Battlestar Galactica on SCI-FI.com - WOW!

The series is starting in the US this Friday on Sci-Fi at 9 p.m. Eastern time. I don't see it getting cancelled anytime in the near future unless they really mess up. The Mini was the third most watched program on Sci-Fi channel and it's one of the very few times a show actually gained ratings in its second part rather than losing ratings.

If they deliver more episodes like the second part rather than the first part then I'll continue tuning in. From what I hear the first episode is more running from the Cylons and with the crew getting grittier and suffering from sleep deprevation (hopefully because of running for their lives and not from mating like rabbits.)
 
Eh, Sci Fi cancels stuff for stupid reasons. They like to reinvent their network to avoid having any actual science fiction programming every few years. :)


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The original BSG was just bad as a series, the books weren't that bad, and in some cases were very good, but in order to make it into a TV series they made a lot of very bad comprimises. I think that the new shows stays much truer to the original intent of the books and series.
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I'm also pretty sure that Battlestar Galactica isn't based on a book. The only BSG books I know of are adaptations of episodes and some followup tie-in novels done later.
 
I think that the thing to remember when dealing with the wince-inducing parts of the miniseries (and even the regular show) is that just because a thing is bad... it isn't necesarilly NOT good. If you follow me.

I mean, god, we're Wing Commander fans... we should be used to this.
 
Wing Commander *earned* the benefit of the doubt with half a dozen excellent titles -- a TV show that opened with a robot having sex with somebody and then blowing itself up hasn't done that yet. :)
 
I actually saw half of the 1st and all of the 2nd and i thought about wing commander when i was watching it. the fighting sequence is pretty good. kinda makes you want to be there fighting.
 
Starwolf84 said:
I actually saw half of the 1st and all of the 2nd and i thought about wing commander when i was watching it. the fighting sequence is pretty good. kinda makes you want to be there fighting.
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The whole "nuclear missles" during the space battle at the end of part 1 (I think) felt exactly like a Wing Commander torpedo bombing to me since they were the only thing that really damaged the Galactica.
 
It Aired Last Night

So, what did you guys think? I was pleased. I liked both episodes. They did a nice job and I'll tune in again for more. I tried to watch it twice but my girlfriend started getting a little pissed. At least she knows this could become a Friday ritual.
 
I thought both episodes did a good job. I could have done without the constant flashes to Baltar's house with Number 6 every so often in "33". I had a lot of problems with the first episode such as Adama taking so long (5 days!) to think of a relatively simple plan that he never uses anyway. Before that he was doing exactly what the Cylons wanted him to. This didn't make him look like too brilliant of a commander.

I really enjoyed the drama with the unwitting Boomer in the second episode "Water". It was a real change of pace from the first episode and it showed that BSG can turn out to be a really flexible science fiction series.

My biggest complaint by far is the Docu-style camera work. I find the shakey battle scene cameras to just be distracting. It doesn't make me feel like I'm there, it makes me feel like I'm watching film taken from some amature photographer's camera.
 
I'd have to go with the opposite of what you said, Spien. The "shaky" camera work, both in space and regular scenes really helps to immerse me. The general lack of music, while not exactly space-opera-ish, also serves to make the situation a bit more "real".

It's a deliberate artistic choice to be sure, and a very good one in my opinion.
 
Hatch plays an anti-government terrorist or something to that extent. It looks pretty interesting and it finally looks like the new Apollo will have an episode where he actually does something interesting as well.
 
I hate that shaky camera as well. It's nice in a few instances, but using it in almost every shot is just... I dunno, it makes me seasick at times.

I like to watch SF series for the space action. If it is filmed in a shaky, unclear way, it takes away a lot of the enjoyment for me.

That being said, I still like the series. The miniseries had its flaws, but was decent imo.
 
I think the camerawork gets better in later episodes. Either that or I'm just getting used to it.

Either way, it used to bother me, now it doesn't anymore. Whether that's due to changes in me or the actual camerawork I don't know. ;)
 
I've seen the first 11 episodes now, and my opinion is that it definitely finds its feet. I'm really enjoying it, and am getting drawn in. Stick with it, it ventures into some cool archtypes. :)
 
I thought it was pretty good -- roughly equal to the episode of Enterprise that aired the same night (which was a fairly mild one shot episode -- not great, not awful).

It was certainly much, much better than the miniseries. The "Water" episode was the best of the two (does anyone know why they aired two episodes with one set of credits? That was weird.)

"33" was kind of a letdown. It had an excellent concept (albeit it one that didn't make sense - why doesn't the crew sleep in shifts like on a real carrier?), and it *could* have had a good moral point.

I just felt the whole Olympic Carrier destruction left too many "outs" -- it's made completely clear that the ship is responsible for the Cylon attacks, the Viper pilots see that there's no one in it, etc. It would have had a lot more edge to it if they'd left all of this more ambigious. It's the sort of problem Voyager faced -- neat concepts, but too pat endings. Since BSG and Voyager share very simiilar plot concepts, I'd like to see them avoid this in the future. Also, continuity wise, why is the president who just hours earlier chose to abandon thousands of people on twenty non-jump-capable ships now horrified by having to order the destruction of this one?

Again, though, these problems pale compare to the miniseries.

I'll watch to see how it develops -- from the previews and talk I've seen, the idea of "real drama, but IN SPACE!" seems like it may get old after a time... but we'll see. Also, they need to quit repeating the same scenes with Doctor Bash...altar. He has an evil Cylon hot girl in his head, we freaking get it.
 
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