In the original Battlestar Galactica, they had their own units for time:[ul][li]yahren = kinda like a year[/li][li]secton = kinda like a week[/li][li]centar = kinda like an hour[/li][li]centon = kinda like a minute (except in the pilot)[/li][li]micron = kinda like a second[/ul]There was even an epsiode of the utterly forgettable Galactica 1980 TV series where Earth people were saying that something was going to happen in “30 seconds” and at the same time, the people on board Galactica were saying that the same something was going to happen in “15 microns”, thereby establishing that one micron lasts for 2 seconds.[/li]
In the miniseries pilot for the new Battlestar Galactica, which premiered in late 2003, they seemed to be following this same tradition. Twice, they showed the folks on the new Galactica counting down from 5, and in each countdown, there was about 2 seconds between each number. They were clearly supposed to be counting down in microns.
But now, with the 2 new espisodes (“33” and “Water”), they’re using normal modern time units. The countdown clocks in “33” clearly used minutes and seconds, and weeks and months were mentioned by name in “Water.”
So, what happened? Did they wimp out?
ISTM they stopped being cute. The new show is more about characters than technology. The 80’s system was a distraction, nothing more.
So then, why the countdown in two-second-long increments in the new series pilot?
The original system was one of the best things about the original show. They used their own units of time (logical, since their society was different and, more importantly, lived on planets other than Earth, where time would be different), and also the writers created units whose names were near enough for viewers to get what they meant. It was really first-class and well-thought-out SF.
Too bad nothing else about the show was. 
But I’m sorry they dropped it. It’s moving away from science fiction and pandering to the lowest common denominator. Evidently, they think people are too stupid to figure such things out.
There’s no reas why Galactica’s second time units are the same length as Earth time units. Perhaps they just share the same name. I think they dropped Yahren, centon … because they sound pretty goofy and dated (but I still like saying them, to the dismay of my long-suffering wife).
It’s not as if they’re speaking English, anyway. Why translate everything except the time units?
The New International Version of the Old Testament still renders passages that call for “a tenth of an Ephod of flour” or a cast bronze basin that measures “ten cubits across” – keeping the original units while translating everything else into modern English.
But I say again: WHY did they start to use what were apparently microns in the Galactica pilot miniseries in 2003, and then abandon the practice and switch to plain old minutes and seconds when the Galactica series premiered in 2005?
Because they realized it was stupid? I’m pretty sure they aren’t speaking English either, but that’s what we hear.
I just wish they’d quit cutting the corners off all their paper. That really bugs me.
I thought it was to increase the tension of the countdown. If you watched the second hand sweep the clock in the same episode, you would have seen that one (Capricon) second equaled one (Earth) second.
Thank you. I keep trying to think up reasons why they do it, or what they do with all the billions of triangles they’ve cut out over the years. Is there a giant frakkin’ supply room somewhere?
I think the poster above who called it “too cute” was right. “Frak” falls into the same category, but at least it has a purpose – to get around the censors.
That “33” episode was wonderful for the use of time as a motif - clocks and mentions of time were everywhere.
Going with centons and microns in such an episode would have been really, really distracting. They probably made a hundred references to time in a 44-minute story.