The three or four of you familiar with my more obscure works may have picked up a copy of Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered Planet Earth. Written with great expectations, the book fizzled when my gleeful publicist at Viking – a huge Trek fan with posters of Kirk and Spock on his walls – quit in an unexplained huff a couple of months before the 1999 release date.

One of my favorite characters in that book was Ronald D. Moore, a Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine producer (he also co-wrote, with Brannon Braga, the Trek films Generations and First Contact). Moore added immeasurably to the Star Trek universe; he was, by popular estimation, the “Margaret Meade of the Klingon Empire.” But he left that world with a bad taste in his mouth, after running afoul of Braga on Voyager. I’d wondered what had become of Moore – until I read John Hodgman’s recent New York Times Magazine story about the new Battlestar Galactica series on the Sci-Fi channel. Somehow, the ship – and show – had slipped right under my radar.

Last night, my friend Mark Wagner (who painted the fabulous Wheel used in Strange Travel Suggestions) and I bought a LoCoco pizza, and watched the whole three-hour Battlestar Galactica mini-series in a marathon of edgy ethereal madness.

Even with my high expectations—I’m a huge fan of Moore’s work—the show is amazing. It’s dark, edgy, old-fashioned sci-fi, a cheeky blend of high- and low-tech with frequent nods to 2001 and Blade Runner, a subtle touch of Trek around the edges. (more…)