And now, I remind you of something best forgotten.

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Recently, while poking around the iTunes Music Store, I was reminded of something best forgotten. So I thought I would remind you of it as well.

The Sci Fi channel "re-imagining" of the series "Battlestar Galactica" just had its finale last week. The just-ended series was of course a remake of a series from 1978, which was at it's core an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of "Star Wars," the film that had re-written the definition of "blockbuster" the previous year. Well, long before the latest incarnation of Galactica, but shortly after the original, a bastard child named "Galactica 1980" was brought wailing into the world. As much as the Ronald D. Moore's new version of the series raised the bar set by the original, "Galactica 1980" lowered it much, much farther.

Even though the "Galactica's" original Vipers looked too suspiciously like the "Star Wars" X-wing fighter, and the Cylons were little more than chrome-plated imperial stormtroopers, the 1978 series transcended rip-off status because it had at it's core a very intriguing concept: Humans, just like us, having been vanquished by an evil faceless empire, embark "on a lonely quest. . . a shining planet known as Earth."

Richard Hatch and most of the rest of the original cast never found Earth. The characters in the new series, guided by Moore's hand, did find Earth at the conclusion of a brilliantly crafted, four-year-long saga. (That's not really a spoiler.) In "1980", Lorne Greene and a scaled-down replacement cast also found Earth. They looked out a porthole one day and said, "Hey! Check it out! It's Earth. Let's take our flying motorcycles down and have a look."

The iTunes store has offered the original "Battlestar Galactica" series as video downloads for several years. I have several of these episodes in my iTunes library. But only recently has the iTunes store made "1980" available. I can't tell you how much I have NOT waited for this to happen.

I was inspired to write only my second review on the iTunes store, the text of which I share with you below:

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Absolutely, POSITIVELY do NOT spend more than $1.99 on "Galactica 1980." And only spend that much if you download the final episode, "The Return of Starbuck" and none of the rest of this awful garbage.

The only purpose of this series was to try to make "Battlestar Galactica" into a series that was more appealing to kids (it aired opposite "Wonderful World of Disney" if I remember right). Oh, and to also to make it extremely CHEAP to produce as the rapidly withering udder of the Galactica cash cow was nearly dried up for good.

Everything that made season one of "Battlestar Galactica" worth watching was ripped out like so many discarded fish entrails in "1980." Many of the special effects in "Galactica 1980" are an ongoing continuity error as we see "two-seater" Vipers in close-up cockpit shots, but single seat versions in all the (recycled) "open space" special effects shots. That alone show's the network's and producer's assessment of the viewers' intelligence level.

Apparently, people with some actual respect for the Galactica's founding concepts and possessing an iota of creativity staged a commando raid and took over the studio just long enough to produce "The Return of Starbuck." After that, with quality threatening to propogate, ABC rapidly made the decision to bury Galactica for all time. (Well, at least until 2003.)

Pylons and Sleestaks and Dinos . . . Oh my!

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If you are in roughly the same age bracket as me (mid-forty-ish), "Land of the Lost" was probably part of your Saturday mornings as a kid. This 30-minute show hit the airwaves when I was about 9. This is the age when cartoons start to become a yawn, and in the early 70's, Saturday morning "kidvid" started an awkward transition into more live action shows. To throw out a few titles, "Run, Joe, Run", "Westwind", "Shazam!", "Isis", "H.R. Pufnstuf", "Lidsville", "Sigmund & the Sea Monsters", and "Land of the Lost". Production values on these shows generally ranged from 'bites hard' to 'total suckage.'

Those last four titles I mentioned were all produced by brothers Sid and Marty Krofft and were probably the best of a bad bunch. And "Land of the Lost" was the baddest of the bad. And by "bad", I mean what passes for "good" in this context.

I caught a few of the old episodes of "Land" on cable several years ago. And brother, they have not worn well. The nostalgia center of my brain wants to remember this show as a shining achievement rising high above the rest of the Saturday morning schlock. But face it, fellow forty-somethings, the dialog sucked,the special effects sucked, and the acting sucked (or was at best intentionally very campy).

But I mean all that in the best possible way. Producing a show like "Land of the Lost" for Saturday morning in 1974 was an exercise in insanity. The state of the art of special effects at the time was nowhere near capable of creating believable live-action footage of actors interacting with dinosaurs, especially on a per-episode budget that probably wouldn't cover the cost of lunch on the set of a prime-time drama of the day.

But they did it anyway. The Kroffts attempted what they had to know was impossible, and that is often the Genesis of genius.

While the producers may have skimped on acting talent and been hamstrung on special effects, they deserve credit for laying out the dough for quality writers. "Star Trek" and science fiction fans will know some or all of these names: David Gerrold, Margaret Armen, Larry Niven, Ben Bova, D.C. Fontana, Norman Spinrad and Theodore Sturgeon. And even if the acting and production fell short of potential, there were smart science fiction concepts in play and a well-developed and consistent "universe," although writing and continuity slipped noticeably in the last season.

Well, people, get ready for a not-so-routine expedition. "Land of the Lost" is back. Or it will be this June at a theater near you. Depending on what you want this movie to be, the fact that Will Ferrell is in the starring role is either very good news or very bad news. I would describe Ferrell as highly talented, but his appeal to me personally is uneven at best. The "More Cowbell" skit on Saturday Night Live? Genius. "Kicking and Screaming" and "Blades of Glory"? Not so much.

If you wanted "Land of the Lost" re-done in serious mode with state of the art CG special effects and script treatment worthy of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark, this assuredly won't be it. I suggest you try getting your dino fix by renting "Jurrasic Park" again.

Based only on the trailer on the official site, it appears to me Ferrell may be hitting the right notes on this one. There's a Marshall, there's a Will, and there's a Holly (although they aren't father, son, and daughter this time around). There are dinosaurs and Sleestaks. There's a "greatest earthquake ever known." There are three moons and monkey people. We can see giant walnuts, giant mosquitos, and it appears the characters kill a giant crab in self defense and eat it with a squeeze of juice from a giant lemon. Concepts from the original show such as the Lost City and the Sleestak Council of Skulls seem to be present as well. The cast listing for the new movie at imdb.com lists a Chaka, an Enik and no less than 26 Sleestaks. Possible references to specific episodes of the original show are suggested by the viking ship visible in the trailer, and characters in the cast that include two "Tar Pit kids" and an "Astronaut."

Don't see any pylons, skylons or light crystals yet, though. Hmmm. . .

"Must see" movies are few and far between for me these days, but 2009 promises at least two of them so far: the re-boot of "Star Trek", and "Land of the Lost".

(NOTE: click the picture at the top of the post and you will be taken to the full size image file. This is the downloadable wallpaper image from the official site modified to fit wide screen laptop-style screens - 1440x900 pixel size. Right-click it and enjoy.)

In the book bin:

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Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Mid-read review: The back cover blurb of this book caught my attention with it's references to a future near-apocalypse resulting from "economic and environmental neglect." Let's see, looking at our contemporary situation. . . Got environmental neglect? Check. Got economic neglect? Double check. It is even more intriguing that this book, a science fiction novel set in the 2020's, was written in 1993 by the late Octavia Butler, who died in 2006.

The first 100 pages are rather dark and more than a little depressing, depicting a world where small communities are walled off and patrolled nightly by armed community members to guard against roving bands of homeless and underworld criminals who seek to rob them of their extremely hard earned money, homes, food, or even their lives. But there are just enough hints laid out regarding the destiny of the 16-year-old female hero and the hope for the future she represents to keep the book from being a total wallow in hopelessness and pessimism.

The style of storytelling resembles Frank Herbert's "Dune" in some respects, with chapter lead-ins constructed of poems and proverbs alluding to a religion, called Earthseed. The story is told in first person by the the girl, Lauren, and is in the form of a diary written by her in a time before Earthseed came into being, and which has been annotated at some time in the future. This contributes another glimmer of hope in an otherwise grim depiction of life in the future.

I see clues in the first 1/3 of the book that lead me to suspect where the story is leading, but I hope the author has kept some surprises in reserve.

View all my reviews.