I saw the whole thing and it was very good. Looking forward to the second half tonight.

Sucks not having the sci-fi channel...

Like the sci-fi tech bits, the updates to everything was pretty good, the characters were ok some even likeable (i.e. Boomer and the Deck cheif).

But my god the dialouge. The far too often decended into old school sci fi "humans are worthless evil things!" Especially in Adama's speech, what was with that?? I heard it, my roomy was ranting from the start, I stoped him and said, "wait mabye he's going to get to a point about humanities redeeming features or somethning. And I was wrong....

So the things pretty soulless, and Oh Yea! The cyclons are the Humans fault! Grrrreaat! And they don't even explain why!

Nice production, bad writing.

The little bit early in the show where blonde Cylon commander suffocates or snaps the neck of an infant struck my wife and I as gratuitous violence. They'd already shown that she was a baaaaad person, and then they decided to rub salt in the wound. It ticked me off (at the producer mostly).

And of course, the initial, everyone is jumping on top of everyone else, and ripping clothes off routine got a bit boring.

I tuned out Adama's speech because it seemed to be going in the "root causes" direction, and because I had a toddler with a high fever to attend to (yes, he's doing better today, but I was wondering if I was going to have to take him to the hospital last night.)

My wife describes it as a drama at least from what she saw of the advertisements. A drama is where everyone is a jerk to everyone else and gets away with it. I'm not sure what she thinks of it now.

Still despite a few things that make me want to slap the producer, and one thing that makes me want to slam him nose-first into a table, it seemed overall to be pretty well done.

Oh yeah, I got about zero sleep last night.

Tadeusz

Forge: its a tired cliche' in SF: if you create an AI it will by natural law go insane and try to kill you while talking to you in a sweetly reasonable-sounding voice.

"Never create what you can't control" is a nice tagline for their ads but horrible advice for life and for nations. There's a reason why only hindsight is 20/20, and demanding otherwise is foolishness.

The SciFi website says they're running part 1 again tonight before they show part 2. I didn't see it, but I'm planning to watch it tonight, if I get home in time.

I did see the whole thing, unfortunately. It was about as I'd expected -- some decent SFX, bad script, acting either wooden or over-the-top, some little bits that would have been nice in context
if there were any well-thought-out context that they could have been nice in. All in all, it sucked.

Rather a lot of idiot plot. KillerRobotBabe, presumably, is trying to keep a low profile, but goes out of her way to murder a baby in its carriage, just to show that she's evil. She freedom-kisses the consular officer before the
cylons blow up the station, just to show that she's evil and oversexed. She explains too much to Baltar after she catches him with another woman, just to show that she's evil, oversexed, and chatty.

I'm with Plunge: don't have scifi channel. Don't have TV reception for that matter... (It's a long story)

I wonder if they're going to release it on DVD?

Tadeusz,
Yea I know its been overdone before, that's why Im tired of it. ^_^
Speaking of this kinda stuff, check this out, assuming you've not see it before...http://enphilistor.users4.50megs.com/cliche.htm

Although it was immensely cheesy and hackneyed, I always had a soft spot for the original Battlestar Galactica because it consistently reinforced the world view that evil must be fought and not compromised with. The people who said that all we need to do is show good faith and disarm and the cylons/Eastern Alliance/whoever will have no reason to attack us were always proved tragically wrong. It was a message (albeit somewhat exaggerated and cartoonish) particularly suited to the pre-Reagan late 1970s when the show aired.

I enjoyed the first episode of the new version. It was entertaining while significantly reducing the cheesiness factor. The producers have clearly tried to add more "nuance" to the characters, but I suspect (and hope) the essential world view will be true to the original.

Bad acting. Bad script. Bad story. And, whoever it was up in arms about Adama's speech, I utterly agree--it was horrible. The cylon ships that we saw just looked goofy.

Some interesting special effects, some cool set and costume design, and better music than the first time through.

All that said, I'll still watch the rest because I can't darned well help myself. Gah. I hate my compulsive love of cheesy science fiction.

I have not yet seem the premire but, thanks to Tivo, will watch it soon.

On a side note, I will also see, once again thanks to Tivo, a show the Sci-Fi Channel did for Cable in the Classroom titled "Battlestar Galactica: Propaganda and War". It will air again, at least on DirectTV, on 12/15 at 02:30 a.m. pst.

I was willing to go along with the idea that Starbuck was a female. Afterall, it couldn't be exactly like the original. I was willing to go along with the cylonchick being emotional (although I thought they were unemotional in the original, maybe I'm wrong). I stop short at the horrid undercurrents between main characters.

The dialog is horrible, the relationships are horrible (especially between Adoma and Apollo), the worldview is horrible. War-heroes are the bad guys, and the gentle schoolteacher is the only one interested in saving people. And I did kinda notice that the schoolteacher is a female, and the viper-pilot that does the most to save the ship is a female, and the crewmember that repairs that little ship is a female (the same female who refuses to return without saving some children) and the crewman that gives up his seat to someone more useful than himself ends up giving it to the badguy/moron.

Sure, you might mention that the most visible/powerful villin is a female too. Hmmm. Another power position for females. Still, she's totally evil and thats bad, right? Well, depends. Its not her fault the human warmongers made her that way is it. She's a victim of their mistakes. She seems to be a little curious about humans. I almost thought she tried to look a little remorseful after she killed the baby (accidentially?) but that could have been bad acting. I almost thought she looked a little like it was important to her that he said the same when she said "I love you", but that could have been bad acting. And, she helps the smartguy/oversexed-moron escape (out of love?)(out of the goodness of her heart?)

And that SPEECH. What were they thinking?

I have little hope for the rest of the show. I'll still watch, appreciating it for the good-effects/crazed-writing that it is. Too bad. It could have been really good.

When they said "Space Opera" they should have said "Space Soap Opera". The special effects of the vipers maneuvering in space were cool. The sets were well done as well, but need a little less intrepersonal conflict and more kick the Cyclons ass. Maybe tonight.

Forge,
I've seen it before, but it was nice to look at again.

This begs a question. What would be an original and reasonable motivation for AI's to run amok?

Maybe, the Cylons knew that humans are unstable in their plans, and would eventually create more AI's, and these other AI's might not be so wonderful as the Cylons. And so the Cylons are getting rid of future competition?

Tadeusz

I think the most interesting premise would be, and might be where there going, is if its a slavery issue.

Perhaps the AI's in the story, once self aware, begin to resent being slaves. It might be an interesting twist, while not wholy origional, it could be played well.

I completely forgot aobut the whole teacher thing.. god what a moron! They really were playing all the militarey people, esp the Men, to be souless assholes.

*exceedingly huge sigh*

Not to be unexpected I suppose, but dissapointing nonetheless.

Maybe I'm just a bit simple, but I really liked it. I wasn't thrilled with the father-son feud because it was so hackneyed, but the rest struck me as a creative attempt at a modern retellign of the original series. As for Allison's comments about contrasting the schoolteacher with the military, it appears so far that the series intends to vindicate Adama. For example, the offer of an unconditional surrender didn't stop the slaughter and the cliffhanger ending last night suggests that she'll be proven wrong again. It's definitely early to think that the plot will revel in male-bashing of pacifism.

I'm the roommate Forge is speaking of. Heh. Let me add a few words here.

I was okay with Starbuck being female as well. So it was a little goofy for them to have almost the exact same card playing sequence from the original, with her even smoking a cigar! But overall, I could grok having this version of Starbuck be female.

As an aside - was it just me, or were they going the -Starship Troopers- "We're completely co-ed and nobody even blinks twice about when men and women share the same washroom" bit? And yet we were treated to couples tearing off their clothes and going at it like rutting weasels when they had the chance? All I can say is that they'd better have 100% effective birth control in their military. (Maybe it's a condition of service that you get your tubes tied or whatever? Might make sense in that context.)

I think the actors did well, considering what they had to work with. But my GODS the writing STUNK! Adama's speech -- What the FLAMING F__K was THAT all about, huh?

And could we possibly have _more_ people being complete and utter bastards to each other, please? I mean, I really haven't yet had enough dysfuntional people in my life already, I really want to see more of that.

Apollo and Adama are the most egregarious example, but there were others. I was desperately looking for a character - ANY character - I could really care about. The closest I got was Starbuck and Boomer. And mainly for the cuteness factor. I _wanted_ to like Adama, and there were bits where I was sympathetic to him, but that speech of his almost destroyed the character for me.

Baltar... Hmmm... Absolutely self absorbed, irresponsible, could well be single-handedly the most responsible, (other than the blonde cylon chick) for the destruction of the human worlds. But he didn't actually mean any of it. And actually does the RIGHT THING at a crucial point during the lottery near the end instead of being the prick I thought he was going to be. Still a dweeb. But seems to have redeeming characteristics, unlike the original. Possibly the most interesting character of the lot. Still want to wring his neck for his stupidity.

Speaking of stupidity - The council chick who gets the default job of President (47th in line). She irritated me no end. Actually, no... I'm not being completely fair here. What she does at the end of the episode is the height of stupidity, but could be excused through lack of experience. What REALLY irritated me was her presentation. I'm 3/4 of the way through the film and they keep showing her in scene after scene. And I'm wondering if I missed something crucial, or are they really _not telling us_ who she is or why she's in this story? I literally yelled at the TV at one point, "Would you _idiots_ at least tell me what this lady's FREAKING NAME IS???? ARGH!!"

And now - I'm going to shock people by saying - I actually enjoyed this, to some degree, despite it's flaws. On a technical level, I liked what they did with explaining just why Galactica seems to be using outmoded tech. There's actually a plausible _reason_ for that. And a sound tactical reason at that. Shock. I liked the updates on the Vipers. I liked the fact that there was at least a nod to real physics in the space battles. I liked the new Cylon ships. I liked the fact that they are robots in and of themselves and don't need three Cylons to pilot them. I liked the Computer infiltration angle of the Cylon attack. And the fact that the older Vipers are immune to it. I liked the fact that although they had updated the Cylons, they had an authentic old one from the original series - in a Museum on the Galactica no less!!

There was at least one line that had me laughing out loud -

"We can't use the forward launch tubes from the port bays now."
"Why?"
"Because it's a gift shop now."

I liked Starbuck. Did I mention that? I liked the crew chief of the launch bays, whatever his name was. I liked the whole depiction of the destruction of Caprica. All the visuals were quite fine.

Interesting point - the Cylons never once used lasers. Just missiles. The Vipers might have been firing lasers, but the sound effects sounded more like chain guns. Interesting choice, that.

The Galactica itself - hmmm... I both like and find myself a bit unsettled with the way they redesigned her. She's mostly still the same design. It's just that instead of the Star Wars "random bits on the hull" look, it has an almost beetle-like overlapping armor look to it. I might decide I like it as I watch more.

Anyway, it's incredibly cheesy, and sometimes I have a weakness for that. And I'll give them another chance to impress me tonight. Maybe everything will be better.

And if it isn't, well, more MST3K style fodder for me.

-William

One and a half thumbs up.

The show, which I'm watching, is not the same as the original.

They still have done quite a bit to stay true to the old scifi television feel.

Balzar finally makes sense. And could play a real role in the series. The Education Cabinet woman plays a good role, exactly as a group of bureaucrats would play, but not necessarily the pacifist ones that dominated the first series.

The new bogeyman is not disarmarment and treachery. It's reliance on technology that eventually dooms the colonies. The networked computers and Adama's speech about playing God set up a different tone than the original, but in many ways this is an improvement over the original.

More macho nonsense, but less cheesy 70's comedy. In the first, the driving force was the struggle of a small warrior caste to protect the last bit of humanity from an inhuman and uncaring enemy. They had to fight the Cylons, traitors, and do-gooding pacifists in the Council, who even after the destruction the colonies were convinced they should be in charge.

At one point in the original series, the Council takes authority away from Adama. Adama also had to contend with another general who ran the Pegasus - a famous general and a hothead.

The SciFi channel had to build a new audience. A replay of the old show never would have worked. A copy of using Starbuck and Apollo as the only characters with real personality also wouldn't work.

This show is about a group of humans who go too far in technology, and don't realize their mistakes until they are too late. The possibility is something entirely different.

It's about their struggle to avoid extinction for their mistakes. It's about their struggle to recognize the dire straits they are in. Eventually, the show will be about redemption.

They also got rid of the stilted speech about centons, and they're adopting real military bearing, speech and attitudes.

Lax ones, but that's to be expected when war is supposed to be over with.

They had 160 Battlestars. Now they have one.

The second one is shaping up better.

The President did not understand the Cylons wanted them dead. She thought a civilian ship would be safe.

That changed pretty quickly. Not bad for a school teacher.

You now have two references to the Lord of Kobol. That's a Mormon reference to the star of Kobol, whoch sits closest to the throne of God.

Wonder what Orson Scott Card has to say about this?

Balzar (formerly Baltar) also shows us something new.

"What do you want from me?"

"I want you to love me. God is the name for love."

I think the Cylons may have a bit of a desire for deicide.

There were parts of the script that were weak, but overall the two part show I watched was quite enjoyable. I thought that the script did not make all the military to be "soulless", quite the contrary one of the huge improvements was the more multi-dimensional aspects of many characters. If there was any real fault, I think they tried to pack too much relationships and backstory into too many characters - for instance Mary McDonnell's cancer diagnosis was unnecessary.

Galactica operations were really well done - it had the feel of a realistic ship operation especially the damage control decisions which reminded me of accounts of WWII naval battle histories of shipboard firefighting.

Two thumbs up.

I tracked down some links.

A good link for the new series is:
http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/

A good link (for us modeling dweebs) is:
http://www.culttvman.com/modelingtvsf.html

I saw the two episodes back to back, thanks Tivo, and so far its watchable. I will not go into the military/civlian thing since it seems to be covered but I will comment on the military realism.

I'm a former Naval Officer and I like who they are working in actual naval aspects, for example:

You may have noticed Starbuck say to Apollo "Your CAG now." CAG stands for Commander, Air Group and that person is in charge of all aircraft on a carrier while the carrier's Commanding Officer runs the ship. There is an Admiral on the carrier that commands those two.

Every so often they show what looks like a speaker mounted on the wall (bulkhead to us squids) that has a row of buttons under the speaker and handles on either side, that is part of every ship as part of the internal communication system.

In the first episode, after the Galactica has been hit and they are fighting the fire, Adama tells the XO to take charge of the rapair effort. That is how it works in the fleet as well, at least on Destroyers which was what I was on.

I am confused by a few items though. There is a romance between Boomer and the flight desk Chief, this is a big no no in the military. Even if you ignore the Officer/Enlisted aspect the fact that they are in the same chain of command makes it not work.

Their rank structure is strange as well. They seem to be mixing Navy and Army ranks. Adama's rank, Commander, is an O5 (O for officer and 5 for level) in the Navy while Apollo is a Captain. Well a Captain in the Navy is an O6 which would out rank Adama but Captain in the Army is an 03. An O3 in the Navy is a Lieutenant.

Over all a fairly good show. One thing that stood out for me is how the fact that Cylons look like humans and can hide within the rest sort of matches the Islamic terrorists.

Michael: maybe the aviators use Marine ranks?... :)

The second part didn't really do it for me. Oh well.

I thought it was a nice update by and large.

However, I'm sick to death of aircraft carriers in space. It would be nice if the whole WWII in the Pacific motif would be permanently retired from SF.

And realistic spaceflight mechanics would be greatly appreciated. Flying wings in space? What's up with that? Yes, they showed reaction jets in use in certain scenes, but the fighters still banked to turn.

Casey, as for the use of Marine ranks for the aviators, I thought of that but since Adama is an aviator as well should he not be a Colonel?

I see you are at Miami University. I graduated there in '89. Great school but are you sick of red bricks yet?

Kevin, I agree the space flight is better but still to unreal. The reaction jets are nice but beyond the banking how exactly are we hearing all the gunfire and manouvers in space?

Michael, Nobody can hear you scream in space, but apparently that's the only thing that can't be heard there according to the movies.

I know it's just a TV show, and I can't honestly say I want 100% realism, but it would be nice to see something different instead of the same old same old.

"KillerRobotBabe, presumably, is trying to keep a low profile, but goes out of her way to murder a baby in its carriage, just to show that she's evil."

Or as an act of mercy? Because she knows what's about to happen to the whole planet and 11 more just like it? And which she obviously has an emotional reaction to as she's walking away?

Just finished watching a tape from a nice Sci-Fi Channel-having friend, and I thought it was terrific. Very very strange (Victoria's Secret robots who think Gee-Oh-Dee wants them to wipe out humanity! People in modern-day clothes with names like Billy and Kara who say things like "Thank the Lords of Kobol!"), but terrific. Other than the block of wood they got to play Apollo, I thought the acting was pretty damn good. So was the script. Interesting, deeply flawed characters who don't always make the right decisions under pressure, moral dilemmas at every turn, philosophical disagreements, unexpected flashes of humor... a lot better than I was expecting. And kick-ass space battles to boot. Bring on the series.