Dirk Benedict’s change of opinion on the show was really sad in my eyes. He was one of the first of the original cast members to voice support for it and I remember the shot of him and Katee smoking cigars together. But I am glad that Richard Hatch got a good role on the show.

I watched the one that showed us the end of Starbuck (I stopped watching when they brought the kids in and Galactica found Earth in 1980, so I never saw what happened to Starbuck). I remember a friend telling me how great the episode was, years after the show was dead.

That’s not a word I would use to describe it. “Sucks” is one. “Really, really bad” are a few others. Wow. If you want to see all of the libspeak of TV of the eighties, watch that episode. Listen to Starbuck as he tries to teach a robot why he shouldn’t kill people. And then wonder WTF the woman with the baby is doing in the episode, and—really. Go see for yourself.

I read somewhere that Dirk Benedict hates the new show. Thinks it’s depressing and dark and has too many shades of grey, where the original series was starkly good and evil (which is true, and we even got to see Satan show up at one point).

You know what? Shades of grey are what made the latest two-part episode so incredibly phenomenal. When you know exactly what a character will do under any given circumstance, there are no surprises, and your show winds up incredibly boring. Richard Hatch’s Apollo was completely predictable. Richard Hatch’s Zarek? Nope.

All in all, I’ll take this Apollo, and this Richard Hatch.

I don’t care that he’s dead. If they can do it for Fred Astaire and John Wayne for frakking commercials, then they can do it for gods-damned Baltar.

J.