Then Twin Peaks was cancelled and I continued looking for another show that would capture my attention like that. Really, I’m looking for Twin Peaks in every show I watch. I rarely find it, and when I do, one of two things happens: the show loses it’s edge, as in Lost, or it gets cancelled, as in Carnivale.
For awhile, Lost was my new Twin Peaks, until it began to suffer from Hit Syndrome, and ABC did what networks do: destroyed the show in an attempt to make it bigger. Hopefully, the addition of Brian K. Vaughn to the writing staff will pull Lost out of the pit of Carkoon in which it’s being digested.
Battlestar Galactica did not have a promising start with the mini-series, but immediately became awesome as a series and stayed awesome for the entire first season and part of the second season. While BSG didn’t have the the creepiness or the mystery of Twin Peaks, it certainly had everything else: complex characters, compelling storylines, action, and plenty of “Holy Crap!��? moments.
The middle of season two brought the dysfunctional Battlestar Pegasus and the despotic Admiral Cain, who wreaked havoc on what seemed like the cuddly, lovable Galacticites. There was genuine tension; I didn’t know who was going to live, who was going to get a rape interrogation, or who was going to leave the fleet. From a viewer’s perspective, the rest of the season was looking quite rosy. But, with guns. And genocide.
And then. . . there were flashbacks. I hate flashbacks! They’re such a lazy method of exposition!
BSG just got boring after the Admiral Cain arc. It became a drama with fractured relationships and damaged people. . . in space; a show that had more in common with The Young and The Restless than anything remotely bad ass. The creative team gave BSG the Lost treatment: episodes focused on a particular character’s demons, and aside from the occasional Cylon attack, nothing really happened. We saw Starbuck’s drinking problem, a black market, Cylon sympathizers, an abortion debate and a presidential debate. Suddenly, watching BSG was just as fun as watching CNN.
Like Lost, BSG meandered until the season finale, when some serious stuff finally started to go down. Laura Roslin, a woman I wouldn’t mind seeing as president, tried to steal her election. The Cloud Nine luxury liner was nuked, taking several other ships with it. Baltar became president. Gadzooks! It’s one year later! The Cylons are coming! The Adamas bolt! Egads! Sacre bleu!
Season three did start off really well, and has had a few standout episodes, including an unexpected tearjerker. However, for the most part, I’m feeling left empty by BSG these days. It’s the same feeling as going out with the same guy over and over again because on an intellectual level, he has the qualities that should make me happy. There’s some core. . . something. . . that’s missing. It’s a Swiss Roll without the creamy white filling. A skinny, decaf capp, no whip. A sugar-free apple pie with a side of low-carb beer.
I’m not sure what the programming move means for BSG. On the one hand, the execs may think it has a broad enough audience that it can survive the move. On the other, there isn’t much in the way of competition Sunday nights at 10 Eastern/9 Central. It’s not like its going up against 24 or Gray’s Anatomy.
Although BSG has gone the way of Lost in some aspects, the show continues to maintain its integrity and has avoided becoming a parody of itself. The only thing that can be done at this point is to stick with it. Even the boring episodes have moments that are intriguing enough to keep me tuning every week. I just really, really hope it can capture me again.
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
I agree with you about the soap-operatic elements that tend to turn me off, but one of the things that I appreciate about BSG is the fact that it’s one of the few science fiction programs that uses a great strength of science fiction — namely, to look at our own world through the narrative device of distancing it from us.
Star Trek used to do this (sometimes well, sometimes not so well), and it’s all over the place in written science fiction, but it’s not often done well in TV.
When the makers of BSG give us characters to care about, and then show them making hard choices in ethical quagmires (torture, military coups, political murder, suicide bombing, etc), they’re upholding the greatest legacy of science fiction as social commentary.
I’ll keep watching, just for that. No matter who’s sleeping with whom this week.
I suppose one reason that social commentary isn’t often done well in TV is because we’re living in this atmosphere in which everyone wants an apology an is worried about being offensive to a middle-American housewife who probably isn’t watching anyway.
I do appreciate the BSG has the huevos to make that social commentary, no matter how uncomfortable it can get. Even considering my complaints, it’s still one of the best shows out there.
3 words :
“Babylon 5″
“Farscape”
I totally agree with the previous commenters on the social commentary bits. I think of BSG as a political drama with less subtlety. In fact, I love BSG because it really isn’t a scifi show—the SF elements are there to compress the entirety of humanity into an easily analyzed and infleunced little pocket, making the show that much more potent even though it focuses only on the “important” characters.
However, the personal relationships make me sad. What is this, 90210? The old Sharon/Chief/Helo tension was great. Baltar? Superb. The Starbuck/Leoben bit is possibly the only relationship bit involving the Galactica Love Quadrangle of Emo Doom that I enjoyed watching. Now I just fast forward through the relationship crap. See a pattern? Yeah, human/cylon relationships are just so much more interesting.
We’ve been calling it a Love Rhombus. But I like the addition of Emo Doom; it’s much more descriptive.
Wow….just…..wow…..this really, really neatly summarized my feelings on BSG, and on genre TV as a whole (i.e. once BSG ends I’m going to freak out the way you did when Twin Peaks ended)
***Season 2.5 had problems, but at least the season 2 finale was good. And season 3 started good, as you said; but post-New Caprica it was just “guys, stop having flashback material or focusing on the whiny relationships, advance the plot”
Problem was I think they used up so much of their budget they ran out of ideas. Well that and the Missing Sagittaron Storyarc.
Hope you don’t mind if I quote this elsewhere; it was a pretty good summation of the whole “BSG experience” for the past 12 months of growing disappointment. Still, I do think they can make something out of this.
That said….the Love Polygon: what were you thinking?!
Pleased to meet you/
hope you guessed my name/
but what’s puzzling you/
is the nature of my game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-vkSO6mS9E
I think another problem that BSG had was writing for women. The show started catching on with women, and then it seemed like the writers tried to make it more “womanly” after that – with more relationship nonsense and drama and less of the stuff that was awesome. The misconception that women want shows that are all about feelings makes me nuts!
By all means, quote this elsewhere!
And the Love Polygon. . . maybe a Love Pentagram would be more accurate?