BRIC-A-BRAC: Frackin' Good TV

In the overall scheme of things, I don't watch very much TV. I don't want to get all high-and-mighty about this; if my schedule permitted it, I'd probably watch TV all the time. I know this because of the way I get sucked into those damned Law & Order marathons every time. Mind you, the Dennis Farina episodes aren't really cutting it for me, which only proves what we all already knew: Jerry Orbach was magnificence personified. But the principle still holds.

I bring this up because the end of the year is bringing with it the usual flood of "Best of" and "Top 10" lists, and I'm finding with great satisfaction that the few shows I do take the time to watch are the ones getting the acclaim. It's like redemption, had I only been knocked down so low that I needed to be redeemed.

Take this outstanding list from the TV writers at MSNBC.com. They've very wisely let each of their critics wax rhapsodic about a particular program, and I must admit to being rather pleased as I perused the objects of their affection. To wit:
- Shows I've Already Raved About Here: Arrested Development, Project Runway
- Shows I Watch Pretty Much All The Time: The Daily Show, Lost
- Shows That Are Quickly Becoming My New Law & Order-ish Cable Rerun Fix: CSI, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
- Shows I Haven't Really Gotten Into Because I'm Not Up For A Medical Drama Right Now: House, Grey's Anatomy (although my wife just added the latter to our Netflix list, so we'll see)
- Shows I Know I'm Supposed To Watch, But Haven't: Veronica Mars

But as I worked my way through, I realized that I was actually hoping against hope for the inclusion of one more show. And at the end, I was rewarded, because one of the best shows on television right now, honestly and truly, really is Battlestar Galactica.

I know, I can't believe that last sentence either. It was about two years ago when the Sci-Fi Channel -- home of such cinematic masterpieces as Cube and Mansquito -- started running promos for a "reimagining" of the source of some of Dirk Benedict's finest work. (Not to slight The A-Team, but...well...) The rumors started flying. Starbuck was a woman. The Cylons look like humans. The Lorne Greene role would be assumed by Edward James Olmos. It did not bode well.

(It is possible to overthink these things, of course. I mean, the original show featured a monkey in an orange bear costume. It had an episode where all the men got some virus or something and the Vipers had to be piloted by -- horror of horrors -- women! It had tight pants and lots of feathered hair -- on the men. This was by no means television's finest achievement. It was pleasantly diverting, the moving red eye was cool, and then it was cancelled and we all got on with our lives, except for Richard Hatch. So it's not like there was this sense of something wonderful being desecrated. It just felt like that strange, Thirtysomethingesque attempt to turn The Brady Bunch into The Bradys. You know. Just a bad idea.)

So the astonishment that accompanied the actual airing of that miniseries cannot be understated. They stripped away everything that was cheesy about the original show and unearthed a haunting story about a civilization that is nearly destroyed and running for its very existence. They the gave up modern-day special effects that downplayed the whiz-bang and instead tried to put a cinema-verité style in space. Finally, they saddled virtually every character with just enough baggage to make you care about their plight, but not so much that you wanted to slap them around. It was like finding a tarnished antique in a junk shop. Clean it up, and it's a centerpiece.

The only thing more amazing than that was that they managed to keep it going when it became a regular series. Plotlines that should have grown tired remained strong. Actors were sometimes annoying, but never grating. And the season finale was genuinely shocking, in a way that they often aren't. My brother-in-law gave me Season 1 for Christmas, and while I didn't even know I wanted it, I think he nailed it. Putting in a disc to see how it looked, I got sucked in once again. Recent TV shows have notoriously poor replay value. (Do I want to own ER? Um, no.) But this show's got it.

I got through four outstanding episodes of Season 2 before the wizards at Comcast decided I had had quite enough of that. They moved Sci-Fi to the premium digital section, replacing it with the Golf Channel. Because they serve the same demographic, you see. Even more annoying, they lied to me about it. They said, "Oh, no, your neighborhood won't be losing that channel." And then they moved it. So I'll say it: Comcast sucks. For anyone who regularly googles that phrase, welcome to my blog.

Other than the personal pleasure I take from ripping on Comcast, I bring that up because it allows me to mention that episodes of Battlestar Galactica are now available for download on iTunes. And new episodes begin in January. And what I'm saying is, this show is good enough that I'm tempted to shell out 2 bucks a pop to watch the episodes I've missed on a tiny, tiny screen.

So thanks for the validation, MSNBC. And Time Magazine, and everyone else who is on the bandwagon. It's good to have everyone staring at the same pretty picture.