Galactica 2005

Summer is apparently now catch-up time for TV series with long-term story arcs. My Tivo has little better to do at this point, so I've been catching up with a couple of series that I've heard a lot of good reviews about, namely "Battlestar Galactica" and "Lost". I'm not 100% sold on either of these yet (i.e. they're not "Babylon 5"), but I'll probably stay with both through the coming seasons.

More on "Battlestar Galactica", since I've now watched the full first season, after the break:

There's a lot of good story potential in this series, and they've been using it. Not only is there the possibility that any one person may turn out to be a Cylon in disguise, and thus there is suspicion on everyone, but there are also a number of other conflicts that may not -- probably don't -- have anything to do with Cylons, because they pop up in every society. There's a conflict between civilian and military authority, there's political conflict, there are personal conflicts ..., and there's Baltar who may or may not be just plain nuts.

There's also some fun in recognizing elements re-used from the original "Battlestar Galactica". I watched that from time to time, but wasn't really a fan because a lot of it was just bad. Especially when they got to "Galactica 1980", where I actively avoided it.

I'm also pretty interested in some of the theology discussion, since we have the polytheistic humans and the monotheistic Cylon "bad guys". Interesting twist.

Anyway, I'm with this for the foreseeable future, and I'm glad that I timed it so that I wait less than a week to resolve the season cliffhanger.