Are you watching this? If you are, I am sure I am just preaching to the choir. If you aren’t, what are you waiting for?
I know what you’re thinking… I do. That’s what I thought too, when I first heard it was coming back. But I was wrong.
Now, I watched the 1970’s version. I was, like, 10 or something, and it was the coolest thing I ever saw. We named our dog “Muffy” after Boxy’s dog. I had the book. Here it is, I still have it, from 1978. I was remembering it from my 10 year old brain. I was in love with Starbuck. My best friend loved Apollo. It was perfect. A few years ago, when the re-runs were on, I tuned in hoping it was as cool as I remembered. It wasn’t, it was super-cheesy. Especially when they were down in the pyramids with those falling blocks of stryofoam. I was so sad.
When I heard it was coming back I thought, “Oh no, how can they remake that? It’ll be cheese – the next generation!” I thought it was a horrible idea. Then I saw the previews for the miniseries on SciFi Channel. I programmed my Tivo to pick it up and forgot about it, and then suddenly it was here and I watched it. And I thought, “Wha?! They can’t just stop here, this is SO GOOD!” And thank the Lords of Kobol, they didn’t stop there.
No Cheese!
It didn’t have all the things I always complained about when watching the Trek shows. It didn’t have a happy ending. The ships didn’t all fly as though space was flat, the ships approach from different angles. This is different. Six is HOT! Baltar is crazy and HOT! The characters interact like real people. It’s got the long term-story arc that I loved about Babylon 5. Nothing is neatly wrapped up at the end of each episode. The characters are familiar, but all new. By about episode 2, I started caring about the characters, wanting to know more. That’s something I never had with shows like DS9 or Voyager. I never cared about those characters. When there’s an episode that lingers on one storyline for a long time, I find myself wondering what’s going on on Caprica or Kobol or… or…
Some things never change, and Everything old is new again
Still got Apollo, Boomer and Adama. We still have Starbuck, but now she’s a girl, but Starbuck is still hot! Still got the octagon paper, pyramid games, cigar-smoking Starbuck. Still got Centurians, but these guys are way scarier than any stormtrooper-wanabe 70’s Centurian. The first time you see one flip overhead, in person or in a ship, it’s just amazing. There’s no Boxy, actually no kids and mechanical dogs at all… yet. If I have to complain about one thing, it’s this – where are the hot male cylons? And really, that’s not so much to complain about.