The best part is that it’s re-watchable. The only other series I’ve ever said that about are Seinfeld and Arrested Development. I’m rarely able re-watch dramas (compared to laughing at Bluth antics repeatedly) but BSG is the exception.
It’s been hard to face the end of such quality entertainment but I recently (as in 2 days ago) gave Lost a third try and this time it stuck…so I have five years worth of DVDs to entertain me for a while. I’ve also Netflixed Jericho, Jeremiah, Mad Men and all of the Tennant Dr. Who so that should keep me busy through the mourning period for BSG.
On a separate note, Gaeta and I were at the same undergrad school at exactly the same time-alas, I did not notice him back then-though I’m sure I walked by him in the halls at RVC at some point.
As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, I’m rewatching the series with my girlfriend, who has become addicted and is catching up as fast as she can. She has asked a couple of times: Are you sure you don’t mind watching these again? Me: Nope.
They really do get better as you rewatch. A handful of the flaws do take on greater significance (and the few truly bad episodes look even worse), but in general most of the problems fade into the background, bringing the positive qualities into high relief. Choices that seem questionable the first time around can be seen in context on a rewatch, because you know where they’re going with them.
I mean, I think I’ve watched the miniseries ten or twelve times… :eek:
That’s cuz the miniseries was fantastic. I really have a hard time fathoming the people who say, “I tried the miniseries and I just didn’t like it.”
I just can’t understand that. Guess some people just aren’t cool enough for school.
-Joe
Me too. If I have to choose between going out to a crappy movie or watching the BSG Miniseries one more time…I inevitably choose the miniseries.
I think I’ve received a fair rate of return on my BSG DVD purchases.
Out of curiosity, could I hear some of people’s least favorite episodes from seasons 2-3? I agree that the seasons as a whole could be pretty stinky, but the only truly horrible episode that stood out to me was the season 3 finale.
“The Woman King” was the absolute worst.
- We don’t learn anything new about Helo, on whom that episode is centered.
- The plot is telegraphed from the beginning, so much so that only having a main character do something surprising could have saved it – but see #1.
- Nothing that occurred in that episode was ever relevant again.*
- Really, really bad writing.
- Also, not so great acting, either.
- one of the saving graces of “Black Market” is that it becomes relevant because of a minor plot point later on.
Good god, I’d forgotten about that episode… it worked out better when I saw it, because I mistook Helo for Lee and thought he was being punished for pissing Adama off, so I interpreted the whole thing as “Lee learns humility” which, while equally pointless, had the bonus of going towards character development.
And then I learned it wasn’t. 
Although mixing up Tahmoh with Jamie is a bit perplexing, mixing up the characters of Helo and Apollo is completely understandable – they ended up writing both characters into the same archetype, “the Stand Up Guy”.
It is a bit annoying, since it seems like there was only room enough for one of those in the series, so half the time we got Apollo, the rest of the time we got Helo.
Meanwhile, there’s enough Starbuck for about ten characters to have shared in.
B-b-b-but “The Woman King” included Helo punching Tigh in the face! I mean, I love me some Saul Tigh, but sometimes I feel he needs to get punched in the face…and he did! And then he laughed! So awesome, that guy.
“Black Market,” on the other hand, did not include one single solitary redemptive detail. Pfah.
I think the problem is that I don’t tend to remember characters until I get a good reason to- I knew Kara Thrace, Tigh, and Adama from episode 1, Roslin, Baltar, and Boomer from episode 2, and so forth… but neither Helo nor Lee ever did a single thing that made me remember them, so they both got filed as “generic muscle in a uniform”.
…aaaand I’m up through 4x18. Damn… if tv.com is right we only have three episodes left, and I can’t imagine how they’ll satisfactorily wrap everything up in two hours.
To the contrary, it becomes relevant in “A Disquiet Follows My Soul”, when
[spoiler]Zarek gives up the location of the Hitei Kan because he thinks that Adama knows that he took over running the black market. Which occurred at… the end of “Black Market”.
In fact, Lee’s entire experience with the black market might have been set-up by Zarek so that he could get control of the black market.[/spoiler]
Mind you, “Black Market” is still rather pants, as an episode. But at least they salvaged some relevance out of it. “The Woman King” didn’t even have that.
edit: After 4.18 there are three episodes left, but the final episode is a three-hour episode. Part 1 airs tomorrow night; Parts 2 & 3 air next Friday.
That wait may well kill off BSG fandom from the stress, though.
We’ll be dropping like flies.
Three hours-- tomorrow night is one hour, the second part next week is two hours.
Congratulations for sawing through the episodes, Omi no Kami!
BTW, please don’t bash Romo Lampkin too much-- the actor is a family friend, he does his best ;-).
Oh, I have no problem with the actor- I think he does a good job with what he has. I just think that the character is pointless, and very poorly written to boot. As the show has been written, there is not, and has never been, a need for the Galactica to have an evil kleptomaniacal lawyer running around. Every episode that features him seems to inevitably spiral into an overly preachy bad West Wing knockoff.
But he does it well; if they gave the same actor a more interesting character, I think he’d be fun to watch. ^^
Well, there’s Firefly, Medium, and Burn Notice.