Battlestar Galactica

I am going to defend this show and I'm not being ironic here. I'm not even being ironic about the irony. I legitimately think this is well written, nuanced and the right amount of cheesey.

First off I loved the original series when I was a kid. The spaceships, robots, pre-Top Gun fighter pilot bad-assnes all worked great for me then. I decided not to watch this because what you recall from your childhood can only be poisoned when brought out and examined. It is more pleasurable better to be nostalgic than accurate about what something was.

The basic rundown is that humans live on 12 colonies (a 13th 'Earth' is a legend that doesn't get referenced till the end of the first episode). Humans invent cylons to do work (you know pick cotton and sing spirituals etc.) and eventually the cylons decide that work sucks and so they go to war with the humans. We win or something and they go away for a while. The show starts when they come back but this time they have a few human shaped robots (I've seen 4 so far but I guess there are 12 total) and kill everyone on 12 planets. All except one battlestar (think space aircraft carrier) and a ragtag collection (can't you just hear Lorne Greene saying that?) of refugees who are the last 50K humans alive from the 12 planets.

Its about what you'd expect for a roster of characters. The Commander is Edwared J Olmos who is the grizzled old veteran and his XO who is the drunk grizzled old veteran. EJO looks alot like Tom Skerrit. EJO tricks everyone and says I know where that old 13th planet is. We are heading there now despite the fact that he hasn't got a clue. I hope that thread doesnt' get worn too thin.

Starbuck is the drinking, gambling super pilot with all the obvious insecurity and overcompensation issues you expect and interestingly a girl this time through. I thought that would be lame but its not. I'm interested to see if she does the playboy thing Faceman did in the original. She also has watched Top Gun.....ALOT. She does the chomp my gum in your face deal and sort of has Iceman's haircut. Plus the whole gender confusion I am thinking this whole show might be a kind of left handed Top Gun homage.

Apollo is the son of the commander they are estranged and he has to learn about leadership, blah blah blah.

Some people are cylons and all cylon women so far are SMOKIN HOT. I can't emphasize this enough. When those wacky robots sat down to make human clones, they did a GOOD JOB.

Baltar is the human scientist that had the secret code to everything in the the whole universe that he just sort of handed to the Cylon sex clone they sent to woo him. Because of his weakness for hot girls that want to nibble on him, billions of people die when the robots turn off the defense computers. Not that I am defending him but seriously the blond girl is yummy, you would consider it in his position.

As per standard science fiction, there are nearly no black people in space and not alot of brown really either.

I like the music, during space battle scenes they keep lots of quiet moments without background music...get it...space is quiet? When the music does come up its a kind of sparse, Asian martial sounding drum that definitely sets a tense mood.

There is the little geeky stuff like how the fighters fly and maneuver which seems alot more plausible than the old show.

Apollo from the old series makes an appearance. I guess you can't live on residuals forever.

I love the use of 'frak'. My hat is off to whoever came up with just making up a word so that people can cuss on tv.

And in the end (not the end really I've only seen 4 episodes) its a story about a journey. Those are the best kind I think and specifically the Odyessy journey home construct.

Its a cheesy show but not as cheesy as it should be. I don't recommend you watch it but I will, and I like it.