watch it: ‘Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy: Webisode 1’

Well, if there was any doubt about whether or not we’re at Earth, this seems to have settled it: “Nine days after the discovery of a devastated Earth,” says the intro at the beginning of this webisode, “Lt. Felix Gaeta will find himself here.”

Here. Okay, then...

Oh, my: Felix with the foot and the drugs and the... boyfriend?

And an oh, my for webisodes, too. If there any better indication that the people who make TV know that the Web is where TV is gonna be at in five years, webisodes are it. They’re training us for that with webisodes (even if half the people involved with producing them and promoting them right now don’t realize it). I’m sitting in a Starbucks as I write this, headphones in my ears drowning out the Christmas muzak, and I’m watching new Battlestar Galactica. Five years from now, I’ll be doing that with a new episode: not a “webisode,” not a teaser for a new season airing on an outmoded cable network, just the next installment in the story, full stop. It’s all gonna be on the Web, on demand, and the moment the first Web-only episode of BSG or Doctor Who (newly regenerated into Daniel Radcliffe!) or the revived Pushing Daisies or American Idol or the Arnold Schwarzenegger Comedy Hour or Running Man Competition Live From Baghdad debuts, it’s gonna crash half the Net as folks rush to watch. And a week later, we’ll have a more robust Net as more infrastructure is rushed into coming online -- built quickly under the auspices of the newly reelected President Obama’s Web Progress Administration -- in time for the next hot show to make its debut online only.

It’s a brave new Web world.

(Watch episodes-- excuse me, webisodes 2 and 3 of “The Face of the Enemy” at SciFi.com.)