Battlestar Galactica

I'm not familiar with those old series, but BABYLON 5 is IMO a great example of how to do this mix properly. There's the myth, the politics, the characters and the "aura" of the place all combined into one; only very rarely did it bore. In this case, this was not so much due to the visuals (which were quite crude at times, and severely limited), but of action-driven dialogue, the right mix of plotlines etc. BSG often DWELLED a little too long on things, almost as if the writers were showing off how clever they were in writing dialogue. Of course, what BSG has in advantage over B5 is the VERISIMILITUDE...it's not "pointy ear sci fi", as I like to call it. And that's such a strong advantage that it MAY in some instances cover up the fact that it's a bit boring and the words are a bit too high and mighty and lofty....like your average Obama speech!

I'm gonna start with the series soon.

Razor is frakkingly brilliant, if you ask me, but everybody knows I like everything, so there you go.

Between us, its main arc happens right after 2.17, but there are lots of flashbacks reaching back further than you might expect. It has some nice action, some great effect scenes, and introduces a nice new character which fits perfectly into the whole story (as a matter of fact, the whole movie plays out from her point of view). That combined with a great score by Bear McCreary should sell it to you. But try to get your hands on the DVD version which has a couple of additional minutes that you don´t want to miss, believe me.

I don't think it's lame, it actually has the same powerful and vulgar ring to saying that other f...k word without actually saying it, and thus nicely avoiding the censorship board and other hypocrites that like to banish these so-called obscenities from our world. There's nothing wrong with swearing once in a while!!! Bregt where is the :fuck: smilie? I think this would be quite popular here.

Oh and Ralph I think I may just check out the DVD of it... Thanks again.

I keep wanting to start watching Battlestar Galactica from the beginning but the thought of all those episodes and additional "specials" is so daunting!!

I'm having trouble enough trying to find time getting through the 4-disc set of Firefly just so I can watch Serenity!

So take your time!
Nobody's forcing you to watch a disk a day!

I kinda like the fact there's some series waiting for me. It's something to look forward to!
Just four more episodes from Galactica to go and I'm done...and then there's still 5 and a half seasons of The Sopranos, 5 seasons of Six Feet Under, two seasons of Rome and three seasons of The Wire awaiting!
I could cut my cable now and still happily be watching TV for two years!

Oh, and Thomas, be thankful they went for "frak" rather than the Old Skool Galactican "felgerkarb" ...

Oh, and I never watched Firefly, but I enjoyed the heck out of Serenity, so don't feel compelled to watch the series first, if that's the bottleneck.

Sure I will!
The only reason I hadn't yet was that basically I forgot all about it until I happened to catch a bit of Serenity on TV last night.

But I know Firefly got more than just a cult following, so I'm sure to get that at some point (but like I said: I still got two years worth of series lined up, so I'm in no particular rush. )

Getting back on track: with just five episodes to go, I'm not overly impressed with the final season's second half so far. Even though the desperation and hopelessness having set in after episode 10's devastating discovery are very realistic, many of the characters' actions seem plot-motivated more than really believable.

Well. It's still a superior show, and I'm not bored or annoyed, so that's already excellent (for example in the first four episodes of The Wire, which is universally lauded as being the best thing to happen to TV since Hillstreet Blues, there are a number of scenes which -although the pundits are falling over each other burning frankincense over the scripts- are so uterly unrealistic they're honestly annoying).

Me too Steven. I thought the two episodes I caught by accident looked exceptional so I'm looking forward to seeing the full series.

My main beef was in episode three or four of the first series with the scene in which the really fat "Norm" like detective comes into the major's office to try and get McNulty re-instated (who had been on detach), and starts some really awkward story to the major about him jerking off to ease into it!

I've been in many different "all guy" situations, work-related and otherwise, and I can tell you for a fact that guys do NOT talk that way. I wouldn't have minded as much if the series hadn't been lauded so opulently for its "stark realism".

There are some additional little gripes, but this one really annoyed me.

It's funny most of the times... you motherfrakker!

So, I ended up seeing the finale...

* SPOILERS *

Look, it's their show, and it's up to them how they want to end it. But I can't overlook the fact that the last time this show really moved me was when Baltar said to Gaeta at the end of 'Blood on the Scales': "I know who you are." Given the way this finale was mostly about character moments, I find that dismaying. There were some touching moments - Adama's final beat on the hillside, Lee's final words to Kara, Kara's farewell to Anders. But very few escaped the feeling for me of constructed resolutions. Sometimes the writers have managed to make themselves invisible in the scripts they've written. 'Daybreak' wasn't a shining example of their ability to do that.

Greatest shame for me? The end of all mysteries. I feel like a flashlight was shone in every corner of this universe, resolving every single point. I would have much rather had an ending that kept me trying to figure out what it meant. People may insist that ambiguities abound in the answering of the key questions, but I beg to differ. If the most ambiguous resolution was the answer to 'what about Starbuck?' then ambiguity was in short supply. They answered that question very clearly.

When I think of my favourite sci-fi ... 2001, Solaris (both films), Stalker, the novel of The Glamour (or its cousin, The Affirmation), La Jetee, Brazil, Bladerunner... so many of them choose to deepen the mystery, satisfying their audience in some ways, and presenting them with deeper mysteries to resolve. It's not the only way to end, but for a certain sort of project, where the appeal of the whole thing is because of the mysteries, I feel it's the only sensible way to end.

The Opera House resolution was clever on one level, and allowed McCreary to return to his most compelling theme for the show, but was unavoidably disappointing for me on another. The scene is about getting Hera to CIC. It's so functional a purpose that the characters are serving in this scene - almost literally moving the scenery into place for a showdown between Cavill and everyone else - that the 3 season-long anticipation of it feels incredibly misjudged. The answer is simply not proportional to the size of the question. It suggests to me that they didn't know what they were setting up when Head Six showed Baltar the Opera House at the end of season 1. While I have to admit there's a certain amount of cleverness in the way they slotted the Opera House into 'Daybreak' (non-literal thinking), it feels more clever than satisfying to me.

The Epilogue. Great to hear 'One Year Later' in an updated form, but the campy performances of Callis and Heffler as Head Six and Head Baltar just kill this for me. Hammering home points seemed to be the order of the day in this final episode. Clearly identifying a God/It. Verbally scrolling through the history of the human race (and accidentally limiting our imagination by implying that Kobol was where it all started, when a more compelling suggestion might have been that Kobol was at one point also a 'new beginning'). Asking out aloud - 'does all of this need to happen again?' (How stupid did they think the audience was that this needed to be pointed out?)

Some of the flashbacks were better than others. The Best: Kara and Lee on the table. The Worst: Saul and Ellen in the strip bar.

But there was some very good stuff in Season 4 overall. Gaeta's arc over the season was one of the best, I thought. The arrival at the original Earth and subsequent disappointment was perhaps the season's finest hour. It was good to see Admiral Cain again, though I wish they'd done more with her when they'd had the chance. For those who wanted battles, the opening of 'He that believeth in me' and the battle of 'The Hub' were both very satisfying, and I only wish that for all its effects budget, the final battle of 'Daybreak' had felt as consequential as either of them. My reservations are more scrupulously documented in an earlier post.

Of course, I look forward to hearing the music of the finale in isolation.

I thought of Return Of The King when I saw it too. Multiple endings galore!
Indeed Babylon 5 was a landmark series. Such a massive show!
Great to hear the Stu Phillips theme return in that scene. Thats the fourth time Bear has incorporated that tune into the show. McCreary's score shines brighter than ever in the finale!

Oh, and the first Earth you asked about was simply the home of the thirteenth tribe which was Cylon. A place that Galactica and the Cylons "had to see" before Kara leads them to our Earth.
All part of the "big plan" that "God" (not that he likes to be called that) had from the beginning.

I read Bear Mccreary's notes on scoring the finale episode over the weekend. Once again, he does a wonderful job of giving viewers insight into his decisions and process. I particularly respect that he and other producers put in money in order to afford the orchestral sessions required for the finale.

** SPOILER **

However there is a little point that I thought allowed for an interesting observation... "Apollo commands the Marines to repel down into the colony, and a solo duduk states the Lee Theme, the only place I found for it in the episode."

That's interesting. The theme of a major character. A theme that has tended to represent his idealist/cynic divided mind very well, and has often appeared when he's faced with the choice of doing (to use Roslin's words) the right thing or the smart thing. (E.g. destruction of the Olympic Carrier, investigation of the Black Market) It's a theme of pathos, etc.

Why I find that interesting is that I hear a lot of talk about how every narrative/creative decision in the finale was justified by the 'it's really about the characters'. How is it then that the only place to put a particular character theme actually was a moment when nothing was actually going on with the character? Maybe McCreary has unintentionally given us a clue that there wasn't that much about the characters, particularly once you get past the flashbacks.

Take Apollo. For 4 seasons, there's been this tension between him and all around him - his father, Tigh, eventually Roslin - about the role of ideals in their survival. Where was this character trait - his defining character trait - explored in Daybreak? His one big decision - the decision to abandon technology - rather than approached with anything like the hand-wringing of every other major political decision in the last 4 seasons, prompted no self-reflection, and met no opposition. It is a shame that in the end, the only thing they were prepared to take time with was Apollo's feelings about Kara, because there used to be more to the character than that one idea.

Or we might look at Roslin. Her three main character traits in the series: (i) coming to terms with dying / not dying; (ii) being a leader the last remains of the human race, dealing with blend of democracy and military autocracy required by that (her 'tough' streak comes into this); (iii) resolving the role of her visions (snakes, opera house) & the prophecies (dying leader) in her life. Obviously the Opera House made an appearance in the finale, although the character in no way reflected on it.... But what precisely was she there for other than that? What decisions did she make? Since the only real character trait she'd shown in the episodes leading up to the finale was drawing closer to Bill Adama, did we even get a moment with her before she died where we just looked at Bill through her eyes / over her shoulder? No, her final scenes are mostly told outside of her perspective.

Or we might look at Tigh. Some of the major character traits... (i) loyalty to Adama; (ii) seniority of rank but poor personality for governance; (iii) a cylon that thought he was human for a long time, and wanted to still be human; (iv) contempt for civillians and obstruction; (v) love for Ellen. Certainly NONE of those came into question in the finale. From Tigh's perspective, his character's end was surprisingly passive.
(And I do find it funny that Tigh's last remark to Galen was something goes along the lines of - 'I would have done the same thing (as Galen did to Tory) if someone had done that to Ellen.' Oh, the irony.)

I'm not saying the finale was devoid of character moments, but it certainly was pretty sparse on character choices, especially when you consider the history of the characters on the show. The finale was less about the characters than I think people are prepared to admit. What it was not short on was melodrama - with death-bed scenes, unrequited love, tearful farewells, unexpected farewells, romantic longing, Boomer switching sides and being killed by Athena.... For a certain sort of viewer, there was plenty to enjoy. (Including the music, which was generally excellent.)