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Battlestar Galactica DVD Movie In the Works?

Philias writes "Although Battlestar Galactica has been going down in ratings and has yet to get picked up for another season, the sales of its DVDs has got Universal thinking of a Direct-To-Video Movie. GeekMonthly.com is reporting that plans are afoot for a film that will bridge the gap between Galactica and the new spinoff 'Caprica.' The film would be shot in March during the usual hiatus between seasons. The big difference between this and the mini-series and other seasons would be that this would be sold on DVD before being aired on the SciFi channel."

202 comments

  1. awww... by markild · · Score: 1, Funny
    The film would be shot in March [...]
    Nawww... On first read I saw on Mars.

    What an disappointment!
    --
    Scully: Should we arrest David Copperfield?
    Mulder: Yes we should, but not for this.
    1. Re:awww... by William+Robinson · · Score: 1
      And to all you grammar Nazis out there, the "an" was of course the result of too much crack.

      Oh, I thought you wrote 'what an appointment' first, and later decided to add 'dis':P

  2. Interesting by agent+dero · · Score: 3, Funny

    "plans are afoot for a film that will bridge the gap between Galactica and the new spinoff 'Caprica.' The film would be shot in March during the usual hiatus between seasons."

    "Unfortunately, nobody will be paid for any part of it."

    --
    Error 407 - No creative sig found
  3. Re:Slashdot obsolete? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    In Solviet Slashdot, karma fucks YOU!

  4. Rips by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Cool, so we can get high quality DVD rips *before* the shitty TV rips. That'll help my ratios.

    1. Re:Rips by SpooForBrains · · Score: 1

      What a bizarre comment. My experience is that most TV "rips" are taken from HD broadcasts, which at least have the potential to surpass anything taken from DVD. Realistically the DivX encodes are usually lower quality than either medium of original distribution, so there's no practical difference.

      --
      "The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
    2. Re:Rips by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So do you get the Sci-fi channel in HD????? I need to move where you live!

    3. Re:Rips by JazzLad · · Score: 1

      You are quite correct, most of my HD rips look better than the DVDs (to me, anyway). Unfortunately, most Sci-Fi rips look far worse.

      I suspect they do not broadcast in HD, my newest TV is 7 years old and I do not get Sci-Fi, so I'm afraid I do not know.

      Direct to DVD sounds like a good idea, especially if Red Box decides to carry it.

      --
      "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
    4. Re:Rips by Destoo · · Score: 1

      Obviously, you've never hear of Sky One. They have an HD channel and have even been showing BSG's premiere a few months before Sci-Fi.

      There are no more frontiers, no more boundaries. We are citizen of the world.

      --
      Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
    5. Re:Rips by Destoo · · Score: 1

      It looks like the production is shown in both 480i and 1080i...

      Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series created by Ronald D. Moore that first aired on October 18, 2004 in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Sky One (in HD), and January 14, 2005 in North America on the Sci Fi Channel. Repeats of episodes have been shown in the United States on NBC, Bravo and in high definition on Universal HD.

      Sci-fi channel is in SD. Sky One in HD.. I don't know if the current season is shown at the same time or later on one channel.

      --
      Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
  5. No surprise ratings are falling. by guidryp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am a huge fan of BSG, and have watched every episode since the mini series, but I am not surprised the ratings are in decline. This season has lost it's way. Baltar was great when he was among the humans with the cylon in his head frakking with his brain. Now among the cylons he is quite uninteresting.

    Other than that they really seem to be pushing the preachy morality play of the week. I think the listened too much to the critics who liked them touching "real issues" and now they have gone overboard on the "real issues" and the story and characters seem to be suffering, so much so that I have a hard time buying their actions. It is just not as good this season. I hope they get back to form soon.

    They shouldn't try to drag this on endlessly, when the story is over they should stop and not inject filler seasons that increasingly make it unrealistic. I would rather have 3 or 4 good season ended properly rather than dragged out mediocre 5 or 6 seasons.

    I expect modding down from fans who will claim it is better than ever.

    1. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Baltar was great when he was among the humans with the cylon in his head frakking with his brain. Now among the cylons he is quite uninteresting I find with season 3 that the episodes which spend more time on the Cylon base ship are more interesting. It seems that without Baltar, the human survivors are just much less interesting than the Cylons...
      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by i_ate_god · · Score: 2, Insightful

      story line is fine, it will probably end in a fourth season.

      The ratings are falling because who the hell watches TV on a friday night? Wait till the show is moved to 10pm sunday, then we'll see ratings go up.

      --
      I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
    3. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by peragrin · · Score: 1

      Yea but with SciFI in charge your going to get 8 seasons with the last four poorly done, and the last season with a cliff hanger, like farscape did because it was forced to end to early.

      though I do like this season more so than the last. I do hope tough that they end it sooner rather than later. I also hope Caprica deals with the creation of the cylons it's a good way to continue the story without repeating the same old story lines.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    4. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Altima(BoB) · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I find with season 3 that the episodes which spend more time on the Cylon base ship are more interesting. It seems that without Baltar, the human survivors are just much less interesting than the Cylons... I dunno, I feel the opposite way on this. The cylons were most imposing and effective as antagonists around the begining of the series, when they were mostly faceless (Just the imposing base stars and fighters seen) and were making small, insidious encroachments on organic humanity, like Sharon. "33" was especially effective because even their tactics seemed like brute force mechanical thinking with infinite patience.

      Now they seem too human, too emotionally vulnerable and the base star's interior just seems like a space that's too large and relaxing. And seeing base stars filled with Xena's and Tricia Helfer's is somewhat detracting. Though the cylons I really really like are the Dean Stockwell ones and the Grace Park ones. Whereas Lucy Lawless' and Tricia Helfer's cylon characters have grown somewhat flat to me, the other two mentioned represent a lot more of the sadistic cylon determination (Stockwell) and the schitzophrenic identity crisis that organic cylons are bound to have (All those Sharons)

      I listen to the podcast commentaries a lot and Ronald D Moore, the producer, openly acknowledges a lot of these issues, that whatever cylon sets they built wouldnt never live up to peoples' imaginations and that revealing more and more about the cylons was always simply too tempting for them as authors. I can appreciate that, but I still think they were perhaps incorrect choices.

      What I think they should do with this current arc they are doing is to give Baltar back to the Galactica. The only problem with that is considering how enthusiastically they've ejected people out of airlocks for less, keeping him alive on Galactica would be difficult to do believably. Maybe strand him on the algea planet with someone like the Chief... Also, while another election episode would be rather dull, Laura has stayed in powr through so many unlikely twists that to remove her from power within the fleet would put her character in an interesting position.

      For the record, I still think it's the best drama on television, and easily soars above the 99% of TV that's just utter cultural garbage.
      --
      Yup...
    5. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Frangible · · Score: 1

      Naw, you're right. The season started off strongly and the last episode was ok, but the eps in between were crap. It was like "Black Market" from season 2. Total crap. Anything showing the cylons inside their basestars shows too much, they did indeed kill Baltar's character, the ep that was a 1 hour excuse to kill off Kat was pathetic, the Apollo/Starbuck romance? Please. Oh, and then there was ep with the old pilot or something. Zzzz. Boxing? Fucking boxing? Apparently RDM is off working on the spinoff now, and they have new writers working on things.

      Well, it shows. Eps like the return to Caprica arc, the Pegasus arc, New Caprica, etc are what made the show great... and instead of continuing what was great, they took the weakest elements and used them over and over. It's going downhill fast, in an X-Files kind of way, and the writing is killing it without RDM.

      It's a damned tragedy it seems headed the way of Stargate SG-1 with no renewal, but if they cannot maintain the quality of BSG in the past, maybe that's for the best. Most of this season has been all but unwatchable.

    6. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by PsychoSlashDot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's one opinion, and it's not a horrible one, but there is another way to look at things.

      Every episode the writers add new canon. They reveal new aspects of characters, back-story, colonial religion, Cylon goals, and secrets about Earth. The problem is that this show started off with a huge bang, and due to its uniqueness and high quality, a lot of viewers "fell in love" with various aspects of the characters or plot or even style of presentation. Today, it's virtually inevitable that every episode will introduce some element to "taint" the adoration and respect viewers have. Starbuck's recent behaviour? Helo's? Discovering the Cylons want Earth as well?

      I guarantee that when the "Final Five" have their faces revealed, for every fan who says "that's neat!", there'll be some disgruntled soon-to-be-ex-fan who throws his hands up in the air and says "that's not what I would have done".

      The show continues to be a very high-quality, well-written and well-acted one. I expect the ratings problem is due much more to unrealistic expectations of many, many fans that BSG will contain nothing but plot elements THEY adore.

      Try caring more about what BSG IS instead of what it ISN'T, each episode. What it certainly is, is the best show on television.

      --
      "Oh no... he found the .sig setting."
    7. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by sycodon · · Score: 1

      The reason the ratings are failing is that every week, the Humans lose. They may win a battle now and then , but it's always in the wider context of getting their butts kicked.

      Contrast this with the Star Trek series. In those, the Humans always kicked ass.

      All arguments about art/life/etc. aside, no one likes to see their team running away at the end of every episode.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    8. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by BRUTICUS · · Score: 1

      Here's an idea.... Baltar still has Helfer in his head...he's still an imbecile.. what if all this changed? What if Baltar suddenly figured out the location of Earth and gained more respect from the Cylons, he dropped his imaginary friend and started being a bit more imposing and even began leading the cylons?

    9. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by JFMulder · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, I love the fact that the Cylons are getting more human. It's so great because as the series evolve you realise that the humans are being colder and colder and acting more like.... machines.

      It's a great reversal of the roles and I'm sure it will even out at some point because

      *** SPOILER ALERT DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN LAST EPISODE BEFORE HIATUS ***
      William Adama is pretty much willing to nuke the whole fracking planet at this point. It's pretty much a cold decision, considering Earth is in the balance. Maybe now will be a time for the humans to realize what they are turning into and shift their course. The executions "if were not with us on New Caprica you are against us" mentality also was pretty cold. Reminds me of a certain... nah... I won't go into that. :)
      **** END SPOILER ***

      It's interesting that the heart of the Galactica crew right now is pretty much Shannon (a machine) and her husband. It's also interesting that there is also one Cylon who distinctively thinks like a cold-hearted machine, the preacher, who coldly said last episode "Let's kill them, rid the universe of the human pestilence. We are machines, it doesn't matter if it takes us a 1000 years to find Earth", which, you got to admit, he had a really good point. The only thing preventing this is the other Cylons who are slowly evolving with more human feelings.

      I just love how the show plays this, consciously or not. (but I bet the writers knew it all along)

      The one thing I miss tough is the deliciously crazy Baltar being tormented by Number Six while he is going around on Galactica and having people look at him funny. And the shocker was realizing the Number Six on her own also had her own suggestive-manipulative-Baltar in her head. That was a great revelation. Too bad they didn't get to play more with this since Baltar is now on the base ship.

    10. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Altima(BoB) · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ...and started being a bit more imposing and even began leading the cylons? Yeah I really like that idea. Rather than the puppet leader he was on New Caprica, they could have him as a dominating cult-of-personality type leader, giant posters of his face, etc. aybe even have him discover that he isn't one of the 'Final Five' but have him and his regime claim he is anyway, a Cylon Messiah. Then he can graduate to being a full fledged villain, but his rational side would still fnd conflict with his situation. Plus the Cylons always seemed prone to hysterical zealotry, they now seem far too rational in comparison to the genocide they wreaked at the begining of the series.

      Yeah, I like that idea.
      --
      Yup...
    11. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by TheRealFixer · · Score: 2, Funny

      Some spoilers within.

      I agree with you. The more we see of the Cylons, the more uninteresting they become. They joke, they display sarcasm, they fall in love, they have faith, they get angry, jealous, etc. They've taken all the mystery out of them, along with all the menace. They're just annoying zealots who look and act EXACTLY like humans, except they can't be "killed" while they're near a resurrection ship.

      The numerous interpersonal conflict-driven stories lately were getting pretty tiresome, and really were slowing things down for the wrong reasons. Although, to be fair, the show has really always been a tad slow. I remember watching a few earlier episodes and realizing that an entire hour of show seemed to cover about 15 minutes of time in the story.

      There is some hope left. I was pretty intrigued by the hybrid-thing that controls the Base Stars. And this whole "5 unknown models" thing has some promise. That, at least, adds some mystery back into it. Although, the whole Baltar is-he-or-isn't-he thing is getting dragged on too far long, and I can't see a way for that to be answered that ISN'T disappointing. If he is, then it seems too obvious. If he isn't, then it seems a bit too contrived.

    12. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Altima(BoB) · · Score: 1
      Yeah, those are good points. If the writers were really daring, and they've been daring in the past, spend a few episodes where that reversal is far more explicit, and the humans really are the bad guys for a while. Make the humans commit acts of genocide against the cylons while the cylons become terrified. They came close to that with the bio-weapon story arc, and seemed to come to their senses/humanity when they decided not to, but it didn't really feel like the reversal of roles was being fleshed out.

      (Just a side not, does it irk anyone else that the Galactica has either gotten twice as powerful, or its crew twice as competant since the start of the show? At the start, the most Galactica seemed to be able to hope for against even a single base star was to just buy time and hold them off. The first base star they blew up was by sneakily planting a nuke on board, and the first they defeated in open combat was halfway through season 2, when they had the Pegasus with them. Now they seem to be able to take on base stars much more effectively... seems like it shifts the balance of the show a little.)

      The one thing I miss tough is the deliciously crazy Baltar being tormented by Number Six while he is going around on Galactica and having people look at him funny. And the shocker was realizing the Number Six on her own also had her own suggestive-manipulative-Baltar in her head. That was a great revelation. Too bad they didn't get to play more with this since Baltar is now on the base ship. One thing I don't really get is that even when Baltar is reunited with Caprica Six, he still sees his imaginary number six in the red dress in his head. They seem to have been established as two seperate entities, and I'm not sure where the writers seem to be going with that. One would think we'd see some more of imaginary Baltar in Caprica Six's head, now that she's once more an active character. I'd like to see more time dedicated to Baltar trying to figure out why he's still seeing his imaginary cylon lover...
      --
      Yup...
    13. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Altima(BoB) · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The show has been slow pretty frequently, but that's why I think it suits the DVD format more than a weekly TV format. I watched the first season just from the DVDs, and they were great, and it makes it tough to watch them on a week-by-week basis. Though the first 3 (or 4, depending on how you number them) episodes of season 3 were really rich and well paced.

      I personally think that the current Adama / Starbuck / Anders storyline is the weakest one they've done. It's predictable, and it's just not satisfying. Plus, in an episode where large forces are clashing and nuclear armageddon is at play again, it just seems petty and unimportant to go back to "Hey! Stay away from my already-promiscuous wife!" (Though Anders is another Colonel Tigh in the making from all this...)

      --
      Yup...
    14. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Jim+Hall · · Score: 1

      At the end of last season, I downloaded the BSG podcast for the first time. Big mistake in this case. The podcast was about 90 minutes of the writers room, and in those 90 minutes it became increasingly clear to me that the BSG writers have no frakking clue as to where they are taking the show. They didn't have an overall arc to the show; they mapped out only the next "pod" (that's "mini-season" to the rest of us) and were clear that they'd end it on a note where you could take the next "pod" in any number of directions.

      That's probably easier, to map out only the "pod" you are starting. But for us viewers, eventually we realize it's tap-dancing.

      This in contrast to shows that definitely were mapped out with a multi-season plan, like any Joss Whedon show (Firefly, Angel, Buffy) or even Lost.

      It was very disappointing for me to realize that BSG was just something the writers made up as they went along. It would have been much better to have mapped out a general plan for, say, the first 4 seasons - and written a rough framework for what each season needed to include and where it would go. If the writers aren't invested enough in the show to know where it's going, why should I be invested enough to watch it?

      As a result, I may watch the next season of BSG, or I may not. We'll see.

    15. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by JFMulder · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think Baltar's Number Six and the reborn Number Six is not the same character at all. The Number Six inside Baltar's head is far more manipulative and dangerous than the flesh and bolts one. To me, the reborn Number Six takes her decisions based on her feelings towars Baltar and the human race, while Baltar's (whose is trying to please Baltar, I mean, it's still his fantasy after all) is there to provoke him and has less emotions than the flesh and bolts one.

      As for Batlar being a Cylon himself, while an interesting idea (Baltar is even pondering the notion now), it would be anti-climatic, because it's such an interesting burden (for the viewer) to be responsible for the genocide of your race. It's a great burden to carry. It was great to have a delusional Baltar and it would have been for nothing if he is indeed a Cylon. One interresting plot twist tough would be if he turned to believe he is one and commited suicide to prove his point and we then realize he wasn't. That would be the perfect ending for this character I think. Or if the show ends with the destruction of the Cylons and he last ressurection ship, you end up with a lone Baltar without any ressurection ship to revive him if he is indeed one and you have him on the fringe of death and he will never know if was a Cylon indeed. Cue credits. :)

    16. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Mspangler · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This whole plot always was limited. The Humans are pushed off into deep space. They have no supply, no refit for the ships, and nowhere they can stop. Galactica needs 6 months in the space dock at least. It's falling apart. They are running out of fighters, Raptors, and everything else. It's not sustainable for a long series.

      The only options the humans have is slow death by attrition, quick death by Cylon, or jump as far and fast as possible away from the cylons and try to resettle, hoping that by the time the Cylons find them again either they have calmed down, or that the human decendants are strong enough to hold them off. Or, if the fleet does find earth, then earth will be technologically undeveloped, and wiped out by the Cylons, or earth will have starfleet, and blow away the cylons, or earth will have been taken over by their own Cylon equivalents. Long term plot options are limited.

      My analysis may be colored by my time in the Navy, when I found out just how much repair time and infrastructure it took to keep one warship operational, even if it was nuclear powered (to remove the fuel problem). One increasingly battered battlestar and a ragtag fleet is not sustainable. The story arc (as in the character's subjective time) must be short.

      Now one thing the writers could do is modify that cylon-killing virus so it only works on the "source material" on the Resurrection ships, and infect the Cylons. Then since D'anna is close to discovering that the resurrection routine is functioning as a "soul trap" to keep the Cylons from truly knowing God, the resulting stress could turn into a Cylon civil war, and that would give a way to wrap up the show without either finding earth, or watching the last human die.

      But now it's just "Angst and Depression in Space."

    17. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Just a side note, does it irk anyone else that the Galactica has either gotten twice as powerful, or its crew twice as competant since the start of the show? At the start, the most Galactica seemed to be able to hope for against even a single base star was to just buy time and hold them off. The first base star they blew up was by sneakily planting a nuke on board, and the first they defeated in open combat was halfway through season 2, when they had the Pegasus with them. Now they seem to be able to take on base stars much more effectively... seems like it shifts the balance of the show a little.

      This is pretty fanboyish, but I think that in the Galactica has had the benefit of consolidating the Pegasus resources since New Caprica. They definitely have all of Pegasus' Mark VII Vipers (Lee left them behind with the fleet when he embarked on the Pegasus' suicide mission, and they evacuated the Pegasus with all of its Raptors), and Galactica probably obtained other resources like hull plating and ammunition. They probably also shared their nukes; I think Galactica only had 4 of them after Ragnar, but in the last episode they seem to have more.

      Along with all the hardware, Galactica also inherited most of Pegasus' pilots and crew. These are huge differences from the mini-series, when most of Galactica's pilots were eliminated right at the beginning.
    18. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by murdocj · · Score: 1

      Caveat: I haven't seen the latest episode.

      I agree, the Cylons were at their best when they were mysterious. We didn't know what they looked like, what their powers were, or even whether they had a hotline to God. They spoke with one voice, and as the teaser for each episode reminded us, "they have a plan".

      Now they are a bunch of confused humanoids who don't know the meaning of life or what they want to do when they grow up. They argue amongst themselves. They order the mechanical cylons around like a bunch of slaves. Essentially, they ARE humans who just happen to live on a base ship.

      I also listen to the RDM podcasts. One of the best ones was the writer's conference where they plot out the 2nd half of season two. It's fun to listen to, but what's really eye opening (at least for me) is that RDM and the writers don't know any more than we do about what's going on.

      Is the story set in the distant past or the far future? Do the Cylons have a home world, or are they strictly based in space ships? Why did the Cylons attack? Do the human colony worlds circle a single sun, or are they scattered in space? The writers tossed these out, and no one, including RDM, had an answer. (actually, the last question RDM said that he thought that although it was astronomically unlikely, the human worlds did orbit a single sun... but he wasn't real definite on that).

      So the first two seasons the story line introduced lots of questions, but no one has really thought about the answers, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. I think they've taken the easy out of making the cylon characters that we are familiar with like us. Those cylons are trying to figure out what's going on, just like we are.

      I still enjoy watching the show, but it really does feel like it's starting to lose its way.

    19. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      I just want them to explain the Cylon belief system, which apparently is perfectly ok with genocide of an entire *species*, but not execution of a prisoner. WTF!?

    20. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The hybrid-thing that controls the base ship is such an obvious and blatant rip-off of the psychics in Minority Report, I simply can't stand seeing it on screen. Ron Moore's a good creative guy, he doesn't need to rely on stealing to produce a good show... I mean, what's going on here?

    21. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I seems to be simular to Christians/Muslims on our world. I would say Jews also, but i dont really see them going around about "god is great, worship him or die" sort of thing, maybe im wrong.

    22. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by iCEBaLM · · Score: 1

      Although, the whole Baltar is-he-or-isn't-he thing is getting dragged on too far long, and I can't see a way for that to be answered that ISN'T disappointing.

      It's already been answered. If he was a cylon he would have been infected when he went on the infected base star. He wasn't. If that wasn't enough confirmation for you then how about this: why would the cylons let him go to the infected base star knowing he would return if he could be infected?

    23. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by anagama · · Score: 1

      I agree with you -- the boxing episode was barely watchable and I was sorely tempted to use the FF button (I watched the iTunes version). Lately, it seems more and more like a soap opera set in space. Now, the whiny BS might be appropriate background material (it is reasonable to think that conflict would result over relationships) and it probably deserves some play (you know, they need to throw in some chick stuff), but it shouldn't be the front matter in sci-fi. The last thing I want to see is something like "The Lightdays of Our Lives".

      --
      What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
    24. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by anagama · · Score: 1

      Except I'm hoping for the transhumanist utopia of the future. I don't want the humans to win and Laura is such an uberbitch, way too melodramatic and cruel -- I hope like Moses she buys the farm before the promised land.

      --
      What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
    25. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 2, Funny

      (Just a side not, does it irk anyone else that the Galactica has either gotten twice as powerful, or its crew twice as competant since the start of the show?

      Well, when they lost the Pegasus, they kept the crew and the Vipers and Raptors IIRC. So yes, twice as competent sounds about right ;)

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    26. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Whereas Lucy Lawless' and Tricia Helfer's cylon characters have grown somewhat flat to me


      While they're not Pamela Anderson hyooge, I don't find them to be flat.
    27. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      If he was a cylon he would have been infected when he went on the infected base star He was in an isolation suit on the infected base star, so he wouldn't have been infected either way. Other Cylons could not have been infected, but they were unwilling to go because they had no idea what it was that was causing the problems.

      why would the cylons let him go to the infected base star knowing he would return if he could be infected? The other Cylons would not be aware if he was a member of the final five. They have already stated that they don't know what the final five look like.

      However, he developed a Cylon detector; don't you think he would have put himself through it? Also, Cylon's spines all seem to glow red when they have sex. Given his promiscuity, I would have expected someone to notice...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    28. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      What the hell? How is my post a "troll?" The moderation here is WAY out of control.

      Is there a SINGLE person who's seen both recent BSG and Minority Report and didn't make the obvious connection between the two?

    29. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Miguelito · · Score: 1
      Contrast this with the Star Trek series. In those, the Humans always kicked ass.
      You either didn't watch DS9, or didn't pay much attention. I thought that DS9 was some of the best Trek ever, and much of the best stuff was when the Federation was getting it's ass kicked big time. This was, supposedly, due at least in part to RDM's influence... and that's when it got "darker" and more realistic vs everything is perfect and the Federation always saves the day. Sure, in the end they won, at great cost... but it wouldn't bode well for the franchise to have the "good guys" lose, now would it?

      One of my favorite DS9 eps was the one where Cisco was willing to put his ethics on hold in order to get the Romulans to join the war on the side of the Federation... because he knew they were doomed without them.
      --
      - My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
    30. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by solios · · Score: 1

      My bitchlist is similar.

      1. Baltar on the basestar is incredibly boring. I think a lot of this has to do with the writers dropping the interesting disease/genocide angle in favor of several episodes of the 'hybrid' mumbling. Combined with the cheapass set design and the "inside the Cylons" aspect of season three isn't just a boring letdown, it's a cheap boring letdown. The Cylons were better off as faceless killbot "less is more" things - this attempt to plumb their psyche feels like a set-dressed coffee shop on a slow business day.

      2. Anders. The writers haven't known what to do with him since he survived New Caprica.

      3. Bulldog. You're telling me a guy who's been imprisoned by the Cylons for three YEARS makes it to the Galactica (a gaping plot hole in and of itself), does his one-episode drama thing and then completely disappears?

      4. "Religion" - such as it is. BSG may periodically arc quite nicely, but the show has never bothered much with foreshadowing. The fact that bits like the "temple of jupiter" (or whatever it's called) just pop up without being hinted at previously indicates to me that the writers are definitely not thinking very far ahead.

      Season three definitely feels like it's dragging ass, much like the second half of season two - the show would be better served with either shorter seasons on the same budget (so we've got Good Episodes and no filler), or with a higher budget. Make the goddamned Basestar look like a starship-sized biomechanoid instead of a department store after-hours, dangit.

      I'll be a happy camper if Anders get whacked and we never see the inside of a Cylon Basestar again. Mostly the latter.

    31. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by shitdrummer · · Score: 1

      While you are right, the biggest problem I have with BSG is that it's a Drama that used to be Sci-Fi.

      Shitdrummer.

    32. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by snilloc · · Score: 1

      Moore even mentioned Minority Report influencing the "hybrid" idea in his podcast.

    33. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by hobbesmaster · · Score: 1

      Actually, I thought of Homeworld, a video game that predates the movie adaptation of minority report by 3 years.

    34. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by spazoid12 · · Score: 1

      I think the listened too much to the critics who liked them touching "real issues" and now they have gone overboard on the "real issues" and the story and characters seem to be suffering

      That's because the writers are mere TV show writers. They aren't experts, they aren't political pundits... no great minds. Anything they might have to say in some effort to make the show 'topical' is going to be plain average at best.

      The demographic for this show crosses over in part with the same demographic that watches "The Daily Show" for its primary source of news and current events. Why the heck don't these people watch 'mainstream' and 'respectable' news instead of 'fake news'? Because real news is boring. Making BSG become a source for op-ed on the real news is making it boring for the same reasons to the same crowd.

      Then again, even if you hired true experts it would tank. Imagine Henry Kissinger as a consultant to the BSG writers. The only smart path is to leave the 'topical' crap out of it nearly altogether.

    35. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by snarkth · · Score: 1


        Plus, the crews are all combat veterans now rather than mostly unblooded newbies.

        snarkth

    36. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by snarkth · · Score: 1


        That was my thought also, and I'm pretty sure it (HW) wasn't the first use of the concept in SF either, although I can't remember the title of the story I'm thinking of...

        snarkth

    37. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 1
      They're just annoying zealots who look and act EXACTLY like humans

      I liked them better when they were not like humans. It gave a good bit of separation... the 'Us and Them' bit. As well, it was good to keep us off balance a bit since we didn't/couldn't understand them or know what motivated them, and therefore we didn't know what they would do next. To keep us on edge. When it gets predictable, it gets boring.

      --
      -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
    38. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by JWW · · Score: 1

      Yeah, Adama's actions seem cold (you do know however that he WILL back down anyway), but ask youself this. If the series were actually real and a very powerful force we about to find Earth, what action would you want? You'd want to see the nukes fly, and for Earth to be safe.

      You see, so much of this depends (as some other sci-fi show once said) on you point of view....

    39. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Goldrush · · Score: 1

      The cylons might have been more fearsome when they were cold and mysterious. However, I doubt that such 2-D representation could sustain the show for long. It's best that they revealed the answer before it became tedious.

    40. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      However, he developed a Cylon detector; don't you think he would have put himself through it?

      I think he was too busy doin 6 to think about it. I'm pretty sure it was not covered and for good reason.

      Also, Cylon's spines all seem to glow red when they have sex. Given his promiscuity, I would have expected someone to notice...

      I'm pretty sure no Male Cylons backs have been observed yet having sex.

      My theory:
      Balter is a Special Cylon, Model 1. Every discrepancy will be explained away as "He's Special".
      This will be exposed when the writers are desperate or the series is about to end.

    41. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      Ratings problems explained....

      1 - ratings for ALL shows have been tanking. OVerall the show is still doing good compared to the other shows.

      2 - tv viewers are geting sick of the have a show or two and then reruns for a month crap they pull lately.

      3 - Filler episodes... the frequency of unrelated filler shows is increasing in BSG... Nobody cares that during a silly boxing fight they cover some love crap or other useless filler to satisfy the viewers while shooting an episode quickly and cheaply and using lots of pre-shot footage from other episodes... Great you guys made an hour episode with 30 minutes of shooting new footage in one of the producers basement and $860.00 in pizza... cool.

      4 - Three years in and the executives are busy trying to ruin the show. This happens everywhere. Tv executives think they know everything.. in reality they know nothing but how to putt really good when they golf. But they like to get their fingers in a popular show and screw with it.

      Honestly, all TV ratings are in the crapper right now. so their 1.6 share is not that dismal looking when ytou compare it to everythign else.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    42. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Altima(BoB) · · Score: 1

      I've noticed that too, and for the most part I hoped, and still hope that those sorts of unknowns are limited to things that really don't affect the plot much (Like the specific situ of the colony worlds or whether the cylons have a planet to themselves). A lot of those unknows are typical of how those shows develop and come about and it's interesting that Ronald D Moore makes that stuff public knowledge, sort of revealing the lack any whiz bang secrets for the most part. And when that formula crumbles, well just look at 'Lost.' That show has been a joke for two seasons now.

      And yeah, you're exactly right that the Cylons' very silly mindsets as we see them, (worries about pointless philosophy, religion, how to deal with Adama, what they want with the super baby) totally undermine that constant reminder of "They have a plan."

      What they should do is have the Dean Stockwell cylon (the preacher guy, the real bloodthirsty neo-con of the bunch) be much more of an active leading force for the cylons as a whole, since he (and the Kevin Spacey look-a-like) are the closest analgues to the behavior and attitude of the cylons we know and love from the first 2 seasons. The various incarnations of Sharon would then stay interesting. I'm disappointed that Boomer isn't explored more when we're among the cylons, as the potential for her character is far more interesting than Lucy Lawless', for whom I'm finding it difficult to care. Really, shouldn't Boomer be the first person to empathise with Baltar's situation? Why aren't they closer, why dont they interact? She was a human before, as far as she was concerned.

      Another thing that's no doubt making it hard for the writers to communicate the idea of there being a plan is the fact that, as a TV show, BSG's narrative length has an uncertain future. They probably have a plan of how to resolve things should they not get another season, but I really think shows like these should have a finite lifespan built into them, so that overall arcs can be planned in a satisfactory way. End the story after 2 or three seasons. Still more demand? Do a spinoff story, another season or 2. Then it can stand as a satisfying, complete body of work. Hints left at the start could pay off at the end, like the way a film is planned. But that's just not gonna happen in American television, though it does happen in the UK (The Office only ran two seasons before they stopped it themselves) and Japan (anime series tend to only go for one season and have an overarching plot that resolves itself i na true finale at the last episode.)

      --
      Yup...
    43. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      5 - you can't please everybody. I thought the boxing episode was excellent - this is a character-driven show, and this was a great way to expand on those characters.

      But ... it didn't have lots of special effects, so there is a part of the audience that calls it 'filler'. I don't think there is way to make that audience happy all of time. Nor do I think they should try; the special-effects crowd actually needs the characters to be developed, but they just don't know it.

    44. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by ZonkerWilliam · · Score: 1

      I tend to agree, before we saw the cylon's as almost perfect calculating machines that just couldn't be beat. Now we see that they are blindly searching for a purpose in the universe much like humans have been doing for thousands of years. I guess they wanted us to be able tor elate to them.

    45. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wanted to second on both counts, DS9 turned out to be my favorite Star Trek series, and the fact that humanity is getting its butt kicked is what makes/made BSG fascinating and interesting to me. It's a bloody fight for survival, etc.

      TNG was boring in that regard. New aliens with alien technology? No problem, invert the phaser polarity, channel it through the main dish array ("it's like putting too much air inside a balloon!") and the alien technology / space phenomenon du jour is neatly taken care off. Maybe someone dislocates a finger when the shipped rocked back and forth in the opening minutes of the episode. Yawn. In my very humble opinion, Patrick Stewart single-handedly made TNG fun to watch. The plot lines just about every single time could have been much more interesting / realistic / well thought out.

      The Borg was among my favorite stories in TNG, and my favorite episode in BSG was "33". Situations where people are in horrible desperate predicaments are innately more interesting than "computer, take care of this for me" for 30 minutes.

      Since I'm a rant, the one time I really got angry at BSG is when they cured cancer. I'm sorry they wrote themselves in a corner earlier on, but they should have killed the character and moved on, because curing cancer (and especially how it was done) was just incredibly stupid.

    46. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lost it's way

      "its".

    47. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      getting it's ass kicked

      "its".

    48. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Lorkki · · Score: 1
      Actually, I love the fact that the Cylons are getting more human. It's so great because as the series evolve you realise that the humans are being colder and colder and acting more like.... machines.

      I'm sort of expecting this to lead to the Cylons' own "fall from paradise" - after all, at some point it was mentioned that they hate humans partly for being undeveloped enough that they still kill each other over petty matters. With Baltar playing the part of the snake, it's not far from where the Cylons would wake up to realise that they need to face their human characteristics and come to terms with them, rather than actively try to deny them. Either way, they're pretty much acting like confused teenagers at the moment, which is sort of amusing in its own right.

      Then again, the series also seems bent on surprising me, so who knows.

    49. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      I still think it's the best drama on television, and easily soars above the 99% of TV that's just utter cultural garbage.

      I dunno, I think the reality TV boon has largely ended and things are on the upswing.. While Lost and BSG seem to be meandering, they're still both watchable, however several other shows have caught my interest -- namely Heroes and Day Break. Heroes manages to portray the same-old superpowers in a new light, and has a lot of potential, but a lot of hard work for script writers to keep it interesting. It's also intriguing because it's not always easy to distinguish between "good" and "evil," which have traditionally been very clear-cut in the superhero genre. Day Break also manages to put a new spin on the Groundhog Day thing, although I don't think it could possibly last for more than one season. (The popularity of the absurd antics in "24" may be proof to the contrary though). Prison Break is also okay, but not great. Again, the first season was the best, and it seems to have lost its way. It may have jumped the shark when one of the characters got his hand sewn back on by a veterinarian, and probably should have ended after one season.

      The other things that irritates me about BSG (aside from the recent plot floundering) is that I'm getting tired of overexposed/overbright scenes, and it's disappointing that it isn't aired in HD.. The letterboxed SD format leaves much to be desired, and looks terrible when stretched to fit a 16:9 set -- worse when recorded and further artifacts are introduced.

    50. Re:No surprise ratings are falling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I expect the ratings problem is due much more to unrealistic expectations of many, many fans that BSG will contain nothing but plot elements THEY adore. Actually, I believe the ratings problem is due to the fact that BSG has become REALLY FRAKKIN' BORING lately. That, plus almost every main character has turned into spineless jellyfish who mope about decrying the decisions they'd made instead of doing something about it!

      Hell, they can't even get a good space battle going anymore as everyone knows with only one remaining Battlestar, they can't risk it in pointless combat. Not like when Pegasus was with them and they had a CHANCE of winning a fight.

      They've taken a hit Sci-Fi show and turned it into a future-based Soap Opera. And didn't I read on slashdot somewhere that Starbuck may actually BE Adama's daughter? Ugh! End the pointless melodrama!

      What it certainly is, is the best show on television. You realize this statement could be indicative of two possibilities. Either shows on Tv are really good, and BSG is at the top, or BSG is at the top of a whole HOST of crappy shows.

      When does Dr Who start up again? :)
  6. How to be stupid by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I stopped watching BSG this season after the first episode. Not because the story sucks - in fact I really liked that first episode, it was brilliant - but because the picture sucks.

    I learned last year that UniversalHD runs the BSG reruns after 6 months or so, in high def. So, now I am just going to wait it out until the show is available in HD.

    I think Universal is just frackin stupid to run the premier episodes in crap-def on the sci-fi channel. If there is a single demographic most likely to own HDTVs and actively seek out HD shows, it is the one that watches BSG. They need to get their shit together and simulcast the show in HD, not make us wait 6+ months for it.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    1. Re:How to be stupid by markdavis · · Score: 1

      I am glad I am not the only one thinking that too. It infuriates me that they don't air it on UHD at the same time as SciFi. I am growing very weary of watching low def year after year after year for no reason. Low def on a hidef TV is horrible. And it is even worse when it is 16x9 lowdef- it is like watching a crappy postage stamp on a 60" screen.

    2. Re:How to be stupid by Chanc_Gorkon · · Score: 1

      In reality, this is what they should do. I myself do not have a HDTV yet and I have to watch on regular TV.

      --

      Gorkman

    3. Re:How to be stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So while the rest of us watch the drama, you watch the image resolution do you? Way to go making audiophiles look sane; asshole!

    4. Re:How to be stupid by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      So while the rest of us watch the drama, you watch the image resolution do you? Way to go making audiophiles look sane; asshole!

      Yep, I spend the entire 40 minutes of each episode just counting the pixels.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    5. Re:How to be stupid by markdavis · · Score: 1

      Eeew- sorry to hear that.

      I have had hidef for about 3 years now (Samsung DLP), plus HD-TiVo. Once you get into hidef, you quickly get frustrated by lowdef- which looks much worse on a hidef TV than on a lowdef one. Lowdef DVD is not bad, though (Netflix, of course).

      I suppose it will work in your favor if you can wait another year- real HD content choice should explode on the scene by then. Meanwhile, we have to settle for the few stations available on cable or Sat + locals (plus the few sports, premium movie, and PPV ones, none of which I count).

      My wishlist for HD broadcast: SciFi Channel, TLC, National Geographic, History Channel, Discovery Health. In fact, those plus a few local stations and Discovery HD Theater are about all I watch, anyway.

    6. Re:How to be stupid by westlake · · Score: 1
      If there is a single demographic most likely to own HDTVs and actively seek out HD shows, it is the one that watches BSG

      I suspect it is major league sports that draws most buyers to HD.

  7. What did they expect? by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not sure what Sci-Fi expects ratings to do when they run what amounts to half a season of episodes, call it a season, and run them the better part of a year apart. TV audiences of the TiVo generation have shown that they're not content to just watch reruns for long periods of time. With decreasing new episode counts, the problem of ratings getting harder and harder to come by shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

    If Sci-Fi wants a show to succeed, they should try a novel approach: go back to a 30+ episode season. These silly little 10- and 13-episode runs are barely long enough to start getting into the action, then bam: 3 month hiatus....

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    1. Re:What did they expect? by LoP_XTC · · Score: 1

      Umm you do realize that they ran a half-season and that the show starts again Jan 21st. Now I dont know about you, but six weeks isnt exactly the better part of a year apart.

      Most shows now that run into a major US holiday are splitting the seasons so that they dont have to air shows that might not be seen by people traveling or what not.

      Aaron

      --
      "Curiouser and Curiouser...." -Alice
    2. Re:What did they expect? by PsychoSlashDot · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Season 1 had 13 episodes.
      Season 2 had 22 episodes, with a long hiatus.
      Season 3 has 22 episodes, with a four-week hiatus.

      A "normal" season for a television show is 26 episodes.

      Don't get me wrong... I'd love to see year-round new episodes, 52 times a year, but it doesn't work that way in TV. Further, what SciFi has done with BSG is increasingly more like "normal" shows, so there's no trending towards "worse", I'm afraid.

      Another element to the downward ratings movement may very well be that SciFi started Season 3's broadcast at the same time as the major networks began their new seasons, and a number of hit shows have "stolen" viewer interest. Shows like Heroes, for instance. There's only so much viewer-interest, regardless of how many good/great shows are broadcast. Couch-potatoes will, eventually, hit a TV saturation point.

      --
      "Oh no... he found the .sig setting."
    3. Re:What did they expect? by ubrgeek · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not sure about the validity of the numbers you're citing, but frankly, that seems to be a growing trend among the "alt-cable" channels like SCI-FI, FX, etc. FX is the worst, IMO. I got tired of waiting forever between seasons of NipTuck, The Shield, etc. (Not to mention canceling "Over There" *grin*). My wife and I just stopped caring about the characters with such huge gaps between seasons. I've never really watched The Sopranos, but I understand the same thing was something its fans complained about. Add that to decreased show times and increased commercial interruptions and it just points more and more toward viewers being pushed to find alternatives to what - and how - they watch TV.

      --
      Bark less. Wag more.
    4. Re:What did they expect? by Clock+Nova · · Score: 1

      You're right about season one, although the small number is due to it being introduced late in the season. Seasons 2 and 3, however, each contain only 20 episodes. That seems to be SciFi Channel's preferred number. Stargate SG-1 went from 22 eps per season on Showtime to 20 on SciFi. I can remember when a full season of Star Trek was 26 episodes. Those were the days.

      --
      There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
    5. Re:What did they expect? by fermion · · Score: 1
      There are more shows out there now than ever before. In the long ago, when a few networks controlled the airwaves, and we had to watch the shows when we were told to, it was kind of important for the a particular series to produce many hours of programming. This resulted in many negative effects, due to the fact that the budget and staffing was not sufficient for the amount of content. This meant we got clip shows, elevator episodes, and other sub par content whose sole purpose was to fill time. Also, repetitive intros killed airtime. A recent example of this is Alias, in which the first season featured a clip show, and the introduction ate a few minutes of air time, not to mention the stock footage. The Original BSG was also guilty of this by indiscriminately reusing the sfx.

      One nice thing about the new world is that enough networks are producing content that the crap that used to be required is no longer acceptable. Some cable stations make use of this new world well by producing few high quality episodes. Others, especially the old time networks, are still in the mode of overproducing content. Among the examples are thousands of version of CSI.

      If Sci-Fi wants to succeed, they should have develop a number of different shows, produce 15-20 of each show each year, and run them at different times.

      In any case the number of shows and the way they are shown are insignificant in the post tivo world. Instead of paying the cable fee of $1000+ dollars a year, one can use that money 30+ seasons on DVD, or just Netflix everything for 1/4 the price. I suppose if there is nothing to talk about except what is on tv, then watching it near real time is important. Otherwise, it is cheaper to wait.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    6. Re:What did they expect? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude you're living in the 70s if you think that a 26 episode season is normal.

    7. Re:What did they expect? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't believe that 30+ episodes was ever the norm for a weekly hour long show. All of the Star Trek series went for 26 episodes (except for the second season of TNG because of a writers strike). BSG seems to settled into 20 episodes a season. (13 episodes for the first, but that was I believe based on the timing and what they could accomplish in the timeframe) Good TV can't be manufactured like cars on an assembly line, letting everyone involved in the production have a hiatus makes for better programming. I couldn't imagine what awful crap you'd end up with if 30+ episodes a season was the norm. South Park seasons have been 14 episodes the last several seasons, split into two 7 episode 1/2 seasons. And almost 10 years later it's still some of the greatest stuff on TV. If Comedy Central pushed them to do 30+ episodes a season, well, I don't even want to think about that.

    8. Re:What did they expect? by Phoobarnvaz · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure what Sci-Fi expects ratings to do when they run what amounts to half a season of episodes, call it a season, and run them the better part of a year apart. TV audiences of the TiVo generation have shown that they're not content to just watch reruns for long periods of time. With decreasing new episode counts, the problem of ratings getting harder and harder to come by shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

      For some reason...the other broadcast networks are doing the same exact thing. I enjoy Sci-Fi...but also enjoy all the CSI-type shows as well. Being that I only watch CBS & NBC (over-the-air networks on the dish)...the only times they are running the new episodes are during the prime ratings periods...rather than how they used to do. No wonder Sci-Fi & the others are going down the tubes...running re-runs for many weeks...then expecting the viewers to hang tight. Either the programmers are brilliant or as dumb as rocks. I tend to believe the latter.

      If Sci-Fi wants a show to succeed, they should try a novel approach: go back to a 30+ episode season. These silly little 10- and 13-episode runs are barely long enough to start getting into the action...

      HBO & Showtime do the same exact thing. Enjoying Deadwood...The Sopranos...Rome & Big Love...it really steams me that they only produce a season of 10-13 episodes & show them over & over...grounding them into the dust. Many network shows now are only between 20-25 episodes a season. If I remember right...the only show done in the near past which did 30 or so episodes was Blue Collar TV. What this leaves the viewer is disgusted & going onto something else that isn't a re-run.

      Thank god for the free movie channels on the dish. The movies may be old...but at least I get to see many great movie I never had a chance to before.

      --
      Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. - Charles M. Schulz
    9. Re:What did they expect? by poopdeville · · Score: 1

      South Park seasons have been 14 episodes the last several seasons, split into two 7 episode 1/2 seasons. And almost 10 years later it's still some of the greatest stuff on TV.

      Yeah, it's pretty sad. Last season only had five funny episodes. (Stanley's Cup, Cartoon Wars I/II, WoW, and Ike's Teacher)

      They jumped the shark when they started getting 'topical.'

      --
      After all, I am strangely colored.
    10. Re:What did they expect? by Lost+Race · · Score: 1

      I'd rather have an excellent four-hour episode (like the pilot) once a year than a new hour of crappy filler every week. Of course it's a lot harder to sell soap on the once-a-year schedule, and that's the bottom line.

    11. Re:What did they expect? by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      I think you hit a key point there and should have been modded insightful for it. BSG is basically a soap style. Each episode leads into the next one in a flow. Gaps in that flow are distracting and push the audience away. Non-episodic shows do not hold up well in reruns at all, and the big networks know this. That's why soap operas run one hour episodes five days a week, with reruns only on New Year's Day, Christmas Day, and Thanksgiving Day. Maybe one or two others.

      That's the style of show BSG is trying to imitate, but is trying to imitate it with a once-a-week show that skips a week here and there and also skips several weeks in the middle of the season. Yes, it is getting better in that regard, but compared to where it needs to be to keep viewers, it isn't even close. Honestly, anything short of one episode a week all year is problematic, but you can get away with breaking for the summer. You can't get away with two runs of ten episodes. You really can't. :-)

      Large chunks of missing plot don't help much, either. I felt totally lost for the first hour of this season's premiere and kept having to back up to make sure I wasn't losing my mind because in the context of last year's season closer, they had skipped waaaaaay too much plot. Half the characters felt completely out-of-character because they had changed so drastically since the previous episode, so the plot just didn't hold together very well. And the "webisodes" didn't do much of anything to fill in the gaps. It was by far the most jarring two hours of television I've ever witnessed.... I'm not sure what they were thinking....

      That said, if they don't do something idiotic on the return from their holiday break---if I don't feel like I'm lost as soon as the next episode starts, it will probably be a good remainder of the season. I rather like where it's headed, generally speaking.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    12. Re:What did they expect? by discord5 · · Score: 1
      TV audiences of the TiVo generation have shown that they're not content to just watch reruns for long periods of time.

      TV audiences of the "Internet generation" prefer to have all episodes released in one big torrent at the same time. That way they can have a [insert series here]-marathon and be done with it, and watch the shows again in about half a year. They get to choose their own time to watch what they want, and they often choose to watch reruns when they want.

      With decreasing new episode counts, the problem of ratings getting harder and harder to come by shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

      The problem with ratings is that your audience is fickle at best. After 2 seasons of a new show most writers need to create new plot devices to keep the audience intrested, but in doing so they're often alienating the show from its original setup, which is what got the viewers in the first place. Personally, I've grown weary of the whole Starbuck & Apollo (and whomever they chose to sleep with) thing in BSG. It just drags on and on and on, and it's becoming soap-opera of Farscape-"It might not be your baby, oh and your clone whom I was in love with died"-proportions. There's nothing wrong with having sexual tension between protagonists, but blowing it out of proportions like Farscape (and the way BSG is headed) is just soap-opera in space.

      they should try a novel approach: go back to a 30+ episode season.

      Right now they're on the typical X-mas break which a lot of shows are taking. This is network policy, not filming policy. I think it's 22 or 24 episodes per season for most shows. Consider having 44 episodes per season. Logistic-wise that's a lot of pressure, twice the amount of pressure in the same timespan. We're not just dealing with a couple of actors and cameramen, but an entire crew of set-builders, stuntmen, "live" special effects people, digital special effects, editing, re-editing, scriptwriting, etc etc.

      If you're dealing with a genre like soap opera, you can cut the logistics problem in half: you don't need new sets every 3 episodes, just have the actors stay in the same set for three weeks wondering who's the father of some pregnant woman. Scriptwriting for most soap opera is sub-par anyway, and well... soap opera doesn't need a lot of special effects (and if they do, they're most likely ridiculously cheap). That's why you see 200 episodes of soap opera in a year. It's not because those actors work harder (I'm not saying they are or aren't), but because the crew behind the actors doesn't have to do quite as much as in a scifi show.

  8. no wonder ratings are declining! by CheechBG · · Score: 2, Informative

    I just hit the scifi.com main page, and there is not ONE mention of BSG anywhere on the page. If you stop advertising the show, only the die-hards will watch and it will descend into cult status.

    1. Re:no wonder ratings are declining! by dyslexicbunny · · Score: 1

      I just went there and there are two references but I suppose it depends on when you visit. It's a moot point.

      I agree though that Scifi needs to advertise it's bread and butter shows. Instead, they show crap for the scifi-pedia, scifi tech, and other nonsense. Instead, they should be telling me when new episodes are starting again for their shows. I am not interested in hunting down when shows should be coming on, especially advertising that the show is moving to Sunday night.

      Scifi needs to look at itself and figure out what it wants to be as a channel. I believe they should remove ECW from their lineup and reduce the number of scifi original movies shown, replacing them with reruns of their top tier shows. Perhaps make some management changes and find some new shows to help out but remember that they aren't a network show. And it wouldn't hurt to advertise the show on other networks.

    2. Re:no wonder ratings are declining! by some+guy+I+know · · Score: 1
      I believe they should remove ECW from their lineup
      But ECW is science fiction.
      So is ghost-hunting.
      All they need now is that "talk to dead people" guy.
      And Doctor Phil.

      On a more serious note, I disagree with you about SF original movies.
      I think that the concept of SF original movies is fine; they just need to make more good ones.
      And they need to be real SF, not giant monsters, malevolent elevators, and so forth.
      And the characters need to act more intelligently, as opposed to the let's-split-up-so-that-we-can-be-killed-one-by-one crowd.
      --
      Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
    3. Re:no wonder ratings are declining! by CheechBG · · Score: 1

      Absolutely. Whoever thought it would be a good fucking idea to put ECW on SciFi needs to be fired with extreme prejudice. If I had mod points, you would get one.

    4. Re:no wonder ratings are declining! by dyslexicbunny · · Score: 1

      My opinion on the scifi original movies is that they are an outlet for B-list actors, directors, and writers to work. Unfortunately (and as we both agree), there is a severe lack of quality control.

      You made a lot of good points but I have one nitpick. How does one define real scifi? Some of the ideas are interesting that they write about but the script is shoddy with dialogue worse than the new Star Wars movies. If the SF channel sat down and actually looked at their movies, they could actually improve a lot but I doubt the management would like to spend the money that it would require.

  9. Death by Multiplication? by Rapter09 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I love RDM's Battlestar Galactica. It's excellent science fiction. The very best we have, I'd say. With that established however, I must make the point that I can see the series dying a horrible death due to inundation. Sure, the show is great and awesome. It's a beacon in the science fiction TV realm, but apparently it's ratings are slipping. Which sucks because its such a darn good show and i'd hate to see it go. Despite the ratings drop they've announced a spinoff series before BSG even really got its gears in motion - 'Caprica' - which is 0% science fiction and 100% drama. They've announced an MMO (or a game of some sort, at any rate) and I believe a pen-and-paper RPG? (the RPG I could be wrong on...), plus this movie.

    Now granted, it's a great show, and a direct-to-DVD movie isn't really uncommon, but doesn't anybody think it's a little TOO much? Almost like SciFi, RDM and Eick are riding the marketing a little too hard? Babylon 5 was probably the most famous for direct-to-DVD movies. Most of them were not really on par with the overall quality of the show (except for In The Beginning... which was just... unbelievable.) even though they were nice little departures.

    Maybe it wouldn't kill the show per-se, but it seems like they're jumping the gun a little early on this one.

    1. Re:Death by Multiplication? by PsychoSlashDot · · Score: 1
      and I believe a pen-and-paper RPG? (the RPG I could be wrong on...)
      You're not wrong.
      http://www.ogrecave.com/archives/004519.shtml
      --
      "Oh no... he found the .sig setting."
  10. Farscape by pkbarbiedoll · · Score: 2, Informative

    Farscape suffered a similar untimely fate. The show was wonderous and innovative to most who saw it, yet in the middle of season four Sciffy announced that the second half of season four was actually season five, and killed the show with a final movie (after much hellraising from Farscape fans).

  11. decline in ratings? by jimfinity · · Score: 1

    that comes as a surprise to me. 3 out of the 4 latest shows have been incredibly good (hero, unfinished business, the eye of jupiter). I suggest checking them out if you haven't yet.

    1. Re:decline in ratings? by rikkards · · Score: 1

      Haven't seem the last two but I think Heroes has been flawed from the beginning. It has excellent characters, is a novel idea but the flaw? The plot is moving...too...damn...slow. It looks like the thing that made Lost great the first season but has declined since is something they are trying to avoid with Heroes and that is that the plot was great the first season but feels like they didn't know if they were going to be around for a second. The third with the Others has been dragging along

      Now don't get me started about the penultimate of dead horse beatings called ER....

    2. Re:decline in ratings? by phobos512 · · Score: 1

      Parent was referring to several episodes of BSG with the titles mentioned, not different shows...

    3. Re:decline in ratings? by jimmy_dean · · Score: 1

      I totally agree...I find season 3 to be some of the best in the entire series to date. I love the fact that they mix action with drama and lots of character development. Other comments have stated that they just want more action. More action would make the show more generic SciFi. Keep the show going in the same direction...it rocks!

      --
      -> Sometimes, you just gotta break free from the shackles of proprietary code.
    4. Re:decline in ratings? by duranaki · · Score: 1

      I'm with you guys.. i'm still loving this series as it is. I hope they stay on their current creative track and not jump to something more palletable to the masses to regain some ratings (although i can't figure out why they've dropped anyway).

  12. Well I'd Watch It... by nbannerman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'll be honest; the ratings in the UK would be a lot higher if we didn't have such a huge wait. Whilst you in the US are enjoying Series 3, we haven't even started yet.

    I watch the US versions, a day after they air. You can work out the rest for yourself. But there is no point viewing on Sci-Fi UK when I've already seen it. If we had parity with the US, or at least something more sensible like a week, the viewing figures would be much higher!

    1. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by Chanc_Gorkon · · Score: 1

      Ha ha.....BSG is on hiatus until Jan 21 and even then it's moving....to SUNDAY! Ick.

      --

      Gorkman

    2. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "But there is no point viewing on Sci-Fi UK when I've already seen it"

      There's no point even trying to view it on Sci-Fi UK because they don't show it. It's shown on Sky One, who also co-financed the first season along with the US Sci-Fi channel.

    3. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      We get it in HD from the start, and for other shows (for example SG-1, where we start the second half of this season on 9th Jan) we even get them before the US.

      btw. They're on Sky One here not SciFi (SciFi UK is mostly a horror film channel, with the occasional repeats of V and Logans Run).

    4. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by nbannerman · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I realised afterwards about the channel issue. Oops, my bad. Shows you how up to date I am with what is actually shown on what. That Arquette (sp?) lass has Medium on Sci-Fi UK which can be a bit of a laugh.

      Still, is HD enough for me to re-watch BSG? I'll be honest, probably not. By the time the HD versions hit our screens, I'll be back to watching the second half of the series from the US....

    5. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      We get it in HD from the start, and for other shows (for example SG-1, where we start the second half of this season on 9th Jan) we even get them before the US.

      Too bad Sky does such a piss-poor job of HD encoding. They really need to take a lesson or two from the BBC -- or maybe an engineer or two -- because the BBC's HD quality is head and shoulders above Sky's. I never would have thought that brand-spanking new h.264 could look worse than old mpeg-2, but Sky proves it on a daily basis.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    6. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by Altima(BoB) · · Score: 1

      (SciFi UK is mostly a horror film channel, with the occasional repeats of V and Logans Run). Don't forget "The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man" Obviously it was H G Wells' original intent.
      --
      Yup...
    7. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by bigbigbison · · Score: 1

      I'll trade you getting Battlestar Galactica at the same time as the USA for getting Doctor Who at the same time as the UK.

      --
      http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
    8. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by nvrrobx · · Score: 1

      Now you know how those of us in the United States feel about Doctor Who.

      I just spent two weeks in Europe, and BBC started an episode of Doctor Who, but I had to turn it off because it was a season ahead of where we are in the US. I didn't WANT to know that Rose was dead yet, damnit!

    9. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by Omeger · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry sir, but I belive it's called SEASON 3. Fracking wanker. ;-D

    10. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by *s.panzer* · · Score: 1

      That's what you get for making us wait for Doctor Who...

    11. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by chromatic · · Score: 1
      I didn't WANT to know that ....!

      I didn't want to know that either, you insensitive clod!

    12. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by Slack3r78 · · Score: 1

      The move the Sunday is great, for me. See, even some of us geeks have something called a social life meaning that we're generally not home to catch the show on Friday nights at 9:00PM. Sunday night, on the other hand, means that I'll actually get to catch the show since nothing happens on Sundays anyway.

    13. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by nogginthenog · · Score: 1

      Wasn't season 1 screened in the UK on Sky One before the US?

    14. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by transami · · Score: 1

      Do yourself a favor and DO NOT WATCH the boxing episode.

      --
      :T:R:A:N:S:
    15. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by nbannerman · · Score: 1

      Yep, we actually got that before you did by a few months (October against January) because Sky One funded some of the development and production costs. This funding wasn't repeated for 2 or 3, so back to the normal time lag scenarios.

    16. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by Chanc_Gorkon · · Score: 1

      Ever heard of Tivo??

      --

      Gorkman

    17. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by geckofiend · · Score: 1

      I true geek would have a Tivo or other DVR and watch it when they felt like it. ;)

    18. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you're both fine then, because she isn't dead.

    19. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by oliderid · · Score: 1

      I live in Belgium. I downloaded every single episodes through torrents/DIV (except season 1). I know quality sucks, but I'm currently watching the last episodes of season 2 :-). It hasn't been officially released yet (except the DVDs for season 1 that I bought, released without the mini serie that I had to download to understand the plot)

      Companies are going to lose a lot of money if they don't sync their release date in all western countries, especially when you have such a nice scenario.

    20. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by chromatic · · Score: 1

      Maybe I should have, but I timeshifted it due to spending a lot of time with friends and family this past week.

    21. Re:Well I'd Watch It... by Slack3r78 · · Score: 1

      BSG is the only show on television I really bother keeping up with. Owning a Tivo or building a MythTV box just plain isn't worth it for me.

  13. and.. by BRUTICUS · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here's how I see it.

    The cylon bayships are showing WAY TOO MUCH. Its like going into Darth Vaders bathroom and watching him take off his mask and slap on some aftershave. Cylons were more interesting when it was a mystery what is going on inside there. When we knew just as much of the cylons as the humans did. Now we are watching the cylons run around in their underwear, and the bayships seem like a pretty cush place no?The scariest thing going on there is the digital lights that are unnecessarily being flashed in the cylon faces to make it look FUTURISTIC, OOOOOH.

    Why does Baltar still have Caprica(cylon) in his head? Shes right there!!!! What's the point? Hurry up and get done with the whole cylon/human hybrid baby, Sharon wants her baby storyline. Its really lame and unnecessary. First of all its just Madam President making another mistake cause really WHY tell the mother the kid died? So the cylons wont know she exists and take her and do experiments on her? Sorry but thats ridiculous. They would blow up gallactica before hoping onboard and kidnapping a baby.

    1. Re:and.. by Destoo · · Score: 1
      Why does Baltar still have Caprica(cylon) in his head? Shes right there!!!!

      Because the Caprica he has in his head is actually an Angel sent by the One True God to tip the balance, and also a figment of his imagination at the same time. He is a very frakked up chosen one.
      --
      Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
  14. Bayships? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    How about Base Ships?

    1. Re:Bayships? by BRUTICUS · · Score: 1

      oops, thanks for clearing that up

    2. Re:Bayships? by Weaps · · Score: 1

      Eh, I suppose you could call them Bayships. They do have a bunch of 'bays' from which raiders and whatnot are launched. But yeah, Base Ship is what they are called. Better than 'Base Stars' from TOS. That version was okay when I was eleven, but now...campylishious.

  15. Are these types of movies "swan songs" ? by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

    "The X Files" series ended shortly after the movie. The box office failure of "Serenity" insured that the "Firefly" series would not be brought back. I suspect "The Simpsons" movie may prove to be a swan song also.

    1. Re:Are these types of movies "swan songs" ? by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      I'm surprised Serenity failed at the box office.. its storyline was a bit generic, but what isn't these days?

      Simpsons jumped the shark years ago and should have been killed a long time ago.. the recent episodes are getting painful to watch, they're so bad.

      Didn't know x files died after the movie.. the movie was nearly the first thing I saw - watched x files for a long time afterwards (seems like they did thousands of them because it took ages before they started repeating).

    2. Re:Are these types of movies "swan songs" ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ""The X Files" series ended shortly after the movie."

      There were five seasons before the movie and four afterwards. So to say that the series ended shortly after the movie is nonsense.

    3. Re:Are these types of movies "swan songs" ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "The X Files" series ended shortly after the movie.

      "The X Files" series *SHOULD* have ended shortly after the movie. The quality plummeted after the movie, there was no point anymore when the mystery feeling was gone.

  16. Loss of stargate as a lead-in by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Loss of stargate as a lead-in is pulling the ratings down.

    1. Re:Loss of stargate as a lead-in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Indeed. SciFi really screwed up when they mixed up that lineup. When they had their three best shows back-to-back-to-back, each show boosted the others' ratings. Now, with Stargate's season not coinciding with BSG and SG-1 being cancelled, there is less incentive for casual viewers to tune in, thus bringing the ratings down in all of those shows. Further, I think the ratings for all three of those shows are somewhat skewed due to the way they repeat them later that night. If you add together the ratings of the two airings, it yields a much better rating than is being reported, and you know that those are all unique viewers because very few people watch the same episode twice in a row. If you ask me, SciFi is royally screwing itself.

    2. Re:Loss of stargate as a lead-in by Rosyna · · Score: 0

      I could not agree more. Stargate and BSG gave each other a lot of viewers. Hell, it was the only reason I became interested in BSG was that it came before Stargate and everything else on fridays sucked. With SciFi decoupling them, the ratings are doomed to fail for both. Not to mention the fact the second parts of SG-1 and SG:A will have aired completely in other countries before they air in the US is just going to harm the ratings that much more.

      This new management or whatever that's in charge at NBC/universal is really, really harming and killing SciFi's greatest shows. I'd like to blame Mike Lazzo, but he doesn't work there. But still, it's all his fault.

    3. Re:Loss of stargate as a lead-in by prator · · Score: 0

      It's funny because it's true!

  17. Sadly... by doit3d · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...changing the time slot like they did is a death sentence for the show, IMHO. Very sad, for it is one of the best sci-fi shows currently aired that is done well. We all know that studio executives have always lacked intelligence anyway, so it was expected.

    --
    "This is America... where the will of the few outweigh the outrage of the many..." - Unknown
    1. Re:Sadly... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sunday night is a great slot, especially compared to Friday night. People are home and trying to relax between a busy weekend and a busy workweek (as opposed to Friday night,when a lot of people like to go out). (Look at how many shows Fox and NBC have moved to Friday night before killing them off.)

      If BSG had pulled this between "normal" episodes, it might have lost some viewership. Since they're doing this across a cliff hanger and for the "mid-season premier", almost all of the viewership should catch the move.

    2. Re:Sadly... by dschuetz · · Score: 1

      ...changing the time slot like they did is a death sentence for the show, IMHO

      What? They moved it, what, AN HOUR!? Gimme a break.

      I think other posters have hit on one of the real reasons that ratings might have slipped: They decided to go against all the broadcast shows, during broadcast season. A bold move, but perhaps a bad idea -- especially with all the sci-fi / fantasy shows (lost, heroes, jericho, etc.) that are competing for viewer's eyeballs.

      (btw, I think they're moving it back to 10:00 in January...)

  18. Not enough action by Cthefuture · · Score: 0

    Now I know people will correct me and say it's not a war show but is instead a drama. But still, compared to the miniseries and most of the earlier seasons the action has been lacking (for example "33" was awesome). I think the drama/action balance was better in previous seasons. Currently it's almost all drama save for a few sequences here and there and there's all that crap left from the "New Caprica" arc with main characters getting married and all sorts of touchy feely junk.

    The whole "new Caprica" arc was what really killed the show for me. They skipped something like 10 years which just left a bad taste in my mouth and ruined the storyline. The lead up to it just didn't make any sense (Commander Lee Adama anyone?).

    Don't get me wrong, I still love the show. It's actually one of the few things worth watching on TV and the last episode wasn't too bad but I hope they pull the show back in the direction of the original arc.

    --
    The ratio of people to cake is too big
    1. Re:Not enough action by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you think they 'skipped ten years or something' you're really not paying attention. The jump on New Caprica was jarring, true, but necessary to make the storyline elements work.

    2. Re:Not enough action by bigbigbison · · Score: 1

      They skipped something like 10 years

      actually it was much closer to 10 months than 10 years.

      --
      http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
    3. Re:Not enough action by guidryp · · Score: 1

      "The jump on New Caprica was jarring, true, but necessary to make the storyline elements work."

      Needed to make what work? They pretty much did a complete undo on this arc. I found it jarring because it was comically, badly done, this was a turning point in the wrong direction for me. The characters all seemed off character and they went to the cheese closet to point out the passage of time with mustaches (Adama), fat suits (Apollo), and hair extensions (Starbuck). Then post "New Caprica" they get rid of the extra hair and the fat suit within the arc. Strong Fromage.

    4. Re:Not enough action by Cthefuture · · Score: 1

      Yeah sorry, I just remembered it seemed like a huge gap in the story.

      --
      The ratio of people to cake is too big
    5. Re:Not enough action by CrackedButter · · Score: 1

      Those weren't hair extensions by the way, it was her real hair which she grew and cut off again for the show. A small nitpick.

  19. Unfortunately both Cylons/humans less interesting by guidryp · · Score: 1

    The problem I have is both sides seem less interesting now. The Baltar dynamic has been removed from the humans and replaced with melodrama; who will Starbuck Frak next? Yippee: Days of our Battlestar lives.

    A lot of the sense of mystery has been removed from the cylons with Baltar wandering among them.

    As far as it being the best Drama on TV, "Deadwood", and "The Wire" were/are much better dramas which much more believable characters. I am sure other people can list more. As a drama it would not be high on my list.

    I watched it initially because it was a great SciFi show with gritty feel, great unfolding cyclon mystery and good tension with traitor/crazy Baltar among the humans. Now most of that has been lost to be replaced with more melodrama. I think this is a result of them running out of ideas and trying to stretch for more seasons. Sad.

  20. Recipe for BSG Success ... by Herschel+Cohen · · Score: 1

    Get it off the crappolla SciFi channel.

    Even going high definition tv would not suffice, since I like others have only standard. I watch only two shows: BSG and House M.D. Until recently when he got smacked down I was on the course to drop the latter.

    Going straight to DVD is great, I will buy it just to avoid the stupid ads and previews for the upcoming shows. SciFi insults its viewers by running miniclips while the current show is nearing its end. I hate SciFi Channel and I have nearly no interest in watching any of their shows, particularly the ones they push when BSG is on.

    While I tend to read science fiction, I have always found most sci. fi. movies and tv series painful to watch. With BSG I may disagree with the story line or at times think parts were done badly, I still like to watch their attempts even when they fail. At least, most times they are not talking down to the audience.

    One feature I now avoid is the podcasts, even the ones on the DVDs, there is too much stress on their own visceral response to their creation rather than the logic in the story line. That might be due to the need to avoid giving away future plot lines. Valid reason (somewhat), however, I had learned well in advance about the first 5 to 6 episodes of season 3 from reading a fan magazine. Actually I was disappointed I expected better execution of the ideas in the plots. So the discussions of the episodes do yield nothing positive for me, though other comments here found them of value.

    I suggest: just produce the DVDs, run it afterward on TV. I suspect there will be a market for both, but with the shows timing on a shitty channel with idiots running it there is only so much any audience will bear. NBC could have done better, both for themselves and for the show.

    I should state that the humans interest me less than machine intelligence, but religious nuts? Where did that come from? Mass murder followed by the tepid attempts to show the humans the right path, that's just too hard a sell. I would really like to know the rationale for the robots behaviour. And other questions, why were their more organic forms stopped so abruptly? Why are they scientific klutzes? This all hints that the core of the murderous rage and their frailty is human based. I am hoping Caprica might follow that logic, however, I do not have high hopes.

    Nonetheless, I will continue to watch both, but preferably straight off of DVDs. I will still watch, because one is still the best of its genre and I have hopes the new series will do as well, at least in quality.

    1. Re:Recipe for BSG Success ... by coke_scp · · Score: 1

      Can't imagine where this is coming from, either, it has no basis in reality. I skipped the history classes in school that covered the crusades, nazis, or any of the modern muslim conflicts. "I should state that the humans interest me less than machine intelligence, but religious nuts? Where did that come from? Mass murder followed by the tepid attempts to show the humans the right path, that's just too hard a sell."

  21. BSG is top-rated cable series on Friday by ubuwalker31 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I call Bullshit with the "BSG ratings are falling" crowd

    From http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/search/article_display .jsp?vnu_content_id=1003223846 :
    -Respectable Start for Sci Fi's Battlestar Galactica:
    The two-hour, third-season premiere of Sci Fi Channel's Battlestar Galactica was the top-rated cable series on Friday, Oct. 6, with a 1.8 household rating and 2.2 million viewers. Comparatively, however, that was still down by 900,000 viewers from the season two opener in July 2005 (3.1 million).

    So, they lost almost a million viewers...and they are still on top. I think that they are gambling that a move to Sunday night might help. I think that the long gaps between seasons helped to kill ratings...not the day of the week.

  22. Falling ratings? Bring in the big breasted woman! by LibertineR · · Score: 1

    Worked for Voyager, right? Oh wait.....

  23. BSG is lousy science fiction, please fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I watched the first two seasons, found some of it ok, but decided to bail out this season. It's essentially boring, the characters are stereotypes, it's cruel, it's militaristic. How the system can sustain a show like this while Firefly lives a short life, it's beyond me.

    I am hard core science fiction, it takes a lot to get me to turn my back on a show like BSG, but it's too low to bear watching.

  24. This Feels Too Familiar by Atomm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Enterprise decided to follow the same storyline. They started bringing in moral elements of what is happening in the world around us. After 9/11, Enterprise had a whole season that mirrored everything that was happening because of 9/11.

    The new season of BSG did the exact same thing. They started focusing on the morality of the world around us. They had terriosts and suicide bombers.

    I'm sorry, but I watch SciFi because I want to escape from the problems we face in the world today. Didn't Universal learn anything from the ratings dive Enterprise took when they did this?

    Then again, this is the same channel that is cancelling Stargate SG1, even though it's one of their highest rated shows.

    1. Re:This Feels Too Familiar by spazoid12 · · Score: 1

      Stargate started out kinda weak, mostly OK. But over time it became more and more simple and fun. No big deal, just fun. Atlantis has also been mostly fun. I'm not one to miss shows because... it's just TV crap, no matter how good. But, I'm sure I'll find myself wishing for something like SG1. If not, then I'll just be another to watch less and less TV and play some PC game instead. Anyways, true, keep the topical politics out of it! It's not like the writers are giant minded pundits... whatever attempt they make at making it topical is going to be just dumb.

    2. Re:This Feels Too Familiar by Twisted64 · · Score: 1

      A lot of sci-fi mirrors what's happening in the real world. Ever seen Star Wars? The tagline for that should have been: "A War In Space Is Always A Cold War."

      --
      Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
  25. ... and they have a plan. by guidryp · · Score: 1

    Ouch. I had assumed they had a full story arc in mind, especially when the tag line for the Cylons is "and they have a plan".

    It is pretty sad that the writers don't.

    1. Re:... and they have a plan. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone asked him about this once. Originally, the "And they have a plan" was something put in (over RDM's objections) to make the teaser sound cooler. There was, originally, no plan.

      The writers have since developed said plan.

  26. BSG fan by digitalhermit · · Score: 1

    This sucks. Except for Doctor Who, there's nothing else on television that I enjoy. I own all the BSG DVDs and will get the latest when it's issued. Anyhoo, there are a few problems I see the writers/producers having:

    1) The episodes are less balanced. I.e., they are more standalone episodes than before. IMHO, getting new viewers is very difficult if there's a lot of backstory needed to understand new episodes. For example, when X-Files was good it relied on some backstory. Regular viewers could be very interested. At some point they made it a freak-of-the-week show. Maybe this was at the direction of the marketing folks who said that they needed to appeal to non-regular viewers. Who knows. BSG seems to be heading in the freak-of-the-week direction...

    2) Too much morality preaching. This is coming from someone who enjoyed watching Starbuck interview the Cylon because of the psychology war. Now it seems to be more about adding current topics to the storyline to make it, ummm, topical. Sure, science fiction always has a dose of morality, but don't beat us to death with it.

    3) Not enough explosions. Seriously. My favorite movie is Apocalypse Now. I can appreciate the deep mind-fuck and the near-perfect understanding of Conrad's story, but it had lots of guns too. BSG is getting way too touchy-feely to appeal to the 25-45 male demographic.

    4) Cylons are too human. No mystery, no intrigue. They're just human now and that makes it really boring. I.e., if it looks like a duck and talks like a duck, call it a duck. It was interesting that they could not die, but now they can, so the morality question of, "Does mortality make us human" just blows away. They're too human and too weak as a result. That's why the Borg was so terrifying at first. Then they became human and that just made them weak.

    And for God's sake, please don't do any time travel or evil twin episodes..

  27. bridge the gap... by Animaether · · Score: 1

    "bridge the gap between Galactica and the new spinoff 'Caprica'"

    There's one problem right there. Why is there a gap? Why is there a spinoff? Did the events on Caprica really warrant a spinoff? Could the Caprica story, in no way, remain integrated with the main storyline in some way? And if it couldn't, and it didn't really warrant a spinoff, why not just let it be and move on?

    Too many spinoffs these days - in the end, it merely divides focus (and money!) on the end of producers, actors, and audience alike. I'd like to see how many spinoffs+series remained doing as well separately, as the original did on its own. My guess: not many.

    1. Re:bridge the gap... by mr_matticus · · Score: 1

      "Caprica" is set 50 years before BSG, presumably right before the first Cylon War. My question is, how do you 'bridge a gap' going backwards? Have a movie set 20 years in the past first? I think this rumor is complete nonsense for that one simple fact alone.

    2. Re:bridge the gap... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's see...ther was "The Jeffersons" that was a fucking AWESOME spinoff of "all in the family"...

      um..then there was..uh....

      yeah.

    3. Re:bridge the gap... by KillerCow · · Score: 1
      "Caprica" is set 50 years before BSG, presumably right before the first Cylon War. My question is, how do you 'bridge a gap' going backwards? Have a movie set 20 years in the past first?


      With bad cliches and weak devices: time travel, flashbacks, or some events from the past that haven't mattered until now suddenly becoming pivotal points of the existing story (making the writers free to expand upon those past events).
    4. Re:bridge the gap... by AussieVamp2 · · Score: 1

      Yes, the 'BBC Family Saga' Caprica doesn't sound like all that great an idea.

    5. Re:bridge the gap... by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      "Caprica" is set 50 years before BSG, presumably right before the first Cylon War. My question is, how do you 'bridge a gap' going backwards? Have a movie set 20 years in the past first? I think this rumor is complete nonsense for that one simple fact alone.

      Enterprising writers.

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  28. I wish the DVDs were cheaper. by YoungHack · · Score: 1

    I've borrowed the DVDs of the series from friends, but I have to say that I think they are way overpriced. I find is especially dorky that they release each half season for essentially the full price of other shows. I can buy a whole season of Stargate SG-1, an excellent show that has been on for 10 years, and it costs less than half of a season of BSG.

    I won't do it. It's a great show, and I'm glad to borrow it from people willing to fork out the dough. But it isn't worth it to me. And I think it's probably not worth it to other people either.

    1. Re:I wish the DVDs were cheaper. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cheaper???? 12.95 for the netflix subscription and $9.95 in DVD blanks... how can you get any cheaper than that????

      oh you actually BUY DVD's?? I've heard of people like you but never met one... Always though you were a urban legend.

      Wow, someone foolish enough to pay the huge dollars for TV show DVD sets... incredible! you learn somethign new every day!

    2. Re:I wish the DVDs were cheaper. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      oh you actually BUY DVD's?? I've heard of people like you but never met one... Always though you were a urban legend.


      I sure hope you're not a family guy fan, because without us, you wouldn't be watching anything past season 3.
  29. Re:BSG is top-rated cable series on Friday by rtrifts · · Score: 2, Informative

    BSG is on broadcast TV?

    I'm in Canada. Every one of my friends watches BSG religiously. Every single week.

    But not a single one of them watches it on Space. BSG is the reason for bittorrent. What's the adjusted ratings for bittorent users? :)

    As for the ratings discussion...they are not that bad nor at any sort of critical stage. Leave it to the Slashdot crowd to ignore the Direct To Video movie discussion and seize on the ratings speculation one-liner.

    As for the Iraq war parallels. They were strong, solid scripts. The ranting about those issues regarding the show come from American viewers - not those from other countries. Methinks your flag is getting in the way of your enjoyment of the best show on TV.

    --
    .Robert
  30. Does RDM have film rights? by GabrielF · · Score: 1

    I've heard Ronald D. Moore (the show's executive producer) say that his team does not own the film rights to Battlestar Galactica. The guys who owned the rights to the crappy 70s show sold off the TV rights but held on to the film rights for some reason. As a result RDM has publicly ruled out the possibility of making a BSG film in the past. I don't know if this applies to Direct to Video films, but if it does it makes this story unlikely.

  31. Drop in rating no surprise by spazoid12 · · Score: 1

    "Although Battlestar Galactica has been going down in ratings and has yet to get picked up for another season"

    Here's a tip... move the story along already!!

    I pretty much gave up on the slow moving show but then decided to give it one more chance. So, the next time I caught an episode... I see an hour of retarded boxing? Dear Lord, how boring can they force the show to be?? At least that stupid Kat vs Starbuck bickering is finally gone.

    1. Re:Drop in rating no surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about when Adama gets the shit beat out of him? His speech sure wasn't so inpsiring then. The show feels like it's losing its direction, and 1/2 of the material just seems like bullshit filler.

    2. Re:Drop in rating no surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The best TV Sci-Fi series in my opinion was Babylon 5. The story was completely planned out and made for a 5 year run. In contrast, BSG just seems to wander. The sad irony here is that they already have a story outline to draw from and yet they can't seem to follow it. There is no difference between the Humans and the Cyclons. Who is the villian and who is the hero? I honestly can't tell who I should be siding with here. The Humans will never reach Earth because they seem to be incompetent. The Cyclons on the other hand don't seem to know their own identity. It's like watching a bad three stooges episode.

      The producers had better get a handle on the show's direction or it will be over.

  32. Re:BSG is top-rated cable series on Friday by JebusIsLord · · Score: 1

    I torrent some of them, and use media center to record the others.

    Here in Canada, Season 2 was aired several weeks later than in the US, so we pretty much HAD to download if we didn't want some asshole at work to spoil it for us! Things are a little better now, but they still aren't getting any advertising into me thanks to media center :)

    --
    Jeremy
  33. BSG for Doctor Who AND Torchwood by sadler121 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I'll trade you getting Battlestar Galactica at the same time as the USA for getting Doctor Who at the same time as the UK.


    I'll up that wager, I'll trade you getting Battlestar Galactica at the same time as the USA for getting Doctor Who AND Torchwood at the same time as the UK.

    Unfortunately, the reason Torchwood would never come to the US is because the censors in the US would throw a fit about the content of the show. Way to much swearing and sex. The show would have to pull a sex and the city, and be picked up by HBO, not very likely for a sci fi show...
    1. Re:BSG for Doctor Who AND Torchwood by Phoobarnvaz · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, the reason Torchwood would never come to the US is because the censors in the US would throw a fit about the content of the show. Way to much swearing and sex.

      If I remember right...heard the "F" word used several times this season on Galactica. Not only that...but I've seen uncut movies on Fox Movie & TCM that are run uncut. This being the case...the FCC has no control over content for non-broadcast outlets like Sci-Fi...much to the chagrin of the "self-imposed" people who are afraid I & others may hear or see something they think an adult shouldn't be hearing or seeing.

      --
      Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. - Charles M. Schulz
    2. Re:BSG for Doctor Who AND Torchwood by dadioflex · · Score: 1

      But that F word is frakk.

  34. Re:BSG is top-rated cable series on Friday by gilroy · · Score: 1
    Blockquoth the poster:

    What's the adjusted ratings for bittorent users? :)


    Sci Fi doesn't care. Unless you're putting eyeballs on advertisements, you're irrelevant in their calculus. That's the way TV works.

  35. Touchy Feely Meets Cost by Ka+D'Argo · · Score: 1

    Three things have made me kinda less enthused about BSG.

    This entire character driven story arch lately. Especially the shit between Starbuck and Apollo. Don't get me wrong I wanted to see them together since the Mini Series, but my god...that one boxing episode it was like one giant emo trip. All Apollo needed was a myspace to record his feelings on and the plot line would have been complete. They didn't need to dedicate an entire episode to boxing. Run it in the background along some other story arcs that ya know, go with the "oh shit we're being chased by killer fucking robots" idea.

    And yea the idea of being chased by Cylons is like, gone. I think the last real time they had to worry about it, was the attack on the Ressurrection Ship. Sure, the Cylons found them on New Caprica, held them against their will etc But in the end what did they do? Sack'ed the Pegasus, which we all knew was coming, for a very short brief action sequence that basically was the equal of them getting people off the planet and running away, again. Since then there's been no real "omg we're in danger" aspect. Sure they ran out of food and such but it's been kinda a subdued role of the Cylons really being this threat. It just seems like Season 3 has been about them running this parallel course to get to Earth, not really attacking them.

    Cost is the real killer for me. After I had seen the majority of Season 1 reruns, I went out and bought BSG S1 on DVD, which included the mini series. Well worth my $40 for it. Now I enjoyed Season 2 as well. But over $80 for it? I can get 2 seasons of basically any other show for that. Hell if I wanna buy "slimcase" editions of X-Files, Buffy or Angel for example I could get 3 seasons of those for the price of BSG Season 2 ($45 for each part, two parts).. That's god damn highway robbery. Don't get me wrong, other tv shows are just as bad. Doctor Who is upwards of $83 (Best Buy price) for 13 episodes of content...I love science fiction, it's my life. I just can't give it an arm, a leg, a first born child and a soul to buy some dvds.

    --
    Aw Frell this
    1. Re:Touchy Feely Meets Cost by solios · · Score: 1

      Personally, I think Cost - in the sense of the show's budget - is the major issue with the series at the moment. Three or four AWESOME effects-heavy episodes followed by a bunch of tepid drama so irritating (sick of Starbuck And Apollo, really amazingly disappointed with the Cylon 'hybrid' and the Basestar as a whole) that I've gone back to watching Farscape.

      If you think the DVDs are a ripoff, you've obviously never bought anime. typically 20-30$ for four 22-24 minute episodes*, with shows typically being 26 episodes or so (sans franchises like Naruto and Dragonball - I feel sorry for the bastards who are paying out the ass for those on DVD) - it's a lot of cash for not a lot of content.

      * The episode itself barely clocking in at 18 to 20 after the overlong intro operetta and the lengthy credits sequences all anime seem to have.

    2. Re:Touchy Feely Meets Cost by NeuroManson · · Score: 1

      One of the things that has made me cooler towards BSG, is that it lacks, ironically, one of the things I've hated about the original BSG: Humor.

      First season: Kewl! Seriousness! No disco music in space, no comedy relief robot antics, none of the (then)cornball jokes!
      Second season: Kewl. More seriousness, nice parallel with current events in the real world.
      Third season: Kewl? More seriousness, moving now into more oooh spooky booga booga mysticism.

      I mean, come on, put something in to lighten the mood! Yeah yeah, post 9/11 this, post 9/11 that, I don't think the terrorists stole our sense of humor, however. Hate us for it like they may.

      In BSG, the only light mood stuff was a fight club boxing match and they found food on the algae planet (talk about your unimaginative stellar cartographers there, eh?). Render unto me a freaking break, to quote a friend.

      --
      Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
  36. First Sci-Fi program to consider the female viewer by LibertineR · · Score: 1
    As much as it might suck for us hardcore Sci-Fi fans, BSG has a large female following. Larger than any previous show of this kind. RDM and the other writers are aware of same, and much of what we see that makes us go "huh" are directly for that audience. All one need do is go to the BSG forum at Television without Pity and you will see wild declarations of love for Helo, requests for more views of Apollo with his shirt off, etc.....

    Some of the drama stuff might turn our stomachs, but I think RDM will take audience wherever they can get it. I dont think they are really fucking up the show with all that, but I could do with more stuff like Pegasus, and less nonsense from the base ship. The Sharon baby stuff is getting old, get it over with and move on, dammit.

    Someone needs to develop a new weapon, some new anti-baseship tactics, stuff like that. Pegasus was supposedly hunting cylons, so how about showing us some of what they were doing through flashbacks or whatever?

    More space, less face, bitches!

  37. WTF is up with this month long hiatus? by mildness · · Score: 1
    How is anyone less than an addict going to remember to tune back in?

    Bill

    --
    bamph
    1. Re:WTF is up with this month long hiatus? by dyslexicbunny · · Score: 1

      Holiday break. Christmas supercedes anything and everything in the United States. It's just as bad with Fox in October and the frakking MLB playoffs.

      The real challenge is remembering to tune in on Sundays now.

  38. The Colonies and Kobol by xdc · · Score: 1

    I haven't listened to the RDM podcasts, partially for fear of spoilers, but perhaps I should. Thanks for bringing up this interesting info.

    Do the human colony worlds circle a single sun, or are they scattered in space? The writers tossed these out, and no one, including RDM, had an answer. (actually, the last question RDM said that he thought that although it was astronomically unlikely, the human worlds did orbit a single sun... but he wasn't real definite on that).

    In "Home, Part 2" (s2e07), didn't the revelation at the tomb of Athena show clearly that the different colonies were each situated in their own star systems, within their respective constellations as seen from Earth and/or Kobol?

    Or were those constellations merely patterns that are on the flags of each colony, irrespective of the colonies' locations? Now that I consider this more, in light of the miniseries and jumping beyond "the red line" into uncharted space, it would make more sense for the colonies to be either orbiting the same star, or more plausibly within the same group of stars in fairly close proximity to each other.

    Back again to the tomb of Athena, what really happened there? Did the Arrow of Apollo transport people briefly to somewhere on Earth? If not, then the constellations make it appear that Kobol is in fact Earth! It's been months since I've seen this episode, so I don't remember for sure, but didn't the cylons chase the fleet away from Kobol? Kobol seemed like a more habitable place than New Caprica, so why doesn't the fleet return or send military recon expeditions back to Kobol?

  39. Jumped the Shark by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 1

    After the first two or three episodes this season I can't watch it any more (though I try occasionally). The litany of issues I have with it are numerous. What started killing it was my inability to suspend disbelief any more...

    • Things like the pilots, Starbuck in particular, can do any job: pilot, infanteer, reconnaissance, special agent, etc... bullshit! They are all specialities and take experience and training. That is why a pilot flies a plane and doesn't lead soldiers in the field.
    • What the fuck is up with a full colonel who is seemingly _always_ an idiot ( * that * doesn't * happen *... colonels have a LOT of power and don't get to that level if they are as stupid as they make Tigh always look)?
    • The never ending 'West Wing in Space' episodes HAVE to stop. They need some good battle episodes like 'Scar' were the Starbuck character was written much better.
    • How can a prisoner of the Cylons (who don't know where the fleet is) escape them, fly a Cylon raider (I thought that premise was B.S. before), find the fleet when he hasn't seen it from before the war, AND be believable even in scifi land... can't be done.
    • A doctor whose character was written from templates taken from *bad* B movies... probably the same place they get templates they use for Colonel Tigh's character.
    • What really killed it for me was when I turned on one show where they were running out of food, and the pilots were outarguing about divvying up food at the very beginning... WTF? They would get their food rationed, the same as others, and would likely get a better share since they are defenders. They are supposed to be professional military, not some back woods Texas militia members.

    It just goes on and on until it stacks so high I can't take it any more. For the first one and a half seasons plus the pilot movie, it WAS the Best Show on Television. Now they are coasting and it is starting to smell.

    They should get military advisers to help the writers with military stuff and scientific advisers for the science stuff. It may take place in space, but the military is not just about fighting, it also takes a very good ability to manage people, logistics, and situations. It uses a different kind of thought process than the pie in the sky thinking that these writers are using. If you want the fighters to be realistic, get someone who can help the writers put that kind of edge on it. The writers can do what they want with the soap opera crap they keep filling the show in with, but my suggestion would be to use those scripts to fire up the fire place on those cold wet Vancouver winter nights on Boundary Road.

    --
    -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
  40. Lose the shakeycam by PhotoGuy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I loved the original series, but can't watch the new stuff because of the excess use of shakey cam. We *get* it, yes, it seems more "real" with shakey cam. But it's also very annoying and overused. If I want to turn my head in a jerky fashion, I will, do it by making something else on the screen interesting; don't make the camera do it for me. I find it very patronizing, pretentious, and faddish and I wish producers would stop using it. Let the material show its strength, unobscured by a shaky camera.

    --
    Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
    1. Re:Lose the shakeycam by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 1

      Hey, at least it's not as bad as NYPD Blue. That show gave me motion sickness after the first five minutes and I never watched another second of it.

      --
      Drill baby drill - on Mars
    2. Re:Lose the shakeycam by PhotoGuy · · Score: 1

      (BTW: I agree with the poster's comments about NYPD blue; it looked like an interesting show, but it's just stupid how shakey it is, I can't watch it.)

      It *is* possible to get a documentary feel without all the head-snapping virtual-whiplash that seems to be used. Saving Private Ryan was incredibly realistic in a "you are there" sense. Even the awesome comedy mocumentaries, Trailer Park Boys and Spinal Tap achieve documentary feel without making one sick. It's *not* that hard to feel like a hand-held camera. Shakey cam on BG and NYPD blue, etc., don't feel like a hand held camera, they feel like an expensive gimballed camera whipping its virtual head on cue, over and over, in a predictable and annoying fashion. (Someone said something over there, oh, great, another sloppy pan... In some ways, it's almost like forced Pan and Scan, which is known for butchering movies.)

      One idea for the makers of this DVD: use the "multiple angles" feature, or even apply the shakey cam in *post production*, preserving a non-shakey version (included as a different angle, or more simply, as a B-side), so the rest of us can appreciate your work for what it is, not how much caffeine your camera operator had.

      --
      Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
    3. Re:Lose the shakeycam by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

      Not sure what all the whining on this issue is about. To tell the truth, I NEVER would have noticed the effect without someone mentioning it, and when I did stop to look it does seem to add a bit to the show. Going back and watching something like Trek with the nice mounted cameras that never do anything just seems flat in comparison.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    4. Re:Lose the shakeycam by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      FWIW, this season is better. They've also have Adama and the President stop whispering all their lines.

      No doubt because I bitched about it on Slashdot a few times... :)

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  41. Episode No Nos.... by cheekyboy · · Score: 1

    I just hate episodes that...

    * Use elections for the whole episode, make it a minor event taking 10% of air time.
    * Court room type episodes are also boring, make it fast, like StarShip troopers.
    * Fake Reality TV , come-on, its a fad, dont use it to add 'realism' and something to relate to.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
  42. Re:BSG is top-rated cable series on Friday by blincoln · · Score: 1

    Sci Fi doesn't care. Unless you're putting eyeballs on advertisements, you're irrelevant in their calculus. That's the way TV works.

    Sci Fi doesn't, but Universal should. The torrent factor is probably one of the reasons why the DVDs sell so well - I get BSG off of BitTorrent because I hate the fixed schedules and advertising of traditional television. But I also buy the DVD sets as soon as they're released, because I want to support the series and get them in a nicer format that feels more permanent.

    --
    "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
  43. It's the intensity that has gone. by CFD339 · · Score: 1

    Season 1 was heart stopping from first to last. The battles and pressures were relentless. The show matched the beat of its percussive sound track. Recently, that has not been the case.

    --
    The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
  44. I used to dislike "NYPD Blue" for the same reason by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

    They tried to make it look like it was video-taped documentury. But, IMO, it just seemed unbearably pretensious.

  45. I love BSG by DragonTHC · · Score: 1

    I don't care one bit about those of you that can't understand the complex plot lines.

    I love BSG and all of its stories. It's a great show and should be picked up for another season.

    scifi is trying to kill it by holding it off the air.

    --
    They're using their grammar skills there.
  46. Final Five by posterlogo · · Score: 1

    Oh God. Now I'm really dreading the revelation of the final five. I have a sick feeling it's going to really screw with people's heads ("HOW THE FRACK COULD THAT GUY HAVE BEEN A CYLON...HE/SHE's LIKE THE MAIN HUMAN CHARACTER"). Absolutely dreading it. :(

  47. I would say it was stolen from Dune. by puto · · Score: 1

    I would say that Minority Report then is ablatant rip off of the Guild Captains, or whatever they were in Dune, that guild that had the pilots floating in the big vats of water, spice laced so they could use the psychic powers it provided to guide the ships through space, and they orginally men but evolved into something else.

    to quote wikipedia"The Spacing Guild has a monopoly on imperial banking and interstellar travel: with the use of melange, Guild Navigators are the only beings capable of piloting the massive Guild Heighliners safely through space. The heightened awareness and prescience the spice grants allows the navigator to plot a safe course between the stars. Contrary to popular belief, the navigators do not themselves 'fold' space, allowing a nearly instantaneous trip. The space-folding is accomplished by Holtzman drive units activated from the navigator's chamber. In the original novels by Frank Herbert, the Navigators are humans who have adapted to life in zero-gravity. They have slim builds, with large webbed hands and prehensile feet. They must spend their time in an artificial zero-gravity chamber when visiting a planetary surface, as exposure to full earth gravity would be (at best) highly uncomfortable, and potentially lethal. Whether this adaptation is the result of artificial engineering or many millenia of selective breeding is not stated in the books"

    --
    The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
    1. Re:I would say it was stolen from Dune. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All right, I visited the link in your sig because it promised naked chicks. When I got there, there were no naked chicks. Either you are a liar or you changed your site and forgot to update your sig. Either way, modify your sig to take out the naked chicks reference, or, better yet, put the naked chicks back on your site. Otherwise, no one here will ever take you seriously.

  48. ... and they have a plan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I started watching because of the line:

    "... and they have a plan"

    I thought "Wow, another long arc series like B5 - I'M IN!"

    Bullshit - they have no plan. It's all blah blah blah with no kind of plot complexity at all. I gave up somewhere around S2E10 or so.

    Plan - bull, they got just a heap of junk.

  49. Oh FRAK that's right! by mildness · · Score: 1
    The real challenge is remembering to tune in on Sundays now.

    I hope my stupid Comcast DVR figures that out.

    Oh well, the good news is that Sci fi is hella fast getting to On Demand.

    --
    bamph
  50. Note to the author of TFA by Kazymyr · · Score: 1

    It is, sometimes, better, not to use, too many, commas.

    --
    I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
  51. Science Fiction / Sci-Fi / Fantasy by some+guy+I+know · · Score: 1
    How does one define real scifi?
    The strict definition of "real" Science Fiction, IMO, is speculative fiction that doesn't violate the laws of physics.
    As more and more laws of physics get violated in a story, that story wanders from "Science Fiction" to "Sci-Fi" to "Fantasy".
    For example, in ST-DS9, there is a changeling named Odo who can change "his" mass, e.g., turn from a normal-sized humanoid into a mouse or water glass and back again (yet for some reason he has trouble with his face).
    Now, being able to change from one thing to another of the same mass and elemental composition (e.g., like Mistique from the X-Men) is Science Fiction, because we can't do it yet, but it doesn't really violate any laws of physics.
    (It could probably be done on human-sized entities using nanotechnology, and can already be done by very small animals (e.g., protozoa, which can extend pseudopods and the like).)
    Being able to change from one thing into another of a different elemental composition (e.g., from a water/carbon humanoid to a metal desk and back again) requires transmutation of elements, which is theoretically possible but would require so much energy that everyone around the being would be burned to death, so that wanders into the realm of Sci-Fi.
    Finally, being able to change from one thing into another of different elemental composition and mass without releasing or requiring an insane amount of energy (e.g., a 200-lb. water/carbon humanoid into a 1-lb. silicon glass and back again) would totally violate the laws of physics, so that's Fantasy.

    Also, science fiction is more realistic within the environment.
    As a plot becomes more and more unrealistic (e.g., computer screens that display "Password" in 76-point type and flash "Password Accepted" for several seconds before going to the next screen of 76-point type), it wanders into the realm of Sci-Fi.
    Movies where a twelve-year-old girl sits in front of a computer and joyfully exclaims "This is UNIX! I know this!" while a velocoraptor is trying to break into the room to eat her are Fantasy.

    Movies like "Marooned" are Science Fiction.
    Movies like "Space Cowboys" and "Silent Running" are Sci-Fi.
    Movies like "Armageddon" and "Capricorn 1" are Fantasy (the first because a single nuke split an asteroid "the size of Texas" into exactly two pieces that barely missed the Earth but produced no tidal effects, and the second because there is no way that such a massive conspiracy could remain secret).
    Movies like "Independence Day" are just stupid.

    On this Science Fiction / Sci-Fi / Fantasy line, BSG hovers around Sci-Fi.
    It has some Science-Fictional elements, such as space travel and the Cylons, some Sci-Fi elements, such as artificial gravity on most of the ships (except for the rotating one (What, couldn't they afford it?)) and Cylon resurrection and the Cylon-human hybrid, and some Fantasy elements, such as FTL travel and the recent relationship between Apollo and Starbuck.
    --
    Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana