BattleStar-eyed wonder

[evay]

Originally Posted by Zeke

Picture for a moment a Trek series as glutted with sex as BSG is. Can there be any doubt that it would be reviled as pandering to the lowest common denominator?

Isn't that one of the common complaints about ENT, as your own link proved? It certainly pissed me off that they made the ship's Vulcan into the Show's Babe.

I guess all it takes to deal with sexuality is show everybody screwing and never look at the consequences; it's not like sex means anything, after all.

::scratches head:: Okay, who's had sex on BSG? and what happened afterwards?


Chief and Boomer: in the context of a loving relationship. She was outed as a Cylon agent. She died.

Helo and Sharon: sort of in the context of a loving relationship. She's pregnant. Helo takes responsibility. Kid is born and must be coped with.

Kara and Lee, sort of: Aborted drunken tryst between friends.

Kara and her underwear model: eventually in the context of a relationship, as they get married.

Lee and Dee: eventually in the context of a loving relationship.

Chief and Cally: married, or at least partnered, and she's pregnant.

The Tighs: married. Very twisted relationship. Ellen sleeps around, and is one of the show's secondary villains.

Dee and Billy: dating.

Baltar: Complete and utter tramp, who will sleep with humans, Cylons, battered women, and chip-generated fantasies. Also the show's villain, a total scumbag and vile coward.

Six/Gina: Manipulating Cylons. Show's villains.


Did I miss anyone? As I'm seeing it, all the positive sex is more or less in healthy relationships between adults, and all the people who are running around screwing anyone are -- gasp! -- the bad guys, whom the show reviles. Kara is not celebrated for her drunken grope of Lee.

You know what I don't see? The endless goddamn soap opera they made of Trip and T'Pol. There's no will they/won't they, no coy withdrawals, no genital-teasing. The Siren is a Siren, and acts like one. The officers are competent and dress appropriately for their duties.

Moore is completely flying by the seat of his pants. The Cylons can do whatever's necessary for the plot because they're mysterious. Maybe "they have a plan," but no one has any idea what it is. And why should they? Their fans don't care.

have you listened to the three-part writers' meeting podcasts? Maybe the writers don't know, but they are spending a lot of time thinking about it. They're not just churning ahead blindly. They acknowledge the corners they could paint themselves into. I don't mind that Moore doesn't have his plan worked out yet. The writers don't have a frakking clue what's going on on "Lost" either, and that show regularly makes the Top 10. (not that I watch it -- just making the analogy.)


I cheerfully acknowledge BSG's faults. Moore screws up his own continuity, and made an ENORMOUS error in having Roslin ban abortion. And it's NOT Trek; it doesn't celebrate the best we could be and hold it up as a goal. (and you cannot accuse me of not supporting Trek in general or ENT specifically, considering all the work I did on my support page over S3 and S4.) But I also recognize good writing when I see it.

[Burt]

Originally Posted by evay

The writers don't have a frakking clue what's going on on "Lost" either, and that show regularly makes the Top 10. (not that I watch it -- just making the analogy.)

Slightly changing the subject, even though I know it's not what you meant. But, lordy has anyone watched Lost? I mean I can watch most TV shows. Really. Anyone that can sit down and watch 'The Web of Fear' (Doctor Who 1st Doctor), enjoy it AND, not find people walking around in huge bee suits silly - well lets just say that no matter how 'bad' Enterprise, Voyager, BSG and all other sci-fi shows get they'll never be at that level.
But Lost? Yes, it has about a zillion great ideas.
The monster, random animals that shouldn't be there, The hidden bases, The countdown thingy, The others, The numbers, The chance meetings, The boy, The French women, The illness and everything else.
And what happens..?
Zero.
No point is ever explained. No-one ever seems to react how any normal person would to these events. No plots are uncovered. I watch an episode and something big happens at the end of it, and you think 'Wow! Now that will be explained next episode! They wouldn't just forget about that, would they!?' But they do. It would be like Buffy finding Dark Willow killing Warren. And then the next episode being about something totally different. I DON'T CARE ABOUT SUN'S CABBAGE PATCH! I just wanna know about the numbers!
I've watched the first series. And I've just finished watching the second. I was so bored. The thing that keeps me going on Buffy, Angel, 24 (And Series 3 Of Enterprise) was the plot. Finding small bits of info thoughout, building up the picture, understanding more and more as you go along. I know some stuff needs to be kept hidden till the end, but with Lost it feels like it's everything!
The problem with Lost is it's based around 'THE SECRET-tm'. That one big idea. No-one knows what it is -either they've all been taken by aliens, or there're in purgatory- whatever. The thing is, the writers can't tell us what it is. Cos then the mystery will be gone, So I'm guessing I'll have to wait till the very end to find out.
There was a big cliff-hanger at the end of series two. One of them 'This will change everything bits'. But knowing this show, everyone will have forgot about it by next series.

[Zeke]

evay, I'm ready to admit when I've been nailed, and you have nailed me. I didn't think that "consequences" comment through at all. I still think Jammer's wrong that BSG has any sort of special maturity where sex is concerned, but the charge I made is unfair, and I'll remember that.

I doubt we'll ever see eye to eye about T/T, though. Will-they-won't-they is how the majority of TV romances work (look at Apollo and Starbuck). I think S4's arc would have been the last of that -- if the show had been able to continue, we'd have seen T/T settle into something like Tom and B'Elanna, but more central because of the characters' importance. I don't like "Harbinger" any more than you do; I guess the reason it doesn't bother me as much is that I was expecting T/T practically from the word go. When I talked to Thinkey after "Broken Bow," she was dead convinced that those two would be the show's big couple, and so I kept an eye out for it and ended up liking the idea.

Finally, the fact that I don't think BSG is more mature than Trek about sex doesn't mean I think Trek is mature about it. That idea would always have been dubious, but it was eradicated for good in the decon chamber. (Hmm, guess decon did do something.)

[evay]

I appreciate your fair-mindedness -- can't ask for more than that. I agree with you that Jammer's wrong, and we can agree to disagree about T/T.

[Chancellor Valium]

Um, Zeke, the new Doctor Who is about as depressing as walking in a field of pansies in the bright sunshine with Eddie, the central computer of the Heart of Gold [provided you added legs for him/it]. RNT even designed it specifically to be 'upbeat' and have a 'positive' air. Just thought I'd say that first of all

Secondly: Most Star Trek is fairly formulaic and dull, IMO. DS9 being the exception in that it broke the mould rather by admitting - SHOCK! HORROR! That the galaxy was not starkly divided between 'Goodies' and 'Baddies', and that CONTROVERSY! HERESY! - the Federation was not whiter than white (they'd been buying black-market Daz - always buy the retail version, folks...). Seriously. Single episode adventure, the Glorious Federation Triumphs, move on. Occasonal two-parters, but They All Live Happily Ever After at the end of the episode. All right, it's not quite so bad in VOY, but it still happens. In DS9 characters do develop, at least...The most exciting main-character event to happen in TNG was that Tasha Yar died, right at the beginning. Ooo.

Anyhow.

One of the great reasons for liking BSG for me is that it's learnt all the good lessons from B5 - or at least pretends pretty well - without some of the pre-DS9 "whiter-than-white Earth" thing (and better dialogue - is there a single first-season episode where Sinclair doesn't mention something like "this could destabilise the very foundation of this station - peace.", owtte?)

Oh, and am I the only one who finds Baltar's way of speechifying an amusing parody of Chairman Blair?

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Chancellor Valium

Um, Zeke, the new Doctor Who is about as depressing as walking in a field of pansies in the bright sunshine with Eddie, the central computer of the Heart of Gold [provided you added legs for him/it]. RNT even designed it specifically to be 'upbeat' and have a 'positive' air.

Perhaps compared to earlier Doctor Who series, but it's still darker than most Trek. The Doctor (Eccleston more than Tennant) has such a deep sadness to him now that he's the last Time Lord; it doesn't often show, but it's always there. And the nature of the series allows more characters to die, because most places the Doctor goes, he doesn't come back.

I have been a little annoyed with the overly convenient endings of some episodes. "The Doctor Dances" was one thing because the Doctor exulted in the fact that "everyone lives" for once, but since then we've had "New Earth" and "The Idiot's Lantern" with similar too-easy endings. The Tenth Doctor's only really costly victory (that I've seen so far) was in "The Age of Steel," though you must admit that one was pretty grim.

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by Zeke

Perhaps compared to earlier Doctor Who series, but it's still darker than most Trek. The Doctor (Eccleston more than Tennant) has such a deep sadness to him now that he's the last Time Lord; it doesn't often show, but it's always there. And the nature of the series allows more characters to die, because most places the Doctor goes, he doesn't come back.

I have been a little annoyed with the overly convenient endings of some episodes. "The Doctor Dances" was one thing because the Doctor exulted in the fact that "everyone lives" for once, but since then we've had "New Earth" and "The Idiot's Lantern" with similar too-easy endings. The Tenth Doctor's only really costly victory (that I've seen so far) was in "The Age of Steel," though you must admit that one was pretty grim.

Not really. It's all sentiment sans emotion - and in the end feels like little more than sap, IMO.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Chancellor Valium

Secondly: Most Star Trek is fairly formulaic and dull, IMO. DS9 being the exception in that it broke the mould rather by admitting - SHOCK! HORROR! That the galaxy was not starkly divided between 'Goodies' and 'Baddies', and that CONTROVERSY! HERESY! - the Federation was not whiter than white

Wow. Obviously you and I just look at stories in different ways. TOS and early-to-mid TNG wasn't about the "Star Trek universe," it was, as TMP stated, about the "Human Adventure." The Federation and the constructions around it and the characters in it were very often just means to an end. They were trying to say something and they used the Trek universe as the vehicle to do it. Sure, sometimes they'd have the fun scifi plot or humorous plot, but very often it was supposed to be black and white. The Enterprise crew was supposed to be the good guys, who helped the helpless and righted wrongs and hopefully said something to you the viewer while doing it.

As Star Trek grew, the writers became more interested in the universe they were creating and hence started to tell more stories about the universe and about the characters. These are still good stories, and I have enjoyed them, but I don't watch them in the same way as I watch the old Trek.

About BSG: I have tried to watch the show. I watched a few random episodes in the middle of the first season, and recently I Netflixed the miniseries, but honestly, it's not doing much for me. I could keep watching it, but I'm not seriously inclined to.