Battlestar Galactica

Well, I'm going to admit it.

We've been checking out the new series from the Sci-fi channel on DVD, and I love it.

I make serious apologies to all the diehard 'old' series' fans but I really like the new stuff. Not BETTER than the old stuff exactly. But I admit that to my '21st-century, ER-and-Matrix-entertainment-speed eyes' the new BG story-lines are more exciting...

Lots of differences for those of you familiar with the old show:

-The Cylons look human and can rather easily infiltrate the escaping ships (I'm sure this was a rather big money-saver for the new show, although they're using some pretty expensive CGI stuff; I don't know exactly why they did this, but it gives us a scary and believable enemy- sorry old fans, but those tins cans just weren't that scary... in fact, they were kind of funny bumping around... like some of the silly BBC Doctor Who stuff)

-Adama (played by Edward James Olmos) is a serious atheist and doesn't really believe that Earth is out there- he's just trying to give the escapees 'hope' for the future so he comes up with the 13th colony

-Adama and Apollo have this very rough relationship filled with angst over Zach's death. Zach is Adama's son/ Apollo's brother and Apollo holds his dad responsible for his death. We never get to meet Zach in this re-telling of the story, while in the old version he died within the first hour of the series pilot.

-Starbuck and Boomer are women! (okay, folks. These are the weirdest changes as far as I'm concerned. I love the actors doing these parts, but why did they do it? I like the gender switch for Starbuck in particular. It gives us some great story lines between her and Apollo. Starbuck was engaged to Zach, Apollo's brother.)

-Boomer is really a Cylon and was planted a while ago so she doesn't even know it herself... (yikes, this one's rough, 'cuz you never know what she's gonna do... She's come back to 'herself' with bombs in her bag. Not very pretty.)

-Baltar didn't turn traitor to the human race, although he is the one responsible for allowing the Cylons to get access to the computer nets protecting the 12 colonies. He's a computer/math genius and had a contract with the defense system. He was involved with the rather striking scarlet-clad woman for two years without realizing she was a Cylon. He used her to 'help' him on his defense project...

-There are only about 66 or so ships traveling with the Galactica instead of the 200 or so. (this one's actually way more believable... and adds to the stress of losing one or two 'cuz they're all that's left.)

Of course, there are WAY more differences than that. For a more comprehensive analysis check out the Wikipedia site. (that's where I pulled the picture from...)

Anyway, we've only seen about 8 episodes from the first season so I don't know if it stays this good, but so far I'm thoroughly enjoying this show. We don't get cable so we're getting to watch it at whatever speed we choose. :) That's one thing I really like about watching shows on DVD. Also, I don't have to worry about missing anything if one of my girls wakes up or needs something. We can just pause the show and I can come right back to it after the crisis is averted.