First Impressions And Second Chances

Thanks to the encouragement of one of my co-workers, Vicki and I are giving Battlestar Galactica a second chance. We'd watched the mini-series a few years ago, when it debuted, and thought it was just OK. Having been a fan of the original 1970s TV show, I admired how much of its original spirit they retained while still updating it in significant ways. But I lost interest about 2/3 of the way through the mini-series because I hadn't really bonded with the characters enough to care if the father-son relationship was ever going to be repaired, or if the tough-as-nails female pilot would get her chance to show she wasn't just a bad attitude, and so on. And the prospect of Dr Baltar, who'd inadvertantly aided the Cylons in killing all of those billions of people, getting away with his crime, and then committing further perfidy among the surviving fleet, just made me tired.

However, in the several years since then, BSG has continued to garner positive reviews and so it's been in the back of my mind to at least give it another shot. Popularity doesn't equal quality in my mind, but on the other hand, first impressions can sometimes lead one astray. So when the opportunity presented itself - in the form of an enthusiastic co-worker who really thought I should watch the show! - I brought the first season DVDs she proffered home and we started by re-watching the pilot/mini-series. I definitely enjoyed it more the second time around, though I could still see all of the same flaws. More importantly, we watched it all the way through, so a good chunk of it was new, including some revelations about who's a Cylon that came in the final act, and provided a good hook.

Tonight we watched the next two episodes, both of which were entertaining but have left me wondering if it's written tightly enough? Some interesting concepts have been introduced but not paid off, and seem unlikely to ever be paid off. In one episode, the Cylons arrive exactly 33 minutes after the fleet 'jumps' to a new location, but - unless I missed it - we don't learn why it's always 33 minutes. (And that's not even delving into why they'd be using a 60-minute hour since they're not from Earth.) We've also not learned whether it was an incredible coincidence that the seemingly-picked-at-random sacrificial lamb fingered by Dr Baltar actually turned out to be a Cylon, or whether Baltar's 'test' actually worked, or whether something else was at play. Again, I don't get the feeling this is going to be answered, so it feels a bit like sloppy writing to me. But I'll keep watching and hope that I'm proven wrong as the story progresses.

So far both of us are intrigued enough to keep watching.