THANK GOODNESS that is over. This series is exactly why I should not pay for netflix. I tried watching this when it came out but couldn't get into it. A friend of mine later on told me I really should give it another shot ... so once I got netflix i did.

The further I got into it I realized that there must be something wrong with me. I couldn't stand the show but I kept watching because of the praise I see on here ... I was thinking stick with it. Then I got so far I just had to finish.

My problem with the show started when they decided to sacrifice the Pegasus. This ship was dramatically more powerful than galactica. Who the hell would do that? But I think the episode that made me think that these humans were both to stupid and to weak to survive was the episode where they had the cylon virus. They jump into the system, engage the cylons, for NOTHING because 1 ahole has a moral objection to WIPING out a race whose soul mission at this time was to wipe out humanity. And his punishment, NOTHING. How did ya'll continue to enjoy this thing after the new Caprica episodes?

How does Firefly get cancelled after one year and this crap continue for 4.5 seasons ... and has a spinoff.

From what I have read, I seem to be the only one who feels this way. What is the matter with me?

P.S. Why did they keep calling Starbuck the angel of death or whatever they kept calling her? It seemed to me like she was the key character who lead to their salvation? Agghhhhhh!

Sorry rant off...
S

Ok, sorry. Just had to get that out. It was very theraputic(sp?).

S

Hey, at least you gave the show a shot before you decided to give your final judgement on it. All I can say is that not every show will appeal to everyone. For example, I also love Firefly like you seem to do but I know plenty of people who didn't care for it at all.

In answer to your questions,

1. The Pegasus was sacrificed because it was the only way to buy the Galactica enough time to FTL to safety. Besides, the show is called Battlestar Galactica, not Battlestar Pegasus.

2. Starbuck was referred to as the "Harbinger of Death" by the cylon hybrid and as you saw in the finale, she did indeed lead humanity to its end. She instead brought death to the cylons.

Here is the full prophecy from the hybrid in "Razor",

Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. She is the herald of the apocalypse, the harbinger of death. They must not follow her.

3. I do agree with you that Helo (Karl Agathon) got off way too easy for disobeying the orders of Adama by botching the plans to wipe out the cylons with the virus.

Ok, so where did Starbuck go when Lee was talking to her at the end? I just don't feel like I fully grasp what they were trying to do with her. And what was Baltar? I have my suspicions but they are to crazy to say out loud.

S

Baltar was strictly human so no mystery there. However, the "Head" Baltar and Six that you saw in the finale were indeed "angels" who were overseeing the course of events and giving guidance from time to time to see if the endless cycle of war between humanity and cylon would be broken.

Admittedly, there was a lot of stuff about Starbuck was was left unexplained and left up to the audience to interpret. Some people like that approach but others dont. That's all I can say about that! LOL

Her disappearance while talking to Lee on Earth was clearly evidence that she was indeed not the same Starbuck that she was before her "death". My theory is that she was an "angel" but in the flesh who was resurrected and sent back for the purpose of leading humanity to Earth. Once that was done, her corporeal existence was no longer needed.

Kelen, you're not entirely alone. I thought the first three seasons were very good, but agree that it fell apart after the Pegasus was destroyed. I don't think I was bothered as much by you with the Pegasus being lost, as I think it was just the way things turned out to a certain extent.

They kept the best ship with the rest of the fleet for protection, but when Apollo decided to come help, the Galactica was maybe in a better position to escape, and the Pegasus just got hammered. But the episodes after that went way down in my opinion, and I felt the ending was extremely lame.

No, you're definitely not alone, Kelen. Overall I was very disappointed with the series for many of the same reasons that you were. The series seemed to drag on for so long with nothing of consequence happening WRT the search for Earth, then within about 6 episodes everything was resolved. Can you say "deus ex machina"? And what the hell was the purpose of the "Razor" episode? OK, so we found out that the Cylons did unpleasant things to humans back when Bill Adama was a butterbar. Was it really necessary to know that before we could be shown that the Cylons did unpleasant things to humans NOW as well?

Then there was the episode where Chief Tyrol told Magurski (sp?) to forget about getting the down Vipers back to mission-capable status and come watch the fights. First of all, there's not a military in existence where the chief wouldn't be working along with his crews. Second, why would Adama tell Tyrol to get his fat ass in the ring and fight, land a few good punches, then let himself get beat down to make some kind of stupid point?

All in all, I thought it was lame from beginning to end, with the exception of Galactica's FTL into & out of New Caprica's atmosphere in "Exodus," the series finale "Daybreak," and maybe a few other episodes or parts of episodes.

Razor revealed and explained many things.

1. Admiral Cain's background and why she did what she did.

2. How Gina ended up on the Pegasus and how she was captured.

3. The hybrid's revelation to Kendra about Starbuck's destiny and nature (this was the very first time this info was revealed in the series).

4. The original cylon centurions experimenting on humans and we get to see the genesis of what later on became the "skinjob" models.


If you didn't like "Razor" you will absolutely hate "The Plan". lol

"deus ex machina" is exactly why the only TV I watch any more is comedy. When your forced to fit a square-shaped narrative into a circle-shaped media schedule, things get messy. You get awkward mixes of drawn out events vs. abrupt conclusions, pointless cock-tease cliff hangers, the inability to kill characters when needed (due to contractual obligations) and all the other crap mentioned above.

Also, the Pegasus had to be destroyed because it removed much of the peril the audience felt when the fleet was under attack.

Plus, they didn't want to have to change the name of the show to "Battlestar Pegasus."

One common criticism I've encountered by those who didn't like the course the show took over the last 2 seasons is that the show became a lot more supernatural and a lot less science-fiction. More specifically, certain important events and motivations had a spiritual/supernatural cause rather than a technological or scientific cause.

While I personally loved the last 2 seasons of the show just as much as the first 2 seasons I can understand the criticism. The debate about how much of the supernatural element should be in science fiction is a major one that rages between fans all the time.

The first criticism I had of the show, was in the lack of discipline by supposedly their best/experienced leaders: Tigh being drunk and unable to handle the fire situation, along with Starbuck's fistfight with Tigh shortly before the war started (I think it might have been the introductory scene for Kara). Sorry, but Tigh would have been stripped of his uniform for being unable to bring himself to save the ship, and Kara would have been tossed from the fleet, kicked out of the service for a physical fight with the XO on any Navy in peacetime. And wartime? Demoted to the lowest, not allowed to speak or input, just fly and fight until she dies.

There was a serious lack of military discipline being shown in that show, IMO. And yea, they did occasionally make major decisions that made me go "huh? WTF? Seriously??". Yet somehow I grew to love it anyway, warts and all. I just don't pretend it was perfect.

Keep in mind that the Galactica was slated for retirement from the fleet within a few days when the cylons attacked the colonies and the ship was already half converted into a gift shop and museum so I can easily understand why discipline on the ship was relaxed. Tigh's drunkeness and occasional ineptitude was allowed to slide by Adama for a host of different reasons which were explained later on in the series. Starbuck would have most likely indeed been kicked out of the Colonial fleet had the cylons not attacked.

They should have changed the story more and added a 3 battlestar and ad it die at the end of season 1

Perhaps, the whole Roslin/holy scriptures/prophesy thing (and, in the main, the Hera arc) left me cold - in that they really didn't go anywhere, and were pretty meaningless in terms of plot development.

By far the most gripping elements of the series for me were the humans-running-from-the-remorseless-unstoppably-devious-machines elements (essentially seasons 1-2). That is a very compelling construct (witness Terminators 1 & 2)!

Ya know, back when it seemed the Cylons actually DID have a plan (not the half-arsed botch detailed in the forgettable "The Plan", sigh).

Still, all good fun!

Yeah I'm turning off BSG halfway through season 2.
The acting is superb, the comedy moments are hilariously and so subtlely well done into the script, the action good. The effects are outstanding.

BUT what's got me cold is all this religious bs. Scriptures and the religious slant in finding Earth. Now I'm hearing it gets worse with the supernatural and angels being involved? Think I'll just skip the rest of the show. Don't know how much I can stomach that bs from a purportedly sci-fi series.

Don't like the idea that people have religion? You must hate real life then, what with 90+% of the population believing in one or the other.



The Jedi Master

This opens up a great nerd debate about how much of a role spirituality/religion should play in sci-fi. Most of the scifi shows I can think of had a significant amount of it. The X-Files, Babylon 5, Star Trek, Stargate, etc. Even in film I had to think for awhile to come up with several scifi films that had no supernatural/spiritual element. Blade Runner, Gattaca, The Andromeda Strain, Alien, Aliens, etc.

It's easy for a film to skip it, it's 2 hours and it's done. Unless you make it part of the story, it's easy to just ignore that in favor of the plot. For a series, though, it's pretty hard to show people living their lives over weeks and months and NEVER touch on it. If they do, it can become conspicuous in its absence.



The Jedi Master

So to love life I've got to have a religion? What type of zealous BS is that? Religion is usually the main cause of war, if not the main cause it's used as a petty excuse for one. But I'm not going into a theology debate with you. I've done so irl and oen thing I've learned - if you're religious you'll remain religious and nothing anyone will say will change your mind. Fair enough, but please don't tell me that I hate life or that I"m goign to burn in hell or that I must be misguided, confused and need salvation. Au contraire, I know exactly what I want, where I am, what I'm doing on this planet but please feel free to feel sorry for me, I certainly don't.

Religious undertones I can tolerate but when it's actively used in a plot such as this - like the main fleet believing that the what's happening is all part of the scriptures or that a main prophet is going to lead the human race to salvation or that Starbuck, a hard, no BS, life experienced military officer would jump back for a mythicial arrow - you'll excuse me if I don't roll my eyes too much. And if it's true about angels entering the scene...
The drama is excellent in BSG when there's no religious BS clouding it - take the whole Pegasus situation. Now that was done well.

I was like you when it came out on Sci-Fi back then. Couldn't get into it at all. Now I'm a few episodes into season 1 on Netflix and I'm really enjoying it. I think watching the first season of SG:U just got me into the dark, brooding type of shows, so now I can actually appreciate BSG.

In many ways, BSG was a social commentary on our modern day world so in that sense, I would find it plausible that the majority of the people in the fleet would have a religious belief and would believe in scriptures. After all, polytheism was the official religion of the 12 Colonies but not everyone subscribed to it. Just because a sci-fi show presents a supernatural explanation for why something happened or was meant to happen that doesn't mean that the producers/writers have some secret religious agenda.

In regards to Starbuck, remember that at first she was very skeptical about Roslin's belief in the scriptures and the significance of Athena's Arrow. If you recall, the REAL motivation for Starbuck deciding to go back to Caprica was to spite Adama since Adama lied to her about him knowing the way to Earth.

Heh heh, zealous? Jedi? I don't think I'm overreaching by saying that his point has to do with the realistic depiction of the human race. You take out the religious element and it simply is not realistic. Whatever one blames on religion in human history, it still remains a fact that religion was there.

(MY opinion) Rather, I think that taking religion out of a human-race story is a sort of zealous wishful thinking on the part of those that hate it.

About the fire.. it was handled. Tigh hesitated but ultimately made the call. It may not have been the best decision or it could have turned out differently if he made such decision 2 or 3 minutes earlier when the crew would have time to evac, but he made it and it was carried out.

I think Lee Adama said it all on Baltar's trial and that's the kind of perspective this show should be seen from. There's a little over 50.000 of us left (out of a little less than 7 billion), hunted down to the last 'man' from an enemy that has been given our surrender but ignored it... how do we deal with THAT? and with each other? Will we make 911 calls because our neighbor's bachelor party is getting out of hand? Will we make a formal complaint because someone's dog pooped in our drive way?

What would we do?

At Least you gave it a shot



At Least you gave it another shot




The Pegasus was newer yes, but the newer technology was also the Achilles Heel, The systems in the newer ships were all linked, making it easier for a cylon to hack into and control the ships. Battlestar Galactica's Computers were older ant they were not linked one of the main reasons it survived the initial attack on Caprica, and was able to get out of there.


Studio Politics, Firefly Debuted on the wrong channel, and was cancelled by the network. BSG + SG1 + SGA was the dream team lineup on Friday Nights, and SciFi profited Billions off the three shows. And the Spinnoff was cancelled quickly




its just not your cup of tea.



Starbuck Piloted the Ship that Destroyed the Ressurection ship, without the ability to re-produce naturally, this effectively made Cylons mortal and would die out since they could not reproduce.

Even Tom Zarek hinted at this in season 1 in the "Colonial Day" episode. He was talking about the grounds-keeper who was working the artificial lawn on Cloud 9 and he was basically asking why was this person bothering to continue his routine daily task when the civilization that he previously knew and grew up in was blown away and no longer existed?

Every show is going to have story-telling issues flaws, usually the result of trying to achieve dramatic effect or time/money constraints, so I don't usually get too critical of an episode here or there with a story flaw, unless it's pretty significant.

I don't like the religious/supernatural aspects simply because they're religious - heck, "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" is built around a religious theme, and I loved that movie. For me, BSG failed with it's supernatural components simply because of how it was handled.

The series had very slight supernatural references at the beginning, but was mostly a sci-fi show. Later - and well into the show - not only did it make a dramatic shift to the supernatural, which changed the context of the show for me, but it then lumped every aspect of what had been happening into that late-coming changed approach, and, again for me, just kind of pulled the rug out from under everything that had gone on before.

And to add insult to injury, the supernatural explanations were too vague and poorly written, so not only did they shift the whole feeling of the show, but they even dropped the ball on what they shifted it to. In my opinion.

Starbuck Piloted the Ship that Destroyed the Ressurection ship, without the ability to re-produce naturally, this effectively made Cylons mortal and would die out since they could not reproduce. [/quote]

Ok, that explanation makes since as far as starbuck's status as the 'harbinger of death' goes. I still don't understand what the heck she is after her crash landing though.

I didn't really have a problem with the religious aspects as it seemed to be present very early on. My biggest issue was how quickly everyone was to forgive/tolerate the cylons and the people who worked/collaborated with them. You have the chief who on multiple occasions allowed cylons to perform acts and hides those acts (then he turns out to be one), you have the raptor sensor guy (can't remember name right now) who was obstructionist and treasonist on several occasions, and for goodness sakes f'n Baltar. None of these people receive any punishment much less retribution. Then a HUMAN leads a mutiny ... as bloodlessly as possible ... and pop right out the airlock. What was the sabotage of the disease mission if not mutiny? What was the transfer of a nuclear device to a cylon if not mutiny?

It stayed pretty interesting to me even with some of the stupid decision until the cylon civil war which pretty much ended the chase. After that it just seemed forced.

S

No one knew that Baltar gave Gina the nuke. Remember that he smuggled the nuke off the Galactica on a raptor that then took it to Gina on Cloud 9.

As for not knowing what Starbuck was after her viper blew up in the mandala, welcome to the club!

It's never revealed exactly what she became but it was quite obvious that she was no longer human and she was not the same Starbuck that existed before.

naw, she was 15-20 lighter with longer blond hair and more skin showing :p

Cylons also hated Starbuck cuz she was constantly whooping their ass in a Viper.

i think the directors said she was a Arc Angel sent back to show the humans what happened on "earth" and to then take them to "earth II".


She crashed landed on "Earth" after flying through a Portal/Wormhole or something in that storm., she was then sent back to lead them to that planet that was believed to be human but it was 100% cylon. and it was nuked. she then led the Humans and the Cylons to Earth II, where the machine cylons were set free from obeying the commands of the 13 Humanoid Cylons.


Confusing i know.

Well, nice to see LB got it at least. However, it just further reinforces my view that some people who claim they have no religion do indeed...it's simply that theirs is to be anti-religion. I have seen atheists argue their cause with as much zeal and irrationality as any religious fundamentalist. They're certainly not open-minded, they're just as close-minded as the other zealots. You can always tell them because they talk about it as if their belief (that all religion is wrong) is the only one and everyone else is wrong...just like all the other religions say! The only difference is the viewpoint espoused, and let's face it...no religion ever started a war, it can't, it was always the zealots espousing it, so a rabid anti-religious fervor could easily cause the same or worse circumstances. In fact, most religious wars were in fact anti-religious wars (just against whatever their enemy was). Of course, most zealots will bad mouth "open mindedness" as nothing but an unwillingness to choose sides, but that very black and white outlook is what makes them a zealot. As Graham Chapman said, "There's nothing an agnostic can't do if he doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not."

As for the Starbuck thing, I didn't really have a problem with her coming back, her odd sense of destiny, her ultimate fate. If you can accept "head" Six and Baltar, and the prophecies, and "all this has happened before and will happen again," that's fine.

I don't get the VIPER. Usually in supernatural types of situations, you can have spirits, angels, even corporeal resurrection and disappearance, but a fighter? A highly complex piece of advanced technology reproduced in perfect detail except brand new?
The reason no explanation was given was because quite frankly the writers had none. They did it because of the "ooh, this would be interesting" factor, but then paid no care to how they'd explain it away later. RDM admitted as much, the only "planned" part of the show was the NYC bit at the end, everything leading up to that was negotiable and changed, some parts many times.



The Jedi Master

Also, Starbuck destroys the "HUB" ship, not the Ressurection ship., but it has teh effect of rendering the Ressurection Function Useless.

I thought the scene of her burning her own body on Earth 1 was pretty amazing. Talk about weird/surreal.

That scene was made even more amazing by Bear's stunning music and Stephen McNutt's cinematography. The sunset setting for that scene was just so Wagnerian.

YEs religion is there - and I'm a fan of religion's most elemental messages and what all religions espouse, you know, the do no evil, do good, love your fellow man but that's more a question of morality than one of whether a mythical deity exists or not. Anyone and everyone can do all those things without the need for religion - and they should. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-God, I may be slightly anti-religion only for the fact that so many have abused religion for their own means.

I don't care if it's portrayed in the media, couldn't give a fig if the colonies prayed to 12 gods, 200 or one BUT what I don't like is that the main plot line revolves around their version of scriptures, a prophecy, visions. Even for a sci-fi show it's bordering on the absurd. The only one redeeming feature if the (mostly) practicality of Adama. You can have drunk officers, dirty crew, broken men - that's what makes good drama and character development.

So which episode of Star Trek, X-files, SG had it where the main character was revealed to be driven by some sort of god or prophecy? So Mulder had visions and a bible that was guiding him to the truth?

Not with Mulder or any of the mythology episodes but there were plenty of stand alone episodes that dealt with religious and spiritual themes and they often had a character who felt he was being guided by a superior deity.

I think it's basically what Skatezilla mentioned in a previous post. BSG was simply not your cup of tea and that is completely fine! There are a few sci-fi shows that I tried to get into like Dr. Who and ST: Enterprise but I just couldn't no matter how hard I tried.

having starbuck disappear was ill advised, very ill advised.

Firefly didn't really appeal to me, the characters did, but the "cowboys in space" did not. But if I had to guess the "why" in your question, I'm thinking it's because Fox has some really creative people in art/development side, but has some hardnosed accountants running the top. meaning, a cool risky "swing for the fences" idea will be created and put out to the masses...and if it doesn't deliver, Fox mgt will kill it after giving it a modest chance. Over the last 15 years they have tried some darn good stuff that just didn't stick...but at least they tried, and took the risk in the first place, something most others wouldn't even consider.

An example of just how risky they are willing to be, look at "Dollhouse", scifi, decent budget, not cheezy, and the storyline was THE key to it all. And it worked for me, and other core fans. But it just didn't appeal to enough people. AND YET...Fox gave it two solid seasons anyway! I guess there was JUST enough Lesbians out there wanting to watch that show!

Hey, us men also like Eliza Dushku a lot. Yum!

I've no problem with that, religion is a big aspect of any culture and should be portrayed but not used as a main plot storyline so that viewers are forced to accept that there's some sort of divine intervention happening that's guiding the entire plot.

So what would your opinion of X-files be if Mulder was driven by the bible and had visions from God? That the light shining above him wasn't from a UFO but divine light? Or that Kirk/Picard was soem kind of Messiah following a prophecy from some sacred holotext - to boldly go where no man has gone before because <insert deity> told us so.

I'm into BSG, everything else about it is superlative. They did the drama, character development, relationships, the whole Pegasus deal really well. But the President of the human race, who has always maintained the protection of the people as paramount, splitting the fleet to go to a Cylon occupied system without protection to chase a tomb - even BEFORE she knew she had this mystical arrow? Riiiight.

WynnTTr, your questions about X-Files and Star Trek are similar to views I've had on it - it's not the content as much as the context. As another example, what if the next Bond movie had some sort of supernatural aspect to it? How many people would find that appropriate? And I don't mean involving a church leader or something (they've already done that), but a true supernatural aspect, like Bond getting a visit from angels or something.

I think how a lot of people would feel about that is how I felt about those aspects in BSG.

I don't think that approach would have worked in the case of X-Files and Star Trek but IMHO it worked well in BSG. It's been a long time since I've seen the original BSG but I recall there being plenty of supernatural things going on there as well but considering the simpler narrative of that show, those supernatural elements were not explored as in depth as they were in the reimagined series.

Oh, YEA BABY!

LOL! Yes, but I sorta think that the show generally revolved around the plot action, mixed in with the women's emotions, and the men were kinda cardboard stand-ins. Actually that's a bit harsh and unfair, they were real people, but I mean there was more emoting going on than in a typical scifi show. Hmm, I guess in that way it was a bit like SG:U !!

I just kinda got the feeling there was probably a much higher percentage of women watching Dollhouse than you'd normally see in scifi, that's all. I just LOVED the way the series ended...far darker than I'd have ever expected, FAR darker than the show...I mean they could have made a feature movie about the ending, resembling something like the Resident Evil movies! If anyone had told me that's roughly how the series ended, after seeing the pilot, I wouldn't have believed you!

The creator, same guy who made Buffy (never got into that) and also Firefly (nor that one), yea, now I "get" why he's held in high esteem by the nerd crowd! It was all about the story, and he seems to be a pretty good writer.

Joss Whedon is very much like Ron Moore in that it's all about the characters and their interactions. How many shows or films have you really liked where you didn't care at all about any of the characters?

I think it was Gina Torres (Zoe in Firefly) who said in an interview that Joss KNOWS women and how they tick so it's no surprise that his shows attract a lot of female viewers.

He has mentioned in interviews that he recognizes his apparent obsession with strong teenage or not quite any longer teenage women. He said that is just how his mind works. Remember he wrote the screenplay for Alien Ressurection with Wynona Ryder and Sigourney Weaver as the two leads.


The Jedi Master

Im with you Kelen, never got in to the series. Enjoyed the action but the characters, I felt, were the weakest part of the show.

and yes, the series seemed to last for ever, what I term "the Lost effect". Where series last so long all the original cast died 10 years ago.

For my money, Space Above and Beyond was a far, FAR, superior series.

Mailman

BSG was definitely not your cup of tea and BSG's entire run consisted of less than 80 episodes so if you think that lasted forever then you must think the Simpsons have been around since the late Cretaceous period.

Space Above & Beyond was quite good. What sucks is that it only lasted one season.

Yes the simpson have been around quite a while. Bam-Bam and I sit down to watch it every week. I also thought the Space Above and Beyond was interesting ... and short. That was a weird period for SciFi. You had that show and Earth 2 out around the same time on major networks. I remember watching Earth 2 but admittedly can't remember anything about it.

I tried watching the new V but only made it through 2 episodes.

S

Never even bothered watching it. I liked the original but then again I was 11 years old at the time it came out. Full of 80's cheese but some memorable characters.

I thought the simpsons evolved from Dinosaurs?

Regards

Mailman

That was one thing I actually liked about it.. touched on a lot of issues.. The end could have been better.. and I don't think it could have lasted more than another season ... but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the characters.. they were real people with real issues that people have.

While I have always enjoyed Star Trek, one thing that always bugged me was the unrealistic portrayal of basic human behavior and making futuristic human society way too utopian. I admit though that I gravitate more towards the dark and gritty type of sci-fi like Blade Runner, new BSG, Space Above & Beyond, etc.

The genius of Firefly is that somehow Joss Whedon managed to portray humanity in a realistic fashion while also having some great comedic moments from time to time.