Lt. Starbuck … Lost In Castration.

Big Hollywood ^ | January 19, 2009 | Dirk Benedict

[EveningStar]

Once upon a time, in what used to be a far away land called Hollywood (but is now a state of mind and everywhere), a young actor was handed a script and asked to bring to life a character called Starbuck. I am that actor. The script was called “Battlestar Galactica.”

Fortunately, I was young, my imagination fertile and adrenal glands strong, because bringing Starbuck to life was over the dead imaginations of a lot of Network Executives...

Witness the “re-imagined” “Battlestar Galactica,” bleak, miserable, despairing, angry and confused. Which is to say, it reflects in microcosm the complete change in the politics and morality of today’s world, as opposed to the world of yesterday. The world of Lorne Greene (Adama), Fred Astaire (Starbuck’s Poppa) and Dirk Benedict (Starbuck). I would guess Lorne is glad he’s in that Big Bonanza in the sky and well out of it. Starbuck, alas, has not been so lucky. He’s not been left to pass quietly into that trivial world of cancelled TV characters...

[Citizen Blade]

The union BS on the mining ship

I felt sympathy for the workers on the mining ship. They had been working practically nonstop to keep the fleet going. Of course, that was necessary, but they were tired and burned out and needed a break- their reaction was understandable. But, note that Adama did what he had to do to get them working again. At the same time, the President took measures to keep the fleet from breaking down into a caste system. It was a thoughtful episode that gave us some insight as to what was happening in the rest of the fleet.

the homosexual BS on that special miniseries

Admiral Cain was a lesbian. That's been pretty much the only homosexual content in the entire series.

[Philo-Junius]

I’m pretty sure Gaeda is officially out of the closet after the webisodes they released during the last break.

[HamiltonJay]

You’ve written off a great show then.

BSG is not the BSG of 1978, not even close, no doubt. However it is a very good show, adult oriented definately, not for kids, but a great show.

[longtermmemmory]

the three somes etc on the cylon ship?

baltar’s handmaids on new caprica?

The writers intentionally put it in to shake up “society”.

[longtermmemmory]

The writers were explicit in their desire to be pro left wing. Said so in their interviews.

They put in suicide bombers specifically to comment on Iraq. can’t project that.

Since this is a political forum and not a wet behind the ears scifi fan forum, we are quite solid ground commenting on the left wing hollyweird poop.

I remember on the pre premier show they actually answer a fan question about a homosexual character. The dodged it but implied they were not going to go there. Apparently they thought they would have more viewers if they hid their intentions.

[dilvish]

Not in any of the interviews I’ve read. In fact exactly the opposite in all the interviews with Moore I’ve read.

If you notice the suicide bombings were wrong in the series. The president objected and finally ordered Tigh to stop doing them. Might have been a comment on Iraq but it wasn’t a leftist pro-”insurgent” comment.

Except you’re not on solid ground because so far you’re wrong.

The homosexual characters were both dead and out of the series by the time they were revealed in a one shot movie, and were a Cylon (genocidal enemy) and a psycho, what are the intentions they were hiding? The intention to give a nutter and the enemy an alternative lifestyle but to kill them off before it’s revealed?!

Entertainment is often a Rorschach test. People see what they want to see. If you want to see a leftist view in Ben Hur (Charlton Heston version) you can find it, you need to put some effort into it, but no more than you’re putting into this. On the other hand if you let things stand on their own then they might have a view, or they might not.

[fr_freak]

You’re projecting. Most of your complaints aren’t even things that happened in the show. You’ve decided it has a hidden agenda and back fill blatant misinterpretations and selectively forgotten events to make it.

Unless you watched an entirely different Battlestar Galactica than I did, then the points I made are all in there. If you choose not to see them, that's your business. As far as the Truman analogy goes, I'm not going to bother to explain how that analogy fails for the third time. You appear to be willfully misunderstanding the point, so I'm not going to spend any more time on it with you.

I don't claim that this show has a hidden agenda. What I am telling you is that the show has a convoluted plot and unrealistic character actions and development precisely because the writers don't have the slightest clue about reality. They are injecting all of their self-loathing, leftist thought into a show whose premise should provide a profound moral clarity, but because they have been so brainwashed their whole lives with leftist self-loathing, it bleeds into their writing.

They took a good, solid premise and turned it into yet another bucket full of foul left-wing mush, because that's all they know how to do. They wouldn't know how to write a story about good, though flawed, people, or about virtue and nobility, because they don't have the slightest idea what those things are, and probably wouldn't respect them even if they did. So, when they write a story that should be the perfect vehicle for exploring those qualities, they screw it up royally because their own warped world view prevents them from being able to see such qualities in the world, let alone understand them. It doesn't matter if their agenda is intentional or not.

Enjoy the show if you want, but I feel sorry for anyone who thinks that this sorry show in any way reflects the human condition.

[dilvish]

I did watch an entirely different BSG than you did. Because I don’t sit there looking for the leftist agenda so I can complain about it later.

Actually you ARE claiming the show has a hidden agenda. Your complaints about the plot are just fluff to pretend you’re actually being critical on something other than a projected political basis.

You think it’s left wing mush because that’s what you want it to be. You’re wrong. What I don’t understand is why you spend so much time on a show you don’t like. I saw the first half of the first episode of 24 and hated all the characters and haven’t watched a minute of it since. And I don’t touch the threads either. If you don’t like BSG then stop watching, and stop reading the threads, just walk away. It’s not that hard.

[fr_freak]

Actually you ARE claiming the show has a hidden agenda. Your complaints about the plot are just fluff to pretend you’re actually being critical on something other than a projected political basis.

You think it’s left wing mush because that’s what you want it to be. You’re wrong... If you don’t like BSG then stop watching, and stop reading the threads, just walk away. It’s not that hard.

Wow, you're a little touchy about your show, aren't you? The funniest part about your reply is how you consider yourself to be some kind of a mind reader, who can peer into my mind from thousands of miles away and know exactly what I, a complete stranger to you, am thinking. Fascinating. I'm beginning to understand why you're such a rabid fan of this lame show.

Also, I believe I explained to you that I thought the first season was great. That season got me hooked. It took almost two full seasons of pure trash before I finally decided that it was going to continue sucking from here on out and was never going to go back to being a good show. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, however, I am able to check in on any episode I want now and then just to see where they've gone with the show, without having to tune in on the date and time that they air. The funny part is that I can skip 10 episodes and still not be lost, because, generally speaking, nothing ever really happens. Oh sure, there's a lot of "Days of Our Lives" melodrama that goes on, but very little to move the whole of the story forward.

I reply to threads like this because I think it is important for misguided people, such as yourself, to have your eyes opened and be made to realize that, even though you claim to value conservative ideals, you are allowing left-wing thinking to permeate your brain through crappy TV shows. If you allow this brainwashing to go on long enough, you'll eventually be swallowed completely by the rabid moonbattery embedded in the programming, and next thing you know, you'll have delusions of being some sort of super being who can read minds.

[hopespringseternal]

This was not a front-line Battlestar, like Pegasus.

Which houses even more desperate lunatics from the fringe.

[dilvish]

I’m not touchy about it at all. But I do find it interesting how many people put so much effort into hating the show. It’s just a cable TV show with it’s largest audience being about 1% of the population of the country. And yet the people that don’t like it tend to be very dedicated to not liking it.

I don’t consider myself to be a mind reader, I consider myself to be an English reader. Your posts make it very obvious. Over and over and over in every single post you use “leftist”, the show is leftist this, the show is leftist that, because the writers are leftist these, and then you claim you don’t see a hidden agenda. That’s funny. That’s denial is the longest river in Africa funny.

Yes you did say you thought the first season was great, and then I pointed out that the first season had every single thing you complain about the show in. So either you didn’t notice, or you didn’t actually think it was great.

Then we get to the silliness of why are you checking in on a show you don’t like anymore? You don’t like it, why not walk away. OK I understand you used to like it (though why I don’t know since everything you think is wrong with the show now was in the show from the first minutes of the mini-series), but then it “changed” (even though it didn’t) and you don’t like it anymore. But why “check” on a show you don’t like? I liked the first few seasons of That 70s Show, then it got boring so I stopped watching, I never “checked” on it after that, I just stopped watching.

Funny you accuse me of considering myself mind reader and you’re here to save us “misguided people”, talk about thinking you’re a mind reader. the only moonbat here is the guy that thinks he’s saving others from moonbattiness. You’re adding way too much ego to not liking a show.

It’s just a show. A damn good one. Maybe too dark for some people, maybe too addicted to tough moral questions for some people, but that’s OK, there are happy shows out there that ask no moral questions. You should go watch those. You can’t “save” anybody because frankly you’re the misguided one thinking there’s something in the show that’s not there, that’s never been there, that only exists between your ears.

[Citizen Blade]

Which houses even more desperate lunatics from the fringe.

The crew of Pegasus broke down after the nuclear holocaust. Admiral Cain was not able to give her crew any sort of hope for a future- she was out looking to get revenge against the Cylons. With nothing in front of them but combat, followed by an inevitable death, it's not surprising Pegasus' crew went off the deep end.

[Citizen Blade]

the three somes etc on the cylon ship?

For all we know, skin-job Cylons are naturally bisexual.

baltar’s handmaids on new caprica?

That was implicit, at most.

The writers intentionally put it in to shake up “society”.

The homosexual content on BSG is minimal, at most. There hasn't been any storyline where homosexuality was anything other than a minor plot point.

[fr_freak]

Yes you did say you thought the first season was great, and then I pointed out that the first season had every single thing you complain about the show in. So either you didn’t notice, or you didn’t actually think it was great. Then we get to the silliness of why are you checking in on a show you don’t like anymore? You don’t like it, why not walk away. OK I understand you used to like it (though why I don’t know since everything you think is wrong with the show now was in the show from the first minutes of the mini-series), but then it “changed” (even though it didn’t) and you don’t like it anymore. But why “check” on a show you don’t like?

Funny you accuse me of considering myself mind reader and you’re here to save us “misguided people”, talk about thinking you’re a mind reader. the only moonbat here is the guy that thinks he’s saving others from moonbattiness. You’re adding way too much ego to not liking a show.

It’s just a show. A damn good one. Maybe too dark for some people, maybe too addicted to tough moral questions for some people, but that’s OK, there are happy shows out there that ask no moral questions. You should go watch those. You can’t “save” anybody because frankly you’re the misguided one thinking there’s something in the show that’s not there, that’s never been there, that only exists between your ears.

Wow. I seem to remember we were having a discussion about Battlestar Galactica, and how it was a gay show, but you seem to be making this all about me suddenly. In fact, you seem a little obsessed with me. I think you might have a crush on me. Was it my wit, or my raw animal magnetism that did it?

I think anyone who takes criticism of a TV show personally, to the point where their delusions of telepathy have given them an entire fantasy world where they know the inner thoughts of total strangers, should reconsider her life (given the nature of your obsession with me, I'm praying that you're a woman).

So, to sum up, the new Battlestar Galactica sucks, the hippies that write for it suck, and you are a candidate for a good mental health screening.

[longtermmemmory]

is should have been zero.

(the cylon skin jobs are suppose to duplicate humans there is no “naturally occuring” behavior)

[Little Ray]

(to the tune of “Everybody Wants To Be A Cat” from the Aristocats)

Everybody wants to be Cylon...

[dilvish]

No you made it about you: Also, I believe I explained to you that I thought the first season was great. That season got me hooked. It took almost two full seasons of pure trash before I finally decided that it was going to continue sucking from here on out and was never going to go back to being a good show. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, however, I am able to check in on any episode I want now and then just to see where they've gone with the show, without having to tune in on the date and time that they air. The funny part is that I can skip 10 episodes and still not be lost, because, generally speaking, nothing ever really happens. Oh sure, there's a lot of "Days of Our Lives" melodrama that goes on, but very little to move the whole of the story forward. Here's the punchline about the supposed "leftist" stuff in entertainment and whether or not such entertainment should be fled from at high speed: Patton. Now if you're a film buff that's all you need. But I'll assume for the sake of clarity that you're not. Patton is a leftist anti-war movie, anti-Viet Nam war in specific ant-war in general. And this isn't my interpretation, this comes straight from the mouths of the producers, writers, director and even some of the stars of the movie. It is leftist propaganda. Of course it also is one of the greatest war movies, greatest movies period, ever made, and 30 plus years later conservatives love it and liberals hate it. So then the question is why. It does not fail as an anti-war movie, it does a very good job of showing the horrors of war and nobody comes out of the movie wanting more wars. The movie doesn't really fail at anything. The makers forgot something important: nobody sane is pro-war. Nobody likes war, conservatives realize some wars need to be fought but we don't actually like it. So in making a no holds barred anti-war movie they made a non-flinching excellent war movie. You see sometime leftist propaganda just can't survive in the face of high quality entertainment. So even if you're right about BSG, which you're not but we'll pretend, I and other viewers don't give a damn. It's an entertaining show, it has strong drama, and a lot of that strong drama comes from things you object to. In my book moral clarity makes for shallow boring drama, making the characters figure out right and wrong is more interesting than having it be painfully obvious. If you don't like it that's fine, but stop trying to save me and the other fans, we're big kids.

[dilvish]

Oops, forgot once you stick in some HTML it doesn’t automatically do any for you. Oh well, paragraphs aren’t that great.

[MrB]

There were some clips on scifi.com where Gata is shown as suddenly openly gay.

Gratuitous and not necessary in the least to advance a plotline.

And as for the scene of Baltar, six, and Xena all in the sack together... well, at least G was in between them.

[Citizen Blade]

is should have been zero.

If there were zero gay characters on the show, that would be as unrealistic as if every second character was gay.

I think BSG has treated homosexuality more evenhandedly than pretty much any television show out there. There are a few gay/bisexual characters, but their homosexuality has little to do with the storyline.