Comments | cybersattva: Quick BSG thought

cybersattva

Quick BSG thought

Apr 06, 2009 10:10

It seems the world is breaking down into two groups of people, those who loved the end of BSG and those who hated it. (Obviously there is no one in the world who hasn't watched the end of BSG by now. Duh.) In my oh-so-scientific study, it's seeming like bookish people are tending to fall into the 'hated it' category, while TV watchers are ( Read more... )

Comments 23

2h2o April 6 2009, 14:37:39 UTC

I watched half of one episode and didn't come to any conclusions.

cybersattva April 6 2009, 16:18:06 UTC

Oh gosh, nonono. You would not love this show. While I'm sure you'd enjoy some of the intellectual debates that some of the episodes bring up, not only would you want to break things after the finale, I'm pretty sure would wouldn't be willing to forgive some of the other weaknesses present throughout the series.

What do you watch, by the way?

2h2o April 6 2009, 17:29:37 UTC

You must realize that you've just made me extremely curious, right?

I don't watch much TV anymore, but I'll stop in for a new Simpsons or Family Guy and sometimes catch Adult Swim online.

cybersattva April 6 2009, 17:39:04 UTC

Ha! Well feel free to vent at me about the parts you hate when you watch it. :D

kcobweb April 6 2009, 15:18:50 UTC

By your logic, I don't exist, therefore I can't comment. Wait.... I'm getting caught in a web of paradoxes here. This might take a minute to get sorted out.

(I probably *should* watch BSG, huh? *grin*)

cybersattva April 6 2009, 16:22:19 UTC

Wait, what? Are you trying to tell me that you haven't seen BSG? Because I'm pretty sure that's not a valid answer here. ;)

The show is a fun ride, and parts of it were done better than anything I've seen on the small screen. That said, I admit I'm not thrilled with the way it wrapped up some of the Big Questions after all was said and done....probably enough not-thrilled with it that I won't be watching any of the spin-offs.

kcobweb April 6 2009, 17:05:05 UTC

Okay okay...... now that the show's over and people won't be talking about it anymore, it's just about time for me to bestir myself. I have duly requested the first part of the first season from the library (of course).

kouredios April 6 2009, 19:41:52 UTC

Does it start with the miniseries? You really need to start with the miniseries. *bounce & grin*

kmunson779 April 6 2009, 15:59:09 UTC

Didn't love it, didn't hate it. To me it made sense, was mostly satisfying (in terms of tying up most of the loose ends), wasn't all that surprising (compared to some of the other things they've sprung on us over the course of the show), and was a bit too overtly preachy.

And I was not expecting that last episode to be as long as it was.

cybersattva April 6 2009, 16:27:45 UTC

Yeah, it was actually a three-hour finale that Ron Moore couldn't convince SciFi to air all in one night. In fact, he was thrilled to get a budget addendum for the last third of "Daybreak" (hour two of part two) at the 11th hour when they realized they couldn't cram everything they wanted into the time or money they had left. Which was pretty cool of the studio to grant him, actually. I'd never heard of that happening before.

kouredios April 6 2009, 16:37:29 UTC

Hmm. What I think, and what I think kcobweb may have been getting at, is that I consider myself both a bookish and a TV person. To me, stories are stories, and I don't discriminate, while I may comment on differences that media bring with them. So that distinction doesn't work for me.

My own feeling is that, generally, folks who are analytical about their stories didn't like the ending. I'm so far now from the "just sit back and enjoy the story without thinking about it!" way of being now, that I have a hard time thinking such people still exist, but I know that they do.

kcobweb April 6 2009, 16:39:59 UTC

Nah - I meant that I really haven't seen any BSG. No, maybe I saw part of one episode from the first season? Maybe? I'm always 5-10 years behind in terms of fannish viewing.

kouredios April 6 2009, 16:47:25 UTC

Heh. My mistake. :D

pseudosilence April 6 2009, 16:45:37 UTC

This might be it. I really have no idea whether I qualify more as a "bookish" or a "TV" person. But I am analytical about my stories, and I've learned a lot about how TV is constructed in the last few years.

And I pretty much hated it. Yes, some of the first half was awesome. But overall, I found the finale pretty dang frustrating.

I don't want to diminish the things the show did really well, but for me it was almost all downhill after New Caprica.

Thread 7

ellinor April 6 2009, 17:40:29 UTC

I don't think I like the value judgment that seems to be coming through, here. Maybe it's something in the way I'm reading these comments, but it seems like people are saying that if you are a thinking, intelligent person, then clearly you hated it, and if you are a superficial person, then fine, go ahead and like it ( ... )

kouredios April 6 2009, 18:00:53 UTC

I'm sorry if I came through that way in my "analytical watchers" point. I was trying to work within the frame cybersattva had put up.

I agree totally with what you've said here. I had a friend on my list respond to the idea of Kara as not only angel but messiah with great glee. That reading doesn't work for me, but it worked for her. So I don't think I'm entirely right with an analytical/not-so dichotomy. I don't like dichotomies in general. It seems more that some people saw an ending that jibed with the story that was running in their head while they watched BSG, and some didn't. I was looking for BSG to ultimately have more epic Greek mythology underpinnings, rather than just flavor, and I was looking for a different ending to Kara's story, so I didn't like it in the end. There were many things I did like, though, and have loved, all the way through.

cybersattva April 6 2009, 18:14:14 UTC

Yeah, I'm beginning to think there's just a certain type of story resolution that drives me nuts and BSG had it--literally--in spades.

cybersattva April 6 2009, 18:07:53 UTC

I'm glad you posted. At no point did I mean to imply that bookish people are intelligent and TV watchers aren't, nor anything similar about those who hated/enjoyed the end of BSG. I've already posted under a spoiler cut what drove me nuts about the way the series ended, even though there were parts of the finale I completely rocked out on.

To go back to the original question, maybe it is that TV watchers were more forgiving of the way the series wrapped up due to the challenge of sticking the landing of a four-year tv show down to the last hour? It seems like Jacob came away with a similar, if not stronger, bitter taste in his mouth about the way BSG ended than I, but he was a lot more understanding and accepting about why a TV series might trip up at the very end ( ... )