This show was terrible.
1.) Pacing of the whole show was so slow and boring it was hard to get any feeling for the characters. There was the scene with Baltar getting a "hand" from #6 in his mind and then getting caught by the crewman. Funniest scene in the whole show. Couldn't remember it 30 minutes later because of how numb my mind was with the pace of the show.
2.) A lot of people have commented on how great it was to see emotion and huma disfunctions on the show. If you call what was seen on this show a good representation of human emotion you've been watching too many episodes of Friends or some other rot. These people walked around like they were on thorazine and viagra. They were either stonefaced or kissing / grabbing somebody. I mean, come on, the scene with the black girl just walking up and kissing that guy in the passage way? I understand that she might have been happy to be alive but there wasn't a whole lot of interaction between the two before that so the whole thing was really out of place. Baltar's snivelling manner was about the only thing close to good characterization. As for queen B Starbuck (you know which B word I mean). Here we have the typical Hollywood "bigger set than any man" character. Well, guess what, I have met women who would make little miss bad ass go home crying for her mommy. These women don't need the B attitude. They've earned the respect of the men that they deal with. You want a couple of good examples of strong women in a military setting? One: Ripley is a great example of type 1. Human fears but when it comes time to get the job done, she'll get it done. Two (using Aliens again): Remember Torres? The latino woman in the marine squad. Do you think any man in that unit would mess with her? I don't. She wasn't a queen B, she just knew she was better than them and didn't have to prove it.
3.) Military life as represented on this show. Yeah right! Having served 6 years on an aircraft carrier what I saw represented here was a true joke. Discipline, not! Tactics, not! How long did the cold war last? We still trained like we were going to fight. How could any non-cleared person get access to the main defense computers? I don't care who she was with. I remember the background check that was done on me for my clearance, which wasn't even Top Secret. For high clearances, they go back to day 1 folks. They do 1 on 1 interviews with people to confirm what the "records" say. #6 wouldn't have passed.
4.) I will admit that the vehicles themselves were ok. The realistic flight was a nice thing to see but, how come the colonials didn't have missles too? Real simple, effective weapon. Why wasn't the Galactica hitting the BaseStar ships with missles of her own? Why didn't the two BaseStars coordinate their fire? Why did the Cylons attack only along one vector?
5.) You want to know why there were human looking Cylons? The director said it himself, to save production problems and lets not forget that it gives the directer a set of boobs to show off.
In closing, let me say, I thank God that B5 is out on video/dvd. At least I can see good sci fi writing there.
P.S. Of course this was going to become a series. They spent too much money making it not to do the series.
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