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Jun. 28th, 2009 02:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liptonrm_backupOkay, so it's a little after 2AM and I was lying in bed thinking about Battlestar Galactica and the things I would've done differently if I had been in charge of plotting the course of the show. And then I realized I had to get up and write it all down or I was going to forget it all. So here I am.
Since, you know, I apparently retell TV shows in my spare time. Everybody needs a hobby I guess.
And FYI, I still haven't seen the last half of season four so I'm not going to talk about that. I will not analyze that which I can't be arsed to watch. *pinkie swears*
My biggest beef with BSG is the decided lack of worldbuilding that happened throughout the entire run of the series. We got just enough of a view into Colonial society to know that things were different yet similar but we never really got a good look at anything. We were told the most about its political structure, which can be insightful, but politics alone does not a society define.
So that would've been my major focus if I had been involved with the show, giving the viewers a better idea of what a normal life was like. I would've toned down the interminable and interchangeable political dramas and highlighted personal drama more.
The more I look back on BSG the more splotchy it becomes. There was always so much going on that was never actually mentioned on screen and we, the viewers, were just expected to absorb it all magically through the aether while what we actually saw was yet another Quorum meeting. I would've liked to have seen some of what was going on behind the scenes. I think it would've been really fascinating, and damn good TV.
Anyway, here's the barebones of what I would've changed in the first three seasons. I wouldn't touch Season One or the first half of Season Two (up through 'Pegasus'). During the back half of Season Two I would've cut out a lot of the angsty stuff with Lee and Kara and would've spent more time with Gina!Six and the group of peace lovers she hooked up with. I would not have had Gaius Baltar run for president but rather a nice, seemingly naive sort who Tom Zarek recruited and thinks he can control. Instead of only seeing the fleet through the military's eyes I would have used other characters, maybe like the engineer who was forcibly drafted on 'Pegasus.' I also would have spent more time dealing with the difficulties of incorporating Pegasus into the fleet and the different problems that would arise.
I would, actually, end Season Two in the same way with the debate about settling or not settling and Roslin's election shenanigans and Gina blowing up Cloud Nine. But I wouldn't have done the time jump. Yeah, it was awesome to watch the Cylons march in and see how drastically all the characters had changed but, frankly, it never went anywhere storywise and I think it should have. So I would spend Season Three dealing with the schism in the fleet between those who want to settle and those who don't. I'd have Lee kind of lose his shit and go off hunting Cylons in Pegasus. And I'd have Kara be more ambivalent about settling and marriage, but not because she's really in love with Lee but rather because she's fucked up and she's also starting to be motivated by a deep sense of wrongness about it all because she's already starting to become the person who will lead them to Earth.
Also, I think I'd introduce a new Cylon. Perhaps one of the Final Five, perhaps not, but he/she/it would be living with the settlers knowing of her Cylonosity and yet feeling very unsure about everything. She'd be a good thread to use to tie in what is going on over on Cylon-occupied Caprica and the ways that Boomer and Six are trying to move the Cylons away from their need to kill all humans.
I'd end the season with the Cylons appearing on New Caprica, maybe because Lee inadvertantly lead them there, maybe because New!Cylon chose to betray them or maybe because they found Gina's nuclear radiation beacon. Or maybe I'd make New Caprica half a season and have the Cylons show up after the midwinter hiatus. I'll have to work that out.
Either way, I'd keep a lot of the Underground stuff, though possibly not the stuff with Leoben and Kara because I found it to be both bewildering and deeply disturbing. Thouh there would have to be something between them because Kara does still have her Destiny and Leoben does still want to pull the wings off of butterflies.
After the fleet returns and everyone gets off the planet I'd have things be different. And not just for a couple episodes and then everyone is back to normal and back in their old jobs. There would need to be some more longterm consequences, the kinds of things that couldn't be solved by a couple rounds of boxing. I'd definitely show the cracks in Cally and Chief's marriage (though I would not wimp out and make Hot Dog the babydaddy). And Kara would start going off on strange, solitary missions and she'd come back with some new piece of the Earth puzzle though she's still not sure what she's looking for.
I'd probably still have Kara die. Maybe. I'll have to think about that. I definitely would not let the show get bogged down in the Love Quadrangle of Doom. I haven't really worked all the rest of it out yet, but I'll figure it out.
One thing I would definitely do is explore Colonial religion more extensively. Yeah, Roslin threw around scripture and Kara had her idols but Moore&Cohorts failed at showing how that religion affected individual lives. Yeah, they had Crazy Jesus!Baltar (who I would definitely not have, especially since it never went anywhere) and the Cylons talked about God a lot but it never felt like any of the religions had any depth. If one of the deep schisms between Cylons and Colonials is religious then we should know what the Colonial religion is like. But, really, that falls directly under the category of how hard Moore failed at worldbuilding.
It takes more than cutting the corners off of paper to make a society is all I'm saying.
But most importantly I'd know where I was going and what I was doing and I'd stop making shit up as I went along. If you put in the credits that the Cylons have a plan then the Cylons should actually have a plan. And it has to be something more than the vague declarations of a Cylonified Ellen Tigh. Moore was just so focused on his precious political machinations that he forgot to tell a coherent story.
You know, Supernatural might not be Great Television but at least it always knows what it is and generally where it's going (or rather, what drives its storytelling engine). If more creators would actually learn the lessons of The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer then we wouldn't have to watch entertaining shows get buried in their own self importance and/or continuity. And then there wouldn't be any more TV shows that disappoint me in the long run. *sighs*
And now it's after 3AM and I really need to go to bed. Let's all hope that I don't have any more stunning revelations between now and when I fall asleep. *crosses fingers*
Also, I hope this makes sense. The later it is the more incoherent I become (and, strangely, the more polysyllabic words I tend to throw around). Please feel free to add your own ideas about what BSG could've done better, or what it did really well, or whether I should bow down and beg Ron Moore's forgiveness. Because retelling TV shows is no fun when you're doing it in a vacuum. *nods*
Since, you know, I apparently retell TV shows in my spare time. Everybody needs a hobby I guess.
And FYI, I still haven't seen the last half of season four so I'm not going to talk about that. I will not analyze that which I can't be arsed to watch. *pinkie swears*
My biggest beef with BSG is the decided lack of worldbuilding that happened throughout the entire run of the series. We got just enough of a view into Colonial society to know that things were different yet similar but we never really got a good look at anything. We were told the most about its political structure, which can be insightful, but politics alone does not a society define.
So that would've been my major focus if I had been involved with the show, giving the viewers a better idea of what a normal life was like. I would've toned down the interminable and interchangeable political dramas and highlighted personal drama more.
The more I look back on BSG the more splotchy it becomes. There was always so much going on that was never actually mentioned on screen and we, the viewers, were just expected to absorb it all magically through the aether while what we actually saw was yet another Quorum meeting. I would've liked to have seen some of what was going on behind the scenes. I think it would've been really fascinating, and damn good TV.
Anyway, here's the barebones of what I would've changed in the first three seasons. I wouldn't touch Season One or the first half of Season Two (up through 'Pegasus'). During the back half of Season Two I would've cut out a lot of the angsty stuff with Lee and Kara and would've spent more time with Gina!Six and the group of peace lovers she hooked up with. I would not have had Gaius Baltar run for president but rather a nice, seemingly naive sort who Tom Zarek recruited and thinks he can control. Instead of only seeing the fleet through the military's eyes I would have used other characters, maybe like the engineer who was forcibly drafted on 'Pegasus.' I also would have spent more time dealing with the difficulties of incorporating Pegasus into the fleet and the different problems that would arise.
I would, actually, end Season Two in the same way with the debate about settling or not settling and Roslin's election shenanigans and Gina blowing up Cloud Nine. But I wouldn't have done the time jump. Yeah, it was awesome to watch the Cylons march in and see how drastically all the characters had changed but, frankly, it never went anywhere storywise and I think it should have. So I would spend Season Three dealing with the schism in the fleet between those who want to settle and those who don't. I'd have Lee kind of lose his shit and go off hunting Cylons in Pegasus. And I'd have Kara be more ambivalent about settling and marriage, but not because she's really in love with Lee but rather because she's fucked up and she's also starting to be motivated by a deep sense of wrongness about it all because she's already starting to become the person who will lead them to Earth.
Also, I think I'd introduce a new Cylon. Perhaps one of the Final Five, perhaps not, but he/she/it would be living with the settlers knowing of her Cylonosity and yet feeling very unsure about everything. She'd be a good thread to use to tie in what is going on over on Cylon-occupied Caprica and the ways that Boomer and Six are trying to move the Cylons away from their need to kill all humans.
I'd end the season with the Cylons appearing on New Caprica, maybe because Lee inadvertantly lead them there, maybe because New!Cylon chose to betray them or maybe because they found Gina's nuclear radiation beacon. Or maybe I'd make New Caprica half a season and have the Cylons show up after the midwinter hiatus. I'll have to work that out.
Either way, I'd keep a lot of the Underground stuff, though possibly not the stuff with Leoben and Kara because I found it to be both bewildering and deeply disturbing. Thouh there would have to be something between them because Kara does still have her Destiny and Leoben does still want to pull the wings off of butterflies.
After the fleet returns and everyone gets off the planet I'd have things be different. And not just for a couple episodes and then everyone is back to normal and back in their old jobs. There would need to be some more longterm consequences, the kinds of things that couldn't be solved by a couple rounds of boxing. I'd definitely show the cracks in Cally and Chief's marriage (though I would not wimp out and make Hot Dog the babydaddy). And Kara would start going off on strange, solitary missions and she'd come back with some new piece of the Earth puzzle though she's still not sure what she's looking for.
I'd probably still have Kara die. Maybe. I'll have to think about that. I definitely would not let the show get bogged down in the Love Quadrangle of Doom. I haven't really worked all the rest of it out yet, but I'll figure it out.
One thing I would definitely do is explore Colonial religion more extensively. Yeah, Roslin threw around scripture and Kara had her idols but Moore&Cohorts failed at showing how that religion affected individual lives. Yeah, they had Crazy Jesus!Baltar (who I would definitely not have, especially since it never went anywhere) and the Cylons talked about God a lot but it never felt like any of the religions had any depth. If one of the deep schisms between Cylons and Colonials is religious then we should know what the Colonial religion is like. But, really, that falls directly under the category of how hard Moore failed at worldbuilding.
It takes more than cutting the corners off of paper to make a society is all I'm saying.
But most importantly I'd know where I was going and what I was doing and I'd stop making shit up as I went along. If you put in the credits that the Cylons have a plan then the Cylons should actually have a plan. And it has to be something more than the vague declarations of a Cylonified Ellen Tigh. Moore was just so focused on his precious political machinations that he forgot to tell a coherent story.
You know, Supernatural might not be Great Television but at least it always knows what it is and generally where it's going (or rather, what drives its storytelling engine). If more creators would actually learn the lessons of The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer then we wouldn't have to watch entertaining shows get buried in their own self importance and/or continuity. And then there wouldn't be any more TV shows that disappoint me in the long run. *sighs*
And now it's after 3AM and I really need to go to bed. Let's all hope that I don't have any more stunning revelations between now and when I fall asleep. *crosses fingers*
Also, I hope this makes sense. The later it is the more incoherent I become (and, strangely, the more polysyllabic words I tend to throw around). Please feel free to add your own ideas about what BSG could've done better, or what it did really well, or whether I should bow down and beg Ron Moore's forgiveness. Because retelling TV shows is no fun when you're doing it in a vacuum. *nods*
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 05:55 pm (UTC)Like you, I was tremendously satisfied with season 1 and the beginning of season 2 of BSG. My problem with the progression of the show was the loss of character focus.
At the start, I cared about the messed up Adama family dynamics and how Starbuck did and didn't fit into that. Roslin was fascinating. Helo and Sharon had lots of possibility to explore. Tigh and Chief were strong supporting characters. I wasn't sure what to think of Baltar and Six - and it was good to feel uncertain about them.
Where I started to get lost was when they started bouncing around to spend a lot of time on a lot more characters and let the ones I had become committed to fall into the background. It wasn't about the journey of characters I cared about any more. I'm not sure WHAT it was about any more. More politics than anything else, I think.
Like you pointed out, they didn't seem to have a vision and esp. for me, they didn't have a vision for the character arcs. Out of the blue, we learn about Lee's lost fiance with nothing ever leading up to that. Out of the blue, Starbuck is a self-destructive drunk. Out of the blue, we get an episode where Chief is suicidal, and I felt we got no build up to that.
For shows with actual arcs, I honestly don't know how the producers manage when they often don't find out about renewal until so very late in the season. I wish there was a way for networks to decide after 2 years that a show has earned a 5 year contract and just commit to that and no more and no less. Then maybe we'd get coherent storytelling. But that's not the way the business works.