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| Originally Posted by f86sabre How do you feel about Richard Hatch being involved? |
For a man who has been in prison for such an extended period of time, he’s extremely well tanned. Must have been incarcerated in that hellish beach prison.
but seriously, he’s fine. his performance doesn’t stick out for good or bad.
They mention those prisoners had been sentenced to hard labor!
… uh, oh yeah… i wonder if they snuck that line into explain Richard Hatch’s leathery hide… i like to make fun of the overtanned…
Man, fuck that.
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| Originally Posted by Pop Zeus … uh, oh yeah… i wonder if they snuck that line into explain Richard Hatch’s leathery hide… i like to make fun of the overtanned… |
If they can have Hummers in the Galactica universe I’m sure they can have tan in a can. Just because you live on a prison ship doesn’t mean you have to look like you do.
Hopefully I won’t be too wiped out after I get out of lab tonight, because all I have left is Kobol’s Last Greaming, parts 1 & 2.
I’m firmly with the folks that dig James Callis. The Six/Baltar stuff is working for me. Being able to switch from high drama to low brow comedy at the drop of a hat is indicative of the deft being employed by BSG’s creative staff.
I could see the twist in the ep where the destroy the Cylon asteroid base coming, but I still geeked out for the reveal of the Vipers in the decoy freighter. Good stuff.
Col. Tigh’s my favorite part of the entire show still. I cannot explain why I find him so damn entertaining. Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down had me falling off the couch with its dip into screwball comedy.
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| Originally Posted by devincf (Main Page) The truth is that Battlestar Galactica is a great TV show. I would say that it’s the best scifi show in years, but I honestly don’t know when the last really good scifi show as even on. |
Devin, now you’re just trying to egg them on.
Seriously though, that sorta-review, along with the glowing praise from others here, has convinced me to order the season 1 set from Amazon.
That’s so funny - I swear I didn’t even think of FIREFLY.
I should have, though, since I was thinking that the FX on BSG rip off FIREFLY with the handheld space shots and stuff.
How are the effects? The story sounds really good, so I’m not worried about that. Are they decent? Bad? Does it not really matter that much to the series?
They’re uneven. Sometimes they’re very good, sometimes really shitty. The good news is that the FX only happen in the space scenes, so they’re not integrating FX into live action scenes. I think the dogfights are staged well enough that you don’t mind the FX.
Sounds good. I admit that I steered clear of the show for a lot of the same reasons you did. Sci-Fi just being a dismal graveyard of poorly executed ideas. I do admit, though, that I did kinda like Farscape. Not enough to buy the DVDs, but I enjoyed it the few times I watched it. I pretty much only watch Sci-Fi when they have some gloriously awful movie, or a marathon of giant (insert animal here) movies on, and I’m hungover.
I don’t find the Baltar stuff as irritating as you do, Devin. Its uneven, and somewhat implausible, but Callis sells it. And I like the way they drop Six in and out of the scenes. Some clever direction there sometimes, but I’ve complained about his plot line a bit in the season 2 thread. They can only do the ‘is he crazy or brainwashed? (or something else?)’ for so long before it gets completely ridiculous.
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| Originally Posted by devincf I don’t trust scifi fans for recommendations because they will watch ANYTHING scifi (thus the people who told to watch that Muppet crap FARSCAPE. |
That’s the type of brilliant analysis and reasoning that makes people love you so. Not only have you made it clear previously that you never watched the show beyond a few minutes (if that), but equating the use of puppetry (especially Henson’s work) with garbage is just so mind-blowingly stupid it should have given you a third earhole.
As for watching “anything scifi”… who knows someone like that? I sure don’t. In my experience, big genre fans tend to be more territorial than average, quicker to dismiss shows (or movies) that aren’t “theirs”. Personally, I tend to give sci-fi shows a shot, but I skip a lot more than I watch, and I consider myself a big scifi fan. Painting anyone who likes scifi as slavering addicts who will mindlessly consume any crap fed to them flies in the face of reality, and happens to contradict your recent Serenity editorials. That’s just poor reasoning and lazy thinking.
As for BSG, I’ve never watched it. The SciFi Channel is one reason - most of their stuff is crap, and the decent-to-good shows they’ve made have tended to get cancelled mid-storyline. With BSG’s middling ratings, that seems a decent possibility here as well. The ads also never got me interested, as they all have a washed-out look to them, and the acting looked terrible out of context. So many people expressing positive opinions on it has me considering giving it a shot, and having the guy behind DS9 (the last time Star Trek wasn’t embarassing) working on it is a positive as well.
I assume season 2 continues to entertain?
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| Originally Posted by devincf That’s so funny - I swear I didn’t even think of FIREFLY. I should have, though, since I was thinking that the FX on BSG rip off FIREFLY with the handheld space shots and stuff. |
FX are done by the same folks…
Glad to see the Galactica love. I agree with most of Devin’s assessment, except for the Gaius ‘crap’. Personally, I thought it brought some much needed levity to the show. It would have been a little too dour without him. I’d also like to draw some attention to Presiden Roslin’s character arc, which I thought was exceptionally well done - she goes from being one of the most sypmathetic characters to a cut-throat politician, and McDonnell and the writers sold the transition perfectly.
And btw, the special effects were apparently done by the same company that worked on Firefly. There’s apparently a brief glimpse of a Firefly class ship in the mini-series.
One thing I have to disagree with (regarding the story and this thread), is this:
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| Secondly, the new Galactica came highly recommended from some of the same people who had recommended crap like Farscape and Babylon 5 to me – the kind of junk that makes you realize an awful lot of genre fans just aren’t that discriminating when it comes to scifi on TV |
From my point of view, I could easily substitute this with “Firefly came highly recommended from some of the same people who had recommended crap like Buffy and Angel to me – the kind of junk that makes you realize an awful lot of genre fans just aren’t that discriminating when it comes to scifi/fantasy on TV”. I can’t stand Buffy or Angel, but love Firefly. But I don’t consider Buffy and Angel to be crap, just not to my tastes at all.
Farscape and Babylon 5 (which I’ve only seen a bit of) are not junk. They may not be to your taste, and they certainly are not without their flaws, but they are not junk.
What dissapoints me is that Devin claims to (and usually does, to his credit) disassociate the subject matter from the execution of the subject matter - i.e. judging a film / tv program for how well it succeeds at telling its story, as opposed to the type of story being told or the nature of the story (example - Fantastic Four). In this case though, I feel that Devin is criticizing these shows based more on taste, and is allowing that to override any objective appraisal.
Case in point:
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| I don’t trust scifi fans for recommendations because they will watch ANYTHING scifi (thus the people who told to watch that Muppet crap FARSCAPE or the nerd wank of BABYLON 5) |
The dislike of the presence of puppets does not make the show ‘crap’ any more than the presence of elves and orcs makes Lord of the Rings crap. This reminds me of the Oscar show held by the BBC back in 2002, where one of their guest commentators said something to the effect that stuff like Lord of the Rings had no place winning awards because it had people with pointy ears in it. That kind of assessment is just plain wrong.
I realize that Devin will, undoubtedly, maintain that these shows are objectively and unquestionably crap, in which case I’ll just have to simply disagree. I do agree that Galactica has revatilized sci-fi by moving it away from the ‘stagey’ and somewhat theatrical feel that has been prevalent in a lot of sci-fi by making things grittier. Still, I fail to see how that makes it better, any more than making something ‘darker’ makes it better. They’re just different styles of storytelling.
Apologies for (sort of) derailing this thread, but given that the comments I’m addressing are relevant to this thread, it seemed to be the appropriate place to comment. This is not meant to be some kind of ‘attack’ on Devin btw; He is now unquestionably the backbone of this site and is doing a damn fine job. Although I probably agree with his views only half the time, he usually explains himself well enough when it comes to the things I disagree with. Which is why I felt compelled to comment here - I feel that his statements are not justified.
Fair enough. I bought the first FARSCAPE DVD - I couldn’t get through all the three or four episodes. It was like having Horatio Sanz shit in my mouth. BABYLON 5 features these characters
I believe that says it all.
Finished.
Huge holy shit moment for me when Boomer made her move on the bridge. Resisting the urge to spoil myself.
I’ve got a really goddamned awful feeling I’ll be dropping $50 ten more goddamned episodes.
If I was Ron Moore I’d be damn near gloating that after getting booted off of Trek, that I turned around and made something as relevant and engaging in under two seasons as the very best Trek has offered up in 40 friggin years.
But I’m petty like that.
I also find it really interesting, that if Firefly hadn’t been greenlit for Fox, we wouldn’t have gotten this BSG. Weird.
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| Originally Posted by devincf Fair enough. I bought the first FARSCAPE DVD - I couldn’t get through all the three or four episodes. It was like having Horatio Sanz shit in my mouth. |
For what it’s worth, the first season of Farscape is quite poor. I almost gave up on it during the first half of the first season. It only started to pick up towards the end of the first season, and it never looked back. But, if you absolutely despised it from the get go, then it’s unlikely you’ll get into it during the later seasons either…
Farscape was lotsa laffs. What does it matter if they used puppets? It’s not as if non-puppet characters in other shows are real people, they’re as fictional as Pilot and Sparky.
It’s weird for a fan of a show with these people on it to make fun of Babylon 5 because of the character makeup.
Oh well. Tastes are subjective.
Anyway, Battlestar Galactica: I love that show, even if it gets a little mystical and weird in spots. There is no end to the misery and pain these people are put through.
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| Originally Posted by devincf Fair enough. I bought the first FARSCAPE DVD - I couldn’t get through all the three or four episodes. |
While I’d say the pilot was very good, the 2nd episode was probably the worst of the entire series, and the show doesn’t really find its footing until a few more episodes in. In that respect, it’s similar to many shows. Buffy and Angel have 1st seasons that are largely unwatchable. The Simpsons 1st season is borderline horrifying. While IMO Farscape is the best scifi series I’ve seen, I can’t disagree with a tepid reaction to the early episodes.
If you ever decide to try Farscape again (I think Nick would agree it’s worth it), you might check out the last set of season 1 (or I think it’s in syndication now). It’s essentially a 4-parter that revs up the serial storyline that would fuel the show’s entire run. If you didn’t like that, the series would definitely not be for you.
But you would miss out on the improved puppets in season 2…
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| Originally Posted by devincf It was like having Horatio Sanz shit in my mouth. |
I’m afraid to ask how you know what that’s like…