Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Battlestar Galactica!

It took me a couple of days to process this. First of all, I didn't know that it was going to be a two-hour premiere, that took me by surprise. Second, I think I've sort of moved in to a Buffy-like thinking about this show. Meaning that when I watch the show I don't feel as if I'm watching the result of actors and writers and producers and directors working, it's ALL about the story and where it's going, not about how well it's been executed. This really only happens when the execution is so excellent that I don't have much to critique about it. This doesn't happen very often, but I think it's my indicator of what shows are really superior.

I'd watched the webisodes leading up to the premiere on scifi.com, and I'm glad that I had. Last season's finale was just a huge shocker, with only 10 minutes in the fast-forward part, and the Cylons only came back in the very last seconds. The webisodes, though not really groundbreaking, helped me get used to everyone's new roles and life on New caprica under Cylon occupation. Also knowing a little more backstory on Jammer and Duck helped. Anyway, things are so different from last season that it's almost a different show altogether, but the characters are holding it together, and everything is just so strangely fitting. Adama and Sharon being friends, Apollo getting fat and lazy, Gaeta still working for Baltar but feeding info to the resistance, Roslin and Tom Zarek joking about the election after being arrested...all the details are seemingly out of nowhere, but it all just WORKED!

The Cylons are keeping me totally fascinated. I love how they have meetings in Baltar's office but basically ignore him except for when they need his signature. Also having multiple copies of each model in meetings is just trippy.

Kara's house arrest is probably one of the most fascinating developments. It's still weird seeing her with long hair and not in her military uniform, but she's still the same old Kara. I totally predicted her having to regularly kill off Leoben. She knows that he's coming to keep coming back, but it just gives her that satisfaction. The daughter thing was totally screwed up and I have to say I was surprised how sentimental she got at the end with Leoben.

On a final note, a lot of people have been drawing parallels to the current situation in Iraq, and they're getting upset over it. I don't know if this show is meant to be political commentary, and maybe I'm just not well enough informed to be able to tell, but I'm sad that people are getting turned away from the show because of it. I'm not one to tell people to lighten up considering I take TV pretty seriously myself, but this is still a science fiction show, and regardless of how good it is, I doubt it has the power to really change anyone's opinions on the war.

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