A shining planet known as Earth...

I went over Ed's last night to watch the new "Battlestar Galactica", and I was pleasantly surprised. The thing wasn't an award-winner, mind you, but I thought it worked pretty well as a reinvention. Perhaps my expectations were low because I'd heard such dreadful things, but I think there was some real quality.

Here's what I liked. First, the Cylon attack was much more plausible than in the original, which was pretty much, "The Cylons kicked our heads off." In the redux, the Cylons first infiltrated the defense network and set some cyber-traps that gave their attack fleet an enormous boost. Second, the characters were a bit more gray, as opposed to the original, in which good and evil were plain to see. For example, the new Baltar did not betray the colonies out of malice, but was manipulated into doing so. He was really just foolish and conceited, not eeeevil. He even shows a teensy bit of nobility towards the end of Part I, and that's a nice touch. He also looked great in a suit. :-)

Here's what I didn't like. The human-looking Cylons suck. The redesigned Galactica is too sleek, and resembles a child's toy. The old Galactica was much more how I thought an actual battlestar would appear: clunky and rather awkward-appearing. (Remember: In space you don't have to build ships that are aerodynamic, because there's no aero.) Also, I miss the male Boomer, who was cool, calm, and was the secret backbone of the fighter squad. Sure, Apollo and Starbuck got the spotlight, but they'd have been meat if Boomer hadn't been there to make sure things were squared away. Go Boomer!

All in all, I enjoyed the new Galactica for what it was. Hopefully Ed will make good on his promise to tape Part II, or else I will be sad.