It all started so good

[mariob]

When i first saw season 1, i thought wow, what a well done gritty, interesting story & filmed superbly. Unfortunately every season got progressively worse. It just got more & more ludicrous every episode. Lets make half the main characters Cylons (dumb), lets make some ancient story where the gods make an arrow that will lead the fleet back to Earth(silly), let the fleet finally find Earth, only to find the planet useless(pointless,obviously trying to get another season), get rid of most of the action & make half the series an internal political struggle(very boring). Lets make some tune (in Starbucks head) & a few dots become the next way home, even though she has been killed (ludicrous). Saul & Six having a baby(what???), Baltar & his religious cult(stupid). Cylons becoming buddies with the humans (unbelievable) & the final over the top drama with how important the kidnapped half Cylon kid is to the human race (outer nonsense, so what if the Cylons have the kid?).

 

[koose]

best sci fi show ever

 

[this charmingm manc]

mariob

its fantsy and fiction ....

if you want realism watch soap operas

 

[seanp316]

Great show...but ya it got too religious

 

[reiver33]

It started as a series based on gritty realism with a dark, almost depressing story line (eg cute little girl who has lost both her parents in the initial attack doesn't get saved), but I agree it lost its way towards the end. Apart from certain episodes (eg 17) the 4th season was the weakest, and the ending just terrible.

So - I win the £90 million Euromillion jackpot and have the last episode remade; the Galactica goes down fighting as Adama rams the Cylon colony/installation, survivors escaping in the last Raptors to rejoin the fleet, Kara's notes into numbers leading to...(anywhere but a second Earth)

Oh well!

 

[Rodders]

I always thought that they'd find earth, but Adama would leave with the fleet (on autopilot or minimal volenteer crew) to distract the Cylons away, then go down fighting leaving the Cylons to think that they'd destroyed the last pocket of humanity.

Meanwhile, back on earch, everyone else lives happy ever after.

 

[J-WO]

I was hoping for a real downer at the end. They get to Earth and find hundreds of ancient and derelict Battlestar Galacticas floating around it. Transpires that humans have been extinct for millions of years and that everyone is a Cylon. Every few thousand years they remake the colonies and destroy them and chase a BG to 'Earth'; a quasi-religious ritual in devotion to their long-dead creators.

What set me off on this thinking was- 'It has happened before. It will happen again.' Or whatever it is the Cylons say.

I would have adored this ending, but I suppose it was tooo much to hope for...

 

[Marvin]

Didn't mind 'The missing link' ending too much, but I think J-WO's ending is superb - good one!

 

[J-WO]

Didn't mind 'The missing link' ending too much, but I think J-WO's ending is superb - good one!

Yeah, but do they ever give me a TV series? Do they F!

 

[Coolhand]

I have to admit that, whilst Battlestar Galactica is for me one of the best s/f shows on TV-hell, the best SHOW on TV full stop-I do agree the third and fourth season struggled to capture the pace and gripping storyline of the first two and had far too many loose ends and pointless plot threads. On listening to the behind the scenes podcasts from Ronald D More I was amazed to learn how much of it was being made up as they went along, with some things like "The Music", Hera, and the identity of the final five cyclons simply being thrown in at the last moment because he thought they were cool and then having to struggle to rationalize them into the plot, to the point where these elements re-structured the whole direction of the story to an extent. Personally, I think that approach really, REALLY hurt the show in places and I'm surprised he didn't put more thought into the long term arc.

I was hoping for a real downer at the end. They get to Earth and find hundreds of ancient and derelict Battlestar Galacticas floating around it. Transpires that humans have been extinct for millions of years and that everyone is a Cylon. Every few thousand years they remake the colonies and destroy them and chase a BG to 'Earth'; a quasi-religious ritual in devotion to their long-dead creators.

What set me off on this thinking was- 'It has happened before. It will happen again.' Or whatever it is the Cylons say.

I would have adored this ending, but I suppose it was tooo much to hope for...

That would have been AWESOME! Very depressing, but AWESOME. It would have certainly been a better explanation for The Cycle than the one we got.

 

[BookStop]

I was hoping for a real downer at the end. They get to Earth and find hundreds of ancient and derelict Battlestar Galacticas floating around it. Transpires that humans have been extinct for millions of years and that everyone is a Cylon. Every few thousand years they remake the colonies and destroy them and chase a BG to 'Earth'; a quasi-religious ritual in devotion to their long-dead creators.

What set me off on this thinking was- 'It has happened before. It will happen again.' Or whatever it is the Cylons say.

I would have adored this ending, but I suppose it was tooo much to hope for...

That would have been a brilliant ending. Such a shame you don't work for SF channel

 

[J-WO]

Cheers fellas! I'll film the alternate ending in my back garden and post it to you.

 

[HareBrain]

I think the only reason they didn't go for that ending themselves is that they couldn't decide whether the plural should be "Battlestar Galacticas" or "Battlestars Galactica".

 

[J-WO]

Good point!

(Galacticae?)

 

[Brian G Turner]

I really enjoyed Season 4 - I'm really not sure what everyone is complaining about.

I guess the problem is, the earlier seasons worked on a simple premis: humans vs Cyclons - that got progressively more complicated through the extended range of sub-plots.

Season 3 I think started to slow down a little, but it soon picked up in the build up to revealing the Final Five.

While undoubtedly there are elements to be critical off - I agree some of the scriptures issues and Arrow of Apollo were not great, let's remember this is science fantasy, so at some point you need to allow for some degree of suspension of disbelief.

What I find astonishing, really, is the general bad-mouthing of BSG. It wasn't perfect, but it's the best we have had so far. I think the problem is people want science fantasy to work in an escapist way, rather than look to real-life themes and work on that.

And then people wonder why stations don't invest in big sf shows - the more more realistic they are, the more the sf crowd complain it's not escapaism - the more escapist they are, the more general viewers complain its trashy nerdism.

I mean, seriously, look at the Star Trek franchise, undoubtedly the most successful to date, but completely vacuuous when it comes to trying to hold two stories together - the "continuity" has never entered the production vocabulary, and even now, they have a new set of films completely rewriting the Star Trek universe history - yet again!!

And then BSG dares to try and run 4 seasons of a continuously evolving storyline - and for that I am very grateful.

The worst part of the BSG series is that it finished. But in a way, at least it could determine its own ending, as opposed to Babylon 5 which simply waned to nothing.

 

[J-WO]

I actually think the problem was the latter half of BSG was less realistic and that that was the problem. And, tellingly, the decay of realism had little to do with Spaceships and Apollos arrows, which are ultimately ephemeral- and everything to do with human motivation. The writers insisted on making everyone have affairs with everyone else often to little or no effect except absurdity. And, considering their world

(part 2 to follow)

 

[J-WO]

got anihilated with almost everyone they love on it, they went to work with their enemies unconvincingly quickly. One gets the sense the writers were running out of ideas and were falling back on staples of drama.

That said, BSG was far better than anything that came before it and (depressingly so far) after. I'm still in admiration of an SF series that dared to snap a baby's neck in the pilot episode- 'no comedy robo-dogs here!' it seems to say. But its precisely because it was so good that people get so despondent about the end. And their despondent about the lack of human believability, not the lack of spacebattles.

The middle of season 4, however, was outstanding. Can't help feeling they should have wrapped it up around there.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I actually think the problem was the latter half of BSG was less realistic and that that was the problem. And, tellingly, the decay of realism had little to do with Spaceships and Apollos arrows, which are ultimately ephemeral- and everything to do with human motivation. The writers insisted on making everyone have affairs with everyone else often to little or no effect except absurdity. And, considering their world got anihilated with almost everyone they love on it, they went to work with their enemies unconvincingly quickly. One gets the sense the writers were running out of ideas and were falling back on staples of drama.

That said, BSG was far better than anything that came before it and (depressingly so far) after. I'm still in admiration of an SF series that dared to snap a baby's neck in the pilot episode- 'no comedy robo-dogs here!' it seems to say. But its precisely because it was so good that people get so despondent about the end. And their despondent about the lack of human believability, not the lack of spacebattles.

The middle of season 4, however, was outstanding. Can't help feeling they should have wrapped it up around there.

That's an opinion I can respect.

Watching it a couple of years after it finished and therefore missing all the hype, and being aware of criticisms on chrons that season 3 became a soap opera and the ending as poor, meant that I came to the series with low if any expectations.

Therefore I was able to enjoy it simply as was.

In fact, the only reason I got into it was after getting Sky last year, and seeing the opening 15 minutes of the first episode of Season 4.

I liked the look of the camera work, the suggestion of a long story arc, and potential character development being hinted at.

My curiosity piqued, I put Season 1 on my Christmas list on the grounds that if I didn't like it, I've had worst presents.