TV critics

[dotsomething]

Umpteenth review of Battlestar Galactica which praises it by bashing the science fiction television show inherently as a format. Battlestar Galactica isn't like those OTHER science fiction shows. It's okay to watch BSG, you're hip, you're cool, if you watch BSG. Those other shows are just for geeks.

This is really getting old. Battlestar Galactica

Comments

[wiliqueen]

Amen, sister!

Reason #946 Why I Want To Be A Famous Actress: So I can say in a BTS interview, "I'm not going to say 'I wanted to do this project because it's sci-fi but it's about PEOPLE.' That's because sci-fi has ALWAYS been about people, which is why you get people saying that for EVERY movie. Just to set the record straight."

[dotsomething]

Now I can't wait until you become A Famous Actress so you can do interviews where you say things like "I love doing science fiction! It's all about people, the relationships..." And it really is...the trappings are different in each type of genre--it's a spaceship or it's an Oval Office or it's a police precinct, but in the end it's only about the characters.

[octette]

YES WORD ETC.

[dotsomething]

Somehow I'm not surprised we agree on this...

[chelseagirl]

Precisely. Farscape is a brilliant show that doesn't fit into the constraints the author has set out as "okay" -- it works because it handles alienness (and John's alienation) in a way that's psychologically believable and visually convincing.

You know, I'm a big fan of literary fiction, and I read the short fiction in the New Yorker regularly. And some of it is amazing, and some of it is "oh, that again, how tedious." Oddly enough, just exactly like my experience with sf/fantasy.

[dotsomething]

That's a great point about the literary fiction and how all genres have good and bad work in it.

[anirien]

Word. I only saw bits of Farscape so I can't say much about it's politics, etc. though it was a great show. BSG is probably the first science fiction show I've seen since B5 that explores politics and character/moral ambiguity to such an extent. But it's a terrible generalization to assume that BSG is the exception. I think it's just ignorance from the people who write these things about the quality sci-fi that's really out there. I mean it's good if it gets some more people to watch the show and maybe by extension some people realize that there's more to sci-fi than Flash Gordon, but it would be better if people could just get over this idea that the genre is somehow less worthy because of the lowest common denominator in said genre. (So much of the same could be said for comics... or animation. People are stupid.)

[dotsomething]

Or as chelseagirl47 pointed out in her comment above, every genre, including the literary fiction in the New Yorker, has its boring and its spectacular works.

But the way some critics talk about sf, not just this one but in the other ones I've seen, you'd think that the "ten percent of everything is crap" rule was confined only to sf/fantasy. The New Yorker isn't going to apologize for giving a positive review to a literary novel. Nor do I think a genre publication should apologize for saying that something mainstream is good.

[dotsomething]

Sorry, I meant "90 percent of everything is crap" (loooong week looking at numbers a lot will screw up your brain's number center...)