;~)

He's a great character, but I have a feeling if I met that guy in person I'd be restraining my violent impulses on a regular basis!

Just like when a therapist has sex with a patient, or a teacher with a student, there's a major power imbalance at work that may well obviate the whole concept of "consensual".

Just sayin'

As far as handing over command to Tigh, the impregnation of Six was obviously unprofessional and dangerous to the fleet, but Adama's had a lifetime of giving Tigh the benefit of the doubt, seeing him as a reliable military officer that you'd want to have your back in a time of crisis, in spite of his numerous "personal failings". And they're both old-time military officers, in a male-dominated environment, in which borderline rape of a prisoner would be seen as highly regrettable, but forgivable in a "boys will be boys" kind of way. The testosterone fest was emphasized particularly by the way they reconciled through a brutal fistfight, a classic macho way to work out your differences.

The one thing that rang totally false to me in the episode was the Romo gun scene. I've always really liked the Romo character, a man whose cynicism and willingness to get his hands dirty politically clearly masked some real idealism. At the same time he's smart, sarcastic, and brutally realistic. To have him suddenly reveal that he's really a tortured mental case who's been carrying around a dead cat in a bag, who's willing to shoot someone just for potentially offering hope to the survivors of humanity seemed totally out of character to me.

Thanks for the Major Kira ID! I knew she looked familiar... the chemo did a number on her, obviously not quite as hot as she was on DS9, when I had a major crush on her...

The good thing about 2, though, was that it lowered my expectations enough that I was able to enjoy 3 as just an enjoyable action flick with a little new age frippery thrown in at the end.

Thank you idoru345. I realize we've all been conditioned to think "nothing's happening" if there isn't something blowing up, or if every conversation isn't clearly tied to an obvious storyline.

But personally, I'm loving this season. Spending a lot of time on psychological development early on is sure to have a major payoff in later plot developments.

In addition, I think the transformation of Baltar into someone who understands how horrifically he's behaved in the past and can now actually have the courage to stand alone in front of a very dangerous man who has every reason to hate him and ask honestly for forgiveness is totally engrossing.

But that's just me...

Oh, and it could have been a LOT worse, and I still would have come back every ep for another glimpse of Servalan!

Yummm...

I say if there has to be a live action version, bring on Ridley Scott, who obviously wants to make money with his movies, but also clearly wants to make art. "Blade Runner" was a box office disaster when it was released (although it eventually in re-release and video sales did become profitable), but it was one of the great science fiction films of all time, and operates on an intellectual level that Spielberg can only dream of while easily matching him for production value, sfx, etc.

As one doctor to another, you got that right, bro! I'm a big fan of the (first ep) of The Matrix, too, but the blurry line between eXistenZ and real life was handled with so much more depth and visceral power in Cronenberg's movie. I loved it!

But it started with a lot of promise, and had great characters and decent acting.... not something you can say for a lot of network scifi shows.

Pachelbel would be proud.

Hahahahaha! Someone has really been chugging the kool-aid! Of course they would never listen in on a phone call unless they had positive proof that Al Qaeda was at the other end! There's no way that could ever happen!

The really cool thing is that they could do it legally, just by requesting the warrant after the wiretap, but they just don't want to bother with that. Why should they, when the only people who are bothered by illegal government actions are "Left wing wacktards"??

I've never seen a study that said "talking" on a cell phone while driving is more dangerous than talking to the person next to you in the car. It's the dialing, the texting, the looking to see your caller id that's dangerous. This study had nothing to do with that part of it.

Not to mention being able to say, "hey sweetheart, wanna come over and see my nukular reactor?"

Sign me up!

Still drinking the Koolaid, aren't we? The whole point is that the NSA doesn't have to wait for the paperwork... they can apply to the court for retroactive warrants up to 30 days after the wiretap... and the FISA court almost never denies the warrant. They can wiretap the hell out of us legally, any time they want. They just refuse to do it the right way.

Yeah, that's the kind of government I want; why follow the law when it's so easy to break... even if it's just as easy to follow it?

Actually, you don't get it. There are laws in place that would have allowed the government to get warrants from the secret FISA court even retroactively so that the telcos would have been protected from lawsuits because they would have been acting legally. They just preferred not to bother with the paperwork.

The government doesn't get to tell people to do illegal things and then prevent the courts from prosecuting them for it.

So they already have the legal right to spy on us, but they'd just as soon do it illegally, and now they want us to thank them for it!

Please, sir, may I have another?

And just to open a new rent in the multiverse, I'm a little disappointed that no one has mentioned a couple of my favorites (which imnsho trump any number of live action flicks on the list):

Akira
Ghost in the Shell

Now agree with me and let me get back to work, dammit!

Well worth a rental!

From this list, Blade Runner, 2001, and The Matrix fit that criterium in spades. Maybe Children of Men... but although there are a few good movies in the rest of the list, none of the others would ever figure in my greatest scifi of all time list...

I had completely forgotten that! Thanks for the reminder!

The V3m has an incredibly kludgy OS, way slower than Palm OS, with buttons that inexplicably change function in different applications (but are not customizable for favorite functions of your own), and require you to trudge through layers of menus to do things as simple as reply to a text message!

And even though you can customize your ringtones, it's still a much more awkward process than doing the same thing on the Treo.

Give me a nice small phone with a quick OS, which starts off bare bones and lets you add the apps you want and customize the interface to the way you want to use it, and I'll be first in line with my wallet!

And as much as I hate not being able to sing "I'm Not Like Everybody Else", I'm forced to admit that I'm part of what seems to be the majority in believing that the one true Doctor was and will always be Tom Baker!

If there are steroids that make scifi/action movie cliches come faster and harder than you can believe, there needs to be a Congressional investigation of ol' Roland!

If IO had even a fraction of the quantity of content that's available through Apple TV (and that's pretty limited itself!), it would be serious competition. As it is? No.

I realize it's totally politically incorrect to say so, but I'm not one of those who believes that art appreciation is totally subjective. I think that there is art which apart from an individual's ability to appreciate it does reach a higher plane, and an inability to appreciate that level is often just a reflection of a lack of understanding (and I put myself in the category of those who could use a little more ability to understand some of the more complex forms of art/music).

If that was what he said, I'd have no argument with him at all. But he didn't. He flat out said 2010 was "a better movie". And I think that what really got under my skin was that twice in his post he stated that the reason it was a better movie was because "it had a plot that was simpler to digest".

In other words, it didn't make him think too hard, and movies that make you think are ergo not as "good".

Which, of course, brings up Idiocracy again... ;~)

Except that I'm not one of those who found 2010 to be a "fantastic movie"; I wouldn't put it in the same league with any of the Aliens movies, for instance (well, okay, way better than 3), and if you're going all the way to "fantastic" for a pretty good, entertaining movie, where do you go when something much better comes along?

All in the eye of the beholder, I guess, movie to movie... but you're right, "film" to movie is a different comparison.

But pretentious or not, the depth and majesty of the filmmaking in 2001 makes it art, not just entertainment, and to judge art by its entertainment value misses the point entirely. And unless I misunderstood the post, the claim was that 2010 is a better movie because it's more "entertaining".

And that's the kind of judgement that would make sense in Idiocracy (another of my favorite scifi movies).

Unless of course you mean it's a better movie for dimwits, whose heads hurt when confronted by anything more complex than the Readers Digest version.

Idiocracy does not take place in the future...

Delenn: "Abso-fragging-lutely, dammit."

But on the subject of UK scifi, how about a new version of "UFO"?!?

Absolutely brilliant!

And in the meantime, my PS3 will be quite satisfactory, thank you.