shadowkat: (Default)
shadowkat ([personal profile] shadowkat) wrote2006-03-12 03:47 pm

Dabbling with a BSG Season 2 Review

[As an aside, had a very funny moment glancing at flist - two completely opposite commentaries on the English vs. French rugby match were, due to the oddness of lj, posted one above the other. Sort of point/counter-point without the two people ever meeting or an annoying journalist commenting in between. Also Proof positive that no matter where you live in this world, people are nutty about sporting events. Made me giggle uncontrollably for five minutes.]

To post or not to post about Season 2 BSG which just ended on Friday? Should be doing other things, frankly. Plus many people have posted on this - [livejournal.com profile] coffeeandink has gathered a list of the postings on the finale, which has mixed reviews. One of the best is this one, http://coalescent.livejournal.com/310498.html, which explains clearly and conscisely why the finale did not work for me. Go read it.

Here's what I wrote before reading it...which isn't as conscise, but what the hey.


I felt the second season did not live up to the first season's potential. Granted the first season was shorter and in some respects easier to put together - people on the run. It had also gotten amazing reviews - which did put a lot of pressure on the writers to hammer together the next season. But, I've read that the writers more or less hammered out where this was all going before the first episode of Season 1 was written. Which means, S2 should have been tighter.

On the other hand as anyone who has ever worked in television or investigated the possibility of working in television understands - tight, well-plotted, clearly delineated, high quality are all laughable goals in a profession that bows to advertising and marketing gods. And is forced to churn out scripts and fully produced/acted/directed episodes at the speed of light. Anyone who has attempted to write a screenplay or teleplay in three days or less may be able to understand how difficult it is to write one in one or two days, get it chopped to pieces, rework it and have it ready to produce in less than a day after you handed it in. [livejournal.com profile] tightropegirl explains what it is like to write for a tv show. Many online critics have a tendency to evaluate tv shows in the same way they'd evaluate a film (which has a lot longer), a play (even longer still) or a novel (the longest yet) - three mediums which allow the artist a lot of time to work out the kinks. With TV we get the first or second draft. It doesn't look finished to you? Well that's because it isn't - they didn't have time to make it finished. If you listen to commentaries for TV shows - the director/creator/producer will often quip that it is miraculous the episode came out as well as it did due to the fact that he felt it was more or less his first or second draft - he didn't have time to fine tune it.

That does not mean that we shouldn't critically evaluate the Television show. Nor that I'm not going to, of course I am, I adore critiquing tv shows. Just that it is a caveat worth keeping in mind.

My difficulty with this season of BSG was that I started to lose the characters, with the possible exception of Giaus Baltar whose thread stayed consistently true to his character throughout. At times, I got the impression that the writers were the most interested with Gaius, could be wrong there. The other characters did not feel off so much as just seemed to get increasingly darker as the season passed, which normally I don't mind - if you've been reading my journal, you know by now, that I like dark characters and dark plot-lines, the darker the better...so why did it bug me here? Good question.

It wasn't the grimness of the show nor the acting. It was how the female characters were increasingly portrayed within the fabric of the storyline and the universe as a whole. Not only the female, but the male in their relationships with the female characters. It felt, and again this is odd for me to say, since I tend to not always notice this stuff, decidedly misogynistic. I am not sure if this was deliberate - an attempt by the writers to show that the humans more or less deserved what they got at the hands of the cylons (a misanthropic theme as opposed to a misgoynistic one, perhaps?) or if it was unconscious. I'm hoping the former, but am uncertain.

Each female character without exception is abused or saved in some way by a man. When the men commit horrible crimes they do it against women. The most sadistic characters - the head of Pegasus and Six are both women and it is interesting that they take out each other - Helen Cain has Gina (Six) raped and tortured, while Gina (Six) kills Helen Cain and explodes a nuclear device. Then we have the Starbuck/Apollo relationship which does not bring out the best in Apollo - who becomes increasingly chauvinistic, authoritarian and misogynistic in his treatment of Starbuck and the women around him, to the point that I did not like him much at all by the end of the season - this was a character I actually used to like. Other female characters that are oddly used are Rosylyn who becomes more and more like Helen Cain - attempting to fix the election, her decision to take Sharon (8's) baby from her, making the woman think she's dead, and well her request that Adama have Starbuck assaignate Helen Cain. Adama remains the nice guy, Roslyn the not so nice one. Normally I wouldn't mind the flipping of gender roles here, but it was right after Helen Cain came on the scene. Too much. And of course Sharon, who is raped (or they attempt rape), abused, beaten, and treated like an object. Note the cylon women are treated like objects and they are the ones we see the most. The cylon men die quickly once they are discovered and rarely seen again. A trend I ignored at first, but is impossible to ignore this year. Finally the Cheif and his women, sigh, did we have to have him beat the girl who adores him? How much violence against women and abuse of women do we need to see? Baltar treats them like whores. Apollo - does the same, Adea (who had a lovely romance with Billy in Season 1, now is relegated to Apollo's sex toy?) It's clear in the finale he doesn't feel much more for her than that. What happened to Billy? (I missed two episodes in there due to my cable going out on me - so Scar and Sacrifice were missed. I'm guessing he was killed in a shoot-out?).

The finale...has a few things that intrigued me, the circle effect - that Baltare has once again, inadvertently, betrayed the human race because he wanted Six. The human race has once again stupidly stepped into the trap, because they don't want to run or fight any more. And the cylons are stepping in and saying, hey, we'll take care of you, govern you, control you much as you governed and controlled us. You are the children and we are the gods.

But, it didn't flow. I felt jarred by the storyline. There were too many gaps here and there. I did not get the falling out between Starbuck and Apollo - after all Apollo was with Adea? He may have feelings for Starbuck, but they've been hidden most of the time so why the falling out? It felt off somehow. Things happened too quickly in some places and too slowly in others - far too much time was spent with Baltar and his ladies, with his sex scenes. I also didn't get where the character of Cheif was going, I'd see him, he'd go, did he resolve his issues, didn't he? The last episode was almost too busy for its own good, they wanted to do too much in a short space of time. Felt thrown-together to me.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy aspects of it. And I do not regret spending the time watching it. I will watch next season. But it didn't sit right with me either. Seemed off. The characters, the story, the metaphors, it felt like the writers were more interested in stating a point or theme than telling their story. In being I don't know, showy? Cool? (Which also happened in The MAtrix sequels - the writers were more interested in showmanship than story.) Stephen King, love him or hate him, says it best in his Memoire - On Writing, STORY SHOULD COME FIRST AND FOREMOST! I agree. If it takes away from the story, don't do it. Here the writers seemed to want to make an anti-bush statement or talk politics, they wanted to get to a specific place and I think they could have gotten there too, if they focused more on story and less on being cool. I saw the same thing in Frank Miller's Sin City...a focus on cool over story.

Mixed feelings about the finale episode. The season as a whole? Uneven. Some bits good, some bits not so good.
Overall rating? B-. Which is a step down from Season 1's A.

[identity profile] frenchani.livejournal.com 2006-03-13 07:57 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't know. Apollo's near death experience in space might explain the shift...He actually reminded me of Buffy in season 6, especially when he said he didn't want to be saved, he wanted to "remain" dead.

Yes he was a pretty decent guy during season 1, compared to his father, he was smooth but there has always been something off about him, something he didn't share with others, a kind of reserve that could hide something darker beneath the smooth surface or some wound...

But to be honest I've never liked him much. I watched the first season because of Baltar mostly, and then I "fell" for Helo!

I guess I like it when it's dark. :- )

[identity profile] shadowkat67.livejournal.com 2006-03-14 01:02 am (UTC)(link)
That may explain the different perspectives...because I actually did like Apollo, one of the few people out there who did, and wasn't overly fond of Helo in the second season. Liked him better in the first. Actually I liked all the characters the first season.

The death sequence didn't work for me - in BTVS it made sense, Buffy had saved the world so many times, she came to grips with the fact she was saving her sister, she'd lost both her parents more or less, and the love of her life (or who she believed at that time was the love of her life). Plus when she died, she went somewhere like heaven.

Apollo - on the other hand, had people he cared for, was fighting a war, people were counting on him and had not done much. If anything he should want to stay alive. Also there was no build-up regarding depression.

I just didn't get why he wanted to stay dead and the writers never gave us a reason.

[identity profile] frenchani.livejournal.com 2006-03-14 09:56 am (UTC)(link)
No they didn't but there might be a reason we don't know yet. I actually like the idea that Apollo might be more complex than it showed first.

He always tried to follow a certain path, to do the right thing, to be true to certain principles, to fulfill a certain mission, but he's very alone actually and he never really managed to connect to people (the episode with his mistress/whore and the flashbacks about his girl friend on Caprica pointed it out) which reminds me of Buffy. Add to this being always on the run, fighting an enemy that is stronger...I think he was suddenly very tired.

Maybe he thought he would be....downloaded again!



But I understand your point of view. :- )

[identity profile] shadowkat67.livejournal.com 2006-03-14 06:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, don't get me wrong, I like the complexity. I think it was just how they decided to portray it that didn't work for me - too quick a shift.

It's interesting, the people I've noticed online that really liked S2 and the finale, were all huge Balthar fans and not really invested in the other characters as much. While the people I've seen online who liked Balthar but were also invested and fascinated by the other characters, equally so, no more or less, were disappointed in the S2 and struggled with it more. Not sure if I'm reading too much into that or not, I have one of those minds that admittedly will find a pattern whether it is there or not. ;-)