GALACTICA

The drunk commander of the Pegasus (Commander Fiske) is dead. Even though he was only with the fleet for a short time, he had already figured out how to be a big player in the black market.

Roslin is obviously a communist. She doesn’t want to allow free trade in the fleet.

Colonel Tigh committed the high crime of... oh my god he traded a gold necklace for some fruit! What a bastard!

We learn that Apollo has been seeing a prostitute. Not only is it surprising that good guy Apollo is seeing a prostitute, it’s surprising that he needs to. Besides sex with Starbuck and Dualla, he probably could have gotten free sex with a lot of other fleet babes. There’s some bogus story they made up to explain it, a woman he had a relationship with on Caprica. Where did this come from all of a sudden?

This episode was the first this season where we saw Tom Zarek the original Apollo. I always get a kick out of seeing Apollo and Apollo together in the same scene.

The bald black guy was one bad dude, but now he’s dead. Finally the episode is over!

This episode sucked.

Occasionally I write about other science fiction topics besides Battlestar Galactica. So today I present a review of Stargate SG-1 Season 1 which I just finished watching on DVD.

If you have yet to see Firefly or Lost - The Complete First Season, I would highly recommend you watch those shows first, both are much better. However, if you have already seen those shows and need a science fiction fix really bad, then Stargate SG-1 may keep you entertained at a reasonable price for the DVDs, but don’t expect it to be great.

Stargate SG-1 is based on a B movie which you do not need to watch in order to enjoy the series. The series is a lot better than the movie, which isn’t necessarily saying that much about the series. The pilot episode on the first DVD will summarize what you need to know about the movie as well as introduce the characters in the series.

The Stargate SG-1 team consists of four people, who unfortunately seem like cardboard cutouts and not real people. There’s Colonel Jack O’Neill, Captain Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson, and to round out the team there’s an alien named Teal’c. I have no idea what the apostrophe is for.

Colonel O’Neill is this sarcastic wisecracking fellow who doesn’t behave as you’d expect from a real Air Force Colonel. He’s always disobeying orders yet he always comes out smelling like a rose.

Captain Carter is a beautiful blonde, and I’m sure the teenage boys who watch this show are all in love with her. Will there be some kind of sexual tension between her and Colonel O’Neill? Not much in season one, but there are hints that there will be more in subsequent seasons.

Daniel Jackson is an historian who studied ancient cultures, and he’s the Curious George of the group who always manages to get himself in trouble by walking off alone to explore something.

Teal’c is like a cross between Mr. Spock from Star Trek and Worf from Star Trek the Next Generation (minus the Klingon politics). Teal’c used to serve for the bad guys, the Goa’ulds, but in the pilot he inexplicably switches sides and joins the Stargate team.

This series is for the most part a knockoff of Star Trek. Instead of using the transporter to beam down to planets from a spaceship, the Stargate team uses the stargate to transport themselves from Earth to another planet via a “wormhole.” Most of the episodes in the first season are based on old Star Trek episodes. For example, just as in Star Trek, there are several episodes where the SG-1 team picks up alien diseases, but the pretty doctor at Stargate Command always manages to cure the disease before any regular characters die. As in Star Trek, everyone in the galaxy inexplicably speaks English. This worked for Star Trek, but for a modern show it seems pretty cheesy.

Until the final few episodes of the season, there is no arc. For the most part, you could watch the episodes in any order you wanted to and it wouldn’t change your understanding of the series. When the series finally does begin its ending arc, it annoys you with a flashback episode, and then it ends in the middle of the story, forcing you to buy the second season DVDs in order to find out what happens.

Fans of the show say it gets better, but based on season one, I have to say it’s a pretty mediocre show. However, I already ordered the DVDs for season two because I want to find out what happened.

Chief Tyrol and Helo are back on duty. Hey, did everyone else forget that they murdered an officer? Shouldn’t they at least be sentenced to a few months in the brig?

Roslin and Adama wanted to abort Sharon’s half human fetus because they thought it represented a danger to the fleet. It’s still not clear to me how a baby would be any greater threat to the fleet than Sharon the adult Cylon.

Roslin’s cancer was miraculously cured. I suspected all along that they would find a miraculous cure, but was not expecting it to come from the fetus’ blood. Why should I expect something that doesn’t make any sense?

Am I the only person wondering if that Cylon blood in Roslin is going to somehow change her into a tool of the enemy?

The corporeal Number Six has already started a peace movement which has already peacefully blown up a Tylium refinery. Here is a theme that harkens back to the original series and represented an analogy to the Cold War when Soviet spies encouraged the U.S. peace movement. It’s also a politically conservative theme, which is refreshing to see on a show that has mostly been politically liberal (like most stuff that comes out of Hollywood).

Baltar looks like he’s aiming to become a real willful traitor and not just an accidental traitor. I was sort of confused by the ending, but I think that Baltar gave the corporeal Number Six a nuclear bomb for her to use against the fleet, in hopes that this gift will win her heart and get him some sex.

Roslin seems to remember him consorting with the enemy back on Caprica, so I guess that Baltar’s days as Vice President are numbered anyway. Why did he save her life?

We didn’t see anything of the Pegasus this week or its drunk commander, but I’m sure this will figure into the plot pretty soon.

I did not like the way that the problem of getting rid of Cain was so conveniently solved by letting Baltar’s Cylon do it. Ronald Moore wimped out.

Roslin finally gave Adama the promotion that she should have given him two episodes ago.

In the original series, the Pegasus was destroyed, so it will be interesting to see what happens to it. So far Ronald Moore, while always twisting and gender-bendering the old plots, has generally kept true to the original story.

Before the Pegasus is destroyed, if that ever happens, it’s easy to predict a bunch of episodes where there is dissension between the crew of the Pegasus and the rest of the fleet.

Let’s review the old arc. The fleet flees the colonies, they find Kobol where they get some general information about Earth but not an exact location, they find the Pegasus, Cain dies and the Pegasus is destroyed, then they encounter the Ship of Lights and the Devil whose voice is the same as that of the Cylon’s first Imperious Leader, they capture Baltar (he was with the Cylons in the old series), and then they discover a human civilization that’s not Earth. It will be interesting to see if any of this happens this season.

9:32 Trying a new experiment tonight, I'm going to liveblog tonight's episode of Battlestar Galactica.

9:33 Tonight's episode is part I. This leads me to believe that no one is going to die during the first segment of the show. So there will be some temporary resolution to Adama's action at the end of the last episode to launch Vipers to get his men back.

9:53 Liveblogging will give me something to do during the commercials.

10:00 The theme song from the classic 1970s show was so much better.

10:11 As predicted, no one got killed during the first segment of the show. Colonial One, the neutral meeting ground, is Roslyn's ship, she can promote Adama to a higher rank than Cain, but I don't think the writers are aware of that.

10:20 Cain and Starbuck have some sort of lesbian female bonding going on.

10:22 Glad to see Roslyn is on Adam's side. I'll be glad to see Cain taken out. What a bitch. Hopefully the Pegasus doesn't have to be destroyed in the process. The fleet could sure use a second battlestar.

10:35 Cain had innocent women and children massacred. She's a monster!!!

I don't think Adama owed Sharon an apology. She's a Cylon. An alien being genetically engineered to destroy the human race.

10:46 I wonder if Roslyn will ever be cured, or if they will let her die. She said what I had been thinking. Maybe the technology for saving her life lies with the Cylons.

I wonder if Gaius is going to get sex with the Number 6 clone he has been interrogating.

10:57 Uh oh. That lesbian bonding scene was important. Will Starbuck kill Cain like Adama wants her to? Or will she wuss out at the last minute? We'll have to wait until next week to find out.

The new season of Battlestar Galactica starts this Friday, so in preparation I rewatched the Pegasus episode to refamiliarize myself with where the last season left off.

Once again, I wonder what the hell Roslyn is doing in this episode. As President, doesn't she have the authority to say who the head military person is? Well maybe not, otherwise she might have fired Adama a long time ago. In fact, as we've seen, Adama ignores her and does his own thing when circumstances call for it.

And then I found myself wondering if Admiral Cain really shot and killed her XO on the bridge. If you recall, the Pegasus' XO told Colonel Tigh this story, and then he said he was just kidding.

I predict that there will be a fight between the two forces, but because the Galactica's personnel are free thinking they will defeat the forces of the Pegaus which rely on a strict top down military regimen and are unable to adopt quickly.

What will happen to the Pegaus and its Vipers? In the original series, the Galactica acquired the Pegasus' Vipers, but the Peagsus itself was lost going head to head against three Cylon base stars.