Now that I’ve finally found some time to relax and watch TV at my leisure, I finally took the time out to sit and watch all the BSG episodes that have been clogging up my PVR. I guess this illustrates that while the series finale of this monumentous sci-fi series was something of a social event, I’ve always preferred enjoy great science fiction alone.
While I know that the fever surrounding this series has died down quite a bit, and our video review of the series will be coming down the pipe much later than this little monograph will see the light of the Internet, I feel I should try to relate some of my final thoughts of what I experienced this week while they’re still fairly fresh.
For one, I think it’s sad that such a well made show that has so many important things to say about our lives, and how we as people relate to each other wasn’t watched by more people. Why would such a muddled show like Lost, that tries to accomplish some of the same things, be so much more popular? Is it the sci-fi? ‘Cause Lost uses lots of sci-fi, it just did such a great job immersing it’s audience into it gradually. I think that time will be kind to BSG as world will spread and DVD sales will continue on steadily, as will rental numbers. I mean, I won’t be freakin’ buying them until they go way down in price, but that’s just me.)
As far as how everything came together in the end, I think that the writing team did a pretty good job of playing the long game. They were able to construct drawn out story arcs that all managed to get fairly well wrapped up in the end. Most of the folks who needed to get their come-uppance got it, and those who were seeking redemption managed to find it on some form or another. The thing that bothered me a bit was that the plot pacing of the show sped up quite a bit and things that we might have seen played out in full form in previous seasons were often truncated to keep things moving along. I don’t blame them for this, there was a lot that had to be crammed into a short amount of time. What does bother me is realizing that the writers were able, and likely willing, to write like this all the time, and this they could have saved us a lot of time with a few things. I kid, but really, it makes it seem like previous seasons were a little padded.
How about the way the show wrapped everything up? The message the show left us with seemed to be that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it – which was essentially a theme of the entire series, likely in part to its nature as a series reboot. For a series with such big ideas, I had been hoping for more. When you think about it though, what BSG really left us with was itself. It’s unique look and approach to complex social issues defied the commonly accepted approach to this kind of show set a new standard by which all future space epics will be judged. The show created its own language for frak’s sake – and made sure that all paper was always octagonal for some reason… it was the only way to hold off the stapler uprising?
What should you be checking out now that you’ve seen this entire series? Well, Space: Above and Beyond had many similar ideas and approaches – likely because they borrowed from the original Battlestar Galactica series. As far as another sci-fi show that stakes out it’s own unique approach to the genre, I’m gonna suggest Farscape. It has absolutely nothing in common with BSG, but is such a passionately and meticulously created world, that it has to be seen at least once to be believed. I’d also recommend looking into Firefly, Joss Whedon’s post-civil-warrish sci-fi TV adventure series.
