And There's Still No Daggit

[eggwards]

Saturday night I'm looking around at what was on television and saw that the Battlestar Galactica miniseries was playing on the Universal HD channel. Now, as someone who's rewatching all of the episodes of arrested Development on HD despite the fact that i own all of the DVD's, I can truly tell you, everything is new in HD.

On a side note, they are showing the old Northern Exposure series on one of the HD channels, but that was never shot in HD, so it's this square picture in the center of the screen with nothing added. I have no idea why they are showing it on these channels. I guess it's going to be this way for a while as we have the old, non HD reruns. Sort of like watching back-and-white series growing up. those shows have pretty much disappeared from the tube now.

Still, at the end of the last Battlestar season a couple of weeks ago I was interested in how far the show had come, and here it was right on cue. sure, lots of things have changed and we know a lot more about the mysterious Cylons than we did when the series started.

My question is, has this been a good thing? Are we learning so much about the Cylons that now they aren't that compelling of an enemy. They are getting more and more human. They are getting more and more petty. the human population deals more with bigger social questions, including if unleashing a virus to kill the Cylons is genocide, and if it's right to try to wipe them out much like the Cylons attempted to do to them. the Cylons however, seem to be squabbling about each other more than actually going after the rag-tag fleet.

So it begs the question: do the Cylons really have a plan? I know that they have said it has changed, but still, they don't seem to be the driven predators they were at the start of the series. Only Cavil...the Cylon played by Dean Stockwell, seems really focused on this, or at least getting on with their plan while the others are trying to figure out what to do with Baltar.

I still love this show, and there's still a lot going for it, but I'm wondering if delving into the Cylon background has taken away a lot of the mystery of the show. Sure, there's still "Athena", the sharon model on the Galactica who will want to get her daughter back, and there's still a lot to be done in the conflict with the civilian government, lead by President Roslyn and the military, lead by Adama. and i think they have some twists planned for Baltar in the new season that starts in a couple of weeks.

i just think they should lay off of "Three", the Lucy Lawless character. Her individuality has made her a leader in the collective, and pretty much a poor one. They should box her for a while. Let's get back to the idea that there's a reason, beyond jealousy, that they want the humans gone.

Oh, and please make the Chief grow his beard back.

Comments

[bigmacbear]

My guess why there's no Daggit is because the costume is sitting up here in Seattle, in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and Museum at the foot of the Space Needle. Oddly enough, this robotic pet was portrayed by a live chimpanzee in a custom-fitted suit.

gmjambear says maybe this would be a good excuse for you to come up here and visit. ;-)

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know if a Daggit is enough, but the idea of a Sci-Fi hall of fame does seem pretty intersting. that may be something we plan to see, besides a Mariner's game.

Chris and I are going to go on the Lazy Bear Out To Sea cruise in Septemeber that starts and ends in Seattle, and will probably spend a couple of days after the cruise in the Emerald City - again, to accomodate my need to see a baseball game at Safeco Field.

It won't be long, but we'd certainly be happy to meet up sometime and get some insights from the "natives"!

[notmypresident.livejournal.com]

everything is new in HD

So true! I downloaded several episodes of the remastered HD episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series via my new XBox360 and I'm amazed at the quality. Of course, the show was filmed, so that helps a great deal. But the HD versions show it off in a way never seen before (and I'm not even talking about the new CGI shots). I also picked up the HD-DVD drive for the XBox360 and have been going nuts over seeing films in HD. Only a couple of clunkers so far (from Universal, which would seem to say something about their releases).

A belated Happy New Year.

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I didn't know they put out Start terk in HD, but being on film stock, that makes sense. I wonder if we'll see other shows...heck I Love Lucy was filmed, anyone still have prints of that?

Unfortunately I'm pretty sure all of the other Star Treks are on video (though Enterprise has been playing on HD NET lately, to bad the show wasn't that good).

It's great that they did design Galactica for HD, it really shows in the space shots.

[winbear.livejournal.com]

I heard something very rumorish about this storyline for Three being an exit for Lucy Lawless. We'll have to wait a few more weeks to see.

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

I like Lucy Lawless' character, in a way. I just think we see to much of her, and not enough Cavil. I was fine with Six being the voice of the Cylons because she was interesting and dark and playing a great temptress. Three just seems so ordinary - a little too human, maybe, thinking of herself and not the collective - which is funny because that's basically the charge she makes against Caprica-Three and Boomer.

Still, seeing the others deciding to "box" three, or seeing three on the lam from the collective could make for some interesting ideas.

[chinacub.livejournal.com]

I hate to break it to you but I think it's going to be more of this direction rather than less, because I think in the overall scope of the series the basic question is going to be "What makes a person a person?" So it'll be more examinations of the budding humanity in the Cylons (and the budding Cylonity in the humans).

I think it's more likely that they'll introduce some third group of beings (Romulans?) to serve the role of outright villain than backtracking on the Cylon development they've done so far.

In a way they've already done that by laying the mystery on the "Final Five".

[eggwards.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be sad if we just "find" the final five. A good deal of fun with the show is the reveal of each of the Cylon models - for some of them, we also get to learn about their personality. Suddenly jumping the gun and getting five more cylons quickly really makes me wonder how much more you can do before ust letting them find Earth.

I agree that the "what makes someone human" is the great focus of the show - especially the idea of what people will do in a dire circumstance. but without the Cylons being so meanacing, it it really that dire? Do you really think Adama was that worried about the Cylons when they show up at the alge planet? It didn't seem so. Sure, let them one the ship!

I do agree that there is a lot of swapping of who is the victim and who is the attacker in the show...especially with the Genocide episode. Still, that was a strong episode. We'll see where they go from there.

They've seemed very reluctant to show any other being out in space, which is a change from the original series. For a show that isn't trying to find new species, and doesn't use much in way of magical technology, suddenly having little green men seems very off.

[notmypresident.livejournal.com]

I didn't know they put out Star Trek in HD

There's a bit of controversy over the project — hey, it's Star Trek, so of course there's controversy. As part of the move to remaster ST:TOS in HD, Paramount opted to have a CGI company redo all of the space/model shots and effects. None of the actual non-space footage has been altered (other than the fact that it looks incredible in HD) except for things like the viewing screen, but folks are still up in arms over the changes. I actually rather like the new shots myself.

As far as I know, the HD versions have yet to be broadcast in HD, which is why finding them through the XBox marketplace was such a surprise (they haven't released all of the HD versions, which will take a while to complete). I actually just got through rewatching my favorite episode, "City on the Edge of Forever."

I bought the first season of BSG on DVD, but have held off from getting the second season because Universal will undoubtedly release it on HD. I'm drooling at the thought and envious that you get it now.