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To: 68skylark
By the way, is the new Battlestar Galactica any good?

It's excellent. Here are a couple of posts I wrote about it on FR:

I've been really impressed with the new "Battlestar Galactica" series on the Sci-Fi network, believe it or not. The original series was campy and cheesy as could be, but the new one is gritty, realistic, and doesn't pull any punches. I'm especially impressed with the way it depicts the military (which is the centerpiece of the series) -- both the chain of command, and the individual grunts and officers, as well as the kinds of actions and decisions necessary in warfare. Nothing "touchy feely, happy ending" about it.

The military's relationship to the civilian authority -- and the civilian authority's own duties and responsibilities under a constitution and system of laws -- is also handled surprisingly well.

Along with being a good action/drama/sci-fi show, it's more of a civics lesson than just about anything else on TV.

The military itself is the undisputed star of the series. And recent episodes have dealt with suicide bombers, sleeper agents, the danger of physical relationships between officers and noncoms, genocide, and so on.

And:

And you should have watched the whole show about the "9-11 commission". It could have come straight out of a FreeRepublic brainstorming session.

In short, a Cylon "suicide bomber" got onto the ship and almost took out the entire top military command. By luck, the top brass escaped injury, but 30+ other people were killed.

A civilian government "review board" was appointed to find out what oversights, if any, allowed the enemy attack to succeed, especially on the military side. As the episode progressed, the investigation became more and more politicized, and turned into a witch-hunt. It was causing far more damage to the people and institutions it was investigating than could have been balanced by any actual constructive criticism. When it finally called Commander Adama (head of the military) for "testimony" and began attacking him and asking "have you stopped beating your wife yet" questions in an obvious attempt to scapegoat him for no good reason, *that's* when he gave his short, to-the-point speech about the investigation having lost sight of its purpose, and he flatly declared "this investigation is over". And then he walked out.

Technically, he didn't have the authority to disband the commission (it was a board appointed by the civilian government), but the point was clear -- if the military refuses to cooperate, the civilian government has no way to enforce any sanctions. ("How many divisions does the pope have?")

Meanwhile, the one real error which contributed to the attack which the commission helped unearth was subsequently handled *internal* to the military, quietly and without fanfare or sacrificial lambs for the wild dogs in the media or the public.

The entire episode was a clear reference to the out-of-control "9/11 commission", without being *too* overt about it. But the point was made, in spades.

It was an excellent episode. As are all of them in this series. I'm constantly awed by how well they manage to make solid, hard-hitting conservative points while producing a first-rate sci-fi action/drama.


127 posted on 10/01/2005 10:36:53 AM PDT by Ichneumon
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To: Ichneumon

Thanks for the background. I think I'll check out BG some time soon, while I'm waiting for the next "Firefly" movie. I saw a bit of BG on the tube the other night, and it looked pretty good.


129 posted on 10/01/2005 1:33:46 PM PDT by 68skylark
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