I read on Reddit that apparently it was supposed to be 10 episodes, which got cut down to 8, and then to 6... so we lost almost half of the story. No wonder some things didn't really make much sense.
Fortunately I have a really good suspension of disbelief for "soft" (or space-opera?) science fiction, so I just try to enjoy the good bits and not think about it too much
Looking forward to what RTD is going to do with it though, apparently his condition for coming back was full creative control?