TVgasm Recaps

Despite all of the ridicule I get from some of the other staffers in TVgasm's Los Angeles offices, I am definitely going to tune in. And since there appears to be sufficient interest among readers, I will also be doing the recaps this summer as well.

Last week when I suggested that people should watch Battlestar Galactica, I was a little scared that lots of people would watch, but then the season premiere would be sucky, and people would take my recommendations on television programming like I take music recommendations from my parents, ie not often and with lots of reservation. Thankfully, the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica kicked some ass, especially for people that knew what to expect, from season one. It was a lot to take in, but let's try and set things up for a very exciting season.

So, I hope that I succeeded in turning at least a few people on to the new season Battlestar Galactica. When you find your way into a new series that has such a cult following, it is sometimes a little easy to get lost trying to pull together the significance of every character. My suggestion is that anybody who is trying to get started is to let the show come to you. All of the important stuff will follow soon enough. Besides, it will just give you something to look forward to when you the first season DVD comes out or the inevitable SciFi marathon of the entire series airs.

Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica took a couple of episodes to tie things up from the first season, and so while it has been good, there were a lot of people who said that it could be better, that something was missing. In general, I was not part of the faction that was out to complain about everything that was going on with the show. Big Brother, Galactica and The 4400 are what I care about this summer, so it would have to really suck for me to complain. Well, it turns out that I was wrong, Battlestar Galactica could get a whole lot better, and we saw an example in this latest episode.

It is now week 4 of the Colonel Tigh experiment on Battlestar Galactica. To say that he wasn't quite prepared to take command of the ship was sort of an understatement. Even if his best and perhaps only friend on the ship hadn't been shot, he was unprepared. Even if that friend wasn't the commander of the fleet, he would have wanted no part of it. Even if that commander had just taken the President into custody, he would have taken a pass. Unfortunately, all of those things happened, and Tigh was the one who had to step up because, well, who else was there?

Now that Commander Adama is back on his feet, things should pretty much return to normal for Battlestar Galactica and the rest of the human fleet, right? Well, Adama is a great leader, but let's be honest, Saul Tigh really left them in a hole. The two men are determined to pick up the pieces and move on, but they have a lot of work to do. It was hard enough to run the fleet when the President was cooperating with them. Now that she has decided to do her own thing, everything has become increasingly difficult. When you factor in that nobody knows how many Cylons are around or what they're planning to do, it's easy to understand how things could get so complicated.

It's really hard to find good help these days, don't you think? That's about the only way I can explain what is happening in Battlestar Galactica. Commander Adama is desperate for anybody; he pretty much ignored the complete incompetence of Colonel Tigh when it came to ruling Galactica when he was incapacitated. As for President Roslin, she is enlisting the help of Tom Zarek, who was put in prison for terrorism, was the mastermind behind a revolt on the prison ship, tried to overthrow the government, and is now her biggest ally, other than Lee Adama, that she has in the world. With all of the idiots and traitors responsible for the existence of humanity, it's actually very surprising that the Cylons haven't been able completely wipe them out.

I have to say that I was particularly excited about this latest episode of Battlestar Galactica. The storylines have been scattered among several different planets, and while I think the writers have done a great job keeping us interested, I really agree with the words of Commander Adama from last week: it's time to get the fleet back together. President Roslin has convinced a large portion of the fleet to join her on her quest to Kobol. She is now on the planet's surface, searching for the Tomb of Athena, which is supposed to lead to earth. Commander Adam believes that Roslin is a religious kook, and actually fairly dangerous, but he realizes that there is a reason why people want to believe her. He knows that the fleet is a family, and they have to stay together, for better or worse.

You know, I am not the type of person who doesn't believe that things can't get better the second time around, even when it comes to remakes of old television shows. Take for instance- well, Battlestar Galactica. The original series is a perfect example of what was really an awful show from the seventies that over time gained enough kitschy verve that people remembered they enjoyed it much more than was actually possible. I'm not saying it wasn't fun to watch at times. If there were eight episodes on in a row on SciFi, I could, for instance, imagine a scenario wherein I would skip class and then sustain myself for eight hours with nothing but a glass bowl, a lighter, some herbs of my choice, and, of course, some Diet Dr. Pepper to wash down the mountains of Triscuit and Easy Cheese sandwiches I would start to crave about after about 45 minutes.

But that's just one theory, and has already made this intro way too long. What I am trying to say is that one of the great things about the current Battlestar Galactica is that the producers are less concerned with staying historically accurate to a bad TV show than they are with making sure the elements of their writing will ensure that the current series has interesting plot and compelling story.

Once again, I must chastise myself for slacking on my Battlestar Galactica review. I know people don't like hearing excuses, but it really was difficult to blog from outside of Jack Murphy Qualcomm Stadium. I am also just very lazy. This episode marks the last installment of the second season and if we are taking the first season as a precedent, then we can expect an episode filled with a ton of anticipation and one crazy cliffhanger. But coming into this episode, things were actually calming down for the most part. The civilians and the military officers protecting them have started to come to an understanding and after some concerns with burnout, the crew rallied to build a fighter of their own design. Even their Cylon prisoner was cooperating with them and helped them escape near certain death. With the relative serenity, it might actually be time for the fleet to start thinking about what had inspired them to keep going in the first place - finding Earth.

SciFi's "re-imagining" of Battlestar Galactica has brought us a miniseries and two cable seasons worth humans fleeing robot overlords goodness, and the third season is starts this week. BSG, as it is known in the pluperfect, is a darling among geeks because of the novel ways the producers have used to market the show and grow the audience, which includes viewing deleted scenes and podcasts for each episode. The great thing about Galactica is that you don't have to be an über-geek to appreciate the show. The drama comes from great writing and solid acting and not big explosions and discussions on wormholes and abnormal singularities. There is still time to get caught up as SciFi will be doing a marathon on Thursday and a Season 1 review this evening. You can also catch a behind the scenes/season preview at iTunes. If you can't catch any of those, you can always try the recaps.

Click here to find out when BSG is on in your area.

I have to say, this latest episode of Battlestar Galactica was a little bit of a dud. It's not that I didn't enjoy the episode, but after a string of several episodes with some excellent writing and great action, I felt that this latest episode didn't measure up to the high standards the series has established for itself. Although I love the show because it leaves a lot of questions to be settled by the viewer, by the end of this show, I sort of felt lost, and dare I say dissatisfied. Then again, perhaps the writers gave us this mess, and are going to help us sort through it through the rest of the season. But I am getting ahead of myself. Before we can talk about the questions we were asking at the end of the episode, we should talk about what we were wondering at the beginning. We know that the Colonial Fleet is about to go guns blazing to destroy the Cylon resurrection ship, and both Admiral Cain and Commander Adama have plans to assassinate the other.

Wow, I guess Battlestar Galactica got over it's little malaise last week, and decided to come back strong with it's latest episode. A lot of people told me that I should listen to the podcasts, which would give me a better idea of what was going on in the mind of the producers. I understand that the podcasts add to the episode, but the reason why producers make money is that they fit all of that explanation in an hour of television. But like I said, we are back on track. After Cain's murder, Adama became an admiral, but the killer is still on the loose. And if the transition of military power wasn't enough, civilian authority looked like it was going to change hands because of the President's illness. We are all sure Adama can handle the fleet, but are we ready to have Gaius Baltar in the presidency? I guess we are going to find out.

As I mentioned in a previous recap, the third season of Battlestar Galactica is really just the second half of the second season. BSG has been a hit with the critics, and has good ratings with loyal fans. Thankfully we had the first two seasons to prove that this was a quality show, because the latest few installments have left a little bit to be desired. Maybe I am just noticing some things because we are more familiar with the characters, but it seems like both the story lines and the characters are a little more predictable this time around. Like many of the people writing about one hour dramas on this site, it looks like we are in the middle of a lull period, and we'll have to trust that the writers are holding back the good stuff until Sharon's baby makes it into the world. Speaking of Sharon's baby, I hope they name it "Sil."

Will somebody please tell me where the writers of Battlestar Galactica have gone? I am told that the same people writing the episodes airing this year were writing the episodes last year, but I find that hard to believe. It's like the writers fell in love with the success of their show and have forgotten what makes it good. Instead of a coherent story, we are taken through a bunch of character vignettes. This sort of break from the action is often necessary when you have a season that is more than twenty episodes long, but we got our break in the action when they delayed the airing of the second half of this season for three months in order to soak up some more DVD sales and whatnot. Oh, and for the love of god, enough with this stupid flashback trick that you use every week; I think most of us realize that we'll see what happens by the end of the hour.

Woohoo! This past weekend we had an episode of Battlestar Galactica that was completely sans flashbacks! Not surprisingly, I thought it was probably one of the better episodes since the Colonial Fleet finished blowing up the resurrection ship. We still haven't quite made it back to the quality we had for most of season two, and it was definitely more SoapNet than SciFi, but at least there was some suspense regarding the outcome. If the writers ever remember that the fleet is A) being chased by a bunch of cylons wanting to kill them and B) supposed to be looking for the legendary home of their ancestors, we might be getting somehwere.

I still have hope for Battlestar Galactica, but we are really on the verge of having to give these writers a little bit of an intervention. This show was good because it was different, and now it is really indistinguishable from any number of other programs out there. The writers try and make every episode seem profound and moving, but forget that every once and a while we are just looking for a little entertainment. It's been so long since we've had any hot robot sex, I have almost forgotten why the hell I got hooked on this shit in the first place. There was a time where I would take the ridicule of watching the SciFi channel and laugh that people were missing out on a good show. Now, I am sort of embarrassed that I have managed to stick around this long. Things have become so bad, I am starting to wonder if they should bring back Earth 2.

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! It only took a couple of months, but we finally had an episode of Battlestar Galactica that was original, exciting, and left us wanting more. Ever since the series has started, it threw us a lot of questions and most of the time gave us some interesting answers to those questions. Recently, the answers we have received are for questions that we really could care less about. All right, maybe there were some of you who really cared who Apollo was sleeping with each week, and were dying to know which one of Starbuck's demons was going to force her to question authority, but I still kind of give a shit about Cylons. You may have heard of them, they are trying to make the human race extinct. We've been told that they have a plan, and this week we learned a little bit more about what they were doing.

After a stellar episode of Battlestar Galactica last week, I think we were all waiting to see the follow up from all of the aftermath from last week. Sharon and Six had about 36 hours to perhaps change the course of Cylon events. Would their plan to make the Cylons less murderous actually work? Well, I was expecting that we would get some answers to such things, but it looks like the writers wanted to make us wait until the season finale next week. Our favorite defier of authority, Starbuck, wasn't going to wait for any answers, largely because she didn't know any of this was happening, but she was planning on returning to Caprica to rescue some of the people who were left behind.

Another season of Battlestar Galactica is now in the books, and for better or worse it had a lot of people talking. The finale threw us a surprise that I don't believe very many people saw coming, and really changed the nature of the series. In my view, I think it changed for the better, because it has made possible so many more scenarios that should keep BSG on for as long as the ratings say it is worth it. Some wondered how such a big change could happen, but it shouldn't come as a shock. We've been told the Cylons have a plan, and we now have an idea of just how that plan is going to affect us.

The season premiere was one of the best couple of hours of television and left us with quite a few cliffhangers, among them being the impending massacre of two hundred civilians and an ambush of the first landing party from the Galactica. Will the plans to escape new Caprica be thwarted before they can even get off the ground?

Don’t get me wrong, I love this show. I think the season and I started off on the wrong foot when I had to endure seemingly endless episodes of Lee in a fat suit and Adama sporting a stache. It’s still by far one of the best shows on TV, but the season thus far has been chock full of filler, and I’m not talking about a delicious, sugary cream puff center -- it’s been more like that “soy” burger filler: less meat, more crap.

I was looking forward to Sunday for two reasons: the AFC play-offs and the return of BSG. The morning started off perfectly: coffee, Sunday paper, damn, things were looking good... until it all went down hill around 8:00 pm... Peyton Manning and the Colts staged a comeback to defeat my beloved Patriots. Great, maybe with this AFC title and first Superbowl appearance, Manning will get a commercial deal, yeah, that's just what he needs - don't we see enough of his frackin face?? Okay, I admit that the commercial where he gets everyone's autographs and chants "D-CAF... D-CAF" gets me every time -- but whatever, frack the Colts. Go Bears!

The Patriot loss put such a damper on my evening that I went straight to bed, or maybe I passed out -- whatever you want to call it -- details, details... I left BSG for Monday, and with that, I was in a better place (if you call being on Algae Planet, fighting raiders (cylon, not Oakland) with nukes ready to detonate at Adama's command a better place) and a better network, Sci-Fi, where I'm very confident that I will not see a single Manning commercial... please BSG, don't disappoint me like the Pats did, onto the recap! Go Humanity!

It's Sunday night, the weekend's almost over and everyone's a little bummed out by the looming Monday morning ... but for me, it's not that bad anymore, thanks Sci-Fi! I'm getting used to this 10 pm Sunday night Battlestar Galactica thing, and dare I say, I love it! It's the cherry on top of my weekend sundae. Mmmmmm, delicious.

Last week left us with many questions and I'm looking for some answers this week. This week brings us the episode, "Taking a break from all your worries," and while I don't think they're heading down to Cheers to throw back a pint, I hope they're sticking to the frackin plot. But hey, whatever, I'll just settle for an episode of fun-filled Baltar torture. Who will be the Jack Bauer stand-out on Galactica? Roslin's pretty pissed... Adama's ALWAYS pissed...Starbuck could go back for second romp, and that would be torture enough for him...hmm, I smell fear... onto the recap!

I'm 99% sure that I'll never wind up there... I'm a law-abiding citizen (pot's illegal?), with a record of only minor parking violations. Victimless crimes aside, there's a small chance that I could get framed for something, or take some ill-fated marketing gig at the Cartoon Network. Consider me scared straight though, because I'm most certain that I'd be somebody's lady-bitch in the clink. Yup, I'm a sci-fi-loving pacifist, I wouldn't have a chance...i'm still scared... Good time to board the Galactica and go for an hour-long ride! People are sick? They don't take medicine? Let's recap before this thing spreads...

So it looks like this episode will focus on relationships galore - this is going to be one, long therapeutic hour. Dammit. I'm beginning to think the rest of the season will bring us more fluffy, filler episodes, chock full of drama, feelings, toothpaste shortages, then BAM, the last two episodes will be kick-ASS. So sit back... relax... be patient... throw down some whiskey -- it's time for some sharing & caring on BSG. It's been 48 days since the last cylon sighting, so we all know they'll come back with a vengeance and some sneaky cylon trickery... just not this episode. Anyway, hash it out, wherever you may be -- in an airlock or in your head -- therapy hour starts now...

Enamored by the beautiful faces and skeletor frames of Hollywood, I almost missed the 10 pm start-time of BSG. Close one. In the spirit of things, here are my nominees for Best Performance by a Cylon in a Supporting Role:

• Six's steamy seduction of Gauis Baltar on Caprica, her mission: to get secret defense information and destroy humanity.

• Leoben imprisoning Starbuck on New Caprica with delusional hopes of making her his Stepford Wife

• Brother Cavil, the Quantum Leap cylon, duping the fleet and counseling Tryol after he beats the frack out of Cally

• Athena convincing Helo to kill her, sending her to download onto the Resurrection Ship in order to rescue her baby, Hera

• D'Anna infiltrating BSG as a reporter from the Fleet News Service, gaining access to the pilots and officers and seeing the impregnated Sharon

And. The. Envelope, PLEASE...

BSG is back! I think this is the beginning of a series of mind-blowing episodes that we're accustomed to from our favorite dysfunctional spaceship. When I first started watching BSG, Starbuck quickly became my favorite character. She is a natural, talented pilot -- a little rough around the edges with loads of misplaced anger, emotional instability and an all around badass chick.

Her character has been developed so well that I actually became angry with her after all her douche-bag acts toward Anders, her marriage, and everyone else who got in her way. But hey, we all have bad days, right? I was so excited to see the Starbuck-centric episode - and I've been dying to know if her finger painting has to do with anything earthly. Let's find out...

I tried sooo hard to watch BSG on Sunday night, but I only got through the previous scenes. I woke up to see some dude in sunglasses and thought I was hallucinating... thanks NyQuil! It was even harder to stay out of the forum on Monday and Tuesday.

There's nothing like being sick at work and feeling so crappy on the inside, but thinking that you may be pulling off a semi-healthy exterior. Until that a-hole co-worker comes up and says, "Yeah, you don't look so good," with that distorted-looking sneer, like the flu has taken solid form and is growing out your forehead. Thanks for making me feel a trillion times worse -- as if I thought I looked like Heidi Klum with a bit of a stuffy nose - I'm not that heavily medicated. Anyway, the flu sucks, but BSG doesn't... Monday I tried coming home and putting it on... nope, I was out before the theme music.

So here I am, a couple of days later - lots of pills popped, fluid drank, and soup-consumed -- I've mustered up the strength to watch the latest episode and write a few words about it. I'm hoping this week's episode is just as nasty (nasty good, not nasty bad) as last week's and I'm crossing my fingers about the Starbuck situation. I think we're mostly in agreement that Starbuck cannot be dead. Hopefully, she's just imprisoned by Leoben again on some cylon ship. Sucky for her, good for us... what's in store this week Galactica? Let's take a look...

Holy crap. What a week to go on vacation. I came home to a DVR-filled with mind-boggling television revelations, like Sanjaya still kicking (because I can't call it singing) on American Idol; John Lockes' dad sitting bound and gagged in a magic box on LOST; and oh, did I mention maybe two of the BEST BSG episodes EVER. Ever. Ever. Okay, season one was pretty amazing... and season two... but come on: courtroom drama + the lurking five cylons + a sitar-sounding Watchtower cover + a dead Starbuck = frackin brilliance.

THIS is what I've been waiting for all season. Though I think the season hit a filler-fueled lull around Christmas, it came storming back in the past month or so. I don't want to breeze past last week's great episode, but I can't help it... I just want to talk about the cliffhanger, a science BSG has mastered... let's get to it.