The idiot box.

Time to report on things I've been watching on TV of late, and there have been a couple of interesting things.

Battlestar Galactica was on this week, and all things considered, it was pretty good. Not a remake of the original, this was a "re-imaging" - the producers' way of letting us know that it wasn't going to be cheesy, cheap, and camp, the way the original Battlestar Galactica was. Good special effects (unlike the original) and production values, good actors in the lead roles, interesting characters (all the humans are flawed in some manner, and even the Cylons are more than just "evil because they're robots") and character interactions, and a darker and far better backstory than the original. And the Galactica's executive officer sure appears to be John McCain, taking some time off from his Senate duties. Best of all: they got rid of the stupid names for time and distance measurements (yahrns and sectons <shudder>). I'll recommend this 4-hour, two-part miniseries - it repeats, back-to-back, on Sunday night - and I look forward to the series, if the Sci-Fi channel decides to pick it up. (They ought to, but their track record hasn't been all that great with how they've treated decent science fiction: preferring Shannon Doherty's wierd "reality" show to Farscape, for instance.) I'd say this miniseries is better than most of the current Star Trek offering, Enterprise.

And - ooo! - the website comes complete with a Shockwave first-person-shooter game. Not that I've spent a lot of time playing it, or anything.

Bravo's entry in the poker-on-TV fad is a six-show series, Celebrity Poker Showdown. The first two episodes have aired, and I think they've been fun to watch. I don't play poker and my feeling is that most of the poker-on-TV shows are about as interesting to watch as a black-and-white documentary on paint drying. In Flemish. Still, I've enjoyed the episodes so far, though - mainly because it's been a chance to see a glimpse of actors outside of their roles. The second show had five actors from The West Wing, and I will watch almost anything that has Allison Janney in it. The next show or two look less inviting, though, with Hank Azaria, Michael Ian Black and three nobodies in the next one. The series is executive produced by Joshua Malina, and I'm hoping he makes an appearance at some point. Worth watching? I suppose, for whoever the players of the week are, but not for the thrill of the game.

Finally, last night I saw an episode of Modern Marvels on the History Channel, called "Inviting Disaster part 3" and dealing with the shuttle disasters. Originally aired in November, it did a good job of highlighting that the real cause of both tragedies was the organizational structure and culture at NASA which downplayed and ignored safety risks and legitmate concerns in favor of meeting schedules and good public relations. Worth watching.