I finished watching the series after starting it almost 2 years ago. I guess I have some thoughts.

The show was very hit or miss. I liked the first 2 seasons a lot but they were extremely frustrating. Once I got used to the idea that noone was to be trusted and everyone was weak, it became much easier to watch. Season 3, especially after the Exodus, seemed very empty and boring to me. Season 4 was improved. Some of the episodes were genuinely compelling. I actually thought the mutiny on Galactica episode was one of the most compelling and fun to watch of the entire season despite the fact that it was probably the most improbable and poorly fitting everything we knew.

Once I realized that every character was essentially weak, unpredictable, and unreliable, I began liking the show a lot more. I tend to enjoy grim stories, and the ridiculous futility of their situation entertained me. I enjoyed D's death, Gaeda's execution, and I liked seeing things get let go that seemed to be hanging on for too long, like Lee as a pilot. I loved when they discovered the false Earth and it was desolate, and that was another of my favorite episodes. I was very uncertain about the finale and was not happy about it until everything fell apart, which I felt redeemed much of the ending. A good friend of mine told me the ending was "basically the worst possible ending" so I had very low hopes, but I ended up liking it well enough.

Ultimately, the biggest failing of the show was the God angle. I had numerous problems with it, but simply put it felt too amateurish. None of it struck me as profound or interesting. BSG felt like it dealt with these issues on an 8th grade level compared to ST:TNG which would be a college seminar relatively speaking. I think I'm spoiled for ever enjoying this kind of thing after watching TNG and reading so much philosophy, but basically everything remotely spiritual about BSG had me rolling my eyes. The emptiness of the ending was no surprise for me because I hadn't expected anything profound in a long while. The worst part was probably the opera house plotline and Hera, which ended with nothing, its relevance seemingly nonexistent. The details of the BSG crew being ancestors on Earth was only semi-interesting, and it seems like they didn't do nearly enough early in the show to set up the whole circle of time aspect which could have been, should have been really important and perhaps profound.

Unlike the religious aspects, I thought the political ones were well done and relevant. They were a brutal reflection of the human condition. I guess another problem I had with the show, something that really will ultimately keep me from ever loving it, was the nihilism and sort of anti-Nietzschean absence of virtue in people. There were almost no characters that displayed any constant virtue, and I think the show gravely underestimated the ability for human virtue to overcome vice. I thought Admiral Adama was perhaps the only truly virtuous human in the show. I feel like stubbornness, rashness, and a number of other traits were overrepresented, while rationality and loyalty were probably underrepresented. I felt like so many of the terrible things that happened to the fleet were left to be solved by prophecy and higher-beings because they had not developed enough human virtue and ability to bond and overcome within the fleet, and it felt unbalanced. As an example of what I'm talking about, think of TNG where the bridge crew were more or less overflowing with virtue, allowing the writers to throw a lot more adversity at them with the expectation that they can overcome. As the grimmer counterpart to TNG, some kind of balance between these two would have been nice and in my opinion, fitting. Or, even better, if it had given a greater nod to probability, uncertainty, and the harsh reality of mortality, by allowing the cast of BSG more virtue but overwhelming them in any case.

The last thing I'll say is that I thought the entire structure of the story was very poor and that it was obviously structured so as to allow God to play a large role. This situation only arose in the 3rd season, and when I think about it I believe it was probably the downfall of the show for me. After New Caprica, a situation was created whereby humanity continued to exist only because the cylons let them. After that point, we no longer wondered if the cylons would find them and destroy them - we knew they wouldn't. So now, with the cylons ultimately in control of the humans' destiny, the only victories they could achieve from that point onward would be either due to prophecy/intervention, or by the enemy self-destructing. And that's exactly what happened. After the 3rd season, only the specifics of the ending were in question, really, and each of the two paths feels cheap, false. Either the cylons destroy themselves or God leads them to safety. The really sad thing was that their survival was only very questionably of their own doing. Season 3 was a great blow to free will, which calls into question the actions of all the characters, for me at least. When I knew that A) humanity would eternally fall prey to their own weakness (a precedent that was set in seasons 1-2 that continued unfailingly through 3-4) and that B) they would survive regardless of their own actions, I lost all the emotional investment I had had in the show.

Oh. I guess it should go without saying that I found the Starbuck, Balthar, and Opera House storylines to all be a load of shit. I at least had hope for the 3rd, but the other two were trash through and through imo.

So yeah. It was an entertaining show, but I never got anything out of it remotely as profound as what I got from TNG, LOTR, and even Lost, etc.

That's a pretty good wrap-up and I think there are a lot of people out there that feel that way, but couldn't express it quite that well.

Anyone catch The Plan that hadn't already seen it?

I did, but I got bored about halfway through and started doing other stuff. Left it on in the background, a few moments near the end were potent, but mostly I'm just glad I didn't bother to buy it.

April 6. Includes The Plan.

Excellent - glad I waited, provided that set has everything that was on the giant Cylon head set.

That cover is terrible.

Does anyone know more about this second spin-off?

I had a running theory for a while that after Caprica signs off, they'd make a series following the first Cylon war with Adama playing a not-lead role, so that they essentially had a trilogy of series spanning his life. But that's probably not it.



It really is, and the series is way better off without The Plan in it. That was a joke that never should have been told.

You're overreacting.

The Plan is pretty awful. Someone on the board referred to it as a "glorified clip show." That's all it is. It's so disappointing considering how good Razor was. That being said, I wish it was in the big box though.

I just borrowed season 1 from a friend and I'm about to start watching. I have to admit, i'm a little apprehensive, as I've heard it's one of the most overrated shows, at least as far as sci-fi is concerned. That and I'm not sure I can handle being any more nerdy than I already am....

I didn't think The Plan was that bad.

Whoever said that is silly.

Cover oughta have like six pictures of Tricia Helfer on it, amirite

Knowing them they'll have three variations of that cover, each with three different characters presented, in the hopes that a few sad folks will want to have all three.

In addition to the clip-heavy nature of it all, The Plan to me took this thing that I was totally fine with originally (Cavil's desire to punish his creators) and made it look way stupid. The constant "mommy" and "daddy"ing in that show was just tragic. I wish they'd told it as a story of the two Cavils, but covering a much shorter timeline, so that they could emphasize the way experience changed them in different ways. Focus on the interactions with the kid and the interactions with the rebels. That would have been way better than what we got. By trying to be everywhere, it really shortchanged the degree to which we actually got to see the one Cavil change...it made that aspect of it seem forced and tossed out.

I am going to watch the mini series tonight. I have now been convinced to try this show.

Hey all,

So I am up to episode 10 in Season 1 and I am really impressed with what I have seen, I just have no idea where it is going.