So I'm taking advantage of being in the US...

[pagad]

...and therefore having access to Hulu.com, so I can watch BSG TOS episodes when I'm in the hotel after doing stuff all day.

(Hulu doesn't work for non-US IP addresses)

So, as a so far TNS-only BSG fan, which episodes should I be taking a look at? The real gems among the dross?

[genji2000]

What've you been up to?

[137th Gebirg]

Well, the FULL 3-hour pilot of course (uncut) - the one that started it all, entitled "Saga of a Star World" - would be the first one to look at. Lost Planet of the Gods is a good one, showing Kobol. There's also Living Legend, showing Commander Cain and the Pegasus and finally War of the Gods, showing Count Iblis and the Beings of Light/Ship of Lights. Those are the top ones, IMHO.

Then there's what I would call the "second tier" episodes, such as the "Terran" two-parter, including "Greetings from Earth" and "Experiment in Terra". I would recommend "The Man With Nine Lives", as it features Fred Astaire and it introduces us to the Borellian Nomen, whom I think were the inspiration for the new Klingons that came out in later years. "Fire in Space" is goofy fun as well as "Baltar's Escape", the latter of which wraps up several other story arcs. And then there's the final episode, "Hand of God" which gives us a hint of what's ahead for the Colonials - a future that we never saw.

The rest of the episodes, IMHO are simply filler and horribly suffered from the ravages of budget cuts. BSG, IIRC, was supposed to be multiple mini-series, as in a short series of 2-hour movies. I think this is why the 2-parters were always more popular than the one-offs. Turning it into a regular one-hour-per-ep TV show was one of the reasons I think ultimately killed it.

If you're so inclined to ever watch Galactica: 1980, save yourself the hassle and go to the end - "Return of Starbuck" is the only episode that even remotely resembles TOS.

[pagad]

So I managed to watch Saga of a Star World , Living Legend Pts 1 + 2 and Hand of God, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them. Living Legend and Hand of God in particular were really good. The biggest thing I had issue with was not the campy Cylon costumes, the special effects or the acting, but the truly atrocious grasp of astrophysics (do they even know what a galaxy is...?)

Speaking retrospectively, they don't hold a candle to TNS (to me at least), but taken by themselves I found them to be much better than what I was expecting.

[Shane]

Where you at in the states?

[Osprey]

not to speak for him, but iirc it was like nyc ...

[pagad]

I'm home now (literally, just got back. Why am I on this place...?)

Yeah, I was in NY, Washington and Cape Cod. Not all at the same time, obviously.