I spent the morning catching up on Battlestar Galactica episodes thanks to the glory of Tivo. I’m watching the reruns so I’m something like halfway through the first season. Appropriately enough, I halfway like it. They get so much right, managing to take what was originally a fairly goofy show and give it serious treatment. The new cast is good, particularly Edward James Olmos. One thing keeps me from fully embracing the show though and that’s the endlessly annoying Baltar plot. Whenever he comes on screen, I groan and grit my teeth until he’s done blubbering to himself and acting like a mental patient. It’s doubly annoying because no one ever seems to notice that he’s a nutter. Here he is having conversations with the president and commander of the BG in which he mumbles to himself, talks to people who aren’t there, and general blathers on like an idiot, and yet somehow he fails to arouse suspicion. In fact, he’s put in charge of the most important task of the fleet—inventing a cylon detector. It just doesn’t work as written and I’m deeply sick of the “cylon in his head” bullshit. I would much prefer Baltar to be a ridiculous caricature of evil like John Colicos in the original show than listen to Mr. Whiny Pants for another six episodes. I’m also a bit sick of the lone human on Caprica storyline with the other Boomer, but at least that one seems like it might go somewhere. Though why the cylons give a rat’s ass about one guy who’s going to die of radiation poisoning anyway I don’t know.