apollo-related stories
Posted Jul 19th 2009 11:04AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: TV on DVD, OpEd, Battlestar Galactica, Reality-Free
One of the best parts of this job is the advance copies we get of television DVD sets. In short: Holy frak! The
final set of Battlestar Galactica episodes is awesome.
Minor spoilers follow...
There are those who liked the ending and those that didn't. I didn't like the lack of explanation of Kara's return from the dead and found the finale generally anti-climactic. But the series set a high standard and, overall, it's a minor complaint. In most ways, the series is perfect and far better than most of us deserve.
I'll give them this: the people who make the show know their audience ... that audience being nerds. Nerds like information. Hence, the DVD set is full of extras and special features. These include deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and extended versions of episodes, including the three-part finale, "Daybreak." And every episode (let me repeat that::
every episode) has podcast commentary by Ronald Moore.
Continue reading Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5 - DVD review
Posted Mar 21st 2009 12:19AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E20) "Frakkity, frak. Don't talk back." (Apologies to Lieber and Stoller)
After four years of some of the best and most adult sci-fi in the history of television,
Battlestar Galactica draws to a close with a bang and then a whimper, with an overall satisfying ending that was as morally complex as any episode in the series.
Continue reading Battlestar Galactica: Daybreak, Part 2 (series finale)
Posted Mar 14th 2009 12:45AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E19) You can tell that this show is approaching the end. Tonight's episode had the credits and chanting immediately after the "previously" montage and didn't even show scenes from tonight's episode during the final part of the opening. Plus, it was written by the same guy who wrote the original mini-series way back when. That's a telling sign.
Caprica City looks like a high-tech New York City. That was probably intentional.
Continue reading Battlestar Galactica: Daybreak, Part 1
Posted Mar 6th 2009 11:54PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E18) I know it's a little late in the game to make this sort of observation, what with the show having only two episodes left, but if I were to compare characters in this show to characters in
Gilligan's Island, I would say that Six is Ginger, Eight is Mary Ann and President Roslin is Mrs. Howell. Adama would naturally be the Skipper and Tigh would be Gilligan. I'm still working on Mr. Howell and the Professor.
In the beginning of the episode, either in someone's fantasy or projection or reality, Hera is moving the Galactica in a position next to the enemy Cylon fleet. Foreshadowing?
Continue reading Battlestar Galactica: Islanded in a Stream of Stars
Posted Feb 28th 2009 4:02AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E17) Before I go all spoilery on tonight's episode, what was the tattoo on Starbuck's back? It looked like a temple of some sort. Was it the Temple of Five?
Tonight's episode had its share of "what the frak" moments. It had some revelations, but it created more mystery than it solved. I was a little annoyed at the tease of learning the secret behind Starbuck's resurrection that ultimately didn't happen.
Continue reading Battlestar Galactica: Someone to Watch Over Me
Posted Feb 21st 2009 3:03AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E16) We've reached "The Final Five" on a few levels. Ellen Tigh is back, and it's good to know that despite being part of a species with a potentially infinite lifespan, she still gets jealous when her husband has a baby with someone else.
The minute Ellen came back, I knew the baby would miscarry. I believe it was Tigh, as one of the Cylon progenitors, that was keeping the unborn Liam alive (if the Cylons do in fact need love to survive). Once Ellen came back, it caused conflicting feelings and the baby was done for. I wonder if Caprica Six will try to exact revenge as a result and we'll see a Cylon catfight.
Continue reading Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock
Posted Feb 14th 2009 1:46AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E05) Like so many TV shows before it (such as
24),
Battlestar Galactica is built on those "what the frak" moments in which the revelations continue to astound us. Between those WTF moments, there has to be some sort of explanation as to why the moment happened and the events leading to those moments. They're not as much fun, and rabid fanboys have a tendency to nitpick the frak out of them, but they're necessary to the narrative. Tonight's episode was heavy on exposition and light on WTF.
Obviously, we learned that Ellen Tigh resurrected (no surprise there) and she was apparently in charge of the project from 2000 years ago which created the human-style Cylon race. I didn't even catch all of the explanation. The following is what I did understand:
Continue reading Battlestar Galactica: No Exit
Posted Feb 7th 2009 12:52AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E14) It is impossible to have a bad episode of
Battlestar Galactica. Even a bad episode is better than most of the other crap on TV. Fortunately, this was the opposite of a bad episode.
Obviously, there was no question about how this entire coup was going to end. Our heroes have way too much spunk to let little worms like Gaeta and Zarek control their ship for long. This is actually a rare case on the show of a neat wrap-up of a plot-line (and since we only have six episodes left, we'll probably see more wrap-ups, some of which might be neat).
Continue reading Battlestar Galactica: Blood on the Scales
Posted Jan 24th 2009 10:00AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E12) "There are days when I really hate this job." - Admiral AdamaRon Moore's directorial debut! It was a good one (although not as good as last week). It probably helped that he also wrote the episode.
A long-nagging question of mine was answered in tonight's episode: if Cylons can't procreate and Tyrol was a Cylon, then how could he have a kid with Cally? The answer was that the kid wasn't his. It does leave the question of Tigh and Six's baby. Can the Final Five procreate with other Cylons? And who is that guy that is the father of Cally's son? I didn't recognize him. Has he appeared previously? This plot point seemed out of the blue. Also, they seem certain that Tigh is the father, but could it possibly be Baltar instead?
Continue reading Battlestar Galactica: A Disquiet Follows My Soul
Posted Jan 17th 2009 3:16AM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S04E11) Note: technically the
Razor television movie counts as the first two episodes of the season, so this is actually episode 13. And what an episode it was! It answered the biggest question from the viewers and in the process created a few more.
FYI, the episode title is taken from the folk song
"Goodnight, Irene", which pretty much fits the theme of the episode.
I really liked Mary McDonnell's acting in this episode. I felt heartbroken at her breakdown upon discovering the remains of Earth and her inability to share the information with the fleet. Whenever things get bad, at least we're not on the run from homicidal machines with our last great hope for sanctuary a radioactive wasteland.
On to the spoilery bits!
Continue reading Battlestar Galactica: Sometimes a Great Notion
Posted Jul 21st 2008 5:41PM by Kona Gallagher
Filed under: Programming, Battlestar Galactica, Law and Order, Celebrities, Pickups and Renewals, Casting, Reality-Free
I'm a huge
Law & Order fan, and as such, I am quite jealous of the Brits today. Not only are they getting their very own
Law & Order, called
Law & Order: UK, but
Battlestar Galactica's
Jamie Bamber is set to star. Bamber, who just ended his role as Apollo on the Sci Fi Network series, is playing one of the main detectives, along with fellow Englander, Bradley Walsh.
According to Bamber,
L&O's UK edition is just like the American version, but will be about "London judiciary and London cops. It's got the same premise as the original American
Law & Order, same everything, just with a UK production company and UK actors."
The series is slated to begin production in August and will air on the UK channel ITV. There's no word as to whether or not it will jump the pond and be available to American audiences, but I'd definitely be interested to see how this long-running series translates overseas.
Posted May 9th 2008 1:02PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free
I was in the shower thinking about
Battlestar Galactica the other day. The thought occupying my mind was: Who is the final Cylon? That is the big mystery this season, after all.
The writers of
BSG have a huge challenge in choosing the final Cylon. They already shocked us with the season finale last year when we learned that Tigh, Chief, Torre and Sam are Cylons. Who could possibly be more shocking than that? The final Cylon can't be some character who suddenly appears this season and has a major role, just so he/she can be the final Cylon. I truly doubt it's either Pres. Roslin or Adm. Adama because that might be too over-the-top and therefore unbelievable. Of course, the writers could easily take us there over the season and make it shocking, yet believable. (These
BSG writers really do rock, don't they?)
So, I thought about it. And here are the five characters who would make a shocking final Cylon:
Continue reading Five possibilities for the final Cylon
Posted Jul 11th 2007 1:22PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Video
Last night, SciFi aired the first promo for the upcoming
Battlestar Galactica movie and today it's up
on YouTube. We all know
Battlestar Galactica: Razor is about the Pegasus and what happened to it between the time the Cylons started a war and it met up with the Galactica.
Our favorite characters (Starbuck, Admiral Adama, Apollo) are also in the movie so it appears to start as the war with the Cylons begins and then the Pegasus somehow gets separated from the rest of the group. Of course, the promo doesn't reveal much, but it was enough to
wet whet my appetite for some new BSG. I'm particularly anxious to see another side of Admiral Cain, who was pretty rotten once she appeared on BSG. Also... notice all the female soldiers on the Pegasus.
Battlestar Galactica: Razor airs on Sci Fi in November.
Video is after the jump:
Continue reading Promo for Battlestar Galactica: Razor movie - VIDEO
Posted Jun 8th 2007 10:21AM by Kevin Kelly
Filed under: Battlestar Galactica, Celebrities
Okay, we're back with the second half of Wednesday night's
Battlestar extravaganza, and I think I've recovered most of my memories, got the feeling back in my writing hand, and decided I wasn't Cylon. For now.
After Lucy Lawless was done loosely emceeing the event, they opened up the floor to questions from the audience. Now, keep in mind that this event was really for the fans, so I expected a lot of "Um ... in Episode 9 from last season, Starbuck clearly had her pilot's wings on upside down ... does that have special meaning?" type questions, but thankfully all of the questions were stuff we thought we'd be asking ourselves, and only one person got up and asked for a job.
Continue reading TV Squad attends the Battlestar Galactica fan blowout: Part two
Posted Jan 22nd 2007 6:30PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Discovery, Documentary
There's a lot of good programs on television, and there's always something new popping up that catches my interest. However, I rarely get too excited about what gets beamed into my living room from the ol' idiot box. In this instance, though, I have to say I'm a lot more curious than usual.
I'm talking about In the Shadow of the Moon, a new documentary from Discovery Films that screened recently at Sundance and will also premiere at some point on the Discovery Channel and Discovery HD Theater, takes a look at the Apollo moon missions and brings together the surviving astronauts from those missions to talk about their experience. I'm a total sucker for anything having to do with space exploration. One of my favorite things to watch on television is those satellite images of Earth shown on the NASA channel. I find it oddly comforting.
I quick search of Discovery's site didn't pull up any info on the documentary, but I'll keep my eye out for when it might air.
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