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501 comments in total

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1327 out of 1968 people found the following comment useful :-
Sci-fi for Grown-Ups, 10 December 2004
Author: Iok from Hiding Behind The Sofa

Before I proceed, I'll just add a quick comment for those slating the series without seeing it: please, stop it. Instead, wait and see what the new show is about and give it a chance. Unless of course, you want to miss one of the best dramas currently airing...

BSG is a very human story. Yet unlike Star Trek, they're not resolved by the end of the episode. Here the characters are real people who make mistakes, grow and learn from their errors. Or maybe they don't...

The point is that in the new BSG, the impact of the loss of the Colonies is something everybody must deal with, be it on a resource-management level to dealing with the loss of their families. The impact of the Cylon attack - never explored in the original series - is a major emphasis in the show and the viewer genuinely does get the feeling of the "rag tag fleet."

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the original series as much as anybody, but it was a product of its time and audience-slot. The new BSG is a much more adult production, both in terms of the writing and performances and the intended audience.

Additionally, the show is very non-sci-fi, but in a good way. Whenever any "science" turns up, it's integrated in such a way as to have minimal impact on the plot and, unlike Star Trek, it isn't used as a Deus Ex Machina to simply resolve the "crisis of the week." In fact, I'd go as far as to say the show is closer to 24 or The West Wing than it is Star Trek or Babylon 5, with the focus being much more on the people and their individual actions, rather than a wide-scale "space opera."

Performances are all strong, with James Callis being the real star. His tortured performance as the guilt-stricken Baltar are a joy to watch as he flips from near-hysterical lunatic to scheming toad to smooth womaniser. Olmos has the presence to give Adama the air of authority required. Sackhoff's performance as Starbuck is "subtly obvious" - she plays the brash, cocky pilot a little too well, something that's explained in later episodes. And Bamber's Apollo is a mix of heroic action and self-doubt which balances well. Mention must also go to McDonnell's President Roslin who, over the course of the series, has grown in stature and presence in a very subtle manner.

Quite simply, Battlestar Galactica is one of the most consistently strong shows I've ever seen. Considering this is only the first of (hopefully) many seasons, it's amazing to see how the show has "hit the ground running," with each episode being an improvement on the last. And considering the high standard of the first one, that's quite the achievement.

Watch it. You won't be disappointed.

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583 out of 890 people found the following comment useful :-
Re-imagined..some well, some pointless, some plain wrong!, 5 January 2006
Author: imaginary-two from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I have read many other reviews and find points of many that I agree with and others I disagree with, to wit... I saw other mention of the bullets issue, and I agree, a civilization, and technology, with Faster Than Light drives, and seamless artificial gravity would NOT use guns that not only fired bullets, but were obvious current day handguns. The Cylon Fighters (Raiders), I can even accept the redesign of the Cylon Fighters, as if they got rid of the crew area, and put the Cylon face on them to signify the fact that the ship IS the Cylon, kinda makes sense, even, and they are not too different than the originals in motor and weapon placement and overall shape (minus the crew area). The Cylon Base Stars, what, was a order given that they cannot look ANYTHING like the originals?, the 5 sided round double angular saucer of the originals is not that boring, terrible, or unimaginative of a ship design! They could have enhanced that design, like they did all the other ships (kinda), the new double three sided star looking Base Stars have not even a hint of the originals, but the interiors, with their "Alien" organic look is nice. Speaking of the Galactica, and the recent Pegasus, I can accept them in a similar manner as a refitted WW II aircraft carrier or battleship. But, does the non networking philosophy of the new Galactica (which again actually makes some sense, and tries to explain the corded handsets) extend to the doors?, is it somehow illegal to have any that slide? I guess again a FTL technology can't make compact slider motors hid in walls, or is Ron just making sure you don't mistake this for Trek, or even Babylon 5?

The Cylons , or most of them, the human looking ones, I see as rather a cop out, ST:TNG had "The Borg" and now this, one might begin to think that Ron is just scared of, or incapable of, making truly alien looking aliens, or robots? The re-imagined CG Cylons are cool looking, but what of them have we seen, maybe a total of 10 mins. of screen time? Will they ever talk?, even if the original Cylon Centurions sounded rather like a cheap "Darth Vader", or a 1980s vintage Chrysler Lebaron that featured a canned on a chip synth voice, they at least could talk! More importantly, will these new CG Cylons ever be portrayed as anything other than short screen shots with no real personality, or purpose, other than to shoot their bullet firing guns?

Now for the acting, I think Edward James Olmos is great, I loved the few Miami Vice episodes he was showcased in and his Blade Runner performance, his trademark hard line seriousness is a better Adama than Lorne Greene ever was, sorry. I could never stop thinking of Greene as Ben Cartright, I kept waiting for him to get on a horse! I also like Mary McDonnell as President Laura Roslin, and I don't remember seeing her as anything other than the small part of the president's wife in Independence Day, and was unimpressed with that, so I don't have a bias for her. James Callis is good as Baltar, and although I think the original Baltar (John Colicos) was a much better villain and more interesting character, I have grown to like the re-imagined Baltar, and his subplot. I thought, BTW, that Callis was just silly in ST:DSN. The new Col. Tigh is interesting as well, but I again liked the original Tigh better (and I must say I think the only reason Tigh is not black is because they are too politically correct to have a drunk black) the rest, well, the others I consider interchangeable with 100s of other so-so actors in B-grade TV shows, and the Cylon/Human Number Six (Tricia Helfer) is a obvious name rip off of Seven of Nine in ST:V, and the character is just a bimbo whore, but one who happens to support the (Cylons looking for God? Cylons wanna have a baby?) subplot connected to Baltar. I also think the feminization of Boomer and Starbuck is pointless, except as maybe another politically correct move. I liked all the original pilots better. Speaking of old pilots, I am glad they gave SOMETHING to Richard Hatch (Apollo in the original, Tom Zarek in the re-imagining), after his hard work and even mortgaging his house to make the pilot for his idea of a continuation of BSG, he certainly deserves something, more even, like do his vision, maybe? One other character I must comment on, Admiral Cain, (Michelle Forbes) is very different than the original's Commander Cain (Lloyd Bridges) of the Pegasus, but I like her performance, at least on Jan. 5th, before I see part 2 tomorrow, I also liked her as Lt. Ro on ST:TNG and she plays a similar role, a believable strong female, so her "persona" has continuity, and I like that.(Yea, sure, call me the type cast loving kook!)

I could go on, but I will end with this, I LOVE some elements of the re-imagined Galactica, and I find other parts VERY distasteful, and for me it's very much a Love/Hate attitude I have about the show, but I have grown to kinda like the show, and will continue to watch it. It has drama, the camera work I happen to like, some of the actors are very good, it has interesting plot twists and questions yet to be answered. So for now I'll overlook the distasteful elements.

And of course I loved the original, and really wish that a character like the "IL Series" Cylon Lucifer (voiced by Jonathan Harris, "Lost in Space's" Dr. Smith) was included, and hope (I'm sure quite pointlessly) that a episode similar to the original's "The War of the Gods" would be made in future

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608 out of 1133 people found the following comment useful :-
I've done what most of you asked and tried the new Battlestar Galactica.... but...., 13 September 2005
Author: Julie from Melbourne, Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I have just spent the last hour looking through several posts that tell fans of the original Battlestar Galactica to give the new "improved" series a chance.

Well I HAVE given the new BSG a huge chance... I even bought the miniseries sight unseen excited at the prospect of falling in love with the characters all over again (regardless that Starbuck and Boomer are now females). I then recorded every episode of season one (this was the only way to ensure I didn't miss an episode as I work shift work). I've tried and tried and tried to even LIKE the new BSG but unfortunately I have to say that IT IS BORING....I'd rather watch paint dry! I'll give you my reasons:

1) The writers/producers seem to be relying on the fact that viewers want to see the main characters in compromising positions with each other almost every time the scene changes (just turn the channel and you'll see that sort of thing on just about every other program - ranging from "sex in the city" to the common late night movie). The blond "bimbo" cylon is only there to try entice the male viewers. She does absolutely nothing for female viewers...apart BORING them to death and making them wish she would go away so that the story can advance.

2) There is also very little depth to the characters...you'd think that by the end of season one you would have some favourite characters that you want to see winning the battle over the "evil cylons" - BORING

3)The long and drawn out process of trying to discover who may be cylon or not. "Just cut to the chase" and get on with the story! If I wanted to watch a series based on conspiracy, backstabbing, and following every thing that the president says to try and catch the cylon impostors....I'd watch "24". The fact that it takes an entire series of this BSG just to clarify some simple story lines is BORING

4) There are far too many references to modern day Earth in the form of language, fashion, technology and religion. These are supposed to be a race of humans that are living in the distant regions of the universe! I find it extremely hard to believe that a society who's distance so far removed from our own could evolve in a completely parallel and uniform fashion! You just have to look at how diverse our current societies are (ranging from Christian to Buddist) and the cultural differences of the countries on this Earth. Are the writers that narrow minded that they want us to believe that the only way Humanity evolved in the far reaches of the universe is the same as modern day America??? This isn't boring it is STUPID!

I could go on for ages about why this "new improved version of BSG" is BORING, but, short of trying to watch both the miniseries and season one all over again to find some redeeming qualities, I'm going to go and turn on my DVD player and loose myself in the PURE ENTERTAINMENT that is the REAL "Battlestar Galactica - The original series" After all I did what most of you asked...I tried the new BSG and it is BORING! BORING! BORING!!!

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98 out of 134 people found the following comment useful :-
Pretentious and ponderous, but ultimately very weak, 14 April 2009

Author: jmgindiana from Argentina

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

After watching the whole series, I must say this was a total disappointment, and the ultimate proof about how things are done in Hollywood: good contacts, speaking loud, and making the audience believe they are smarter than they really are because the series it's "intelligent".

From the very beginning there were lots of things that didn't add up, but we let them pass, such as full-election process in a refugee fleet, including public debates and such, as if anyone of the 48.000 survivors could care about politicians after their worlds, friends and family had just been killed. Boomer's sabotages to the fleet didn't make much sense, but they were interesting. Cain's "reimagining" was just a one-dimensional creation, a square warmonger who -as always happens with writers who dislike the military- is ultimately proved wrong in almost everything she does. Things got gradually worse, starting with the one-year jump, and the introduction of the "final five", a concept that most likely was spurned by fans who were asking themselves who were the remaining "models", instead of writers who actually had anything planned for those characters.

While the show garnered critical acclaim, viewers left in droves. Those who remained could be ultimately divided into two groups: the fanatics, for whom anything with the brand "Galactica" (excluding the old show) was God turned into television, and regular viewers who were giving the show the benefit of the doubt, hoping that things could be salvaged at the end with a plausible explanation.

The show's decline, however, became even more pronounced in the last seasons. Instead of fixing the glaring problems of the previous seasons, they introduced new ones, contradicting a lot of stuff, and creating whole story lines -the aforementioned "final five", for example- that in the end turned out to be just a big red herring. Even worse, they committed the worse sin for a show supposedly grounded in reality, even being sci-fi: they resorted to "divine intervention" to explain the whole plot and most of the central story lines. Two characters, one barely seen, suddenly became "angels", while another was turned into a "divine creature", without even the most basic explanation. The whole epilogue for the characters was a disaster, pulling the "emotional strings" while throwing logic out of the window.

To add insult to injury, the show's lack of appeal forced a number of obvious budget cuts, but at the same time, the number of episodes per season was increased from 13 to 20. As a result, we ended up with a sci-fi show with little sci-fi at all, with almost no action to speak of (space or otherwise), and tons of episodes to the top with filler. Of course, that filler was filmed as if it were "relevant" and "dramatic", with hand held cameras and dramatic lighting, no matter if it was just two guys speaking about nothing in a corridor.

As always, a number of fanatics claimed, as they will always claim, that the show was about the characters, about "drama", and never about space battles and such. They are wrong. Battlestar Galactica was sold as a sci-fi drama, not just "drama", and that's the reason it was green lit in the first place. Those who claim that Galactica was always what it turned out to be in the last disastrous seasons should take a look at what it was in the beginning.

In the end, the problem was one person -Ron Moore- with too much power and ego to make "just" a sci-fi series. He had the means, and ultimately proved his detractors right exactly about what they were trying to say from the beginning: that Moore, and Galactica, were all show and no substance, with soap-operish drama, weak actors -with a few exceptions in Olmos, McDonnell and a couple more-. Not only that, but by trying to write himself out of his corner, Moore's writing turned most of the events in the earlier seasons totally unnecessary, ruining the series as a whole.

So farewell, BSG 2004. You went the way of the do-do at the end, and just like the X-Files, managed to survive as long as you could avoid giving answers. I doubt anyone would want to re-watch the series knowing how useless everything turns out to be.

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104 out of 149 people found the following comment useful :-
Lame, dull and pretentious all the way to the end!, 21 March 2009

Author: anacleto_biloba

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This show is so messed up that the writers had to pull a "Deus ex machina" to tie up loose ends in the finale!!!

The producer of the show wants us to believe that it is a very deep scifi drama when in reality is just a pretty dull drama with some robots in it. I believe that the show was written as they moved along without a clear idea of what to do next. The series has interesting concepts and ideas. Sometimes the series gained some momentum, but it fizzled away very quickly.

The people from this far far away planet called Caprica celebrate what they call "baby-showers", drink "wine" and "champagne", suffer from some strange sickness called "cancer" eat sushi etc etc. There is no creativity in the writing!!! Everything looks and feels like today Earth!!! Even the characters behaviors!! If I want to see an earth like drama I'll watch 24, ER or The Bold and Beautiful

I did not feel the characters struggle to survive. Starbuck and Apollo tried tooo much to be "cool" and "tough". I hated both characters. Adama cried tooo much for a seasoned commanding officer.

The couple of seasons of Babylon 5 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105946/ dealing with the Shadow war kicks the whole galactica series ass.

I really wanted to like this show. I watched every episode, but at the end I still cannot recommend it.

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108 out of 181 people found the following comment useful :-
Jumped the Shark, 14 December 2008

Author: mrohlee from Michigan, USA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The show started out as one of the greatest, best written shows I have seen. Some where along the way they either ran out of ideas or had a fear of success or something. The original concept, that the Cylons were fighting a genocidal war against humans was thrown out when it was revealed that several key humans were actually cylon sleeper agents. If they had been activated the war would have been over the first week. It was one of the changes that completely negated the earlier, excellent episodes. It was similar to when the movie Aliens 3 starts starts off with meaningless deaths of key characters from Aliens2 or when Brad Ratner had Xmen start killing each other off in Xmen3. These things are bad by themselves but also taint all the earlier episodes. How can you go back and enjoy the first seasons of the show knowing that most of the actions by key characters are lies and completely illogical since you now know they are cylons. A bitter, bitter, disappointment.

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43 out of 63 people found the following comment useful :-
Reminiscent of those teens yelping about "DAAAAHHHHKKKKNEEESSSSSS!!!!!", 3 June 2009

Author: patchworkworld from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Hmmmm, interesting. I'll keep this short on detail, as so many have done such a good job of pointing out the myriad problems with this series both of itself and as a laughably awful remake of a good original series. Ludicrously similar to the (usually) teen-aged modern "role playing game" fans who constantly talked of the lack of "darkness" in some game they were involved in a decade past, but themselves had so little experience of "DAHKNESSSSSSS" that they'd have shrieked and run not only from anything remotely like one of the creepy crawlies (usually human appearing, but horrific in some psychological or spiritual way) they wanted featured and emphasized into the ground but also shielded and run or simply self-destructed from any realistic darkness that had presented itself into their unthinking little lives. Or perhaps the equally silly conviction of the teen-aged "goths"; kids asserting the world had already gone to hell in its very own handbasket and wearing black and being morose was utterly original and beautifully "realistic" and anyone who did not agree just didn't understand (and was really dumb besides). Come to think of it, they had the the same rabid reaction to anyone pointing out the fact that the last few generations have also had a cadre of black-wearing "originalists" in high school...LOL!!!

The single detailed comment I;d like to make for those seeking enough info to decide on watching or not watching the "new" series involves a couple of subtle concepts called family and wisdom (or alternatively, wise leadership). The original series included truly adult themes such as family and friendship; it is mystifying to those actually "adult" as to why explicit sexual intercourse, drug use, and foul language is supposed to depict adulthood. The original series contained such scenes as an not-seriously-but-still-ill Adama in bed receiving a visit from his small grandson-by-marriage Boxey, who, tucked up beside his grandfather and soundly kissed, proceeds to tell Adama a small-boy version of his own favorite bedtime story.

"There once was a shining planet, called..." "Earth," says Adama, recognizing the beginning line of the story he's often told the child. "No, Mushieland (a type of sweet in the series)," replies Boxey. "Mushieland?" asks Adama, voice and expression exactly what you'd expect from an affectionate grandparent both a little surprised and offering encouragement to go on. "It was full of daggets (essentially an extraterrestial dog)," continues Boxey, "but the best of them all was Sire Muffie (the name of his own pet)." "Sire Muffie," Adama repeats, clearly understanding where this is going, and as clearly content, happy with the boy's company. Again, very much real world, real grandparent.

A moment later the camera shows the medical technician who's been keeping visitors away so Adama can rest...standing just out of sight listening, smiling. She's pretended to be asleep so the boy could sneak in and give the old man some of the medicine he needs most right then.

This is the stuff of reality. This is adulthood. All the "F & S" (reproductive activity and drug sucking) ever shown cannot trump such things on those two counts. It shows when Adama and Apollo --his son-- embrace after Apollo has been out on a dangerous mission. It shows when Starbuck, all choked up and having trouble speaking, sincerely tells the heavily advanced civilization of the Ship of Lights who just revived his dead best friend Apollo "Whatever you want from me, you can have". It shows in the not-too-often, not-too-little use of the term "buddy" between Starbuck and Apollo and Boomer and the trio handclasp colonial warriors use now and then at a difficult or dangerous moment. It shows in the trust evidenced across rank lines, generation lines, and gender lines by people who have worked together, understand each other's strengths and weaknesses, and are committed to each other and to a goal worth reaching out for.

Adama led so well precisely because he showed emotion, valued his family, worried sometimes intensely but let others live their lives, cared and managed situations with flexibility but brooked no nonsense, and was fundamentally an older human being saddened by pain but capable of happiness, flawed (without being a mess) but striving to be the best he could. This, too, is reality. There are bad people in this world, but the sort of disintegration into whoring, in-fighting, and drugs touted as "real" by such shows as this ridiculous new rip off are unreal because they show only the worst case most extreme scenario. (Come on, how many disasters have we read about, seen, or been in ourselves in which EVERYONE turned into a sick-minded nit?)

My advice? Go for the real thing; ignore the fake stuff.

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304 out of 589 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the Most Awful Shows on TV, 10 November 2007

Author: Barry Sumpter from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The first thing that pops to mind when you start watching a Battlestar Galactica episode is "Why?" Why would anyone put such a bad show on the air? Why would anyone keep on paying to make such a bad show? Why would anyone want to make more after seeing the pilot? Why would anyone pay to make the pilot knowing that it would be awful and unwatchable.? Why keep the same producers on salary when they clearly don't know how to make a TV show? Why would SciFi keep hawking this dreadful show when it's clear it'll never have a big audience? Why would critics not be embarrassed to support a show that looks like it was shot with a camcorder? The questions keep popping up but they'll never be answered.

Battlestar Galactica is all about its marketing campaign, not about making a good show.

Just imagine if all that money had been spent trying to make a good show that all could be proud of....

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447 out of 875 people found the following comment useful :-
A huge disappointment, 18 April 2007

Author: nexus77 from Serbia

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This new Galactica is a huge disappointment. The old one (1978) is a masterpiece in a comparison to this. They managed to ruin the complete concept. Everything is not how it should be. The director does a bad job. The fighting scenes are comical. Special effects were better in the old series. The characters are poorly written. Also, they managed to transform Sturbuck, the hero of my childhood, into a female character, although there were some interesting female pilot characters in the old series. If you want to waste your time, then watch this one. I am the great fan of the old Galactica so maybe this makes me too critical, but still I think that the new one deserves only 1 star ( I would give it 0 if I could).

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48 out of 78 people found the following comment useful :-
A horror fantasy drama., 2 April 2009

Author: Gregory from Estonia, Tallinn

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

When they aren't fighting killer robots they fight themselves, but at least the writers showed nicely how people crack in a confined space after a disaster. As long as you try to not yell at the shaky camera you can still watch this.

I just finished watching the last episode and I was incredibly shocked: "That's it?!" Yes, a horrible drama with fantasies instead of science. Oh it started swell as Lost, but at the end of season 2 it got lamer and lamer. They should have had an idea how they would end it all from the start. The writers deserved none of the pay for what they scribbled for a script after the writers strike.

It rocketed awesomely of into deep space. A handful of ships with the last humans trying to find Earth while escaping killer robots. It was nice, it was intriguing, but then it went too far. Suddenly people started having visions how to find Earth and stuff. By the end fantasy magic overwhelmed science.

How do you find a killer android? Do you put a metal detector to its head and hear it go BING? No. You need blood samples that only one man can decode. So the androids aren't really androids, just humans with a wireless Internet connection who think they are robots.

In the end they took some lame stuff out of Star Trek. Lots of class M planets around. ENDLESS amount of fighters and bombers and like in Voyager they only build one from scratch. Same goes for troopers and pilots. I understand where you get volunteers, but where do you get the gear, guns, BULLETS and missiles?! Killer robots ALWAYS know where to find them. Stuff like this tends to come up often. I still can't believe they managed to cram 48000 people, a cat and a dog into that tiny fleet.

The drama mostly rotated around the elite of the fleet: admiral, president, friends and family. Neglecting saving the human race they were selfish to order suicide missions. They are so ignorant, selfish and dumb that I started hating them all so much I laughed when they found Earth to be a post-apocalyptic wasteland. What to do next? How about go looking for a neighboring habitable planet and settle down? No. We wait till a little girl gets stolen, and we send the last strike force to rescue her. More died in the process.

The end was baby sh**. Oh they eventually found the real Earth by randomly pushing buttons in a musical pattern. Ironically the planet was ONE jump away from a black hole and the main killer robot base. And Earth was inhabited by tribal humans who are our ancestors. And it turns out that all the pixies in Baltars and 6's heads were angels (or maybe demons). Starbuck was actually a ghost for an entire season. Boomer kept sabotaging stuff for 3 seasons but was redeemed in the end. And they sent all their ships into the sun for no sane reason. And the friendly killer robots who couldn't reproduce or think by themselves flew away to explore space. Yes, and I'm a toddler who likes these sort of stories.

Buy a tripod you maniacs! And never show this fantasy for a science again! I feel like I wasted several month of my life on this show. I never saw the original and I don't want to now.

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