Thoughts on the Battlestar Galactica Series and Critics of It

Like much of Sci-Fi BSG has a significant Christian fan base. This is even though lets face it some of the sex stuff is well a tad over the top. Even net famous Father Z is a fan. See WDTPRSer BSGers .

Creative Minority Report also has a post up Is BSG Back? My Thoughts and Guesses.

I agree this show can be at moments awesome and at the same time frustrating. Part of this I think deals with budget issues.Throw in an writers strike and the show has certain challenges.

I have generally liked how this season has gone and it appears we shall be on a roller coaster ride as we go into the very final episodes

A few rebuttals to come criticisms
This show is not really politically correct. I keep reading that here and there but I am at a loss to see that. For instance I keep reading that there is good or evil and everything is valid or a point of view. Well I am not sure that is right at all. However on some ethical issues BSG does not come down on either side.

Atlantic magazine has a article up on the series at Lost In Space

So far, so space operatic. But here Battlestar Galactica veers sharply away. Where a proper space opera—from Star Wars to 2000’s Scientological Battle­field Earth—advertises with chilly pride its remoteness from life as we know it, the retooled Battlestar Galactica has plunged into the burning issues of the day. Suicide bombers, torture, occupation, stolen elections. Homosexuality, reproductive rights, religious fundamentalism, genocide. All of it grappled with, workshopped out—diegetically, you might say. With crater-voiced Edward James Olmos in the role of Adama, and the Galactica itself—rather gaily lit in its ’70s incarnation—now steeped in an atmosphere somewhere between that of a diving submarine and a backstreet in the Victorian East End, Moore and Eick have pushed and pushed at the hot buttons. Un­addressed as yet: steroid abuse, the slow-food movement, and the declining standard of international travel. But there’s still half a season to go.

Now these moral questions were often seen at the fore front earlier in the show. As the show is ending more time is having to be spent of course on the big picture and making all these plot lines converge so the moral and ethical issues that have been controversial have taken a back seat.

Still this is what good Sci Fi does at times it confronts moral issues of the day. I think people at times get upset that the show shows the "gray" and does not condemn either side. Thus making viewers having to grapple with it. I liked that about the show. In the Christian world and on the blogs the above issues are talked about and argued about non stop. Why should the BSG Universe be any different. Catholics are constantly screaming and arguing at each other on the issue of torture. Why should BSG take a side and say this is the truth.

I am a big fan of this show versus the old BSG some of us saw in early childhood. Dirk Benedict, who was the original Starbuck back in 2006 put forth some major objections to it in his article Starbuck: Lost in Castration

Some of this objections I never thought were valid.

"Re-imagining", they call it. "un-imagining" is more accurate. To take what once was and twist it into what never was intended. So that a television show based on hope, spiritual faith, and family is unimagined and regurgitated as a show of despair, sexual violence and family dysfunction. To better reflect the times of ambiguous morality in which we live, one would assume. A show in which the aliens (Cylons) are justified in their desire to destroy our civilisation. One would assume. Indeed, let us not say who are he guys and who are the bad. That is being "judgemental". And that kind of (simplistic) thinking went out with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne and, well the original Battlestar Galactica.

The series is indeed darker . But this is a post 9/11 world. I suspect that after 12 billion humans died and there are only 40,000 left that are being hunted it is not all happy times. It was not meant to be the campy fun that the original BSG was at the time. Further I am not sure at the show's main theme was that the Cylons were "justified" in blowing up Earth. It seems that with the emergence of the Final Five and Cylon Civil war that there is disagreement among the Cylons on that score.



Elsewhere he says:
One thing is certain. In the new un-imagined, re-imagined world of Battlestar Galactica everything is female driven. The male characters, from Adama on down, are confused, weak, and wracked with indecision while the female characters are decisive, bold, angry as hell, puffing cigars (gasp) and not about to take it any more.

Well of course this has not really come to pass. Starbuck is about as confused as everyone for instance. The main decisive character that is strong and confronts issue of a moral realm squarely is male. That is Helo. I very much like the human and indeed Cylon frailty on the show. We saw that in the whole Ellen Tigh episodes the last couple of weeks.

It is strange to me that as to the Cylons the big ethical issue in the room rarely gets attention. That is the whole issue of when humans ( and it appears Cylons) becomes God himself and start tinkering with human life itself. In a age where one can basically have factory made children and other frightening developments the issue is as current as the Vatican's latest statement on bio ethics. I mean even the knowledgeable Final Five did not get such great results from their "Children" it appears. Things went downhill quick.

Anyway a few predictions and thoughts

Yes I think Starbuck is a child of a Cylon and a Human. How she downloaded (if that is what happen) I have no clue. The real question that I suspect will be ignored is how in the heck did she get that ship to fly back in.

I am going to be real upset if in a way to make it all make sense that this is some alternative Universe or some goofy time travel is involved.

I think the last episode is going to be very loved and very hated by the fan base. People depending on their viewpoint will battle each other over it for months. I don't think there is going to be a traditional happy ending. IE lots of characters are going to be dead.

The head "Cylons" are still around and I am not sure how you explain them. The whole Baltar "head " guy is baffling because I think it is apparent he not a Cylon. Baltar is one of my favorite characters and I am curious where his now very well armed group of religious disciples going to do.

I am very much hoping those "Opera House" scenes are returned too. Of course that brings up against what is exactly is Baltar.