of the Galactica, begin trying to infiltrate it's computer systems. Their efforts are generall fruitless because the only systems they can manage to get into aren't connected to any critical weapons/nav/support systems. Once Gata hooked them all together to maximize Galactica's computing power, the Cylons noticed and started their assault.

Re:computer network on BSG?

[KutuluWare]

infiltrate it's computer systems

And before anyone yells at me, yes, this is a typo (from some way-to-fast editing), and should be "its". :x

Re:computer network on BSG?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not forget the miniseries. We know that Galactica runs Baltar's programming on at least one of its computers but that it's not networked. They made a point to tell us that. We also know that Six got into the defense mainframes and presumably from there could have planted anything into all the systems Baltar had access to. It's not that the Cylons "think" in, as one poster suggested, or necessarily even hack in ... it's all there, an idle daemon, just waiting.

Re:computer network on BSG?

[Pliny]

That and there's a buffer overflow in the Galactica's targeting systems that the Cylons haven't gotten around to posting to Bugtraq yet...

Re:computer network on BSG?

[RoboProg]

Good summmary. Too bad you got scored a 0, due to no previous clout. That's life...

Re:computer network on BSG?

[jmauro]

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes,
And other science facts
Just repeat to yourself,
"It's just a show, I should really just relax".

Re:He's full of it

[Teancum]

I've commented earlier that the 1970's version was Mormon, and this new version is American. From what I see, it is heavily inspired by American culture, including presidential succession, civilian vs. military conflicts, environmental fears, and general attitudes toward personal liberties (both good and bad). Only very minor vestages remain from the original series, mainly the underlying plot line that can be summarized in about 50 words or less.

As far as SG-1 getting stale, I would have to agree more or less with you on many points. With Jack O'Neil as a Brigadier, the SG-1 team is more his personal staff and Lt. Col. Carter his XO. This is an interesting dynamic that makes it harder to write the dramatic Star Trek TOS-style episodes of going to a new planet every week, and instead the story arcs have to cover several episodes now...even across several seasons. Old enemies occasionally come up, and in this case they really are old enemies and not supposedly something "made up" to be like an old enemy. Apothos really needs to have another come back sometime soon (to describe a multi-season story arc), and the Replicators havn't been totally dealt with either.

Few TV series, much less a SciFi series, ever make it this far in terms of the number of episodes they have filmed. In many ways it is breaking new ground just because they now have to deal with the damage they have left behind in previous episodes.

BSG RAWKES

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read most of the posts and here's my observations:

1) I hated the new BSG when I first saw it - mostly due to the fact it is NOT "Battlestar Galactica" - it just has the same name. Now I love it because it stands on it's own - I just wish it didn't carry the name BSG.

2) Comments about reuse in shots for the original BSG... didn't you guys ever watch The A-Team? That same damn jeep flipped over 2000 times! Not to mention there's a "B" Sci-Fi movie from the 80's that actually bought all the original space dogfight footage from the original BSG and reused it for their own story line... I wish I could remember the name.

3) You have to realize, the original BSG was a fictional excursion in a religious universe. It was reportedly also based largely (and loosely) on the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS / Mormon's)... I'll let you do your own research into how much and in what way. I guess you could say it's based on Mormon doctrine in much the same way that the Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card is...

4) The new version still carries the religious theme, but in a current pop culture scientology sort of way if you ask me.

5) I'm an idiot for numbering my thoughts.

Re:BSG RAWKES

[Gerynar]

As to the last portion of point 2, the name of the movie is "Space Mutiny". I had the misfortune of seeing bits and pieces of it when it was on a late-late movie show. From what I could tell, it made the original BSG look very good. (From a character/plot view) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096149/IMDb info about Space Mutiny

Re:BSG RAWKES

[dick johnson]

>>It was reportedly also based largely (and loosely) on the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS / Mormon's)...

Yeah. Apparently, Cobol is the planet where Mormons claim that the god of this planet originated. It's a long story... but essentially, they believe god to be a big man who became a god by following certain principals only revealed by the LDS church.

As a result, they think they too can become gods someday, if they follow the LDS church rules and rituals (they'll even get their own planet to rule and will have plural wives in the afterlife. They believe in one god (for this earth), but they believe there are many gods in the universe.

Plural

[Granis]

Could it be that most (all?) pronouns don't have a plural form with an ending s, so an apostrophe is not needed to distinguish from possessive and plural like it is for most nouns.

Re:a bit overhyped

[Bones3D_mac]

You must have missed much of the exterior attack sequences on the BSG. That level of animation is neither cheap nor easy to create. As much hype as this show gets now, why would the budget for it be any less than that of a lot of shows on any other network?

The whole "less is more" philosophy has worked well for science fiction in the past, why is it any different now? Would the "Alien" movies be nearly as terrifying if the viewer always sees the alien before it attacks its victims?

Aside from that, I have a feeling this idea that the "cylons look like us" may be indirectly inspired by everything going on in our world since 9/11. There is now a common paranoia in this country that an enemy lies within that looks just like everyone else, but can attack at any time. In turn, BSG is playing on this new paranoia, which is made effective by hitting the ball a little too close to home.

Re:Don't count your chickens yet..

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

Could you please refrain from posting spoilers out in the open?

I only read the very first sentence of your post before stopping.

If I had mod points I'd mod you down. Not because of the content of your post, but because of your carelessness and lack of respect for other people wanting to preserve their excitement by not reading up on spoilers.

Anyway, thanks a lot. I'm sure I'm not the only one to be miffed.

Re:Retooling?

[maxpublic]

She will. She won't be in the first five eps (apart from vidphone) but after that she'll be back full-time. And looking hot, now that the pregnancy has put some meat back on her bones!

Max

Re:New SG-1

[Akaihiryuu]

Simple. The Prometheus and the Daedalus both have Asgard hyperdrives. The Daedalus could've easily made it to Atlantis without the ZPM (in fact, in season 8 they tried to send the Prometheus once, they just ended up getting sidetracked/damaged). The whole reason they used the ZPM was it gave the hyperdrive a bit of a boost that let them get there a little faster. They were in a hurry because of the Wraith attack. IIRC they said it would take something like 8 days to get there normally, whereas with the ZPM they cut it to 3/4 days. Atlantis probably isn't much further from Earth than the Asgard home galaxy is, and they can cross that distance pretty quickly. The Daedalus will be making regular trips between Earth and Atlantis. In fact, the first episode of this season of SG-1 happens quite awhile after the season opener of Atlantis. The Daedalus was back at Earth again (having dropped off some stuff Atlantis sent back after the opener), ready to leave for Atlantis again. The Daedalus and crew will be making appearances on both series.

Re:Retooling?

[Snaller]

I've that she will be somewhat absent for the first 5 episodes because of the RL pregnancy, yes.

Re:New SG-1

[silentbozo]

Interestingly enough, the idea of using transporters to deploy photon torpedos was explored in one of the many Star Trek books (The Kobayashi Maru). I wondered why they didn't use nukes to screen the enemy's movements in the season opener of Atlantis - set the nukes on timed, or remote detonation, use the Asgard beam technology to drop nukes in front of each of the Wraith ships, and time detonation simultaneously. Especially given that there were 12 enemy ships vs. Daedaleus. Either that, or use multiple nukes on a single ship to overwhelm their shields - get it inside their point defense network, but outside the influence of whatever tech they're using to block the Asgard transport beam.

Re:The best thing about BG *SPOILER*

[uberdave]

If so, maybe they should rename it the Phoenix.

Re:Planethopping done right.

[mikael]

It was an informative series with good SFX, but the plot line for each episode seem to be:

Land on a planet or major moon in the solar system, send astronauts on a walkabout mission that involves travelling to a destination more than half a mile away from the command module, and then lose or nearly lose an astronaut during this time. Repeat this as many times as there are planets and astronauts.

There really wasn't any justification on sending the astronauts to walk such distances (especially given the atmospheric conditions) except for additional drama.
It would have been better if the astronauts had been given a planetary rover to explore the area, rather than being lost from exhaustion or other reason.

Re:New SG-1

[KwKSilver]

I LOVE Claudia Black. What's his name is okay, too.

Je t'aime, Claudia.

Re:a bit overhyped

[cybpunks3]

--
Aside from that, I have a feeling this idea that the "cylons look like us" may be indirectly inspired by everything going on in our world since 9/11. There is now a common paranoia in this country that an enemy lies within that looks just like everyone else, but can attack at any time. In turn, BSG is playing on this new paranoia, which is made effective by hitting the ball a little too close to home.
--

No, it's an idea that's been done to death. The closest near relative would be the War of the Worlds TV series, which did it for the same cost-cutting reason.

BTW, I'm not sure how "paranoid" it is. You can argue statistical probability all you want, but look at the London bombings. The bombers were UK nationals.

I'm sure the world would be a lot better if we just stopped worrying about this and did nothing, right?

I'm glad i'm not the only one.

[Confessed Geek]

That one was irking me too. Run some cat5 and wrap lead foil around it for goodness sake. I thought the old BS didn't even HAVE computers, and that was the whole point of why it survived. Good overall episode but they need to get a computer guy on staff to do sanity checks.

wtf SG1 stale???

[bonezed]

dunno what planet you're from, but it was far from stale.

Sure there were some lame shows, but overall it was still good

new series of all 3 shows (BSG, SG:A and SG1) look really good too

Gah! It's a TV show, not a documentary

[DragonHawk]

"The one thing I love about BG is that the spaceships are physically accurate."

Oh geez, not this again.

Yah, they show some thruster exhaust. Whoopie-do. This does not mean the portrayal of space flight is realistic. The biggest glaring problem is that if you accelerate continuously with a big main engine, then half-way there, you have to flip around and decelerate with the same big main engine. So you always approach your destination backwards. But you never see that on TV or in movies. It's too weird looking to flatlanders like us.

I don't consider this a problem with BSG. It's a TV show; it's supposed to look cool, not be precisely realistic. But I don't go around gleefully claiming how good it is, either.

Re:New SG-1

[cbreaker]

I like how Atlantis isn't just a spin-off and that's that - I was afraid of that because of the whole "we can't get back home" thing. I think they realized people didn't want another Star Trek Voyager, so they connected the two series and I think they'll leave them inter-twined to some degree. It makes sense; they shoot both series on the same sets, or at least the same campus.

It keeps things interesting. And that's what us SciFi fans like - something that's interesting. We can forgive minor plot errors and things that could never happen but we'll never forgive an unimaginative show.

Re:New SG-1

[cbreaker]

Yea man, she's awesome. I hope to see her in shows for a long time to come.

And I love her accent - it's british/austrailian but it's a little different.

Re:New SG-1

[cbreaker]

Yea, it would have been a good idea if they nuked all the ships at once, but like any SciFi thing, you could explain why they couldn't.

It seemed like it took a lot of work to set up one of the transports, so by the time they got the nuke onto the second or third ship they might have been able to eject them or something - thus destroying no ships. If they layed them in front of the ships, they would have been spotted immediately and simple maneuvered out of the way. Or shot them.

They only had to use one nuke to blow up the ships - more then one per ship wouldn't have made much difference since the explosion wouldn't effect the neighboring ships.

But, this is why I like SciFi =) Because you can think about these possibilites.

Re:Two Points...

[cybpunks3]

TV is a collaborative medium. When you tilt at windmills as an individual you usually don't get anywhere, even with a lot of fans behind you, since the insiders, the bean-counters, they decide what gets the green-light.

Richard Hatch has to put food on the table. He's done a lot of lowly things, like adult education acting workshops. He currently does these cruises which I assume are like conventions on water where the fans get to poke at you for days on end. Some years back I read an interview with him where the author said he lives in a guesthouse someplace. The guy doesn't have a lot of money.

The guy took BSG so seriously that he attempted to kind of become the spiritual father of it, above and beyond Glen Larson. He wrote BSG novels. He thought he knew better about how to take the franchise. But he didn't have the rights to the show. He couldn't claim to be the creator. So it was a loser's gamble.

units

[drxray]

Kilomiles per second? Wow...

Also, that formula takes kilograms for the mass. So 1.67e-27 kg (1 atomic mass unit) is right (here).

I'll have a go at the rest if I get bored at work.

It already has

[elrous0]

In personally think years from now, the Ron Moore-created version of Battlestar Galactica will go down as one of the truly great sci-fi TV series of all time

Even if the series suddenly turned to complete crap (and I seriously doubt it), its miniseries and first season alone would still merit it being called the best science fiction series ever made.

-Eric

JAG was a huge recycler of action footage

[WRXFiles]

Watch the first couple of seasons of JAG. If you watch action movies, you'll recognise a lot of the action scenes used to create JAG

Re:I hate soap operas

[Kalvos]

Wow. I guess critics of sci-fi sacred cows get modded as trolls, no matter that my criticism is legitimate and no one has answered it. Like soap operas, BSG is a way to pass the time, I suppose. Big ideas aren't easy.

Dennis