Frakkin' Cylons: Revisiting the Battlestar Galactica reboot

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Well, not so far. If you watched the Battlestar Galactica reboot as it aired, you remember how slow each episode seemed, and how long the wait between episodes felt. The pacing works better in the world of streaming where you don't have to wait a week between episodes.

Now we know how it goes, but I won't spoil it here past the miniseries. We're still in what seems like a transitional era where new people are discovering old pre-streaming stuff. But suffice to say, the ending is a lot less of a disappointment now that it isn't the bookend of a grueling six year grind of the weeks between episodes where you had to find other stuff to do until someone invented Twitter, before someone killed Twitter. I'm on Bluesky and Mastodon, by the way.

Some observations as I watch. Some observations are informed by what I remember and may be mildly spoily, but shouldn't detract from your enjoyment.

The first time Galactica gets nuked is the first time we get a sense of what these ships were built for: a total war with machines bent on revenge against their abusive creators. And their human-form descendants didn't pull any punches in the second attempt.

I forgot how well-done the final battle inside Ragnar Anchorage was. Sci-fi is full of ships shrugging off beams and bombs with shields. You don't see a lot of ships turn to put their naked hulls and guns between an even more vulnerable fleet and a whole lot of nukes.

And then Starbuck plows Lee's busted fighter right into the landing zone.

More to come. I just finished 33 Minutes and started on Water. Based on the miniseries length and how many words I got out of 33 Minutes, it's looking like three episodes per post might be the sweet spot: just long enough to establish some points for discussion, not so long you get bored reading it and forget there's a comment section to share your own thoughts.