Excitement during the SciFi Friday extravaganza - - first the screen went black. While it was black there was a power surge in my apartment that turned off the tv and vcr and frelled the phone. I was on the phone at the time.

When I got my tv back -- I'd missed the teaser. So, I watched Aquarium and Numbers and then taped the repeat of Aquarium while I watched Monk and taped and watched BSG at it's Midnight showing. I know I missed nuance. But man, that live ship interior was yuck-ee. But - very cool that it is a live ship.

It seems reasonably common on TV shows that a pilot is a pilot is a Pilot. And even if you can't read the language, you can master the controls of a spacecraft.

Dude, I'm not sure I could drive an 18 wheeler without killing someone -- does that mean I'm just not a Driver?

Well, that live fighting ship was not that different in scale from what she was used to.

If you got into a model of car different from what you generally drive, you could drive it. Even if the dials were all in cyrillic instead of Roman letters or had other numbers. Say it was a Japanese car with numbers in Japanese and a right-side driver's seat. You could manage, right?

It's not a scale issue, it's a complexity and metaphor issue. We have decided, for instance, that a steering wheel is how you turn the tires. I'm pretty sure that even within our culture, there are other ergonomic metaphors for any control -- direction, speed, etc -- that could work pretty well too. But as a planet, we've kind of settled on one.

Why should that hold so true in something like the Prometheus episode of SG1? Why can she control an Earth ship? Those controls are labelled even when it's someone trained flying the ship.

And then -- consider a ship that has absolutely no need for discrete controls. Even bigger cognitive leap.

True.

I really enjoyed Jack trying to turn the time-travel ship on with the power of his mind. Also, Daniel trying to show him how he should do that. A very funny episode of SG1.

The Ancient technology I buy more, because it's more about wanting than it is about moving this lever and pushing that button. But it seems so prevalent, and the BSG iteration was even worse.

Obviously, the problems in logic in these shows bothers me less than they bother you.

What I don't understand about myself is how I can still watch Andromeda when Enterprise became absolutely unwatchable for me over a year ago. Perhaps it's a matter of different expectations.

I think everyone missed the Atlantis teaser the first time around, or at least those of us in earlier time zones.

I'm unfortunately sort of halfway in love with McKay.

BG still fails to enthrall me, but the entire episode was worth it for Apollo's reaction when Starbuck appeared. And that shot of his arms.

I'm unfortunately sort of halfway in love with McKay.

Well, it's sort of difficult to watch "Hot Zone" and *not* fall for McKay a bit, so I'll be willing to share him with you for a while. Seriously, the look on his face when he said, "I have a sister"? Damn near made me cry. And I think I will happily ship McKay/Zelenka now. Aw, geek love.

You know, looking back, I think I already loved him a bit when he told that piano story to Carter back in "Redemption part II". He was a ginormous tool in SG-1, but the seed of the character development was already there.

Oddly, I think I liked him more on SG1. Hated him more too.

Shephard's my Aquarium guy -- The Eye sealed that. Ford -- well, I'd wanted it to be him, but he has nothing to do.