Battlestar Galactica

God, what an awesome show. I admit I loved the original late 1970's show a lot, I even bought the book tie-ins because I wanted to know the ending of the story. Then I heard about the new Battlestar Galactica that launched in 2003 on the SciFi Channel. Wow, I thought, cool, I'll find out what happened to Starbuck, Apollo, Adama and Athena.

I was in The Hague when the show premiered and didn't show there until some time after the U.S. premiere and I'd heard about how Starbuck and Boomer were suddenly women, and that a lot of the story was different. Well, I just didn't watch it. Then time goes on and the blogs and TV websites I read were praising the show to the skies and I was in the process of relocating to Islamabad for a year and I thought there would be little on TV so I bought the first three seasons. And they sat on the bookshelf for a year while I read a lot more than I watched TV.

Suddenly, I'm off to my new post in Canberra with a lot of travel time in between, so I packed the first and half of the second season of Battlestar Galactica to watch on my laptop. Still the DVD's just sat there. Then I arrive in Canberra with lots of free time on my hands and I finally, finally put BSG in the DVD player. I WAS HOOKED.

I couldn't stop watching, when I had to wait for the rest of the DVDs to arrive the first thing I did was unpack my TV and VCR so I could finishing watching. I was so hooked than when I finished Season 3, I went to iTunes and bought the available shows of Season 4. I went through those episodes in a weekend, albeit a long weekend. Now I'm totally into the webisodes and anxiously awaiting each new one and the start of the final part of Season 4 completely regretting the fact that the series is ending so soon.

I am inspired by the creativity shown on all levels in the production of this television series. From the writing, to the actors, the music and the production values this show is hard even for the most expensive Big-3 TV network to surpass. To my mind Lost is it's closest competitor. The parallels to modern day situations is dealt with and not in a "rosy" future world way, but in a realistic and messy manner. Which is one of the hardest parts of watching this show. Sometimes because the parallels are so close to what we are living through, I want a happily ever after Star Trek ending to each episode and we don't get that -- I salute producers who don't go the easy route.

If you want a great overview of the series so far, go to http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/ to see the terrific work of Maureen Ryan. She has take the last few weeks to watch and write about the previous seasons of the show -- I believe she still needs to finish writing up Season 3, but what I highly recommend reading her blog.

I can't wait for January 17th! I hope iTunes is prepared for loads of people wanting to download!