Battlestar blogging

Nathanael responds to my light ribbing regarding Battlestar Galactica by presenting all-too reasonable critiques of the show. In particular, a focus on backstory and a divergence from earlier thematics. Though I think its the nature of television shows to ebb and flow thematically, moving between story-arcs rather than focusing on, say, religion for four seasons, I basically agree with his critiques. Especially regarding the show’s portrayal of same-sex sexuality (conniving gay male or castrating lesbian, take your pick), though I confess to not having yet seen the Gaeta gay kiss.

But then I think to other scifi on television and I cut Galactica a world of slack. Heroes, for instance, initially showed promise as a fun comic-serial, fast-paced, not terribly serious, but certainly amusing for all ages, and became a comic-book, in the most pejorative sense of the genre, with plot-twists that make no sense even within the rules of the show, total reworkings of characters that directly conflict with what we already knew, all in an effort to imbue longevity into a concept and into characters that really only had one season worth of life in them. I also think to The X-Files, what I still consider to be the best science fiction yet produced for television, which completely fell apart towards the end, unraveling its own “mythology,” while failing to approach the creative vision of the stand alone episodes of the first three-quarters of its run.  Battlestar Galactica has managed to create a fairly coherant world-system; one with particular rules that are largely adhered to, rather than written away.  The most obvious success story of this type of fiction is The Lord of The Rings, but I have trouble thinking of a better example on television than Battlestar Galactica.

Battlestar Galactica, whatever its flaws, has managed to maintain a level of momentum and focus, even as it nuances its primary characters.  Note, for instance, that one major conflict that began in the first season, indeed the very first episode, revolving around the significance of the first human-cylon hybrid, will receive its conclusion on Friday.  In television, such plotting is all too rare (see, e.g. Lost, Heroes, et al).  But I also would argue that the “retooling” of the backstories, cannot constitute anything so significant as rendering the characteers “meer puppets,” rather than “people with free will,” if only because such conflict has run throughout the show, most of which has followed an attempt to fulfill prophecy; New Caprica being the most important attempt to escape the path already laid out.  If nothing else, the final episode will, I imagine, run with this particular thematic, if not resolve it.