Battlestar Galactifail
Nov. 22nd, 2012 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charloweenYesterday, I read a very interesting and persuasive piece about the failings of BSG's third and fourth seasons. Today, my re-watching of the second season is getting pretty begrudging.
What made that chapter so persuasive is how it was framed in terms of story and in terms of the show's critical reception. Unlike some of the other reading, it looks a the show as a show, and not an isolated text floating off somewhere without a writing staff or production team. It's a bit annoying that this is something refreshing. It also made the argument stronger because it didn't get lost inside the world.
The chapter is in the fourth of four BSG-focused collections I've been reading through, after also taking a pass at the proper scholarly stuff, and it's one of the few to point out that the ratings for the series were relatively miniscule and out of proportion to the critical praise heaped on the show. (I also liked the take-down of the series' made-up theology. I'd wondered if I just wasn't paying attention, but it seems that someone else found that it didn't make sense.)
Too many of the examples of mediocre scholarship I've been reading pretend BSG is a unified, singular thing, rather than a collection of episodes that are sometimes good and sometimes not. And that the writer's strike and heaps of praise didn't do the show any favours. Also, putting it in the context of US basic cable ratings, even at its height BSG was apparently getting vastly smaller audiences than Spongebob Squarepants. Hilarious! Granted, ratings are flawed but it's still funny to think that BSG's ratings peak was exceeded by the series premiere of Eureka.
For my project, I really don't care if the series "lived up to" anything; its potential, it critical reception, its own first two seasons.... Reading about how BSG slid into being just another show where white, straight men survive and women, people of colour and anyone queer are either dead, demonized (and/or also dead) or erased reminds me of how many episodes I skimmed through on my first way though the third and fourth seasons. Nothing quite like being reminded that This World Is Not For Me. (Also hilarious was a point made that Grey's Anatomy outdid BSG on representing race, gender and sexuality.)
Plus, I'd forgotten how damn depressed and angry everyone is on this show. Ugh. I'm trying to get as much of this re-watched as possible but it's seriously bringing me down.
It's hard to enjoy watching the early stuff after being reminded where it ends up.
What made that chapter so persuasive is how it was framed in terms of story and in terms of the show's critical reception. Unlike some of the other reading, it looks a the show as a show, and not an isolated text floating off somewhere without a writing staff or production team. It's a bit annoying that this is something refreshing. It also made the argument stronger because it didn't get lost inside the world.
The chapter is in the fourth of four BSG-focused collections I've been reading through, after also taking a pass at the proper scholarly stuff, and it's one of the few to point out that the ratings for the series were relatively miniscule and out of proportion to the critical praise heaped on the show. (I also liked the take-down of the series' made-up theology. I'd wondered if I just wasn't paying attention, but it seems that someone else found that it didn't make sense.)
Too many of the examples of mediocre scholarship I've been reading pretend BSG is a unified, singular thing, rather than a collection of episodes that are sometimes good and sometimes not. And that the writer's strike and heaps of praise didn't do the show any favours. Also, putting it in the context of US basic cable ratings, even at its height BSG was apparently getting vastly smaller audiences than Spongebob Squarepants. Hilarious! Granted, ratings are flawed but it's still funny to think that BSG's ratings peak was exceeded by the series premiere of Eureka.
For my project, I really don't care if the series "lived up to" anything; its potential, it critical reception, its own first two seasons.... Reading about how BSG slid into being just another show where white, straight men survive and women, people of colour and anyone queer are either dead, demonized (and/or also dead) or erased reminds me of how many episodes I skimmed through on my first way though the third and fourth seasons. Nothing quite like being reminded that This World Is Not For Me. (Also hilarious was a point made that Grey's Anatomy outdid BSG on representing race, gender and sexuality.)
Plus, I'd forgotten how damn depressed and angry everyone is on this show. Ugh. I'm trying to get as much of this re-watched as possible but it's seriously bringing me down.
It's hard to enjoy watching the early stuff after being reminded where it ends up.
