Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Watching this as I type. It has Apollo from Battlestar in it. His english accent is freaking us out. He does however appear to be the show's token bad ass.

Basic set up is colony on a new planet. Entire colony appears to be British. Sorry, it doesn't look like America made it

I thought Apollo was an Aussie?

Flashman wrote: Entire colony appears to be British. Sorry, it doesn't look like America made it

That's okay. It'll probably just declare independence in a century or two anyway

alarmingrick wrote:I thought Apollo was an Aussie?

Nah, British.

You can tell this is BBC sci fi. Feth all has happened after 17 minutes. Ooh, hang on, A transport might be about burn up in atmosphere...

Nope, Liam Cunningham insists on making an emotional speech to passengers first. They're clearly buggered.

Jamie Bamber... He used to be in 'Ultimate Force', that amazing show about the SAS with Ross 'I am a serious actor' Kemp.

Looks like a few Irish came along too. Naturally they are dodgy characters.

Mrs Flashman is calling this Eastenders with CGI

28 mins in and we have some action. Jamie Bamber has lost it and shot an extra. The extra got no lines. Harsh.

Incidentally, the planet is of the mountainous, desert variety. There are a few bushy plants though, so maybe they could grow a shrubbery.

I thought Jamie Bamber was Irish American. His accent in this show has a tinge of Aussie in it.

The transport is making its descent. Possible end of episode crash coming up maybe?

Jamie (wiki says British) Bamber is still nuts. Has kidnapped his son. Starts ranting about a conspiracy.



Hmm... well that was a bit poor. Why do the BBC found it so hard to make decent sci-fi shows? (Dr Who debatable)

I thought it was good , quite slow paced but alright , you can't expect avatar standard cgi or Oscar grade acting who's only chance of getting recognise is if they do something grossly inappropriate in the street.

my only real criticism was that it seemed to be out of focus a lot and not in a good way

Nice to see part of the license fee is worth paying.

I dunno, anything sci-fi the BBC does these days leaves me distinctly unimpressed. Day of the Triffids, Survivors & most of Doctor Who (although Matt Smith has gone some way to redeem that). Rubbish effects I can live with (Battlestar isn't that great in this department either), it's the poor writing that gets me down. That and the "range" of British accents. Either posh, cockney or scottish.

Howay mun, there bain't no trouble at t'space mill, look you, begorrah!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo. Missed it, baby wouldn't go to sleep. And there was me thinking I had only missed Glee!

notprop wrote:NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo. Missed it, baby wouldn't go to sleep. And there was me thinking I had only missed Glee!

Lol, well in my opinion notprop junior did you a favour, but there's always iplayer. Flashman junior slept all the way through it the little tyke. Fortunately, the Tesco shop arrived part way through and was forced to tear myself away

I will watch part two tomorrow just to give it a fighting chance.

Orlanth wrote:Nice to see part of the license fee is worth paying.

Indeed, I'm watching Blake's 7 right now; so that would be the part that got paid in 1978.

I caught the last 20 minutes. Can someone explain the plot? Are they are screwed or what? Poor bastards burned up entering the atmosphere.

Some unexplained catastrophe has occurred on Earth, but a number of colony ships were launched, apparently in at least two waves. (Since there is already a colony on Carpathia when the ship arrives.)

All the other ships in the last wave have been lost en route, and the final one has structural damage which leads to it breaking up during re-entry.

"Radio" contact with Earth had been lost several years previously.

So the plot is going to be about the pressures of isolation on this alien planet with a small population and resources and no real hope of rescue.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also an epidemic killed a lot of the colony's children during the early years.

So its like Jamestown then?

I'm recording it which is rough since it prevents my wife from recording Grey's Anatomy.

Thought it was pretty good personally. Will be watching it from now ion i think.

Watched the last two parts online today, thought it was pretty good. Though it remains to be seen whether the plot will differ at all from the standard "Everyone on Earth was mean, let's go live on a new planet and be peaceful! Uh-oh, people start being mean here too" model.

olympia wrote:I'm recording it which is rough since it prevents my wife from recording Grey's Anatomy.

Note to self
Devise a hospital drama in space.
lots of beautiful people bonking each other in zero grav, having emotional crisis after emotional crisis.
All those tear drops wobbling in slow motion as they struggle to form a perfect sphere of brine.

Transport crashes
all characters get professional and the alcoholic surgeon dreamboat suddenly gets his act back together and saves the day.

When an alien bursts out of his...
oh that has already been done hasn't it?

Is there a way to watch it in the US online?

Yeh use a proxy and go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/

Btw @Flashman Congrats on using exactly the same name as my thread. Not annoyed actually, TBH i think more people should give this promising series a chance. EDIT meant to say British actor Jamie Bamber was originally in the first three episodes of Hornblower Starring 'Ewan Griffiths' or Ioan Gruffud, the two remain best mates.

I just watched the third episode, thanks for the link whatwhat, will watch episode four tomorrow.

Oddly enough four episodes are uploaded yet less than a week ago there were two.

Anyway, I am enjoying this. Good imaginative science fiction, with a tight plot that is neither predictable not disjointed, believable characters and a controlled hard SF setting. Unlike many SF series I have seen I get the feeling that events flow onto each other. No cheap scripting to add a subplot to make a single episodes story that has huge ramifications that somehow never are mentioned again.

It has a lot of bad reviews, but then people are expecting characters to backstab each other at a moments notice for no reason, fights or at least high tension to break out constantly, where just about everyone is a model and the bad guys are easily defined.
It might even not need to turn the main female characters lesbian in the third series to keep an interest either.
Too good for the average chav then.

Episode 4 watched last night.

I am warming to it. The characters are gaining a bit more depth as the story progresses.



What could that mean?

I am enjoying it (not watched #4 yet, it is queued for tomorrow).

Battlestar was such a great series but the last season was so poor that it made really reduced the previous greatness. The highlight of the whole series for me was the rescue from the colony baltar set up, and I've always enjoyed the remote, isolated sort of stories.

I have 2 big problems with it at the moment. The whiteouts aspect is just annoying and clamps down on the brave new world feel for me. The other is Julius who seems (up to ep 3) to be a boring, 1 dimensional character. Hopefully they will do something interesting with him

The series could still go either way for me, but it has been worth watching so far. The quality of these first episodes will be weighted by where the story goes in the next few though.