Battlestar Galactica
Tuesday, March 25, 2008 13:17On April 4, 2008 the season 4 of Battlestar Galactica will premier on the SciFi Channel. Like many people I was not immediately drawn to BSG. My childhood memories of BSG growing up were good, but I was never really drawn into the story the way I was with Star Wars or Star Trek. If BSG was on I would watch the show, but the show was not something that I would run home to watch. I think that this ambiguous feeling towards BSG is why many people have yet to be turned on by the show.
I became a fan of BSG right before season three began. My friends at work had talked highly of this show but there was still this left over ambiguous feeling towards the series. I programmed my TiVo to record a summery of the first two seasons on the USA Network’s , “The Story So Far.”
After watching the one hour summery I was hooked. The next day I downloaded the mini series on iTunes, the day after that the first 4 episodes of season one. Each day after I would download one or two episodes. At the same time watching the back episodes the Story So Far had allowed me to jump right into the series.
I had completed the miniseries and the first two seasons by the second episode of season three. I know I missed out on some classic cliff hangers and surprises, but to a recently made BSG junkie none of that mattered.
My little sister Marti is a big science fiction fan like her older brother. When I went to visit my older sister, Marin and her new born daughter, Zoe. I was late on getting Marti a birthday present and thought that my new found series BSG would make the perfect gift. We have always had similar intrests in TV shows. I gave her the miniseries on DVD. She looked at the gift and said, “is this really for you?” I told her to trust me, watch the show, and if you like it I will send you Season 1.
About a week later Marti called me, upset that I did not tell her that Season 1 was only 13 episodes, not the normal 24. At first I had no idea what she was talking about, she was using her very high pitch excited voice. She then said, “I don’t know what I was fracking thinking, if you liked it that much of course I would like it, frack, frack.” The frack was a dead give away that she was talking about BSG. She wanted to know if I could get her seasons 2.0 and 2.5 for Christmas. While this was in November Marti wanted to know if I could advance her on her present, and wanted me to have it shipped over night since she could not wait another day. When I saw Marti at Christmas she was completely caught up, season 3 included. She then let my new brother-in-law Lawrence barrow the seasons. Lawrence watched the miniseries, season 1, and season 2.0 in a weekend. He did not want to watch season 2.5 until he had season 3.0 in his hand. Now that he does, I expect that he will be caught up by the 4th.
I have mentioned BSG to all my friends, though most of them have already been hooked. I have not had anyone watch the series and be disappointed. My wife, Jennifer, watched the brillian summery of the first three seasons “What the Frack?” “What the Frack?” is an eight minute recap of the first 3 seasons. There is a long story behind why Jennifer is not yet a die hard BSG fan yet, however, those 8 minutes appeared to have captivated her and now instead of wanting to watch the Monkey’s all the time she wants to catch up on BSG. Jennifer’s only other exposure to BSG was Razor. Jen is notorious for asking a lot of questions and interrupting a lot while watching shows. This is a big reason why I had tried to keep BSG a secret from her. When watching Razor I told Jen that I want to watch this without interruption and that if she wanted to watch the show with me she cannot talk. I try asking her this with just about everything I watch, however, when watching Razor was the only time that Jen remained perfectly quiet. At the end of the show she had a ton of questions.
As season four progresses I will be writing more about BSG and what makes the show simply the best series in television history. I set a debate challenge to anyone who has seen at least one season of Battlestar Galactica and believes that another show deserves the title, “the greatest television series in history of television.”
Below are some links to BSG, including “The Story so Far” and “What the Frack is going on?”
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