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Marek

Battlestar Galactica (BSG) and spinoffs

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???

So... you didn't like the first two seasons, but enjoyed the third and forth? I can't wrap my head around that.

I can't wrap my head around the idea that anyone could have not found the first two seasons dull, predictable and repetitive... "Starbuck's completely off the rails!" "Yeah, but she's the best damned pilot we've got, dammit!", over and over. Aside from the atmosphere and "realism" (which was great), it was cookie-cutter TV. "Don't worry folks, everyone will survive and be back in their starting positions at the end of the episode, ready for next week's exciting instalment.. when we won't reveal anything more about the Cylons". I'm surprised I made it through them all, to be honest... but I know there's folks who think that the first two TV seasons were amazing... I guess I'm just not one of them :)

Of course, on the flip side, I was sold on the show by a guy who kept going on about how it "all perfectly ties together"... so I kept waiting for big reveals that never came. Eventually I settled into the groove and just enjoyed it, and thankfully it the writers started doing some interesting stuff.

Thank the gods for seasons three and four... where the show found something interesting to say and do. And what a perfect ending (ignoring the slightly cheesy bits of the conceit). Awesome.

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I'd take that any day over the mystical bullshit, Cylon identity crisis, and ramped up melodrama. To each his own, I guess.

Every time I refresh this page you've edited your post. Also, I didn't dislike the fourth season or the ending. Despite a couple of minor annoyances and having a million endings (Return of the King syndrome), I was still tearing up.

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I'd take that any day over the mystical bullshit, Cylon identity crisis, and ramped up melodrama. To each his own, I guess.

Every time I refresh this page you've edited your post. Also, I didn't dislike the fourth season or the ending. Despite a couple of minor annoyances and having a million endings (Return of the King syndrome), I was still tearing up.

That's cool. I have to say, though, that the "mystical bullshit" was part of the show from the very beginning... As soon as

Baltar started seeing things that also gave him information he couldn't possibly have gotten elsewhere -- the location of the enemy power stations, for example. Of course, back then it was open to interpretation a bit more. I do like what they did with it, though. There were just too many coincidences for it to end without any explanation, and I'm glad that religion wasn't part of the answer. Ron Moore did a great job.

Hmm. I do wonder if the person who turned me on to the show is to blame for me being so frustrated with the first two seasons... ?

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I finally uploaded something new to my blog:

Battlestar Galactica Viewing Order

For, you know, any new viewer who wants to watch it all "perfectly" from the beginning.

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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I would strongly advise against watching The Plan altogether, as it tarnishes the impression of the show. Once you've seen it, it's hard to unsee it :(

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I would strongly advise against watching The Plan altogether, as it tarnishes the impression of the show. Once you've seen it, it's hard to unsee it :(

Got to disagree, I really enjoyed how it filled in the cracks. I do wonder if it might be better to watch it sometime before the finale, though.

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Watching Battlestar Galactica for the first time... looks like I'll be done with two seasons by the end of the week. I'm so fucking addicted to this show, it's definitely in my top five of all time.

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hmmm... now Caprica is becoming The Matrix. At least the most recent episode was less boring than the rest.

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hmmm... now Caprica is becoming The Matrix. At least the most recent episode was less boring than the rest.

Heh yeah that occurred to me too. But then I thought; it is pretty much impossible to explore issues in a high fidelity virtual world these days without being compared to The Matrix.

I watched The Plan recently too. I wasn't disgusted by it or anything, but it felt very anticlimactic, like a series of deleted scenes and out-takes the like of which might appear as an extra on a DVD.

and the cylons incompetency was like a series of bloopers. I was reminded how in the first two seasons I had the impression that each cylon agent was an autonomous super-genius, aware of their 'plan' and deciding for themselves how best to work towards it. Here they all looked completely and utterly human; they may as well have been human terrorists since their cylon nature played no part. It turns out that there really was no Plan at all, just the Cavilles winging it. I didn't really need to know that

Caprica I am starting to really enjoy though. It is very different to BSG (as expected focussing more on family drama, less action). But that's OK.

Things I like:

  • Sense of time and place and society - being at the same time futuristic and 'historical', with a distinct look that isn't quite 1930's, but evokes the same sense of nostalgia. It's really subtle but really well done, mixing elements from almost every decade of the last 100 years of Western society plus good guesses about our near future. It feels really grounded.
  • Likewise the racial stuff. The Taurons are a wonderful blend of Jewish, Native American and Sicilian Mafia. I can't remember the last time I saw such a convincing fictional culture on screen.
  • Spotting precursors (or rather reinventions) of cylon technology. Holobands = 'projecting'. Zoé copy = resurrection tech.

It could all derail horribly, but so far so good.

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Just started watching BSG, intending to follow ThunderPeel2001`s fantastic guide. I've just watched the one episode, but I really liked the whole intro thing, with the guy coming each year and sitting alone.

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Just started watching BSG, intending to follow ThunderPeel2001`s fantastic guide. I've just watched the one episode, but I really liked the whole intro thing, with the guy coming each year and sitting alone.

Yeah Battlestar was an impluse purchase for me, I picked it up last spring on no information other than it was good. I went through the first 3 and a half seasons then hated having to wait for the final half season. Even my dad liked it, who is notoriously difficult to please with Sci-fi.

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Wait, episode 4.18 and 4.19 are only extended on the blu-ray? Maybe I'll have to netflix it.

Edit: Oh, god, no... Netflix doesn't have it. Goodbye, $20 at the very least. =/

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Well, I finished Battlestar Galactica essentially within the span of a week, that's how much I enjoyed the damn thing.

I know that I love the show, but I'm now just grappling with the fact that some answers are simply not meant to be answered despite how much I want to know. The whole point of the damn thing seems to be that things aren't always explainable, but it doesn't stop me from being curious. Who is Daniel/Seven? Are the "angels" that appear to Gaius and Caprica-Six actually agents of the "God" as we know it, or part of some sort of advanced civilization that chooses to appear only to specific people?

All of these things appear to be part of a conundrum that critics (of cinema in particular, at least) face quite often, and that's whether a piece of art should be praised because it accomplishes the artist's vision or because it speaks to the person who observes the art.

Rambling sorta, yes, but thoughts?

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You won't find answers, but listening to Ron Moore's podcast at least reveals intentions.

Also: Wow, you watched every episode... in a week?! That's something like 60 hours of TV?! Which means you'd have to have spent 8 hours a day watching it...?

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You won't find answers, but listening to Ron Moore's podcast at least reveals intentions.

Also: Wow, you watched every episode... in a week?! That's something like 60 hours of TV?! Which means you'd have to have spent 8 hours a day watching it...?

It's actually eight days, but one of those days was pretty much dominated by a lot of school work. From the boxes, it's about 64 hours long... so that's like 8 hours a day, yeah. :fart:

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Okay, BSG has been awesome so far, but is dumb stuff like

Starbuck being able to control an alien ship by squeezing rubber guts

going to be par for the course in the episodes to come? It really comes off as a more serious and realistic (for sci-fi, anyway) show, but that really stuck out as a crazy, unfitting way for her to get back to the ship.

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Okay, BSG has been awesome so far, but is dumb stuff like

Starbuck being able to control an alien ship by squeezing rubber guts

going to be par for the course in the episodes to come? It really comes off as a more serious and realistic (for sci-fi, anyway) show, but that really stuck out as a crazy, unfitting way for her to get back to the ship.

I didn't think that was so dumb, but yeah, it's stretching it, I guess. It definitely becomes "less realistic" (by your definition) as it goes on.

(I thought she was pulling on muscles, etc. rather than squeezing guts.)

But it's still also very good.

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Okay, BSG has been awesome so far, but is dumb stuff like

Starbuck being able to control an alien ship by squeezing rubber guts

going to be par for the course in the episodes to come? It really comes off as a more serious and realistic (for sci-fi, anyway) show, but that really stuck out as a crazy, unfitting way for her to get back to the ship.

There wasn't much that irritated me as much as that (which did irritate me a lot), but the series as a whole kept bugging me with little things throughout. It was good, but there was always something preventing from me from adoring it like all my friends seem to. For one thing, I found a large portion of the characters variously annoying throughout the run, to the point of pretty much hating some of them a lot of the time. For example, there were points when I wouldn't mind if Starbuck got run down by a combine harvester. Also, for a lot of the time everyone seems to have magical thinking about "souls" and the nature of life: not only are mechanical parts inherently incapable of forming consciousness by their reasoning, but so too are beings made of organic materials but who were formed in an unfamiliar way that was at some point presumably set up by mechanical beings. I'm not saying that I claim to have any certainty about the nature of life or consciousness, but it seems rather arrogant and closed-minded that everyone in the series presumes to know (at first), and that they're all leaning the same way. The term "machine" is thrown around (even by the Cylons) as though it's an ethereal quality rather than simply a term for a mechanical system (which, when made organic, is basically indistinguishable from what we are). I get that those sorts of prejudices are one of the themes, but you'd think there'd be more breadth of opinion than that. I don't know.

Not really spoilers, just my thoughts on the ending (without specifics), but if you're ultra-paranoid, whatever:

Whilst the ending wasn't nearly as frustrating as it could have been, it certainly wasn't totally satisfying. Some of the stuff they keep returning to throughout the series never really gets justified, ending instead in a pretty inconsequential manner. Also, people don't act entirely convincingly. Also, something extreme happens without the dramatic pay-off I was hoping for.

I don't know, I'm not very good at proper criticism stuff. My thoughts: the series is good, but marred.

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Anyone know if the Blu-Ray version of BSG is worthwhile? Amazon is currently running a sale on it at $150, which is pretty decent as compared to the regular price it tends to retail at.

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Not a movie/TV, but I thought I'd mention it anyways... just watched the latest Tekzilla only to see our very own ThunderPeel2001's blog featured for its extensive reccomended viewing order of Battlestar Galactica.

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Damn. They just read out my blog, word-for-word. It's really strange to watch people reading out loud something I've written. I wonder if I'll see a spike in traffic? :hmph: (Edit: Nope.)

Also: That must explain this!

Gog.com were going to do something with my Planescape: Torment guide, too. But I've not heard from them, so that might not be happening. Still, exciting!

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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