Starborn SocietySci-fi isn't just for nerds(Battlestar Galactica Ping)

NRO ^ | January 20, 2006 | Peter Suderman

[isaiah55version11_0]

Science fiction has long been stereotyped as a hardware-obsessed, techno-jargon laden refuge for computer nerds and outcasts. Especially on television, which lacks the geek chic afforded by big-screen Hollywood budgets, the genre's reputation for hokey dialog and cardboard-and-wire effects have saturated it with a distinct odor of disrespectability. It is somewhat ironic, then, to see the Sci-Fi Channel, a network which often seems devoted to the pulpy and lowbrow, serve up Battlestar Galactica, a show about spaceships and killer robots that is also arguably the most potent, dramatically vibrant series on television. An unflinching examination of how the military, government, family, and religion interact in the fragile ecosystem of society, it as morally and intellectually serious as it is thrilling.

[GOP_Party_Animal]

I've never seen the new show (no cable) but I thought that the latest version was roundly considered to be "PC crap" with so-called empowered women, sleeze, and moral relativism. That stuff turns me off.

Is it really otherwise?

[Zathras]

Zathras has been too busy repairing the Great Machine to
watch but perhaps you change Zathras mind.

[CJ Wolf]

Me too.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

I saw the miniseries when my nephew gave me the DVD for Christmas.

It's not PC crap. It's a damn good show.

[Mr. Quarterpanel]

I watched the first series in the 70's as a kid, and loved it!!

I tried to watch the new series, but I could not get into it (too many memories, I guess), but when the Pegasus showed up (just like in the first series), I had to see, and I got hooked up in it, and now I need to start this series over and catch up. The entire plot is WAY different than I remember, and much better.

[doc30]

And did anyone see that move for strafing the ressurection ship? Get your momentum forwards, maneuver jet 90 degrees to the right, and strafe as you fly sideways. This is the only show since 2001: A Space Odyssey I've seen that tries to get flight physics in space right.

Babylon 5 did it with their Cobra fighters. Don't ever think you can get behind one. It just fires up the retros and brings it's bow-facing weapons to bear right at you while 'apparently' flying in reverse.

But the BSG episode was a little creepy when the resssurection ship was straifed. Did you see the No 6's meeting hard vacuum when the hull was breached and the Vipers were mixed in with them as they passed?

[CJ Wolf]

Your wife might like it if she gave it a chance. It took me tricking my wife into seeing Serenity (told her it was about gay cowboys) and now she is watching the firefly series. Hooked. I gotta work on her now for BSG.

[doc30]

LOL

[brothers4thID]

Lay off the sauce before posting, k?

[antiRepublicrat]

For soldiers, some of 'em have really poor impulse control.

Remember, the Galactica had essentially the dregs of the fleet. They were the skeleton crew assigned to the oldest ship in the fleet that was about to become a museum.

Otherwise, your plan is sort of like what Admiral Cain did.

[doc30]

When I first heard of the changes, I was a skeptical as you are. So I had a prejudiced preconception in my mind when I watched the pilot. It was not PC at all! Sure, there were PC issues, but it wasn't preaching to you. You saw people faced with life and death dilemmas and some characters had PC solutions. But changing some of the characters to female didn't compromise the show. The characters are believeable and it's not a "look at the woman in this role, isn't it great!" You saw real characters, not 2 dimensional PC characters in those roles. If you can get the DVD's, I would recommend them. you won't regret it.

[pillut48]

Except for that 'hearing explosions in space" thing, ITA. :-)

[brothers4thID]

Moral relativism it isn't. There's an ongoing debate among those who watch the show whether an attempted rape on a Cylon was actually rape since she is a machine. In the first episode they blow up a civil liner for the good of the fleet and the Commander barely blinks.

I want to vomit when I see "Commander in Chief" being nominated for Golden Globes and BSG being left out entirely.

[ARCADIA]

I love the new Battle Star Galactica series. Hollywood rarely gets high quality acting and writing, but they have certainly put it into this series. This sci-fi is almost low-tech or retro, but the drama, feel, and pacing, is well beyond any previous sci-fi series. The texture is as gritty and solid as the original Alien film, or 2001 a Space Odyssey.

[Little Ray]

Have not got to that part; Don't have cable. Watching it on DVD - slowly. My wife probably wouldn't like it, so I only get to watch when I'm alone.
Cain sounds like he's smarter than Adama, though.

[doc30]

Sounds like what Cain did. Had civilian ships with her. She checked the passenger lists, picked the experts she wanted and ordered them conscripted. If they didn't come, their families were executed. After the desired civilians were brought on board, the civilian vessels were stripped of weapons and engines. The remaining civilians were abandonded with their disabled craft to the Cylons. Cain was evil.

ON the other hand, the Galactica was faced with a larger civillian fleet and with survivors of the executive branch and a clear chain of sucsession for the Presidency. Adama has a civillian government to deal with. Also, when Tye tried to order Marshal Law, the civillain fleet not only denied Galactical needed supplies, but a third of them went on their own. Real balancing act in that situation.

[antiRepublicrat]

Nope. Most of the stuff on the History Channel is Fantasy!

Like that Hitler Medical Secrets show. What a load of scheise.

[doc30]

Cain sounds like he's smarter than Adama, though.

Cain sounds like he's she's smarter than Adama, though.

And when you see her, you will hate her. She is smart, but dangerously ruthless.

[ThinkDifferent]

Previously my favorite scifi show was Babylon 5 but in the middle of the last season something happened to the writers and the show just sort of petered out.

Agreed. IIRC, nobody knew whether there was going to be a 5th season, so they had to have season 4 potentially end the series. Then when it did get renewed, they had to scramble for plot lines, not entirely successfully.

But Severed Dreams is still one of the finest SF episodes ever.

[L,TOWM]

The hooker dream cylon in Baltar's mind.

Mrs. L,TOWM refers to the blonde Cylon as "the Ho-bot".

The dyke admiral on the Pegasus is history, though. The non-fantasy (prisoner) ho-bot escaped and shot the Admiral.

Nice bit of dialogue, too.
Admiral, staring into a gun muzzle: "Frak you"
Ho-bot: "You're not my type." (shoots)
Cut to funeral.