Summer Glau is awesome. She was a prima ballerina before she got into acting, and her movements are so fluid and graceful that it's especially cool watching her kick butt. She makes me want to forget the fact that this show is undoubtedly screwing with the whole Terminator storyline.

But a non-Linda-Hamilton Sarah Conner? I may never be a fan.

well, the sarah chronicles is still being developed. It isn't finalized yet.

However, the bionic woman show will air this fall 2007. Woohoo!

Y'know, resuscitating these signature parts with new players just doesn't work for this ole boy. I realize that in my day many of the westerns and dramas I was watching were remakes of something done back in the 40s and 50s, but there was a much bigger gap in the gendres between the black and white productions and the big technicolor remakes. Digital rennovation of an old plot doesn't do that much for me, not when the original effects still seems contemporary enough. I guess the technological advances just aren't novel enough, and the new cynicism being written into most of the plots (in contrast to the campiness of the older versions) diminishes the story. Battlestar Galactica is a good example of that. Even though there is some good acting in that remade series, it just seems to be lacking something essential that the original had, at least for the first few seasons. I can say the same for many other remakes these days.

Oooh no, don't you go bashing my Battlestar Galactica! Maybe it's because I've never seen the original, but I love the new series. Granted, it's taken a mighty darker turn in the last season, but I still want to see how it turns out.

And now that I've officially established my geekiness on the web, I'm going back to the basement of the science building...

Just about any show has to reflect the times they're produced in to have a half-decent shot at being taken seriously much less a have an inkling of hope of success. Battlestar Galactica is a good example of a show that was given an overhaul to be current and has done so successfully.

At first I thought it was a horrible idea, and I absolutely hated the new series' pilot. However, the series itself is a solid, well written show with stories and characters that have more depth and dimension than the original. Granted, many of the storylines are taken directly from the original, but they've been expounded upon greatly.

There's a 25 year difference in the two Battlestar series.

I was a big fan of the original Battlestar Galactica when it aired, but I was 8 at the time and the campiness, which would have bothered me now, passed by pretty much unnoticed both because I was young and that's the way many TV shows were then. Now, when I catch the old show on the Sci-Fi channel I can only watch a few minutes at most before the cringe-worthiness of it all makes me want to change the channel. I'm guessing nostalgia is just about the only reason I make it those few minutes.

I can understand your point regarding cynicism in the new Galactica, but the storylines are more serialized than they were in the late 70's when the show only ran a two-parter once or twice in its September 78 through April 79 run. Also, it's more of a soap-opera now, or as I like to call it a "Soap-on-a-Rope-Opera".

That's just my opinion. As always, I could be wrong.

Regarding The Sarah Connor Chronicles, it has only been 4 years since Terminator 3 and it may be too soon. However, I can't really picture who was in that movie except for Aaaaanold and Claire Danes. Having said that, it will be weird to se anyone other than Linda Hamilton playing Sarah Connor.

On an interesting sidenote, when I saw T3 in '03 I thought it felt out-of-touch and much like a throwback to the 80's that didn't know it was a throwback. So, I didn't like it as much as many of my friends. Then again I can watch the original Terminator, which was actually made in the 80's (1984), can still enjoy it because it was before "The Catch Phrase" years, and it still feels relatively current though 23 years old.

Taste... It's a weird thing... I mean I like zombie movies... Even most of the horrible ones. LOL

Oh yes, I don't want to infer that the new Galactica is not a great series. In point of fact, I too was waiting for the pilot anxiously. Critically speaking I think the new series is done quite well, it is just sitting hollow with me, perhaps because the novelty of the first series is not there. Ah, the fascinations of our youth, when Star Wars and all the highly technical SFX productions unfolded in front of us back in the late 70s, it was as if someone reached into our creative consciousness and extracted our very imaginings. Reading stuff like Asimov and Heinlein and Lovecraft and Mcaffery, then seeing those visualizations rendered on the big screen, it was just so much gratification. After a while it became an expectation, that any good sci-fi required all this cgi and technical extravagance; plot substance and real drama being secondary (similar I suppose to pornographic sellout, which has also overtaken the medium).

I guess by advancing the state of the art, it allows our imaginations to progress. To me, it seems that it has the opposite effect. Think about how much imagination it took for audiences to sit captivated watching those old Flash Gordon serials.

That's what is great about the storytellers sitting around the campfire. How do you tell a story like Star Wars to a bunch of kids sitting around a semi circle (oh yeah, I forgot about "Reign of Fire")?

It can be done. 4-yr old DD1 loves my verbal rendition of "Star Wars", especially when the Tusken Raiders attack Luke. The nice thing about Star Wars (ANH, ESB & ROTJ) is any half-decent storyteller can tell them. The stories are so simple and so archetypical as to be coded in our DNA. More complex stories such as the new BS or Babylon 5 would be much harder tale to tell.

But you do speak some truth, Benjammin. I'd rather have a strong story than big explosions. Wow, did I just say that?!

-Blast, who usually needs a strong story to cover large explosions...

"...Think about how much imagination it took for audiences to sit captivated watching those old Flash Gordon serials..."

I LOVED Flash Gordon!!! And all of the other serials that they showed at the Saturday matinee...

hey Christina, what sort of science projects did you build in the basement? Is it a cylon suit or Darth Vader?

well folks, the first episode is out on eztv. you can download it on torrent using flashget program. It is very good. I watched it yesterday.