Torrent files, Macs, Clear internet... help?

This is a totally non-sexy post about wondering why on earth I've not ever been able to get a torrent file to finish up an actual avi file or any type of file on my computer. I have a Mac Mini running OS 10.4.11, I now have Clear internet with a box plugged into my ethernet port. I don't think I have firewalls, and I thought if I changed my system prefs not to go to sleep, it would be downloading through the night, or the day, whatever, but that's never worked. Am I missing something? I'm desperate now to see the earlier episodes in season 4 of Battlestar Galactica, and I admit it: I don't want to go to Blockbuster and pay $5 to see 2 or 3 episodes since it's considered a new release. The more current episodes are on the sci fi channel website, and I started watching one of them, but realized I was lost and really wanted to start at the beginning of season four. I'm trying again with my program BitTorrent (recommend by my man wolfiekins who knows this stuff well), and hoping it'll work. In the meantime, for you Mac users, do you have any recommendations? The other option is to do a much more direct download via one of a couple of companies like baydownloads.com and pay $4.87 for the privilege. I dunno.

Help? From those who understand this stuff better than I do? I also don't know how slow my internet is; when I worked at Rosetta Stone, they had a handy program that I had access to see to see my upload and download speed- I had a satellite dish at the time since I was waaaaaaay out in the country, and the speed was, unsurprisingly, pathetic. But it'd be nice to know the speed here. My torrent I'm trying to get of the first 10 episodes of season 4 BSG says it will take… 146 days. I think I'll axe that one. :P Maybe I really should try them one at a time.