The same old frakking toasters

It's always nice to have some new Battlestar Galactica, but the new film-thing The Plan is almost pointless. It presents the story of the first few seasons from the Cylon's point of view. This sounds alright, but what it mainly amounts to is a collection of little scenes placed around old events. The Cylon 'One' orders his minions to blow things up and they do it. That's about it. We don't learn anything new here, it's just an elaborate flashback. The old footage from early seasons gives it structure, and I can understand why it's there, but they really start to overdo it. Why not make an entirely new episode? This seems like a compilation of past glories sped up to fit into two hours. They could have given us an interesting insight into the mythology - maybe the Final Five or the original Earth. This just shows us everything we've seen before from a slightly different perspective. It's almost like they're trying to tie up a few minor loose ends by saying 'this guy did it' or 'this small conversation happened in a corridor'. It's not much of a film, even with its impressive writing credits and familiar Galactica feel. The creators are saying 'Remember all this cool stuff we did years ago? You do remember don't you? Good, now watch our new series.'

This could have been much more. They've shown that they can do TV-movies. Razor was an interesting look at the backstory of the Pegasus ship, which filled out a lot of characters and didn't rely on old footage to tell its story. The Plan is a shame. BsG was excellent television - a brave and dynamic show. I don't know if there'll be anymore, but this is a weak add-on existing only to plug a few gaps. Sometimes things need to be tied up in a bow and left alone. I hardly know anything about Caprica, the new prequel series, but I'm hoping it can stand on its own two feet.