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January 14, 2005
Battlestar Galactica
A little over a year ago I spent the time, skeptical at first, watching the pilot/miniseries of the "new" Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi channel.
I loved it! And that's from someone who enjoyed the original series for little more than giggling at the awfulness of the writing and lusting at the studmuffin, Starbuck. It was a great premise squandered ... Kinda like letting Aaron Spelling do Romeo & Juliet.
For sometime now, I've envied Jeff Harrell's early viewing of the new series by his tapping into the British broadcasts. I also am very grateful he hasn't been a 'spoiler' in letting anything slip so the rest of us can come to the series fresh tonight. Do check out Jeff's post, he's got a great roundup of some this-side-of-the-pond critics' quotes on the new series. I especially like the one comparing Galactica with the "Big Red One"... an underestimated, largely ignored, gem of a film. The dad of one of my co-workers is one of the few survivors of the BRO...and to this day pretty much refuses to talk about what he experienced, which raises the hairs on the back of the neck almost as much as any explicit detail might.
I digress, but I look forward to tonight's episode even if it is "relentlessly grim."
Posted by Darleen at January 14, 2005 01:02 PM
Comments
The unusual thing about this show is that it's basically impossible to "spoil." Yes, there are plot developments that emerge later, but as often as not these turn out to be reversals anyway. It's incredibly complex, this show. Nothing is ever what it seems to be, and at several points a throwaway line of dialogue near the end of an episode makes you go back and re-think the entire hour from a different perspective.
It's incredibly smart, this show.
And I'll tell you this. This isn't something I want to admit to many people, but I'll tell you: There's a moment during "33," the first episode which airs tonight, when I had to pause playback because I was crying uncontrollably. Uncontrollably.
Posted by: Jeff Harrell at January 14, 2005 01:29 PM
- Whoa....I haven't experienced an emotional outburst like that personally since Rick told Elsa to get on the plane....I'l have to catch it....
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 14, 2005 08:08 PM
It got me again, twice.
The first was the moment when Dee stepped out of the compartment into the corridor and the camera sloooooowly pans to the left to reveal a little impromptu shrine made up of candles and pictures and handwritten notes, and then sloooooowly pans further to reveal that the tableau stretches down the corridor and out of sight. And Dee is just left standing in the hallway, overwhelmed. This show starts with the deaths of billions of innocent people and then gets harder.
And the second was when Apollo received the order to shoot down the civilian plane that was barreling toward the heart of the fleet. You know what it was? There was a shot out Lee's cockpit of the fleet starting to pull away, and there in front is the Galactica pivoting on her axis to put her heavily-armored dorsal side toward danger like a bodyguard diving in front of a bullet. For some reason, that just shook me right to the core.
I wept like a child. Twice. In the span of about forty minutes.
Posted by: Jeff Harrell at January 14, 2005 11:18 PM