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January 9, 2006 | Family & Life
According to my writing plan, Fridays are not days to write, edit, or do anything with writing. I play singles tennis on Fridays, and Friday evenings are now set aside for the SciFi network. I grew up on Star Trek (and all programs from it), and Star Wars. The Scifi Network a year ago, decided to redo the 1970’s Battlestar Galactica. Now I’ll admit I did watch the program, and it was kinda lame. So, when the powers to be said they were revamping the program, I had no idea what they had in mind. Well, I’m hooked and if any of you tune in on Friday nights, you’ll find yourselves hooked as well. The writing is dynamic, the characters are three dimensional, and the tension is incredible. The story premise is the same, Cylons decide to overthrow and kill all the humans. The Cylons were created by humans. Some Cylons are bright, shiny machines with the one red eye that roves back and forth. But now, Cylons were also created to look like humans. There are many copies of one model. You kill one, it’s memory is downloaded into another model of itself. Some know they are Cylons, some don’t have a clue, until they’re informed of what their mission is. Some don’t want to be Cylons, they prefer to be human. The Cylons have a plan. Of course, it’s to wipe out humans, but they’re up to something else. This season, we’ve got one Cylon,Sharon, who is pregnant by a hottie fly pilot named Helo. He’s in love with her, even though he found out late what she was. Michelle Forbes, a favorite actress of mine, who was on Star Trek Next Generation, has a real gutsy crazy role. She’s Admiral Caine and she will stop at nothing to get her way, including assassinating Commander Adama, played by craggy face Edward James Olmos. Old Battlestar Galactica fans were outraged when Starbuck, a male womanizer in the first series, is now a female fighter pilot with emotional issues, but a woman I’d want backing me in any fight. The original Apollo, was played by Richard Hatch, and I understand he had some issues with this new program. However, he’s been given a role, I dare say allows him to stretch his acting and he’s very good.
I blog about this program, because it has a lot of writing techniques we can all learn. Pacing, character building and growth, dialogue, humor, and my old time favorite, the villain who even though you know is a villain, changes not for the better, but simply evolves and changes because he know he has too. Babylon 5 was like that. It had a five year arc and SciFi allowed it to finish its story telling. Sleeping In The Light, the final B5 episode, still makes me cry and has a turn that I should have caught in the beginning but didn’t. B5 taught me how characters change over a period of time and why. Take a look at Battlestar and let me know what you think. It’s not that easy to catch up on, some subplots you have to know about, but I’ll gladly fill you in, or you can go to Scifi.com and get episode updates.
Also, check out Sloane Taylor’s blog today on writing. It’s an awesome blog and has a lot of valuable information she’s learned to make her writing goals. She got a contract from Triskelion in December and has been editing her butt off to make her deadline! She’s blogging this week on her writing plan and notes should be taken.
Yep, I missed most of Season 1, but I just caught up on Season 2, and watched the first ep of Season 3 this past Friday. The new, improved Battlestar Galactica is, indeed, new and improved. 🙂
Hey, Yasmine, I’m a sci-fi fan, too. Never watched Battlestar Galactica, but I may have to rethink my position now. Thanks for the recommendation.