Battlestar Galactica Ends Next Season

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I know several people here are fans of Battlestar Galactica. I ran across this article that says that the upcoming forth season will be the last.

Although I'm not a huge fan of the series, I am sorry to see it go so soon.
 
If it means the pace of the show will pick up I'm all for them not draging it out. season 2.5 to 3 eabout the time they leave New Caprica was horrible horrible Horrible. It was refreshing that the show finally started going somewhere again in the last part of season 3. It's like they introduced all the pegasus crap and couldn't figure out what to do with it so it took them 3/4 of a season to write out all the stuff they introduced. Now that the show is back to the original formula it's moving again and even the filler episodes don't feel so insipid. So if they deliver on the promise to go out with a bang then I'm all for it.
 
Up to New Caprica it wasn't bad. The first episode of season three with the Galactica dropping through the atmosphere while launching fighters was freaking awesome. The problem with BSG is that it refocused from humanity's struggle with impossible odds to exploring "what it means to be human."- basically turning away from humanity's fight for survival and focusing more on blurring the line between cylon and human to point that the show was silly- like making half the cast cylons in disguise (and these people tended to be the most "human" emotionally of the Galactica crew)- and that was just a poor plot choice, IMO.

My other beef with the show is that the ethical conflicts the show presents seemed forced... for instance, if a race of machines wiped out 99.9% of my civilization, I would not have any qualms about using bioweapons against them- at that point, my species survival might depend on it... but they blow the whole scenario into this ethical conflict that's way out of proportion to how (again, in my opinion) humans rationally behave.
 
Spertallica said:
...The first episode of season three with the Galactica dropping through the atmosphere while launching fighters was freaking awesome. The problem with BSG is that it refocused from humanity's struggle with impossible odds to exploring "what it means to be human."- basically turning away from humanity's fight for survival and focusing more on blurring the line between cylon and human to point that the show was silly- like making half the cast cylons in disguise (and these people tended to be the most "human" emotionally of the Galactica crew)- and that was just a poor plot choice, IMO.

My other beef with the show is that the ethical conflicts the show presents seemed forced... for instance, if a race of machines wiped out 99.9% of my civilization, I would not have any qualms about using bioweapons against them- at that point, my species survival might depend on it... but they blow the whole scenario into this ethical conflict that's way out of proportion to how (again, in my opinion) humans rationally behave.
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Yeah I feel similarly...

Though I'm pretty sure the Galactica didn't return to New Caprica untill about episode 4 of season 3... That was the first episode I felt had been fairly exciting in a long time. The show was set up like a big action adventure spectacle from the start. And then all the sudden, no one mentions earth for almost and entire season? I guess it mirrors the fact that the crew sort of lost sight of that too but I hated it with a passion.
 
It's funny how they talk about wanting to end it because "If we don't start moving in that direction, you get to a place where you just feel like you're jerking off the audience or treading water instead of just moving forward and pushing limits. We didn't want to be in that position."

I mean, hello - jerking off the audience and treading water is precisely what the show has been doing since like halfway through season two, with dozens of increasingly irritating filler episodes (oh, democracy is in peril! Oh, how little I give a shit, given how ridiculous the notion of democracy in a glorified military convoy is) and only an occasional plot episode.
 
Well, I wish I could say Im sorry to see such a good thing go... but Id be lying on both accounts.
 
I enjoyed the special effects and the fighter centered space combat. I didn't enjoy the characters and disliked the writing. The characters were mostly whiny and annoying. Command generally did a horrible job: poor ways of dealing with the crew such as making a Cylon a member of the crew, doing a horrible job of coming up with a way to detect Cylons, horrible command decisions, etc..

I also saw some of the most traumatizing scenes of any show: thanks to this show I saw graphic scenes of rape, physical and emotional abuse, and murder. Most of these scenes didn't seem to have a point other than to shock the viewer (much like the ending segments after the credits where one person has an idea and is then horribly murdered.. while not as graphic and in cartoon form, I just didn't see the point. Were those supposed to be funny or something? It just seemed to display the show's sadistic side.)

I did enjoy watching this on Tivo where I could fast forward the scenes to the space combat. I can only imagine how awesome this show might have been with loveable characters and an uplifting story.
 
I really like Galactica, but my biggest issue with Season 3 was the comparative lack of battle scenes and dogfighting which made the earlier seasons so exciting. The episode mentioned above, with the awesome atmospheric FTL jump and the two Battlestars taking on all the Cylon base ships was by far the highlight of the season. After that, there wasn't much to grab me.

Call me shallow, but I'm a space combat junkie. :)
 
Everyone's a critic.

BSG is my favorite modern sci-fi series by far. I'm not going to waste my time sitting here debunking silly arguments, but I know when I like something, and I like BSG.

I find the characters deep and intriguing. I find the relationship between Adamas father and son to be real for an emotionally awkward estranged situation. The internal conflicts Lee and Kara have concerning each other. The romantic tensions between Admiral Adama and President Roslin which slowly evolved from near-hostility at the beginning of the series. Karl and his unorthodox morality in falling in love with a Cylon and always fighting for what he feels is right, despite what anyone else might think.

I could go on. I don't care what anyone else thinks. I love this series.
 
Nomad Terror said:
I know when I like something, and I like BSG.
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And that is the *perfect* way to be. If you like it, more power to you. There is nothing wrong with some good popcorn fun. I do love a good bad movie once in a while.

But the paragraph that follows your quote is my problem with BSG. Its not what the internet makes it out to be, nor is it in the spirit of the bubblegum stupid/fun show from the 70s.

Better people have made more exacting statements as to the problems of the show, so I won't attempt to fill their shoes.
 
Nomad Terror said:
Everyone's a critic.

BSG is my favorite modern sci-fi series by far. I'm not going to waste my time sitting here debunking silly arguments, but I know when I like something, and I like BSG.

I find the characters deep and intriguing. I find the relationship between Adamas father and son to be real for an emotionally awkward estranged situation. The internal conflicts Lee and Kara have concerning each other. The romantic tensions between Admiral Adama and President Roslin which slowly evolved from near-hostility at the beginning of the series. Karl and his unorthodox morality in falling in love with a Cylon and always fighting for what he feels is right, despite what anyone else might think.

I could go on. I don't care what anyone else thinks. I love this series.
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Well, I'm apparantly in a minority here as well.

Granted, I didn't think all of Season 3's episodes were grand, but what did do well was the character interaction and conflict. This is the OPPOSITE of the original BSG, where pretty much everyone got along every week. Space combat only goes so far, and you can't put the fleet in peril EVERY week...that gets boring too. A balance has to be struck, and while I did find some large question marks in Season 3 (four humans, two of them very well established, are Cylons? Haven't we already done this story with Boomer?......killing off Kat for not much reason...etc), I also do like the show.

What doesn't make much sense is that, when it's being called the best show on TV three seasons running, you'd kill a popular show at a relatively early point. Five seasons would be a good stopping point. Four seems premature.

This is one of those shows that I don't want to see go so soon. But that's just me.
 
Stopping while you're ahead is a great idea. Cowboy Bebop pulled that off excellently- you still wanted more, but it wrapped itself up without dragging itself into mediocrity (a la Simpsons).
 
Let's compare or contrast this with Farscape, a sci-fi series that was canceled after the fourth season with still a lot of story to tell.

Thankfully there was the Peacekeeper Wars miniseries that brought everything to a close, but since there were so many loose ends to tie up a *lot* of stuff happens very quickly. Though the cancelation of Farscape was kind of sudden. BSG is known a season in advance.

If RDM can close out BSG gracefully without rushing an ending in 20-something episodes then great.
 
Tigerhawk said:
What doesn't make much sense is that, when it's being called the best show on TV three seasons running, you'd kill a popular show at a relatively early point.
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To paraphrase Heinlein, the answer to most questions starting with "Why don't we..." is "money".

All of those special effects aren't cheap (even with cheats like making the Cylons look like humans, to save on the robot costume budget), and SFC is hardly rolling in dough.

This is why 95% of those "Sci-Fi exclusive" movies are such complete and utter DTV crap. They're cheap time filler because no one else even wants those turds seen in their "rejected" pile, let alone wants to actually put them on the air.
 
I like nBSG, but IMo, season 3 was, well... shit, until the last three or so episodes. Personally, I like the show, but some characters were, well, annoying, like Starbuck. I almost cheered when in Maelstrom she apparently dies. ANd the scene where Adama smashes that ship was classic.(Given how much that model costed, I'm suprised he didnt get airlocked next episode.:p)

@LeHah, what exactly do you hate about nBSG? I'd like to hear the reasons.
 
Tyrant said:
I like nBSG, but IMo, season 3 was, well... shit, until the last three or so episodes. Personally, I like the show, but some characters were, well, annoying, like Starbuck. I almost cheered when in Maelstrom she apparently dies. ANd the scene where Adama smashes that ship was classic.(Given how much that model costed, I'm suprised he didnt get airlocked next episode.:p)
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I don't know about LeHah, but one of the things I strongly dislike about this show is related to what you said about Starbuck. It's not only her that's annoing - after watching two and a half seasons, I've come to the conclusion that there's virtually nobody in that entire fleet that I can like or even relate to. Sooner or later, each character turns out to be a jerk, an immoral bastard, an idiot, or all of the above. It's as if the show's creators got so obsessed with the idea of "edgy" characters that they forgot how ugly and irritating such characters are.

Nomad Terror said:
Let's compare or contrast this with Farscape, a sci-fi series that was canceled after the fourth season with still a lot of story to tell.

Thankfully there was the Peacekeeper Wars miniseries that brought everything to a close, but since there were so many loose ends to tie up a *lot* of stuff happens very quickly. Though the cancelation of Farscape was kind of sudden. BSG is known a season in advance.
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Ugh. I didn't mind Farscape (didn't think it was a great show, but it wasn't a bad one) right up until the end of the fourth season. Then I decided I hate it, and I hate its creators even more. See, here's the thing - they *knew* the show was in trouble. They knew it wasn't paying for itself, and they knew it had nearly been cancelled after season three. Then, they knew it was being definitively cancelled at the end of season four, long before they started on that last episode... and *still* they end it with a cliffhanger? That was nothing more than a cheap attempt to use the fans. "Oh, we're being cancelled, let's end the show in such a way that the fans will start screaming and ranting until the network gives in and lets us have another season". It's not quite extortion, but it comes pretty close - and it's a pretty ugly way to exploit your fans. I would have respected them far more (well, I would have respected them at all) had they gone down with with grace, simply giving season four a happy ending that doesn't need a continuation.
 
Nomad Terror said:
Everyone's a critic.

BSG is my favorite modern sci-fi series by far. I'm not going to waste my time sitting here debunking silly arguments, but I know when I like something, and I like BSG.

I find the characters deep and intriguing. I find the relationship between Adamas father and son to be real for an emotionally awkward estranged situation. The internal conflicts Lee and Kara have concerning each other. The romantic tensions between Admiral Adama and President Roslin which slowly evolved from near-hostility at the beginning of the series. Karl and his unorthodox morality in falling in love with a Cylon and always fighting for what he feels is right, despite what anyone else might think.

I could go on. I don't care what anyone else thinks. I love this series.
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You listed all the things I loved about Seasons 1 & 2. My only criticism is with Season 3, which I was hugely disappointed by; I just think they lost their way and concentrated too much on conjuring new ways to make characters conflict with each other, eg. Admiral Adama and Apollo.

And also, when the Cylons turned up at New Caprica and just decided to occupy the place instead of wiping everyone out, I don't buy that Caprica 6 and Boomer could subvert the Cylon philosophy to the humans so quickly and easily - they had previously planned to wipe them out, no questions asked. But, what's even stranger is that they then just sit back and let 'Al' and 'Xena' terrorise the New Capricans.

The whole thing was a not-very-subtle commentary on the occupation of Iraq with the moral message apparently being, "even good people can resort to becoming suicide bombers."??

And after all that, another excuse for the Cylons to chase the Galactica was contrived when, for no reason at all, they suddenly decide to go and live on Earth, a planet they've (apparently) never seen and know nothing about.

I prefered it when there was more mystery to the Cylons' intentions.
 
Yeah, I'm with you- they were a lot more interesting in my mind as genocidal machines with a minor curiousity in why humans acted like humans, (somewhat like Agent Smith of the Matrix series) instead of religious machines that want to basically breed with all humans left in existence- including those on Earth.

Imagine if Terminator had used the same storyline- post Judgement Day, Skynet's like "I want to have babies with all of humanity... even though I just killed most of them off in an attempt at nuclear genocide!" Lame... and ridiculous.

I think BSG would have been more interesting (and consistent with the idea of blurring the line between cylon and human without compromising the cylons' initial attempt to wipe humanity out) if halfway through the series, a cylon civil war erupted and the mechanical cylons tried to kill the biological ones off- but maybe it's not too late for that... (after all, IRC, the initial reason the Cylons decide to kill off humanity is that they are violent and unpredictable... much like the biological cylons).
 
The Cylons *aren't* just "genocidal machines" anymore. Caprica six and Athena have shown us that the humanoid Cylons are so similar to humans that they have the same broad emotional spectrum that humans do. Obviously the war with humanity didn't turn out as simple as they initially thought it would be.

Besides I always figured they were heading to Earth not so they could interbreed, but so they could cleanse the Earth of humanity and live there themselves... kind of the final victory over the human race, knowing that there are no more humans left in the universe.
 
I would laugh my arse off if the Cylons get to Earth, only to realize this is the Babylon 5 universe instead. Boy, would that suck for them. (Omega FTW!)
 
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