Cogs can think.

A few notes for tonight’s final 3 hour long Battlestar Galactica episode.

First of all, Admiral Adama will go down with Galactica. The ship will not survive, and Adama will die with it. Adama is inherently tied to Galactica, and can’t live without the ship. I can’t imagine him settling down somewhere while Galactica is a rotting carcass.

Roslin will die as well. It was pretty clear during last week’s beautiful episode that she is on the verge of dying.

I have no idea what’s going to happen with Kara, or who or what the hell she actually is. Harbinger of death - will she be the cause of Galactica’s eventual destruction? It’s interesting to note that the harbinger of death thing comes from the Cylons - it’s quite likely Kara will be the key to destroying Cavil’s base, or even to destroying all of the Cylons.

It’s going to be interesting to find out how Baltar will join the rescue mission. According to the Opera House vision, he is supposed to take part in the mission to rescue Hera. In addition, Baltar’s inner Six has continuously stated that Baltar is Hera’s “father”. However, he did not cross the red line and has not volunteered for the mission.

“All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.” Something tonight will allude quite clearly to that Pythian prophecy.

I’m so excited, but at the same time, I’m also very sad. I don’t want BSG to end. It’s going to be very long before any science fiction show (or any show, for that matter) will have the audacity and confidence to produce something as beautiful, deep, and intelligent as BSG.

Ambivalence abound.

As most OSNews readers here will already know, I published a very interesting article today - an interview with Nicki Clyne, who plays a very important character in Battlestar Galactica.

I must say, it was a very fun experience; reading through all her previous interviews, her blog, studying her work, and trying to form a picture in my head of who she is (which inevitably is a flawed picture since information on the internet is inherently wrong). Let me just say that right now, I’m actually a bit sad this wasn’t a face-to-face interview. She seems like a really nice person to interview ‘for realsies’ (instead of via email).

If you haven’t already, be sure to read it.

I like Lost. Sure, it’s slow, full of stereotypes and Hollywood mannerisms, and really crappy music, but still - it’s fun, entertaining, looks good, and Sawyer kicks butt. And Clare is hot.

Still, with the new season, they’re really starting to lose me. For me, there’s one sure way to hell in script writing: introduce time travel. It has never worked, it has never made sense, it has never been shown in a believable way. Lost is no exception. So, some people travel through time, but others don’t? Equipment sometimes travels with them, sometimes it doesn’t? How come they never “land” inside a plant or a tree that has grown there? Take a look at BSG’s FTL/jump drives - they can’t jump too close to objects because they might jump inside them. Time travel causes so many “bugs” in a storyline, that it is simply impossible to implement it right.

To make matters worse, the time shifts always happen at exactly the right moment, further beating credibility and immersion to the curb. You can bet your sweet ass that any time the guys are in trouble, or any time someone is about to say something important, they’ll be flashed away through time right before they get killed or hear the important bit. It’s fucking ridiculous.

It’s simply crappy storytelling, and it has seriously hurt my enjoyment of the show. Time travel is always a last resort, and it clearly shows. I hope they cut this bogus nonsense soon, but I’m afraid it’s a core part of the story, so it’s likely only going to go downhill from here.

Too bad.

I am one of those crazy Dead Like Me fans - you’ve surely encountered some of us, lonely, stranded across the internet, curled up in corners, asking for another Dead Like Me fix, grieving over a photo of Ellen Muth, spastically clutching onto our box sets of season one and two as it were our offspring.

I wrote a few notes on the Dead Like Me film on OSNews today. I’ve seen the film, and I’m happy. They managed to please me - one of the most die-hard DLM fans. Bravo, and congratulations to everyone involved. Here’s to hoping for another season!

By the way, for the future, to know that I called it first (at least, that I know of - I don’t read fansite or fanforum bullshit). I think it’s rather obvious by now, but here it goes anyway.

The “human” Cylons in BSG aren’t machines, and they weren’t built by the mechanical Cylons. The human Cylons are humans - with a slightly different genetic makeup (or whatever) due to them not having been in contact with the Colonies for so long. You know, Darwin, birds, turtles, you get the gist.

That will be one of the big revelations at the end: the kinship between humans and the human Cylons, forcing everyone to question their moral decisions of the past 5 years.

I called it.

Yesterday’s Battlestar Galactica episode?

The best thing I’ve ever seen on TV. There’s no debate as far as I’m concerned: BSG is better than every other television series ever made. The mutiny, the treason, the pain it causes to see Adama being betrayed by his own men. Some find the mutiny hard to believe (trained soldiers? Mutiny against the admiral?) but let me ask you this: would the Jewish people, in the middle of the Holocaust, suddenly join forces with the Nazis? Because that’s the only fitting analogue in our own history.

Of course not. They’d rebel - necessity or not - they would rebel. The mutiny is 100% understandable and very, very believable. I would have found it idiotic if the alliance with the Cylons had been accepted without a fight. They just slaughtered 50 billion people!

Dear baby Jesus, I just can’t believe people prefer Lost or Heroes over BSG. They really need a brain check.

Whether you hook up your TV via digital connections, analog connections, or both, you are unlikely to detect any difference in picture quality between a cable with a moderate price and a luxury brand. The only difference you’re likely to notice is how the cable looks behind your TV.

It didn’t take me a test to figure that obviousness out. My entire audio/video/television system is digitally connected via optical audio cables and HDMI, and I’ve always specifically told the sales people to more or less shove their nonsense up their asses and give me the cheapest HDMI/optical cables they had in stock. I told them the same thing when I was hooking up my parents’ brand new A/V/TV equipment - cut the crap, and give me your cheapest cables. I’m not going to discuss this with you salespeople, because you’re wrong.

The only justifiable reason to pay 130 EUR for a HDMI cable is that the cable overall is sturdier, and will last longer. However, for picture and audio quality, it doesn’t make a single goddamn difference, and if you still claim that it does, you’re thick and a thief of your own wallet (as we Dutch say).

Kind of like all that UFO nonsense. I saw one, so they must be real! No, let’s just follow Occam’s Razor, and take the simpler explanation: you’re just an idiot.

Only one month left! February 17th, 2009 - the official release date for Dead Like Me: Life After Death. Yes, that’s the Dead Like Me film.

I’m extremely excited - but scared at the same time. Even though I vowed never to become a raving lunatic fanboy of anything (except Fiona, that’s a genetic issue), I did become one when it comes to Dead Like Me. I’m afraid that they got a tiny little insignificant detail wrong, and I’ll be all like THEY PISSED ALL OVER THE LEGACY.

On a related note, coming Friday is another big day in television: Battlestar Galactica returns! The second half of the fourth and final season will start airing Friday, and I’m very excited, as I’m a huge BSG fan. If the BSG writers maintain the level of quality the show has demonstrated over its 3.5 seasons so far, and end the show satisfactory, I will place it above Dead Like Me as my favourite television show of all time.

And then the world will end.

So, the trailer (the 2nd one) to the new Star Trek film is out.

And it seems like they finally got the message. It’s Star Trek Jim, but not as we know it (please shoot me now).

The trailer shows an atmosphere that seems to do away completely with the past, and this is a very, very good thing. From what this small preview tells us, they’ve been looking closely at the best science fiction show ever: Battlestar Galactica (the new one). BSG runs circles around all Star Trek series and films combined. The new Star Trek film seems darker, less sterile - more like BSG.

I hope this can usher in a new beginning for the franchise. Forget those so-called die-hard Trek fans, they’re idiots who have no idea whatsoever about what makes good television and what doesn’t. People don’t buy the idealistic we’re-all-gonna-be-okay-and-lovey-dovey crap from the earlier series anymore - why do you think Deep Space Nine is held in such high regard by non-Trekkies? Exactly - because it made the first baby steps away from this ridiculously perfect Federation nonsense, and showed us a future more fitting with human nature, something we can more relate to: war, genocide, slavery, oppression.

Let’s hope that the new Star Trek film will be hated as much as possible by die-hard Trek fans. The more they hate it, the better it will be.

My series on good comedy is almost done. I want to revisit all the series we’ve seen so far, and make a Top 7. It’s a personal list, I don’t have to justify it.

1. ????
2. Coupling
3. That ’70s Show
4. Scrubs
5. Frasier
6. Fawlty Towers
7. Married… With Children

I’m saving number one on the list for later, but there’s a small hint under the link. Stay tuned.