The Eve of BSG: Season 4 (The Final Season)

[laceblade]

A lot of people on my LJ friends list found me through my frequent posts about Battlestar Galactica, mostly during the end of season 2, as well as season 3. I like blogging about TV (You need look no further than my many posts about Buffy and Angel!), so I feel kind of obligated to continue with BSG.

The premiere for season 4 is coming up this Friday, and I've already turned down two offers to hang out with people so I can watch this (I'll probably end up doing something anyway.....we'll see!). But I can't deny that my feelings are mixed.

All over LJ, especially my favored battlestar_blog community, there are many posts with people trying to guess the Final Cylon, various characters' roles, and what the ending will be like.

I choose not to partake in this because there isn't really a point. While the big reveals of plot points were exciting in fresh in the mini-series, season one, and the first half of season two, they get increasingly coupled with a WTF feeling - one that things aren't entirely making sense. And that's because they aren't. To me, there's no point in predicting the Cylon stuff, because it probably isn't going to make sense. I hope I'm wrong.

I keep reading newspaper articles and interviews with writers, in which it's a huge revelation that they're making stuff up as they go along, that the story has not been decided from the beginning, that the "...And they have a plan" in the opening credits doesn't necessarily mean that the writers have a plan. Usually, in the various articles, this is presented in a "Gee, what do you know!" fashion. I don't know about other fans, but my personal feeling is, "Well, no shit."


I hate the Cylon reveal of Tigh, Tory, Anders, and the Chief. I hate it a lot, and I hope it's a fake-out. All four of them were resistance leaders on New Caprica, and I hope they all have chips in their heads or something weird. Because it does not make sense that they have been the Cylons all along. For one thing, Anders and Tory didn't even exist when this story began - the only reason Billy left the show was because the actor decided that he was hot shit, so while there may have been a plan for Anders, there certainly wasn't for Tory.

It also makes no sense that Colonel Tigh would be a Cylon, given that he is so old, and has known both his wife and Bill Adama for so many years, not to mention making a reputation for himself in the military. Cylons-looking-like humans is supposed to be relatively new in this universe, right?

I just.....ugh. It really didn't make sense to me. I also don't like the show having devoted an episode to the Chief being all, "Am I a Cylon?" (And yes, I am still mad about them ripping off the season 2 West Wing episode "Noel" in a very shoddy manner!) only to reveal that no, he isn't. He's just effed up.

I like when this show deals with the psychological issues of genocide, of rape, of questioning everything you've ever known. I don't like when they hand-wave and expect everyone to believe it for no reason.

I'm hoping for season 4 to make me feel like the mini-series did, like the beginning of season 3 did, like season 1 and the first half of season 2 did.

I want to love Lee Adama again - I want him to be conflicted between his father and President Roslin, between legal ideals that can never be achieved and the gritty realism that makes him such a good Viper pilot. I do like that there was a glimmer of this at the end of season 3, at the trial. I just want there to be more of the old!Lee. I never understood why he and Dee got together. At all.

I want Starbuck to be bad-ass and cocky and vulnerable, and not starry-eyed and mystical.


I never blogged about "Razor" because, while I found it enjoyable enough, it didn't really live up to the hype, in my mind. There were some interesting things, and a confirmation of one relationship that I DEFINITELY called a long time back, but otherwise....it just didn't sweep me off my feet like other episodes and arcs of the show have in the past.

So, on Friday, I will watch, with both fear and excitement. If I watch from my house, I might live-blog it. I'm just hoping that I will have lots of gushing and good things to say.

Comments

[snowystingray.livejournal.com]

I stopped following BSG after the first season, but I just have to say -- MAN! They have some good advertising. On Tues/Thurs I have class during lunch hours for campus dining, so I have to eat in my room, and usually I channel surf to keep myself entertained for ten minutes or so. This week they've had BSG reruns on SciFi during my lunch hour (lunch fifteen, whatever), and after a thirty second ad for the new season I'm like gripping my face, all "WHO IS THE LAST CYLON??!!" (Thanks, flist, for keeping me generally up to date with the plot, even if I don't really watch the show.) I'm... almost tempted to watch it again. The thing is, though, that I was then inspired enough to sit through some of the episode before I had to go to class, and I remembered why I stopped watching: because I really don't like any of the characters, Six and Baltar excepted. And maybe Helo. Mmmm. Oh, and I did like Tigh as well (and him as a Cylon is just total WTF, I agree). Okay, uh, I guess I did like some characters, then, but I just remember a lot of overwhelming annoyance and headdesking at most people. But... yeah. We'll see...

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

I KNOW, sometimes I feel like the advertising is what keeps me roped in. Like, "Ehh, maybe I don't really feel like watching this week's episode.....OMG.....WHO IS THE LAST CYLON? WHY IS THAT IMAGE IN THE TEASER? WHAT WILL HAPPEN, I MUST KNOW!!!"

I think what I like most of all about BSG is that it makes complete fangirls out of a lot of guys that I know.

For me, the squee is worth watching the headdesking. I really feel like it was a tightly-written and good show in the beginning, and kind of unravels as time goes on. I still have hope that season 4 will tighten everything up again.