Battlestar Galactica 3/11/05 - "The Hand of God"
 

copied from sci-fi's page, not really a spoiler..more of a preview..but incase someone doesn't want to know anything about it..I imagine someone else may put a more detailed spoiler..



Ron Moore's podcast (commentary) is up for download already.

http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/ (may contain spoilers if you listen to it before tonight's episode)

tonight's episode looks good..

I think this episode airs at 9:30 PM CST instead of the usual 9:00 so people might want to adjust their recorders.

That's 10:30 Eastern - there's a "very special episode" of Stargate SG-1 that takes an extra half hour.

This one has the potential to up the action quota for this season.

Anyone else really love the fact that everyone has more or less just accepted the fact that Baltar is nuts, based on his interactions with Number Six, who only he can see and sense? Loved the last scene of the previous episode where he was spinning around with his head back and his eyes closed in a roomful of people, none of whom were paying him a bit of attention.

This was probably the best ep. of the season in terms of action, not to mention some much needed Katiebuck. :drool: I enjoyed the slight homage to the Death Star fight in ROTJ with Apollo.
Now a request. Please don't let Starbuck and Apollo get jiggy with it! While it would be okay in terms of their gender, it would totally betray the roots of Battlestar Galactica. Granted, the roots are cheesy, but let it keep one of the few cool things it had going for it.

Gaius has always brought the funny.
Good episode.

I'm starting to get used to and appreciate the documentary sort of approach to the action scenes. It seems they've toned it down a tad and more or less dumped the occasional intentional out of focus shot.

Katiebuck :drool:

"Instrument of God" indeed...heh :)

Hmm.. interesting...

SPOILERS

So the Cylon Boomer on the planet is pregnant! And the President is fulfilling some prophecy by seeing a dozen snakes, and now they have enough fuel for "a couple of years".

Good episode, really picked up over the past few weeks.

this is a great episode

Damnit. Didn't know about the reschedule. Do they rerun these?

yeah they do.. Monday 3/14 11PM (EST) it'll rerun, (there's also a re-run on Saturday morning, at 1am) after the Friday airing..

Thanks.

glad to see apollo get some credit since most space battles are all about starbuck. also liked the interaction between apollo and his father.

good episode, looking forward to more!

What's interesting is that I was not exactly hot on the idea of this when I read the synopsis of the re-imagining back in summer of 2002, and being more or less underwhelmed by my initial viewing of the mini-series in December of 2003.
However, when I heard it was going to be a regular series on sci-fi and most of the genre shows that viewed regularly were off the air (Buffy and Angel), I decided to give it a second chance. The mini-series grew on me with a second viewing and now the show itself is something I look forward to every week.
So kudos to Moore and Co. for making what was little more than cheesy fun when I was a kid into something respectful and full of depth.

Good episode. I especially liked the distorted radio transmissions of the Viper squadrons, a touch that was reminiscent of the original Star Wars film.

Don't bother reading the Stuff magazine interview with number 6 unless you want some of the big plots spoiled.

Is that interview online? Link?

Forget the interview, where are the pics? :drool:

:)

Agree!

Ron Moore updated his Blog again,Some more Q & A ( No Spoilers)
You can read it HERE

this show is pissing me off, it still has way too much drama and not enough action, even during the battle they kept showing the xo or whatever moving the little ships on board galactica instead of showing the actual battle, plus starbuck is not attractive at all and i still think it would have been a better character with more story line if she was a guy like the original series.

they're going with more plot(drama)-driven instead of action-driven for budget reasons...

-ohbfrank-

sorry did not mean to offend anybody, but i still wish that starbuck was a guy, they already made boomer a female.


i found this great article written by the original starbuck (dirk benedict) on the new star buck and galactica, if anyone is interested, check it out

http://www.dirkbenedictcentral.com/h...icle.php?nid=1



Starbuck: Lost in Castration

01-22-05
This was a piece that Dirk wrote back in May 2004 for "Dreamwatch" magazine. These are his insights on the topic of his "Starbuck" being changed to a female for the new Scifi version.
It seems to be circulating once again on the net, so I am posting it here.
This article, in my opinion, is superb. It has however garnered both praise and criticism.
You decide.

------------------------------------

Starbuck: Lost in Castration

Once upon a time, in what used to be a far away land called Hollywood
but is now a state of mind and everywhere, a young actor was handed a
script and asked to bring to life a character called Starbuck. I am
that actor. The script was called Battlestar Galactica.

Fortunately I was young, my imagination fertile and adrenal glands
strong, because bringing Starbuck to life was over the dead
imaginations of a lot of Network Executives. Every character trait I
struggled to give him was met with vigourous resistance. A charming
womaniser? The "Suits" (Network Executives) hated it. A cigar
(fumerello) smoker? The Suits hated it. A reluctant hero who found
humour in the bleakest of situations? The Suits hated it. All this
negative feedback convinced me I was on the right track.

Starbuck was meant to be a loveable rogue. It was best for the show,
best for the character and the best that I could do. The Suits didn't
think so. "One more cigar and he's fired,"they told Glen Larson, the
creator of the show. "We want Starbuck to appeal to the female
audience for crying out loud!" You see, the Suits knew women were
turned off by men who smoked cigars. Especially young men. (How
they "knew" this was never revealed.) And they didn't stop there. "If
Dirk doesn't quit playing every scene with a girl like he wants to
get her in bed, he's fired!" This was, well, it was blatant
heterosexuality. Treating women like "sex objects". I thought it was
flirting. Never mind. They wouldn't have it.

I wouldn't have it any other way, or rather Starbuck wouldn't. So we
persevered, Starbuck and I. The show, as the saying goes, went on and
the rest is history – for, lo and behold, women from all over the
world sent me boxes of cigars, phone numbers, dinner requests,
marriage proposals... The Suits were not impressed. They would have
there way, which is what Suits do best, and after one season of
puffing and flirting and gambling, Starbuck, that loveable scoundrel,
was indeed fired. Which is to say Battlestar Galactica was cancelled.
Starbuck however, would not stay cancelled, but simply morphed into
another flirting, cigar-smoking, blatant heterosexual called Faceman.
Another show, another set of Suits and, of course, if the A-Team
movie rumours prove correct, another remake.

There was a time – I know I was there – when men were men, women were
women and sometimes a cigar was just a good smoke. But 40 years of
feminism have taken their toll. The war against masculinity has been
won. Everything has turned into its opposite, so that what was once
flirting and smoking is now sexual harassment and criminal. And
everyone is more lonely and miserable as a result.

Witness the "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica. It's bleak,
miserable, despairing, angry and confused. Which is to say, it
reflects, in microcosm, the complete change in the politics and mores
of today's world as opposed to the world of yesterday. The world of
Lorne Greene (Adama) and Fred Astaire (Starbuck's Poppa), and Dirk
Benedict (Starbuck). I would guess Lorne is glad he's in that Big
Bonanza in the sky and well out of it. Starbuck, alas, has not been
so lucky. He's not been left to pass quietly into that trivial world
of cancelled TV characters.

"Re-imagining", they call it. "un-imagining" is more accurate. To
take what once was and twist it into what never was intended. So that
a television show based on hope, spiritual faith, and family is
unimagined and regurgitated as a show of despair, sexual violence and
family dysfunction. To better reflect the times of ambiguous morality
in which we live, one would assume. A show in which the aliens
(Cylons) are justified in their desire to destroy our civilization.
One would assume. Indeed, let us not say who are he guys and who are
the bad. That is being "judgemental". And that kind of (simplistic)
thinking went out with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and
Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne and, well the original Battlestar
Galactica.

In the bleak and miserable, "re-imagined" world of Battlestar
Galactica, things are never that simple. Maybe the Cylons are not
evil and alien but in fact enlightened and evolved? Let us not judge
them so harshly. Maybe it is they who deserve to live and Adama, and
his human ilk who deserves to die? And what a way to go! For the re-
imagined terrorists (Cylons) are not mechanical robots void of soul,
of sexuality, but rather humanoid six-foot-tall former lingerie
models who f**k you to death. (Poor old Starbuck, you were imagined
to early. Think of the fun you could have had `fighting' with these
thong-clad aliens!). In the spirit of such soft-core sci-fi porn I
think a more re-imaginative title would have been F**cked by A Cylon.
(Apologies to Touched by An Angel.)

One thing is certain. In the new un-imagined, re-imagined world of
Battlestar Galactica everything is female driven. The male
characters, from Adama on down, are confused, weak, and wracked with
indecision while the female characters are decisive, bold, angry as
hell, puffing cigars (gasp) and not about to take it any more.

One can quickly surmise what a problem the original Starbuck created
for the re-imaginators. Starbuck was all charm and humour and
flirting without an angry bone in his womanising body. Yes, he was
definitely `female driven', but not in the politically correct ways
of Re-imagined Television. What to do, wondered the Re-imaginators?
Keep him as he was, with a twinkle in his eye, a stogie in his mouth,
a girl in every galaxy? This could not be. He would stick out like,
well like a jock strap in a drawer of thongs. Starbuck refused to be
re-imagined. It became the Great Dilemma. How to have your Starbuck
and delete him too?

The best minds in the world of un-imagination doubled their intake of
Double Soy Lattes as they gathered in their smoke-free offices to
curse the day this chauvinistic Viper Pilot was allowed to be. But
never under estimate the power of the un-imaginative mind when it
encounters an obstacle (character) it subconsciously loathes. "Re-
inspiration" struck. Starbuck would go the way of most men in today's
society. Starbuck would become "Stardoe". What the Suits of
yesteryear had been incapable of doing to Starbuck 25 years ago was
accomplished quicker than you can say orchiectomy. Much quicker. As
in, "Frak! Gonads Gone!" And the word went out to all the Suits in
all the smoke-free offices throughout the land of Un-
imagination, "Starbuck is dead. Long live Stardoe!"

I'm not sure if a cigar in the mouth of Stardoe resonates in the same
way it did in the mouth of Starbuck. Perhaps. Perhaps it "resonates"
more. Perhaps that's the point. I'm not sure. What I am sure of is
this…

Women are from Venus. Men are from Mars. Hamlet does not scan as
Hamletta. Nor does Han Solo as Han Sally. Faceman is not the same as
Facewoman. Nor does a Stardoe a Starbuck make. Men hand out cigars.
Women `hand out' babies. And thus the world, for thousands of years,
has gone round.

I am also sure that Show Business has been morphing for many decades
now and has finally become Biz Business. The creative artists have
lost and the Suits have won. Suits. Administrators. Technocrats.
Metro-sexual money-men (and women) who create formulas to guarantee
profit margins. Because movies and television shows are not made to
enlighten or even entertain but simply to make money. They will tell
you it is (still) about story and character but all it is really
about is efficiency. About The Formula. Because Harvard Business
School Technocrats run Hollywood and what Technocrats know is what
must be removed from all business is Risk. And I tell you life, real
life, is all about risk. I tell you that without risk you have no
creativity, no art. I tell you that without risk you have Remakes.
You have Charlie's Angels, The Saint, Mission Impossible, The A-Team
(coming soon) Battlestar Galactica. All risk-free brand names,
franchises.

For you see, TV Shows (and movies) are made and sold according to the
same business formula as hamburger franchises. So that it matters not
if the `best' hamburger, what matters is that you `think' it is the
best. And you do think it's the best, because you have been told to;
because all of your favourite celebrities are seen munching it on TV.
The big money is not spent on making the hamburger or the television
show, but on the marketing of the hamburger/show. (One 60-second
commercial can cost more than it does to film a one-hour episode.) It
matters not to Suits if it is Starbuck or Stardoe, if the Cylons are
robots or lingerie models, if the show is full of optimism and
morality or pessimism and amorality. What matters is that it is
marketed well, so that all you people out there in TV land know that
you must see this show. And after you see it, you are told that you
should like it. That it is new and bold and sleek and sexy and best
of all… it is Re-imagined!

So grab a Coke from the fridge (not the Classic Coke, but the re-
imagined kind with fewer calories) and send out for a McDonald's
Hamburger (the re-imagined one with fewer carbs) and tune in to
Stardoe and Cylon #6 (or was it #69?) and Enjoy The Show.

And if you don't enjoy the show, or the hamburger and coke, it's not
the fault of those re-imaginative technocrats that brought them to
you. It is your fault. You and your individual instincts, tastes,
judgement. Your refusal to let go of the memory of the show that once
was. You just don't know what is good for you. But stay tuned. After
another 13 episodes (and millions of dollar of marketing), you will
see the light. You, your instincts, your judgement, are wrong.
McDonald's is the best hamburger on the planet, Coca-Cola the best
drink. Stardoe is the best Viper Pilot in the Galaxy. And Battlestar
Galactica, contrary to what your memory tells you, never existed
before the Re-imagination of 2003.

I disagree. But perhaps, you had to be there.

Dirk Benedict, writing in Dreamwatch, May 2004