Oh I heard the collective *gasp* from all of you B.S. Galactica lovers out there! I don't want to hear it! Especially since this is my blog. Let me take a moment to enlighten the world and maybe together, we can try to figure out just what went wrong...
Set your wayback machine to the year, 1978. Only a year after a little known movie named Star Wars hit local theaters, but a year before Buck Rogers in the 25th Century hit television screens, (mmmm... Wilma Deering in spandex pants...). You know the time, the same year as The Incredible Hulk starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferigno aired, (WOW, what a kick ass era... if not for all that pesky disco).
A simple man by the name of Glen A. Larson, finally gets a script that he had been working on for the last ten years produced into a movie, named Battlestar Galactica.
It really is quite a shame that little Glen A. did not have more success. Instead he just kept cranking out flop after flop, like The Fugitive, It Takes a Thief, Quincy M.E., McCloud, BJ and the Bear, Manimal, Magnum P.I., Fall Guy, and Knight Rider to name a few. Maybe if he had better luck, one or two of these shows would have been a success, (for those of you not paying attention, that entire paragraph was thickly laced in sarcasm).
Now where was I? Oh yes, 1978...
This show had EVERYTHING! It had space battles (with lasers!), gun battles (with lasers!), scary robot creatures with funny voices trying to kill mankind, (aka cylons), it had humor, originality, a GREAT theme song (check it out here), adventure, suspense, drama, and some very impressive Shakespearean type of actors.
Ok, let me qualify the above statement... This show had its, corny bits too, which are most obvious in the goofy mechanical dog, and a couple of episodes that were just not well written. In fact, out of the 17 episodes (or so... some were two or three parts), that were made, many believe only three of them were any good. I think there were maybe five or six that were fantastic, but that's it. Otherwise, the show had GREAT potential.
What made it particularly good, was that it was based on action/adventure, with a very insightful inspiring leader, (Commander Adama played by the late great Lorne Greene), and was essentially a buddy show. Apollo and Starbuck were opposites in many ways, but yet whatever they bumbled through, worked in the end, and usually involved lots of explosions, and we had fun along the way. It was very much in the style of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, (lets not discuss the attempts Lucas made to sue the show here).
Unfortunately, due to a HUGE price tag per episode, Universal Studios decided not to re-new the series for a second season, (go figure... Universal Studios trying to save a buck... weird). Fans were outraged and begged for more. Richard Hatch, (who played Apollo) was outraged and demanded more. For years, he fought very hard to get his version of Galactica aired. He had a vision of a new series picking up years after the original ended, where Apollo was now commanding Galactica.
For reasons that scientists will spend years trying to unravel, Hatch's Galactica was not developed... however, another.... gentleman, by the name of Ronald D. Moore FINALLY got the okay to do HIS version of the series.
In the essence of fairness, lets take a look at Ron's resume. Well, looky here... there are random episodes of Star Trek, (Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, AND Voyager), as well as First Contact (Star Trek 8 for those keeping score), Roswell, G vs. E (THAT was a great show FYI), Mission Impossible II, and Carnivale (which I have heard good things about)... and that's about it.
With that in mind, one might think Ronald has his finger on the pulse of science fiction... lets watch what happens, shall we?
First on Ron's list of things to do... make Starbuck a woman. Not a fun, happy-go-lucky rogue like the original mind you... just a total bitch. While we're at it, lets also make Boomer (originally cast as a black man), an Asian woman (well, it is Grace Park, sooooo...).
And to cut down on the budget, lets not feature the mechanical cylons on every episode... IN FACT, lets just say they look human now! Hey, it worked for the Terminator, so it will be even better here!
Lets also get rid of any pesky "lasers" and just have regular bullets. Lets also have every episode deal with things people can easily relate to, so nobody has to actually 'think' while watching this show. Things like, abortion, breast cancer, alcoholism, religion, and rigged elections just to name a few.
And so we can save money on a wardrobe person, lets give the cast regular suits and ties, and glasses to wear. You know, modern clothes, because I'm sure billions of light years away, people in space wear the same types of things we do.
While we're at it, lets higher a drunk cameraman so the camera doesn't hold still on any particular shots just so our audience doesn't get bored and fall asleep watching one steady shot.
I watched the first mini-series, with low expectations, but an open mind. Sadly, I was more disappointed than I'd anticipated. It just sucked. I WANTED to like this show, but it really just wasn't that good. Maybe.... MAYBE, if they had called it something else, I might have accepted it a bit easier... but this was most definitely NOT Battlestar Galactica.
And in the history of bad television, the show got picked up for a series. So, again I think, ok... I will continue to give it a try. Maybe something will impress me somewhere.
Nope.
For almost six episodes, I kept waiting, but they were all the same sappy crap. There was no action. There was no adventure. The 'buddy' thing was completely gone. The inspirational version of Adama was replaced by the ultra-depressing Edward James Olmos. The cool cylon voices were gone... as were the cool cylons for that matter. When we DO get to see a cylon (every fourth episode or so for a tenth of a second of screen time), they look very cool.
In the end, I gave up on this show... until...
People started talking about it. People everywhere were telling me, "...Deeesher, you should watch it, its really getting good!" So... me being one that will forever give into peer pressure, I tried again.
I just finished watching both the first and second season, and I have to admit... it STILL sucks!
I am so sick of all their sappy issues, and constant whiny attitudes about everything! Or, maybe that's just the drunken cameraman making me sick.
Why is everyone saying this show is good? Someone explain to me, because I don't get it. Maybe one or two episodes were... interesting at best, but I see ZERO elements of science fiction in this series. The only sci-fi elements I see are the fact that they are in space, and that cylons 'clone/download' themselves after they die.
Maybe people say its good because the public is starved for a good sci-fi series. Check your tv listings. Do you see anything current that could be even remotely considered science fiction? Well, Stargate, (whatever), and Smallville, but I don't think that counts since it was only good for the first four seasons, and Smallville wasn't a 'space' story, and the new Doctor Who, (not a fan of the older ones, but this is VERY good! Click here to hear me sing its praises), and Heroes, which I loved the first season, then slowly started going downhill just before it's cancellation *sigh*.
Wait, there is ONE element of science fiction in this series. Its was re-newed for a THIRD season.
By the way... did I mention Grace Park?
Deeesher
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