So my wife and I have been watching the 2004 TV series after watching the two part mini-series.
So far we have made it through 9 episodes, but I’d be lying if I did not say that I was disappointed.
The farther we get in, the less and less seems to be happening. It appears to be nothing more than a daytime soap opera set in space. There is infighting, back stabbing, everyone is suspicious of everyone, nearly every character has issues and is overly dramatic about it, and we can’t have a single episode with at least one or two gratuitous sex scenes that adds nearly nothing to the plot. Maybe it would be better to compare it to 90210.
[FONT=Trebuchet MS]Does it get any better or does it just keep this up for four seasons? Many TV shows can get off to a slow start, but nine episodes ought to be enough to be attractive to a new viewer if they are going to like it. [/FONT]
I would say that “33”, the first episode after the initial Mini series is one of the best episodes the show has to offer. If that didn’t hook you, you probably should bail
Can you tell me at what time it starts to get better and then awesome? Because if it is midway through season 2, I don’t think we are going to be able to make it there.
I agree with this, except I hold the heretical position that the finale was OK.
The quality of the series bounces around some, but “33” is near the top IMO. There’s nothing so good in later episodes that it would make sense to stick with it if you didn’t like the first nine.
If you’ve watched for 9 episodes and don’t like it, then there’s not much sense in keeping watching. It’s more of the same. I think it does get better, but it’s more of the same sort of thing just done better.
Now the series arc.
If you all didn’t like the finale, what the heck did you think you were watching back when you watched the episodes you liked?
Or to put it another way, the existence of angels, demons, gods, prophecies, destinies, coincidences, telepathy, fairies, visions, “feelings”, unicorns, robots, faster-than-light travel, and so on doesn’t bother me in a work of fiction, because it’s fiction.
It seems odd to swallow a prophecy but gag on an angel. I understand that having Superman swoop out of the sky and save the day can ruin your suspension of disbelief, but if you don’t like that sort of thing why are you watching a movie about Superman?
Interestingly, I’m at about the same place, and I’m lukewarm. I don’t think I’ll stop watching entirely, but it isn’t something that I’m frequently excited to watch. It just kinda sits around, and occasionally I realize that I’m in the mood to watch some Galactica, so I do.
This mostly sums it up for me. The finale was 2/3rds good, imo.
I take issues with this.
First, for the opening saying “they have a plan” the writers and exec producer didn’t. And that shows when threads are later dropped or end very differently than what they set up.
Second, it was very late into the show that some of those items (angels, demons, gods, prophecies, destinies, coincidences, telepathy, fairies, visions, “feelings”, unicorns, robots) were even mentioned. If you have a show that is based on robots and for three and a half seasons, show how things are done in a science way and then suddenly introduce angels/demons into it, that’s the issue I had! I can accept those things but not when they were pulled out of the @$$ of the writer and had no lead up to it.
(Disclaimer: yes, some of those things were mentioned but many of them were dismissed or shown to be delusions of the characters.)
For the most part, I liked it, it floundered for a while, to me, because they seemed to base the whole show on a cool beginning and had no idea how to get to the end or what that end would be.
There is still some good stuff in there but it’s not as coherent in repeats as it should be, compared to if the writers had had a plan.
Far into the series it gets pretty chaotic–there’s almost too much confusion. If you’ve made it this far and are unimpressed, then looking ahead there’s no reason to get excited (to speak kindly). By the end of the series, a lot of people (many among us Dopers) felt like it was some kind of joke.
I’d write more, but I’ve been up for a while and it’s getting late (plus the wind is really picking up and the noise is getting distracting).
The problem with shows is that if you don’t like the premise of it, and the execution up to episode nine, then as most have said, the rest of it won’t work for you.
My own opinions: Buffy actually had a mostly weak first and second season, except late second and most Spike/Dru. But after that, third season was great. But, even when I didn’t like a particular episode (mantis woman, eggs, mummy girl), I still liked the show overall. I could say, “eh, that one didn’t work for me but I can’t wait for the next one.”
Bab5’s first season is also quite weak, until the last five episodes. The same could be argued for second season as well. But something about the show appealed to me and brought me back, even when it wasn’t as good as it could be or had been.
That’s the mark of a good show, imo. It might not always be great but I still want to see the next one.
I gave up about 2 1/2 episodes in, IIRC. It was after the episode where… they visit an old arms depot space station thing that’s in a big cloud of stuff that kills Cylons …and it was just too dreary to bother going on. Apart from anything else, the Cylons-look-like-humans twist didn’t make any fucking sense.
