eclecticism

February 27th, 2005 |

Up until this week, I never got the whole thing with people downloading and watching shows on their computer. I’ve got such a low opinion of the majority of TV shows that I just couldn’t see spending the time and resources on such a project.

Then I got bit by the Battlestar bug.

Suddenly, I can see the appeal. Three days ago, I got curious enough about the currently-running Battlestar Galactica series to ask for help on finding the episodes so that I could watch them. Now, as of just a few minutes ago, I’ve watched all that there is — and, amusingly enough, I’ve actually watched more than has been broadcast here in the US. All thirteen episodes were broadcast in Britain a few months ago, and those are the copies available on the ‘net. So, while the broadcasts on the Sci-Fi Network are only up through episode eight, I’ve just finished off the entire season.

End result? This is really good stuff. They’ve done an incredible job of re-imagining the show, and even better, have managed to keep up an extremely high level of quality throughout the show. Since the broadcasts here in the US still have another five weeks to go before they hit the season finale, I won’t go into any details or spoilers, but those of you who might be watching the show as its broadcast are in for quite a treat.

The DVD of the miniseries is now very high on my “to buy” list, and I’ll be picking up the DVD set for the miniseries as soon as it comes out — while I’ll admit that the quality of the shows I downloaded was far better than I expected, it still won’t compare to full DVD resolution and (I hope) full 5.1 surround. Battlestar may not be getting any ratings points from me during its broadcast run (though they wouldn’t in any case, as I don’t subscribe to cable), but they’ll definitely be getting my money for the DVDs. Hopefully they’re gathering enough eyeballs during their broadcast run to keep the show on the air and at its current level of excellence for a good long time to come.

(Yes, I know that this is a sticky situation legally, and in all honesty, if I did subscribe to cable, I probably would have been quite content watching the episodes as they broadcast and contributing to the ratings. However, I continue to hold fast to my belief that cable television is, on the whole, an incredible waste of money. As stated above, though, once the DVD sets are available, they’re going into my collection.)

“Track 06” by Grover from the album One With the Universe (1998, 7:00).

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4 Responses to “Battlestar Galactica Season 1…done!”

Daniel Woods Says:
February 27th, 2005 at 10:53 pm

Here in Melbourne, my Circle of Friends are also interested in BSG, but since I started recording the episodes on DV Cam, but my poor little iBook is getting a workout burning DVD’s so everyone who missed it can watch it. Oh well, at least I’m getting use out of my DV Cam, and iDVD. Curse my Generous Heart.

I’m tempted by the Downloads, but think If I can make Bootleg Recordings from TV, it’s less Illegal than downloading from a foreign Country. I also get the full Social Experience of discussing episodes at work the next morning, something which can’t be done when everyone watches the series in their own time. I’ll also only make 2 copies of the Bootlegs; one for me and one for my Brother.

Chas Redmond Says:
February 28th, 2005 at 9:31 am

I find the most interesting aspect of the new series the interplay among the cylons as to their human background - that plus those cylons who are “evolving” into humans - it’s more sophisticated than the original series by far and the newer CG graphics are a bonus. The torture episode was actually WAY out there on the socio-psyco scale.

Neil Says:
February 28th, 2005 at 10:10 am

“All thirteen episodes were broadcast in Britain a few months ago”

The final episode was actually shown January 10th here in the UK, so not too long ago.

I don’t know if you know or not, but there has been great worry over whether the SciFi Channel would give the green light to a second season of this wondeful series and here in the UK, even though we have seen all of the first season, still had to wait till only last week, when finally, SciFi announced that it WOULD be giving the go ahead to a second series, thankfully, and all cast members would be back.

Also, you might like to know that the reason it was shown in the UK first is because Sky One, which is the channel BG is shown on over here, co-funded the series and wanted first screening rights for doing so.

How cool is James Olmos?

indieb0i Says:
March 2nd, 2005 at 3:20 pm

Actually, downloading TV shows, especially ones not on DVD right now, tends to fall under the whole fair use thingie. That’s why most of those sites have had no problem with lawsuits, etc. unless they also share movies and such. It’s really no different from sharing a video tape, at that point, only it’s easier.

And as for ratings on SciFi, that station has killed just about every good sci fi show in the past few years, so I actively avoid watching it.