big hoos & owenf watch 'battlestar galactica' and no one talks abt eps they haven't seen yet

but as to the two preceding seasons, yeah they were weaker but there was still the occasional worthwhile episode there--the New Caprica stuff was great and perhaps from a better series, season 3 finale was pretty good. tbh the only part of 4.5 I thought was any good was the brief mutiny arc

also i know it's a dead horse but the use of "all along the watchtower" is the corniest shit ever, and that's even before ron moore's fear of what his roomba might do

(xp, although yes there should really be a poll)

tbh the only part of 4.5 I thought was any good was the brief mutiny arc

I agree - but even this was diminishing returns/rehash of previous storyline

My feeling is BSG started as a really good sci-fi show (with sometimes clumsy/sometimes effective overlays of Bush-era topicality) and got mired in increasingly nutty Mormon mysticism. (I know Mormon allegory was the starting point for the series, but the more that became the storyline, the lamer the whole thing got.)

Ron Moore is mormon? OG series had way more mormon shit in it, everything in the new one just seemed to be allusions to that afaict

Glen Larson, creator and producer of the first show, is a member of the Church of Latter-day Saints. He based much of the first series on Mormon cosmology. Was there a concerted effort to move away from that in this version?

Moore: Not specifically, no. I looked at the original series as mythos and the way it dealt with religion as sort of a global sense. I was aware that Glen had used Mormon influences and how he had created the cosmology, but I'm not that familiar with Mormon belief or practice.

The BSG finale was better than I expected, given how bad season 3 and 4 were. The action-y moments were good, pretty tense. The very end was incredibly stupid, no two ways about that.

xp

Yeah, but like he says there, it's pretty much in the DNA for it to have this mystical side(however Mormon it may be). Which was my least-favorite thing about it from the start, and it ended up sort of swallowing the series whole.

the half-assed mysticism definitely destroyed the show. I think the problem was that a bunch of good ideas were introduced at the outset without any real understanding of their implications, and then as the show went on and they realized they weren't going to get cancelled, they got buried under the weight of trying to make up explanations for things that had originally just been tossed off.

cylons being monotheistic, for example.

I just recently watched BSG 1/2 in the last week and a half. It became an obsession and drove my family mad, me watching four plus episodes a day. I couldn't believe how ridiculous the Baltar/Caprica 6 scenes seemed at first and how haunting and hypnotic they became as the series drew me in. A+ for the first two seasons.

Cylons and their creepy sex fantasies and mating with humans, that had a few unexplored angles

we should poll best tv endings ever (Newhart, Sopranos, Seinfeld, M*A*S*H* etc)

― If I was a carpenter, and you were a douchebag (Shakey Mo Collier)

Should probably wait for Breaking Bad to finish before conducting such a poll.

blackadders always ended well

Died/died/became king by mistake/died

exactly

mookie otm

Lost and Sopranos ending far more controversial/hated. This one was just disappointing

i was not disappointed, i wanted to kick the ending into a burning house and then set it on fire fifty more times and then at least chase ron moore around with a torch, not sure where i'd go from there but i think it'd be a fun day

also tbh i didn't mind lost's ending cause they just forced themselves into so many corners and none of it surprised me and at least it had its moments (vincent), where BSG's entire last season is just FUCK IT LET'S DO ALL OF OUR IDEAS CAUSE WE'RE SHINY SHOOTING STARS

I just finished watching Deep Space 9 (for which Ronald Moore also did a lot of scripts, though Ira Behr and Robert Wolfe were the most important writers), and I guess if there's a lesson to be learned it's that you shouldn't bring theology into sci-fi?

(WARNING! SOME MAJOR SPOILERS FOR DS9 WILL FOLLOW!)

I mean, the basic concept of god/gods in a fairly realistic sci-fi setting can lead to interesting directions, but if in the end it all boils down "it was god's plan all along", or "good gods defeat evil gods", then that's just pointlessly simplistic and stupid. Thankfully in DS9 this was never the most important plotline, and its gods were at least given a sort of a mundane explanation, so the theological bits didn't ruin the whole series like they did with BSG.

Anyway, having watched DS9 after BSG, it's pretty interesting to spot the similarities. (I think Ron Moore brought some other DS9 writers too to BSG alongside him?) Besides the "god in space" thing there's a lot of similar themes in them:

* You have the idea of standing alone against a much bigger force whose moralities you cannot understand;
* the paranoia of not knowing whether the enemy is among us;
* a member of the enemy race working for the good guys without even knowing s/he's a part of that race, and when s/he does find out, that forces him/her to choose where his/her loyalty lies;
* the idea of terrorists being the good guys, while the series still questions the morality of terrorism;
* a biological weapon that can destroy the whole enemy race, and the question whether or not its genocide to do that in a situation where your survival is at stake;
* both series also end with a reconciliation between the two warring races rather than the other totally defeating the other.

In retrospect BSG almost feels like Moore took the best ideas from DS9 and ran with them without the constraints set by the Star Trek universe and the Star Trek ethos. OTOH, maybe those constraints were actually a good thing, because DS9 never went indulgent and insane like BSG did, so in the end it was the better series.

"I guess if there's a lesson to be learned from BSG and DS9"

I like that it was pretty clear that the wormhole aliens were never actually gods, but just a non-corporeal species that the Bajorans thought controlled everything. Stupid Bajorans.

Overall, definitely better than BSG, but I'm biased towards it, it's one of my favorite TV series ever.

At first it seemed clear they was just wormhole aliens, but later on in that series between that and them being gods started to get blurry, especially when Sisko himself started to believe in their prophecies. And the Pah-Wraiths were essentially treated as demons: they could posssess bodies with possessed person's voice and eyes changing like in Ghostbusters, they were able to live inside objects and get free when the object was broken, they could be summoned with a spellbook (which needed to be anointed with blood), etc. So by the end, even if the Prophets were still technically wormhole aliens and Pah-Wraiths were corrupted wormhole aliens, in practice they were treated like good and evil gods in a fantasy story... Which I don't think fits Star Trek at all, since Star Trek is all about shades of gray. Even the Dominion turned out to be not beyond redemption!

And that, I think, was the biggest problem with the gods in both DS9 and BSG. Both series are very much about morally imperfect beings, not about good vs. evil, so inserting god/gods who are (by definition) always right into those stories is ill-fitting.

"but later on in the series the line between that and them being gods"

As aggravating as the ending was, I think BSG overall did the moral ambiguity and terrorism themes better than DS9, since they didn't have the constraints of the ST universe on them. I agree that both series kind of mucked up the idea of using these Gods in the endgame.

BSG overall did the moral ambiguity and terrorism themes better than DS9

I'm not so sure about this? IMO, for a Star Trek show, DS9 was pretty bold in exploring the morality of its main characters, especially Kira. (Though Sisko did some pretty dodgy things too, like at the end of the Maquis arc, and in "In the Pale Moonlight") There were several eps where Kira's terrorist past came back to haunt him, including the one where a survivor of her resistance cell's attacks took revenge on them. And as dramatic as the New Caprica arc in BSG was, I think its effect as a terrorist analogue was lessened by the fact that, A) all Cylons on New Caprica were essentially enemy combatants, there were no "civilian" Cylons, and B) at this point the Cylons couldn't really die. Okay, the Cardassians in DS9 (especially the ones who took part in the occupation of Bajor) were mostly treated as an evil empire, but the show did have its fair share of sympathetic Cardassians, and it was made clear that the attacks carried out by the Bajoran resistance cells had civilian casualties too. That was the whole point of the aforementioned revenge episode.

I guess if there's a lesson to be learned it's that you shouldn't bring theology into sci-fi?

There are loads of counter-examples of this in SF literature (by far the best medium for proper SF imo), off the top of my head I suggest you read Olaf Stapledon's astounding Star Maker.

But yeah if you want to examine these themes via the medium of spaceships probably best to think through exactly what your point is before you start bringing god into it (nb not seen DS9).

Yeah, I was gonna add a qualifier that "you shouldn't bring theology into sci-fi into mainstream audiovisual sci-fi", but forgot. I guess the problem with BSG and DS9 is not that they feature god/gods per se, but that the gods are used only as simplistic plot devices. In the former, god serves as a literal deus ex machina, and in the latter, while the "gods"/wormhole aliens are shown to do some dodgy things (particularly with Sisko's mother), in the end their plotline boils down to a simple "good gods versus evil gods" conflict. I don't think either series had any long-term plan when they first introduced their theological elements, which may be why (like you said) they end up with such stupid results.

Kubrick's 2001 does a more than serviceable job of incorporating religious themes (or at least, religious experience, although I definitely tried to interpret the film along theological lines when I was a young'un). Granted Kubrick is exceptional, the vast majority of film/TV sci-fi doesn't even bother and perhaps that's all for the best. otoh WHO MOURNS FOR ADONIS?

i am basically doing what hoos was doing 2 years ago. i'm currently at season 2, episode 2, so i read the thread until a hoos was at that moment, then stopped reading.

the smash-cut w/timpanis at the start of every ep, what's that about? Idgi

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, April 5, 2012 8:29 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^

ugh I know, you get the little 'they have a plan bit' then the 'last week' then the bit of actual real show (with no indicator of when it's started) and then the title, the the timpanis and episode spoilers.

there are a LOT of cheering/back slapping moments.

Not entirely sure how down I am with 'frack' yet. Don't think I ever will be.

i have been a little 420'd out while watching but can i just say that i LOVE the template for the opening of each episode? "The Cylons were created by man. They evolved. They rebelled. There are many copies. And they have a plan." to a quick flashback, then a present-day scene opener, THEN the opening credits/music, THEN the intense flash-forward to the upcoming events of the episode, THEN it starts. takes about 10 minutes every time and i love the predictable rhythm of it. it's so comforting.

i really hate "frack". i will never be down with frack.

otm

frak is awful. it makes them sound like kids at the dinner table using euphemistic pseudo-swears in front of their parents, so self-conscious.

season 2 is excellent, probably the series at its best imo.

there is something about this show that's worse than frack.

WTF is up with the hotshot pilots (who i like!) moonlighting as interrogators? even putting aside the torture stuff, it's just weird! in the next episode is it going to be revealed that they also serve as the ship's dry cleaning team? the whole thing comes across like a middle school play where some kid got sick the night before the performance so the lead has to play two different roles and wear a charlie chaplin fake mustache

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheMainCharactersDoEverything

has to play two different roles

mmm

hahaha
ok, yes, i know that sounds ridiculous in the context of the show, but

I'M NOT A CYLON OK

but someone on ILX is. but i'm not sure who just yet.

It's me.

I know because I have a plan.

So pissed that this came down off of netflix. I was casually going along watching it and then when I heard they were taking it down I ramped up my watching a whole ton, hoping to squeeze everything in. But I threw in the towel somewhere just before the end of season 2.

lucky you

But end of season 2/beginning of season 3 is the peak.

yeah I agree actually just being snarky

as long as you don't get as far as the watchtower

i'm up to battlesode S02E16. in general i'm still enjoying the show a lot, but i'm starting to notice a lot more flaws and annoying things, and the eyeroll-to-battlesode ratio is increasing at condition 1-worthy rates.

the particular way that religion is used to drive the story is annoying. i'm cool with the quest for earth, but i don't like how it's actually executed. there's no logic to it. there are a series of episodes in season 2 that essentially serve as rpg-style fetch quests - first you must find the mystic arrow of apollo! (an episode or two is dedicated to this quest. everyone levels up). NOW, you must take the arrow of apollo to the legendary tomb, whose location is unknown! (an episode or two is dedicated to this quest. everyone levels up). it's just really lame. there's no logic to what they're doing, they're just following scripture, and so there's zero satisfaction when they actually accomplish their goals. i want the arrow to accidentally guide them to venus and kill the exploration ship so that everyone decides to renounce the religion all at once.

why did they change the theme song from season 1? the new theme song is terrible.

from what i understand, one of the last battlesodes i watched (s2e14) is regarded as the very worst. it's the one that introduces two women that lee has fallen in love with, only one of them only exists in about 3 or 4 seconds of footage that gets chopped up and shown about 30-40 times during the hour. the whole thing depends on making you care about these relationships with lee, but they never bother to provide any context or background, and i'm almost certain we'll never see either of his spurned lovers again. it doesn't help that they seemed to have rented out a replacement director from a 1992 episode of one life to live to take charge - the look and feel, pace, editing, everything is embarrassing. battlesode s2e15 is similarly bad in that it's a detour that doesn't do anything to advance the plot.

i love this show!

yeah there are a handful of one-off episodes that apparently the network was pushing them to do but by and large they all suck and are stupid. I remember Scar being one of the better ones. The boxing one is lol.

also *spoilerz* the fact that the president was saved using *controversial* embryonic stem cell research is so lol mid-2000s.

did they have a Terry Schiavo episode I forget

They had an abortion episode, but I don't think they had a Tery Schiavo episode.

The one about Lee's tender, deep, totally unexplored love affair with a random space prostitute is dreadful (maybe s2e14?).