When Star Wars was released in 1977, it burst the doors wide open for science fiction movies and television. Those of us who were already interested in science fiction as a genre were inundated with a plethora of new choices to watch and I, for one, was elated! I spent more time in my local movie theatre than I can possibly account for and enjoyed every minute of it! In the years following the original release, I was able to ride my bicycle to my local mall, where the theatre was, and go to see all of the new releases time and again. The theatre only had 3 movie screens in it as this was before todays new massive multi-plex theatres that are currently popular. Anyway, my theatre (which incidentally doesn't exist anymore, but of which I still carry fond memories) consisted of the #1 main large blue theatre room, the #2 smaller red theatre room and the #3 smallest yellow theatre room (Keep this room in mind; I will come back to it later... ). Obviously, most movies (especially the BIG movies) started in the #1 "blue" room. The really BIG movies stayed in that room for awhile. The Star Wars movies were no exception!! I particularly remember when TESB came out and when I went to see it for the first time in that theatre...I was the second in line and met a girl who became my best friend for several years. Anyway, I digress...

One of the TV shows to come of the aftermath of sci-fi popularity of the time was the original Battlestar Galactica series. It premiered on television in September of 1978. It was so exciting to see a sci-fi show of that scope on TV!! It was so well done! The effects were amazing, the characters were awesome (Dirk Benedict [Starbuck] was so cute!!! ), the storyline was gripping and it had action and adventure, plus humor! It had everything it needed to succeed as a major TV show...and it did succeed!!!

Sci-fi fans were in heaven!!! Female fans had our choice of hotties between Colonial Pilots, Dirk Benedict or Richard Hatch (Apollo) and male fans had their choice of Mauren Jensen (Athena) or Laurette Spang (Cassiopeia).

Then, there were the ships... The Battlestar Galactica itself was pretty awe inspiring and I LOVED the Vipers!! The Vipers were one of the coolest designs ever for starfighters (next to X-wings, of course )!! They were sleek and shiny and nothing could compare to the way they took off out of the Galactica's bays!!! THAT was the really neat part! When you watched Starbuck take the stick and then push the buttons and next thing you knew it was take-off time and the g-forces thrust him back against the back of his seat as he took off out of the ship, it was so exciting!!!

Ok, remember when I told you to keep in mind the "yellow" #3 theatre room of my old movie theatre complex from when I was a kid? Well, here's why... That one theatres' seats would rock back when you sat down in them. So, my friends and I would love it when our movies would play in that room, because we would go in there and sit down and play like we were Colonial Pilots on Galactica, take the "stick" in our hands, "push some buttons" and then push back in those seats like we were taking off from the Galactica's bays out in our "Vipers"!! It was great!! We were so silly and we had so much fun! Yes, we were geeks to the max!

Ok, back on track...

Well, sadly the original Galactica had to come to an end, but eventually the powers that be tried again and in 1980, they came up a "spin-off" of sorts and rolled out, Galactica 1980. It was pretty good. I watched it religiously, just like I did the original series, but it didn't have the same magic that the original series did and it showed. It's longevity was not there at all.

So, we did without Galactica for a long time.

In 2003, however, the original series was released on DVD! Woo-hoo!! I was excited! I was anticipating getting it, but hadn't had the opportunity, when much to my surprise, as I was listening to my local 80's radio station, they were giving away the boxed set to the 10th caller to the station! I called in and (can you believe it?) ~ I WAS THE 10TH CALLER!!! I won the boxed set! I was in heaven!! I drove everyone nuts watching Battlestar!!

Ok, so then comes the NEW BSG in Dec of 2003. I was giddy with excitement! At last, Battlestar Galactica was really back! And with today's technological advancements, it should be spectacular!!! I couldn't wait! Trouble was, I was going into the viewing of it with all of these preconceived notions of what it was going to be like and all my memories of the original series that I loved so much! Bad juju man; bad juju!

So I began watching the mini series... and didn't like it... at all. I was so disappointed. I didn't even watch the whole thing. *sigh*

However, several of my friends here, such as jkthunder and rex0, really loved it and after listening to them over time (and I mean lots of time, seeing as it's now been three and a half SEASONS since the show has started!!), I decided to give it a second chance. I mean, these are the same kind of friends who said to try Firefly and I LOVE that show!!

This time, though, I went at it from a different angle. I opened my mind. I thought of it as a completely different series, no preconceived notions; nothing. I started over! It had been long enough that I didn't even remember any of what I had watched previously, save for one scene, so I was ok there.

Anyway, I rented the first two disks which contained the mini-series (pilot) and the first four episodes. With no trepidation, I inserted the first disk and began watching. I was hooked from the beginning (obviously, going into it with the proper mind-set helped )! I burned through those two disks in one evening and day and went and rented the next disk available at my rental store (disk 4 was already rented by someone else) and had it watched by the following evening.

To make what is already a long story as short as possible, I watched all of the first 2 and a half seasons (all that has been released on disk so far) in a week and a half and then watched the webisodes on the internet and read the synopsies for the rest of the episodes to catch up. Sunday night, Sci-fi channel thankfully showed the last two episodes released, so I had the opportunity to watch those and now next Sunday will be the next new episode. So, I'm as caught up as I can be at this point! *heavy sigh*

Come and join me if you haven't caught the BSG bug! It's an awesome show filled with excellent characters, great actors (hotties of both genders ), upgraded cylons to make you shiver and more action, drama and emotion than you could hope for!!!! Oh! They also do this cliffhanger thing that just makes you wanna screeeeeeeeeam (but in a good way...)! Deserves a big old SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!