Battlestar Galactica (version 2)

OK, back in 1978 I was 12 years old and a huge fan of the original Battlestar Galactica. I built the models (and blew them up with firecrackers), collected all the trading cards, bought the soundtrack album, saw the 2-hour pilot in the theater (even though I already saw it on TV), and pretended to be Starbuck to my friend Mark Bernard's Apollo.

(We won't discuss Galactica 1980.)

Next month, the Sci-Fi Network is remaking the show into a miniseries. Which in itself sounds pretty good - imagine what CG technology of today could do. But no, they're doing a total reboot of the show. Starbuck is a woman. The Cylons are humanoid and can pass as people. The characters, relationships, and whole tone of the series are different. I'm already biased against it. Richard Hatch, the original Apollo, isn't too keen on it either, as he has been working on a revival/continuation of the original.

Why take a series that has such a following, and remake it so radically different? In a preview on Sci-Fi, the new show creators justified it by saying that today's audiences would demand it that way. Well why not just create a new series?

I mean, how can this compete with the 25-year old memories of a 12-year old? I'm going to watch it but I won't be able to separate it from the original.

"It's beginning to look way too much like Christmas way too early"

Well, if I were in charge, the official Christmas season would have just started this past weekend (the weekend before Thanksgiving).

My original Royal Decree #1 (a.k.a. "The Christmas Decree") said:
a) No store shall be allowed to display or sell Christmas-related items, nor decorate their store in a Christmas theme, until the weekend just before Thanksgiving.
b) No house/apartment/dwelling of whatever kind shall be allowed to be decorated in a Christmas theme until Thanksgiving Day.
c) All Christmas decorations must be removed by the end of the first weekend following New Year's Day.

I'd impose a penalty against anyone who violated these rules, said penalty being that they wouldn't be allowed to decorate for Christmas (or sell Christmas-related stuff) the next year. Hey, I'm the king, I get to make the rules, dammit.

"Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.... but Perhaps not"

Now that the US version of Coupling has been cancelled, traffic from people looking for naked pictures of Rena Sofer have been slowly tapering off. It's now down to just a handful a day. (And needless to say, the creator of the BBC version wasn't too pleased about how the scheduling and cancellation have all been handled, as he says on the BBC America message board). However, I'm seeing more people searching to see if Jennifer Connelly is Jewish (yes, she is) - or maybe those are showing up more now that the "nude pictures of Rena Sofer" queries are dying off.

On Sunday someone was looking for Jewish lesbians in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and on Monday someone else found me by looking for Nazi bongs. Is the internet great or what?

Although, strangely enough, people are still looking for pictures of rocket scientists.