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Battlestar Gallactica?

47 replies

NotQuiteCockney · 26/09/2006 21:39

Anyone else getting drawn in? I've just finished S01e05, and finding it pretty compelling. Almost like a replacement for Buffy etc ...

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lemonaid · 27/09/2006 08:39

Watched it first time out and have the DVDs! It's great to see something that gives you a genuine idea of a situation where there is no right and wrong decision, only (if you are lucky) a least bad decision, and where everything is shades of grey rather than black and white.

Series 2 doesn't start off so well they seem in a rush to cram everything in, and plot strands that would have been drawn out to cover half of Series 1 are over and resolved within a couple of weeks but worth sticking with for some cracking individual episodes and a really great last couple.

Series 3 is out in the US next month, I think, and we've been pretty close behind so far. So you'd better crack on with Series 1...

sfxmum · 27/09/2006 08:43

oh lemonaide are you a fan too?
best thing on tv and btw in between season 2 and 3 which is about to start the scifi channel has download episodes calles 'the resistance' (obvious tittle isf you saw S2) focused on less knowned characters but v. good

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NotQuiteCockney · 27/09/2006 08:46

Oh, I'll look for "the resistance". Don't think I'll tell DH about it though - he started getting BG, and watching it, while saying "oh, I think you'll like this, you should watch it" but at no point a) telling me where he'd put them or b) waiting for me to watch them so we could watch them together .

Lemonaid, I'm glad to hear it continues to be ambiguous, I hate the fact that most SF seems to be very black and white in that way. Thinking about it, I'm also glad there are (so far?) no alien "races", as those always seem to be excuses for (not so) thinly-veiled racism against actual human ethnic groups.

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sfxmum · 27/09/2006 09:02

there are at least 2-3 episodes of season two,which are really outstanding without being perfect and i love that. big relevant themes dealt with intelligently

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NotQuiteCockney · 27/09/2006 09:03

No fear, I'm a completist, will watch all of series 2. Will have to ask DH what he thought of that bit.

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lemonaid · 27/09/2006 10:21

You wait until you see the end-of-series-1 cliffhanger... I was on tenterhooks for months. End-of-series-2 also a corker.

Didn't know about 'The Resistance'. I'll be off to look for that, then .

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NotQuiteCockney · 27/09/2006 12:01

Things I am enjoying (spoiler alert!):

  • strong female characters, particularly Starbuck
  • the fact the cylon ships are biological - I was worried they weren't being creative, and we'd just find a human or mechanical cylon in it ....
  • who else is a Cylon?

Things I am not enjoying:

  • all the female cyclons are hot. The male cyclons aren't. (This is a problem with the actors in general.)
  • the one East Asian character is secretly a cylon. Those damn inscrutable Orientals [sic].
  • why only 12 models? That's a bit crap. Surely they're coming up with more models all the time?
  • the too-heavy-handed parallels between terrorists and cylons.
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NotQuiteCockney · 27/09/2006 12:11

Oh yes, and I'm also not enjoying the fact that the one British character is a simpering self-serving twit.

Although I am enjoying the religious stuff between him and that annoying blonde woman. It's quite startlingly sacreligious, for an American TV show.

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lemonaid · 27/09/2006 13:11

There are other British people in it, at least. Jamie Bamber is British (and there's one line in an episode in Series Two where his accent accidentally surfaces, although I think overall you'd never be able to tell)

Your other points... hmm. I can think of potentially spoiler-y things to say about all of them (the last one in particular gets some interesting angles), but they are all very good points at this stage (and several of them I think remain so even after interesting spoiler-y things).

Oooooh, I love being cryptic...

This is very definitely post-Iraq (or post-start-of-Iraq) SF.

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NotQuiteCockney · 27/09/2006 13:57

Who is Jamie Bamber?

I meant British character, not British actor. I just hate how Brits are stereotyped as flappy inept effeminate evil twits in the US media. Homosexual serial killers, every one.

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lemonaid · 27/09/2006 14:33

Apollo. Yes, I knew what you meant, but I was so surprised to find he was British that I wanted to share my deep and profound interest with you .

Come to think of it, how did Gaius come to be British anyway? All the other nearly-50,000 people in the fleet, from across all the colonies, seem to speak with American accents, so where did his accent come from? Maybe they cast James Callis and then found that he couldn't sound believably American? Hmmm. Arguably he's the most interesting character, though.

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NotQuiteCockney · 27/09/2006 14:41

Um, he's an intellectual, and kinda effete. People like that speak with a British accent, no matter where they grow up. Duh.

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sfxmum · 27/09/2006 14:41

commnets on your 'things am not enjoying' hitching with spoilers but will keep mum.
its quality so nothing quite as it seems without being too contrived, me thinks

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NotQuiteCockney · 27/09/2006 21:12

Actually, they don't all have American accents. Colonel Tigh (bald, drunk, old, cranky) has an entirely undisguised rather heavy Canadian accent - so much so that I noticed, and checked, and tada, I was right.

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lemonaid · 27/09/2006 21:25

American as in the continent, rather than USA-ian

Tricia Helfer is Canadian too, but less obviously so.

WideWebWitch · 27/09/2006 21:26

I really like this, have watched up to series can't remember, all there is available anyway.

motherinferior · 27/09/2006 21:26

I rather love this. Have seen half of series 2, and then for some reason DP is feeling not up to watching the second half as it is Too Demanding.

WideWebWitch · 27/09/2006 21:28

Gaius is a Brit because baddies just are, to whit Shere Khan in The Jungle Book, Uncle whatshisname in Lion King (Jeremy Irons), baddies in 24, etc etc. He was in B Jones diary as B Jones friend.

WideWebWitch · 27/09/2006 21:29

and I like Starbuck although they do go for the obvious American heroine stuff

(flying the plane with her name on it, the cheers). Dh makes jokes about networking all the pcs at work, apparently the top guy won't have his networked, ha ha ha.

motherinferior · 27/09/2006 21:29

But he is a complex and interesting baddie. Or maybe I just think that because I errrrrr rather fancy him.

I have noticed that Starbuck seems to put it about a bit, doesn't she, without being branded Notorious Slapper.

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NotQuiteCockney · 27/09/2006 21:31

lemonaid, you are obsessed!

Canadians don't accept "American" as in the continent as an excuse, btw.

She really doesn't have the same sort of accent as him - she sounds much more generic.

DH didn't know about the spin-off, so we'll no doubt watch that, too.

We're on the last series of West Wing atm, as well, so well busy ...

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NotQuiteCockney · 27/09/2006 21:32

I'm only on S01.e08, so far, on my watch, Starbucks has had no nookie.

I don't see her as an obvious heroine - proper American heroines get rescued, they don't rescue themselves. She's quite butch, the cigar smoking, the poker (or whatever) playing ...

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NotQuiteCockney · 27/09/2006 21:33

Gaius is attractive, but a bit overly, hmm, randy? Still, yes, much more attractive than all the other men who are a bit wooden and goody-goody.

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lemonaid · 27/09/2006 21:35

I know. I have to admit shamefacedly that I had forgotten about Tigh in my urge to make a sweeping generalisation, rather than making a genuine bid for the accurate use of language. My grandfather was Canadian, too (and my mother technically is, apparently), so I should have remembered.

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NotQuiteCockney · 27/09/2006 21:38

Oooh, is your mum related to cod's husband? He's "Canadian" too.

Actually, I have a local friend who is "Canadian", she lived in Canada until she was 12 or something not completely ludicrous. But she's British, she's been here for 20 years or whatever. I have to not snicker whenever she says she's Canadian. (And she lived in BC, which doesn't really count ...)

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