Marek

Battlestar Galactica season 2 finale

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Just have one more episode to go in the first season now. :tup: :tup: :tup:

I have a question about the series in general. Does Ron Moore have the entire thing planed out from start to finish? What I mean is, does he already have in mind how many seasons its going to run for? I ask because, as much as I love the show, I hope it doesn't run for some ungodly number of seasons only to end when its ratings finally fall, they run out of ideas, or whatever. Just from the way all the episodes flow together I'm guessing that they're not going to do this, but, then again, I haven't watched the second season yet and know nothing of the big twist at the end.

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I have a question about the series in general. Does Ron Moore have the entire thing planed out from start to finish? What I mean is, does he already have in mind how many seasons its going to run for? I ask because, as much as I love the show, I hope it doesn't run for some ungodly number of seasons only to end when its ratings finally fall, they run out of ideas, or whatever.

I have no idea what Ron Moore knows or doesn't know, but he has said that there's no grand plan which maps out the series from start to finish. Which isn't actually a bad thing, 'cause it's counter-productive to think like that when you work in television. The number of seasons it'll do is up to the network, not Moore, and if the network wants five more seasons, then Moore's kind of screwed if he'd planned it out so carefully that it can't go beyond four more seasons. And if he won't do that then the network will get someone else to do it, which, more often than not, is absolutely what you do not want. The Sci-Fi channel airs both BSG and Stargate, and Stargate's 8th season was written, rather conclusively, as the last season because everyone involved believed it was. Except no-one thought that the ratings would go up as much as they did in that season, so even after they'd actually ended the show, Sci-Fi brought it back for a ninth. And now it's pretty clearly running on empty.

I think BSG has shown that Moore has a pretty good handle on things and is able to keep the show coherent and structured even if he's making things up as he goes. I don't think the second season is as good as the first in that respect but by all accounts that was a reaction to the longer season, and I have every expectation that the third season will do it better. And unlike shows like Lost or X-Files, BSG is forward-moving; the question is never what does this mean but what will happen next. There's no secrets to reveal and the backstory isn't critical, there's no big secret Moore could mess up the timing on and reveal way too early or never get a chance to at all.

The show will probably run for a while, and there's no way to know if it'll stay good or why it'll go downhill or anything like that, but right now there's no reason to suspect that Moore is going to blow it. Not having a grand plan has worked well for the show so far.

Anyway. The end of the first season is great, so enjoy that. :tup:

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If you listen to the writer's meeting podcasts you get the sense that intuitively Moore knows where the show is going to end up but nothing at all is actually planned out. Extremely different scenarios are considered all the time.

At GDC he was asked the exact same question that Moos asked. He answered that he has a certain expectation of how many seasons BSG could last, but that it all depends on how interesting they can keep the show. He claimed that he knows from his experience when a series runs dry and said he would stop the show before that happens and move on to a new project. He sounded pretty sure of himself.

I hope he has the ability to actually do that. The SCI FI channel seems to give him broad creative freedom but I'm not sure if that includes deciding when to stop the show in the future.

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The Sci-Fi channel airs both BSG and Stargate, and Stargate's 8th season was written, rather conclusively, as the last season because everyone involved believed it was. Except no-one thought that the ratings would go up as much as they did in that season, so even after they'd actually ended the show, Sci-Fi brought it back for a ninth. And now it's pretty clearly running on empty.

That's happened every year since the sixth season, actually... I'm not sure why I still watch Stargate, really.

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I have no idea what Ron Moore knows or doesn't know, but he has said that there's no grand plan which maps out the series from start to finish. Which isn't actually a bad thing, 'cause it's counter-productive to think like that when you work in television.

Well, there was Babylon 5. It had a five-year story arc planned before they started filming.

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Yes and that bit them in the ass, Babylon 5 was cancelled in the 4th season so had to be written to end there. Then it was picked up again for a final 5th season which totally floundered because it had been finished already!

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I usually don't watch deleted scenes included on dvds as they usually suck and deserved to be cut. Are these ones worth watching?

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Yes and that bit them in the ass, Babylon 5 was cancelled in the 4th season so had to be written to end there. Then it was picked up again for a final 5th season which totally floundered because it had been finished already!

Not to mention that they lost one of the key actors and had to shoe-string some of her planned plotlines into a new (lame) character. Late third, early fourth season still remains :tup:

Finally saw the finale today (as Space, which was showing the full second season uninterrupted for the last few months just got to it). I missed the episode before it, though, but I think I got the general idea of what was going on. :tup: The character dynamics they set up for the next season are just getting so convoluted and complicated. Old six will likely be going for Gaius while imaginary six stays around while he still regrets for the third six... and old Sharon will probably want to see chief again, who's now married and expecting the child of the woman that killed her :erm:

And for all that glossing as to what happened to all the people "one year later", they didn't really show what new Sharon's situation was. Probably still in the brig.

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That's happened every year since the sixth season, actually... I'm not sure why I still watch Stargate, really.

I think with the fifth and sixth season, the finales were written so that they could work as the end of the show, and even then they were planning to follow it up with a movie and a spinoff. It's my understanding that everyone involved was under the impression that the eighth season would be the last, and the last run of episodes in the eighth season clearly have a finality to them that the previous three seasons didn't. But they definitely were going back and forth on the final season for a while there, and Richard Dean Anderson's decision that he was leaving the show, for real this time, after the eighth season probably made some people think that ending it that year was a good idea.

I don't know why I still watch it either. They seem to think that it can go on indefinitely now since it survived a cast/plot change... (but it really didn't...)

Well, there was Babylon 5. It had a five-year story arc planned before they started filming.

I actually don't know much of anything about Bablyon 5, but I'm pretty sure that Straczynski worked out the actor's contracts so that hiring them all back for a sixth season would be way too expensive. If Straczynski got his arc to work, good for him, but it wasn't necessarily the best way to run a show and it certainly couldn't have been easy. Going by what Lawrence and n0wak said, the five-year plan cost the show at times. And if the network cut the episode order for the season in half or even doubled it in the middle of production, as they are wont to do, then what is he going to do? He's kind of fucked.

Again, it's cool that he made it work. I just think mapping out a strict über-arc before production isn't the best/only way to make a serialised, continuity-based show work. I would cite Arrested Development, which never had a grand plan (and as a comedy was probably never expected to), but was solid, well-thought-out and continuity-heavy, where things were only ever planned out a couple of episodes before they were revealed.

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You clearly have never been on usenet.

(Does BSG even qualify as nerdy?)

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Not standard nerdy, at the very least. Maybe pseudo-intellectual/artistic nerdy, but then that's nothing unusual for the Thumb.

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What?! I'm almost finished now with four more episodes to go. I'm currently listening to the podcast for Scar. I was quite shocked that Ron thinks that it's one of the better episodes of the season, and is lathering on the praise. I thought it really sucked. I actually liked Black Market more. I audibly groaned when I saw them using that "x hours earlier" gimmick yet again. The whole "Scar" thing itself came out of no where and seemed really hokey. Also, Kat is unbelievably irritating. Am I missing something?

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I thought it really sucked. I actually liked Black Market more. I audibly groaned when I saw them using that "x hours earlier" gimmick yet again. The whole "Scar" thing itself came out of no where and seemed really hokey. Also, Kat is unbelievably irritating. Am I missing something?

No. Scar is a :tdown:. Not too surprising considering you are halfway through Battlestar Galactica's :tdown: phase. When you get to "Downloaded" you will be fine.

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Yeah, Scar sucked. Black market had some personal stuff for Adama, at least. Scar was completely throw-away.

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Downloaded rocked.

I actually liked the first half of Lay Down Your Burdens more than the second, probably because of the subplot with Tyrol. The funny thing about this season's cliff-hanger is that I'm not really so interested in the cylon occupation or really even care much about what's going to happen next. I'm much more interested in finding out more about what has happened to the characters in the past year. Gaius has obviously fallen to pieces (If I were to guess I'd say that he hasn't seen Six in a year). Lee is bitter and it's unknown what's going on with him and Dee now. Helo seems to be doing better but where the heck is his Sharon? Tyrol and Cally finally got married, but now his Sharon is back. That's certian to bring up some hard emotions on all sides. Starbuck... she doesn't seem as interesting. I'm guessing Anders will die, especially considering I don't think anyone is particularly attached to him. [edit: Dang it, I'm listening to the podcast for the second part now. I guess Anders isn't dying, for a while at least.] Adama still appears to be Adama, yet the return of the mustache might be to signify some change in him (either that or just to show the passing of time). Then there's Zarek. What the heck is he up to now? It could be that I just missed him, but I thought it was interesting that they didn't show him again after Balter "lost" the election. Maybe they just cut his scenes if he had anymore.

[edit]Oh, I just noticed something else. I could be remembering incorrectly, but didn't Starbuck and Tigh hug when they met on the planet? Looks like their relationship has progressed for the better.

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Anyone watch the Peabody Awards? I just watched the two clips that scifi has up on their site. It's hilarious that for the entirety of Matt Stone's acceptance speech he just talks about how great BSG is. :tup:

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Yeah, Zarek isn't in the One Year Later section. RDM said (somewhere) he was Baltar's Vice President but has (or possibly will, after the Cylon occupation; I can't really remember what he said) become dissatisfied with Baltar.

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Yeah, Zarek isn't in the One Year Later section. RDM said (somewhere) he was Baltar's Vice President but has (or possibly will, after the Cylon occupation; I can't really remember what he said) become dissatisfied with Baltar.

Yeah, he mentioned that in the podcast for the episode. Apparently he's VP, and becomes dissatisfied with Baltar's response to the Cylon occupation. In the podcast they also mentioned that the first episode of the third season was going to be five years later. At first I thought they were just joking, but now I'm not so sure. Another five years would allow them to bring the cylon/human child into play, but, jeez, would we ever be missing a whole lot more character stuff. And, what the heck had the Adama boys been up to all that time? Does anyone know whether or not they were serious about the five year jump?

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That's good.

I hope Mrs. Ron shows up in next seasons podcasts. That one for Lay Down Your Burdens part 1 was the best. :tup:

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