THanks to the Sci Fi channel’s excellent idea of putting the first episode of Battlestar Galactica online, I’ve gotten hooked. The writing, acting, cinematography, nods to the original series, etc. are all handled beautifully.
As I was watching it, the executive producer, Ronald D. Moore’s name was sounding very familiar and I thought I recognized it from my Trekkie days. Turns out I did. He worked on TNG from season three through the end. Wrote the last episode, wrote Generations (which does have one of my all time favorite Star Trek moments) and First Contact (for my money the best Next Generation movie). Switched to DS9 (starting at the point where the Defiant showed up, the name of which was chosen as a nod to the original series), then worked on only two episodes of Voyager before leaving the sinking ship. In looking through his imdb credits, I discovered that he is also responsible for writing the Next Generation episode where Scotty shows up (which had the great bit of Scotty explaining to Geordi that you always tell the captain it will take you twice as long to do something as it actually will, that way he’ll call you a miracle worker). (And yes, I was that big a Trekkie.)
Anyway, for those upset by the coming end of Enterprise, let it go and start watching Battlestar Galactica. Your eyes and brain will thank you and you’ll see the correct way to teach an old franchise new tricks. (I say let Star Trek rest for a few years at least, kick Rick Berman out, then, when the time is right and he has the time to do it, bring Straczynski in to start a new series. In the meantime, I think I’m going to start buying the original series DVD sets.)
(Sci Fi are doing something else brilliant and podcasting mp3’s of commentary by Moore for the new episodes)