Well, since GorT hasn’t had the opportunity to reply to Dirk Benedict’s loopy jeremiad against the new Battlestar Galactica, here’s a guest commentary by the Czar of Muscovy, a Gormogon auxiliary:

If I may.

Dirk, here are the facts. I know these will sting, but they boil down thusly:

(a) Your version of Battlestar Galactica was a godawful wreck of bad acting, featuring weekly has-beens scrabbling for another few minutes of face time, and over-extended cliched scripts. Come to think of it, all your show needed was Gopher and it would be The Love Boat in space. The new version is bleak, confusing, shocking, and resourceful: much like modern news. Now, things happen for a reason, and the outcomes are not necessarily what we intended or wanted, and may take more than 60 minutes to realize. Each week, the new BG makes it very clear that you will be surprised by the outcome, but usually never disappointed. In the new show, a major character may be killed, possibly for horrifying reasons, and everything unravels chaotically because of that. Whereas in your show, you teach a group of children how to take down an allegedly reinforced enemy base by teaching them a 40-minute poem and once taught a Cylon how to gamble. Oh, and no doubt you’re irate over how they re-engineered Muffy the dog’s character into oblivion.

(b) For all your ironic posturing in your essay, your portrayal of a loveable rogue as a smirking, cigar-chomping wiseass with an implied erection is exactly how a Hollywood suit would envision a loveable rogue. Dude, you were freaking Hawkeye Pierce. If you could put down your mirror, Faceman, you might look around at other shows of the same era and realize you are merely a clone of whatever role a union writer could steal. Yes, the suit who claimed you were one cigar away from being fired: what was his name? What day was that? What were his comments about the other actors? What decision-making role did he have in the series? I bet his name was George Glass—another Hollywood cliché you should look into.

(c) The world evidently owes a debt of gratitude to Dirk Benedict for all the brilliance he injected into his roles. Thank you for listing them, lest our own recollections might erroneously lead us to think you were a mediocre ham actor who couldn’t break out of a couple family television supporting roles. Fortunately, you’re also moving into the exciting world of the big screen, and will be recognized as an equal to Will Smith, George Clooney, or Leonardo di Caprio, who also did the same. You just need a little more time than they did. Decades, I gather. It makes one wonder if your character was transitioned not so much into a female, but into someone more memorable. I notice Katie Sackhoff actually has some big screen roles. Maybe not leading ones or great pictures, but even so… more than other portrayers of the Starbuck role.

(d) Richard Hatch, if you remember him—he had top billing over you in the old BG—was a ferocious critic of the new BG. He not only started lawsuits to stop the production, but even began working on his own re-imagined version intended to compete with the new show. Until they hired him to play what is undoubtedly the most sophisticated role he’s ever done. And he’s really good in it! Now, he’s a huge fan of the show, and they even—allegedly—used some of his ideas in the last few seasons. How kewl is that?

I get that Starbuck was a loner and non-conformist, but that doesn’t mean that Dirk Benedict needs to be. He is separate from his roles, right? All right, so they re-vamped the show and made it better. They took a stock, cliched character like Starbuck and added a little something (I believe that would be a third dimension) that intrigues the viewers. These things aren’t your fault: you were a product of the time! You were exactly what ABC needed you to be: we take Hawkeye, a character CBS viewers like, and put him on The Love Boat, a show we do so well that we can use the same ideas and writers. That’s not the Canadians’ fault, is it?

By the way, Tigh’s not black anymore, either. Didja notice that?

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.