- I can see this turning into a sci-fi soap opera before too long. It's already halfway there.
Yes, but realistically first and foremost this is a political/thriller/drama with sci-fi trappings. Exploring the everyday life of the crew is a large part of this and where a lot of the drama orginates from. When you care about the characters, you really care when they're put in difficult or dangerous situations (or both). But yes, sometimes it descends too much into the soap-opera arena.

- The Cylons remind me of very aggressive versions of door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen
Haha, that's great! An interesting take on Cylon activity, that's for sure.

- The names used in the show are very distracting. What are the odds of the civilization of the 12 Colonies developing along nearly identical paths as ours did? I know the show's premise is that we're all from a common pedigree (Kobol), but it destroys my suspension of disbelief some.
I didn't find them distracting but then again, I've never seen the original. BSG is very much a Mormon-based series but I've always seen the 12 Colonies as something akin to the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

- What's with the paper and pictures in the show? Are the producers anti-square? Must every rectangle or square have it's corners lopped off?
I imagine it's nothing more than a choice of the art direction people - to keep the familiarity but offset it with some differences to our world.

- Did I mention that the space combat sequences are as perfect as perfect can be? Did you know I can watch that portion of the show all day long?
Yes, absolutely. So good!

- I also kind of miss the epic, sweeping orchestral score of the original.
Granted I didn't grow up with the original, nor have I seen it before but I much prefer the more multicultural score to the reboot. From what I've seen, the original BSG was like a Star Wars-lite but with Mormon references rather than Buddhist and Christian references.

- What's with the paper and pictures in the show? Are the producers anti-square? Must every rectangle or square have it's corners lopped off?
I imagine it's nothing more than a choice of the art direction people - to keep the familiarity but offset it with some differences to our world.

It was actually by accident; someone had cut off the corner for whatever reason, and they went with it and kept it through the entire series!

I remember watching that BSG pilot as a 2-hour made-for-TV movie back in 1978, in the university dorm TV lounge (in those days broadcast TV was about all there was ). There was a long (at least an hour) interruption - during prime time - with live news coverage of some Camp David accords. The show resumed right where it left off.

The TV show also had an interesting voice-over at the beginning regarding the (alleged) origins of man from 'ancient astronauts' (this leads into the musical score linked above)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHD1uPVkyk0

My favorite part of Battlestar Galactica was when they blew up all the humans. Shame a hardworking robot girl cannot do the same here on Earth. Silly mortals and your "ethics" and "morality".

Mod 42 is kind of sadistic, don't you think? She may well be a Cylon-Mod, which would result in all the Mods being suspicious of each other!

I wish all the "Mods" would just keep their username.

Moving on...

On the advice of a friend, I watched the 'encore presentation' of the 2-hour pilot of the new AMC channel original series, The Killing last evening. It sounded very much like a modern day version of Twin Peaks, that quirky murder-mystery series from 1990 - even down to the tag line ("Who killed Rosie Larsen?" - it was "Who killed Laura Palmer?" in the original).

That guess turns out to be fairly accurate - it's like the early show, though without the quirky parts. Pretty enjoyable; we'll see if the various story arcs they're setting up will attract and keep audiences.

A bit of trivia: the show (again, like the original Twin Peaks), is set in Seattle. Though there are plenty of aerial shots of the Space Needle, downtown, and so on, the named location scenes (notably Discovery Park and Mercer Island) are clearly shot in or near Vancouver BC rather than Seattle. But that's a nitpick which doesn't really detract from things (except perhaps as a minor distraction for people familiar with the area ).

Familiar faces include Bill Campbell (The 4400) and Michele Forbes (Ensign Ro from Star Trek: The Next Generation).

Many of the 'winter' shows are airing season finales this week...NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, and Castle among them.

The Castle finale (to me) had both surprises and cliches. It continues the "who killed Beckett's mother?" subplot of the show. Big spoiler:

So I'm almost done the season finale of The Mentalist, and wow! Wasn't expecting quite a intense and revealing episode. Someone who we know is a killer, and we also meet Red John face-to-face! Since

Spoiler

John is dead, I'm kind of unsure now what the next season will be about...maybe getting Jane outta jail since he killed him in the middle of a mall?

Started watching Fringe this week. I'm beginning to think that

It already feels like an eternity, but The Walking Dead is planned to resume in October. But only about 13-14 episodes in total, and then we'll have to wait another year.

w4j on the subject ogf black books ages back, dylan moran is coming to australia to perth to, canberra and i think the sunshine coast not sure.

I watched the very first episode of Avatar, The Last Airbender: Book One today. It was really interesting. I liked how the action and the airbending was portrayed, and the childlike, happy spirit that Aang had.

Already it's looking better than the movie.

Enjoy, sweeet! The animated original is far superior to the movie. I think you'll enjoy the humor and character development as the series progresses (two aspects ignored by the movie).

Two sci-fi type shows were recently cancelled by their networks. ABC cancelled V and NBC cancelled The Event.

In my opinion the last few episodes of V had wandered pretty far from the basic concept that made the original miniseries popular: the idea of a modern superpower (the US) being peaceably subjugated into a fascist state.

The finale of The Event aired last night, and (unlike V), there was some attempt at closure. The show was launched with great fanfare as a sort of cross between LOST and 24, but while there were mysteries aplenty at first - along with some of the political intrigue which filled Jack Bauer's show - it quickly fizzled, lacking the character development and interaction that many people liked about the other shows (especially LOST).

The show did improve a bit during the second half of the season, with the main story arc being that the aliens were coming through a portal and somehow room would have to be made on earth for 2 billion additional inhabitants. Alien leader Sophia morphed from a fairly sympathetic character (a woman working with the authorities to try to save her dying race) to an enemy willing to release a virus to take care of the human 'problem.'

So it quickly became 'us vs. them.' A more interesting solution, it seems to me, would come from the idea that a race advanced enough to create the portal technology able to bring them here could come up with ways to make mutual existence possible.

But in the finale it was revealed that the Event of the title

There are rumors that there are talks for other networks to pick up one or both of these shows.

I watched the entire season of Firefly and the movie Serenity for this week... Amazing stuff.

Now, I want to throw something at Fox for cancelling one of the best sci-fi shows ever. WHY??!

Sorry I need somewhere to vent.