Alright, I know the title is kind of stating the obvious, but I’ve never been able to get into the new BSG series until this morning, when a friend finally persuaded me to try watching the first few episodes. I’ve subsequently spent most of the afternoon going through the first season, so I’d say it was a good decision.
In any event, other than mentioning how surprisingly good the show is, I was hoping to clarify something. Spoilers through season 1, episode 9 follow:
[spoiler]Whats-his-face the maybe-crazy-but-probably-manipulated scientist, having used his pretend cylon detector to frame the newsie who later proves to actually be a cylon, was coached by his hallucinatory cyclon handler to BS the captain into giving him a nuclear missile to build a detector. However, I’m a bit confused: as of season 1, episode 9, do we know whether the thing actually works? I thought it was another piece of nonfunctional hardware that the cyclons talked him into building in order to deplete the Galactica’s stock of nukes, but the doctor seems to be behaving as if he believes that the device will actually work…
So as viewers, are we supposed to know whether or not the thing is (theoretically) effective?[/spoiler]
For what it’s worth, I tried the show at first and dropped it, because it wasn’t that great. I was persuaded to try it again, and I’m glad I did–it gets MUCH better after season one, so you have that to look forward to.
Ooh, that’s really promising- my big worry was that they would drop the ball in subsequent seasons; the characters are all fun to watch, and Kara Thrace in particular is easily my favorite character on TV recently, but I was worried that in subsequent seasons, the writers would be unable to keep up the suspense and sense of tense paranoia that (at least for me) really characterizes the early episodes, especially 33.
For the record, I failed on my first attempt to watch it because I watched them in the wrong order: I didn’t realize that there was a pilot, so I started with 33, and the inability to work out what was going on really irked me. I somehow assumed that it was an artifact of bad writing, and so I gave it up and went back to watching Firefly
We just started this series too…it is really good, isn’t it? And I don’t even usually like sci-fi, and hated Firefly. We only got through seasons 1 and 2, but they’re both great, IMHO.
Anyway, as to your question, I don’t think you’re meant to know, at that point, whether the nuke is active. I actually found that part rather implausible–I could see them maybe disassembling the nuke and giving him the material he needs, but not giving him the whole nuke, especially since he’s obviously a nut.
I was persuaded to watch BSG since this was its last season. So I spent about a week “catching up” from the mini-series to Season 1 to the webisodes and so on. I’m all caught up and can’t wait for the series finale in a few weeks. Forget about Kara – the fun guy to watch is Col. Tigh. Michael Hogan brings that character to life week after week. Oh, try to avoid spoilers that give away future plot development as you get through all the seasons. It’s more fun that way!
BSG and Lost are the only two series that I’ve ever watched every single episode, without exception. I’m bummed that Battlestar is coming to a close…3 or 4 more episodes and I have no idea how it’s all going to finish up.
My opinion might change as I keep watching, but right now I mainly like the idea of Kara: they start her out on a simple concept (brilliant-but-troubled pilot who drinks, smokes, fights, and fails to develop interpersonal skills until her species’ diaspora forces the point, after which the mechanism that she’s used to escape emotional pain starts to amplify it), and cast an actress who absolutely nails the part. She may not be the most interesting character study, but she’s extremely funny to watch.
As far as character development goes, I think you’re right on the money about Tigh. Adama was fun to learn about in the early episodes, and it’s been interesting to watch Laura Roslin go from low-ranking politician to president, and from there slowly spiral into (what I assume is) cancer-induced madness, but Tigh is one of the few characters who still seems to have places to go as the first season comes to a close.
I’m also a big fan of Chief, but I think the character was kind of played out by the time he broke up with Boomer.
Oh, and for the record, my single favorite scene from the first season has to be the section…
In which Chief crawls into the Raider and listens to one of his ducklings reading out Kara’s detailed-yet-disgusting instructions on how to operate it
One of the nice things about *BSG *is they manage to move the characters to places you’d never imagine, but in a totally believable way, where the audience gets to watch each step of the process. Compare Heroes, where characters make huge swings in personality, values, and behavior, without explanation or segue, simply because It’s In The Script.
In other words, don’t assume you know where a character is going or what their final story is. Though it is always, always true that Col. Tigh is made of awesome and win, and Michael Hogan even moreso.
I believe it, but from where I’m sitting (halfway through season 2, episode 2) I’m kind of ready for Dr. Baltar’s story to be over. I’m hoping something unexpected will happen that drastically changes my take on him, but no matter how instrumental (or superfluous) to the Cylon plans he is, so little has been explained about him, the long hallucinatory sequences have quickly gone from interesting to boring and (seemingly) pointless.
The show has its ups and downs. IMHO, the first season is the best-- it’s never quite that glorious again-- but every season has some fantastic episodes. And the character arcs are all a lot of fun to watch (well, most of them-- I won’t spoil things for you, but there are a couple of narrative “dead ends” that you won’t know about for a while).
My advice: stay away from spoilers OF ALL KINDS. The surprises in BSG are BIG surprises, HUGE surprises. Which means, sadly, that you better watch the episodes quickly, lest someone pop in and ruin your fun.
FYI, Baltar’s story changes pretty dramatically over the show’s length, so your opinion may change over time.
As for Tigh, he’s probably still my favorite character, even now nearing the end of the show’s run. Hogan is a fantastic actor, and he gets lots more stuff to do as the show goes on.
Personally, I’m jealous-- you still have the Pegasus arc to look forward to (no more on that ;-).
I hear that. I’ve actually been rather lucky, thus far: the only spoiler I ever read and remembered before I started watching was that Boomer was a cylon, which ended up being revealed within the first three episodes.
Yes! I’m now a few episodes into season 4, having started watching sometime around Christmas. Other than a few episodes in season 2 (or was it 3, I can’t remember) that I found a bit tedious, I’ve been in love with this show every moment.
Some of the greatest and most believable characters ever written for sci-fi television. And as Unauthorized Cinnamon says, the characters basically never do anything just because.
One thing you’ll notice soon is that the later seasons develop a bit of a rhythm-- season-ending cliffhangers and premieres are the best episodes with the most stuff happening in them. A lot of that has to do with the budgets-- after the first two seasons the show sadly never quite got the love from NBC/Universal & the Sci-Fi channel deserved, so you’ll see that reflected in the effects budgets for the later seasons, which tend to follow a “big episode, followed by lots of smaller episodes” kind of rhythm.
Also, some of the smaller episodes were written as “standalones”, i.e. back when the show got great ratings, the thought was that it’d be around a while, like six or even as long as eight seasons. Thus, the corporate guys pressured the showrunners (Ron Moore and David Eick) to do lots of a one-off episodes that could be used more effectively as syndication bait (syndication is notoriously hard for serialized shows-- syndicators like shows they can just plug into a time slot, in any order).
Alas, some of the worst episodes of BSG are the standalones in Seasons 2 and 3-- they’re usually pretty obvious to spot because the events seem so disjointed from the main story, and the characters are usually written in ways that don’t seem to mesh with the rest of the story, i.e. they do things that seem out of character.
Anyway, a side benefit of a bad thing (the show’s eventual cancellation) was that by the time Season 4 came along, they knew the show wasn’t going to continue for much longer, so The Powers That Be allowed Moore & Company the freedom to make the storyline more coherent again.
I think that I just hit the first one… Kara got separated from Redneck Mcstuddly and his team of Red Dawn throwbacks, and spent the whole episode escaping from an evil Cylon baby factor. :smack:
I’d never seen the show at all until the beginning of Season 4.5. Clicking past it on the Monster Snake Channel, the shots of pretty people in their undershirts looked like Calvin Klein ads. And there were other shots of middle-aged people looking terribly haggard. Really–a remake of Paw Cartwright In Space? I was a full grown adult when the original series ran & never watched an episode. But I succumbed to peer group pressure. The show was ending, there were marathons & the internet is full of retroactive spoilers. So I educated myself & started watching. Damn, it really is good!
Some long-term fans are bitching mightily because the story they wanted is not being told in the way they wish it to be told. Me, I’m a newbie–just hanging on for the ride.
When it’s over, I’ll buy the first set of DVD’s & start from the beginning. (Yes, I know there will be more complete sets. Someday, I’ll have Blue-ray…)
No, that one actually has implications that continue on.
In addition to the great acting by Michael Hogan, pay attention to Tricia Helfer and Grace Park – in the miniseries, I rather dismissively regarded them as “underwear models wannabe actresses”. So, so very wrong. They’re both astonishingly good in their roles.
Also, be warned that just about every character on the show is going to do something horrible that you won’t like them for, even though you like the character. Characters are so many shades of gray that it is fracking impossible to decide who is a “good guy” or “bad guy”. So, don’t.
And, as Ron Moore says in one of his podcasts, Galactica is the kind of show that seems like it can’t get any darker. And then it gets darker still. And then… they turn the lights out on you.
I really don’t like the show. I suppose it’d be OK if they hadn’t taken a cheesy but fun fondly remembered show of my past, then dug the body up and make it do unatural things.
I mean- why Battlestar Galactica? Why not just make up your own show?
I completely agree with you there. Tricia Helfer has, thus far, been alternating between Stock Cylon Redshirt and Crazy Psychobabble Voice of the Cylons (via Doc), but they give her a crudload of dialogue, and she sells it extremely well.
I’m actually glad that you mentioned Grace Park, because that’s something I hadn’t noticed: so far (I’m on season 2, ep 6 right now) I haven’t been overly impressed by the character, mainly due to the seemingly simple premise: now she’s good, now she’s evil, nobody likes her, oh gee the drama.
The actress, on the other hand, does a phenomenal job bringing life to a (thus far) flat role, and she has a bit of that Tom Cruise/Tom Hanks “I’d watch this actor reading the phonebook” flair.
Actually, that brings up a good point: if it’s possible to answer without spoiling anything, could I ask how faithful the new show is to the original premise?
