Saturday, March 21, 2009

The End : Battlestar Galactica

The audience after the 4th replay of Cash4Gold

Last night's BSG was splendid - other than the huge number of commercials that SciFi crammed into the latter half of the show. How many? The show ran over 11 minutes, is how many. On the excesses of capitalism scale, 1 being $3 bottles of water at the basketball game and 10 being the metaphysical corporate ownership of Rollerball, it was only a 2. But it made me want to Torrent the cleaned copy by 30 minutes in.

One commercial I didn't mind was the trailer for April's premier of Caprica. My wife wasn't impressed with the concept of the show, but considering that I've watched BSG for the drama, a companion show more rooted in fiction rather than the science fantasy looks pretty tasty.

Discussion in the comments for those interested, and spoilers will be discussed. Galactica Sitrep has great links.

6 comments:

idiosynchronic said...

Some of the biggest criticisms have been 1) Starbuck, 2) Two Earths, 3) the length of the epilogue.

1) Why not if HeadSix and HeadBaltar have been present for the entire series and throwing occasionally Baltar around like a ragdoll? And its a good touchback to the original series with it's 'angels'. Thank god the writers checked the 2nd Grade theology of the original at the door.

2) Multiple Universe theory for idiots. And this ain't even new - Star Trek in 1960-something used this very same theory to justify some pretty bad TV.

3) Kwitcherwhinin. You probably whined about Return of The King, Revenge of The Sith, and will whine about the end of The Deathly Hollows in 2011.

Anjha said...

I have never - ever - seen a single episode.

You are going to find this one amazing too, especially for someone growing up in the 70s who has a kid who was way into the second time around fantasim...I have never seen a single one of the Star Wars movies. Not a one.

Even when kiddo was so into it when the prequels were released, I never saw any of them.

I have thought about renting the entire series of movies and watching them all one lazy weekend (in fact, kiddo got a set of all of the movies on video for his bday once) I just have never been in the mood. I am just not a scifi fan...at least not of the space genre.

I like things mystical and supernatural and extra sensory - all of those types. Just not spaceship type.

idiosynchronic said...

Then not seeing Star Wars is probably good. But I would certainly recommend BSG - it is certainly a drama coincidentally set in space with religious and metaphysical elements. And Caprica looks to move the science fiction element one degree further.

gone said...

Certainly I'm not as emotionally invested in the series as Athenae or the folks at Galactica Sitrep, but I thought the ending was great. I wept at the appropriate times, and was at the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen all the way to the end. I like that Starbuck vanished. I knew it was coming when she started talking.

I loved Six's anguished admission that she just wanted to be proud of Baltar, and his realization that that's what he wanted, also. I'd had a feeling that the earlier version wasn't the real Earth, but didn't like them getting rid of the ships. By using them judiciously, they might have disrupted the never ending cycle. But maybe the cycle is what keeps Kara in the mix, eh? I'm glad everyone got to finally rest. I also like the idea of a miniseries next fall showing the whole thing from the Cylon perspective, like they did with Razor for the Pegasus perspective. That oughta be fun. I loved Cavil shooting himself in the head.

My only question: when Boomer's raptor jumped next to Galactica, it set up a destructive shock wave. That didn't seem to happen when Galactica jumped away from the Colony ship. Anyhow, very satisfying.

Oh, and I thought it was funny your insult for "the SG viewers." Nerd snobbery. Hilarious! *kiss kiss*

idiosynchronic said...

I get to say such Stargate snobbery because I watch the show. :) There's a new one starting this fall . . the fascinating thing is that the new show looks like it's SGU with Battlestar dram-ah (DRAM-uh).

As for the shockwave from jumping to close to another ship or physical body, I'd say that there's dramatic interpretation at work. We don't see if there's wholesale damage at the colony because we don't care in the narrative. But the real issue is how weak Galactica's spaceframe is.

gone said...

That was an awesome scene when they jump to earth, the rickety old girl creaking until she settles. I totally loved that bit!

And yeah, the commercials for SGU look interesting. I might give it a go.