BSG 2004 reunion

[Jayson1]

I also loved the final for both "BSG" and "Lost." I think people who dislike them focus to much on things like some Cylon Plan or mystery stuff on the island instead of what is more important and that is the characters. Granted I actually felt the Cylon goals and island mysteries did hold together for the most part even if they were winging it. Especially when you compare it to something like the mythology episodes of the "X-Files."

Jason

 

[Beagleman]

I also loved the final for both "BSG" and "Lost." I think people who dislike them focus to much on things like some Cylon Plan or mystery stuff on the island instead of what is more important and that is the characters. Granted I actually felt the Cylon goals and island mysteries did hold together for the most part even if they were winging it. Especially when you compare it to something like the mythology episodes of the "X-Files."

Jason

Seconded, both Lost and BSG ended on very personal notes and IMO it worked in both instances.

 

[Reverend]

My recollection is that Lost ended with a literal giant sink plug hole of evil...followed by random "everyone meets in heaven" soft focus ending. I do not class that as a particularly person note for anyone...except perhaps the plughole itself?

 

[DarthPipes]

To me, BSG has become like Lost. A show I watched but one I have no desire to re-watching. They already admitted in the commentary to Battlestar Galactica The Plan that they only said the Cylons had a plan because "it sounded cool." That proves that Moore's did haven't any commitment to the story that he was telling at all. It's so noticeable as the show went on. Characters became Cylons strictly for shock value no matter how illogical it was (Anders, Tigh) or the plot holes it created that they had to try to address (Tyrol and Cally's baby). BSG was a disappointment in the long term because Moore only wanted to write about topical issues and not craft a story.

 

[EnderAKH]

I do not understand this mindset at all. To my knowledge, the only show that ever had a plan that successfully stuck(ish) to the plan was Babylon 5. I'm sure there are a couple more, but that is the only one that comes to mind. Almost every other show in the history of television was told episode by episode. They may have a general idea of things they want to do down the road, but if plans change then plans change. So being mad at 2 shows for running their show like EVERY OTHER TELEVISION show seems hypocritical, no matter what producers may have said at the time.

 

[Reverend]

The difference between this show and all the others that had no plan is that *this* one implied it did. That makes it disingenuous at best, and at worse disrespectful towards it's audience. The comparison to 'Lost' is fairly apt since they both suffer from an over dependence on the "mystery box" model of storytelling. Which is all very interesting and intriguing until you open it and find it's empty.
When any author writes a mystery or intrigue story, there's an implied trust that they know where this is going, that everything will make sense in the end and the pay-off will be worth it. When that trust is abused, it can retroactively tarnish the whole experience.

The net result is that that when one watches it a second time, one can't help but notice every dead-end plot that is set up like it means something but doesn't, every shock turn done just for the sake of being a shock turn. It's an empty, hollow experience, made all the worse by the fact that just about every other element of the show is excellent.

 

[NOVE9]

You guys are taking it way to seriously. It's a TV show not a legal contract. I was in my late teens early 20s when this was on but IIRC I didn't expect "they have a plan" to be anything more than an in world reference. If you enjoyed the show then it doesn't matter. If you let the knowledge that the producers didn't map out every detail 4 years in advance colour you re-watching experience negatively then that's on you not the show.

 

[Jayson1]

To me the only flaw in mystery storytelling is if they establish something and you don't feel like it pays off. I think "Lost" and "Battlestar Galatica" did pay off more often then it didn't. With "Lost" i'm not even sure what early thing that even set up that really needed to be explained in detail. All you need to know is the island is kind of mystical and we got answers to that for the most part in Jacob and the Smoke monster. We find out about the Others,RIchard,Dharma and the characters? I'm not sure what else it is we are missing other than how the island came about but if you answer that you take away all of the mystery and you want to leave somethings for the imagination.
"The Plan" to me seems ovious. The cylons wanted to kill the humans out of revenge and ego that they were somehow superior. Along the way we find out both human and cylon are more alike than different both very flawed people. They did wing some stuff with the cylon revelations and whatnot but I felt most of that stuff worked well. I loved that they got to earth and it was destroyed and some of the characters becoming cylons also worked well. they might have just come up with stuff but at least it was stuff that worked well with what was already established but mostly with both shows the characters were always intresting which should always be the most important thing.

Jason

 

[David cgc]

That proves that Moore's did haven't any commitment to the story that he was telling at all. It's so noticeable as the show went on.

You're assuming the story was about the Cylons and their plan. In the original conception of the show, the Cylons were barely even going to be in it after the Miniseries. I suppose sticking to that plan (so to speak) would've solved two problems, but I don't think there's a huge issue in not having every detail mapped out in advance and set in stone. And, despite the reputation, a surprising amount of stuff was set in stone behind the scenes. If you read the original writer's bible, there's backstory that wasn't even hinted at until near the end of the series, that the writers and actors knew the whole time. Maybe Roslin having lost her entire family after a car accident isn't the kind of thing you value being pre-planned over, say, the Cylon's goal being to create a self-sustaining civilization without the innate barbarism that characterized humanity by doing x, y, and z, though the latter had the benefit of being explicitly stated in the first episode for all of us to hear.

Granted, not everything holds together as well as it could, but I don't think it would've been massively superior if more stuff had been locked in quickly and we, say, lost out on the New Caprica plotline, or all of Helo's character, because they didn't fit with the first draft of the show.

The difference between this show and all the others that had no plan is that *this* one implied it did. That makes it disingenuous at best, and at worse disrespectful towards it's audience.

The Cylons may have had a plan, but the writers were never shy about the fact that they didn't (beyond, I had the impression, of general ideas they didn't go into during interviews for obvious reasons, like what the deal with Earth was). I can't remember if it was season one or early season two, but in one of the podcast commentaries Eick and Moore are talking about how people on forums like this were obsessing over the show not having a five-year-plan and that they were just hacks making things up as they go along, as if that's not what writers do by definition.

 

[Gepard]

The idea that there is some overarching Plan-with-a-capital-P stuck around to the end of the series, it's just it turned out to be God's plan.

If somebody went back and did a special edition of the series and changed just the last line of the precap to something along the lines of They believe there is one true God. And that It has a Plan., the whole thing would track perfectly fine with the rest of the series.

 

[DarthPipes]

The difference between this show and all the others that had no plan is that *this* one implied it did. That makes it disingenuous at best, and at worse disrespectful towards it's audience. The comparison to 'Lost' is fairly apt since they both suffer from an over dependence on the "mystery box" model of storytelling. Which is all very interesting and intriguing until you open it and find it's empty.
When any author writes a mystery or intrigue story, there's an implied trust that they know where this is going, that everything will make sense in the end and the pay-off will be worth it. When that trust is abused, it can retroactively tarnish the whole experience.

The net result is that that when one watches it a second time, one can't help but notice every dead-end plot that is set up like it means something but doesn't, every shock turn done just for the sake of being a shock turn. It's an empty, hollow experience, made all the worse by the fact that just about every other element of the show is excellent.

Yes, to me, BSG ultimately leads nowhere and that doesn't exactly inspire me to watch the show again. I don't think shows have to be mapped out rigorously in advanced. You need flexibility and the right to change your mind. But the writers literally had no plan and it showed. Some of it was just make shit up to be shocking.

Like Anders being a Cylon? Anders was a famous athlete back in the Twelve Colonies. Which means he would have been a well-known athlete in college and would have been recruited out of high school. So how exactly was he a Cylon all along?

On the subject of the series bible, I had read that and knew the plot point about Roslin's family. That was a detail that should have been revealed much earlier in the show.

 

[Tosk]

Like Anders being a Cylon? Anders was a famous athlete back in the Twelve Colonies. Which means he would have been a well-known athlete in college and would have been recruited out of high school. So how exactly was he a Cylon all along?

He was one of the original Cylons, not just another model. Like Saul, who was 'active' long before Anders was.

 

[Jayson1]

Yes, to me, BSG ultimately leads nowhere and that doesn't exactly inspire me to watch the show again. I don't think shows have to be mapped out rigorously in advanced. You need flexibility and the right to change your mind. But the writers literally had no plan and it showed. Some of it was just make shit up to be shocking.

Like Anders being a Cylon? Anders was a famous athlete back in the Twelve Colonies. Which means he would have been a well-known athlete in college and would have been recruited out of high school. So how exactly was he a Cylon all along?

On the subject of the series bible, I had read that and knew the plot point about Roslin's family. That was a detail that should have been revealed much earlier in the show.

I understand what your saying about Anders which can also connect with Saul fighting as a young man with Adama in the first cylon war and Tyrol having a dad with a study. To me though i'm not sure why these are seen as flaws that hurt the show. The final 5 might have been manipulated through the years by God in how they aged over the years since they arrived at the colonies to someday reach the point in time of series at their current ages. I know it's kind of a stretch but it never felt like a death knell to the credibility because some of the stuff they were able to do with them being cylons had some dramatic advantages as well.

Jason

 

[Reverend]

To give another example of how clueless the writing staff was, at the mid-point of the series there was a popular theory that Kara's piano playing father was the mysterious last missing Cylon. I think it was RDM who later admitted that had they heard that early, they would have gone with it because they didn't have a better idea. Indeed, they literally had no idea for that plot thread, they just hand-waved that the "last" model had been murdered at birth due to sibling rivalry...which amounted to a big old pile of nothing.

I understand what your saying about Anders which can also connect with Saul fighting as a young man with Adama in the first cylon war and Tyrol having a dad with a study. To me though i'm not sure why these are seen as flaws that hurt the show. The final 5 might have been manipulated through the years by God in how they aged over the years since they arrived at the colonies to someday reach the point in time of series at their current ages. I know it's kind of a stretch but it never felt like a death knell to the credibility because some of the stuff they were able to do with them being cylons had some dramatic advantages as well.

Jason

"Kind of a stretch"? You must be joking. It the unholy mother of all stretches.
Also, you realise the argument "god did it" is the *literal definition* of a Deus Ex Machina, yes?

 

[Jayson1]

To give another example of how clueless the writing staff was, at the mid-point of the series there was a popular theory that Kara's piano playing father was the mysterious last missing Cylon. I think it was RDM who later admitted that had they heard that early, they would have gone with it because they didn't have a better idea. Indeed, they literally had no idea for that plot thread, they just hand-waved that the "last" model had been murdered at birth due to sibling rivalry...which amounted to a big old pile of nothing.


"Kind of a stretch"? You must be joking. It the unholy mother of all stretches.
Also, you realise the argument "god did it" is the *literal definition* of a Deus Ex Machina, yes?

But God is real in that universe or maybe I should say God's. That is what the head Six and head Baltar ended up being.

Jason

 

[Tosk]

Also, you realise the argument "god did it" is the *literal definition* of a Deus Ex Machina, yes?

"God did it" is not automatically a negative thing. And if you apply the term deus ex machina in the modern usage that implies poor writing, it doesn't apply anyway. The God, god, or gods of BSG are not a last minute addition brought in to solve an unsolvable problem.

 

[Reverend]

"God did it" is not automatically a negative thing. And if you apply the term deus ex machina in the modern usage that implies poor writing, it doesn't apply anyway. The God, god, or gods of BSG are not a last minute addition brought in to solve an unsolvable problem.

Sure, but in this case it's just lazy storytelling because there's no reason why "god did it" beyond the writers needing to fix a plot hole they created with even more lazy storytelling. If there were some underlying meaning then it'd be OK, but there isn't so it's not.

 

[Tosk]

To be fair, let's remember that "God did it" was Jayson's attempt to explain it, not the show itself. In this instance, at least.

 

[DarthPipes]

He was one of the original Cylons, not just another model. Like Saul, who was 'active' long before Anders was.

Anders was one of the original Cyclons but he was a well-known athlete in the Twelve Colonies. We even get a flashback of him being interviewed by a reporter. Famous athletes are stars in college and in high school. People write books and stories about famous athletes and do documentaries about them. Reporters and filmmakers go to their hometowns to learn more about him. Every aspect of Anders life should have been catalogued in the Twelve Colonies because he was a famous athlete. Unless Anders took over someone's life, his being a Cylon planted in Colonial life makes no sense.

Something that annoyed me about the finale was Lee's unilateral decision to condemn the survivors of the human race to the Stone Age. I find it very hard to believe that a group of grizzled survivors, who fought over everything, would all unanimously agree to give up technology when they arrived on this new Earth. Lee wants to "climb mountains and swim in the oceans" great....go tell a 75-year-old survivor with a bad hip who spent five years in a cramped ship that he has to be spend the rest of his or her life sleeping in the dirt because Lee Adama thinks it's a great idea for everyone to give up technology. That's lazy, unconvincing writing that didn't even make an effort to sell that kind of decision.

Like I said, I loved BSG when it was on. There were some fantastic episodes and the acting was always stellar. I wish I still did but the laziness of the writing and plotting has become too much for me to ignore.

 

[Reverend]

To be fair, let's remember that "God did it" was Jayson's attempt to explain it, not the show itself. In this instance, at least.

Either way, it's not good story telling. Just to be totally fair.