‘Bred Crumbs

When one spends much of one’s time watching the shows so many other people are raving about only to wind up scratching one’s head wondering what the hell the fuss is all about, it bears noting when the scratching stops, even temporarily.

Which is a stupid way of saying: last night, for the first time, I enjoyed an episode of Battlestar Galactica. For the first time, I saw the series remotely approach the hype.

Why now? There are a number of possible explanations. The episode had a lot (but not too much) going on, and all the storylines were clearly and engagingly table-set by a long, taut, beautifully scored and edited opening sequence. There was a relative minimum of interaction involving the supermodel Cylon and the annoyingly skeezy British villain, and a relative minimum of Edward James Olmos wearily saying things. The humor of the president’s card-tearing scene was — well, humor, which I’d never seen on Galactica before; it was enjoyable enough to overcome my wondering why the resource-challenged caravan of survivors has a plentiful supply of index cards. Above all, more than ever before, the cameras trained on the characters stopped frelling twitching, thus letting me focus on the people, what they were saying, and what’s going on with them. (Yes, frelling, which kicks the ass of frakking any day.)

For the record, I must also withdraw my prior (pun intended) recommendation of Stargate SG-1. I’ve tried to be a sport, but the show’s relentless mediocrity has now set in so firmly that even Ben Browder and Claudia Black, amazing actors and carriers of the great Farscape torch that they are, can’t save it. Good gods, even the ever-grating Atlantis was more watchable last night that SG-1’s season pre-finale. The ep was a full hour of someone telling a dull story, while the main cast just stood in a gray room and listened. I wondered if I was watching Firefly.

Back at Galactica, there’s still room for improvement. I’m still not buying the show’s heavy-handed production design concept: that this civilization has advanced enough to have a mighty space fleet, but everything else is stuck firmly in the Caprican 1970s. The corpse of Richard Hatch need not be used again, and even less of Baltar and his imaginary friend would be appreciated. (But more Helo, please.) And — need I say it? — let’s have even less twitchy-cam.

But the aberration remains: I viewed a whole episode of Galactica with interest, and actually look forward to the 90-minute season wrapup next week. (Though none of this excuses last week’s episode.) Maybe something has snapped in the universe, or in my head. Maybe this week’s not-awful edition of Lost (the first I’d bothered to finish in three weeks) wasn’t a fluke. Maybe if I tune into Desperate Housewives or Grey’s Anatomy next Sunday, I’ll see any reason to watch. Maybe if Arrested Development were still on, I might laugh at something. (No, I’m not signing up for Showtime. I don’t even have HBO.) Who knows? Now that my interest in SciFi’s Friday schedule has shifted from beginning to end, anything seems possible.