I am officially convinced that Battlestar Galactica is being written & produced by refugee chimpanzees.
No, seriously. Never in my life have I watched a better example of a television series throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks on a weekly basis than what we’ve gotten from Galactica. We’re talking major, industrial grade amounts of crap here, people. The kind of tonnage that you could only get by reassembling the simian cast of Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp and tossing in Clyde from the Clint Eastwood movies and feeding them a whole lot of laxatives.
I’ve wanted to like Galactica from the start but the series started contradicting itself and the universe it was trying to create in the bloody pilot. Note to producers: if you have a great plot inconsistency in your series, try not to feature said inconsistency in the opening titles. The inconsistency I’m singling out (because there are a helluva lot to pick from) is the inexplicable downgrading of the humanoid Cylons from the pilot to the rest of the series. Every week, we have a shot of Baltar (James Callas) being shielded from a nuclear blast by what we now call Caprica Six (Tricia Helfer). She doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch but before long, we’re capping the humanoid “skin job” Cylons like they’re shuffling zombies in George Romero film. But that’s not enough – we go on later in the series to show that you can kill a Cylon by ejecting them out an airlock only to then show Boomer (Grace Park) functioning perfectly well in a vacuum aboard a Cylon base ship. But don’t make the mistake that possibly Boomer & Caprica Six are some kind of super-Cylons – Boomer takes a bullet just like anyone else and dies (at least, as much as any of the Cylons actually “died” at that point). The Cylons really need to outsource their work to Skynet – at least it knows how to build humanoids that can take a pounding!
I have had to tolerate fans and even national publications trying to present this series as “the best fraking show on television” for years now and, I hate to tell you, it’s just not that great. Edward James Olmos, an actor that I enjoy and greatly respect, has spoken in glowing terms about the quality of the series and how he never imagined he’s be doing science fiction on cable. To be certain, the actors love the series and why wouldn’t they? The series is a succession of actor-moments, scenes where actors get to scream, cry, rend the fabric of their clothing and generally chew more scenery than Vincent Price ever could. But a collection of acting moments does not a good series make. Granted, you’re working within the confines of science fiction, you’ve got people confined to space ships on the run from evil robots so there’s some limit to the amount of “reality” you can truly expect. Having said that, you expect people who worked within the confines of the Star Trek universe, arguably one of the most defined fictional universes in the history of entertainment, to be able to set up some basic rules and stick to them. Its one thing to find a way around an old, established rule like Trek‘s old “can’t send a transporter beam through shields” and quite another to play fast and loose with the basic building blocks of your own universe. If the producers don’t care enough to color inside the lines, why should the viewers give a damn about anything that happens between the opening titles and the end credits?
I’m not just railing about this because of the problems I’ve seen during the run of the series. The producers themselves talked about not really knowing what the hell they were doing in the commentary for a recent episode. We’re in the home stretch for this series and viewers should rightfully expect that the producers have at least a vague idea what they’re going to do in the final episodes. You’re at a point where you don’t have the luxury of a toss off episode; every episode has got to build towards your climax. So why, pray tell, would the producers suddenly realize that their original choice for the ‘final’ Cylon contradicted previous storylines? First of all, I wonder why they just started worrying about this now when they’ve been content to contradict themselves since the pilot but more importantly, how do they not pay attention to the plots they’ve already produced?
The answer is simple: pure laziness. Their solution: pull an answer out of their asses. At this point, it looks like they’re having to reach so far up their own rectums the producers are in danger of feeling a strange tickle in the backs of their collective throats.
It’s not like Galactica is complete waste. The series is at its best when the shooting starts, as seen by the recent two part mutiny storyline. Yes, we had to have some of the series’ trademarked convoluted storytelling to get us up to that point but there were many, many ways to get there that made more sense and would have felt less like treading water for a few hours. So many episodes of Galactica play out like extended teasers, just begging you to blow another hour of your time in hopes that something, anything, might happen. As evidence, just look at the episode that followed the mutiny – more tossing stuff at the audience that only serves to frame something else down the road. While you need to set up the events that are going to happen later in the series, a good series will do that by weaving those plot developments into an actual story, instead of just stringing them all together for 42 minutes and calling it a day.
The series is also unrelentingly grim. Even big fans of the series have told me that they have to get themselves into the right frame of mind to watch the series every week, many of them recording it to watch later instead of viewing it during its live broadcast. As one fan told me, she had to make sure to watch the series at a time when it wouldn’t make her want to immediately slit her wrists. The darkness of the series combined with the general mood in the world at the moment makes it hard to gain a lot of escapist enjoyment out of Galactica.
For that reason alone, I can’t say I’m surprised that the decision was made to bring Galactica to an end as even the most incontinent of monkeys will run out of feces eventually. I’ll still be watching, hopeful that the series will come to some sort of satisfactory end but tempering that hope with the realization that disappointment has always lurked just around the corner with this series.
I’m looking at the prequel series, Caprica, with a wary eye as well. Let’s see, Galactica without the action. I don’t really see the appeal here but the fans seem stoked about it, so I’ll give it a chance. But it doesn’t get the same amount rope Galactica did from me and, I suspect, from the rest of the audience, either. Say what you will about the Stargate franchise (and God knows it has it’s own set of major problems) but it at least delivers on it’s promises 90% of the time, which is a lot more than can be said for Galactica. One wonders what kind of series we’d have gotten if the producers spent as much time on the series itself as they seem to on the animated vanity card at the end of each episode (often the best part of any Galactica episode).
So, as the series stumbles towards the finish line, I have to wonder what the ultimate fate of “the best fraking show on television” is going to be. Like many serialized series, it’s popular now and everyone is willing to sing the praises of the self-indulgent train wreck that has spewed onto television screens around the world for the past 6 years or so. But when it comes time to look back at the finished product as a whole, how will people react? I suspect time will not be kind to Galactica as the realization sets in that this was not some grand, epic story told over the years but a slipshod collection of half thought out ideas, none of them ever realized as well as they could have been while others should never have made it to the screen. Only the performances of actors like James Callis, Mary McDonnell, James Hogan and Edward James Olmos will endure, as they should, rising above the material that surrounded them.
