“When they give you things, ask yourself why. When you’re grateful to them for providing the things you should have anyway, ask yourself why.” – Lady in Blue, rebel broadcast
Battlestar Galactica is beginning to suck. In a soap opera way. Big-time. As it progresses this season, it has lost its balance in terms of character focus. It's also given us very little macro level storyline. It's also got stupid stuff, like the admiral and the president personally overseeing interrogations. Blah.
Jeff
posted by JeffV @ 8:27 AM
12 comments
I write fiction. My latest novel, Shriek: An Afterword, is now out in the US, published by Tor. I'm currently co-editing a series of anthologies with my wife, Ann, who is also the fiction editor of Weird Tales. We have three cats, all of whom have eccentric personalities. Soon, I will be moving to WordPress and my happiness will be complete.
12 Comments:
I can't disagree, sadly. I've been trying valiantly to stay in love with it, but my better, smarter inner eye's crying foul. Any particular place it happened for you Jeff? I was reasonably pleased with the first few post-New Caprica episodes, as I'd been wanting more Cylon socio-cultural exploration. But the Jane Espenson (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Gilmore Girls, etc.) penned episode, "The Passage," is where things started to go awry, imo.
Matt
I thought things started to suck in 2.5. The back-to-back lazy storytelling of "Scar" and the Lee Adama black-market episode really made it apparent. I only watch TV on DVD so was holding out hope that season 3 would mark a return to form...
Pah...you're all just being sucked into the BSG backlash. Mid season three was always when it would kick in. Frankly, it was always a programme with some fairly majour flaws saved by its sheere energy and intensity. I think those things are still there so I'm still enjoying it.
I didn't know there was a backlash.
No, it fairly seriously sucks.
I think it started for me a little earlier, when their idea of the inside of the Cylon base ship was some curtains, a bathtub, and lava lamp lighting.
JeffV
With Damien here. I don't think it's changed (and with a team of writers there are always the odd dudd episodes), although I do find the Apollo/Starbuck pendulum episodes a little repetitive. Close that story, guys... close it soon!
I did have similar thoughts about the President and Adama... but then I realised that I was watching a tv show about the last few thousand people left alive from nine planets, y'know? I dunno how that would change things, but I guess it'd go back to smaller society... say when tribal chiefs et cetara still did that shit.
It's all debatable I guess. It was always a bit soapy, but done so well and with many redeeming and cool feature.
Geez, I didn't mean to write so much.
What they need is pirates.
Funny, Caitlan Kiernan has been saying the same sort of things about BSG over on her blog.
As for me, I gave up on it awhile ago.
Best,
Jonathan K. Stephens
Meh, its still better than most other things on TV. I think the biggest problem is that it doesn't have a defined story arc, in the vein of something like Babylon 5 (Which had a whole host of OTHER problems, but I won't get into that). That means that the writers have to produce a whole lot of filler episodes (e.g. Scar).
Completely off topic, Jeff, did you see that a nice review of Shriek appeared in the Observer this week?
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1999378,00.html
I'm getting sick of it simply because of the gutless weenie character of Lee Adama. I mean, talk about wallowing in mediocrity. I thought he was under-written and under-developed from the get-go, but to have these two women pining for him, and Admiral Adama continuing to trust him after all the let-downs and betrayals... sheesh.
As for the series as a whole, I think it's suffering from being too monotone. The writers are fixated so much on conveying "bleak desperation" that they've lost sight of actual storytelling. Of course, the annoying corners cut on worldbuilding continue to rankle me, but that's been the case since the miniseries (wouldn't they be running out of tobacco after all this time?).
Right and right again on the 2.5 suckage, but I think even Jeff would say things were rocking forward those first four episodes of season 3.0 (which for me stand as some of the best in the series--the Michael Hogan arc in particular was gut-wrenching).
But to be totally frank, I could really care less about finding Earth or whether it's all aliens manipulating things per the old series. It's episodes like Black Market that I in fact *want* to work, but that sadly seem be failing the most miserably. I'm far more interested in the socio-political elements of either fleet (not to be confused with soap-suds and duds) and the impact of all that's happened on the individuals.
The macro story's nice, but come on--this is TV we're talking about here...is anyone really expecting to be surprised or all that riveted by the big reveals? If I want to be genuinely astonished, I'll go read a Jeff Vandermeer novel... :)
I did like the beginning of the third season.
Matt--just posted a bit of the new novel, btw.
JeffV
I think it's suffering from what happens to a lot of TV shows when the studios realise they've got a popular format and want to drag it out as long as possible. This is so noticeable now in the quality of the writing. I think it's a case of the money-makers taking control and wanting to milk the format for all it's worth.
It's sad to see, but I still have faith they can turn it around.
Totally agree with you. I've stopped watching.
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