# Battlestar Galactica – Does it get better? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 23, 2006, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519 "2006-11-23T04:17:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Slurm\_Factory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d2c977/32.png) [@Slurm\_Factory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slurm_Factory)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/1 "2006-11-23T04:17:08Z")
Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t seen at least season one, stop reading! I’ve been watching season one. I’m up to episode 7. I’m not really sure what’s up with this show but I’m having a hard time watching it. Honestly I’m really interested in the story. It seems like a really cool premise and I’m curious as to where they will take it. But the execution and overall production value seems to be really lacking. Not to mention a lot of the dialog is extremely cringeworthy (although not as bad as Heroes). Also there are certain scenes that honestly make me question if this show is satire. Like when the girl climbed into the Cylon ship and somehow not only found oxygen but learned how to fly the thing! Come on! So I have to ask, does it get better??? I guess from all the people praising it as “the best thing on TV” I had too high of expectations. The DVDs aren’t mine so I have to return them at some point. I guess I just want to know if I should continue investing time into the show or just stop now… Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/2 "2006-11-23T04:39:48Z")
No. I’m throughly hooked to the point I argue like it was Trek, but if you don’t like it yet, I’d say forget about it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/3 "2006-11-23T04:52:53Z")
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant] No. I’m throughly hooked to the point I argue like it was Trek, but if you don’t like it yet, I’d say forget about it. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Personally, I’d tend to agree. _However_, I do have a friend that liked the first season okay, but only really became a dedicated fan with the first half of the second. So, I don’t know. But if you have the first season and you still find it sort of interesting, I’d go ahead and finish this one at least and see how you feel about continuing. Couldn’t hurt ;). - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/4 "2006-11-23T05:05:53Z")
If you’re up to episode 1.7 then, no, it does not get what you would think of as better. Heck, if you didn’t like “33,” this probably isn’t the show for you. Save yourself (and us) from becoming a bitter, angry viewer watching a show you don’t like. Find something you do like, and watch that. Life’s too short to waste on TV you don’t like. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/5 "2006-11-23T05:37:29Z")
As a _BG_ fan, I agree. Don’t waste your time if you don’t like it yet. It doesn’t change much in ways that will make you like it, I don’t think. (And I’m with you on _Heroes_. We must be the only two people in the US not in awe.) ---
**Author:** ![Surbey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Surbey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surbey)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/6 "2006-11-23T06:12:04Z")
I was hooked by the second episode of the miniseries. I swear to Og, something in my mind just went _Click_ when I first saw it and I was hooked. My gf found out for the first time 2 weeks ago that BSG:Season 1 is the reason I didn’t see her in the evening for 13 straight fridays in a row. ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/7 "2006-11-23T07:26:07Z")
Apologies for the slight hijack: When this show first came on, I didn’t have have any interest because of the totally cheesy original series. As I now see it reinvented, I love it. Among the best of TV. ---
**Author:** ![Electronic\_Chaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Electronic\_Chaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electronic_Chaos)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/8 "2006-11-23T07:34:01Z")
I actually didn’t care for it all that much when I first watched it. In fact, I was only watching it because it was on after Stargate and I didn’t have anything better to do. Then I got more interested, but remained confused. Then I got Season 1 and watched it from the beginning, and now I’m hooked like a fish. But yeah, if you’re watching it from the beginning and not into it, I’d say just give up. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/9 "2006-11-23T07:45:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Does it get better? No; it begins great and stays great. Which, of course, is just an opinion, which I happen to share. If you don’t, you don’t; if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you. Sometimes that just happens and there’s nothing wrong with it. As others have said, if it hasn’t grabbed you by this point, it probably isn’t going to, so don’t torture yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/10 "2006-11-23T08:03:18Z")
Agree with the above, the overall style stays the same. I love it. I watched the original 4hr pilot just out of nostalgic curiousity and was completely blown away. The show’s execution and production style are meant to be, well, the way they are. Namely subtle and minimalist. You aren’t ever spoon-fed any exposition. > [@](#): > > Like when the girl climbed into the Cylon ship and somehow not only found oxygen but learned how to fly the thing! Come on! Those ships are supposed to be huge cybernetic organisms. Essentially larger but simpler versions of the cylons themselves (remember when she first looked inside it, saw all the ‘guts’ and said, “Are you alive?”). So an oxygen supply being present made sense. And she was able to pilot it because she found (by trial & error) the various nerve ‘bundles’ which controlled it. A bit of a stretch maybe, but still plausible. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/11 "2006-11-23T08:53:31Z")
Not sure what your standards are. But I have an annoyingly low threshhold for illogic in such shows, and this– [QUOTE=Slurm Factory] Also there are certain scenes that honestly make me question if this show is satire. Like when the girl climbed into the Cylon ship and somehow not only found oxygen but learned how to fly the thing! Come on! [/QUOTE] –worked fine for me. Keep in mind that the Cylons were engineered by humans, so it’s perfectly likely that you’d find plenty of human-“friendly” features on a Cylon ship. I think it was a bit of a stretch, but I wrote it off to the writers trying to show us just how resourceful a pilot Starbuck really is. So again, I’m not sure, whatever your standards are, they’re gonna be compatible with anything this side of a documentary on dentistry or accounting. Now my complaints, and I have a few, are such as: –Note to self: if I’m going to engineer a race of superbeings that are capable of reproducing and even improving themselves, I’m gonna remember not to give them an evil sounding name like “cylon.” That’s just stupid; that’s almost asking to be Frankensteined. Instead I’ll name them something like the _Slave-o-mat 3000_, or the _PowerPuff ReadyMaid._ Do you think they’d have the balls to wage war on the entire civilization if they had a silly name? not likely. Also, make them fuzzy with big eyes and a little girl’s voice. –The pre-Earth genesis of the humans just doesn’t gel. Presumably they colonized the earth with one race, in Africa, which then spread and diversified. So it doesn’t make sense that they’d have the same races. Also English accents. –Speaking of which, I hate the guy who plays the doctor with the hottie in his head. HATE him. He plays his role like a clown at a birthday party, mugging and doubletaking and just embarrassing himself. For such a pivotal–and abiguous–role, this is one of the worst examples of bad casting that I can think of. –The octagonal paper is just retarded. Presumably the futurized version of paper would be even more efficient, not less. It’s an arbitrary design decision, meant to look vaguely futuristic, but it makes absolutely zero sense. Maybe make the paper perfectly sqare; or transparent; or video-pixelated. But lop the corners off of standard 8.5x11? Ruh. Tar. Dead. –I did enjoy seeing a _Reader’s Digest Condensed Book_ on Adama’s desk though. But I couldn’t see if they’d lopped the corners off. I have a couple other issues, but that’s all I have the energy for right now. Mostly I like the show, although every time Dr. Asshat comes on I reconsider the time I’ve been devoting to this. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/12 "2006-11-23T12:59:17Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] –The pre-Earth genesis of the humans just doesn’t gel. Presumably they colonized the earth with one race, in Africa, which then spread and diversified. So it doesn’t make sense that they’d have the same races. Also English accents. [/QUOTE] Lots of places have an England? OK, I got nothin’. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/13 "2006-11-23T13:03:32Z")
You may find the “And they have a plan” line cited at the beginning of each episode less and less plausible as the series progresses, is all I can say. ---
**Author:** ![Subway\_Prophet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@Subway\_Prophet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subway_Prophet)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/14 "2006-11-23T18:05:20Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] The octagonal paper is just retarded. Presumably the futurized version of paper would be even more efficient, not less. It’s an arbitrary design decision, meant to look vaguely futuristic, but it makes absolutely zero sense. Maybe make the paper perfectly sqare; or transparent; or video-pixelated. But lop the corners off of standard 8.5x11? [/QUOTE] Yeah, it’s pretty lame. It started out as an in-joke (the production kept cutting corners to reduce costs) but it’s gotten out of control. The only reasonable solution I see is to nuke the entire race and start over with better-designed organisms. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/15 "2006-11-23T18:07:39Z")
Yeah, if you don’t like by now you probably won’t ever like it. I was hooked from the time I saw it as mini-series, and thought the first few episodes of season 1 were some of the best. ---
**Author:** ![Kiros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/439d5e/32.png) [@Kiros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiros)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/16 "2006-11-23T18:57:34Z")
Some of the acting gets a little better as it goes along, but you’ve already hit the essence of what the show is: a quality character-based drama in an alright sci-fi universe with decent-but-not-great production values and acting. And every now and then, a really cool space battle. Most of us are so desperate for a show with a quality storyline that we can glaze over some of the imperfections, but it’s definitely an individual taste. (I also think Heroes is pretty terrible, but I’m not the kind of person who generally posts just to crap on what is “popular”, so I don’t get that opinion out nearly as much as I might like to. Kind of like Hiro, who doesn’t get his crap out as often as he’d like to either, except _his_ mental constipation can cause him to appear in Times Square. Or something. \) ---
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2006, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/17 "2006-11-23T21:59:29Z")
I have a friend who’s now watched the complete first two seasons of BSG … and _still_ can’t decide if he likes it. He wants to know what _happens_ … but like it? The jury’s still out. I can sympathise. I watched the first season, and like him, I’m curious to know what happens … but that’s about all. For me, the biggest problem is that there isn’t a single character in the series that I feel I can connect with. So there’s only the story to carry me, and that’s not really enough; I need characters to identify with if I’m going to enjoy a TV series. (Or a book, for that matter.) ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2006, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/18 "2006-11-24T10:23:32Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] [INDENT]–Note to self: if I’m going to engineer a race of superbeings that are capable of reproducing and even improving themselves, I’m gonna remember not to give them an evil sounding name like “cylon.” That’s just stupid; that’s almost asking to be Frankensteined. Instead I’ll name them something like the _Slave-o-mat 3000_, or the _PowerPuff ReadyMaid._ Do you think they’d have the balls to wage war on the entire civilization if they had a silly name? not likely. Also, make them fuzzy with big eyes and a little girl’s voice. [/QUOTE] Plus, remember not to give them Freddy Nightmare fingers. Yeah, I’m just hitting Season 2. Also, the frowny red-light eye-scanner thing? Askin for it. Face it: the cylons were designed specifically to be evil overlords. Also, the whole biologic insides of the raider ship that Starbuck captured? and then clanged around in/on for gods know how long? and then flew back to Caprica? Wouldn’t it at least \*stink \*by now? Whatever. THese details don’t drag the whole show down for me, but they do make me feel a little bit disrespected as a viewer. ---
**Author:** ![scareyfaerie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scareyfaerie/32/3135_2.png) [@scareyfaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scareyfaerie)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2006, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/19 "2006-11-24T10:28:53Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] You may find the “And they have a plan” line cited at the beginning of each episode less and less plausible as the series progresses, is all I can say. [/QUOTE] Right from the beginning, that line had me in stitches. I can’t explain why it’s so funny, but it makes me giggle just thinking about it. I reckon I must have been having a “Pinky and the Brain” moment there… As for the series, I wouldn’t say it gets better as such, but it’s growing on me. Must be, I’m still watching it and we’re up to season 3. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2006, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519/20 "2006-11-24T15:44:04Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] biologic insides of the raider ship that Starbuck captured? Wouldn’t it at least \*stink \*by now? [/QUOTE] I think it is still alive to be able to function. Starbuck is the best pilot at ripping out brains and leaving the rest to live indefinitely. 🙂 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-does-it-get-better/381519.md?page=2)