I finally rented the 3 hour miniseries of the Battlestar Galactica remake - and wow, was I impressed. I almost stopped it about a half hour in because it starts really slow, but then it got really good, and I was hooked the rest of the way. Usually a slow start indicates bad storytelling, but in this case it sets you up with an extreme contrast that ratchets up the tension. And it has good acting! I thought I was watching a theatrically released thriller. I'm glad it got picked up as a series. I can't wait till everything comes out on DVD - because I refuse to pay for cable (I'm not paying $40 a month for ads and scads of badly produced reality TV).

The original series was my favorite TV show when I was four years old, so I thought that this would be cheesy, but it has better writing than most of the crap on TV. I didn't know what to expect, and thought at first that it picked up and carried on from the first series, but it actually appears to be a remake (my memory of the original series is slightly hazy). The original characters are there, but slightly retooled. For instance Starbuck is a female pilot (still cigar chomping) instead of a Han Solo clone. It even has the kid with the bowl cut!

Also, a friend of mine worked on the special effects - which are fantastic for TV! Way to go Mark!