BSG finale -- MOOD SPOILERS
Sep. 7th, 2007 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockOh, Galactica. I want to love you. I really, really try. But it's so hard, because...well... because you're stupid.
I love your lofty dramatic goals. Your care with crafting characterization and dramatic confrontational scenes. Your physical attention to detail and then absolute brilliance of whoever produces your set design, art design, special effects, and cinematography. In those elements your show is almost up to the quality of a feature film. You are eye candy, and your characters are brain candy. Your ambition in the realm of space opera is commendable and sometimes breathtaking.
Your plot, however, is about as logical as a lump of dogshit suspended in a plastic birthday balloon, waiting to explode in its own fecal mess on top of everyone's heads--characters and audience alike.
You're just... stupid. So many aspects of the basic storyline make no sense at all, no matter how thinly I attempt to stretch my suspension of disbelief. And as the seasons progress, it gets worse. You build up a basic storyline that rests on flawed logic and nonsensical, irrational assumptions. Then you invent more plot, which, even if you accept the completely stupid arguments that preceed it as being wihtin the realm of viewer belief, adds more nonsense and irrationality and self-contradictions.
I keep beliebing that maybe, if I wade through more, these contradictions within canon and continuity will be resolved, that everything will be clarified. But 3 whole seasons and a miniseries later... and huge, MAJOR plot holes still exist, the same old plot holes and a bunch of new ones.
It's frustrating as hell, to watch a show try so hard and look so tragically beautiful while, quite pathetically, choking on its own foot because it tried to swallow its leg whole just to see what its zipper tasted like.
I may like these characters, but I can never truly love them, and I can never truly care about their fates or get invested in their adventures, because, no matter how hard I try, I cannot believe in the world that they live in, or the conflicts they face.
I've heard the reply that it's space and sci-fi, that it's not supposed to always make sense in a real world because it's fantasy and fiction. That I should overlook these things and just accept what the series tells me in continuity. You know what? That's crap. That's a bullshit excuse for bad writing. My problem isn't with BSG having unrealistic things happen-- I expect that in Sci-fi stuff. But a good story sets up a world, a verse, with certain realities and truths. This is the writer's playground, the characters' playground. And everything that follows, no matter how irrational in the real world, is acceptable in the story as long as it makes sense within the world initially presented. As long as it stays within the playground, it works.
BSG has failed at that, over and over again. It doesn't make sense even within its own universe. And I have to hold it to that story standard because the quality of this show, the ambition of it, requires that I hold it accountable. I can't just let go and forget about the stupidity of the plot, then crow about the brilliance of characterization or art. It's either brilliant, or its not. In terms of tv there's nothing sadder than watching a series be so ambitious and so ridiculous at the same time. I wouldn't judge it so harshly if it didn't reach for so much in the first place. Yeah, it's prettier and more dramatic than Stargate SG1, with better actors and high production and better many other things. But I never got frustrated at the stupidity of SG1, because it never took itself so seriously. If a show takes itself this seriously, I have to judge it this seriously. And every time I watch a block of episodes of BSG, I always walk away vaguely frustrated. Pleased about the small things, but disappointed in the whole.
I love your lofty dramatic goals. Your care with crafting characterization and dramatic confrontational scenes. Your physical attention to detail and then absolute brilliance of whoever produces your set design, art design, special effects, and cinematography. In those elements your show is almost up to the quality of a feature film. You are eye candy, and your characters are brain candy. Your ambition in the realm of space opera is commendable and sometimes breathtaking.
Your plot, however, is about as logical as a lump of dogshit suspended in a plastic birthday balloon, waiting to explode in its own fecal mess on top of everyone's heads--characters and audience alike.
You're just... stupid. So many aspects of the basic storyline make no sense at all, no matter how thinly I attempt to stretch my suspension of disbelief. And as the seasons progress, it gets worse. You build up a basic storyline that rests on flawed logic and nonsensical, irrational assumptions. Then you invent more plot, which, even if you accept the completely stupid arguments that preceed it as being wihtin the realm of viewer belief, adds more nonsense and irrationality and self-contradictions.
I keep beliebing that maybe, if I wade through more, these contradictions within canon and continuity will be resolved, that everything will be clarified. But 3 whole seasons and a miniseries later... and huge, MAJOR plot holes still exist, the same old plot holes and a bunch of new ones.
It's frustrating as hell, to watch a show try so hard and look so tragically beautiful while, quite pathetically, choking on its own foot because it tried to swallow its leg whole just to see what its zipper tasted like.
I may like these characters, but I can never truly love them, and I can never truly care about their fates or get invested in their adventures, because, no matter how hard I try, I cannot believe in the world that they live in, or the conflicts they face.
I've heard the reply that it's space and sci-fi, that it's not supposed to always make sense in a real world because it's fantasy and fiction. That I should overlook these things and just accept what the series tells me in continuity. You know what? That's crap. That's a bullshit excuse for bad writing. My problem isn't with BSG having unrealistic things happen-- I expect that in Sci-fi stuff. But a good story sets up a world, a verse, with certain realities and truths. This is the writer's playground, the characters' playground. And everything that follows, no matter how irrational in the real world, is acceptable in the story as long as it makes sense within the world initially presented. As long as it stays within the playground, it works.
BSG has failed at that, over and over again. It doesn't make sense even within its own universe. And I have to hold it to that story standard because the quality of this show, the ambition of it, requires that I hold it accountable. I can't just let go and forget about the stupidity of the plot, then crow about the brilliance of characterization or art. It's either brilliant, or its not. In terms of tv there's nothing sadder than watching a series be so ambitious and so ridiculous at the same time. I wouldn't judge it so harshly if it didn't reach for so much in the first place. Yeah, it's prettier and more dramatic than Stargate SG1, with better actors and high production and better many other things. But I never got frustrated at the stupidity of SG1, because it never took itself so seriously. If a show takes itself this seriously, I have to judge it this seriously. And every time I watch a block of episodes of BSG, I always walk away vaguely frustrated. Pleased about the small things, but disappointed in the whole.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-08 02:33 am (UTC)I really liked first season. :D
no subject
Date: 2007-09-10 06:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-10 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 08:49 pm (UTC)