Battlestar Galactica Rewatch ( Part 3 )

Battlestar Galactica Rewatch

The Lost Warrior

This episode kicks off with Apollo flying a solo patrol which seems a littlestrange but we'll let it go, he gets jumped by Cylons and attempts to lead
them away from the fleet only engaging when he over hears them signalling
his course to a nearby basestar. Out of fuel he crash lands on a small world
with a human population with limited technology and finds a wealthy "baron"
like guy is terrorising the farmers and townsfolk with Red Eye who turns
out to be a Cylon damaged when his ship crashed a few years earlier.
Apollo eventually gets dragged into a one on one gun fight with the Cylon
but his speed and blaster gives him the edge and all ends well.

Ok then the Cylon AI is seriously lacking at the best of times but why not blast
the Viper when you have superior numbers or capture it as we've seen
them do before. This episode also has one of my major pet peeves, how
strong do they build some space ships when they can take a battering when
crash landing or simply crashing and remain pretty much intact, it's not as if they
make use of smooth and controlled landing area.
Oh well lets move on to young Boxey having the run of the Galactica's bridge,
seriously smack him round the head and send him to school we don't need the
hallmark moment as the warriors play nice.

Never want to see that again!

The fun really starts when we get the western cliches out in force, the rancher
gambling against the uber rich baron who can buy every pot and his gunslinger
cleaning up any mess. Strangely enough it's this simply often used story which
saves the episode, forget the spaceship and lasers or the stripped horses this
is an established tale of greed, arrogance and courage with the gun guys winning.
The only real twist though is the ending, why would Apollo say he would return
when the fleet are on a very much a one way mission, that was kinda of nasty
on his part and to the young boy.

Now I'm Shiny

The Long Patrol

Starbuck volunteers for a solo long range patrol into a new area of space
to get access to the facilities on board the Rising Star and to make full
use of either Athena or Cassiopeia and somehow the fleet has retained a
money based culture useful to bribe the waiter/concierge.
Starbuck goes on the patrol and intervenes when he see a fighter attacking
a cargo ship, not really his business but he ends up losing the advanced Viper
and ending up in the local prison, not the best day but wait for it it'll get worse.
So the fleet is approaching the edge of the galaxy and moving onto another,
blimey they are not even trying to get any form of scientific reality into the plot.
Even more laughable was stating no Colonials have been this way which I
suppose is technically correct if the 13th tribe were not considered as such
but within minutes we find human life who were descendants of colonial worlds
and supported the military during the Cylon war.

Cassiopeia

Athena

I'm not sure whose idea it was to have the almost caricature of an Irish smuggler
or the fact that ultra high tech AI computer control system didn't bat an eye when
it's pilot went missing or that a well known merchant based code was not in
a Battlestars database when it no doubt did it's share of space lane management.
This was the first silly episode because it treated the audience like idiots even those
used to plot elements and stories which were secondary back for mainstream
scripted television back in the day. There really wasn't much to praise although if I
was to pick out anything the new jumpsuit was interesting although if indeed
no colonials had been out this far there would be no one out there to recognise
the regular uniform:)

In The Wilderness

Having fun listening to the latest episode of the Deep Space Nine podcast "In The Wilderness" as they cover episodes 2 and 3 of season 2.

Babylon 5: 20th Anniversary Book

I want might even say need and I already know of one person picking their copy up from Phoenix:)

Fringe Blu-ray Series Boxset

I just got home from work to find the postie had delivered my Fringe Blu-ray boxset and after a little nudge Amazon honoured the reduced price for my pre-order so it only cost £48.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D - Trailer

Oh yes:)

Tapped Out

Battlestar Galactica Rewatch (Part 2)

Battlestar Galactica Rewatch

The Lost Planet of the Gods (1 & 2)

The Galactica and it's fleet are merrily flying in the general direction of Earth based
on some vague notions from Adama taken from legend and scripture, resources thanks
we assume to the sacking of Carillion have sated the needs of the survivors so much
so that things seem just fine and dandy.
Wedding bells are in the air for Apollo and Serina but things start to go wrong when
two pilots skip quarantine to got to the stag party and a virus sweeps through the flight
crews. Apollo and Starbuck are the only regular pilots on duty so Adama drafts in the
women who have been training as shuttle pilots and it's up to those two to train them
for potential combat missions.
The discovery of a huge void in space gives Adama a clue to the location of Kobol the
birth place of mankind but a Cylon Basestar commanded by Baltar is tracking them but
visiting the planet is worth the risk. Adama finds what he is looking for despite Baltar
making a play for control of the fleet but Serina now married to Apollo dies in the firefight
leaving Apollo and Boxey to once again mourn a loss.

Baltar

The Lost Planet of the Gods is a two parter allowing for the overlap of the pilots illness,
pursuit by Baltar and the discovery of Kobol and it all works very well, yes it's probably
a little more cheesy that the original feature but this is geared totally towards a television audience.
A few things I noted during the show was how the women were being the good housewives
and homemakers playing the fancy dinner cooks and men being surprised a women
would be capable of flying a spaceship let alone a fighter.
We also got a very healthy does of bromance as Starbuck was losing his best friend to
the female interlopa and come on the new bad guy is named Lucifer:)
I couldn't quite grasp the visual style of the void, it was far too small and looked more like a
tunnel than a vast thousands of light year spanning gap in the universe but I guess budget etc
puts the brakes on anything more impressive.

Adama

I smiled when the phrase "for Sagan's sake" was uttered and smiled even more over the
glamourous lineup of female trainee pilots, seriously all best of breed which is so television.
One thing for sure, the chain of command is pretty much just a sentence in the manual, no
one really takes a blind bit of notice and the wig on the Adama double was shocking but
hey that looked like Egypt from the long shots which if it was should be applauded.

Couldn't we have landed closer?

Of course it can't be all good news, yes Adama gets the information he needs from Kobol
and correctly surmises Baltar is once again trying to deceive but what a pity they didn't
shoot him straight away rather than spill the entire plan while he was cowering at their feet.
The loss of Serina twists the knife and you wonder why they killed her off, I guess it lets
Apollo play the field to a slightly lesser extent than Starbuck but also doesn't tie him
to the ship, you can ignore the newly acquired Boxey:)

The two episodes were much better looking picture quality wise than the initial trilogy, not
sure why since you would assume pristine masters for the theatrical version would have been
in a vault somewhere, not to worry though things seem to be looking up.

James Bamford's Favourite Arrow Action Scenes

James "BamBam" Bamford's top 20 action sequences from the first season of Arrow which I've just pre-ordered on Blu-ray from Amazon. If you didn't know James was the stunt co-ordinator on Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe and also appeared as a replicator on SG1.

Ponds on the Edge of Forever

My print of JK Woodward's "Ponds on the Edge of Forever" arrived from the man himself

the other day and while I don't think the frame really does the print justice it does look quite

nice hanging on the wall.

The Spocks Sell Out: The Challange

 Not that I blame them, the money was no doubt good and if you are going to sell yourself then you might as well do it with some creative material.