Friday, June 01, 2007

Battlestar Galactica

It's been announced that next season will be the last for the new Battlestar Galactica. I can't decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing...mostly because I've never been able to decide if I really like the show. I'll watch several episodes, and it gets so dreadfully melodramatic that I decide I'm done. How many times can we watch them try to turn up the emotion to such a high level that it almost becomes laughable?

That's when I decide that I'll watch one more episode, and if it doesn't get better, I'm done. That episode always blows me away. I wish there was more consistency from the writers. Let's just have good plot and stop trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator of the television audience.

Of course, when the fourth season begins, you can bet that I'll be there to watch it, and considering how much time I've invested (wasted) on this series, I'll probably watch all 22 episodes...but it better be damn good!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

When rumors of a new BSG series began to emerge I was excited. Obviously Lorne Green would not be on the show or and Dirk Bennedict a question mark. But I hoped it would be similar to the Gallactica I watched on the big screen then on television back in 1979. I sat with anticipation moments before the show. Diet Coke here, chips there. remote here. Finally the show came on and what’s up with this weird camera angle? Coke, chips. What’s with all the character changes? I was soon getting nauseous
From the camera angle I took the remote and went to watch something else. I can appreciate the artistic endeavor BSG is attempting to do but I couldn’t care about the characters. I couldn’t relate to the characters. I didn’t expect the show to be exactly like the one back in 1979, but this was too much to take already.

As far as writing consistency foes, this is what happens when too many writers have their hands in the pot. The show would have been better served with just one or two writers following strict guidelines from the producer.

As for the shows cancellation? Good. I didn’t care much for it after the first episode.

J Alan Erwine said...

Technically, the show's not being cancelled. The writers are wrapping it up...which makes sense. Given the way the third season ended, they really couldn't drag it out for more than one season...I supposed they could, but it wouldn't have been a good idea.

I agree with you on the writing. I think that was one of the reasons Babylon 5 worked so well for me. Almost all of it was written by JMS.

Anonymous said...

I don’t know a lot about Hollywood and writing for Television but aren’t their writers supposed to live location close to the sound stage so they can write on fly? These days with email and such it would almost seem redundant but maybe this is why some shows succeed and others fail because they had their writers close to the set. Or am I just imagining things?

J Alan Erwine said...

I'm not really sure how Hollywood works. I know with B5, JMS was usually in a room right next to the set working on revisions to his scripts.

It would seem to make sense for the writers to be right there...but when have things ever made sense in Hollywood?