“Where are my Online Episodes?!”

Dear Sci-Fi Channel,

I would love to tell you that I have seen the most recent Episode of Battlestar Galactica. You know, the one that I keep hearing is fantastically awesome. I would love to share with you my new theories about who the fifth cylon could be. However, I can’t. You can blame(/thank) yourself for that.

You see,you used to have this great, forward-thinking feature on your website. You called it Rewind, your term for what is basically time-shifted content. Whenever you would air a New Episode of Battlestar Galactica you would also post it on your website later that evening at 1am. You see, I work days and nights, and am thus not home when BSG is on TV. So for the first six weeks of new episode bliss, I would excitedly pop over to your website at some point after 1am and excitedly watch the weeks new episode. Last Friday, I excitedly popped over and found nothing. You had the four previous episodes, but not the newest one. I searched and searched and could find no announcement of when it would be posted.

So I ran over to Hulu, which puts their episodes up at the same time as you do (you know, since you’re both owned by the same company). They had nothing either. I hoped that it would be a simple technical problem, and that the show would be up by Monday. Wrong.

I popped on Sci-Fi.com Monday, confident that my beloved BSG would be there waiting for me with a warm embrace that only two lovers can share. Nothing. No announcement, nothing. So I checked out Hulu. This time, they did have an announcement:

Upcoming Episodes:
Guess What’s Coming to Dinner: Pt. 1; Airdate: May 16, Avaiilable on Hulu: May 24
Guess What’s Coming to Dinner: Pt. 2; Airdate: May 30, Avaiilable on Hulu: June 7
Sine Quan Non; Airdate: June 6, Avaiilable on Hulu: June 14
The Hub; Airdate: June 13, Avaiilable on Hulu: June 21

Being that you get the episodes the same time Hulu does, this is essentially rewind’s schedule also. So I angrily ask, I have to wait a week and a day to watch the Episodes online?? That’s a week of dodging co-workers out of fear of spoilers, instead of spending time talking with them about and building up buzz and goodwill for your damn show. That’s a week of avoiding enthusiast forums and blogs, instead of discussing and dissecting.

So guess what happens now? I stop playing your game. You were at one point getting advertising revenue and hard viewing statistics from me watching your show online. GONE! I will now go back to far more convenient BitTorrent approach to watching your show. I got rid of Comcast a few months ago, so I’m still able to download those Peer-enabled wonders.

The tragedy here, Sci-Fi, is I actually like the show enough, that I was willing to jump through your flash-driven, advertising-enabled hoops. I don’t do that for just anything or anyone. But, hey, if you change your mind and decide to embrace the 21st century, give me a call. You’ve got my number.

Love,
~Chris

The best show on television returns tomorrow with the season premiere that we’ve waited over a year for; and I, for one, am ecstatic. Today I go over the many ways you can catch the new Season, even if you don’t receive the Sci-Fi channel. I also go over what happened last Season, and what I think could happen happen in this the Final Season. This page will be Spoiler-Free, but the next page includes speculation about Season 4 and spoiling information from Season 3.

5 Ways to Catch the New Battlestar Galactica

Watch the Sneak Preview online

Sci-Fi will be airing the Episode in it’s entirety at 11am tomorrow (or today, if it happens to now be Friday the 4th) on their website. Take an early lunch and you could be lording your sudden knowledge over your classmates or co-workers in no time. There is a downside to this, since it is a live stream it could be possible for your network to hiccup, causing you to miss a vital part of the episode and leaving you without the ability to rewind.
http://www.scifi.com

On the T.V.(a.k.a The Old-Fashioned Way)

For those of us in Champaign who are lucky enough to have the Sci-Fi channel (those with Satellites, Digital Cable, or Premium Cable), we can catch Battlestar Galactica the old-fashioned way: on TV. Battlestar Galactica will be airing “He That Believeth in Me” (the season premier) four times over the course of the next week. You can catch it:

• Friday, April 4th at 9pm (The official premier)
• Friday, April 4th at 11pm
• Sunday, April 6th at 10pm
• Next Friday, April 11th at 8pm (2 hours before Episode 2 airs)

On the Internet

There are now two sites where you can catch the latest and greatest Battlestar Galactica Episodes. The first one is, naturally, http://www.scifi.com. They should have the new episode posted shortly after it airs on TV. While you may not get the same resolution that you would get over the TV this is a fairly good way of watching the new episode. You can rewind, if wanted, and if it stutters it will simply rebuffer instead of skipping ahead (as opposed to the aforementioned live stream). There are also shorter commercial interruptions than regular TV; in the last online episode I watched, there was 4 minutes of commercials, as opposed to 16 minutes that a normal broadcast has.

The second site is a newcomer to the scene. http://www.hulu.com/ is a sort of coalition of various TV networks streaming their video online. You can catch the new Battlestar here after it airs, in addition to Family Guy, Simpsons, and others. It’s good to see TV Networks finally realizing the demand for these services, though my one complaint with this, is that they only have the five most recent episodes of Battlestar Galactica. I personally think they should post the entire back catalog.

On DVD (probably in 2009)

You can also catch the new Battlestar on DVD or Blu-Ray when it comes out (probably) sometime in 2009. Granted this is probably the slowest and most frustrating option, but on the bright side it means there will be no commercial interruptions, can be watched at your convenience, and will be in high quality. I do know a few people that do this, though I marvel at how they manage to avoid spoilers in that period of time. For an even cheaper option, you can always rent the DVD’s as opposed to buying them.

Illegally

Let me start by saying that neither the217 nor it’s producers condone any sort of piracy. That said, I know a lot of you out there will be watching Battlestar this way. To be honest, this is how I got started with the show,and now I’m an addict who watches it on TV and buys the DVD’s. So I can see good coming out of this (even if the TV execs and Comcast can’t). It has similar advantages to DVD in regards to commercial interruptions and quality. But it doesn’t help their ratings or webview counts (which let’s us enjoy more Galactica goodness).

With all these ways to watch it, there is no excuse for missing this show. If you’ve never seen the show, I recommend renting the mini-series and giving it a shot, it may surprise you. Chances are you’ll be rapidly devouring the series until you get caught up. Then your biggest problem is dealing with the shakes while you wait until your next fix.

Next Page: A look back at Season 3 and at what Season 4 might contain.