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Welcome Back, Battlestar
I have to admit that, for all that I was aware the final set of Battlestar Galactica episodes were approaching, I somehow had the sense this wasn't as big a deal for me as it could have been. One of the most heartening explanations I could come up with for that was that I didn't want to speculate too much because I might somehow turn cobweb fantasies into "non-negotiable demands," but even that didn't quite seem to explain everything... After all of that waiting, though, once I started watching the first new episode itself I was absorbed.
The big question after the sudden twist at the end of the last group of episodes seemed to shape itself as "So how will everyone react after finding 'Earth' is a radioactive wasteland?" It seemed natural enough to me that the answer shaped itself in turn as "Not very well"... but the possibly central act of the episode did disturb me, if in large part because I started worrying how others might react to it with familiar criticisms. I find myself wondering if there can be a balance between "Nothing bad can ever happen to female characters" and "Is it indeed always the female characters who are 'removed' to leave the suffering of the male characters the 'important' issue?" Beyond that, though, I was interested in the possibility that the "Earth" may be more somewhere mysteries are carried away from rather than someplace the characters wander around for the rest of the series, and intrigued that the big question of "the last Cylon," which so effortlessly succeeded the big question of "the final five" that suddenly emerged partway through the series, may already have been answered... although a little part of me asks "So has it?"
As it turns out, I also happened to spot, just hours before the new episode aired, a short article in an issue of "The Atlantic Monthly" that took a look at Battlestar Galactica. It was somehow tempting to conclude that the article was just one more example of critics holding themselves well above a "popular" work, although I did put a little thought into their comments about how "contemporary resonance" seems to have been replaced by "mysticism," and how the show would be just about incomprehensible for someone picking it up cold... (One thought that drove me to start watching the show as its first season got under way was worrying just a little about how I wasn't giving live-action shows a chance when they started and then, as buzz started building up around them, concluding it was "too late to start...") I also couldn't help but notice, though, how it threw in a little comment about how "proper space opera," of which the only two examples given were Star Wars and the Battlefield Earth movie, "advertises with chilly pride its remoteness from life as we know it". I immediately started remembering all those attempts to link current events to the new Star Wars movies, and then contemplated how I'd much rather think of Star Wars as dealing with "universal" human questions such as "what makes a good person evil" and "what makes an evil person good"... but there, perhaps, I'm stepping into the role of the fan who can't bear any criticism whatever.
The big question after the sudden twist at the end of the last group of episodes seemed to shape itself as "So how will everyone react after finding 'Earth' is a radioactive wasteland?" It seemed natural enough to me that the answer shaped itself in turn as "Not very well"... but the possibly central act of the episode did disturb me, if in large part because I started worrying how others might react to it with familiar criticisms. I find myself wondering if there can be a balance between "Nothing bad can ever happen to female characters" and "Is it indeed always the female characters who are 'removed' to leave the suffering of the male characters the 'important' issue?" Beyond that, though, I was interested in the possibility that the "Earth" may be more somewhere mysteries are carried away from rather than someplace the characters wander around for the rest of the series, and intrigued that the big question of "the last Cylon," which so effortlessly succeeded the big question of "the final five" that suddenly emerged partway through the series, may already have been answered... although a little part of me asks "So has it?"
As it turns out, I also happened to spot, just hours before the new episode aired, a short article in an issue of "The Atlantic Monthly" that took a look at Battlestar Galactica. It was somehow tempting to conclude that the article was just one more example of critics holding themselves well above a "popular" work, although I did put a little thought into their comments about how "contemporary resonance" seems to have been replaced by "mysticism," and how the show would be just about incomprehensible for someone picking it up cold... (One thought that drove me to start watching the show as its first season got under way was worrying just a little about how I wasn't giving live-action shows a chance when they started and then, as buzz started building up around them, concluding it was "too late to start...") I also couldn't help but notice, though, how it threw in a little comment about how "proper space opera," of which the only two examples given were Star Wars and the Battlefield Earth movie, "advertises with chilly pride its remoteness from life as we know it". I immediately started remembering all those attempts to link current events to the new Star Wars movies, and then contemplated how I'd much rather think of Star Wars as dealing with "universal" human questions such as "what makes a good person evil" and "what makes an evil person good"... but there, perhaps, I'm stepping into the role of the fan who can't bear any criticism whatever.