Playing Catch-Up: Battlestar Galactica
August 2nd, 2011The stars aligned, the Gods willed it, and suddenly the husband and I found ourselves with a Blue-ray capable Playstation, a young man who could show us how to use it, and a set of Battlestar Galactica Blue-ray DVDs in hand.
We both had vague memories of the nothing-to-brag-about 1970s version of BSG, but neither of us had seen any episodes from the “new” series. So we set out to watch the four (or is it 4.5?) seasons. We finished the series a few nights ago. I’m assuming just about everybody else out there has seen the series, but if not, BE WARNED: there are lots of spoilers after the jump!!
Here are the more memorable comments made as the series progressed:
“Wow. The Cylons are right. We don’t deserve to live.”
“Do it! Do it! Oh for God’s sake, if you’re going to put a gun to someone’s head you need to be ready to use it.”
“Why haven’t they put everyone on a military footing and started madly cross-training?”
“These people are not taking their extinction seriously.”
“The Cylons murdered billions, and they’re complaining that humans don’t like them?”
“Why does no one ask the captive Cylons who it was that programmed them? I thought they had guided their own evolution, but evidently not. This is kind of important.”
“Why does no one ask the captive Cylons how many of them there are? How widespread their settlements are? (Assuming they have any.) What the relationship between the human-simulacra and the other varieties is? What their goal is? Do they really intend to settle on planets? Why? Why do they care about Earth?”
“It’s really a failure of creativity to simply replicate humans.”
“Remember when Starbuck used to be a great character?”
“I like Kat and I like Cally. Why do they keep killing off the people I like?”
“I am so sick of Gaius Baltar.”
“Gaius Baltar as Joel Osteen. God save us.”
“So tired of patronizing, self-righteous male figures (human and Cylon) who think they speak for God.”
“Now humans are lectured by Cylons and told to be grateful for death? Be content, peasants!”
Seriously, though, I thought the series was very well done overall, and Edward James Olmos consistently put in the performance that pulled it all together.
The low point for me was the Gaius-Baltar-as-cult-leader plot line, which I think was in season three, while the episodes that I found most riveting came late in the game with the mutiny.
The mutiny was high drama that worked for me because I could completely understand and sympathize with the mutineers when Admiral Adama, a favorite and admired character, oversteps his authority and attempts to impose his will on the fleet. Naturally, good people rebel, but then they are ultimately betrayed by evil. Powerful stuff.
Posted on: Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Categories: General, Movies.
Tags: battlestar galactica
August 2nd, 2011 at 10:27 pm
So, no commentary on Starbuck’s disposition? That was a doozy of a ending and kinda unsatisfying.
August 2nd, 2011 at 10:35 pm
I was exhausted from watching at that point, and honestly, it felt like the writers were exhausted too. You’re right though, the whole Starbuck thing was left hanging, implying all sorts of other questions about God or other powers that no one bothered to ask. I felt kind of sorry for Lee Adama there at the end, left all alone. I did like the “mitochondrial Eve” bit, though I wonder if they were aiming at that all along, or it just occurred to the writers at the last minute as a neat excuse for why Hera was so important. The repeated vision of Hera in the opera house was rather annoying because it didn’t add up to anything.