Well my friends, a year has come and gone since the announcement, and still nothing.

If you've been following the progress on the retelling of "Battlestar Galactica", you'll know a bit about CONTROVERSY. Bonnie Hammer as the President of The Scifi Channel is mired up to her neck with disgruntled faithful fans of the old show disapproving of the new story. Then there are the extremely talented people behind the movie itself. Ron Moore is no stranger to science fiction (Star Trek's spin-offs), and is a heckuva writer. There are a couple big names as far as actors that are playing some key roles... most notably Edward James Olmos is playing Commander Adama.

According to Richard Hatch, Bonnie Hammer and the powers that be, are worried out of their minds that what they are doing is going to seriously fail... they just weren't ready for the kind of fan reaction that's happened. They assumed all us old fans would just shrug our shoulders and go with the flow... Ms. Hammer even said at one time that the older fans "just don't count" in relation to the newer fans of scifi, and the critical masses that embody the TV watching world...

What does she think? That all of us are now so busy with our lives that we're not paying attention to what happens now?

If the fans really didn't count, why then is it nearly impossible to find copies of all of Richard Hatch's novels based in the Battlestar Galactica world... why did they block the purchase rights when Hatch managed to scrape together some industrious backers? Why is there SUCH a huge buzz now around the retelling of the classic story?

And we're talking about a show that had only 24 episodes... one measly year. And it's survived the test of time. Yes, it's cheesy, but terribly fun to watch all at the same time. Watching that show now is corny, but back then, it was pretty cutting edge. The storylines mirrored it's own relevant social times, and yes, Starbuck did try to sleep with every unattached female he could find. (Something The Rod should appreciate! LOL!)

And recently, Eddie Olmos blew away the interviewers at a press conference suggesting that ardent fans of the original series should avoid the new miniseries. "I'd tell them straightforward, please, don't watch this program," Olmos said. "Buy yourself the new DVDs that came out of the old episodes, and whenever we come on, just put that in. ... I know that SCI FI Channel wants to say that everybody's going to enjoy it. They're not. They're not going to like it. I want to be the first one to say it very clearly. Please, tell your readers, do not watch this program."

What you can read between the lines, and from following statements made by Mr. Olmos, is he had NO clue of the rampant fan support of the old show. Absolutely none! He began to get a lot of hate mail, and strongly worded letters that really ripped him a new one. The good side of his surprising conversations is that Bonnie Hammer was just floored and literally speechless. She tried to regroup a couple times, only to have EJO take the storm away from her again and again. He's proud of what they're making, but it's FAR different from the original series, and he knows the fans will just hate it.

Maybe... maybe not. I'm a fan of the old show, but I for one would welcome a retelling. I mean, Superman did this. Batman did this. Lost in Space did it as well. There seems to always be tons of outcries whenever someone redoes an older story... and probably for good reason. Sometimes it's for the best!! James Cameron's sequel "Aliens" is FAR better than the original movie! And no matter what George Lucas tries to tell people now, I remember his original novel called "Star Wars: The Adventures of Luke Skywalker"... and it was pretty different from his movie. And the two sequels to that movie that he wrote but other director's had their hands on were FAR superior movies...

People tried to slam Tim Burton for his "Dark Knight" story arc of a darker Gotham City and it's inhabitants. What people don't realize is, Burton's story was more true to the classic Bob Kane's creation than the campy 1960's TV show, which had virtually nothing in common with the original idea of the superhero (vigilante), who wielded guns (aka The Shadow) in the first few issues... but then changed it when people compared the two. Batman was very dark, and went after the gangsters and thugs, using techniques not too dissimilar from their own bad ways.

In the words of Richard Hatch, who at a recent chat gathering of Battlestar Galactica fans, "they didn't try to do a spin-off. That's the big difference between Star Trek and it's successor shows, and what's happening here."

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Which brings us to Quantum Leap. Now, you just know that with the approaching release of the Battlestar Galactica DVDs, this will undoubtedly set the stage for the releases of Universal's OTHER series... stuff they announced more than a year ago, but backpedaled.

And hopefully, Scifi will either get a serious punch in the arm and will learn from their mistake, or they'll do the same thing to Quantum that they are now doing to Galactica. It probably won't be near as severe... since the movie is reported to lead into the new series... The new movie will undoubtedly resolve some issues, and then they'll definitely have the female leaper come in... there hasn't been a terrible amount of outrage about those ideas from Ms. Hammer, so I think they're pretty much set in stone.

For the record, I think the new Battlestar will be a smashing success. The recent DVD sales of "Dune" and "Children of Dune" are huge successes for The Scifi Channel, and has set a serious precedent that basically NEEDED to be set. And I think a lot of us older Battlestar fans will grudgingly admit that the new series has a good chance for success, despite Glen Larson and the original cast and crew's thoughts on this. It's a new time, and yes, it's time for both Galactica and Quantum to shine again. Yes with newer stars.

While she hasn't yet, I would hope and pray that Bonnie listens to the fans.

Matt