A slightly disgruntled BSG followup

[chipotle]

I’ve gotten a few comments, on the journal and off, that are along the lines of, “Oh, that sucky ending for ‘Battlestar Galactica’ makes me feel glad I never watched it. It must have really sucked. The Sci-Fi Channel sucks. Suck suck suckity suck.” You know, in direct response to me writing that despite its problems I think it was the best science fiction show that’s been on television.

Setting aside the question of what problems the show had in its second half and to what PSI the finale did or did not blow, to me this is kind of like saying that because so many people threw tomatoes at the series finale of “The Sopranos” it must not be worth watching, or that “M∗A∗S∗H” devolving into self-indulgent moralistic drek for its last few seasons negates the mostly brilliant writing of its first few seasons.

Anyone who actually cares about science fiction on television should watch at least the first season of “Battlestar,” because not having done so is like claiming you care about science fiction in the cinema but having no interest in seeing Blade Runner and Alien. You might see them and think they’re overrated and flawed, but just not bothering to see them is, for that field, like being a literature student who’s never read Hemingway and Faulkner. Sure, you can hate Ernie and Bill after you’ve read them—but you’d better damn well read them.

Did I just compare the first season of BSG to Blade Runner? Yes. And I’d do it again. Bite me. Maybe you’ll think the show lost its way (a very defensible position), and maybe you really won’t like it much from the start. (Although if you really come away thinking that none of the writing and none of the acting and none of the story was worth engaging with, you’ll probably have to remind me just what it is we have in common.)

If you haven’t watched it, though, don’t tell me that the presence of religion or providence or Bob Dylan demonstrates that you don’t really “need” to see it in order to know how terrible it was. Because you know what? If I ever got a TV show on the air and it only “failed” as badly BSG did, I would be unimaginably ecstatic.

Now back to your regular programming, whatever the hell it is you kids are watching these days.

Comments

[barberio.livejournal.com]

There are very few occasions where I decided outright I wouldn't even bother to see something, and actively avoid it while being vocal about it, it was so obviously something I would find cringe worthy, bad and wrong.

Those were 300, and Norbit. Oh, and perhaps the bad+wrong version of 'The Spirit', which is all kinds of bad and wrong just from the trailer.

But otherwise, I try not to comment on things I haven't seen.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I suppose there's an area between "first-hand experience" and "no experience" that's, say, "informed second-hand experience" -- reading a detailed review of Frank Miller's "Spirit" movie that confirms everything you feared, for instance. My little polemic shunted that middle area aside for, well, purposes of being a polemic. :) I was set off a bit by comments that were, well, fairly clearly not informed. I can't say anything if someone dislikes a show after actually having seen a few episodes -- one's subjective opinion can't really be "wrong" -- but if they say, "I never watched it but I know I wouldn't like it because of [objectively incorrect belief about show]," my hackles go up a bit. :)

[graveyardgreg.livejournal.com]

If there's one thing I enjoyed about BSG is the acting. The acting was great, even at its so-called "worst". Oh, that Laura Roslin character...

[pathia.livejournal.com]

I didn't find the first season all that engaging, but then things in it made it painful for me, so I wasn't even able to finish that season itself. If I can't take the 'best' of it, I'm not really sure if I should bother trying to work through the rest. I found B5 and Farscape much more enjoyable.

[silasmouse.livejournal.com]

I admit I shouldn't make such heavy-handed comments about a show I've not paid much attention to.

It does make me wonder why so many things insist on running past their due course, though. I'm starting to wonder if "sequel fever" tends to degrade (not necessarily negate) certain achievements. Consider The Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jurassic Park, and so many other good movies that had less impressive or downright terrible sequels. Maybe television serials (emphasis on serials like BSG, as opposed to stuff like Family Guy) would be better if the writers would stick to just one or two seasons.

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. This is one area where American television tends to be sorely lacking; it rarely if ever knows when to stop. Regardless of how good something is it will jump the shark eventually, and in the case of American television it'll probably be after at least five seasons of wandering crap.

With the power of brands and titles, the advertising-driven nature of the industry makes it inherently prejudiced against the wisdom and satisfaction of ending on a high note or a laugh; the chance of any venture outliving its usefulness and losing its artistic way is thus directly proportional to its success.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I don't think the show's Achilles' heel was quite as much running past its course as much as losing its course. Having said that, though, I do wonder if its premise was somewhat self-limiting, in the way that any show whose premise essentially sets the conditions for its conclusion has to be. A show with an episodic premise like "Law and Order" or "The X-Files" can keep running indefinitely; a show like "Battlestar" or any of the seemingly endless remakes of "The Fugitive" can't. (I used to joke that every few years "The Fugitive" got remade with different names; the TV version of "The Incredible Hulk," "Nowhere Man," "Werewolf," "The Pretender," etc.)

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

You remember Werewolf.

♥

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I remember it dimly, I confess, but yes. "Werewolf" is, IIRC, what actually led me to formulate the Recurring One-Armed Man Theory, which states, essentially, "No decade will be without at least one incarnation of 'The Fugitive.'" If you take the basic structure as "Person A travels around the country in pursuit of Person B, who holds the key to [Insert Plot Device Here], while in turn he is pursued by Person C," it keeps coming up in various iterations.

But you do get extra points if your iteration has Chuck Connors as an alpha werewolf.

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

Well-said.

Writing issues aside it has a lot going for it which can stand up to heavy criticism, and I do realize I could not have been nearly so let-down by the last seasons if it hadn't been for the overall quality of the first.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

*nod* In an earlier draft of this little quasi-rant, I joked that BSG may show up in future scriptwriting textbooks primarily as an example of what happens if you try to tell a multi-season story arc without having an outline first. A lot of writers hate outlining, but a lot of writers who think they can make up something very complicated as they go along discover that's not so easy -- and unlike novelists, when you're making it up while your TV series is airing, you don't get to say, "Oh, crap! Let's just say the third season was a first draft and restart from there."

[kereminde.livejournal.com]

Regular programming? That'd be Alton Brown, Lost, and on occasion Guy Fieri.

What? A lot of my former favorites are canceled! :)

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm tired of the whining, too. Simply put, "Thank You".

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Hell yes. Agreed.

[footpad.livejournal.com]

arrrrgh *squint* (skip without reading) NO SPOILERS AMIRITE?

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I don't believe this post has any spoilers in it, actually, beyond a couple oblique references that would be cryptic without having seen the whole series. (I won't go back and highlight them, mind you.)

I can't make any guarantees about the comments to this post, of course, so you might want to keep skipping over it just in case. :)

BSG

[krdbuni.livejournal.com]

I've never commented one way or the other on the new show. I've ever seen it. I confess that, having only ever been interested in the original for the effects and the music, I found myself uninterested in the idea of a sequel. Hearing about how the final episode comported itself only reinforces the disinterest I already possessed.

Kristy

Re: BSG

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a sequel -- it was a "re-imagining," which could be succinctly described as "What if 'Battlestar Galactica' had actually told stories that revolved around its bleak premise instead of sending Apollo to the fucking Casino Planet in the second or third episode for Christ's sake."

As for the rest, well. I've already said my piece -- I think blowing off the entire series because you've heard bad things about the finale does it a disservice. Part of the reason people are kvetching about the ending is because the first two seasons were probably the best science fiction that's ever been on television (and IIRC, during the second season Time magazine called BSG the best drama -- not sci-fi show, drama -- on TV). That the final season dropped in quality is undeniable, but bluntly, there are a hell of a lot of genre shows whose high points barely matched BSG's lows.

Re: BSG

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

The casino planet was in the pilot. The locals used people as living hosts for their larvae and used a "speakeasy" with loose tables to attract humans to the place. I've often wondered what percentage of the visitors were allowed to return to the colonies with richer pockets? Consume everyone, and you have no word of mouth to bring in new vic... guests.

[ben-mouse.livejournal.com]

Huh.

Like I said, I watched a few episodes, and didn't like it.

Second, you and others have, both here on LJ and in other places, talked a lot about BSG over the years, good and bad. It allowed me to forulate an opinion about the program, and I don't believe it was an uninformed opinion.

Finally, my opinions are mine. I know what I want my SF to be, whether it's (focusing on visual media here) disutopian like Blade Runner, hopeful along the lines of Close Encounters, or silly-fun like The first Star Wars films and the TV clone, the original BSG.

I know what I like, and, based on the opinions of people I trust, general conversation and what I did see of the program, I'm pretty certain I would not like the new BSG.

Calling BSG the best SF show thats's been on television is a tall order too. Better than, say, the better episodes of ST:TNG? Better than the better episodes of the Twilight Zone?

You're certainly entitled to your opinion though.

For me though, "good acting," while being an important part of a good science fiction series, is only part of the picture. From what I've heard and from what I've seen, this latest take on BSG falls short in many other ways.

My opinion.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

While dark may not be everyone's color for speculative fiction, I considered the new one to be far more believable than the old. Running with nothing but the shirts on your back, food, water and other supplies will be very limited and it WILL be ugly. The first one turned into LoveBoat in Space.

Not better than TNG - but a different style. TNG spoke of hope for the future. BSG spoke of the drive to survive in desperate conditions. Different stories, even if they both have spaceships in them.

And I'm not trying to sell you on anything. Enjoy what you like - I do :)

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I wasn't really singling out your grousing for my return grouse; there were a few people who made objectively uninformed comments to me, as in, "I didn't watch because of X" when X never happened. If somebody forms an opinion based on incorrect facts, they might get called out on it. I apologize if I came across as "anyone intelligent must like this show," but frankly, I was getting a little tired of comments that were to me coming across as the exact opposite. If I had a quibble with yours, it's because it essentially came across to me as, "Oh, there was apparently religious revelation in the end, that confirms it was as bad as I thought."

There are perfectly reasonable reasons not to be interested in the show; if you have an active dislike of military science fiction, it's probably not going to be your cup of tea. I don't think the show was "about" the military, per se, but it was very often about the way military and civilian power interacted. The questions of how intelligent, well-meaning people could make horrific decisions were where a lot of its strongest--and most controversial--plot lines came from, but not everyone likes dark brooding on the morality of power to be the subject of episode after episode. Personally, I appreciated that it seemed to be about the only show deeply grappling with these issues as they were actually coming up in real life, rather than giving them superficial gloss like "24." It's possible in time that will date the show too much, though--it's very much a post-9/11 drama.

And, yes, on the average I would call "Battlestar" the best science fiction show that's been on television. "The better episodes" of "The Twilight Zone" and "ST:TNG" may be better than the median episode of "BSG," but the median episodes were not. And unlike either of those shows, "BSG" was arc-driven, not episodic. It's a lot easier to have a "classic episode" in a show where episodes are self-contained stories, but being able to point to individual episodes of "Law & Order" that blew you away doesn't necessarily make it a better drama than "The Wire." We haven't really seen any other American sci-fi TV show try to tell this kind of arc story, other than "Babylon 5." (And I suppose it's worth noting that while "B5" was a more conventional and less challenging show overall, strictly in terms of pulling off one big-ass multi-season story, it did it better than anything before or since.)

[silasmouse.livejournal.com]

Old horror films like The Exorcist are usually great for giggles, but dammit, I'm 25 and most episodes of the Twilight Zone still freak me out!

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's fair to even try to compare ST:TNG to BSG. They're not even in the same ballpark as each other, but they're not even playing the same sport.

ST:TNG was scifi, plain and simple. The episodes (in general) revolved around scifi technology and were solved in terms of that technology (how many episodes were solved by "modulating the shields" or similar stuff that a character just pulled out of their ass?). Character development and meaningful drama just didn't exist.

BSG was a drama. It was a drama set in a scifi universe, but it wasn't about the technology, it was about the characters. Problems were solved in terms of the characters, not in terms of the technology. You could tell a similar story without the scifi setting at all and still have a compelling story.

I'm not trying to knock ST:TNG here, just saying that the comparison really isn't even applicable. I mean, I watched every single episode of TNG when it originally aired, and it's very good for what it is. But it's not a drama.

[kereminde.livejournal.com]

I do object to "character development and meaningful drama didn't exist" . . . development DID exist, though it seemed to be more the writing staff stopping certain themes for characters after the first season . . . and how actors approached their parts and actually owned them.

Watch some of first season, then fifth season . . . there is development at work. It's sometimes subtle, sometimes not.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

I love the reimagined version. Long have I groused that the first series turned into the "LoveBoat in Space". This was far more believable and gritty - what an evacuation with nothing but the shirts on your back WOULD be like.

They started to really stretch my disbelief gland when they had the cylon civil war and the rebels join up with the humans. Ummm... that's starting to hurt there. The whole Uberpower in control of your destinies thing was beaten too hard as well. The lame ending of the second half of the finale really was too much - angels are the answer to every question? Come on - I've earned a better finale than that. Pooh.

Me, I pretend that the last half of this final season don't exist. I let the midseason cliffhanger on Urth be the finale in my mind. A very powerful climax where they've reached their goal, and now wander around lost and thinking "Now what?"

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I think the problem with the latter part of the series -- after they left "New Caprica" -- is that the writers seemed to zig-zag more than once for where they wanted to go next. There are a lot of hard-to-believe things you can make work if you spend enough time and effort setting them up, but if you just lurch into them, it fragments.

[jackfurlong.livejournal.com]

[info]elusivetiger wrote:
"...American television...it rarely if ever knows when to stop."

I sure did; like many folks, I watched 4 to 5 eps, and gave up.
I miss "Dresden Files", "Farscape", "The Invisible Man", "The Chronicle" and "GvsE".

The only decent thing the channel's run lately is "Sanctuary" and "Eureka"

[twentythoughts.livejournal.com]

BSG is one of Those Shows I Really Should Watch At Some Point. I've watched a few single episodes here and there, and enjoyed them. I've watched the opening miniseries, and enjoyed that. Again, though, starting to watch a TV series is a commitment these days, and the fact that I'm still 3/4ths of a way through the first season of "The Wire" two years after I first started watching it is kinda telling.

That said, I didn't have any problem committing to both seasons of the also-awesome-but-cancelled-before-it-could-end-dammit "Carnivale" show. So, hmm.

[kereminde.livejournal.com]

Ahha, another person who got to witness that weirdness! If what I read on Wikipedia after the fact was accurate . . .

Technically it *did* end, but not where the writers conceived it would - it was written for six seasons, in two-season-long arcs. So they finished the arc, but not the series.

[twentythoughts.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I did the Wikipedia thing, too. There was going to be a time jump of about ten or twenty years. That doesn't change the fact that it ended on the BIGGEST DAMN CLIFFHANGER EVER ARGH!

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I also saw some of "Carnivale" but didn't keep up with it. It's a little amusing to bring it up in context here, though: the idea of reviving "Battlestar Galactica" sounded terrible to me, and the changes reported before it aired made it sound like they'd taken a bad series and made it worse. The reason I gave it a chance is because I knew Ron Moore had worked on "Carnivale."

[twentythoughts.livejournal.com]

"Carnivale" is one of those shows you really have to follow on DVD. Each episode advances the plot slowly, but man, when it does climax, it *really* does, whether it's an emotional climax or Shit Coming Down or both.

[twentythoughts.livejournal.com]

... That said, I found the first season of BSG for cheap, and wound up ordering it. Will be interesting to follow.

[kereminde.livejournal.com]

I have the boxed sets. I can loan you at a word, if you take the infliction of them well. Ask Kitana about them if you like, she watched them with me by a small amount of arm-twisting.