Precioso diseño para una  mesa, eso si, no la regalen a algún miembro de la Galáctica su parecido puede traerte problemas.

I just watched “The Plan” the BSG extra movie that purported to tell us what the Cylon plan was. Except two hours later I’m as baffled as ever and continue to regard the Cylons as mind-blowingly incompetent.

Oh I get that they were tripped up by love which ruined their initial plot, except… what WAS that, exactly? Crazy Cavil wanted the final five to detach from humanity by watching them die, but he couldn’t wait one more day for the Battlestar to be retired? He, for some reason needed to place the five with humanity in order to… what? Strengthen their connection that he wanted to break?

It was somewhat enjoyable to see familiar events from the Cylon side, but I expected a lot more from something called The Plan.

Postanowiłem napisać krótki tutorial odnoście zrobienia insygni admiralskich z serialu Battlestar Galactica. Jeśli ktoś nie wie co to jest, to już tłumaczę. Są to te symbole przypięte do kołnierza wyższych stopniem członków załogi informujące o ich pozycji na szczeblach dowodzenia. Oczywiście ten tutorial można też wykorzystać do zrobienia insygni innych rang, jak i takich z całkiem innego dzieła. A więc należy zacząć od narysowania docelowego rezultatu na papierze. Najlepszy do tego celu będzie papier w kratkę, gdyż wszystko wyjdzie nam równo, oraz łatwo będziemy mogli odtworzyć poszczególne elementy. Jeśli insygnia mają być warstwowe (byś wykonane poprzez nakładanie kolejnych warstw na poprzednie), to musimy wykonać odpowiednią ilość wykrojników. Tego typu rzeczy najlepiej jest wykonywać z blachy ocynkowanej, gdyż nie będzie ona nam rdzewieć. Możemy wykorzystać nasze wycięte z papieru elementy na dwa sposoby. Po pierwsze możemy je odrysować na blasze za pomocą pisaka. Ja polecam ten drugi: Za pomocą małego magnesiku przy czepiamy kartkę do blach, co pozwoli nam na precyzyjniejsze cięcia. Do wycinania wykorzystujem  nożyce do cięcia metalu. Trzeba pamteć, aby każdy wzorzec wyciąć dwa razy, gdyż insygnia powinny być dwa (po jednym na oba kołnierzyki). Jeśli mamy już wszystko wycięte, to za pomocą obcęgów wyrównujemy ewentualnie wygięte podczas wycinania krawędzie. Do połączenia poszczególnych elementów wykorzystujemy klej kropelka. Po jego wyschnięcia (a jest to kila sekund) dobrze by było zakryć szpary pomiędzy poszczególnymi częściami poprzez wypełnienie ich akrylem. Wszystko pozostawiamy na pewien czas do wyschnięcia. Po wewnętrznej stronie przyklejamy również za pomocą kropelki szpilkę (lub coś, co może ją z powodzeniem zastąpić), abyśmy mogli gotowy wyrób przypiąć do ubrania. Całość malujemy na dowolnie przez nas wybrany kolor. Po wyschnięciu farby wyrób jest gotowy. Życzę powodzenia.

Pozdrawiam, Fixer

First, before I begin, I just want to say that, as I type this, I am listening to Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance and loving it.

I haven’t decided yet if the images she crafts are parody and/or satire.  However, even if her visual marketing is a bit repulsive, her music is unexpectedly very good.

Second, I want to mention Sarah Palin.

Her mere mention in this blog boosts my traffic tremendously.  Palin is at the heart of many google searches that lead the hapless, and unsuspecting, Internet surfer to this page – second only to searches for smiley faces.

Don’t ask me why, but thousands upon thousands of you out there access this blog using terms like “smiley,” “smiley face,” “smily face,” “evil smiley” and “evil smiley face.” If you are reading this, then the odds are you got here looking for an evil smiley face.

As for you who out there who found my page using google searches centering on Sarah Palin – and there are more of you every day –  please take my word for it that you won’t find any nude pictures of Palin here.

Not "nude" per se.

Nor will you find any photos or discussions or any jokes even remotely related to any of the following apparently popular search terms:

Sarah Palin feet

Sarah Palin feets

Sarah Palin shoes

Sarah Palin Girl Scout

Sarah Palin Girl Scout Hat

Sarah Palin bullet bra

Sarah Palin donkey

Sarah Palin naughty nurse

Sarah Palin dog collar

Sarah Palin smoking

Sarah Palin smoking cigarettes

Sarah Palin cheerleader

Sarah Palin cheer leader

Sarah Palin dominatrix

Sarah Palin dominetrix

Sarah Palin dominutrix

Sarah Palin Navajo sweat lodge

Sarah Palin sweet lodge

Sarah Palin colonoscopy

Sarah Palin nasal passage

Sarah Palin sexy

Sarah Palin sexy cyborg

These are not all of the search terms related to Sarah Palin that have lead people to this blog, but they are some of the most troubling ones.

Who are you people? Do you live anywhere near me? Because if you do, I am moving the hell away.  ”Sarah Palin nasal passage?” “Sarah Palin sexy cyborg?”  What on earth is going on?  Are you out of your piggy little minds?

Look, let’s cut to the chase: if photos of anything even remotely related to any of those search terms existed, then I would have posted them. But there aren’t any – at least not yet.  I fully expect that, once her political star sinks, as it surely will, she will attempt to cash in on her name and reignite her celebrity by “accidentally” posting a sex tape or nude pics the way Carrie Prejean did.

Just jam-packed with irony, both actual and potential.

The lure of easy money is the greatest weakness from which white trash suffers.

Just oozing with greed and white trash hubris.

I am utterly convinced that the continuing revelations about Carrie Prejean’s multiple sex tapes (self-shot) and porno pics are part of a liberal conspiracy to discredit attractive but stupid right wing ultra Christian women who hate homosexuals.

But I digress.  I am really here to talk about Stargate Universe. I am a new participant on a blog hosted by the Brisbane Times and authored by John Birmingham, author of Without Warning and the Axis of Time series – all of which I enjoyed, have reread and highly recommend.

John’s blog is called The Geek and you can find it by going here. The Geek is devoted to issues designed to appeal to everyone’s inner nerd – i.e., questions centering on computers, technology and, lately, science fiction.  If you want to see what the Geek is all about, just sample the sparkling discussion by clicking here.

John Birmingham and premier tech geek and author, Orin Thomas.

Most recently in the Geek the Geek John has expressed his appreciation for Stargate Universe, a new series on the SyFi cable network.  Thus far I’ve based my criticism on the show’s lack of sexy space chicks.

Not appearing on Stargate Universe

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Also not appearing on Stargate Universe

But John’s recent opinion, the comments from some of his regular visitors, and the undeniable fact that the last SG-U episode was really very good, has forced me to get serious and explain why I am critical of the show.  What follows expands on the comment I left at the Geek.

To better explain why I haven’t liked SG-U until this last episode requires a short history of popular science fiction. In the beginning, science fiction was part of “high culture,” written by amazingly proficient writers like Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, Edwin Abbott Abbott and H.G. Wells (“the Early Masters”).

H.G. Wells. Wrote Sci Fi to meet women.

It wasn’t even called science fiction; it was, instead, referred to as  “scientific romance.” Then, in the late 1920’s in New York City, science fiction crept into pulp magazines and became popularized.  Lots of people read it, but, as literature, it was rubbish and even the best SF writers were, compared with the Early Masters, uneducated amateur hacks. But, like circus geeks who dream of playing Carnegie Hall, these pulp fiction hacks dreamed of critical recognition.

She considered herself an artist.

This desire for critical recognition for science fiction started a slow climb towards legitimacy – which required writers to display proficiency as well as imagination. Harlan Ellison was and still is part of this effort.

Harlan was a pensive young dude.

Unlike most science fiction writers of his time, Ellison began his career writing in the mainstream. In the 1950’s he wrote about youth gangs. In the 1960’s he wrote erotica.  In the 1960’s he began selling scripts for science fiction television programs like Star Trek and The Outer Limits.  These scripts were remarkably well written (Star Trek – The City on the Edge of Forever; The Outer Limits – Demon With the Glass Hand) and stood out as perhaps the best episodes of those series, garnering legitimate critical acclaim.

Ultra cool.

In the 1970’s Ellison became one of the leaders in the movement to legitimize science fiction. His own stories injected more mature themes into the genre – resulting in critical and commercial success.  His short story A Boy and His Dog – culminating with the hero and his pet eating the heroine – was produced as a movie.

Ellison’s efforts to improve science fiction were inventive.  Way before the rest of the world became aware how language colors perception, Ellison attempted to remove the stigma associated with science fiction by insisting I be referred to only as “speculative fiction.”

Ellison was part of a movement that raised the bar on what to expect from science fiction.  These efforts brought big benefits:  over the years that followed, Sci Fi writers slowly died out and have been replaced by writers who incidentally employ science fiction concepts and constructs.  This is not a trivial change.  Writers today – such as John Birmingham – are writers first, serious about the craft of writing. Science fiction concepts and constructs are devices used to help tell the story.

Before the reform movement described above, it used to be the other way around: science fiction concepts and constructs took precedent over story. For example, more often than not, any given science fiction story focused on space ships, ray guns and, yes, space chicks.

Adolescent geek wish fulfillment realized.

The story itself was incidental to these factors. So now we come to Stargate Universe.  This new program results from the desire to legitimize science fiction and focus on story and not on ray guns or space chicks.

That is SG-U’s strength, but it is also its weakness, because, in their efforts to inject real drama into science fiction, the SG-U writers and producers have forgotten who their audience is.

There is nothing wrong with well-written drama. What I saw last night on SG-U wasn’t melodramatic and wasn’t soap opera.  It was well written, well directed drama.  But those responsible for SG-U have forgotten that guys who grew up thrilled by space chicks and space battles make up SG-U’s audience.

Not a space chick, but she played one on TV.

Even the recent reinvention of Battlestar Galactica sprinkled amazing drama with the occasional amazing space battle – AND it included the occasional space chick.

That’s what kept us watching our television screens while really well written, well acted and well-directed drama took place.

Bertolt Brecht believed that literature and art should educate the viewer.  I believe that SG-U’s writers and producers are trying to educate the fan boys into appreciating drama. Or they have decided that BSG did the educating and now was the time to make the final transition from pop culture back to high culture. Either way, those responsible for SG-U were and are wrong.  The fan boys still want space battles and space chicks.  Drama is fine – especially if it is well written – but please remember who your audience is.  BSG succeeded because it emphasized story but never became dull.  You can do it, too.

Remember your audience.

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I’ve been on the lookout for some posters to decorate my wall for some time now and I think I finally found some! How awesome aren’t these?!

Only problem is the shipping from the US. Probably gonna end up quite expensive. Maybe I’ll buy em as a Christmas present to myself. Yes.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/zoom/battlestar_galactica_propaganda_posters.jpg

Niechce misię.

Witam was słowami, które wypowiadam w ostatnich dniach aż nazbyt często. Niektórzy mówią, że danego dnia ukąsił ich bakcyl lenistwa. Cóż, ja obawiam się że swojego po prostu połknąłem i nie idzie go wywalić ze środka. Poza tym ostatnio troszkę się działo, a ja jakoś nie miałem ochoty na pisanie, ale jestem, macham, żyję. Co takiego się działo? Ehh, to i owo. Więcej w rozwinięciu, śmiało klikać.

First: Uniwersytet.

Siedząc ostatnio na którymś wykładzie, otworzyłem “Monument Of Boredom 2009″ (jak zatytułowałem mój zeszyt) i zacząłem skrobać na tylnych stronach pewien dziwny wykres, mający na celu ukazanie mojej przyszłości. Wizualizacje są modne i efektywnie wyglądają, więc czemu miałbym sobie odmawiać tej jakże wspaniałej formy ukazywania różnych rzeczy. Pojawiły się dwie ścieżki rozwoju (RPG FTW), przy czym jedna zakładała pozostanie na Italianistyce, druga zaś przejście na Anglistykę. Po rozpisaniu 3 stron A4 w kolumny “Advantages” i “Disadvantages” (czasem łatwiej myśli mi się po angielsku) doszedłem do nieuchronnej konkluzji, że jestem jednak człowiekiem do bólu praktycznym, który musi się o czymś przekonać na własnej skórze. W tym wypadku, jedyne 1.5 miesiąca zajęło mi zrozumienie, że Italianistyka jest kierunkiem wybitnie nie dla mnie i trzeba było iść na Anglistykę od day one by mieć już za sobą rok dążenia w kierunku posiadania my very own cottage in the middle of Surrey. Oczywiście to metafora, chociaż prawdą jest, że chciałbym się budzić i wyglądać przez okno pijąc Earl Greya, by popatrzeć nad mgłę, która rozpościera się nad moim kawałkiem terenu, na którym pasą się owce. Następnie mógłbym założyć kalosze i iść z moim Golden Retrieverem i Nowofundlandem na spacer, podczas którego moje psy zamordowałyby stado lisów i bezdomnych kotów. Wracając do “wątku głównego” – jestem już po małym rekonesansie, dowiedziałem się co muszę zrobić by w przyszłym roku (przeniesienie się nie jest możliwe) przystąpić do rekrutacji na anglistykę. Tak więc stay tuned, wszystko jest na dobrej drodze. Dość tkwienia w marazmie i zastanawiania się “co teraz?”. Pozostaje mi tylko przekonanie moich rodzicieli do słuszności mojej decyzji, a nawet jeśli mi się to nie uda to i tak dopnę swojego – za wszelką cenę. Bo to ja mam być do diabła szczęśliwy i zadowolony z tego co robię, a nie oni lub banda nadętych bubków na UW (pozdrawiam panią z sekretariatu Italianistyki).

Second: Video Games Live!

Byłem, widziałem i uważam, że to było największe wydarzenie tego roku. Było to po prostu wspaniałe doświadczenie, show z wielkim wykopem metafizycznym, zgromadzenie ludzi którzy uważają gry wideo za coś niezwykłego, część życia, część siebie. Nie było jeszcze imprezy na której czułbym się tak doskonale, jak ta wczoraj, nie spotkałem się z tłumem który na słowa prowadzącego “The Game is: Final Fantasy VII. The Composer is Nobuo Uematsu. The song is…” odkrzykuje z dziką energią i chorym wręcz entuzjazmem “ONE WINGED ANGEL!” po czym wszyscy dostają zdrowego pierdolca, kiedy na ekranie pojawiają się zdjęcia Clouda i całej ekipy FF VII. Boże, ale miałem ciarki. Moc do potęgi n-tej, czysta radość i zdarte gardło. Kawałki z Metal Gear Solid, God of War, Zeldy, Mario i wszystkich innych gier które przewinęły się przez scenę brzmiały – na oko – jakieś 15 milionów razy lepiej niż na najlepszych słuchawkach. Live Performance to kompletnie inne para kaloszy, a jeśli jest to Live Performance takich utworów, można po prostu pie**olnąć na plecy z zachwytu. Tallarico i spółka przywieźli do Polski jeden z najlepszych eventów na świecie i powiem Wam jedno – za rok też idę. I tym razem wejdę na tą cholerną scenę, chociażby po to by zrobić z siebie błazna. Czemu? Bo jestem graczem, do ciężkiej cholery, a Ci ludzie jak nikt rozumieją random. FUCK YEAH!

Przy okazji – cała ekipa, z Tallarico i Leungiem na czele, to grupa do bólu sympatycznych ludzi, z którymi z resztą dało się normalnie pogadać po występie, bez przepychania się przez ochroniarzy wielkości bloków, bez limitu 5 sekund, bez całej szopki VIP. Tommy okazał się być kolesiem niezwykle równym, który na wspomnienie wywiadu z Marcus Corner zaczął się głośno śmiać (“If I put a dick into your mouth, would it be considered as a blowjob or a handjob?”) i nie szczędził wyjaśnień, że długo się przygotowywał do tego, by objechać Marcusa. Prócz tego widać, że woda sodowa nie uderzyła mu do głowy, bez problemów podał mi swoje PSN ID i dał zrobić ze sobą zdjęcie. Przy okazji – usłyszeć z jego ust pytanie czy jestem polakiem, bo mam świetny akcent – jasna cholera, ale mnie duma rozpierała! : D

Third: MS Mass Effect Box

Nie oszukujmy się – moją “platformą domową” jest PS3. Co jakiś czas jednak zdarza się, że sięgam na półkę po pada od Xboxa360, pakuję do środka któregoś z exclusivów, zatapiam się w fotelu/kanapie i znikam ze świata PlayStation. W takich chwilach, kiedy napierdzielam w Mass Effect, po raz kolejny ładując Emanuelowi na Eden Prime ślicznego FALCON PUNCH!, dochodzi do mnie, że bez konsoli MS byłbym, do pewnego stopnia, w ciemnej dupie. PS3 jako Home Platform spełnia swoją rolę doskonale, ale komfort posiadania 360 i grania w exclusivy jest jednak czymś fantastycznym. Mogę mieć w domu wszystkie generacje PlayStation (poza białym krukiem PSXem) i mieć poniekąd image fana Sony, ale xboxa bym teraz nie sprzedał. Za bardzo go lubię, pomimo tony wad stricte hardware’owych, za bardzo lubię sobie klapnąć z padem w łapie i pobiegać w Mass Effect czy też przerżnąć piłą Locusta w Gears of War. Teraz na tapecie (po raz n-ty) znalazł się Mass Effect, jak zawsze na Insanity, jak zawsze świetny. W takich chwilach, kiedy mam jazdę na Xboxa (A SCEP wypuszcza mega-giga-peta-ultra-gówniane polskie XMB, które ssie bardziej niż koło z włoskiego), nie pytajcie mnie czy lepiej kupić PS3 czy 360, bo najzwyczajniej w świecie zgłupieję i nie będę wiedział, co Wam odpowiedzieć. Na chwilę obecną nie szukajcie mnie za często na PSN, bo siedzę w świecie Johna Sheparda, rozwalając łby Gethom przy akompaniamencie muzyki z Battlestar Galactica. No, a skoro już przy tym jesteśmy…

Fourth: Battlestar Galactica Season 4 Soundtrack – Bear McCreary

Pisałem już o BSG, prawdopodobnie najlepszym serialu w dziejach ludzkości. Prócz świetnego scenariusza, doskonałych efektów (przynajmniej do póki zajmował się nimi ZOIC i Cyloni nie byli pokryci chromem…), conajmniej bardzo dobrej gry aktorskiej i masy innych rzeczy, jednym z aspektów BSG jest muzyka (dla tych co wiedzą: “The Drums”), którą pisał Richard Gibbs (Miniseries), a później (Season 1 – 4) Bear McCreary. Soundtrack z 4 serii jest równie epicki co sam serial i jeśli ktoś z Was uważa się za fana Battlestara, MUSI, ale absolutnie MUSI mieć tą płytę na półce. Ostatnio pozbyłem się na jakiś czas obsesji zwanej “Reanimation” (Linkin Park) oraz “Runnin’ Wild” (Airbourne) na rzecz BSG S4 OST, które jest najczęściej odtwarzanym albumem na moim 5800. Od “Ressurection Hub”, przez “The Signal” i “Roslyn Escapes”, aż po “Assault on the Colony” i “The Heart of the Sun” – one hundred percent epic. W każdym calu, w każdym dźwięku. McCreary popisuje się nieludzkim wręcz wyczuciem w kwestii dopasowania kawałka do fabuły serialu i tak na dobrą sprawę, muzyka sama może opowiadać historię BSG. Naturalnie, jak w przypadku poprzednich części soundtracku, mamy absolutnie fe-no-me-nal-ne bębny, które swoją soczystością przyprawiają o zawrót głowy, a także przegenialne wykorzystanie znanych fanom nut “All Along The Watchtower” (Season 3, “Crossroads Part II”), które są wplatane w nowe kawałki (“Kara Remembers” i “Kara’s Coordinates” to absolutne arcydzieła) w taki sposób, że można dostać ciarek. Nie ma tu utworów słabych, są po prostu bardzo dobre i wybitne. Przy okazji – na święta planuje sobie kupić kompletną sagę BSG na Blu-Rayu. Nie oczekujcie wpisów w styczniu, bo poprostu mnie nie będzie. Wepchnę swoją dupę w fotel, zabunkruje się z pilotem od PS3 w pokoju i nie wyjdę, do póki nie obejrzę wszystkiego, co znajdę na tych płytach.

Fifth: Gry.

Jestem złym człowiekiem, bowiem wepchnąłem “Borsukowi ze świecącymi na czerwono oczami” (Pozdro WW3) pieniądze do kieszeni. Kupiłem Modern Warfare 2, grę która sprawiła że w tym roku nie będzie BioShocka 2, Final Fantasy XIII, a święta zostały przesunięte na później. Co o niej sądzę? Świetna, po prostu. Nie będę się tu rozwodził zbytnio nad grafiką, fabułą czy kontrowersjami (rosyjskie lotnisko i rozstrzeliwywanie cywili). Powiedzmy sobie szczerze – MW2 nie jest grą dla dzieci i jak komuś nie pasuje tak realistyczna wizualizacja przemocy, nie spierdziela na szczaw i nie kupuje tej gry. Napomknę jeszcze tylko że jakieś 99% populacji najchętniej by mnie zasztyletowało, bo MS2 kupiłem dla Single Player, bowiem nie lubię multi, ale jako gra na SP, pełna akcji i rozpierdzielu, zdaje egzamin doskonale. Więcej o MW2 będziecie mogli usłyszeć w kolejnym podcaście LittleBigBlog, który będziemy nagrywali w ten weekend, więc na stronie powinien się znaleźć najpóźniej w okolicach środka przyszłego tygodnia. Prócz tego, mój headset no-name na BT 1.3 się rozsypał, więc kupiłem nowy, sygnowany przez Sony, z logiem PlayStation. Działa wyśmienicie, długo trzyma na jednym ładowaniu, prócz tego świetnie pasuje do ucha, ma bardzo dobrą czułość i ogólnie działa tak jak powinien. W międzyczasie na blogu my-ps3.pl pojawiła się także moja recenzja Brutal Legend, a ja doczłapałem się do 10 levelu na PlayStation Network.

No, to by było na tyle. Możecie się spodziewać nowego wpisu jakoś po weekendzie, coś czuję że będę miał ochotę coś poskrobać.

Tymczasem dzięki za uwagę, wszelkie opinie jak zawsze mile widziane,

Take Care!

Today anyway and only from the generations of war thing – not because I have lost interest at all but because I am doing the accounts this week and it’s not much fun and any distractions are welcomed but dangerous.

John Birmingham has two blogs at the Brisbane Times and The Geek is by far the most fun. His recent item on Dr Who is worthy of posting in it’s entirety:

Who’s the master of cool sci-fi (not a question)
November 13, 2009

Have you ever noticed that when a bunch of geeks gather around the campfire to nut out once and for all the important question of what was the coolest science fiction TV series ever, that the actual coolest science fiction TV series ever almost never gets a look in. Why is there no lovin’ for Dr. Who?

Stargate SG1 is always pushing to the front of the line blowing everybody out of the way, goosing Star Trek, snorting in derision at the original BSG and Space 1999 (with good reason, admittedly). But where does it get off calling itself the longest-running sci-fi series on TV. That would be the Doctor you’re gazzumping there Jack. He first appeared on our screens back in 1963… and he’s still here. Not just in syndication and repeats either.

Sure the effects were crap in the early days. Okay, they were crap right up until cheap CGI and more generous production budgets meant the most recent series didn’t have to build their aliens out of old garbage bins and lengths of rubber hose. But go back and look at some of those original Star Trek episodes and hang your head in shame American sci-fi TV producers. I mean, tribbles, come on, really?

So great is the show’s longevity of course that eleven actors have cycled through the lead role, and God knows how many supporting cast have been there with the Doc, twisting their ankles, getting captured, occasionally getting killed, and generally raising the question of why he bothers with traveling companions anyway since they just get in the way or cause cliffhangers every 22 minutes. But putting that aside, which other serious, sci-fi or mainstream, can claim to have survived a change in lead actor so regularly, or even once.

Much as I liked Ben Browder’s character on Farscape for instance, he was really just Jack O’Neill lite in the later SG1 series.

And where most TV shows get weaker as they get older, Dr. Who has arguably grown stronger with the years. Partly this is a function of great writers and producers coming to the latest series of in a spirit of paying homage to a much loved show from their childhood, partly it’s to do with increased production values, and partly the Doc has hung around for so long he couldn’t help but benefit from the improved aesthetics of the medium as it matured. Bottom line however, it has improved while other series, particularly some big-budget American shows (yes Lost, I’m looking at you, and your mate Heroes) have all but sputtered out creatively after a couple of good early years.

So let the word go forth from this time and this place that I have settled this debate once and for all. Dr. Who is the coolest TV sci-fi series ever made.

While Stingray is my first memory of ANY TV series, it is also my first memory of a science-fiction show, followed closely by Forbidden Planet: both had me squinting at the screen through my fingers from an early age…three perhaps…? But it was Dr Who that sits still at the top of the heap: I was terrified by the Abominable Snowmen, Cybermen and Daleks (the Big 3 – all the rest, including the over-rated Master are Tier Two scaries) but refused to miss my weekly doses of terror. I still recall almost crapping myself when I was 7 or 8: running around the shadowy passages of Dad’s squash club, I turned a corner and ran smack into an oversized badminton shuttle. Obviously it must have been some sort of promo item but it was as tall as me and it definitely looked like a Dalek. I was adios amigo and refused to go back there for weeks.

I lost interest during the latter part of the Tom Baker years – possibly because the Beeb was starting to chew through the Doctors and some of them were pretty silly; or equally possibly because teenage boys develop other interests. I had a brief resurgence of interest when the US-made movie came out in the 90s (had Eric Roberts in it?) and then that was it until 2005. The new series had come out but I’d dissed it believing that it would just be a shoddy ripoff of the 60s and 70s classics. On my return from CLAW 1 in Salisbury, we were spending the weekend with friends in Rotorua; Dr Who just happened to be on during dinner (Bad Wolf, I think the episode was) and I became interested very quickly. Although I have lapped up Season 2-4, I have still to see most of Season 1 (too cheap to pay full price and waiting for the box set price to drop). JB is correct: Dr Who IS the most enduring science fiction show around; yes, there are those that are older but NONE that have been develped and evolved so consistently over four decades and into a fifth. Thunderbirds is as enduring but is a year younger and has not evolved from the original series – still a bit hit with young kids today though.

While I was a big fan of all the other Gerry Anderson series, nowadays there have more of a cult fascination appeal (apart from Thunderbirds) than serious interest. UFO was the centre of my known universe when I was 10 and 11 but now it seems vaguely pretentious and overdone -still very cools toys though – and, yes, I too was going to build my own Moonbase (on the Moon, of course) and use my secret organisation defend the world from the Aliens. Still might but if so I really do need to pull my finger out…

If I was to have my Top Five science fiction series they would be:

• Thunderbirds. Everything EXCEPT Jonathan Frakes’ miserable 2004 movie.

• Bablylon 5. Up until the end of Series 4 – after the two big storylines were dealt to, Series 5 seemed a bit anticlimatic.

• Dr Who. Everything from the very first episode to the Series 5 teaser episodes.

• New Captain Scarlet. Please, please do more with this: the animation is great, and it builds upon the gritty dark side of the original series.

• Firefly. The whole series + Serenity. A great concept that just didn’t quite get the support it needed although Serenity did really tie-off the original storyline so they would have needed a new one for further series.

I enjoy Star Trek in chunks but actually prefer the books, especially William Shatner’s first trilogy. Voyager and TNG were great once they figured out that violence was OK; Deep Space Nine was like Star Trek does Mallrats and just boring; but I do have a bit of a soft spot for Enterprise possibly because they can not use the transporter or time travel to get themselves out of narly situations. I do have the Star Trek Borg and Animated Series sets though and and do rate them quite highly.

I’m also a big BSG (both series) fan but in terms of a top five, the original is a bit campy now, and the rethink version is just a little too complex and interwined to be enduring for me.

Farscape, Andomeda, Stargate? Whatever…just light relief.

I’ll admit it, I jumped onto the Battlestar Galactica bandwagon late.  The show was just about to air Season 4 when I decided to give it a shot.  After hearing nothing but positive reviews of the show and constant talk on the forum board on Comic Geek Speak, I decided not having the SciFi, or now SyFy, channel wasn’t going to stop me.  I rented the first disc of the first season which was set as a mini-series and was instantly hooked.  I went on a massive dvd marathon and was caught up by the end of the first half of season 4, dubbed season 4.0, and was eagerly awaiting for the 2nd half of the final season.

After the series ended, with a bit of controversy on the finale, I knew of a prequel called Caprica was in the works.  Though I still haven’t watched the pilot of it, I just knew it wouldn’t be the same without the characters I grew to love.  In August of this year, I attended a panel at the yearly comic-con that featured Edward James Olmos and Luciana Carro who played Commander William Adama and Pilot Louanne “Kat” Katrine respectively. In that  panel, Olmos revealed to the crowd that a direct-to-DVD movie was set to be released in November based on the Cylons point of view called Battlestar Galactica: The Plan.  Naturally myself and other fanboys…and girls…were giddy with the notion of seeing more of the humans struggle with survival at the hands of the robot race called Cylons.

I can think of worse ways to die.

To begin to talk about the DVD, I want to point out that you need to have watched the complete 4 season series to understand and appreciate this.  Plus, major spoilers would be revealed here to those who haven’t seen the final two seasons themselves.  Many series regulars return here with the absence of only a few ket players, but some are shown in cut scenes from the show itself.   The series patriarch, Olmos, directed this with Jane Espenson writing.  Interesting thing I found out was that The Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont was originally attached to direct but when he was unavailable, Olmos took over.  Having directed a handful of the show’s episodes, he was up to the task.  That was one of the tidbits revealed in the DVD’s extras, but we will get back to that later.

The direction the story-line takes winds up giving  actors Dean Stockwell (Cavil), Rick Worthy (Simon), and Michael Trucco more screen-time.  Stockwell shines as the main focus and gives us great range for the ability to play two different versions of the same Cylon model.  Worthy is finally given the chance to show off his acting ability and does so quite well.  Trucco, Samuel Anders, has always been one of my favorite characters in the show and I am glad to see him given more material to work with since I was kind of disappointed with how his character was used in the final handful of episodes.  Of course, you can’t talk about Battlestar Galactica without mentioning Tricia Helfer and Grace Park.  The two of them get more screentime and material to work with as well and show good acting range.

While I did enjoy watching some revelations of how some scenes and events came to be, I was disappointed Olmos and Espenson went with the approach they made that the film felt like a completion of deleted and/or deleted scenes.  There was many archive footage used from the series used here with most being re-shot to extend and add to scenes.  When the last dvd movie, Battlestar Galactica: Razor, was made it was a well written side plot using new characters intertwine into the main story-arch.   Here was nothing of the sort.  While Razor felt original, The Plan does not.

Since this is a DVD review, it’s time to talk special features.  The audio commentary with Olmos and Espenson was intriguing as they talked about both the characters and their development plus visual effects amongst other things.  Featurettes here such as From Admiral to Director, The Cylons of The Plan, and The Cylon Attack all feature Olmos commenting on different fixtures of the show and this film.  The best featurette in my opinion is Visual Effects: The Magic Behind ‘The Plan’ is also the longest of the four.  This one goes into the development of the stunningly realistic visual effects that go not only into this film but also what was seen in each of the episodes.

Overall this film was enjoyable, but for die-hard fans only.  New viewers to the series will not get much out of this.  I give Battlestar Galactica: The Plan 3 1/2 pitchforks.  I wish I could give it more, but I can’t get past the issue of it feeling like a rehash of a story told in the first 2 seasons and not a stand-alone side plot which made Razor such a great complement to the series.

Former castmembers from Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Lost.  Dominic Monaghan playing a quantum physicist. Global gamechangers. Surreal mysteries.  Somebody knew how to make exactly the kind of show I want to watch.  And they’ve done it well. (click through for more)

All the superficial reasons aside, FlashForward is a consistently well-written and well-produced show.  It thoughtfully deals with issues of destiny, heroism, life and death, alcoholism, trust, faith and love.  But ultimately?  I’m a sucker for the time paradox.  The whole world sees what they’re going to be doing in 6 months.  And despite any efforts towards or away from this ‘inevitability,’ the prophecies begin self-fulfilling themselves.  For instance, a character who has been sober for 7 years sees himself drinking in 6 months.  The anxiety produced by this revelation leads him down a path toward alcohol temptation.

The show deserves attention.  Please watch!

Despite my best efforts to not sink into lethargy and dribble away my better-spent time watching television, I can never seem to pry myself away from the glittering glisten of a shiny new season box set.  And thus, I’ve frittered away countless days watching season after season, series after series, pining for the quell to a confounding cliffhanger or unanswered quandary.  But alas and alack, not all of those questions could be answered.  Nay, many of my favorite shows are among those that have lived and died in the 2000s, and so – ah, yes – they shall be chronicled in list form.

10.  The Tick (2001-2002)
This quirky brainchild of a half-baked show, spawned from the cult comic book created by cartoonist Ben Edlund (and, inversely, a short-lived animated version), garnered less than a few rave reviews from the critics.  However, a dutiful crew of bandies have kept the legend alive, making sure that a blue body-suited Patrick Warburton (perhaps better known in the Seinfeld universe as Puddy the face-painter) made it to DVD.

09.  Wonderfalls (2004-2005)
The wonderfully pretense-free Wonderfalls operated on its own oddities, condoning the likes of apathetic twenty-somethings in less-than-turbulent times.  Protagonist Jaye – a likably dispicable underacheiver with a penchant for talking to inatimate objects – somehow begs the audience to cheer for her through her trials and tribulations of mediocrity.  Think Dead Like Me’s George Lass with a bit more wit and it’s clear to see why it’s a tragedy that this little engine that didn’t feel like it never stuck.

08.  Coupling (2000-2004)
It’s no wonder creator Stephen Moffat employed his own wife in order to write this hilariously uncomfortable British romp of a sitcom, nor is it a surprise; Coupling thrives off the chemistry of its quirky components – why, couples, of course.  It’s Ross-and-Rachel riddled with sexcapades and stickiness, all topped off with quick writing, dry wit and a hideous laugh track.  Perhaps America just wasn’t ready.

07.  Firefly (2002-2003)
Take Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, and experimental spaghetti sci-fi and throw them into a kettle-drum of a spaceship.  Add a few felonies and that Whedon whimsy to the mix and you’ve got a cult classic that never deserved (though, understandably got) the axe.  At least those fine folks in following managed to snag a DVD release, complete with four never-aired episodes the ‘verse just couldn’t do without.

06.  Undeclared (2001-2002)
It’s surprising to learn that two – yes, TWO! – of Judd Apatow’s star-studded series perished before season two renewal, perhaps because, well, no one was actually a star just yet.  After the untimely demise of the exorbitantly clever, bleak, and nostalgic Freak and Geeks in 1999, Apatow employed the help of a few familiar faces and chronicled the lives of many an awkard college freshman in the incredibly enjoyable and under-appreciated Undeclared.

05. Extras (2005-2007)
Ricky Gervais’s cringe-fest chronicling the pathetic happenings of hapless movie extras made us all appreciate a bit of unadulturated dry humor. Juxtapose Extras‘ brilliance with the tongue-in-cheek laugh-track-ridden show-within-a-show our protagonist unwittingly creates, and you’ve got a hideously hilarious gem (riddled with the likes of many a self-effacing celeb).

04.  Gilmore Girls (2000-2007)
Say what you will about the apparent chick-fest that is Gilmore, but don’t you dare glare at those gleaming smiles and frothy-colored DVD cases and judge this series by its cover.  Truly, not many more shows pack the heft, heart, and hilarity this one so earnestly offered up before we sadly had to bid adieu to our favorite dysfunctional family (that somehow, seemed to function just fine).

03.  Pushing Daisies (2007-2009)
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, Daisies didn’t deserve to go.  However, cancellation upset was no stranger to the talent behind this lush and lovely dramedy, as former Wonderfalls alum – Bryan Fuller and Lee Pace – bled their hearts into this little ditty as well.  But it’s condolence enough to have those two fateful seasons archived in bursting, blooming box sets, as this ever-resting series is a simple joy to obsessively rewatch.

02.  Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)
There are no casual BSG fans. Nay; to know Galactica is to love it, and to love it is to live it.  There’s nothing about this show that doesn’t catch you and keep you, love you and leave you.  Alright, so I’m being ridiculously dramatic, but it’s perhaps warranted – and this not-so-guilty-pleasure has its cultish following clamouring for more.  So if you can swing the ridiculous overpricing of the multiple half-season DVDs, you might just understand what everybody’s frakking about.

01.  Arrested Development (2003-2006)
I don’t mean to be bold, but there are few things that will ever be able to stack up to the likes of AD. From the lunacy to the brilliance, the quirky to the questionable, the innuendos that stretched the seasons to the incessant pop-culture references, nothing can compare to the odd integrity of it all.  And perhaps that’s exactly the way it should be.  Rest in peace, Bluths, if you can.

Yeaah we were waiting for Battlestar Galactica The Plan for months. And yeaah we watched within a few days of its release.

It is so shockingly BAD that it has taken this long for us to have the stomach to write a review.

Battlestar Galactica deserves better than this kind of treatment. I don’t know if Ron Moore was smoking crack when he put this together or what was going on, but it’s totally wrong.

This isn’t a movie – it’s more like a disconnected collection of snippets that make little sense. Sure if watch the movie a few times and try and place each section in the Battlestar Galactica timeline it might start to make sense…eventually.

As a standalone movie this move does not stand at all and is not watchable. It’s that bad.

It could have been called “The Confession of the Ones” but overall it adds nothing to the BSG canon. I think this movie should be labeled by fandom as “The Mistake” and just forget about this frakking pile of bantha fodder.

BSG can do better. Razor was a decent standalone movie that added to the BSG universe in a really cool way. Perhaps after Ron Moore went nuts declaring Kara Thrace and Angel (wtf??!!) he’s no longer sane and isn’t capable of producing decent BSG stuff anymore.

Caprica, precuela de Battlestar Galactica, desembarca dentro de dos meses, el 22 de enero, y SyFy lanza nuevo material promocional.

EN ESTA OPORTUNIDAD LES VAMOS A PRESENTAR,LO MAS NUEVO EN AFICHES DE ”CAPRICA”. COMO VEMOS SY FY NO PIERDE TIEMPO Y NO PARA DE PROMOCIONAR SU NUEVA APUESTA PARA ESTE MES DE ENERO DEL 2010.

The cast of V, 2009.

As soon as I heard that ABC was remaking V, the classic 1980s  miniseries/television series about extraterrestrials coming to Earth, my mind was flooded with long dormant memories of the original series. Growing up with an older brother who had a taste for the macabre, I was exposed to a lot of popular culture that was not entirely age-appropriate — Stephen King novels, Night of the Living Dead (1968, George Romero), The Dead Milkmen — basically anything with “dead” in the title. And so it should not be too surprising that I watched V, in its various televisual manifestations (miniseries, television series), at the tender age of 7 or 8.

Even now, in my thirties, zombies are a key image in my worst nightmares.

I must have repressed most of my memories of the show because I could only conjure up flashes of images: a beautiful woman eating a rodent, a “Visitor” peeling back his faux human skin to reveal lizard skin below, and a super cheesy 80s era rendering of the inside of a “high tech” mothership. Lucky for me, the internet was more than happy to confirm these hazy visions.

Sometimes I wish computers did look like this...

The rodent eating:

This scene is truly laughable now but I’m pretty sure I choked on my Oreos when I watched this as a kid.

The skin-removing:

I think the special effects here are still pretty effective. They were so effective, in fact, that the series made me suspicious of everyone I knew. If anyone could be a V under their natural looking human skin, then what about Mom? Was she a V? What about Dad? I kept a close eye on the hamster cage just in case.

And something that I don’t remember at all but which is hilarious:

Start watching around the 2:10 mark.

Of course, the 2009 remake of V has far superior special effects. For example, when the mothership arrives in New York City a few minutes into the pilot episode  we first see its metal body reflected in the windows of a generic office building. It is a beautiful, chilling moment. Anything that arrives that way cannot be good.

The mothership approaches.

And of course the V’s lizard skins are far more … is realistic the word I’m looking for here? I’ll put it this way: although I figured out that Dale (Alan Tudyk) was an undercover V about 5 minutes after meeting his character, I still let out an involuntary shriek when Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) pulled back his human skin during a violent showdown.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

In terms of themes, the 2009 series has shifted away (at least in the first two episodes that have aired) from the overt Nazi allegory of the original (and no, I did not catch the references to Jewish resistance groups and Fascism and Hitler Youth when I was 7. I was in it for the rodent eating). While V is still playing with some of these themes — for example, the Peace Ambassadors are given blazers reminiscent of SS uniforms and the Vs make generous use of propaganda — there seems to be more of a push to see the Visitors as an allegory of modern terrorism. Only these terrorists have discovered that it is far easier to achieve your objectives if you study your targets, use their language and customs and offer them peace, all while plotting how to gobble them up.

Does this uniform make me look Fascist?

One interpretation I am not willing to swallow (excuse the pun) is that the new V is an allegory for the Obama administration and its politics (also here and on many, many other sites and blogs). The scene in which  Anna (Morena Baccarin), the beautiful, calm leader of the Vs, offers Earth a form of “universal health care,” is deftly intercut with a scene in which an underground resistance movement is slaughtered by a band of vicious Vs. Certainly such editing techniques make the promise of universal health care appear sinister, as a kind of bait and switch for more nefarious doings. But I read this much discussed moment less as a dig at the President and more as a topical reference that would resonate with audiences. In other words, given the way our health care debates have been going, universal health care only seems possible in the world of science fiction.

Beautiful Anna

And yes, Anna and her fellow Vs are attractive, charismatic, and popular with “the kids,” just like Obama was/is. But isn’t this the case with most successful leaders (both the good and the evil)? If Anna were ugly and devoid of personality then broadcasting her visage over 29 major cities would not be the best way to convince the world to cooperate with the Vs. I am sure that right wing bloggers and pundits will continue to see the program as further evidence that the Obama administration will bring about the destruction of humanity, but this will not keep me from watching the show.

Quick thoughts on the cast:

1. Throughout the pilot episode I kept asking my husband “Who is that guy?” every time Ryan Nichols appeared on screen. “I know that guy!” Then as the second episode started (we watched them back to back) and the name “Morris Chestnut” appeared on the screen. Since his acting debut in Boyz N the Hood (1991, John Singleton) Chestnut has appeared sporadically on the big (The Inkwell [1994, Matty Rich]) and small (Bones) screen, but I hope his leading role in V will ensure more steady work. The man looks fantastic!

Ricky! Nooooooooooooooooooo!

2. I am really hoping that Rekha Sharma, who plays FBI agent Sarita Malik, turns out to be an undercover V since she was also one of the “final five” Cylons on Battlestar Galactica (another wonderful, contemporary remake of a somewhat cheesy sci fi program).

Two of the final five in Battlestar Galactica

3. Elizabeth Mitchell. You are truly kick ass. That is all.

"That's right. I survived that crazy island and now I'm here to save the world. With great hair."

So are you digging V? is it better than the original so far? And does ABC hate Obama?

“All this has happened before and all this will happen again.”

This is the phrase that defines the reimagined series of Battlestar Galactica that premiered in 2004 and only recently came to its conclusion.  It dared to explore issues regarding faith and race, social class and modern warfare, artificial intelligence and the dignity of life–all within a sci-fi backdrop on an alternate history between human beings and their former creations, a race of cybernetic organisms known as Cylons.

The man responsible for this breathtaking series is none other than Ron Moore, a prolific writer and TV producer with an eye for worlds beyond ours with issues that seem all too familiar to us.

Much in the same way that Matt Stover brings a realistic element to the fantasy genre in his Acts of Caine novels, Moore invokes realism and common sense issues within science fiction, as seen by this quote in an interview from 2000:

The premise has a lot of possibilities. Before it aired, I was at a convention in Pasadena, and Sternbach and Okuda were on stage, and they were answering questions from the audience about the new ship. It was all very technical, and they were talking about the fact that in the premise this ship was going to have problems. It wasn’t going to have unlimited sources of energy. It wasn’t going to have all the doodads of theEnterprise. It was going to be rougher, fending for themselves more, having to trade to get supplies that they want. That didn’t happen. It doesn’t happen at all, and it’s a lie to the audience. I think the audience intuitively knows when something is true and something is not true. Voyager is not true. If it were true, the ship would not look spic-and-span every week, after all these battles it goes through. How many times has the bridge been destroyed? How many shuttlecrafts have vanished, and another one just comes out of the oven? That kind of bullshitting the audience I think takes its toll. At some point the audience stops taking it seriously, because they know that this is not really the way this would happen. These people wouldn’t act like this.

Battlestar Galactica was not the first attempt to look deeply into society and culture for Mr. Moore.  He was also a writer for the series Star Trek: The Next Generation when it aired during the 90’s.  He has the distinction of having written some of the best episodes in the series, such as “Sins of the Father” and the finale “All Good Things…”  Even there, Moore delved into the questions of one’s heritage, looking at the Klingon culture, its emphasis on honor, and its militaristic standards.

Even now, Mr. Moore is hard at work on Caprica, a prequel series to Galactica that explores the origin of the Cylons, the roots of the Adama family, and the twilight of human civilization in the Twelve Colonies before their terrible war with the Cylons and their struggle to survive long enough to rediscover the planet Earth.

Perhaps one of the greatest bits of wisdom that runs through Moore’s work is the idea that faith in a higher power isn’t inherently wrong, but neither is it inherently right.  Faith cannot be used to excuse away greater sins, nor can sin be used to denigrate what faith is left in the face of crisis.  Faith is a struggle, a path to redemption and honor, to inspiration and perfection.  Whether one is born a human, a Klingon, or a cybernetic organism, one always face the choice of leading a life of quiet desperation or refusing to abandon hope even at the Gates of Hell.

So say we all.

—

Here’s a quick list of Ron Moore’s projects:

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1988-1994)

Star Trek Generations (1994)

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1994-1999)

Star Trek: Voyager (1999; Season 6)

Roswell (2000)

Carnivàle (2003-2005; producer)

Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)

Caprica (2010; in production)

—

As far as I can tell, dear readers, this will be the end of my “Inspirations in Artistry” series.  However, if other writers and creators come to the fore or prove particularly noteworthy, then you will find another installment in some future post.  ’Til then, thanks for reading so long and hope you’ll stay for some more rich chocolately reading.

This is the Scriptorium, signing off!

Well, I once again apologise that my life has got in the way of my blogging and it has been a full week since an update. And a big update it is – no 20. This obviously has to go to a very special science fiction woman. Before I go on though, I’ll note another list: “Top 5 Science Fiction Leading Ladies“.  Two of the five included there already appear on this list, and we make it three tonight….

President Laura Roslin Battlestar Galactica

Despite being something like 34th in line for the Presidency, Laura Roslin is the highest ranking member of the government who survives the initial Cylon attack. The best part of President Roslin though is that we don’t see her full of slef doubt, unsure that she can do it – she boldly steps into the role of President of the 12 colonies and starts to rule from day one.  This doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have some doubts, but like any competent politician, she keeps them largely to herself and gets on with the business of keeping her people alive. The tally she keeps of the number of those alive in her fleet is a constant moving reminder to her and to us of the toll of what the fleet faces on a day to day basis. And one has to love the fact that Laura always backs herself, whether it is airlocking a Cylon or staring down her political enemies. We also have the mystical Laura, caught up in her vision which result from her cancer-fighting drugs. I also love the fact that she readily accepts that she is the leader in the prophecy – no false modesty here. She also doesn’t give in when she loses her leadership; she is committed to the resistance on New Caprica and continues to fight for her people.  And of course, when she and Adama give in to their mutual affection, it is a relationship that must make everyone soft and squishy. If all our female politicians could be like Laura, the world would be a much better place.

I won’t compromise the success of this operation or the safety of this fleet to indulge the neediness of 12 perpetually unhappy representatives. I can’t.

(*No spoilers*)
The BabbleOn 5 crew have been devoted fans of the recent Battlestar Galactica series produced by the Syfy Channel. We consider BSG to be one of the finest series ever produced by Syfy- which is saying very little. But even by network or cable standards, Battlestar ranks easily among the best (we considered calling ourselves Babblestar!).  The dramatic series ended after a self-appointed 4 year run much to the regret of its fans. Producer Ron Moore wanted to end the series on their terms- I can respect that. To help with the bereavement, the makers created a couple of 2 hour specials to tie up loose ends in Caprica and The Plan. We all watched The Plan the other night so I wanted to share my thoughts on it for other BSG fans out there.

• The goal of this special was to show what the cylons were attempting to do behind the scenes- what worked for them and what plans did not.
• It starts with the original mini-series and jumps around throughout the run of the show.
• The perspective and story is told from the’skin-job’ cyclons, primarily through Cavell played by Dean Stockwell.
• There is a lot of footage used from the original series with additional ‘before and after’ footage. This helps set up what and why certain events happened.
• Ultimately, there is a common thread that is revealed that explains how the cyclons plan was compromised that affected the outcome of the series.

Overall, I enjoyed this two-hour, sci-fi distraction. It brought an interesting perspective about the happenings on board the Galactica and helped fill in some unknown information. I wouldn’t say it brought startling revelations but some interesting twists. The Plan would ONLY appeal to hardcore BSG fans. If you have not seen the series then you would not like this movie. An after being off the air for a year, I would also say it was hard to remember a lot of the series details. So this might have been better served to be watched right after a fresh viewing of the 4 seasons. If anything, it just reminded me of how much I missed the series and how I wished it was still on. So for moderate to novice fan I would pass on this ‘fill in the blank’ back story tale. However, the BSG fans still in denial, check it out and re-live the dream….’so say we all!’

I give it a 3.5 Babbles out of 5

Los Cylon fueron creados por el hombre, se rebelaron, evolucionaron, parecen y sienten como humanos, algunos están programados para creer que son humanos, hay muchas copias, y tienen un plan.

Después de una ausencia de entradas debida a la entrega de múltiples practicas de la carrera (todas bien juntitas en 2 semanas para agobiar mas) por fin vuelvo al blog.

Vamos a hablar un poco de la película de “the plan” de bsg.

Lo primero es que la película es la linea argumental de las 2 primeras temporadas desde la perspectiva cylon.

Empieza con el despido al vacio de los modelos calvin como se ve en la segunda temporada y a partir de ahí cada uno hace un flahsback para ver como han llegado a su situación.

Las novedades son se ve como la nº6 ayuda a Baltar en un proyecto a cambio de que le deje entrar en el sistema de defensa, que la nº8 de galáctica es activada con una estatuilla de un elefante.  Ademas se narra la historia de la gente que se queda en Caprica hasta que son rescatados.

La peli esta bien, pero abusan demasiado del copypaste de escenas de la serie y claro en la serie se ha quedado toda la acción, así que en la película casi todo son diálogos y maquinaciones.

Resuelve bastantes dudas, pero vamos eso de que tenían un plan es bastante falso, porque el plan era una mierda.
También me hizo gracia como se teletransporta la flota cylon encima de Caprica, salta una nave y después un híbrido suelta ” el halcón oye al  halconero” y ala toda la flota cylon ahí.

El halcón oye al halconero

Rellena muchos huecos pero me parece una peli muy, pero que muy densa.
Los principales protagonistas son los cylon, con lo cual algunos actores solo salen en escenas ya vistas en la serie.
Son 2 horas de metraje y vemos demasiadas cosas ya vistas, tenia que haberse parecido un poco mas a la de Razor.

Nota: 6.5

Y con esta ultima película finaliza BSG definitivamente, por otro lado en enero empieza la precuela Caprica.
Cuyo piloto es espectacular y recomiendo su visionado a todo aquel que aun no lo haya podido ver.

While the fall tv season started strong, it was not really because of new science fiction shows. Several of the new series that fit that bill delayed their starts until October and November, so as an addendum to my Fall TV reviews, I want to talk about them here. Sadly I don’t have much good to say.

Stargate: Universe

There’s already been heated discussion on the internet regarding this third series in the Stargate franchise. The premise is that a mixed group of people become stranded on an ancient starship flying through space with no way of getting home to Earth. Producers of the show are pushing it as the gritty, dark, open-ended kind of more-”fi”-than-”sci” kind of show that fans of the other two Stargate series need to give a chance to before judging. Fans and viewers have been saying that they gave the show a chance, but it’s just too slow, and un-fun (among other qualities) for their liking. I definitely fell into the latter camp. I can see how they tried to fill the void left by Battlestar Galactica in the sci-fi realm (not to mention SyFy channel’s programming schedule), but SGU is no BSG. I found the episodes glacially slow and none of the characters were enjoyable (with the noted exception of David Blue’s whimsical Eli). Endless tension on a dimly-lit set are not my idea of great TV. Plus, each episode’s drama seemed to centre around a relatively mundane problem (something like low water or energy supplies, that would genuinely be of great concern to any crew trapped on an ancient spaceship, I’ll grant that, but still not really thrilling to watch). I’m going to stick with the show for a while longer because it seems to be picking up (the most recent episode actually featured a time loop — yay!), and because I need my fix of “people on a spaceship”, but like the Destiny crew’s resources, my patience is in short supply.

V

The latest 80s sci-fi reimagining has not only the legacy of its successful forebear to contend with but also the need to escape the black hole of failure that has drawn others in (R.I.P. Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). V was the most anticipated sci-fi show on my viewing plate this fall, but sadly it has not lived up. The simple premise of aliens coming to Earth disguising their nefarious plans (and lizard bodies) behind attractive, friendly human-like faces seemed easy enough to pull off. However, the new series seems to want to do too many things at once. Taking a cue from successful genre-crossing shows like Lost (and the new series Flash Forward), V seems more interested in creating some kind of ensemble drama of intersecting story arcs than a single coherent tale of insidious domination and human resistance. Can you believe that even after two episodes, the resistence has not really formed yet? (Well, technically it formed before the ships even arrived, but the main characters have not yet formed/joined the resistence yet.) I seem to recall that being central to the original series. On the other hand, the lizards’ true nature, their presence on Earth before their ships arrived, and their darker plans for humanity have already become well known. Unfortunately, Elizabeth Mitchell (once so great as the sexy-smart Juliet on Lost)is not in a constant state of frowning as an FBI agent trying to figure out who to trust and how to fight after her partner is revealed as a V (which brings me to another fan-boy complaint about how they should never have called the aliens “Vs”. They wanted to be friendly and known as the “visitors” why would they want to be called “Vs”? That’s just ridiculous!) Joel Gretsch is good at playing the sci-fi hero (remember him from The 4400?), but his character being a priest seems ill-suited and heavy-handed (we get it, some people would question faith in God if aliens arrived). Anyway, the plot seems very scattered and I don’t really find that I have anyone to root for among the humans. I actually would prefer if Anna (the always-luminous Morena Baccarin) as the alien leader, would just unleash her endgame already and get rid of so many of the human characters.

Sanctuary

In its premiere season last year, this show surprised me by starting out as just a creature of the week show that started to develop an elaborate and intriguing mythology and world behind it. Unfortunately after the finale and this season’s premiere, most of that has been destroyed and they are now back to being a bunch of creature-catchers. Even so, they could have done that well, but the show splits focus by trying to bring more attention to the human drama surrounding the main characters. Frankly, the characters are not that interesting and the additional emotional ups and downs just seem like soapy elements that don’t fit. This series needs to find its identity and really develop it. There’s potential for Sanctuary to be a unique classic if they can achieve that. (Plus, Amanda Tapping’s accent is still annoying.)

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

True, this was not on TV (straight to DVD instead) but I was salivating with anticipation for this addendum to the BSG series. It was going to be recounting events of the series from the Cylon point of view and I have always been a sucker for “the other side of the story”. Sadly, I guess I should have re-watched the entire series (which I plan to do) before watching The Plan, because it was incredibly hard to follow without recalling all the context of the time. Ostensibly we’re following the #1s (a.k.a. Cavill) as they secretly orchestrate the cleanup on humanity’s destruction. Without its own separate story arc, this movie was so disjointed that it really felt more like two hours worth of deleted scenes. There were many scenes of people talking and not much action or suspense. Sadly, I don’t even feel like very much of the Cylon’s true plans were revealed.

Other shows

Just a quick rundown on the rest of sci-fi and fantasy TV on my Tivo: Fringe – still good, but hasn’t paid off season one’s jaw-dropping finale yet; Supernatural – episodes are more fun and whimsical in this potentially final season, and haven’t coalesced around the ultimate apocalyptic showdown just yet; Heroes – stories and characters are worse than bad, I can barely stomach this once-top-ten show anymore; Smallville – despite the positive buzz this season is getting, I dropped this show from my list and I’m not picking it back up (Fool me once, etc. etc.); Vampire Diaries – dropped this one, but picked it up again after much buzz, I’m enjoying it a lot now that they have turned down the soap and turned up the supernatural; Medium – I still love this show very much, they keep coming up with fresh angles and the family drama is still wonderful; Flash Forward – pace is uneven, but I look forward to those morsels that advance the overall mystery, and the characters are alright; Dollhouse was great last season, but just seems really depressing and inconsistent this season, I hope the rest of the now-cancelled series will make its way to air; same goes for the equally cancelled Eastwick, which I was kind of enjoying as the reincarnation of Charmed.

So that’s where things stand with sci-fi. Not the most positive picture, but I’m glad that TV has not given up on sci-fi altogether. I’m looking forward to the return of Lost and also the new Doctor Who telemovie to give us all an additional boost.