The new Battlestar Galactica is made from pure, undiluted awesomeness that has been distilled into a concentrate and then dried, ground, fermented with herbs and spices, and finally reconstituted with fresh awesomeness. It’s an amped up, uber-awesomeness that shows how hollow and empty everything previously thought to be awesome really was.

The last few episodes of the “mini season” had been merely so-so, however, and I was starting to worry that they’d run out of steam. I loved the resistance on New Caprica episodes, but the “final five” bit got really strange (and not in a good way), and I was starting to worry that they were going Twin Peaks on me.

Last night’s episode proves that they haven’t lost any of what made the show great. It was six months worth of plot and excitement, packed into forty minutes of TV.

What makes the show so appealing is that it focuses on the humanity of the story. The science fiction stuff is just window dressing, and often provides only the barest of pretense for the stories. It’s a show about love and honor, about people making catastrophic mistakes and living with the consequences, and about how sometimes there are truly hard decisions with only bad choices available — intelligently written and well acted.

It’s got all of that AND killer robots, beautiful women, space battles, betrayals, and ray guns!

Best. Show. EVAR.

Scuba diving and tormenting his cat.

Meet the Scuba Kitty.

Yeah, ok, this is another one that I sent to the mailing list a few years back. Still makes me laugh, though, so I thought you might enjoy seeing it again.

The Rockwell Retro-Encabulator

So we watched Idiocracy, the latest movie from Mike Judge. It had one of those Brazil-style production horror stories, complete with public studio fights, reshoots, and a stealth release. I figured that it would either be a misunderstood masterpiece or a flaming train wreck. Either way, given what Judge has done in the past, I expected it to be something to see.

So we saw it, and I can’t really say what all the fuss was about. It was funny, but not hilarious. It was mean, but not really all that mean. It was coarse and crude… but no worse than a lot of what’s on TV.

I’ve seen movies that were much, much worse so I don’t know why Fox buried the release.

Maybe it was a masterpiece that the studio succeeded in lobotomizing. Maybe it was a train wreck that they fixed up enough that we didn’t notice. The voice-over is a dead giveaway that they changed a lot. There wasn’t a commentary track, so I don’t have any details. I’d love to see something like The Devil’s Candy or The Battle of Brazil (both of which are fascinating, btw) to find out what happened.

So stick it in your Netflix queue for an evening when you want some light satire. Keep your expectations in check and you’ll have a good time.

If you do see it, leave a comment and let me know what you think. Did I miss something?

It’s been a beautiful, spring January. January showers bring February flowers, and all that.
The goat tree is in full bloom. It’s early for goats. I don’t know what the heck I’m going to do with them all. They’re like zucchini.

Maybe a banana-nut-goat bread?