Reviews: Battlestar Galactica

Ok, so I'm a big nerd. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has either met me or read this blog for any length of time. Big Nerd. Me. It should not, therefore, be any surprise that I watch Sci-fi Channel and read that sort of fiction. But it may surprise you that I don't actually think that much of the current Battlestar Galactica.

It isn't because it isn't the original '70s series. Lets face it, the original had it's problems. Like they seem to have about four special effects shots (the fleet flyby, the viper launch, the viper shooting the cylon raider, and a shuttle sequence). So while Katee Sackhoff isn't Dirk Benedict, they aren't playing the same character anyway. Really we're talking two shows with the same names and a somewhat similar concept, but wildly different characterizations and themes. I can just disassociate the two and call it good.

No my problem is that Galactica isn't badly overrated right now. It isn't the greatest thing on TV no matter what Time and Newsweek seem to think. While the show has the sort of overwrought dramatic tone that would earn that sort of acclaim, it also has large continuity problems from episode to episode. And that really doesn't work for me in dramatic sagas. It is one thing if, as in Star Trek, junk science words get all turned around an misused. It is another if two episodes have completely conflicting premises as with first season's Water and second season's Resistance. This isn't to say that the show is meritless. But it's good TV not great TV.

Anyway on a similar theme, Hube has several Galactica posts up over at Colossus. One on the start of the new season and another on thematic differences with the original series. Both are worth reading. Myself, I think the political makeup of the original show owes a lot to the time it was made and proximity to the first and second world wars. The US was largely unprepared for both of them. They even turned the Guns of Navarone into the Pulsar on Ice Station Zero.