Battlestar Galactica

[Nevermore]

Cavil - his whole motivation this time is to get resurrection tech? If so, why did he bother fighting the humans before the resurrection ship got blown up? Why bother attacking the humans at all? He seems to have been the most human-hating, but really, once the original Cylons got their freedom from human servitude, why bother trying to exterminate them? And as for his hating a human body, why keep it in the first place? Once he'd gotten rid of the final 5, the resurrection tech has to merely by a method of storing memories for transference. So why not build himself a great big tough ass shiny robot body and transfer into that? Because only the final 5 knew how to make resurrection tech? Ok, but that means the other skin jobs are complete fucking idiots with no idea how to alter their tech, meaning they would be an evolutionary dead end anyway once the resurrection ship bought it. The skin jobs aren't capable of learning how to use their own tech? My fucking head hurts with that shit.

I'm going to go with: It's very likely the Cylons could have reverse engineered resurrection technology but to do so they'd have had to offline and probably take apart the resurrection ship, something they were unwilling to do.  Once the resurrection ship was destroyed, it was too late.

[HaemishM]

The thing is, if they had properly explained every last little bit to make everyone so totally happy we probably would have needed another half a season of episodes to do it, and that's without going into the trio of angels!

You know that entire season and half of shows they've had since they left New Caprica? You remember those sterling arc episodes like "Useless Boxing Tournament" and "Overwrought Fifteenth Mutiny" and "Look, Baltar's Group of Concubines is Starving, Let's Give them Guns!" episodes? That's where you explain some of this shit that's left unexplained. Moore had plenty of fucking time to write and explain the shit he left to our imaginations, he just chose to piss it away with useless soap opera love triangles and idiotic visions.

And fanfic? The world does not need more fanfic.

[Triforcer]

The thing is, if they had properly explained every last little bit to make everyone so totally happy we probably would have needed another half a season of episodes to do it, and that's without going into the trio of angels!

You know that entire season and half of shows they've had since they left New Caprica? You remember those sterling arc episodes like "Useless Boxing Tournament" and "Overwrought Fifteenth Mutiny" and "Look, Baltar's Group of Concubines is Starving, Let's Give them Guns!" episodes? That's where you explain some of this shit that's left unexplained. Moore had plenty of fucking time to write and explain the shit he left to our imaginations, he just chose to piss it away with useless soap opera love triangles and idiotic visions.

And fanfic? The world does not need more fanfic.

I've noticed there is a strange obsession in BSG fan commentary with the Boxing Episode and how it TOOK MY PRECIOUS TIME AWAY.  Every show has occasional throwaway episodes, like when a puppy teaches Worf to love or something like that.  I actually liked that episode a lot. 

[Reg]

For God's sake Triforcer. The Worf puppy love episode was absolute crap! It simply reconfirmed the well known fact that Trek has been dead since the Wrath of Khan.

To me, it seems obvious that there's absolutely nothing wrong with BSG that couldn't have been fixed by putting Joss Whedon in charge.

[Jeff Kelly]

The blame lies solely on the retarted way ratings are measured in the US. Arc episodes are ususally scheduled for sweeps months because they draw a lot of audience and they usually have a bigger budget than regular episodes.

Since BSG doesn't have a very huge budget to start with, they end up with a few killer episodes and a fair amount of filler to compensate for that. The boxing episode and similar ones are basically BSGs clip show equivalent. Not enough budget to show something cool and shall not move the plot forward.

You can notice something similar in other shows as well.

[Jayce]

I liked the boxing episode too.

I think maybe a reason I liked this show so much is that I don't tend to obsess over the details of a work.  I'm not the guy who has the Star Trek Technical manual memorized and can tell you each episode, time and way in which continuity was violated.  If the high level works, I can keep my suspension of disbelief.

For example, I can think of a lot of ways to tell the story of why they "all" decided to go native, but it would take another series, or miniseries at least, to go into it.  I'll take a clean end over elaborating everything to the detriment of the main point of the series.

BTW it's not Helen Tigh, it's Ellen, dammit.

[Yegolev]

I don't get the Boxing Episode hate.  Did everyone forget about Fatsuit Lee?  FUCKING LEE IN A FAT SUIT?!  HOW IS THAT NOT THE STUPIDEST THING IN THE WHOLE SERIES?!  If you all just blotted it out or something, congrats.

[sidereal]

Hm.  Did you see Hera ram the little Battlestar Galactica model into the little Cylon Basestar model at the beginning of the episode?

Foreshadowing, I say.

BAM!


I thought it was fine.  Exceeded expectations, which admittedly had been lowered slightly over the course of the last couple of seasons. 

The 'God did it' uber-explanation unfortunately craps out the same way it always does: you're left wondering why 'God' didn't 'do' something else.  Like just tell them what to do.  'Take Hera and go here and make Earth.  See ya!'  Usually that shit's explained with 'God' having to be mysterious and have a light touch, except this time he crapped out a fake Starbuck and spaceship from nothing, and made her run around the ship and half-remember Jimi Hendrix songs with her memory-dad.  That's not a light touch.  It's a lot of fucking work when you just made her from scratch in the first place.  Just give her a Raptor with full knowledge of what she's supposed to do.

So I mostly just ignored that.

Giving up the tech was a little weak, too.  I think they could have explained it away with Atlantis.  Oh we had a city, but it sank! QQ

[Jobu]

Ok... so I might be remembering wrong, and the finale isn't up on Hulu or anything yet to double check.

Didn't the newspapers at the very end refer to finding a child skeleton who might be mitochondrial eve? Angel Gaius and Angel Six then referred to her "human dad and cylon mom" buried next to her. So that means Hera died a young child.... which means she couldn't have had offspring.... which means she wasn't important anyways? Is my memory mistaken, because I swear that's how it happened. I mean, it's not a big deal, the ending overall was more than just that one throwaway line... but it stuck with me as strange and implausible... like the writer's logic just utterly failed them at the very last second.

[Samwise]

They said "young woman", not "child," I'm pretty sure.

[Jain Zar]

The thing is, if they had properly explained every last little bit to make everyone so totally happy we probably would have needed another half a season of episodes to do it, and that's without going into the trio of angels!

You know that entire season and half of shows they've had since they left New Caprica? You remember those sterling arc episodes like "Useless Boxing Tournament" and "Overwrought Fifteenth Mutiny" and "Look, Baltar's Group of Concubines is Starving, Let's Give them Guns!" episodes? That's where you explain some of this shit that's left unexplained. Moore had plenty of fucking time to write and explain the shit he left to our imaginations, he just chose to piss it away with useless soap opera love triangles and idiotic visions.

And fanfic? The world does not need more fanfic.

That's the thing.  I actually LIKED the slow moving plot not going forward episodes.  Apparently most of you didn't which is why I have kept having to listen to whining about anything character driven in this show since like 06-07 or so.  (Lots of rolleyes.  Its why I barely comment on BSG.)

Sure they could have explained away every little bit of them getting to an agreement on going retro on Earth and why all the ships were more properly sent into the sun and what every group of Cylon and Colonial resistance group did afterwards, but really?  Who gives a shit.  Use your fucking imaginations and rational thought for once.

I can understand how some folks might not like this, but its just what BSG did so close your eyes, spread your legs, and think of England. 

Its certainly not the ending I would have written or anything, but I am happy enough with the bittersweet ending we got.

Or would you rather we have the fucking ending of something like Evangelion?

[Arthur_Parker]

Sure they could have explained away every little bit of them getting to an agreement on going retro on Earth and why all the ships were more properly sent into the sun and what every group of Cylon and Colonial resistance group did afterwards, but really?  Who gives a shit.  Use your fucking imaginations and rational thought for once.

In both series, the twelve colonies are named after the astrological signs of the Greek zodiac; for example, Scorpia (Scorpio), Caprica (Capricorn), and Aquaria (Aquarius). Also, several of the characters in the series have names or call signs corresponding to significant characters in Greek mythology, including Apollo, Athena, and Cassiopeia.
....
Time is perceived in classical Greek fashion of cycles (in contrast to the Judeo-Christian concept of linear time); the major running theme is All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. The presence of religious figures known as oracles, distinct in role from priests, calls up the image of ancient Greek oracles, such as the famous oracle of Pythia. This is an obvious connection, as there is an oracle who wrote part of the Sacred Scrolls named the Book of Pythia
....
In the re-imagined series, Kara's last name, Thrace, refers to a region that includes Romania, Hungary, ex Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. In Greek mythology this region provided a number of Greek kings (including Lycurgus, Phineas and Orpheus's father) and was known for its mercenaries.
....
The Commanding Officer of Battlestar Galactica, William Adama, gets his last name from Adam, the first man created in the Bible. "Adama" is also the Hebrew word for Earth.
The original pitch for the show (in the late 1960's) was called "Adam's Ark", which was subsequently renamed to "Battlestar Galactica". Larson's first concept was to retell various biblical stories in a futuristic, space-faring setting.

But hey forget all that, also forget Moore flat out saying about Starbuck "We debated back and forth in the writers' room for a while on giving it more definition...the more you try to outline it and give voice to it and put a name on it, the less interesting it became."

Because Hera (Hera in the context of the TV show BSG, not Hera the God from Greek mythology) being mitochondrial Eve is so much more interesting.  Years spent crossing the galaxy and ultimately they get totally erased from history because someone got pissed that Stargate got there first with the Pyramids and Atlantis.  I hope Larson's movie is good just to piss Moore off, because even though he created a great series, make no mistake, he really bottled it at the end.

[Jayce]

I can understand how some folks might not like this, but its just what BSG did so close your eyes, spread your legs, and think of England. 

I laughed.


Back on topic, is there any series that everyone agrees ended well, wrapped everything up, didn't lose continuity, nothing was sorta hokey, and left you with that happy afterglow?  I'm not asking rhetorically here (unless there is no such series) but as some have pointed out, ending a series is a hell of a lot harder than keeping the mystery going (cf Lost) so I wonder how often and if ever it's been pulled off better than BSG did.

[sidereal]

I'm not sure about wrapping everything up and happy afterglow, but two of the best finales ever were M*A*S*H and Twin Peaks, both of which were depressing as hell.

[HaemishM]

Back on topic, is there any series that everyone agrees ended well, wrapped everything up, didn't lose continuity, nothing was sorta hokey, and left you with that happy afterglow?  I'm not asking rhetorically here (unless there is no such series) but as some have pointed out, ending a series is a hell of a lot harder than keeping the mystery going (cf Lost) so I wonder how often and if ever it's been pulled off better than BSG did.

Babylon 5. The only criticism that I have to the ending of that series was most of season 5 was paced badly. But the finale just puts ME in tears every time. This wasn't even a good Star Trek ending.

As for those character episodes that I've dogged - I love character episodes, but only when the characters are consistent. Moore likes to talk big shit that BSG is a character drama, but the characters were CIPHERS for where he wanted to move the plot. They acted in complete contradiction to established positions they had before several times during the series. Lee Adama was the worst of the lot. I'm the best pilot, no I want to be a Battlestar Captain, no I want to screw Kara, no I want to marry Duella, no, I want to be a lawyer (which is where it really went off the rails), no I want to be a politician, no I want to be a ground pounder, no I want to be Robinson Crusoe. I mean, shit, 4 episodes ago we have Tigh professing his undying love for Caprica 6 (and vice versa) and one episode after they lose the baby, he's back with Ellen and Caprica ignores the whole goddamn thing.

And since the characters were ciphers to the plot, it meant he wanted to get us to the point he got us to. And that point SUCKED ASS, and it had inconsistent, flip-floppy characters to do it.

[Khaldun]

Actually, I think Babylon 5 is somewhat similar in the end, except that the finale of B5 was better than this one. I think that's another case where the author had one idea at the start about what the ultimate resolution of his big mysteries was, started to realize it was kind of cheesy or didn't fit all the facts, started to improvise, then also had to adapt to actors leaving the show when there was uncertainty about renewal, and ended up with an explanation of the major "arc" that was totally stupid. (Vorlons = Order, Shadows = Chaos; younger races say 'leave us alone' and what ho! they do.) Then he had to stall out some of the last part of his fourth season and most of his fifth. Plus, I think JMS chickened out on some of the harsher dramatic arcs he had planned for characters early on, particularly with the Sheridan-Delenn romance. But at least he tried pretty hard to make a big save and get things back to where they were early on.

But yeah, I don't know a show that was built on a "mystery plot" that's really done exceedingly well in tying everything up satisfyingly. But considering that a lot of novel series manage to do that, it's not impossible. It just takes writing the whole thing out in some measure right from the beginning, rather than having an open-ended serial drama in mind. There are a lot of great shows that would have been even greater if the creators had said, "This is a 48-episode story, no more and no less. That's what you're buying."

[taleril]

Head-Six:
"Let a complex system repeat itself long enough eventually something surprising might occur.  That too is in god's plan."

Head-Baltar(suddenly in a Bale's Batman-esqe gravely voice):
"You know it doesn't like that name."


God did it!  But it's not really god so... that makes it better... or something.

[NowhereMan]

Ron Moore just doesn't have that big an ego

[Velorath]

It just takes writing the whole thing out in some measure right from the beginning, rather than having an open-ended serial drama in mind. There are a lot of great shows that would have been even greater if the creators had said, "This is a 48-episode story, no more and no less. That's what you're buying."

That would be... a pretty impractical way of going about things.

[Khaldun]

Not at all. It's how a lot of shows get made in the UK, for example: there's a set number of episodes that are being bought that tell a complete story. Maybe there will be another complete story with some of the same characters sold later, maybe not--but aren't required to sell a serial on the premise that you'll go as long as the network still wants it, and keep the narrative hamster wheels spinning as long as possible.

[Margalis]

Time is perceived in classical Greek fashion of cycles (in contrast to the Judeo-Christian concept of linear time); the major running theme is All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again

That doesn't sound at all like Greek mythology to me. Greek mythology has a very linear progression that shows the ascent of normal man. First you have the Titans, and they are overthrown by the Gods who are not as powerful but are crafty. Then you have an earth populated with various half-Gods and such but by the end of the Trojan war most of the half-gods are dead or forgotten and the real Gods are fading into the background while humanity comes to the forefront based on good old fashioned ingenuity and hard work.

[Arthur_Parker]

Time is perceived in classical Greek fashion of cycles (in contrast to the Judeo-Christian concept of linear time); the major running theme is All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again

That doesn't sound at all like Greek mythology to me. Greek mythology has a very linear progression that shows the ascent of normal man. First you have the Titans, and they are overthrown by the Gods who are not as powerful but are crafty. Then you have an earth populated with various half-Gods and such but by the end of the Trojan war most of the half-gods are dead or forgotten and the real Gods are fading into the background while humanity comes to the forefront based on good old fashioned ingenuity and hard work.

Greek Mythology and Tragedy

1. How did the Ancient Greeks view history? As progress? As regress? As circular?

It can be inferred from the readings (Otto1, Kerenyi2) that many Greek poets viewed history as either cyclical or regressive. The myths these poets passed on imply that a pattern of change exists in human history and that the Ancient Greeks thought they knew what that pattern was.
For example, the story of the Golden Age under Cronos illustrates a regressive understanding of history. It tells us that the Ancient Greeks believed that men knew no troubles under the reign of the Titans and that “evil” was only introduced later, with the arrival of Pandora (the “beautiful evil”) and her opening the “forbidden” box.
On the other hand, the myths that speak of the perpetual overthrow of each parent generation of gods by their progeny (Ouranos being overthrown by his son Cronos, who in turn is overthrown by his son Zeus) clearly contain a cyclical element, as does the riddle of the Sphinx which we encountered in Sophocles’ Oidipos Tyrannos.3
According to Otto, one mythical figure in particular reflects the cyclical “Zeitgeist” of the Greeks – their god Dionysos. The generally accepted version of the myth tells us that Dionysos came to life as the son of Semele (a mortal woman), but was elevated to Olympian status thanks to his father, Zeus. Otto refers to some versions of the myth that speak of the death and rebirth of Dionysos

The First Philosophers of Ancient Greece

Anaximander was born around the turn of the 6th century BCE and died in the mid-6th century, so he was slightly younger than Thales. They both lived in the same city, namely Miletus (in Ionia, western Asia Minor - modern Turkey), so there is a good chance that they had some contact with each other.

A hallmark of early philosophia was a concern with the nature of the universe as a whole. This was also a concern of the developers of myths(4), of course. But the early philosophers differed from the developers of myth in that the early philosophers tried to find out whether the universe had any fundamental features that we could identify and study further in order to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the universe. This hallmark of early philosophia can be seen in Thales, but Anaximander provides some even more striking examples. For one thing, Anaximander seems to have discovered how to make fairly precise hour-markings on a sundial, and how to determine exactly where on the horizon the sun will rise each day.
....
But what kept the whole thing going? What accounted for the regularities of the seasons and of the movements of the heavenly bodies; what accounted for the cycles of birth and death among living things? Anaximander proposed that the basic form in the cosmos is something he referred to as the apeiron, which means something unlimited or indeterminate or indefinite: something that is not any one of the things we are familiar with, but which has the potential to generate all of those things. From this indefinite entity, "opposites" such as hot and cold split off, and these opposites mix together in various ways to form everyday things. (Anaximander may have held that some sort of evolutionary process was involved.) After some unspecified time, the opposites "pay penalty and restitution to each other for their injustice, according to the assessment of time" and perish into the apeiron (the indefinite or unlimited), to start the cycle again. In other words, the regulatory force of the cosmos for Anaximander was a cosmic justice or order or balance (the word he used can mean all three). And this justice was not something laid down arbitrarily by gods, but rather something inherent in and integral to the cosmos itself. Anaximander did not deny the existence of gods, but perhaps had an alternative way of understanding the workings of the cosmos and its connections with the gods.

*shrug*

[Khaldun]

Arthur's cites are basically right. Broadly speaking, the Greeks had a cyclical view of time and history. Inasmuch as they saw things in linear terms, they saw them in terms of anti-progress, e.g., that things had a tendency to get worse over time.

[Velorath]

Not at all. It's how a lot of shows get made in the UK, for example: there's a set number of episodes that are being bought that tell a complete story.

And they're generally a lot shorter than the 48 episodes you suggested in your example (a season is often as short as six episodes, and even something like Doctor Who is only 13 episodes a seaon).  It's impractical to write an outline a 48 part story (which would come out to around 35+ hours of story for an hour long show minus commericals) without a network commited to picking the show up, and it's impractical for a network to commit to a story of that magnitude before even airing a single episode to see if it will catch on.  Especially if it's a show that will requires a decent sized budget.

Beyond that, even if you plan out a story of that size from beginning to end, there's still a good chance that somewhere during the writing and filming of those episodes, shit is going to change along the way for various reasons.

[Yegolev]

Back on topic, is there any series that everyone agrees ended well, wrapped everything up, didn't lose continuity, nothing was sorta hokey, and left you with that happy afterglow?

I'm going to say Newhart, but that might be subjective.

[Oban]

Back on topic, is there any series that everyone agrees ended well, wrapped everything up, didn't lose continuity, nothing was sorta hokey, and left you with that happy afterglow?

M*A*S*H

[Ironwood]

As someone already said, you cannot say it was 'happy' ?

[Oban]

I laughed, I cried and I felt happy to have watched the final episode.

[Numtini]

Someone asked a while back what the "one hour" was that was such a big deal. Looking it over for a third time (yeah I liked it sue me), it's pretty clear that the hour is the lie detector test which Adama views as an affront to his honor.

I don't mind any of the decisions made in the final episode, but the editing really was rushed and they should have taken that 11 minutes and gone to the half hour.

[tazelbain]

It was alright until the flash forward, which was really horrible.

[Ratman_tf]

Beyond that, even if you plan out a story of that size from beginning to end, there's still a good chance that somewhere during the writing and filming of those episodes, shit is going to change along the way for various reasons.

Sure, I don't think anyone's going to deny that. You've got your big, can't help it, things like actors moving on, and you've got your writing things, like a storyline that's just flopping like a dead fish when it got thrown up on the TV screen. Shit happens.

But nBSG went far afield. I'm not sure if it's what really happened, but goddamn it seems like they threw in a lot of soap drama to appeal to their growing 30-40 yr old housewife soap fanbase. That, and they'd go in circles with a lot of the characters (Roslyn is dying, she's recovering! sh'es dying again... Kara's dead, she's back, she's crazy, she's a cylon? she's an angel? she's gone again...) it just felt like for a long time there the story didn't even have a vague idea of what it was about or what it wanted to accomplish.

[Lum]

Babylon 5. The only criticism that I have to the ending of that series was most of season 5 was paced badly.

The finale was filmed at the end of season 4. Season 5 was added at the last minute when the series was renewed, which is why it stunk in comparison.

[HaemishM]

True, along with the tinkering and meddling TNT insisted on doing to Season 5, it contributd to a very uneven season. And Claudia Christian being banished from the show didn't help either. Oh and Marcus being killed in Season 4. But the finale was indeed incredible.

[Simond]

Back on topic, is there any series that everyone agrees ended well, wrapped everything up, didn't lose continuity, nothing was sorta hokey, and left you with that happy afterglow?

Neon Genesis Evangelion. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

Back on topic, is there any series that everyone agrees ended well, wrapped everything up, didn't lose continuity, nothing was sorta hokey, and left you with that happy afterglow?

Neon Genesis Evangelion. 

As one of the few people who will get that, I ought to choke you.