tanman

I just started my Battlestar Galactica journey a few months ago. I had always heard about the classic series and never got into the newer series. So I decided to watch the entire franchise back to back. Here are some of my thoughts. I apologize ahead of time for it's length. Warning spoilers for all things BSG throughout.

Battlestar Galactica (1978) - I was actually quite impressed by this show. The sfx were quite good considering it was 78 and a TV show. One thing that really rocked was the theme song. It was very majestic and really conveyed the whole grandeur of the adventure they were on. However, a lot of the stories kind of fell flat. As a whole the entire premise was incredible. Something far beyond it's time since serial TV shows weren't nearly as common as they are today. But the episode to episode stories were rather trite. Too many dealings with that kid and his annoying and frightening dog/monkey/robot thing. Especially after the pilot that showed the destruction of caprica the lightheartedness did not seem to fit. There were some poigniant moments like when Apollo lost his wife and the episode the hand of God where they have a nice moment at the end of the first run.

I thought the design of the ships were really cool too but a lot of it didn't make any sense. The way they fought and the inconsistencies of how tough the cylons were. The whole thing with the angels and visions didn't really click with me either. It didn't seem to fit with the story.

I just wished they ended with a real vision of how to wrap things up. It was very much left in the air and thus anticlimactic. I'm assuming it has to do with them not knowing if they would be on the air after a year.

Battlestar Galactica 1980 - Okay here we go with the typical formulaic 80's show. Our beloved protagonists are heroes fighting the good fight and defending a group of innocent people against an evil force. How many TV episodes in the 80's had this premise? Again the actual concept of the show was really cool but they focused on some really stupid stuff. I like how they introduced that cylons could mimic humans. But they never explained why they were current day humans. I really thought that all of the egyptian and mythic references would have meant that the escaping fleet would have seeded egyptian society and thus Earth. It appears I would just have to wait almost 30 years (or a couple months in my case) to find this plot point. I did really like the episode the return of starbuck which explained his glaring absence to some degree.

Battlestar Galactica - This was definitely the most complex scifi series ever. Again the overall concept of this show was awesome. The over arcing themes and plot points paid off in the end, for the most part (just what the hell was resurected starbuck?). The details and the individual episode plots I feel are a different story.

This show was very dark. I appreciate dark but there was just no break to the bleakness of the show. There were no happy parts no comic relief. Especially watching episodes back to back it got tiring. Especially since if felt as if they were making the show as dark as it could be while sacrificing plot. For instance they never explained D and what her motivation was. I just don't buy that. And they really don't explain peoples motivations for why they are so angry. It makes them more like caracatures and not realistic people. Sometimes things were just too dramatic. Really to the point of disbelief. People bickering over the smallest things where really just explaining things would do. Real people would not behave that irrationally Basically every episode it would just go way too over the top. But overall the story was incredible. It really seemed like they had the whole thing planned out. The ending was awesome. Again I thought that would be the plot the whole time through after watching the original BSG. I was really wondering how it would fit in to the timeline of Earth. Would they be in the present like BSG 1980 or would it be in the past? But actually having our Earth be Earth 2 was a very cool touch.

The space battles were really awesome too. It was probably the most realistic depiction of what battles in space would be like. I really like the different manuvers the vipers could do. Really showed the lack of gravity. The tech was confusing sometimes. Or lack of it. It was really realistic as if people were in space right now and dealing with present day wrenches and IV bags and weapons. But if felt weird like oddly out of place in space.

So there it is the entire franchise in a nutshell. Overall it was an awesome frakkin' journey. My wife has already moaned about me using the word frak

So say we all.

Mr. Salty

Fixed.

But other than that, yeah, I mostly agree. Except for the new show being too dark. I think it handled the end of a civilization just the way it should.

Gunde

"Exodus: Part 2" from the new series is still among the finest hours of TV I've seen. Just an incredible episode.

Draven

I just wanted to address this part, as I'm currently rewatching the new series too.

I think it's simply that they are stuck in space with no hope of rescue or relief, their families are dead, their friends are dying around them on a regular basis, and they're even killing each other. There really isn't anything "fun" in the whole situation. It's just an ongoing war for them with no end in sight.

There were occasional moments of levity but overall I think they accurately depicted what that situation would be like.

Michael Corvin

You know, I've watched the first two seasons and mostly enjoyed it so far, but it's hard to get through and I could never figure out why...

Looks like you figured it out for me. I think this is one show that benefits from the week between episodes versus watching on disc.

TGM

I feel the same way about "33"

Draven

I agree with this. An interesting concept, executed extremely well and with some serious emotional moments. And it was their first episode after the opening two-parter.

Just great.

milo bloom

I have to agree with this also. I've occasionally had the thought that they could have ended the series on this episode and I probably would have been okay with it.

You mentioned D up there, I'm going to assume you mean when Dualla

tanman

I don't know if I buy that. And I still think that even though things were unbelievably bleak that they still would have had some good moments. A lot of the drama just seemed forced. Like peoples motivations didn't make sense. Like D and why n the world would Baltar give Pegasus 6 the nuke? What else would she have done with it. And why would she have set it off? That didn't make any sense at all.

Setzer

This.

Living Dead

I really REALLY wanted to like the reimagined BSG, especialy since virtually everyone says its one of the best sci-fi shows ever, but all the religious gobbledygook just killed it for me. It was all "God's Plan." Nothing that happened was a result of people or Cylons making their own choices, it was all "preordained." I hate that view of life, both in reality and fiction. And the final coda of the show was just awful.

The prequel Caprica was the same, although ten times heavier on the religious bullshit. I couldn't get through half a season of that show.

Jason

The nuke is the biggest plot problem with the whole series, even more than the resurrected Starbuck.

First, how did they just carry it off Galactica and onto Cloud Nine in a shuttle? Don't they scan anything? On either end? Did Adama just sort of forget that he gave Baltar a frakin' nuke? Didn't even think about it after Baltar becomes a real SOB as President? Didn't anyone say, "Hey, where the frak is Baltar's nuke?" after Pegasus Six set it off?

Not picking it to death, because I do love the entire series, but this just bugs me. I'm actually rewatching for the first time since it ended, and my next Episode is Lay Down Your Burdens, so maybe I missed something along the way.

TimeandTide

One of my all-time favorite episodes of any series.

Timber

Did you know about the religious stuff before you watched it or did you go in cold? I don't think it started off particularly heavy as far as religion goes and by the time it got there I was it seemed like a good progression of the characters rather then preaching (with the exception of the whole Starbuck/her father stuff)

Timber

Damn you, now I'm going to have to watch that tonight. Same thing happened with Exodus being brought up in a thread a few months ago, forced me to watch it again.

tanman

The problem I had with the religious stuff is that they weren't consistent I think it would have worked better if they gradually introduced it instead of jet blam there's suddenly a colon god and Baltar believes in one god.

Basically my main issue with the series has to do with motivation. Events seemed to happen without explaining why people were acting the way they were acting. Still an awesome show but it could have been near perfect with just some minor tweaks.

Just for comparisons sake I though DS9 was a far superior show that depicted a long drawn out war in a serialized show. Granted the situation wasn't quite so desperate.

BSG had some of the best space battles though.

E. Honda

I loved the first two seasons. The syfy remake was all right for the first season, after that it was just a steaming pile of unwatchable felgercarb.

Joe Schmoe

D's suicide came right after Earth was found to be a nuked wasteland. Since humanity had pinned all its hopes on this planet being their new home, the disappointment of it not being habitable was too much for her to bear. The episode where Deana did a documentary about Galactica did a good job of showing how bleak and repetitive daily life was for those people. And I think the episode where the tylium ship crew goes on strike reinforced this idea because it showed how some workers were stuck in low, labor-intensive jobs for 18 hours a day with no hope of ever changing their status in life. Plus, I think being stuck in a tin can for years without blue skies and sunlight to look at probably took an emotional toll on D and a lot of other people. That could explain many of the characters' irritable personalities.

Orbi-Wan Techno

I just started watching BSG on again on Netflix, beginning with the mini-series. I am really enjoying it.

Draven

Just watched Lay Down Your Burdens again and they know it was Baltar's nuke. They assume it was stolen.

SterlingBen

It was pretty badass now go watch these (is you haven't already) in this order only.

Lost
FlashForward
The Lost Room

Gunde

Fixed

Dr. DVD

Impressive undertaking. Kudos for doing it.

tanman

Watching Caprica right now. I'm not sure if I'll like this. I already thought that while the space battles were really cool they didn't happen nearly enough. Now there aren't any and there is just the religious crap with characters that I'm not interested in at all. I'll stick with it but I'm not too positive. That first club scene was really crazy. Really disturbing. I'm watching it on DVD and was really surprised by the nudity. I take it it was edited for TV.

Despite its somewhat major flaws in its various iterations the one thing BSG has had going for it is an awesome premise. Now that's taken away in Caprica.

Plus it changes a lot of things that I thought. I really thought the Cylons were employed by the human race for centuries. With humans continually improving them until they one day get smart. Not downloading some girls consciousness into the first Cylon. Plus why are they war robots already? I thought they would be more like helper robots with them running around all over the place and integrated into society.

Red Dog

If you didn't like the religion in BSG, then I'll tell you right now to not even bother watching Caprica. I actually liked the religious stuff in Caprica; it was the virtual world stuff that annoyed the shit out of me.