Gizmo Pimp

I have a confession to make… I’ve kind of lost interest in Battlestar Galactica. I know it sounds like crazy talk, but I can no longer sit by and listen to so many fanboys talking about how it’s the “best show on TV”. Kevin Smith even had to plug it on Ebert & Roeper a few weeks ago. It’s not the best show on TV. Maybe it was for a brief moment in time, but the fact is, it’s been a real mess for a while now. It’s pretentious and dull and takes itself far too seriously. All the characters are annoying.

Earlier this year I was totally hooked after my first exposure to the show, blowing through episodes on DVD like there was no tomorrow. I was buying into all the hype and selling it too — I wrote a pretty glowing review of Season 2.0 on DVD. I even forgave them for splitting season 2 up into two separate DVD releases just to make more money. The storyline up until that point was pretty solid and moved at a breakneck pace. I couldn’t wait to see what was coming next. That’s when all the trouble started.

Season 2 had a few one shot episodes that I really didn’t like. They strayed from the main storyline and aside from throwing off the continuity, they were really poorly written. But I realize now that those episodes in particular weren’t the major problem. The real problem is that somewhere along the way, they just lost all the momentum they had built up in season 2.

Everything was leading up to this mystical search for the legendary planet Earth, and then just when they stumbled across the “tomb of Athena”… poof. Nothing. It’s like the writers realized they had no plan, nowhere else to go, so they just kind of rebooted the story and started all over again. I was a little unsure how I felt about the cliffhanger ending of season 2, but I thought I’d give them a chance to follow up on it in Season 3. Now in Season 3 I’m finding it hard to sit through new episodes.

All of the characters have become contrived and pathetic. I realize they’re inventing all these flaws and weaknesses so that when they overcome them later it will be some major triumph. But it just seems so cliched. Lee gets fat. Starbuck suddenly becomes passive and obedient because she has a baby. Odama now trusts Sharon more than anyone else. How does all of this come to pass? And need I mention, I fucking hate Colonel Tigh and his wife, that whole relationship is just ridiculous. The fact that we are now supposed to identify with some of the cylons is even more frustrating.

Yeah I know, it’s groundbreaking television because they are creating parallels to the war on Iraq. Big deal. Like that hasn’t been done before. I don’t mind political undertones but now it just feels forced and way too obvious.

So although I’ve come to appreciate some of the finer points of episodic television in recent years, here’s the dilemma… it’s pretty damn hard to maintain strong writing, believable characters and high tension for an extended run. All I know is you’d better have a good plan from the start, otherwise you’re going to fizzle out somewhere in season 2, just like BSG did. For all my complaining about the less interesting second season of Lost, at least there’s still an overarching plan and strong acting to carry it through.

I’d like to see how mainstream audiences react to Battlestar Galactica if NBC really does decide to move it off cable to a network primetime slot. My guess is, they’ll realize it’s a frakkin’ joke a lot quicker than I did.

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