As I mentioned once in the blog, Kris and I have been watching Battlestar Galactica via the iTunes Music Store. The first season started a little shakey. The second season built, though, and really wowed us midway through. We didn't like the season two finale, but thought that it was a fluke.

Yikes.

The third season has been dreadful. We're about halfway through, and if we hadn't already bought the entire season, we wouldn't finish it. The pacing is poor. Some of the plot elements are ludicrous. ("We've found an algae planet, but it's on the other side of a star cluster. There's no way to go around the star cluster. The stars are so close together that it's like a wall of radiation." This stuff just defies belief. It's truly awful writing.) Why don't they just write Baltar out of the show? His presense just drags things down. And the Cylons don't really seem to have a plan.

I had such high hopes for this season...

We've been getting into other shows on DVD that we never caught on TV. It's embarrassing, because some of the shows might be considered "chick" shows, but I've never been very macho anyway:

Dark Angel
Gilmore Girls
Charmed
Friends (we have all 10 seasons and we're nuts about this show)

I also became a fan of Quantum Leap after it stopped running.

Is anyone else a fan of Arrested Development?

Is Friends good? I know it was popular, but we only watched the first season.

We loved Arrested Development, though. We make jokes about it all the time. My wife and I are always saying, "Hey brother" just like Buster.

Since we're almost done with Battlestar, we need to find another show from the iTunes Music Store. I've also subscribed to Heroes, though I haven't watched any episodes yet. (I'm sure I'll like it -- it's comic books, right?) I wish iTMS carried HBO shows...

That's a tough question. I'm not objective on this one. Like I said, we're nuts about the show. It's definitely much better than the average sitcom, and it got better towards the middle seasons compared to the first. I think once you start watching a show for awhile, you get to know the characters and feel like they're your friends. That's how it is with me and Friends, and some of the other shows I mentioned.

I recommend it, but it's not at the level of funniness as Arrested Development.

I saw the pilot for "Battlestar.." and then went and got the first season on DVD from Netflix.
Watched a few episodes, and thought it was very good; then made the mistake of having a mini marathon one weekend.
Episode after episode after episode - and it just got darker and sadder and bleaker.
It was like listening to early Cure or Joy Division or Leonard Cohen or Sinatra's darker albums.
I was lucky I didn't off myself due to despair overload.

Sent them all back and haven't watched an episode since.
I'm sure it's spiffy, but if I want some dark sci-fi, I'll grab some Babylon 5 off the shelf. At least it has bits of humor and light and optimism.

Right now, I'm all about "Heroes". Best show on the air. Recently started "Raines" just because I think Jeff Goldblum's brilliant.

Seacrest out.

- Bill

http://www.williammize.com

As I don't have Sci Fi, I never started with BSG, but I've watched friends' commentary grow steadily more disenchanted. One friend recently told me that she'd dropped the show entirely.

I have no idea if they've put it on ITMS, but I have three words for you:

Friday. Night. Lights.

Yes, it's ostensibly a show about a football team in Texas. But it's mostly a richly populated, believably written, heartfelt tale about people living in a small town and all their triumphs and tragedies.

Oh, and Connie Britton, who plays high school counselor (and coach's wife) Tami Taylor, delivers an Emmy nomination tape pretty much every time she's on screen.

It's not without flaws; it occasionally drifts near soap territory. But for the most part, it stays grounded in the lives of these children and their parents. It is by far my favorite new show of the season. Sometimes, I could almost drop the "new."

iTMS has (had?) the first episode of Friday Night Lights available for free download, so I got it. I liked it. (I hated the book.) I've tried to convince Kris she might like it, but no go so far. Persuading her to watch it is on my list of things to do...

Personally, I quite enjoy BSG. Though I certainly thought there were a few duds in season 3, the ultimate conclusion to the season was great (no spoilers here, don't worry).

I guess I appreciate the darker side to it, I mean, let's face it, there's not really an upside to the "human" situation. As far as sci-fi series go, I do think it one of the best. Drama-wise, it has its trapings, but I forgive that for seeing an incredible space battle.

We'll see what season 4 has. For all intents and purposes, the series has a definite end in sight, whether that happens in season 4 or 5 or beyond, who knows, but I look forward to seeing it through.

I watch Heros and actually liked Studio 60, but it has been sent off to never never land.
I like Boston Legal too, it is hilarious. David Kelly is anti-GOP though.
I am a casual watcher of LOST.
I have just gotten into The Dresden Files. That has been good so far.

Is there a spell checker on this thing?

I used to have a real problem with SF and found it difficult to read my way through the technical jargon and find the story. But I was younger then. And it was before I read my first Kurt Vonnegut book, Cat's Cradle. What we have in Battlestar is a story that like all good futuristic fare is about the present. As dark as the time the humans spent under the presidency of Baltazar was, it still presented us with a myriad of ways to see the way our current president and his neocon supporters are ruling our world. Torture, and war, and all the reasons to keep on trying to be just and fair in our dealings with each other. Think of the boxing ring and it metaphoric quality. Yes, I agree this show is definitely going somewhere with all of this but just like Star Trek it's still reaching for an ideal impossible earth/future.

The House Next Door reviews certain television shows every week and their BSG posts have enhanced my viewing experience.

JD, I have to agree with you on BSG. I loved season 1 and season 2. Season 3 has just gone downhill badly. You didn't miss anything by dropping it. They spent a horrible amount of time in mid-late season three on a 'love quadrangle' that went nowhere. Horrible stuff. Really lost it's way. Sad almost, since I think that it was very good early on.

Heroes, on the other hand, is my new favorite! While I was never a comic book guy, (I only like the full graphic novels because the standalone issues are too short for me.) but I have a soft spot for comic book movies. Heroes seems to get better and better. When you get into the season and watch "Company Man," let me know. That was an amazing hour of TV. (But don't sneak ahead just to get there!)

For other shows, do you watch "House?" The basic plot is the same over and over, but I Hugh Laurie is brilliant in creating someone so unlikeable that you have to love him.

Kris and I finished BSG season three last week. We were unimpressed. There were maybe two or three good episodes, but the rest of the season was like a lame soap opera in space. Here are things I do not need to see in the future:

* Alliances and motives that shift seemingly in an arbitrary fashion: Adama and Roslin or allied, now they're not, now they are, now they are wary of each other, now they're in love with each other, etc.
* A focus on the romantic lives of the characters. I don't give a damn. I'm not here to watch a soap opera.
* Things from the perspective of the Cylons.
* Baltar. Kill this guy already.

I often say that a show "jumps the shark" when it becomes about itself, by which I mean shows often abandon their original premise and grow to be more about the characters and about problems specific to the situation. This happened to Arrested Development, and it made me sad. Now it's happened to BSG. The producers need to return to the original premise: this is a ragtag fleet fleeing for its life, searching for Earth. The best episodes of this show have been those that are most science-fictional. Because the show isn't heavy sci-fi, when stories contain sci-fi, they gain weight. But when it veers off into love triangles and poorly-written political intrigue, it's not worth watching.

Unfortunately, now we have a situation where the Cylons and the humans are pretty much going to have to become intertwined and allied with each other.

The best thing they could do is hit a reset switch to completely forget about the third season, and start over on New Caprica.