Sunday, April 08, 2007

More Musings On BSG

Thanks to the kindness of co-worker Kevin, we have in our hot little hands BSG Seasons 2.0 and 2.5. (Someone at some juncture should point me to a really good link that explains why they split their seasons in half, but since I'd be afraid of encountering spoilers at this stage, I probably wouldn't follow it yet anyway!)

We've got one more episode to go in Season 2.0, which I expect we'll get through tonight. I'd say that this season has been pretty consistent with the previous one, in that there've been a lot of really good character moments, and an interesting arc to it, but also a fair amount of frustrating plot holes. It was maddening enough in Season 1 that the Cylon-test didn't get more attention by anyone but the dubious doctor; but once it became public knowledge that Cylons could look like humans, and one such creature put two bullets in the beloved Commander, how could perfecting the test not have been Priority Number One as far as the military, and the civilian ranks, were concerned? This particular element feels like Pandora's Box, in that the writers introduced it but now they're afraid to fully open the container, because so many future storylines will be invalidated once they do!

An odd thing that I like about the show is that the President shows absolutely no reluctance to lie, bald-faced, to any Cylon she encounters! Twice now she's promised leniency in returm for Cylonic cooperation, and in each case she then openly reneged on her word as soon as the opportunity presented itself, ordering that creature be tossed out of the nearest airlock! Considering the Cylons are responsible for billions of human deaths, I'd say her stance is completely realistic, and defensible.

One of the more humourous moments, for me, was the scene where they find the Tomb of Athena and are transported - or so it seems - to a field on Earth in order to be shown the star system Earth operates within. Since my mind works this way, I immediately said to Vicki, "So how do they get back, or if it's just a hologram, end the show?" And wouldn't you know, they simply cut away and then showed them back on their ship! As I've said before, some parts of it just feel a little un-refined at times. Or possibly Lost has simply raised the bar too high!

Trivia: The new model of fighter ship introduced late in Season 2.0 is called the Blackbird, which might be a nod to the X-Men, as that's the name of their ship.

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