Please, MW - don't compare galactica to Firefly - I'd rather have my family be exposed to some pure chlorine and die a slow painful death, because quite frankly, and my hatred of the putrid pit of mediocreness that is Firefly, actually my hate is wasted on that aborted fetus...
Suffice to say Dick - and good to see you here, although obviously sad that the cuntitude of the forums made Jane leav- , I sincerely say that everyone should watch this show - Enterpise getting cancelled wasn't a suprise. The fact it lasted so fucking long is.
Galactica is quite possibly... everything Trek wants to be but never could be.
If you missed it, download it. God has a plan for all of us, which is for you to watch this show and find out what your role is.
I initially hated the cylons as humans idea - now i love it. This is without question one of the best shows, ever. As I said, it proves that sci-fi is just a genre. Not to mention that when you get to the end of the season (a scant 13 episodes minus miniseries) fucking hell you'll shed a tear.
I do agree that we should not compare the new Galactica with Firefly. In fact I think the only thing it should be compared to is the original Battlestar Galactic. Unfortunately I feel the new one falls very short. I will tell you all why.
First, the original Battlestar was created to tap into the frenzy surrounding Star Wars (1977) - the scope of the production and the special-effects budget was unprecedented. The show set the record up to that time and beat the previous record holder which was... Star Trek! This recent remake of the original has a tiny fraction of that budget and it shows.
Second, the original had, for the time, a diverse cast. There were old, young, black, white, male, female, you get the idea. The stories mixed these groups together and this made for a very humanist feel. Today we would say it is campy. At the time it was inclusive and hopeful. The modern version is dark, aggressive, and bleak. The cast is limited in depth and the stories are predictable and uninspired.
Last, the original Battlestar had stories that were very much like Star Trek. There was an aspect of science fiction in each one, however the story could have been set anywhere and it would have worked. That, in my mind is good science fiction. The new Battlestar can be called military fantasy. The focus is the “war”, and the removal of this aspect would effectively gut most of the episodes.
It appears to be inspired by and copied from the Sci-Fi channel’s run of Stargate. I get the feeling that the spin-off of Stargate Atlantis has emboldened the creators to attempt Battlestar. In a way it is a derivative copy of a remake from a 25 year old TV series. The fan base does appear to support these military action based shows and has moved away from the Star Trek style series.
Cerebral thoughtful true science fiction series are dying off and are being replaced by blunt shoot-them-up JAG in space shows. This is too bad. Star Trek had far better writing but the center has moved away from it the shows are reacting to that shift. Let us see if Battlestar makes it past 100 episodes like Enterprise and gets their budget slashed in the fourth season.