Well, just out of sheer coincidence I checked out the upcoming schedule for Universal HD and noticed that BSG was showing up in the guide for last night. I checked out which it was and lo and behold it was the uncut miniseries with no commercial interruptions. Obviously I Tivo’ed it (and got great weather to boot so no flaws whatsoever) First the technical quality..

As far as I can tell, even though UHD transmits in Dobly Digital, the soundtrack was only in pro-logic. I checked the DVD packaging and the DVD is indeed in Dolby 5.1, so that was kind of disappointing. That being said though, my receiver’s Dolby Pro-LogicIIx capabilities made it sound pretty damn close to Dolby 5.1.

The picture was obviously outstanding. I honestly cringe to watch Sci-Fi or actually any standard definition TV these days just because it looks so bad, but alas that is the only way I can see shows on Sci-Fi so I deal. Well, being able to see this in high definition made me smile.. The quality was ok, but that means it still looked better than most of the best DVDs..

Anyway though, believe it or not I didn’t make this post to talk about the show in HD (though it is definitely the best way to watch it). Instead I made it to reaffirm how truly great this series is. The show has been finished in the UK for about a month or so now and easily available on the Internet, but for those of us still waiting to get through the american season, we are only about halfway through (episode 7). The writing in this show, the dialogue that is, is just pehnomenal. People say what they would say in real life, act how they would act, and they do all of this without submitting themselves to the VERY typical cliches that pop up in virtually every TV series, let alone sci-fi series.

The space fx are awesome, which is really a testament considering I believe that if they were to use their actual models and scenes in a typical shooting style that the modeling wouldn’t look much better than any other current series. But instead they don’t have us focus on the ship models but the action and the story of the combat. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head that can compare to this are the Star Wars movies and the Klingon invasion of Deep Space Nine. To have such capital or widescale combat going on as a single narative without resorting to one person “doing it all” is very refreshing.

Off of the mini-series, some things of the regular series have just blown me away. You Can’t Go Home Again is one of the best hours of television I have ever seen. EVER! The entire show was about making “wrong” decisions based solely on feelings and people not losing hope. After the President chews out the Adamas and Apollo says “I think she’s wrong, I have come to terms with Zack’s death” and Adama sayd “I haven’t.” Man… and the tension of starbuck getting the wing to fly and the series being young and not knowing if they were going to rescue her or blow her up.. I mean sure you thought “Well obviously she is going to be rescued” but you really don’t know.

Likewise in Six Degrees of Separation.. you don’t know what is going to happen to Baltar. They just showed last episode that they can take a semi-regular and throw him in the brig (and offscreen). and the way they are really starting to mess with you on whether Six is a halucination, an implant, real, or all of those.

anyway.. this show rocks. if you have never watched an episode of it you really have to ask yourself why. It airs Friday night at 9pm CST on the Sci-Fi Channel (right after Stargate SG-1 and Stargte Atlantis). The DVD of the mini-series is available for purchase, and if you are at all a fan of science fiction or just love great stories and great writing, you NEED to see this series. And to those who say “I really don’t watch much television,” you need to then STOP watching an hour worth of shows you do watch every week now and pick this one up instead. I guarantee there is SOMETHING on your schedule that doesn;t even come close to the writing and acting of this series.

On a similar sci-fi related note, for those who missed The 4400 mini-series on USA last year, it begins airing tonight on Sci-Fi. Two episodes nightly for three nights starting at 7pm CST.