Me with both barrels…

[vexxarr]

Read my rant then let me know how much of an ass I’m being. I just don’t like the way that the new Galactica was approached with respect to its fans and potential new viewers.
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World Conquest is easy… It’s conquering the inhabitants that gets sticky.

[Talia]

Deal.

I'm enjoying the show...now where's that rant? BRB, with hopefully pithy comments and replies.

[Talia]

Okay. I'm back. Rant read in all its glory.


And you know what? I basically agree with you.

I'm really enjoying the show. It is one of the few things on television that I make time for. The cinematography, editing and sound are all top notch and are easily Saturn material. I'm told by friends on another message board that the exterior stuff is done by the folks who did Firefly. My response was "Gee, I guess I better watch Firefly." (No, Vexx, I *haven't* seen even one episode of that show...I was busy last year.)

Anyway. I like the Gallactica...BUT, I hate the "Harvey-esque" nature of the blond. That just isn't working. Some things from the mini-series made no sense, as to where the Cylons came from and such. I was confused by them showing actual props of stuff from the original in their museum and so on.

Certain nods to the old episodes have been done well, my favorite example of this is the waggle.

And....well, bugger. Mom duty calls. I will have to try again later.

[Talia]

I also find myself concerned that they are playing their hand too soon, as to certain revelations that are to be made in the upcoming episode. I know they only have thirteen episodes this season and must make the most of every one, but a little suspense would be nice, too.

I find the Cylon obsession, or at least #6's, with religion to be interesting.

[bizzybody]

I only saw the 'miniseries' and season one. It's OK but some things just don't... they don't work.

The main beef I have with it is the major change in the reason for the conflict with the Cylons. The original series had the Cylons as the runaway robots of an alien race and the humans got on the Cylons bad side by interfering in their subjugation of the Hasari. In the novel, the Cylons were cyborged lizards. In the TV series only the supreme leader was ever shown as possibly being a living being. This was during the height of the networks attempts at 'reducing violence', which is also the reason only one person was ever hit with a bullet in "The A Team". (I only remember B.A. getting shot in a shoulder.)

Moore dumbed it down to the oldest SciFi plot there is, Frankenstein's Monster, or man's creation turning on its creators. Moore claimed it was going to be "original" but instead used the oldest trick in the book.

He also screwed up on calling the warriors favorite card game "triad" and their favorite sport "pyramid". Just one of the pitfalls of being too arrogant to bother watching the material he claims as inspiration.

[vexxarr]

I can't help but wonder if the switch of Triad and Pyramid was an inside joke. I am vaguely familiar with Moore's credentials as a series writer on STTNG and DS9 if I am not mistaken. What has become clear is that he really doesn't have much of an imagination for episodic TV writing. While the over-all quality of the series is well worth the investment of time, I can't help but feel that the bright spots in the series are from staff writers and the plodding bits are from Ron himself.

The entire occupied New Caprica diversion was a Cluster Duck with it's publicized attempt to offer criticism of America's roll in the Iraqi war having the opposite effect on me. If the situation in Iraq is the same as Moore's resistance war against the occupying Cylons then I'm all for glassing the whole country and declaring victory. Moore's writing made me HATE the humans and actually feel some modicum of sympathy for the Cylons.

Of course what Moore depicted was nothing like what is actually happening. In fact Moore's story was neither consistent with actual events NOR was it all that self-consistent either. The human-cylon hybrid baby subplot is now in a shambles as it seems we may have more than three human-cylon babies on the Galactica now. One thing I loved was the introduction of the Pegasus and her cut-throat captain. I always hated the fact that The old Pegasus was discarded after one story and all we go was one lousy pilot. I would have loved the Pegasus to stay on. Her Captain also served to make the Galactica's seem far more humane by comparison and actually helped Adama center himself.

Still, I watch, enjoy and grouse at the rough edges. Remember that I grew up in the era of The Phoenix, The Powers of Matthew Star and Voyagers. I view the new era of well produced and nice looking television sci-fi as the Feast of Stephen.
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World Conquest is easy… It’s conquering the inhabitants that gets sticky.

[bizzybody]

Yay! I've finally met the other person on Earth who saw "The Powers of Mathew Starr"! ;)

Bits of the intro to that were taken from space battles in "Battle Beyond the Stars".

[vexxarr]

Shudder...I remember actually looking FORWARD to that show.

Say, remember Q.U.A.R.K.?
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World Conquest is easy… It’s conquering the inhabitants that gets sticky.

[bizzybody]

Never saw that one, nor The Phoenix. Did you see "Space Rangers"? ABC screwed that show over worse than FOX did Firefly.

SR only got 6 episodes ordered and only 4 aired in the US, in the wrong order, with the first episode last. The TV critics spent most of their time whining that it didn't have laser guns like Star Trek or Star Wars.

[Ratzmandious]

Yes I saw SR... I quite liked it at the time (I think I was about 14)... then the Sci Fi channel aired it over here in the UK a few years ago and I cringed at it...

It had some nice concepts, but like so many of these things, you saw how it could have been so much MORE...

I'm almost despairing of Dr Who at the moment... we've had nothing much but fluff episodes this season... Hopefully next season when Steven Moffat takes over the reins (he's the guy who wrote Blink and The Empty Child) we'll get some quality control in the scripts.
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"I'm not hostile! I'm just aggressively interactive!"

[bizzybody]

I always figured JMS got the idea for the things attacking ships in B5's hyperspace from the things that attacked ships in hyperspace in SR. ;)

Aside from its use of projectile weaponry, two more cool things about SR. Linda Hunt as a tougher than nails commander and the way the ship's pilot was in a prone position on a couch-thing that pivoted down into position.

That show dared to be different and only managed to get picked on by the TV critics and sabotaged by the network.

At the time, with so much SciFi on TV, TV Guide decided they needed a Science Fiction critic. Unfortunately the guy they got was a bigoted Trekkie who compared everything unfavorably to Star Trek.

Now we have the SciFi Channel what's running more horror flicks and disaster movies than anything which could remotely be called science fiction. During their first year, Harlan Ellison hosted a marathon of "The Prisoner" and refused to say the channel's name. ;)

[Ratzmandious]

I did like the prone flying position of the pilot in SR... though I'm not overly sure about calling the accelerator gate a "light-speed doughnut"

Yes, I remember the first year of Sci Fi channel in the states... and I am sick of what it's turned into... It started really great but now, as you say, the executives have declared that horror and fantasy are science fiction too...

Huh? Did I miss something?

But then TV executives are notoriously stupid... they don't think that this change in focus will drive the existing fanbase away... And then they wonder why ratings drop.

Meh.
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"I'm not hostile! I'm just aggressively interactive!"