Articles

Battlestar Galactica - Disc-by-Disc Bonus Material Listings, Specs for Blu-ray & DVD Complete Series
and
Battlestar Galactica - Awesome New Images of Packaging for Season 4.5 Blu & Complete Series
by David Lambert
(from TVShowsOnDVD.com)
I've never seen any of the relaunched Battlestar Galactica, simply because I missed the original miniseries -- I think it clashed with something, and when the DVD came out the UK release was so inferior to the US one I refused to buy it. Later, I moved to Uni, thereby missing out on Sky and making it even harder to see -- and so even less incentive to watch.
But it's one of the most praised shows of the past few years, if not ever, and this rather beautiful and extras-packed Blu-ray set looks like a nice way to get caught up.

Also, see today's Magazines section.

Articles

Listening to Mr iPhone by Rory Cellan-Jones
(from dot.life on the BBC Blog Network)
A moderately interesting piece about an interview (yes, "about an interview", not "an interview") with the designer of numerous Apple products, Jonathan Ive. Sadly, the comment section quickly degenerates into yet another Mac vs PC flame war.

World Exclusive: Hands-on with Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series on Blu-ray by Anton van Beek
(from Home Cinema Choice)
A first-look/review of the first 14 discs of the forthcoming UK/Region B release of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica on Blu-ray. After getting shafted with extras on the DVD releases, it looks as if the UK is getting a full port of the US Battlestar set. We may lose out on the Cylon action figure, but we get some different cool packaging -- and it's much cheaper than importing! And good news for both regions: looks like they've done it justice with the set. Something to seriously look forward to, then.

Articles

Battlestar Galactica franchise steams ahead by Chris Talbott
(from Mail.com)
Long-ish article on two forthcoming Battlestar Galactica spin-offs (in spite of the series' falling ratings).

A fall TV season with questions in the air by Frazier Moore
(from Mail.com)
"It's hard to make an argument that viewers are breathlessly awaiting ABC's fall season -- or any other network's... only 17 new series have been slotted for fall -- about half the usual number." General article about the state of US TV as it heads into the time of year when, traditionally, all their new shows start. It's quite an interesting analysis (yes, even for normal folks) handily broken down by topic -- including one on the number of international formats they've copied, many of them British.

National Lampoon To Spoof Gladiator/300 by Chris Hewitt
(from Empire Online)
"Dear God, someone make them stop!"

New Che Poster Online by Glen Ferris
(from Empire Online)
"Steven Soderbergh's epic Che Guevara biopic, which is going under the alternating titles ofChe, Guerilla and The Argentine -- what the final title will be depends on whether or not Soderbergh decides to run the movie in its full four-hour cut or split it into two seperate flicks." So, that answers that then.

Rushdie anger at policeman's book
and
Bodyguard apologises to Rushdie
(from BBC News)
"A former police officer has apologised to Sir Salman Rushdie for false claims he made in a book about the author." I came across the latter first, which (presumably for legal reasons) doesn't repeat the claims made. Thankfully, the first one helps explain things. (Incidentally, the latter article was called "Apology for Rushdie over claims" when I read it earlier. Why the change? Odd things do go on at the BBC News site...)

Two More Riddick Films Coming? by Helen O'Hara
(from Empire Online)
Seriously? Chronicles of Riddick (which, all things considered, was badly in need of a subtitle) was four years ago already (seems longer) and hardly an unequivocal success.

Warner 'sues over Puttar movie'
(from BBC News)
"Harry Potter maker Warner Bros is suing an Indian film company over the title of upcoming film Hari Puttar: A Comedy Of Terrors, according to reports." A bit like Fox suing over Watchmen, they've left it suspiciously late.

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
3x07 A Measure of Salvation
3x08 Hero
It's been nearly 18 months since I last watched Galactica -- oops, that wasn't meant to happen! I tried reading the episode summary at that link to remind me where I was, but it didn't really help, so instead just settled down to watch the episode and hope the "previously on"s would do the trick. And thank frak for those, they did. Shame I didn't manage one more episode before my accidental abandonment, though, because that really wrapped up the ongoing stories (for the time being, anyway) before apparently moving on to more episodic tales with Hero.

Articles

Ronald D. Moore on Why Galactica Steered Clear of ‘Technobabble,’ Aliens by Lisa Grossman
(from Underwire at Wired)

I can’t tell you how many messages I’ve gotten that say, “I’ve watched this episode three times, and I hate it more every time I watch it.” Well, that’s a fan.

A spot-on description of sci-fi fans.
The whole article's interesting for anyone who likes Battlestar Galactica, though be warned it has some huge spoilers towards the end.

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
2x02 Valley of Darkness
2x03 Fragged

The Graham Norton Show
7x11 (21/6/10 edition)

"I was a dominatrix called Mistress Veronica."

[Watch that bit here, or watch the whole episode (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Wimbledon 2010
Been keeping a vague eye on Wimbledon so far, but paid proper attention today: picking up a match I saw some of the end of yesterday before play stopped for light... which, as you may have heard, turned to the record-demolishing Longest Match Of All Time -- John Isner vs Nicolas Mahut, in which the final set alone eventually beat the previous record for Longest Match Ever.

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
3x02 Precipice
3x03 Exodus Part 1
3x04 Exodus Part 2
Helluva cliffhanger on Precipice! Luckily, watching on Blu-ray means I can rush straight on to the action-packed Exodus two-parter. Shiny.

The South Bank Show
37x04 Ian McKellen Revisited

Yes Minister
1x02 The Official Visit

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
2x17 The Captain's Hand
2x18 Downloaded
2x19 Lay Down Your Burdens Part 1
2x20 Lay Down Your Burdens Part 2 [season finale]
Nearly a fortnight off and then a four-episode binge to end the season? Yup, that's my way. Still, I'll take a break before commencing season three (or rather, before that, The Resistance webisodes), just to try to separate them a bit in my mind.
Helluva conclusion though: after spending a miniseries and two whole seasons following the fleet for nine months, the series jumps forward twelve in a single cut. And then, after setting up a radically different status quo, it immediately wipes it out with a nice big twist/cliffhanger. Splendid stuff.

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
3x09 Unfinished Business [extended cut]

I had thought I was going to watch the broadcast version of this episode -- I usually do with things, first time round (see: Neon Genesis Evangelion. (I say "see" -- I watched that before I started this blog.)). But goodness knows when second-time-round might be, and this particular extended version makes a regular episode feature-length, with 26½ minutes of added material.

According to executive producer Ronald D. Moore, this is "an 'editor's cut'... the starting point for cutting down the episode to the standard length... while it offers a lot more details on the characters, it is a rough cut (unlike the Pegasus extended cut). He considers some scenes better and some worse than in the final cut, sometimes preferring story points only being told by implication and not spelled out. He thinks some scenes may be too long, with the ideal cut maybe somewhere between the two." (There's also an odd situation with the episode's music score, which you can read about in a little more detail here.) So my decision to watch the longer version was based on the premise that if neither's perfect, I may as well see the one with more material.

It certainly felt like quite an epic episode -- in character terms, anyway -- dealing with a lot of long-standing issues (even if the viewer didn't know about all of them yet). Moore also notes that there was "a faster pace in the aired version", so it would be interesting to see the contrast. Hopefully someday there'll be a second-time-round and I can watch it then.

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
3x05 Collaborators

Fast and Loose
1x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Killing [aka Forbrydelsen]
1x02 Day 2
This is rather good y'know. If you missed it, you've got two months to catch up on iPlayer... but I'd recommend getting a head start, what with it being 20 episodes longer. Quite how the story will stretch that far is yet to become clear, but it'll be interesting finding out.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Top Gear
16x01 (23/1/11 edition)
Ah, here we are: the proper return of Top Gear. Lovely.
Also, we love the 'back-up dog'.

Aww, bless!
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
2x13 Epiphanies
2x14 Black Market

Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
18x22 (25/6/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Wimbledon 2010
Men's semi-final day. Cheerio British hope then.
[Watch Murray v Nadal and Berdych v Djokovic (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
2x01 Scattered
Feels like ages since I watched BSG, but it's only been a week. That's what happens when you race through [the equivalent of] 17 episodes in 7 days. Week on, week off -- seems like a good viewing plan. Not that I expect to get through season two in a week.

The Mentalist
2x18 Aingavite Baa
[Watch it (again) on Demand Five.]

Films

The International (2009)
[#61 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]
Taking a little break from Battlestar Galactica to re-apply the time to film watching.

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
1x06 Litmus
1x07 Six Degrees of Separation
A pair of similarly-themed but notably different episodes that are the first concrete examples of the series tackling themes that have earnt it such plaudits; namely, notions of justice, particularly in wartime, and religion. Importantly, there are few easy answers, and, I expect, further ramifications to come.

Damages
3x04 Don't Throw That at the Chicken
Much like Dexter a week (and a bit) ago, other series coming to an end means I can restart Damages, almost three months after I last watched it. Thank goodness for "previously on"s.

Dexter
3x06 Sí Se Puede
It feels considerably more than 10 days since I restarted Dexter. Too used to marathoning through it, I suppose, especially when I've got through nine BSGs in five days.

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
3x06 Torn

How I Met Your Mother
6x06 Baby Talk
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Mentalist
3x11 Bloodsport
Got fed up waiting for Five to bring this back post-Christmas, so I... acquired it...

No Ordinary Family
1x04 No Ordinary Vigilante
And now I've caught up with Watch. Super.

Primeval
4x06 Episode 6
What a load of tosh. And trying to play a completely unsurprising plot development as if it's the biggest twist ever? Oh dear.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
3x10 The Passage

How I Met Your Mother
7x20 Trilogy Time
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Mock the Week
11x04 (5/7/12 edition)
aka Episode 100. Loved the "best bits" montage.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
2x15 Scar

Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
18x23 (2/7/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Gareth Malone Goes to Glyndebourne
Part 2 (of 3)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Stand Up for the Week
1x02 (2/7/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
2x06 Home Part 1
2x07 Home Part 2
2x08 Final Cut
Guest starring Dexter's dad!
Also: if all of the Colonies' paper, photos, cards, etc -- and, most pertinently, video recordings -- are octagonal (as opposed to our use of quadrilaterals) then why are their TVs and monitors still rectangular? ("Because production design didn't think it through," is the real-world answer, of course.)

Damages
3x12 You Were His Little Monkey
All the threads are, of course, coming together just in time for the season (and, possibly, series) finale.

Doctor Who
31x13 The Big Bang [season finale]
See here for my thoughts on this episode.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Aida
So, my first proper experience with opera. I quite liked it; this version, staged in 2009 for the Bregenz Festival, was certainly a spectacular piece of theatre (you can see a couple of photos of the huge set at the link above). Seems to me that opera is rather like a classically-scored foreign-language musical... which I'm sure many opera fans would like to lynch me for saying.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
1x01 33
1x02 Water
1x03 Bastille Day
I'd only intended to watch one episode, but got rather drawn in and... well, you can see. It's nice to have a bit of politics with your sci-fi -- it makes a change -- and a series that treats the viewer with a little bit of respect. For example, it's obvious what's going on in 33 -- the Cylons are attacking every 33 minutes -- but in the whole episode no one states it. Few genre shows would have the confidence not to have the very first line be, "so this will be the 237th time they've attacked after a 33 minute gap", or whatever.
The worst I would say about the series so far is that you can sometimes tell the writers' background is in genre/Star Trek TV, rather than 'proper drama'. Occasionally the story or way it's constructed reminds you that this is, really, a bunch of Star Trek writers putting all their efforts into making a 'proper drama' instead of just another space opera, rather than some 'proper drama' writers choosing to use sci-fi as a medium for social/political comment (like, for example, David Milch was aiming at with Deadwood, which was originally going to be set in the totally-different time period of Ancient Rome before Rome turned up). But it's loftier aims largely keep it above stuff we've all seen numerous times before... so far, at least.

TV

Battlestar Galactica [2004]
1x04 Act of Contrition
1x05 You Can't Go Home Again

Doctor Who
31x11 The Lodger
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Doctor Who Confidential
5x11 Extra Time
And that's all the football I intend to watch this year.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Mentalist
2x17 The Red Box
[Watch it (again) on Demand Five.]

Wallander [Swedish]
2x07 Läckan (aka The Leak)