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Battlestar Galactica Season 2 Premiere 492

fanblade writes "As if slashdotters needed another reason to stay home on a Friday night, the 20-episode second season of Battlestar Galactica premieres tonight at 10/9C on the Sci Fi Channel. The series, a 're-imagining' of the original 1978 TV series by the same name, made history as the highest-rated original Sci Fi Channel program ever. The first episode of the second season, 'Scattered', won't be televised in the UK until October, but I seriously doubt that will be a problem for the show that 'killed broadcast TV'. There's also excellent coverage on Wikipedia for those eager to brush up or catch up on the first season."
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Battlestar Galactica Season 2 Premiere

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  • Don't forget to tune in at 8/7C for the start of Stargate SG1 and Atlantis as well! SciFi is running THREE FULL HOURS of rockin' new shows today! From their site [scifi.com]:
    08:00 PM STARGATE SG-1 (SEASON 9) AVALON - PT 1
    09:00 PM STARGATE ATLANTIS (SEASON 2) THE SIEGE - PT 3
    10:00 PM BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (SEASON 2) SCATTERED
    And if you miss it the first time, you can tune in immediately afterwards to catch the same linup again!
    11:00 PM STARGATE SG-1 (SEASON 9) AVALON - PT 1
    12:00 AM STARGATE ATLANTIS (SEASON 2) THE SIEGE - PT 3
    01:00 AM BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (SEASON 2) SCATTERED
    My only question is, what's up with the Friday slots? Aren't those slots where shows usually die?
  • Podcast commentary (Score:5, Informative)

    by tycage ( 96002 ) <tycage@gmail.com> on Friday July 15, 2005 @01:33PM (#13074905) Homepage
    Also, don't forget the Podcast [scifi.com] of commentary that is available for the episode.
  • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @01:48PM (#13075089) Homepage
    I watched BSG once. Perhaps I just caught a bad episode, but the pseudoscience was running really thick. The ships were on a desparate and mostly futile search for water, checking starsystem after starsystem for it; it was the plot of the entire episode. You know, H2O - the third most common compound in the universe (after H2 and CO), made of the most common element and the third most common element, which both in spectral observation of other star systems, direct observation of our own star system, and all theoretical models lies on the outside of almost every solid surface of every solar system, from the tiniest of comets to huge icy moons to even the cores of outer gas giants (not that the latter case would be useful, but just goes to show how common it is). About the only place in the universe where water *isn't* is inner planetary systems, which are often too hot for it to remain solid (or, rarely, liquid), in which case the planet may or may not be able to prevent it from losing the water vapor to space. Of course, even in such situations, oxygen is abundant in Fe*O*, SiO*, CO*, etc, and hydrogen is everywhere, and you merely have to burn the two at a rate of your choosing...

    But ignoring the difficulties of separating oxygen, you don't need to; water is everywhere that's not too close to a big star, abundantly, on the surface of bodies of all sizes, extending miles deep or all the way through.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 15, 2005 @01:50PM (#13075109)
    is also available [scifi.com]... This is a full length commentary you can download to your mp3 player and listen to while you watch the episode. pretty cool, this is the kind of stuff usually reserved for DVD boxsets
  • by PreviouslySeen ( 714752 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @02:00PM (#13075229)
    11:00 - Sci-Fi friday over, full stomach, nice buzz, ready to hit the town

    Sounds like an ideal evening. However, at my age, I substitute "bed" for "town", and add "If I can get the toddlers to bed before 8 at the beginning". :)
  • by fimbulvetr ( 598306 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @02:26PM (#13075492)
    Could it be argued that they were looking for water in mass quantities, and they needed it soon?
    They had about 50,000 people that needed water. I don't disagree that water is common, and it could have been manufactured, but is harnessing some water from, say, one comet going to be enough for the 50,000 to replace their tanks of 60% they lost.

    To quote TFS:
    "Baltar: I've calculated that the rate of consumption regarding basic foodstuffs for the civilian population, this is based on information available to me at the time. The current civilian population of 45,265 will require, at minimum, 82 tons of grain, 85 tons of meat, 119 tons of fruit, 304 tons of vegetables and... 2.5 million jps of water."

    According to TFS, that's per week. Galactica lost 10million jps from the explosion. I don't think comets or even manufacturing could have cured the thirst.

    P.S. I don't know what a jps is, or even if it's a real term. I assume it's fake and that it's roughly equivalent to a gallon.
  • I think BSG SUCKS! (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 15, 2005 @02:34PM (#13075588)
    I don't get why you dorks think BSG is so great. It's LAME. The first few episodes were like a drug-induced stupor. Then the show did actually get a bit more coherent. But it was still lame. It's like watching a shitty documentary that never explains anything. And the show is so stoic. And the doctor and cylon (ghost) is so goddamn annoying - how the fuck did that come about? And what the fuck is a cylon? Human? Machine? Next episode's drama - is [insert character or the week] a cylon or not??!!

    The show fucking sucks.
  • DVDs at Best Buy (Score:2, Informative)

    by stagolee ( 831300 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @02:46PM (#13075735)
    For some reason it's not too well publicized, but the Season 1 DVD should be available in about 2 weeks from Best Buy. Link to Best Buy [bestbuy.com]
  • by maxpublic ( 450413 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @02:47PM (#13075746) Homepage
    Don't make me pick between galactica and CSI, that would kill me to have to chose only one or the other.

    Good geeks know of this mystical device called "the VCR", which can record one show while you watch another. In fact, just about everyone knows about the mighty VCR, and owns one to boot!

    But even better geeks know of "BitTorrent", for those times when you forget to set the VCR. Or for catching up on shows that you didn't clue in on until the second or third season. This is how my wife and I got up to speed on West Wing, Alias, and yes - even CSI! Without BitTorrent to provide the seasons we'd missed (not big TV fans) we'd never have watched the shows on regular TV. We hate jumping into shows mid-stream.

    Of course, we didn't bother with BitTorrent until BSG aired in Britain. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for us. But once we took the leap...well, there's really no going back. We watch more TV now than we have in decades. If we happen to miss an episode, so what? We can always catch it with a download and be on track again before the next week's episode airs.

    No doubt the network goons will soon be kicking in my door for these public admissions. It won't matter that we watch MORE TV now, only that we've used BitTorrent in acts of "piracy"....

    Max
  • by BrianMertens ( 31169 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @02:47PM (#13075752) Homepage
    Good news, everyone! BSG Season 2 will be on in Canada, starting January 14th, 2006. [spacecast.com]

    That'll be just fine, as long as everyone on the internet promises not to talk about BSG on any forum or blog until then... okay?

    Arrgh. I think BitTorrent is about to become much more popular in Canada.
  • by DudeTheMath ( 522264 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @03:15PM (#13076046) Homepage
    Sid has been working on the other side of the pond, including a guest spot in the second season of MI-5. Catch that series in the states on A&E.

  • by diskis ( 221264 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @03:19PM (#13076094)
    What sounds plausible?
    2,5 million jps for 45265 persons gives about 55 jps per person per week, or some 8 jps per day.

    Leave out showers and stuff like that a person can live easily with a few litres (a gallon a day). My not-so-educated guess would be that a jps is perhaps between a 1/4th or a 1/8 of a gallon.
  • (sorry, voice work isn't acting)

    Uh, as an actor who has done TV, movies, and radio, let me tell you that the people who do voice-only work _well_ are definately acting.

    In fact, they're often far better than people who don't do VO work. why? because the people who do it are used to telling the entire story, and showing the entire range of the character with... get this! ... _just their voice_.

    Hard to believe, but it's true!

    Just ask some real actors...
  • by tm2b ( 42473 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @04:26PM (#13076784) Journal
    You don't need to lecture me on how common water is. I have a freakin' degree in physics with a focus on cosmology.

    That's not the point. Again, you didn't pay attention.

    They needed an atmosphere to support the manual labor they needed to operate the cobbled-together systems - they didn't have the automated equipment. That is what put them in the risky political situation of having to convince the convicts to cooperate and provide a labor force to purify the water before they put it into the ship filters, which were designed only to remove human-generated pollutants.

    It's not about the water per se, it's about the labor-intensive processing pipeline they were stuck with and the water being in the environment they needed into order to support that pipeline.
  • by MrMagooAZ ( 595319 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @05:25PM (#13077347)
    Many of the more thoughtful notes that come under the heading of 'I hate BSG because...' seem to revolve around issues of not understanding certain basic concepts that were laid out in the mini-series. THE MINI-SERIES IS REQUIRED VIEWING! If you're willing to give it another shot, check out the mini-series on DVD first. It explains a lot of things. Also know that this is really complex TV. Some episodes leave me mentally exhasting when I think of the things they are talking about and how they relate to today's world. If you are looking to be spoon-fed, you might want to go elsewhere.
  • by Wheat ( 20250 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @10:00PM (#13078921) Homepage Journal
    Podcast != MP3

    Podcast == Audio(mp3 or aac or ogg) + XML (RSS)

    The difference being that the podcast was automatically downloaded and synced to my iPod when I put it in the cradle last night.

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