I FINALLY got to see the series finale for Battlestar Galactica. Now before I tell you how hard it’s been to see it, a little lead up, some of which you know. I read about the first Battlestar Galactica series way before it was ever on the air. I found a great article about John Dykstra and how he was taking the effects skills he learned in Star Wars and was making a TV series with those abilities. I was looking forward to the show well before it aired. Okay, it was the late 1970s, it was cheesy, it was over done, many of the effects shots were re-used over and over, but for me, at that time — well, it was just fantastic. There was a weekly show on the TV with space ships, people that lived on them, effects that made it look real, and stories that took me beyond the here and now. Every week we heard the same tag line at the end, “And so, the last Battlestar, Galactica, leads a rag tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest for a shining planet called Earth.” After an attack by the Cylons (robots made by man that rebelled), most of the 12 colonies are destroyed, so they find the fabled planet they all came from and find keys to help them find Earth. It ran for one season only and they never found Earth. Well, okay, they did in the really, really, really bad sequel, Galactica 1980, but that was basically an attempt to keep things going and most of us consider it “non-canon” as far as what happened.
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Archive for the ‘Literature and Arts’ Category
When TV Becomes Art
Sunday, March 29th, 2009Stepping Out or Stepping Up?
Monday, August 11th, 2008
I don’t know whether I was just stepping out or stepping up. I participated in my first dance competition a day or so ago. I went down to Raleigh for a small comp to do seven dances. Apparently that’s a bit unusual — doing that many dances in one’s first comp. At least that’s what some people have told me since then. I guess maybe if someone had told me that earlier, I might stuck with only two or three dances, but we had been practicing eight in comp class and if I had not gone senile with one issue with the basic steps in East Coast swing, I probably would have entered in that as well.
I still don’t know if doing seven dances for your first comp is hard or not. All I know is I did it. I figured I knew the dances so I might as well do them. It wasn’t costing me anything to try them.
Right Here in River City
Friday, September 14th, 2007One thing I like about Richmond is that it’s on the James River and does, sometimes, get called “River City.” Of course, River City is much more famous when applied as a name to a small town in Iowa where Professor Harold Hill ran his last scam as he tried to tell them that “that game with the fifteen numbered balls is the devil’s tool” and that they needed a boys band because “you gotta find a way to keep the young ones moral after school.” Of course I’m talking about one my favorite musicals, “The Music Man.” I love the movie with Robert Preston and Cary Grant and every time anyone does it as a play in the area, I make sure I go see it. I was recently emailing back and forth with a friend about the movie and how it looks like just a “fluff” piece, a musical that’s fun but has no depth, but I think there is much more to it than that.