Battlestar Galactica (2003)

The following are my musing whilst watching the Sci-Fi Channel's latest mini-series - Battlestar Galactica. Keep in mind Galactica was a series I obsessed over as a child, but have tried to avoid in later years for fear of tarnishing my cherished memories.

The following may contain spoilers. If you've that worried - too bloody bad - I can't be arsed inviso-texting it.
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First 40 minutes everyone is either fighting or screwing.

Subtlety is not an Americans strongpoint. How do we show that the blonde supermodel robot is evil? We have her snap a baby's neck (off camera of course!).

Since when did Cylons = sexbots?

Most startling change so far? Starbuck's now a woman. As well, Boomer who was a black man, is now an asian woman. And this change is because? Good question.

Almost an hour till we get to the blowing shit up - it's called Battlestar for a reason guys.

At least they didn't redesign the Vipers - one of the coolest looking starfighters ever.

At least the Cylons didn't waste time when trashing the 12 Colonies - 50 kilo-ton nukes all the way!!!

The Galactica is a relic of the first Cylon war - so none of the computers are networked and all the equipment (phones, headsets, etc) are chorded (nothing wireless). Very cool.

Too many small cute children subtly pointing out how terrible the loss of life and family is during war... It's called Battlestar people!!!

Madam President (who was Education Secretary) = boring. I love West Wing, but not in space! Again, it's called Battlestar people!!! And of course she's a bleeding-heart leftie to fight with Cmdr Adama.

Oh No!!! The cute kiddie we just met has to die because her ship can't travel FTL & the Cylons are attacking!!! Oh the humanity!!!

And now everyone's bonking again!!! If Apollo & Starbuck start screwing I'm going to cry.

At last - an upgraded Cylon who isn't a supermodel.

Lingerie Model Cylon is back. And she's psycho-analyzing wimpy British Baltar (apparently it's a rule in American TV, all British accented characters = wimpy). .....and she's trying to have sex with him again (even though she's a figment of his imagination... I think).

Oh god - Starbuck was in love with Apollo's brother.

Goodie - they've arrested the journalist (like all journalists should be).

And naturally there's a secret Cylon onboard the Galactica so we get to play 'guess the spy'. Woohoo - paranoia abounds.

Still no seatbelts on capital ships in the future.

Did I mention how much Viper's rock!

Always amazes me when people are allowed to smoke on a spaceship. Must be good oxygen recyclers/scrubbers.

And as the final shot of the show - they reveal the Secret Cylon!!! Good thing for them there's going to be more of this show (apparently) - otherwise that'd be a real shitty ending.
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On the whole - not too bad. The acting was painful at times, and there was far too much soulful attempts at adding depth and pathos to the tragic characters (I said attempts - I don't indicate they were successful) and not enough of the big space shooties. After all, why have such fancy efforts if you're not going to use them!!! And not enough Cylons dammitt!!! (except the one with her tits falling out - but she doesn't count - she's not a real Shiny SilverTM Cylon).

As for the redesigned Cylons (not the SexBot Cylons - the others. Remember how Unkie George sued the Battlestar guys the first time around. When the new bots look an awful lot like most of the droid armies seen in the first two SW prequels...

Still any sci-fi that isn't raping the corpse of Star Trek or Gene Roddenbery's margin doodles is a good thing. But then again, this is the Sci-Fi channel - the bastards that cancelled Farscape.