The best new sci-fi show in... forever
I really hate new TV shows. I have such a hard time getting interested in the characters and the plotline, I dislike watching awkward moments (I call them "Judy Blumes") and I'm easily bored by formula (
did you hear the one about the Law & Order episode where two [children/men/women] are walking down the [street/hallway/alley] talking about something inane and they [turn the corner/look over a wall/drop something and go to retrieve it a little further off] and find a dead body?).
That being said, I have recently fallen hook, line and sinker for
the new Battlestar Galactica remake. Sci-fi shows like Enterprise are dull in comparison. Even my beloved ST:TNG can't hold a candle to BG. I spent most of the lunch hour today raving to some coworkers about how it had everything for some people and something for everybody: great graphics, complex characters who you think you understand but they can still surprise you, believable romances, mystery, intrigue, humor, sarcasm, wit and a fascinating storyline with a lot of opportunity for growth. I haven't had a crush on a show like this since I first saw Futurama many years ago; I'm very jealous of the folks in the UK who got to watch
episode #12 today (where they discover Kobol... to which one of my coworkers said "What's next, Pascal?").
I'm aware of the controversy over the changes in the story, perhaps the most significant being that *gasp*
Starbuck is a chick! I personally think she's a great character and have enjoyed her role tremendously. But being aware of the uproar, it was with some interest that I noticed
the user ratings for BG on IMDB, where you can see some (not unsurprising) demographic patterns:
The first thing that jumped out at me was that almost two-thirds of the respondents rated it 8 or higher, better than even fantastic movies like Ocean's 11. Then I noticed that women on average rated it higher than men (except for 18-29... and I have no theory as to why.), with the 45+ crowd having a significant difference in women's votes compared to men's - a real shocker there I'm sure. Of course, the sample size in all those cases is smaller than in others, but I see it as a reasonable validation of my take that the show has something for everyone.
The second interesting part is the stepping of the overall rating based on age. 45+ rated it 6.3, 30-44 7.1, 18-29 7.5, and the small segment of under 18 year olds rated it as high as 8.3. The obvious interpretation is that the older you are, the more likely you were to have watched the original, and as a result, the more likely you are to consider the remake a mockery instead of a tribute. Since I'd never seen the original, I had no baggage. This is similar to what happened when I was a kid and started watching ST:TNG without having been a fan of TOS.
Anyway, this is just a push to go out and start Tivoing it, find someone who saved the miniseries and episodes thus far, and get yourself hooked, if you're any kind of geek at all, you won't regret it.
Perhaps the best part of all is that the creator of the series has a blog where in the first post he talked about one of the issues that I'd been wondering about myself, asking the great question: "If you only had 33 minutes before the next time you could die, what would you do?". It even has a feed.
