When I rushed out and bought the Battlestar Galactica DVD on Monday (go on, treat yourself) I was profoundly disappointed by the lack of extras. OK, we get some vaguely interesting deleted scenes but that's about it.
Thankfully, you can get your hands on some DIY extras in the shape of the Sci Fi channel's podcasting experiment.
The Galactica podcasts basically give American fans the opportunity to download mp3 commentary tracks for episodes that haven't been aired yet. The idea being that you after you've watched the show you then have access to an immediate extra.
In fact, Battlestar is the first television show in the world to provide this service - and it's great.
I thought it could work with my DVDs as well but, alas, it's not that simple. This is due to the differences in frame rates between American NTSC and UK's PAL format. In a nutshell: our episodes run slightly quicker. So, a show in American might run for 44 minutes, while here we get approximately 42 minutes. I think this is something to do with sloppy transfers - I have a friend who won't watch UK transfers of Babylon 5 as he's convinced that all the characters sound like Mickey Mouse.
Anyway, trying to synch up the podcast with the Region 2 DVDs is a non-starter. Thankfully, the acts are broken up with beeps so it's fairly easy to hit the pause button now and again but it just goes to show that we are watching a slightly speeded up version of the best TV show of 2004. Which is a shame.
But there's another problem with Ronald D Moore's commentaries. Instead of recording them in a professional studio, he obviously does them from home. This is fine until you factor in his dogs which spend vast chunks of the episode barking and howling out of the left speaker. Add this to the helicopters, police sirens and general traffic ambience and you'll struggle to stay focused on what Ronald is banging on about. But let's face it, we're not missing much. In one episode he spends 30 minutes explaining why they choose to use old-fashioned models on a table to illustrate space tactics. It was obvious why they went down this route 30 seconds into the anecdote so why did he drag it out forever? Oh well.
So, podcasting - a nice idea with loads of potential.
I think the BBC should take note. How cool would it be to have a Russell T Davies commentary we could all download after the Doctor Who Christmas Special has aired (did I mention that Doctor Who has been commissioned for a second series and a Christmas special - on the strength of one episode and 10.5 million viewers? How cool is that?)
Let's start the petition now...
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