(Minor spoilers that you probably already know anyway, if you're familiar with the general concept of the show.)

Okay, so I watched the new Battlestar Galactica over the last few nights. I didn't have the concerns about it that many people did with the female-izing of Starbuck, etc., but I wasn't going to watch it anyway until someone pointed out that it was written by Ronald Moore, one of the actual talented people that worked on Star Trek. (He's also one of the people doing Carnivale on HBO.)

Anyway I watched the first two nights and then went to look to see how many episodes of the miniseries there are, and it turns out that there's two. This is not a good sign. It was basically a four-hour advertisement for a potential new BG regular series, as far as I can tell. It's not that they didn't answer all the questions or anything. It's that they didn't really get around to raising them until the last five minutes.

Not to mention that the

show

was

paced

really

slowly.

You'd think that humanity would be all atwitter at massive destruction, but, instead, they seem more interested in staring at the wall.

Now, it wasn't really bad, but I feel gypped. There was no resolution and it could have fit into an hour instead of four. Basically, after the second episode was done, I thought, ``Great. Now they can get to the story.'' (That's actually how I feel after pretty much every episode of Carnivale, too, but it's more engrossing.) But that's where it ended.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

I think I enjoyed it more than you did, but in general I agree with your points. Especially about the slow pacing. The ending was particularly slow-paced, the climactic battle was something like 30 minutes before the end of the episode.

On the other hand, even with the slow pacing, I thought it flowed really well. It had a lot of really good points, and was (to me) enjoyable to watch and well worth turning into a full blown series if they have the budget.

(By the way: I, too, had to actually go out to scifi.com and poke around to discover that yes, there really was only two episodes. They didn't make it clear at all.)

Some of the good points:

- I think it was well acted, well written, and well directed. Not emmy-quality, mind you, but decent enough for a series. Certainly a lot better than much of the dreck that's out there.

- I really liked how they paid homage to the old Japanese sci-fi movies in the space scenes. (To wit: Deliberate depth-of-field tricks, sudden fast zooms and pans, "handheld" feel to the camera movement, etc.)

- I really liked the zero-G and zero-atmosphere realism of the weapons and craft. The spaceships might be shaped like airplanes, but they still need reaction control thrusters to turn. I liked the "asteroids"-style sliding and turning of the craft.

- No ray guns. Conventional missiles and bullets. Yay!

- I thought the ways they chose to retell the old Galactica story was nice. I liked all the changes they made to each of the characters, such as the development of Baltar. And Starbuck just kicks ass, I don't know what the purists are complaining about.

Bad points:

- Everything surrounding the strained relationship between Apollo and Daddy seemed forced. That was the one place where the writing/acting/directing gestalt didn't work.

- Oh, Cylons are now played by people. Oh goody, they don't have to budget a lot on robot costumes and effects. Come on, how expensive can it be to put a guy in a chrome suit? And anyway, the whole "enemy spy looks like one of us" thing has SO been done.

- If they do make it into a series, it has all the potential to suck just as badly as the original series did.

I didn't not enjoy it, but it should have been a one-hour pilot episode. It smacks of SciFi being cheap and wanting to test the waters.

I didn't have the same problem with the new Starbuck that the ``purists'' did (athough I do agree with their point that there were a bunch of women pilots in the original), but, at the same time, I did feel that her acting was poor and the character generally annoying. Not compelling annoying -- just annoying. (If I had to hear her say ``frack'' one more time, I thought my head would explode. Whatever happened to ``felgarcarb'', anyway? )

I disliked the arbitrarily jerky space cinematography. It was jarring not because it was jerky but because it didn't fit with the cinematography of the live-action stuff.

I did like the way Baltar was initially not really a bad guy, but I think they pussed out into making him one. Unless he really did develop a Cylon detector. It wasn't clear as to if he did or if he lied about it.

I also agree with all your bad points. To expand on them, I'd add Starbuck to the Apollo/Adama thing. I think I took from it that Starbuck was Apollo's sister-in-law via a dead brother. And I think implying a potential romantic entanglement between them just doesn't make sense. Of course, I could have misread that.

On a related note, it was annoying the way everyone had a carnal relationship that they felt compelled to show us. I kept wondering when any two random characters on the screen might decide to stick their tongues down each others' throats. And then I was rewarded with Doogie Howser and Uhura-lite.

I couldn't agree more about the Cylons. It feels more like SciFi being cheap again. And I don't need to see The Thing yet again.

I took from it that Starbuck was Apollo's sister-in-law via a dead brother.

I took it only slightly differently. I never felt a marriage was implied. At first, I thought that Starbuck and Apollo were ex-lovers, then I thought perhaps that Starbuck and Apollo's dead brother had been lovers. Now I'm not sure of either and perhaps it could have been both.

Incidentally, repeating the names "Starbuck" and "Apollo" just now made me realize another good thing they did when writing the remake. They made it clear that the names were squadron callsigns, and that these people had much more normal-sounding names in civilian life. I seem to recall that in the original series, those were their real names, and of course that just sounds silly in conversation.

Whatever happened to ``felgarcarb'', anyway?

It just sounds silly in coversation. I think they used "frak" well.

It was jarring not because it was jerky but because it didn't fit with the cinematography of the live-action stuff.

Ah, very good point. In the old Japanese sci-fi movies, those camera techniques were used across the board. So these guys were paying homage only in the FX shots, not in all of the cinematography. I see how that could be jarring and dislikable.

And then I was rewarded with Doogie Howser and Uhura-lite.

LOL

My question is exactly how many episodes does it need to be called a mini-series?
Calling two episodes a series really is streching it !

My question is exactly how many episodes does it need to be called a mini-series?
Calling two episodes a series really is streching it !

Other side of the coin would be: If you make a miniseries with 12 parts, that's more episodes than many actual series get before they're cancelled, so is it fair to call that a miniseries?

I also like they way they seem to have tried to hide the fact that it's only two episodes. As if someone might think they just missed the last episode and that would somehow make it better.

***** MILD SPOILER WARNING ******



I just watched the season finale. Wow. An awful lot just happened in a single episode. We finally learned something concrete about the Cylon "plan" (cross-breeding with humans, apparently) as well as getting some amount of insight into how much free will a Cylon actually has (not much, given what we saw at the end of the episode).

It's interesting reading this original thread. Say what you want, but the season finale was anything but slow. Things moved fast and, well, things blew up in a big way, with all kinds of interesting loose threads to dig into next season, which they claim is coming in July.

Now I just wish I could get the episodes in HD.

I loved the 'mini' series and liked most of the real series, with a few dud episodes.
But overall pretty good.
As you say, the season finale is pretty darned good.
Way better than ST:Enterprise without having to resort to big chested females.

Not that there is anything wrong with big chested females in skin tight costumes you understand........

In fact, just last night, I was rewatching the pilot episode in all of its commercial-free HD glory. Wow. You could see the film grain. Also, you could see the liberal application of foreshadowing for future events. Now I'm just hoping that when the new episodes come out in July, I'll be able to watch them in HD as well.

I saw the pilot and first epidose in HD last night as well. I can definitly agree it seems to be very slow going thus far. I do have the rest of the episodes on my Replay, but now will probably continue to watch them first in HD. (I typicially record a series or two each winter to the PVR to then watch in the summer glut.)