I have been living a bit of a lie, and I am ready to admit to it. As much as a sci-fi nerd I cop to being, I always had to just smile and nod along whenever the subject of Doctor Who and Torchwood came up.  Nervous that my cover would be blown, I employed the usual tactics: smiling; ‘uh-huh-ing’; laughing when every one else did. Well no more, my friends. No more. How about a nice big HOORAY! for Netflix.

Yes, as usual, I am late to the party. People have been raving about Netflix for ages now. My old roommate used to have it and we watched all kinds of stuff because of their wonderful DVDs being delivered right into our hot little hands. But now. Now! I have Netflix with the streaming, instant play option, and I am so very, very happy.

Once I finish up with Doctor Who (I am speeding through season three as we speak), I will make my way over to Babylon 5. That is if I get the idea of a BSG rewatch outta my head.

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[Cue the drumbeat. Roll the surfing video. Bring on the horn section!]

The brassiest TV theme song ever returned to CBS Monday night as the network premiered its update of Hawaii Five-O.

The original series ran from 1968-1980, which surprises me; I thought it ended much earlier. About all I remember – besides the boffo theme music – is Jack Lord’s hair, boxy cars and the signature tag line: “Book ‘em Danno.” I bet I’m not alone in that – and that CBS is banking on it. I’ll order some DVDs of the original from Netflix in the coming weeks, but for now that theme song leads to a blank canvas for me and, undoubtedly, many other viewers.

The pilot episode began, like a James Bond movie, with an action sequence that offered some plot background for what was to come. It was one of four gunfights in the roughly 44-minute pilot. The action was so fast and loud that I found them hard to follow the first time through. It wasn’t until I watched again on DVR that I was able to recognize exactly what happened and absorb the relevant plot points.

I understand that the writers had to pack a lot of exposition into the premiere episode, so for now I’ll let them slide on some of the logistical leaps of faith – an impromptu swearing-in by phone; Honolulu Police personnel instantly reassigned without any paperwork or institutional resistance; a city detective coming up with the latest high-tech gadgetry requested by his ex-Navy Seal boss.

It’s a lot easier to go with the flow when one is following a likable cast spouting snappy dialogue. The new Hawaii Five-O is off to a good start with that.

The lead role made famous by Lord, that of Steve McGarrett, is assumed by Alex O’Loughlin. It’s his third lead role in a CBS drama in four years, so he’s got to hope Five-O has more staying power than Moonlight (which I actually liked) and Three Rivers (which I never watched). Through the first third of the pilot, McGarrett carried icy, brooding anger that could’ve gotten old very quickly. Fortunately, the character started to warm up as he assembled and interacted with his three-person supporting cast.

Daniel Dae Kim didn’t even have to leave Hawaii following the last Lost. He just exchanged one beach for another to become Chin Ho Kelly, an ex-Honolulu cop mentored by McGarrett’s late father.

Grace Park, who played Boomer/Athena on Syfy’s updated Battlestar Galactica, again takes on a role originally written for a man. “My next goal is to do J.R. from Dallas,” she joked to Entertainment Weekly. “Then maybe Larry from Three’s Company.” She plays Kelly’s young cousin Kono, now a former professional surfer about to complete the police academy. Her role in the pilot was mostly to be eye candy, rocking a bikini in one scene and stripping down to her underwear in another. But she’s a fine actress, so I hope upcoming episodes give her more substantial plot lines.

As a number of TV critics have noted, the new series’ breakout performer, at least in the pilot, is Scott Caan as McGarrett’s sidekick Danno. The son of actor James Caan, his best-known role probably has been as a supporting player in Ocean’s 11 and its sequels. Playing an East Coast cop recently relocated to Honolulu – and not too happy about it – his chemistry with O’Loughlin will be key to the show’s staying power.

The pilot foreshadowed a possible romance between Danno and Kono. It will be interesting to see if the writers go there, and if so how.

Visually, the new show follows the lead of its predecessor in offering sweeping shots of Hawaii’s landmark vistas. It will be a weekly commercial for the 50th state, so it’s no surprise that product placement was prominent. A colorful Hawaiian Airlines jet was part of the opening montage, and the company ran a commercial late in the show. (I’m writing from Phoenix, and it might have been a local Phoenix ad buy since Hawaiian only serves about 10 cities on the mainland.) Late in the pilot, McGarrett offers Danno a weekend stay at the Kahala Hotel, noting specifically that guests there can swim with the dolphins.

Oddly enough, I wasn’t annoyed by these product placements. As I said earlier about credibility gaps, viewers will overlook a lot of “coincidences” if they become invested in the characters and enjoy watching them develop week to week.

During upcoming episodes, it will be interesting to see if the minds behind the new Hawaii Five-O can build on that dynamic.

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Stu Robinson, a college friend of the TV Tyrant, is a writer, editor, media-relations specialist and social-media guy based in Phoenix. He works for the city of Peoria, Ariz., and his own freelance practice, Lightbulb Communications.

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You probably noticed the site looks a little different today. I just upgraded to WordPress 3.0 and upgraded my theme and decided I wanted to get away from the old snow in the background I used to have, as it was rather harsh on the eyes anyway. I haven’t decided what background to go with yet, but it made no sense to reinstall that old background.

I’m not fond of this neon orange, so don’t worry – it’s not here to stay.

I’ve been rather lax in updating the blog in the past month, as you’ve likely noticed.

The end of two of my all-time favorite shows – Lost and 24 – left me unsure about what I wanted to blog on next. June is a pretty crappy month for TV anymore and though I love Burn Notice and In Plain Sight, I just don’t have a lot to talk about. I’d gotten so used to the analysis of Lost and Battlestar and the mocking of or cheering on for 24 that I don’t really want to go back to the recap route.

Fortunately, Warehouse 13 and Eureka start up soon, and I think both will provide plenty of fodder for good TVT posts.

Erika is hiding in a corner, crying out of sheer joy that there will be more Jensen Ackles next season. Seriously, though, I didn’t think they could get another decent season out of Supernatural after the apocalypse this season, but that final scene last month convinced me otherwise.

I’m also watching some stuff via Netflix, so I might start blogging about that. And I still have Season 2 of Torchwood to plow through. But I don’t want TVT to become an archival TV blog. Or, wait – that might be kinda cool.

Anyway, as you can see, I’m trying to figure out the direction to go in. I love TV (well, certain TV shows anyhow) and I do enjoy writing about it. I appreciate all the discussions and comments and everything we’ve had here, and they will continue, I promise.

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The most interesting thing, to me, about Reins of a Waterfall, is that we started, finally, to see the Joseph Adama who was hinted at in Battlestar Galactica.

Up to this point, the Joseph Adams/Adama we’ve seen in Caprica is a family man. Sure, he’s related to a major crime family, but he’s the legit one. Sure, he works long hours, but he loves his family and is trying to do right by his son.

We saw snatches of a more domestic Joseph before the bombing, talking with his daughter and wife on the cell. We see it in his attempts to bond with Willie. We see it in his tears for his daughter, whom he now believes to be gone forever.

But the Joseph Adama we heard about on Battlestar was different. He was badass enough to have produced Bill Adama, who joined the military – about as big a rebellion as he could find, it appeared.

The Joseph Adama we heard about seemed mythical, almost. Larger than life.

And in the final moments of “Waterfall,” we saw that man begin to emerge.

His admonition to his brother to “balance things out,” was downright chilling.

For the Graystones, the hurt is only just beginning.

For the viewer, things are really starting to get good.

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The fascinating thing about a prequel is that it can answer so many questions.

In the case of Caprica, there were many questions never answered by Battlestar Galactica, and it appears we are getting those explanations. Starting to, at least.

For one, why did the Cylons believe in one god rather than many?

Well, Zoe Graystone, who is both Adam and Eve for the Cylons, was a member of the Soldiers of the One, a monotheistic group who believed terror was the means to an end. And she was more than just an enthusiastic foot soldier, I believe.

The attachment her teacher had to her was extreme. And with the first “true” episode’s revelation that the teacher is in a plural marriage, her looking forward to a “new family” on Gemenon would seem to indicate that perhaps that was her future. Did she know it? That remains to be seen. (And if the second episode answers that, shut up. It isn’t available until four days after broadcast on Hulu.)

Interesting point there: the Zoe-bot is a trinity. She is Zoe, she is Zoe’s avatar and she is the robot. Three sides of one, just like the Holy Trinity. To me, it’s a fascinating point, because I never understood the idea of the Holy Trinity. One scene in Caprica and I’m all, “Oh, THAT’S what that’s about.”

Obviously, the entire religion will coalesce around this Zoe-bot and as the robots are treated worse and the Soldiers of the One are driven further underground, she will become somewhat of a Jesus figure, no?

Another question: Why, really, did Cylons rebel?

That question was never really too hard to suss out, it’s your basic slave rebellion scenario. But, still, it’s interesting to see its roots rather than the aftermath.

And to see difference in how people react to the initial soldier robot. The one guy who’s all into Zoe and calls her a she and is trying to teach her, rather than order her around. Then there’s the other one, who just sees Zoe as a big hunk o’ metal that should just shut up and do what it’s told.

Amazing, of course, how little is learned from the Cylon rebellion in human society, with Capricans still maintaining their elite status within the Colonies by the time BSG rolls around in the timeline.

What I like most about Caprica so far is how although it’s connected to BSG through the character of William Adams — and I love to see glimpses of how his nature was formed through the Yin and Yang of his father and uncle (did you realize that was his uncle?) — it does stand on its own.

All the other characters are new. Even Joseph Adama is new, as he was past tense in BSG. In addition, the Joseph Adama we knew of obviously grew out of this tragedy and does not exist at this point. He has not yet become the man who begat, albeit intellectually, Romo Lampkin.

If Caprica continues along this path, it will be a rarity among prequels: Something equal to, if not surpassing, the original (used loosely, as the BSG we’ve come to love is a sequel to the BSG we knew and loved, cheese and all, in the 1970s).

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I reviewed it already, and you can read that here.

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Following in the hallowed footsteps of Battlestar Galactica, Lost‘s new promo photos are Last Supper-ish.

Coming Soon posted these two pics:

and

Definitely click through, you can enlarge them quite a bit.

My initial thoughts, after the jump:

Second photo (studied it first because it was more last supper-y than the first):
• Note the skulls on the ground
• Jin and Sun are not next to one another
• The new chick from last season is next to Richard Alpert, along with Claire. In fact, their little group is somewhat set back from the rest of the group.
• Locke, of course, is front and center, with that smirk. Jack and Sawyer, however, are RIGHT behind him. And Kate and Jin right there, too. They seem to be the focal point.
• Ben? Back row, glaring at Locke. He actually knows the truth, but no one’s gonna believe him.
• Note the jar of peanut butter at Locke’s left hand (to his right, as you look at him). Peanut butter has always meant something on the show, for some reason. Remember back in the first episode when Charlie chats up Claire? In fact, there’s another jar of peanut butter immediately to Kate’s right (left as you look).
• Lots of orchids on the table and I assume that relates to the Orchid Station. Is that the bombed-out station behind them?
• Everyone seems to be looking at Locke except Alpert and Frank, who seem to be looking at one another

I did photo number 2 first, no specific reason, but it was more of a clue picture, it seemed, and less of a cast shot. The differences from , however, seem interesting:
• Jin and Sun are together
• Claire is with her old Lostie friends, bumping Hurley over a spot to be in front of Frank, where Miles had been. Miles is in Claire’s old spot. And Ben and Sun switched places.

Let the games begin!!

And, if you’ve forgotten, this is the BSG poster:

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Before I share my thoughts about the telemovie, I have to say this: If you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to be spoiled, click away NOW. Consider yourself warned.

So the idea behind “The Plan,” ostensibly, was to tell the untold story of the Cylons. The plan they had when they attacked the Colonies in the miniseries.

Problem is, The Plan itself boiled down to, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the humans.” (With apologies to Shakespeare.)

We knew that already. What this telemovie did – and did quite well – was to explain what happened with many little plot points, such as:
• Who did Caprica Six turn and speak to, turning over a metal case, when Baltar left her on that fateful day on Caprica in the miniseries (Cavil).
• How did Boomer’s programming work? How was she “activated”? (A statue of an elephant. Yes, really. An elephant. Why? Beats the hell outta me.)
• What really happened with the water supply being blown out. What really happened with Boomer shooting Adama (she obviously overcame her programming out of love for Adama, or else she would have just shot him in the head, killing him instantly).
• What really happened with that copy of Caprica Six (meaning, her hair was as platinum blonde as CS) with the glasses in Season 1 who accused Baltar of almost exactly what he had done down on the planet, but with poorly photoshopped images (one of her doppelgangers, a prostitute, walked a lot faster than she did and managed to elude the Marines after her, then took off her wig and the actual Six was ordered to airlock herself by Cavil).
• What was Simon’s deal? (One of his copies was married to a human and airlocked himself out of resurrection range in order to not blow up his ship, and his family. Another version was with Anders on the planet.

Other things I liked about the movie were that it showed how at least one of most models, even Cavil, ended up caring deeply for the humans. Leoben couldn’t get Starbuck and her special destiny out of his head. Boomer didn’t kill Adama when she had the chance because she truly loved him as a father (plus, she and Caprica Six were truly devastated when the humans they were leading to safety were slaughtered by Centurions). Simon killed himself rather than his wife and stepdaughter. Even the Brother Cavil with Anders grew to care about the motley crew of survivors he led. We still got very little sense of Doral and unfortunately we saw none of D’Anna.

And I liked that Simon was such a large part of the telemovie, because we hardly saw any of him for the entire run of the series and he always seemed so interesting to me.

I also liked the little moments where there was contact between the Final Five and the Significant Seven, which ranged from extremely significant (Cavil with Ellen on Picon in the strip joint) to minor (when the Five came to the airlocking of the two Cavils.

The things we didn’t find out, that I very much would have liked to have seen, were still vast:
• How, exactly, did Caprica Six’s body manage to shield Baltar from the nuclear explosion when she herself was destroyed?
• Who were each of the Significant Seven modeled after? We know Cavil was a copy of Ellen Tigh’s dad. What about all the others? I’m sure they all were based on someone from the Final Five’s lives.
• What about Daniel, the boxed No. 7 that was but a footnote in the original series, yet drove all the fans bat-guano crazy?
• Why did Leoben FREAK OUT when he saw Kara was dead on Earth? I mean, c’mon, the man FLIPPED THE HELL OUT. He couldn’t have run away any faster if Cylon-eating Dobermans had been on his tail.
• More about the Centurions. They came first, they had self-awareness first, they created the Significant Seven with the Final Five’s help. And how, exactly, did Cavil manage to erase the memories of the Final Five AND the memories of all the other models? It seems that would be connected to his control over the Centurions and Raiders.
• The backstories of the Final Five, how they were planted on the Colonies. They couldn’t age (or could they?), so how did their hanging around for 40 years work out?

I knew the whole issue of how the Final Five ended up leaving Earth and coming to the Colonies wouldn’t be addressed here, but that’s a miniseries/telemovie I’d LOVE to see.

In all, I felt the movie was a wonderful character study, especially of Cavil. When he knifed that boy after giving him a piece of apple, it became obvious we had never misjudged his character. The Cavil on the Galactica was obviously the Cavil who ended up in charge of things back at the Colony. He was irredeemable and it didn’t much matter what happened, he hated the humans and being modeled after them. That’s a story, I admit, that I’d like to see, as well.

Perhaps some of these issues will be addressed by Caprica (not the whole Earth/Kobol connection, though). Either way, that series looks to be very promising. I just have to watch it one more time before I write up my thoughts on that.

I’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts on The Plan, so please let me know what was good, bad or indifferent about it.

Oh, and here’s a couple of cool BSG-related posts:
• From i09: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About BSG Season 4
• From the Hairballs blog on HoustonPress.com: Why Battlestar Galactica Kicks Star Wars‘ Ass

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I went back and forth on whether I’d live-blog the Emmys tonight, mainly because, after all, this is a TV blog.

But then I thought about it.

Where’s Battlestar Galactica? Kings? Did Jericho ever get any love?

Sure, critical darlings 30 Rock and The Office, though relatively low-rated (compared with the CSI juggernaut, anyway) get lots of Emmy love – as they well should. But most of the best shows on television rarely get any attention from the academy, unless they’re on HBO. And even there, The Wire never got recognition and it was, bar none, the best show on television during its run.

And if nothing else, this blog is about quality television (OK, and sometimes Charles in Charge, but I was young, sue me). And the Emmy broadcast itself is not quality television. How does the Oscar ceremony win a freakin’ Emmy every year? (Though I have to admit, choosing Intervention for Best Reality Series is a teensy bit redemptive.)

So tonight, I’ll be watching the Curb Your Enthusiasm season premiere and the series premiere of Bored to Death. We’ll probably catch up with the season premiere of Fringe, which I was waiting for my husband’s return to watch.

The Emmys? I’ll probably glance on Twitter every now and again. Or maybe I’ll just wait ’til morning.

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A friend of mine finally finished watching Battlestar Galactica, thanks to his Netflix membership and wrote me to tell me how much he and his wife loved the ending – and asking me a couple of questions about the finale.

I think about the finale often, I’ll admit, and I haven’t erased it off my DVR yet, though I haven’t watched it more than twice. I’ve gone back and forth from loving it to being disappointed in the last few minutes of it.

But as I wrote back to my friend, whom I’ll call S., I realized it really was the perfect ending. It is what the show was about all along. Fate. Destiny. Faith. Whatever the personal belief of the viewers, this is what the show was about.

The belief in the one true god was a dividing line between human and cylon from the miniseries itself. Not the only thing that separated them, but it wouldn’t be the first time religion exacerbated a rift between two cultures.

As I wrote, I realized I was putting an awful lot of thought into my answers, so  I thought I’d share his questions and my answers here, too. I’d love to hear what others think.

• First, S. wondered why Cavil killed himself. His wife thought it was because he believed he’d be resurrected on the base ship, but he disagreed. “I thought there was no further opportunity for resurrection. That’s why he agreed to let Hera go, after he was promised that the Cylons would re-create resurrection.”

He’s right, in fact. There was no further opportunity for resurrection, at least not until the Cylons figured it out again, and that seemed highly unlikely.

Cavil killed himself, I believe, because he saw that his time was at an end. I think he killed himself almost BECAUSE there was no resurrection, rather than it spite of there being no resurrection.

Why? Because no matter what he said about the Final Five, he wanted to be one of them. They were his creators. When he saw the whole group of them together and then Tori was gone and there no longer was any hope for his resurrection, what did he have to live for anymore?

He certainly did not want to reproduce the “human” way, nor did he want to reproduce WITH humans. His back was against a wall and he did what all bullies/cowards do: He took the easy way out and ended his life so he didn’t have to figure out where to go from there.

The other question S. had was about the very final scene. It was obvious to him how Caprica Six could be there. She was, after all, a Cylon. But how could Baltar be there? S’s wife suggested they were the “angel” versions and S. thought that made perfect sense.

I completely agreed with his wife on this one, and I think that’s been pretty well established now (hey, he just finished watching, he hasn’t read anything about it to this point so he wouldn’t be spoiled!).

I reminded him of the visions both Baltar and Caprica Six had of the “Head Baltar.”

But then I wondered: Were the “earthly” versions of them actually angels as well? Forced to take human and Cylon form in order to push their races on the path they needed to go.

It kind of makes sense. After all, how in the world did Baltar survive the nuclear blast in the miniseries? It never really made any sense. How could Caprica Six truly have shielded him from that blast, which destroyed his home? She was destroyed and resurrected. And we never saw how Baltar got there.

Was Baltar truly an angel the whole time and Caprica Six an angel the whole time – not all the Sixes, just Caprica Six – in order to blend in and put humanity on a course to finally be at peace with the Cylons?

I’m starting to wonder. Of course, in some ways it doesn’t matter any more, it’s a moot point. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to know.

S’s final thought on the finale was a comment/observation, about Kara. He wasn’t so sure how he felt about her being an angel/ghost. But, he remarked, everything in the series had kind of made sense and had been explained. But Kara’s return never really did make any logical sense. Which was, of course, the point.

I realized in writing my response that it did make perfect sense for Kara to be an angel. She gave her life to her destiny. Her destiny was to find Earth and lead both races to it. And then to find the next Earth and lead both races to it to start over.

But it made me realize that one thing truly was never explained: How did her mother know she had a destiny? Did her mother have any idea what this destiny was? I’d have loved to have understood her mother more.

And her father – well, Kara being an angel/ghost makes me believe that perhaps she really was playing piano with her father on Galactica. Her father could have been an angel/ghost, and guiding her along to give her the clues she needed to fulfill her destiny. The only difference is that everyone in the fleet could see Starbuck. But they had to see her in order to trust her at all. Only Kara needed to see her dad.

That’s all I’ve got for now. However, we do have The Plan telemovie airing this fall, and an article on i09 promised we’d actually learn why Boomer stuck by Cavil, which has been a rather baffling point as well.

And, it appears that yet ANOTHER treatment of BSG, this time with Glen A. Larson’s blessing, could be coming to the big screen, according to HitFix.com, helmed by Bryan Singer.

I have to say, I’m good with that. Even though it would be a different take on it, I’ve never been able to get enough of BSG, even the cheesy Galactica: 1980.

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