I cancelled cable a bit back in an attempt to cut expenses. When I heard about the BSG revival on Sci-Fi, a little voice in my head said "It'll suck, Sci-Fi is behind it." I never even thought twice about it. Hell, BSG was pretty neat when I was 9 years old, but my guess is it hadn't weathered too well the years, much like other shows of my youth.

I have two Thanksgivings every year; one with my dad's side of the family, and one with my mom's side. This year, at my dad's Thanksgiving my brother and I were talking with each other, and he asked me if I'd seen the new BSG series. I said no, and he said "you have NO idea what you've been missing. I'm lending you my DVDs." I got them two days later at my mom's Thanksgiving.

That Sunday, I sat down and watched the miniseries. Gritty little thing; one of the first scenes involves an ambassador that goes to meet with the Cylons every year at a far off locale. Every year, the Cylons don't show, except for this year, when a blond woman walks down the hall, grabs the man, and starts making out with him - just before the station is completely destroyed. Somebody online pointed out that this is the director's way of saying "this ain't Star Wars - we don't mind being a little adult."

This is not your childhood TV show.

The show moves to the decommissioning ceremony of the Battlestar Galactica. A small bit of retconning is made immediately; phones and computers were not networked together because the Cylons could easily infiltrate and control such networks. Lots of other stuff happens (no spoilers here) and the BSG finds itself clustered up with the last remenants of humanity, fleeing across the stars from a reinvigorated and quite dangerous Cylon menace. Space is harsh and unforgiving, sacrifices are made, and lots of people die, sometimes to save others, and sometimes not.

The TV series loses a little bit of this oomph pretty early on, but I've said to my coworkers "you can only blow up the home system once." It's still a good watch, and the plotting is fairly tight, with a large cast, some very interesting allusions to our current society, and the constant repetition of the number 12. They also (so far, and I'm almost done with the first season) have avoided resorting to the "particle of the week" solution to most problems; instead problems are dealt with through ingenuity and hard work.

I will admit I haven't really watched any science fiction on TV since ST:TNG, but BSG is really impressing the heck out of me. I can't wait for the second season to come out on DVD.

I love it.

Of course, it is now going to start sucking - Time magazine just named it TV show of the year.