Since there seems to be lots of people complaining, let’s have a poll to see what the global sentiment is.
I’ve really enjoyed although I do think it peaked with Pegasus. Suppose we’ll see what happens with the new season.
Considering that “now” is an extended gap between seasons, I’m uncertain how to respond to this poll.
There’s a big gap between great and mediocre. For me, it was great, and is now good. Hoping they can get back to great in season three.
Even at good, it’s still one of the best television shows out there.
Is there a great > mediocre > great > mediocre option?
Because the first half the season always seems to be miles better than the second half. Maybe it’ll be the other way round for season 3.
I wish I could’ve propbet on my certainty of who the other great/sucks vote was.
Yup, I’m with you. It was great, up to and including Pegasus, then just good (with one or two episodes I’d actually call bad).
So perhaps my poll wasn’t Zogby enough – but well, for all the vitriol on well… the Internet as a whole, it’s amazing how many people are just happy… and quiet!
IMO, it’s never been great, but it’s at least been thoroughly watchable.
It really felt like the writers were “making it up as they go along”, rather than knowing ahead of time where they wanted to take the show. Which is why you had so many meandering, dead-end plots. For example:
Starbuck goes back to Caprica to get the Spear of Apollo. The cast wanders around on Kobold, having mystic experiences, all to help point them to earth. And then? Nothing, it goes nowhere, and they drop it.
They set up the character of Billy, set him up with a love affair, then can’t figure out where to go with it, so kill him off randomly.
Helo and Sharon wander around endlessly on Caprica, all the while seemingly watched by the Cylons. Why? They don’t need babies, as they already have their baby farms. Later events have shown that they aren’t even interested in having humans fall in love with cylons. Again, another plot thread started by the writers, who then see something shiny and get distracted.
Number Six makes some huge deal about Sharon’s baby, and how it’s going to be some unique messiah or some such nonsense, because it’s this unique combination of humans and cylons… and then later you find out there are entire farms dedicated to creating human/cylon hybrids back on Caprica. Ooops. Guess the writers should’ve talked that one through, huh?
A great deal of screen time in the first season is directed towards creating a cylon detector and planning mass screenings of the staff. And then? Poof, disappears off the radar.
Remember Starbuck’s mysterious operation? Heh, the writers don’t.
It just feels like there’s no lead writer driving the show so you just have plot threads that go nowhere.
And don’t even get me started with the season finale. Sheesh.
So, individual episodes? Great. Acting? Solid. Overall direction of the series? Perhaps as bad as any show I’ve ever watched.
I agree with most of your points, but this is actually happened because the actor wanted an out of the series.
It could be because the Cylons have factions. Some of them have the baby farms and believe that’s the way to go, some of them look at the huge failure rate of that, and think there’s got to be a better way.
They also returned to Caprica because they thought Starbuck and her dude there had good screen chemistry. IOW, he’s right, there is no master plan, they just kind of meander around doing shit they think is cool.
True or false: 33 is still the best BSG episode ever.
They found the general direction Earth was in. Hate to break this to you but they probably won’t be getting their until the show is about to end.
They set up the character of Billy, set him up with a love affair, then can’t figure out where to go with it, so kill him off randomly.
Correction, the actor playing Billy is stuck with a minor role and since he’s getting job offers for major roles he and the producers decide to kill Billy off so he can get a better job.
Helo and Sharon wander around endlessly on Caprica, all the while seemingly watched by the Cylons. Why? They don’t need babies, as they already have their baby farms. Later events have shown that they aren’t even interested in having humans fall in love with cylons. Again, another plot thread started by the writers, who then see something shiny and get distracted.
There’s lots of women, but there were no babies. I don’t really see how this thread has been dropped either, especially since the hybrid baby was featured prominently in the finale (I recall there being a big argument over whether the baby appeared to be “old enough”, there was much gnashing of teeth).
Number Six makes some huge deal about Sharon’s baby, and how it’s going to be some unique messiah or some such nonsense, because it’s this unique combination of humans and cylons… and then later you find out there are entire farms dedicated to creating human/cylon hybrids back on Caprica. Ooops. Guess the writers should’ve talked that one through, huh?
Again, I don’t recall anyone saying anything about creating hybrids let alone whether they were successful. In fact this actually disproves your point, as Sharon’s baby would actually be something to rave about if they hadn’t had any success yet.
A great deal of screen time in the first season is directed towards creating a cylon detector and planning mass screenings of the staff. And then? Poof, disappears off the radar.
I fail to see how it disappeared, Baltar completed it, we saw him start the tests and it lived out it’s life as a useful plot thread. After we found out that “nobody ever fails” it would be kind of a pointless waste of screen time to have scenes of Baltar giving people tests. “Green lights again! Another healthy human!” Balter winks at the camera
Remember Starbuck’s mysterious operation? Heh, the writers don’t.
What mysterious operation? What, do you think they installed a homing device or Cylon Uterus™ in her? I don’t think it’s hard to believe he was just fixing up some complications.
And don’t even get me started with the season finale. Sheesh.
I can agree with the “Sheesh” part.
Great post. Mehrunes, could you suck back any more kool-aid? I mean, come on. It’s not that they haven’t found Earth yet; it’s that they made this huge deal about mystic visions, magic arrows, and finding the way to Earth, but then basically NEVER MENTIONED THE PLACE AGAIN!
Look, you love the show. Great. But making all of these excuses is kinda sad. Even the biggest BG defender would have to admit that the plot has jumped all over the place. I don’t know how you can not say that, considering that even Moore must have thought it had gotten off-kilter enough to basically trash two years of plot “development” and reboot the whole series with essentially new Cylons on a new human homeworld. What, does Galactica 44: The French Resistance with Cylons seem planned out to you?
Sheesh.
I don’t know why you quoted bigdruid instead of me but I guess it doesn’t really matter. Anyways, I’m not sure what you expect. Would it help if, at the beginning of every episode the said “WE’RE CLOSER TO EARTH!”, next episode “WE’RE A LITTLE BIT CLOSER TO EARTH”, next episode “WE’RE CONTINUING TO CLOSE WITH EARTH”…
Other than that I’m not sure what you mean by excuses. I was just pointing out some flaws in a few rather pathetic attempts to prove discontinuity. I mean seriously, “Remember Starbuck’s mysterious operation? Heh, the writers don’t.”, what the fuck does this even mean? How do we know the writers don’t? How do we even know it was anything but legit? OH THIS SURE PROVES THE WRITES HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY’RE DOING, THOSE LOSERS!
I mean, magic arrows? I guess we have two people on the forum now who’ve never used a key in their life. What do you guys do when confronted with a locked door, gnaw around the handle until the lock falls out and you can get through? No wait, I know, you just walk straight through the wall dressed up as a giant jug of juice. So that’s what made you think of Kool-Aid!
Mehrunes- So some random people built a kickass laser light show in a dank cave somewhere. They made one and only one key to start that show, and they made the lock a statue. They put that key on a different planet and then gave it mythological significance. But got forbid anyone refer to it as a magic arrow, that’s just how flash drives will work in the future. Ancient weapon+statue is such an intuitive interface I can’t believe we’re using ridiculous toothed metal or magentic strips on pieces of plastic crap.
So yes, I gnaw through doors.
Kobold? :-)
The baby farms on Caprica were unsuccessful.
The spoilerrific preview played on Scifi implies strongly that Starbuck is taken prisoner by the Cylons and Leoben was asking for her in the last episode; most likely her “mysterious operation” that ties into the baby-farming storyline.
The New Caprica storyline Moore has said won’t be a season long thing but more of a detour; I suspect mainly it was added to reboot Baltar’s character more than anything else. He will probably be left with the Cylons much like the original series. Maybe they’ll send him back later when Satan… er Iblis tells them to!
I mean, come on. It’s not that they haven’t found Earth yet; it’s that they made this huge deal about mystic visions, magic arrows, and finding the way to Earth, but then basically NEVER MENTIONED THE PLACE AGAIN!
The people in power didn’t want to stop, but Baltar fucked everything up (that’s what he is there for) and convinced the populace to leave with him and start on that scumhole planet.
As for the operation, it seemed clear to me that they removed her ovaries, or at least some of her eggs.
How do we know the writers don’t have a plan? Well… I’m just going on their track record.
I had all of the same arguments with a friend (big fan) after the first season. He was convinced that the writers had a big overarching story line that was going to explain all the screwy plot points. A story line that mysteriously did not appear during the entire second season. I urge you to go back, and watch the first season finale, and tell me how what happened there (dream sequences for Gaius, etc) led to anything in the second season.
Starbuck had an operation on Caprica, and reportedly the writers are going to do something with it in the 3rd season. That’s great. Some of you actually believe that the writers had it all planned out in advance - good for you. I don’t see any evidence for this, but I’m glad you are “keeping the faith”.
The thing about sci-fi is die-hard fans are incredibly good about explaining away plot discontinuities. After all, the show isn’t over yet, so maybe “all will be revealed/explained in the Nth season”. And, yeah, maybe Gaius was continuing to test for cylons behind the scenes, and the Galactica’s navigators were using the star data from Kobol to chart a path to earth, and maybe Galactica launched a secret fleet-wide search for Gina (the cylon who had sex with Gaius and then detonated a nuclear warhead), and all of these details were just too banal to make it onto the screen in any way, shape, or form. I certainly can’t convince you otherwise (although, you know, you’d think that somebody somewhere would say on-screen “hey, what ever happened to that blonde cylon we used to gang-rape over on the Pegasus? Those were sure good times…”)
For myself, I’m bitter, as I feel like the writers crossed the line last season in the finale. BG didn’t always have the best plots, and continuity was pretty rocky, but I felt like the writers always treated the characters and fans with a certain measure of respect. But taking characters we grew to care about, and then suddenly radically changing their lives without even showing us the details shows a certain disrespect - I mean, we follow Chief and Cally’s story for months, and then they just suddenly fast-forward to them being married and pregnant? The main thing Galactica has going for it is its characterization, and when they starting playing fast and loose with character development too, all they have left is special effects.
And, by the way, I’m still disgruntled that Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck, and who liberally channelled the spirit of Dirk Benedict in the pilot) has been reduced to yet another moody butch TV chick. But I don’t blame the writers for that :)