This fracking makes my day

I just got the first season of Battlestar Galactica on DVD for XMas! Yay!
It's one of the best dramas on TV, and possibly the best sci fi series of all time, thanks, in part, to a 5 year production deal that the Sci-Fi Channel gave its producers... all the episodes for the first 5 seasons were written before any shooting, casting, anything at all, was done. So the storylines, characters, the whole world was thoroughly fleshed out beforehand. If you look at other sci fi series, ST:TNG (e.g.) the first 3ish seasons were awkward, clunky, and the characters were really flat... because the writers were stumbling through making it up as they went episode by episode... that's why some storylines (like the claymation brain scorpions that took over Star Fleet Command) just dissolved... they didn't yet have a cohesive direction. And it's debatable whether they ever got it. BSG's another story. Gritty, with well realized relationships and a complex and gripping story. The new season starts in less than 2 weeks! Whee!