Sunday, August 23, 2009

The Super Scouts parts 1 & 2

The series proper begins again, and they have thrown out all that silly time travel stuff. I guess they don't want that to be the focus. Instead, the show becomes part procedural, part fish-out-of-water with the hapless exploits of our Galacticans. Now with kids! The addition of the twelve children (any relation to the 12 tribes of Israel, or the 12 apostles?) cements this more firmly as a chldren's series.

Was Dr. Z recast? And if so, why? At the very least he seems to be using his own voice now, where before he sounded overdubbed.

I commented a bit on the school situation in "Greetings From Earth", but there's are some new developments. Now we learn they have a separate schooling ship. This certainly wasn't the case before, and I wonder what ship they decided to rechristen this way. The kids each have computers now. They raise their hands; the question indicators are gone. There are still few children, but perhaps there are simply few in this age range. I wonder if there is a high school equivalent on the schooling ship. We never see teenagers on this show. They are either 9-year-old kids, or adults.

We are told that the force of gravity differs on Earth, and that as a result the kids will be able to run faster and jump higher. There was no indication of this in the last episode! Besides that, since they are all human, wouldn't EVERYONE be able to do that? Adapting to thinner air is one thing, but the force of gravity doesn't change. Throughout this series, the Galacticans will be made more and more alien, negating the point of their trip to Earth in the first place. The gravity explanation is just an excuse to give the kids superpowers, and indeed this same explanation was used by Siegel and Shuster in their original Superman comics (he doesn't fly in the early ones; he LEAPS tall buildings in a single bound). But even they were smart enough to rely as much on his alien physiology as on gravity. When you stop to consider it, it doesn't make any sense at all. Still, I like when they are asked to define gravity and the kid answers "an artificial force generated to keep us from floating around the ship."

Hooray, there are Cylons! Dr. Z was right! Though in this episode, they all act as if Dr. Z had told them flat out that he tracked the Cylons to Earth, when in the prior episodes it was just a theory. I don't really understand the push to plant kids on Earth quickly. Doing so out of necessity after a Cylon attack is one thing, but I don't see why they stay there like that.

I've got to say, I was ready to chastise the show for presenting cops who were fooled by  the old "hide behind the large roadside billboard" routine. But the cops were NOT that stupid, and spotted them right away. It was only after they cloaked that they lost them. I respect this small defiance of convention, especially in a series that usually defies all logic.

What's the deal with Jamie? She shows up suddenly, still a television reporter, as if she had been living a normal life. I thought she was with the Galactica? Did they ever go back in time again? How long was she missing from Earth, and when she got back, did everyone act like it never happened?

In every episode, it seems someone points out the strange wrist computer the guys wear. I was just thinking... on the one hand, it is more effecient a tool, but on the other hand, the silly calculator watches (seen in "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero") they used to wear would blend in better. 

When the kids start getting sick and are rushed to the hospital, the nurse says she can't do anything to help the kid herself; she can only assist a doctor. Was this ever really true, and is it still true? If so, this seems like a very bad policy to me. A nurse should be allowed to perform basic medicine if life is in danger.

So Troy, Dillon, and Jamie each took a kid to the hospital. And they just left all the other kids alone on a strange planet with superpowers. Sadly, it becomes a running theme that the kids are constantly abandoned without supervision. Even if some of the older ones watch the younger ones, this is a dangerous world that is completely unfamiliar. It seems so wrong. If I were one of those kids' parents, I'd steal a Viper, go down to L.A. and take my kid back home to space. ...which begs the question, do these kids have parents?

At the close of part one, it is suggested that the children might have gotten ill from the bacteria on Earth. This is an issue that was dealt with properly in "Greetings From Earth", but which no one seems to think about now. Yes, disinfection is very important. It's a little disappointing that they were poisoned by a chemical plant.

Now the Galacticans have different blood cells? What exactly makes these people human, again?

So under the brilliant leadership of Dr. Z, the Galacticans have been building... flying saucers? REALLY? Isn't that really lame??

With Barry Van Dyke and all, this episode reminds me some of Diagnosis: Murder what with the investigations into who got the kids sick. He even calls it murder. ...or was that Troy?

I really like that Adama calls Troy "Boxey" in that one scene.

I like the little girl that plays Starla. Does the little blonde girl remind anyone else of a young Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter movies).

Now Jamie is responsible for twelve kids? How is she ever supposed to work? How is she not fired for galavanting around like this? I thought she only got hired in the first place to give UBS the story about Troy and Dillon, which it seems she never delivered!

I like the kids in uniform, but why did NOBODY question why there are girls in the BOY SCOUTS?

Many episodes end with a disclaimer of sorts about how the US no longer investigates UFO sightings. Is that tongue-in-cheek, or were they asked to put that there?

Lesson learned this week: Chemical plants are bad

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