The villians kept irreedeemable, the good guys more or less heroes - oh you had a couple fluctuations here and there, and they played with making Dukat complex, but he's no Gaius.
Ah, but what about Garak, who was the shades of grey character on DS9 par excellence? On the heroes side, we had Kira - and DS9 never implied that her type of freedom fighting was clean Robin Hood style freedom fighting; the word "terrorist" was used consistently, and by Kira herself, it was made clear in several episodes she killed Cardassian civilians as well as military. Sisko's fanatic streak expounded as the show continued; he poisoned a planet's atmosphere, he covered up murder. Odo killed a planet's population to keep Kira alive. The Federation itself was shown to have a secret service using the same methods as their enemies did, and their admirals (of the non-evil, non-crazy variety) approved of said dirty methods. Biological weapons were used on both sides.
Depictions of war squeaky clean? There was ...Nor the Battlefield for the Strong, in which Jake Sisko, finding himself in a gunfight for the first time, panics and runs away from the horror, instead of doing the hero thing; he even leaves a friend behind in order to save his own life. In The Siege of AR-1600 Nog loses his leg, which remains lost for the rest of the show. In both episodes, the bodycount is guesome, and shown as such. They are clear predecessors to the BSG depictions of war. Tyrol and his dying men, Tarn and Socinus? That we got on DS9, too, with O'Brien (of whom Tyrol is a clear descendant, characterisation-wise) being forced to see two of his mechanics die on him The Ship, in a painful, long-time-taking manner.
including Babylon 5 and Star Wars as idealized. The good guys here - the bad guys there. Oh sure you had a couple amazing episodes here and there, but I had to hunt for them.
Ahem. Babylon 5 had Londo Mollari, who had the best, most fascinating fall and redemption arc of any tv character I've ever seen, and I'm including all Jossverse shows here. And Londo's arc was the heart of the show. (If you're interested, I wrote an entire essay on the subject here:
If you mean the depiction of war on B5 as sanitized in the sense that we didn't get to see the gritty reality of it the way we do on BSG, then yes, that's true. But good guys versus bad guys? I don't think so.
no subject
Ah, but what about Garak, who was the shades of grey character on DS9 par excellence? On the heroes side, we had Kira - and DS9 never implied that her type of freedom fighting was clean Robin Hood style freedom fighting; the word "terrorist" was used consistently, and by Kira herself, it was made clear in several episodes she killed Cardassian civilians as well as military. Sisko's fanatic streak expounded as the show continued; he poisoned a planet's atmosphere, he covered up murder. Odo killed a planet's population to keep Kira alive. The Federation itself was shown to have a secret service using the same methods as their enemies did, and their admirals (of the non-evil, non-crazy variety) approved of said dirty methods. Biological weapons were used on both sides.
Depictions of war squeaky clean? There was ...Nor the Battlefield for the Strong, in which Jake Sisko, finding himself in a gunfight for the first time, panics and runs away from the horror, instead of doing the hero thing; he even leaves a friend behind in order to save his own life. In The Siege of AR-1600 Nog loses his leg, which remains lost for the rest of the show. In both episodes, the bodycount is guesome, and shown as such. They are clear predecessors to the BSG depictions of war. Tyrol and his dying men, Tarn and Socinus? That we got on DS9, too, with O'Brien (of whom Tyrol is a clear descendant, characterisation-wise) being forced to see two of his mechanics die on him The Ship, in a painful, long-time-taking manner.
including Babylon 5 and Star Wars as idealized.
The good guys here - the bad guys there. Oh sure you had a couple amazing episodes here and there, but I had to hunt for them.
Ahem. Babylon 5 had Londo Mollari, who had the best, most fascinating fall and redemption arc of any tv character I've ever seen, and I'm including all Jossverse shows here. And Londo's arc was the heart of the show. (If you're interested, I wrote an entire essay on the subject here:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/idol_reflection/17374.html
If you mean the depiction of war on B5 as sanitized in the sense that we didn't get to see the gritty reality of it the way we do on BSG, then yes, that's true. But good guys versus bad guys? I don't think so.