Hey, Remember When Battlestar Galactica Didn't Suck?

February 2, 2009 07:48 AM

As you may or may not have figured out, the Chef is an avowed and avested science fiction fan, for the most part preaching the virtues of that canceled little show named after a ship named after a luminous insect. However, he does every so often condescend to watch lesser franchises (well, okay, it may be more than "every so often", but they're still lesser than The Great Gawd And Master Joss's pinnacle series). To that end, I just finished watching season 4.0 of the new Battlestar Galactica. For years now I've been trying to get my friends into this series so I'd have someone to discuss its nuances with. Sadly, BSG is one of those shows which you really have to sit down and watch from the beginning, or you end up having absolutely no idea what the hell's going on. Whenever I do talk them into watching an episode, I spend half an hour trying to explain what's happened in the previous dozen or so episodes to set up for whatever non-event is going down on the screen.

But I'm getting sidetracked. As I was watching the first half of season 4 (and yes, I'm aware that the second half is airing now, but I was waiting until I had finished the DVD set to pick back up watching new episodes), I realized, "Hey, this sucks...we've got people following peyote-induced visions for no discernible reasons, people having mysterious (and completely nonsensical) backgrounds for no discernible reasons, people double-crossing each other for no discernible reasons (aside from just to be a jerk - and let's face it, BSG has always had more than its fair share of assholes), and people returning from the dead (with brand-new ships, to boot) without even so much as a Genesis device or other piece of science-fiction wonderflonium to explain it away.

Considering that the show has always had such things as robots (well, biological androids) debating the meaning of life and the existence of God, you'd have to get pretty far out there to move into irredeemable mystical territory. But they've gone and done it. Battlestar Galactica has jumped the shark.

There, I've said what everyone was thinking. A wonderful and moving show, a (mostly) realistic, gritty war story and political drama, has this season evolved into a hokey drug-induced, meandering religious vision quest that makes no fracking sense. The show as it exists now bears no resemblance to what it was at its creative height - season 2 and the first half of season 3 (although the first season gets an honorable mention for its sheer simplicity and grunginess). Watching through season 4, I can't help but get the feeling that, like the people behind Lost, the creators of BSG have driven the bus out into the middle of nowhere (metaphorically speaking) and have no idea how to get to where they were going in the first place.

The discovery of Earth fits neatly into that conception. I can see the writers and producers in a meeting:

"So, what are we gonna do this season? We can't have 'em wandering around looking for Earth forever. It'll look like Voyager, and we all know how much that sucked."

"So, how about they find Earth, and it's today, and they get to ride around on flying motorcycles? And we can get Wolfman Jack to guest-star. It'll be great!"

"Oh, fuck no, man. We're not going there. And isn't Wolfman Jack dead?"

"I've got it! They find Earth...and it's destroyed by a fracking nuclear war! And the dead people on Earth - they're all Cylons, too! And remember how we made Tigh a Cylon? He was there 2000 years ago in a past life!"

"Hmm...not bad...I'll send Ron a memo. So how did Cylons get to Earth if they were made in the Twelve Colonies?"

"..."

In that spirit, I've made a list of "remember when"s to commemorate ye olde Galactica flying off into the sunset.

Remember when the show's plot actually went somewhere?
Remember when episodes just dealt with stuff like finding enough water, food, or fuel to get on to the next stop? (That I can recall, none of these were mentioned at all in the first half of season 4 - well, it almost got mentioned when the Cylons took off with half of their Vipers, but that's not quite the same.)
Remember when not everyone was a fracking Cylon?
Remember when Tigh drank heavily? Good times.
Remember when the Cylons actually hated humanity?
Remember when you actually cared about the characters, because not everyone was a double-crossing jerk? Or at least not an irredeemable, double-crossing jerk.
Remember when Lee wore a uniform instead of a suit?
Remember when Adama was skeptical about all this religious prophecy felgercarb- er, nonsense?
Remember when the road signs on the way to Earth actually kind of made sense?
Remember when you actually cared enough to make time to watch the show?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to rewatch the first two seasons. You know, when it was a good show.

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