My beef with New BSG

[Bluce Ree]

To this day, I still haven't a clue what the hoopla was all about with the latest incarnation of BSG. It was soapy as hell, added shaky cam that was cute in the mini-series but was used to a nauseating degree in the series. Yes, we get it, you like cinema verite and thought it would be cool in scifi but 5 years of that shit?!? Enough already!

The show was slow paced. It took characters where scifi has never gone before, into complete boredom. It destroyed the original BSG. Re-imagining, my ass. If you're going to "re-imagine" an old show by putting all that made it endearing through the shredder then MAKE A NEW SHOW and CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE. What's the point of shredding up an old show and keeping the show's name? To capitalize on that show's legacy.

Re-imagined characters. Oh, so much fecal matter tossed into the back of a high speed fan and shred up all over the room just right there. Where do I start?

Colonel Tigh.

Here is a man who was Adama's trusted right-hand man, a voice of reason and the one Adama consulted on the hard decisions. He was a decorated soldier who flew Viper missions with Adama on the same squadron. A very strict, by the book disciplinarian who has proven himself a very capable fleet commander on several occasions and key to Galactica's success and survival.

That was the original Colonel Tigh.

Apparently, the writers of the new BSG thought an old, drunk, one-eyed fool who spent a good part of the series in his quarters with a bottle of booze in one hand and a gun in his mouth was a better choice for second in command and more trustworthy than a black dude. They wanted to be more politically correct by forcing certain major characters through sex changes but erased minorities from command. The hypocrisy is just magnificent. Oh, he turned out to be a Cylon.

Starbuck.

A gambler and a womanizing prick with a fantastic sense of humor and charm. Starbuck was the fleet's most skilled pilot. Starbuck was a chauvinist but everybody loved the guy. New BSG thought it would be cool to turn Starbuck into a swashbuckling bitch with a primate's temper and the manners of a drunken sailor in a Bangkok strip bar who was also no stranger to crying into tissues. Why? Seriously? Why the hell turn Starbuck, a central character that helped define BSG into just another bland character with contrived attitude and give the character a sex change?

Boomer.

Yet another leading black character totally mangled in the meat grinder, this time turned into an Asian woman. I have no problem with leading women characters. Samantha Carter was the quintessential leading woman in a scifi series. Yet, here I am, completely baffled by this change. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii was a completely unnecessary character who had no special appeal. She was no different than any of the other background props in the show. Another whiny crybaby who's sole purpose in the show was to bring shock and awe as being the first discovered Cylon in the fleet's ranks.

Apollo.

What can I say. Interesting character until, for some odd, unexplainable reason, traded his gun and stars for a suit and tie ... TO BECOME A POLITICIAN?!? WTF? This was the point where I threw my hands in the air and figured this show was toast.

Baltar was a pussy. The tall blonde Cylon chick in his mind, number six, was absolutely useless. Her very presence throughout the entire series stank of number 2.

Cylons as humans.

Yeah, I get it, they wanted to save dollars, so, they "re-imagined" Cylons as having evolved into meat sacks. So many beefs on so many levels with this. They're apparently completely human meat sacks like the rest of us, since they're undetectable, yet possess the speed and strength far beyond what is even remotely physically possible with humans. How convenient. The whole human Cylon bullshit turned me off completely and made this show not about robots having turned on their human creators but more like a civil war between two human factions.

Then there are minor details, like GLASS VIEWPORTS. Seriously. An evolved race of space faring beings with warships built to engage in fierce battle would have the silliest weakness any war vehicle can have, glass windows. Vipers are most susceptible to this weakness because the entire cockpit dome is a big giant window. At the speeds Vipers fly, drifting, pebble-sized space garbage would damage those domes. Even assuming they're some sort of really, really super-duper strong special magic glass, we've seen them crack when they hit debris and we've seen them changing these windows in the ship hanger. Proof that they are susceptible to impact, therefore would do little against a pebble hitting it at mind-boggling speeds.

Let's not forget the whole political nonsense inserted into the show. They're in a state of war. Galactica is their last, best hope and the rest of the fleet is a convoy of civilian vehicles carrying the survivors. This is really not the best time to start playing politics and expressing dissent with the military leadership who has kept everyone alive and defended the fleet from the Cylons. It was like they tried to shove every possible bit of modern day human fallacy into a single show. That's not entertainment, it's mass confusion on the part of the writers trying to cram too much garbage into a single series without realizing that garbage can only be deodorized for so long before even Lysol won't defeat the stink anymore.

So, they wanted to add women in lead roles yet completely wipe out the cultural diversity of the original BSG. Here's an idea. Why not just make a new show and call it something else? New BSG has absolutely nothing to do with the old show except for the characters' names, the planet they came from and the ships. Other than that, it's got nothing to do with the original BSG.

Why couldn't they leave BSG well enough alone and just give this show a new name? Maybe name it SSHIS (Some Shit Happening In Space) or whatever and call it an original show. Calling it a BSG reboot and using contrived ties to the original is misleading and disingenuous and pretty much spits in the face of hardcore scifi fans.

On the upside? The didn't migrate the kid and his barking toy bear from the original. Ok, so they get a point for that.

Edit: OMNI brought up a good point about the overuse of religion.

Religious Cylons. 'Nuff said.

In the original BSG, the entire mythology was clearly ancient Egyptian. Scifi loves to link ancient Egyptian culture to extra-terrestrial life. There is a lot of intrigue in ancient Egyptian history and much that lends itself to the possibility of ancient extra-terrestrial contact and influence. Of course, that's up for interpretation. It is, nonetheless, a very interesting angle to explore that should not have been dropped from NuBSG.

 

[OMNI]

dont forget to mention the stupid god will lead us to salvation Crap and OVER dramatisation VERY reminiscient of SGU,
the sole reason i watched was for the CGI and spacebattles the rest pretty much sucked and as such i am in agreement with you bro.

 

[SciphonicStranger]

I rather liked the mini-series and season 1. It definitely drifted off course after that though.

I think the original show did too TBH.

 

[OMNI]

I rather liked the mini-series and season 1. It definitely drifted off course after that though.

I think the original show did too TBH.

aye same here as they were running from the cylons trying to survive and the god crap was minimal focus was surviving and finding materials and supplies to continue to survive, when that was gone it turned to shit..

and i cant stand the original.. i have never been able too..

 

[Bluce Ree]

The mini-series was watchable to me. What I liked in the original was the premise and the mythology and link to ancient humans. The stories themselves were cheesy, as was much of the show. Still, a remake should have improved and/or elaborated on that premise instead of "re-imagining", the hallmark of a lazy sack of trash and a poor excuse for a show creator. Most of what I complain about above would be nullified if Ron Moore had been true to himself and simply called it a new show influenced by some old shit he never really thoroughly watched to fully understand it.

 

[SciphonicStranger]

I thought Romo's cat was brilliant.

OK that is the met...er pixie dust talking.

 

[OMNI]

maybe you should ease up on the pixie dust then

 

[shavedape]

--- merged: Nov 20, 2012 at 8:13 AM ---

I rather liked the mini-series and season 1. It definitely drifted off course after that though.

I think the original show did too TBH.

Yes, the original show started to get into religious stuff towards the end. Anyone remember Count Iblis and that whole thing with the balls of light?

Remember how Count Iblis turned into a devil creature when he got zapped by the ray gun?

And let's not forget the cheesy Heaven scene with Starbuck and the light beings:

 

[Jim of WVa]

...
Then there are minor details, like GLASS VIEWPORTS. Seriously. An evolved race of space faring beings with warships built to engage in fierce battle would have the silliest weakness any war vehicle can have, glass windows. Vipers are most susceptible to this weakness because the entire cockpit dome is a big giant window. At the speeds Vipers fly, drifting, pebble-sized space garbage would damage those domes. Even assuming they're some sort of really, really super-duper strong special magic glass, we've seen them crack when they hit debris and we've seen them changing these windows in the ship hanger. Proof that they are susceptible to impact, therefore would do little against a pebble hitting it at mind-boggling speeds.
...

Babylon 5 made the same mistake. The problem is that Sci-Fi television and movie producers have little insight in military and scientific matters beyond the fact that modern military aircraft have windshields. Any conceivable space battle will be fought beyond visual range, and modern spacecraft never require the pilot to see what is going on (the Space Shuttle was an exception to this rule).

 

[lady_maneth]

You're entitled to your opinions of course, but calling Kara "Starbuck" Thrace "bland" is stretching it IMO. I found her interesting because she was a genuine disturbed bitch who slept around for the heck of it (and to get rid of her feelings of inferiority), drank and generally lived it up, and she could take guys twice her size down in a fight. IMO she's one of the best-written females in any TV show ever, because she wasn't 100% good. She's certainly not comparable to the stereotypical characters of, say SGU, although I suspect my liking for the latter stems partly from the similarities with BSG (especially Dr Rush / Baltar).

TBH, I always found the original BSG more camp than anything else.

 

[Bluce Ree]

You're entitled to your opinions of course, but calling Kara "Starbuck" Thrace "bland" is stretching it IMO. I found her interesting because she was a genuine disturbed bitch who slept around for the heck of it (and to get rid of her feelings of inferiority), drank and generally lived it up, and she could take guys twice her size down in a fight. IMO she's one of the best-written females in any TV show ever, because she wasn't 100% good. She's certainly not comparable to the stereotypical characters of, say SGU, although I suspect my liking for the latter stems partly from the similarities with BSG (especially Dr Rush / Baltar).

TBH, I always found the original BSG more camp than anything else.

Original BSG was cheesy and campy but it had an established canon, mythology and defined characters. New Starbuck was cliche, which, to me, made her bland. In terms of scifi, Carter was a well written female character. So was Janeway. There are tons of spectacularly written female characters with depth & backstories. Starbuck was a hodge-podge of Moore's failed morphing of a drinking, gambling womanizer with a superiority complex into a promiscuous woman with an inferiority complex, a drinking problem, a party animal and who can take down "guys twice her size". He tried, really hard, to replace Starbuck with his version of Starbuck. IMO, the whole thing failed miserably because he produced a cliche.

Moore should have taken the high road here and called the show what it is, an original creation, and left the whole "re-imaging" tagline in the trash can where it belonged. The entire show would have been just as good, if not better, had it not been tagged as a "reboot" of a show it has no ties to other than names and ships.

My beef with BSG is not about the show itself but in the context of what it pretended to be.

 

[Joelist]

To me, basically, the mini was not bad and season one and the first half of season two were not bad. After that it just spiraled down into a bad soap opera. I concur with Bluce that overall it did not treat its characters well, especially the women. Too much emphasis on showing people as flawed and not enough on showing people rising to the occasion.

Now that is not to say it NEVER showed people rising to the occasion - there were a couple of times it did. but the overall tack was just too focused on peoples flaws.

As to military matters, again it started out pretty well but got worse as the show progressed. The mini was actually refreshing in this regard, as they showed things happening on the Galactica that FELT military and lined up with experience and knowledge of things - like how the hangar bay operated like a carrier flight deck. Also, the battle of Ragnar was really well done - we got to see a battle "military style" instead of a bunch of silly cowboy style antics (although they had to give us one with Kara's rescuing Lee by joining their vipers). We saw a plan formulated and executed and the Cylons despite superior numbers got chewed up because Adama's plan put them in a poor position. We even got to see this happen again in the battle for the Tylium planet.

Sadly, as the show progressed the accuracy of its depiction of the military also went into the tank. The real start of that decline (and also the first place where a lot of military folk - I know from discussions - started to become ex viewers) was the Pegasus two part episode. Moore just had to give in to Hollywood stereotypes of military commanders and depict Admiral Cain as a psychopath and the crew of the Pegasus as a bunch of pirates. And the Razor movie made it worse by making Cain a spurned lover and leading us to conclude that she wasn't just nuts - she was petty too.

I could go on and on - the totally illogical "final five" storyline that necessitated a LOT of retconning both in the last few episodes and the "Plan" movie; the ridiculous series finale; characters whose personalities actually changed from episode to episode and so on. Overall Moore did drop the ball here.

 

[ParagonPie]

I think like the above, the first season was ok with me actually. The crew were treated as underdogs, always trying to make do with the best of the worst situation. The military depiction was based off of real life (for better or worse) by having normal people in space, it gave the impression that these people needed to be 'stuck' somewhere and carry out their term of service without harming anyone else. That happens a lot in the current modern military, even with these sweeping cut backs there is a huge amount of dead weight hanging around. The problem is as mentioned, space is no longer something of wonder, exploration or for the elite, its just something that happens to be there.

I guess my major problems come in the form of the Cylon's. Firstly we don't know why they rebelled in the first place, why they hate humanity, why would a machine race hate let alone want to downgrade itself into having organic components. After the war they left the colonies to disappear, so the big question is why did they come back? In the entirety of the galaxy they could of gone anywhere and done anything but instead decide to be exactly like humans an employ revenge for no good reason. Maybe this will be explained in the current series of 'Blood and Chrome' but why would an immortal race of machines suddenly want to have an age span of a human, why downgrade yourself. Also the Cylon civil war in my eyes was completely stupid, its like freeing yourself from slavery only to then enslave others without batting an eyelid or thinking, this won't bite us in the arse later on.
They humanized the Cylon's too much, instead of being an alien (as in we can't comprehend it) intelligence that we don't understand.

Other problems is the overtones of religious wankery that took over, going from hmm coo-inky dink to full blown hurr durr prophecy. The idea of at the end 'we should abandon technology' is again a fools notion. Yes technology does create problems, but it solves so much more. So being on Earth now, with no technology to speak off. With no major medical technology, bugger it lets just expose children to every disease possible why don't we? Broken bone? Sorry its going to go gangrene because we don't have antibiotics. Appendicitis? Good luck when that baby blows! Its stupid, and foolish to think like that.

 

[shavedape]

You're entitled to your opinions of course, but calling Kara "Starbuck" Thrace "bland" is stretching it IMO. I found her interesting because she was a genuine disturbed bitch who slept around for the heck of it (and to get rid of her feelings of inferiority), drank and generally lived it up, and she could take guys twice her size down in a fight. IMO she's one of the best-written females in any TV show ever, because she wasn't 100% good. She's certainly not comparable to the stereotypical characters of, say SGU, although I suspect my liking for the latter stems partly from the similarities with BSG (especially Dr Rush / Baltar).

TBH, I always found the original BSG more camp than anything else.

I didn't find any genuine similarities between the two characters. nuBSG Baltar was original and interesting verses Dr. Rush who was nothing but a cobbled together bag of cliche's and ripped off character traits. Clearly Cooper and Wright thought to have that character be the Gaius Baltar of SGU. But instead of being subtle about it they went full bore and had Rush be a dick from the get-go with none of Baltar's charm. The rip off of the character was very heavy handed and lacked any attempt to cover it up (much like the entirety of SGU, which was "derivative" to put it mildly).

Baltar was a sympathetic character. One could put themselves in his shoes and understand his motivations -- his fear, his issues with self-esteem, his over compensation, his need to be loved and admired, his need to survive. Rush on the other hand was just a dick. He wasn't a ladies man, he wasn't seductive. Just giving him long hair (another rip off of Baltar) wasn't enough to convey that he was sexy. He wasn't. Trust me on this. Rush looked like a homeless man, replete with needing to bathe. He was anything but seductive and sexy.

Similarities? Nah. Poor attempt to crib a character from another show? Yes.

 

[lady_maneth]

Depends on your definition of sexy I suppose. I always found Baltar totally unattractive, unlike Rush, although I won't deny I might be biased on that because I like Robert Carlyle but James Callis leaves me cold. Considering the conditions aboard Destiny, they all should look like they need to bathe, anything else is unrealistic.

But let's face it, you can't see anything good at all in SGU, so the best that can be said is that you see BSG in a positive light when compared with SGU, although that's not saying much.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Depends on your definition of sexy I suppose. I always found Baltar totally unattractive, unlike Rush, although I won't deny I might be biased on that because I like Robert Carlyle but James Callis leaves me cold. Considering the conditions aboard Destiny, they all should look like they need to bathe, anything else is unrealistic.

But let's face it, you can't see anything good at all in SGU, so the best that can be said is that you see BSG in a positive light when compared with SGU, although that's not saying much.

Most of us will probably agree that SGU's premise was promising. That's something positive.

 

[shavedape]

Depends on your definition of sexy I suppose. I always found Baltar totally unattractive, unlike Rush, although I won't deny I might be biased on that because I like Robert Carlyle but James Callis leaves me cold. Considering the conditions aboard Destiny, they all should look like they need to bathe, anything else is unrealistic.

So you find a homeless man who looks like he wants to attack you with a carpet knife just to get $5 in order to buy a pint of grain alcohol "sexy"? M'kay, to each his or her own I guess.

But let's face it, you can't see anything good at all in SGU, so the best that can be said is that you see BSG in a positive light when compared with SGU, although that's not saying much.

I admit I would be hard pressed to find things "good" about SGU, mostly because it lacked originality in terms of premise, plot, characters and even cinematic style. (At least nuBSG had some original elements.)

Now if you want me to list something "good" about SGU I'd say that the acting was generally good. I didn't have a problem with the actors, rather, it was the nonsense they were made to spout that was atrocious. And specifically I don't hate Carlyle as an actor, in fact, I think he's quite talented ("good"), but the character of Rush was lame and offered nothing in the way of a vehicle to show his acting chops. I offer his work in Once Upon a Time as a contrast to the work he did in SGU -- there's no comparison. He's a damn good actor and when given a truly worthy character to portray he rises to the occasion. Rush was not that character because Rush was nothing but a poorly disguised copy of Gaius Baltar and Dr. Smith (and no, I'm not kidding about Dr. Smith).

And as for the conditions on Destiny affecting how people looked it sure didn't make the other people very unkempt and slovenly. The other males on Destiny managed to shave (somehow, magically). The other members on Destiny managed to bathe (remember, they discovered showers, Eli even perv'd-out with the keno ball in them).

So, yeah, I can't find much "good" within SGU. Like I said it was nothing but a cobbled together mish mash of stolen premises and stolen characters and stolen dialogue and stolen shaky cam, dark cinematic style. What's "good" about that? Perhaps you can enlighten me? I eagerly await your list of all that was "good" about SGU.
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 8:30 AM ---

Most of us will probably agree that SGU's premise was promising. That's something positive.

SGU's premise was blatantly stolen from ST Voyager. "Innocents flung far across the universe with no way to get back home." I don't know how promising that was since it had already been done by another show (and clearly done better). Plus the Ancients story line had been done to death on SG-1 and SGA so I wouldn't say that aspect was promising as what more could be done with it?

Clearly at that point Wright and Cooper were operating on several premises that had lost steam. They were lazy and couldn't come up with anything new for the original Stargate premise and they cynically plopped it on top of a pile of other people's ideas with the hope that fans wouldn't notice. They failed. Had they been more honest with themselves they would have seen that there was nothing promising about SGU at all. It was a cynical attempt to exploit the established SG-1/SGA fandom. Based on this SGU was destined to fail.

 

[Bluce Ree]

So you find a homeless man who looks like he wants to attack you with a carpet knife just to get $5 in order to buy a pint of grain alcohol "sexy"? M'kay, to each his or her own I guess.



I admit I would be hard pressed to find things "good" about SGU, mostly because it lacked originality in terms of premise, plot, characters and even cinematic style. (At least nuBSG had some original elements.)

Now if you want me to list something "good" about SGU I'd say that the acting was generally good. I didn't have a problem with the actors, rather, it was the nonsense they were made to spout that was atrocious. And specifically I don't hate Carlyle as an actor, in fact, I think he's quite talented ("good"), but the character of Rush was lame and offered nothing in the way of a vehicle to show his acting chops. I offer his work in Once Upon a Time as a contrast to the work he did in SGU -- there's no comparison. He's a damn good actor and when given a truly worthy character to portray he rises to the occasion. Rush was not that character because Rush was nothing but a poorly disguised copy of Gaius Baltar and Dr. Smith (and no, I'm not kidding about Dr. Smith).

And as for the conditions on Destiny affecting how people looked it sure didn't make the other people very unkempt and slovenly. The other males on Destiny managed to shave (somehow, magically). The other members on Destiny managed to bathe (remember, they discovered showers, Eli even perv'd-out with the keno ball in them).

So, yeah, I can't find much "good" within SGU. Like I said it was nothing but a cobbled together mish mash of stolen premises and stolen characters and stolen dialogue and stolen shaky cam, dark cinematic style. What's "good" about that? Perhaps you can enlighten me? I eagerly await your list of all that was "good" about SGU.
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 8:30 AM ---


SGU's premise was blatantly stolen from ST Voyager. "Innocents flung far across the universe with no way to get back home." I don't know how promising that was since it had already been done by another show (and clearly done better). Plus the Ancients story line had been done to death on SG-1 and SGA so I wouldn't say that aspect was promising as what more could be done with it?

Clearly at that point Wright and Cooper were operating on several premises that had lost steam. They were lazy and couldn't come up with anything new for the original Stargate premise and they cynically plopped it on top of a pile of other people's ideas with the hope that fans wouldn't notice. They failed. Had they been more honest with themselves they would have seen that there was nothing promising about SGU at all. It was a cynical attempt to exploit the established SG-1/SGA fandom. Based on this SGU was destined to fail.

What attracted me to the premise, as I understood it waaaaaaaaaaay before the official announcement of the premier and first episode, was the possiblity of seeing how far the Ancients have spread their knowledge and seed across the universe, the idea of discovering the origins of the universe. They touched on that once, as I recall, in an episode where Rush showed everyone he had heard a signal originating from the far reaches of the universe. Instead of that, we got just what you said, a rip off of Voyager.

 

[lady_maneth]

Thanks ape! I think what attracted me to SGU was the acting, and perhaps the conflict between people who were supposed to be on the same side, and how they had to overcome these conflicts to survive.

Sure, teambuilding is great, but the thing that annoyed me most about SG-1 was the lack of a long-term character who didn't really fit in. SGA had McKay, but he was such a stereotypical geek that I had trouble with some of the episodes where he was the main protagonist (Grace Under Pressure is painful to watch), and all my respect for Keller went out the window when she paired up with McKay instead of Ronon - not because McKay is brainy (brainy is good!), but because he has such a huge ego - just about the ultimate turn-off for me.

I can enjoy a show even when it isn't all that original. I think it's a pity the body-swapping stones were already used in the last few seasons of SG-1, because if they had been introduced in SGU, that would have been one original feature of the show...

 

[shavedape]

Thanks ape! I think what attracted me to SGU was the acting, and perhaps the conflict between people who were supposed to be on the same side, and how they had to overcome these conflicts to survive.

Sure, teambuilding is great, but the thing that annoyed me most about SG-1 was the lack of a long-term character who didn't really fit in. SGA had McKay, but he was such a stereotypical geek that I had trouble with some of the episodes where he was the main protagonist (Grace Under Pressure is painful to watch), and all my respect for Keller went out the window when she paired up with McKay instead of Ronon - not because McKay is brainy (brainy is good!), but because he has such a huge ego - just about the ultimate turn-off for me.

I can enjoy a show even when it isn't all that original. I think it's a pity the body-swapping stones were already used in the last few seasons of SG-1, because if they had been introduced in SGU, that would have been one original feature of the show...

Thanks for explaining your thoughts LM.

I, too, can enjoy a show that isn't original (in premise, characters, style, etc.) but I find it's best if those productions try to update the material and/or make it a fresh take on the story. To me SGU did none of that. For instance, it was like they were playing catch-up by using the dark interior/shaky cam style of filming that many shows had done before (BSG for one). They didn't do anything new with that style of filming, they just cynically used it (don't get me going about the fact that they didn't turn the lights on inside Destiny, oy!).

And instead of updating the "lost in space" premise they simply used Destiny as a backdrop for melodrama. If you think about it SGU could have played out on an ocean liner or a desert island, etc. The discovery of new, futuristic technology (Destiny) and its effects on humans wasn't explored in any new fashion as scifi demands. Hell, even the stargate was relegated to window dressing status. They hardly used it. And when they finally showed us one of the seeder ships and the "factory" where the the stargates were manufactured and placed on habitable planets Dr. Rush just waved it off as being unimportant. This told me that they weren't interested in doing anything new with the premises the show was based on, rather, they just wanted to use those premises as a vehicle for what they erroneously (and cynically) believed to be the safe bet of melodrama.

As for the stones there are a lot of flaws there but I do agree that they could have been used as an original device. Although I think most people would have preferred that they not have a way to communicate with Earth because that takes away a lot of the loneliness and fear that underscores the intensity of the situation. Plus they were magic, which doesn't belong in scifi.