Utopia Vs. Dystopia, Or: Trek Vs. Galactica
The story so far: civilization was nuked. There were roughly 50,000 humans left. No one had any clue what was going on, nor did they have a plan. They did have some seriously good-looking military folk. Welcome to Battlestar Galactica.
I am really liking these Battlestar Galacticas so far, which I think I've mentioned. Mike doesn't like them as much as I do. He thinks the version of humanity we've been presented with thus far doesn't seem like it's worth saving. FYI, we have watched the miniseries and Season 1 through "Act of Contrition." So we're not very far into it yet, considering that we have about two more seasons left to watch before we're caught up to what's currently airing. We've got selfishness, angst, and characters' blindness to their own shortcomings. Some people might be crazy. Some people are Cylons being brainwashed into thinking they're human. Things are kind of a mess.
In "33," for example, Mike asks why, by the 200th jump, the leadership hadn't delegated a bunch of science people to figuring out why the Cylons were able to follow them. If it was Trek, they would have figured out a techobabble explanation by the 4th time. See, to me that seems like the easy way out. I think humanity at this point is still shellshocked by the destruction of their civilization and too panicked to dedicate time to that kind of scientific analysis. Plus, scientific analysis is too easy on Trek, isn't it? A lot of Trek episodes have these deus ex machina conclusions, where someone's like, "OH! Why don't we reroute the blah blah from the blah blah converter and blah blah?" And everyone on the ship goes, "Try it!" And of course it works. Even though the viewer doesn't know what any of that stuff is. For all we know, the writers just made it up. I suspect that that is, in fact, what they used to do-- just pulled something out of their asses to get the Enterprise out of trouble.
Mike also wonders why none of the leadership on Galactica has demanded to see this supposed Cylon detector that Gaius Baltar is, in fact, not working on. He's just lying, because the first time he pegged someone as a Cylon, it was a scapegoat he picked purely to save his own ass, so no one would find out he slept with the blonde Cylon and is indirectly responsible for the destruction of civilization. The fact that he turned out to be right is a piece of irony only known by the viewers. Yeah, I don't know, this is a good point. It seems like the leadership dropped the ball on that one. I hope someone realizes how shady he is, and soon.
But me, I'm willing to keep watching, because this show was named one of the top 10 shows on television last year. Plus it's sci fi, and really, I have no shame when it comes to sci fi. All the shows I used to watch are in reruns now, so it would be nice to have something to watch on TV. I think it's interesting that the humans are flawed, and that we aren't sure who we're rooting for yet. I think it's different to start with such a dark premise and see what grows out of it. I like that the civilization we saw on Caprica looks very much like ours, right down to the PR people and cabinet members going around in suits, and I think that's not unintentional. There's even the Whiteboard of Life, which, admittedly, cracks me up. The president takes out her marker and changes the number on the whiteboard whenever the human population count changes. It's like a great big hypothetical. What if civilization was wiped out and we were on the run? What would happen next? How long would it take us to pull our shit together?
What makes science fiction great is that it can tell so many different kinds of story. Star Trek tells us about a utopian version of humanity, and what happens when it comes into contact with other species who have different codes. Mike likes it because it gives us something to aspire to. I am skeptical of it because, honestly, will we really ever give up money? Can we eradicate war and poverty? Will we ever be so hyper-civilized that we look at things like that and say, "Ew. Nobody does that anymore. How 21st century." Trek seems sterile to me. Everyone is so nice, and everything is resolved so cleanly. There doesn't seem to be much real emotion. I prefer the dirt. Let's break us down and see if we can build ourselves back up.
There also seem to be some good female characters. The president is a woman, who often is shown making the choice that is the opposite of the stereotypical empathetic "woman choice." I like that Starbuck looks like she could kick some ass. That's one of my pet peeves about female warriors as depicted on TV and in the movies. Come on. Did you really believe River could knock out all those Reavers in Serenity? Or Eowyn in Lord of the Rings could pick up a sword? Please. The actress who plays Starbuck actually looks like a woman who can fight! This is something I've been waiting a long time to see, and I love it. I look forward to watching the rest of Battlestar Galactica.
I suppose I should mention at this point that I think Lee Adama is really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking. And that doesn't hurt either.
9 comments:
Lee is a babe, no question.
I looooooove Battlestar! Can't say enough about it.
Thanks for linking my btw.
For the record, I don't have issues with the show so far because of its dystopian lean. Quite the contrary; I like the flaws and I like the panic, and I like the shell-shocked desperation.
What turns me off is bad writing. What I said about humanity not seeming worth saving was because while flaws are good, we need merits too, people. Otherwise you just ask who cares?
As for the 200th jump thing, come one. It's not a Star Trekkian analysis here. It's cost-efficiency analysis. You calculate how long the human body can stand being awake and figure out when you'll collapse. You know then you need to figure a out way out before then, because if you keep repeating ad infinitum, you will ultimately will collapse from exhaustion and then die. So yes, every single person in that convoy who was not calculating faster than light jump navigation should have been working on figuring out how to stop being tracked. You know, it was the survival of the species on the line. And in the end, they got their own dystopian deux ex machina when they suddenly just weren't being chased any more. And don't even get me started on the prison episode. That one deserved a Razzie.
However, I reserve judgment, because we are just starting off. But there are a lot of writing flaws so far.
OK, some people were being pussies in that episode and inexplicably got a whole lot of other people in trouble. That wasn't a great episode.
So excited, so excited! Do I need to watch the mini-series before watching the episodes? I've got the first disk of episodes... (nervously twiddles and crosses fingers).
Am considering how I can work this into my class, which is on Technology and Identity... just because, secretly, I want to teach a sci-fi lit/movie class.
And in defense of first seasons, they're rarely as great as the later seasons. In defense of T.V. writers everywhere (sigh... would LOVE to be a T.V. writer for some smart, witty show!), it takes at least a season to gel and get into a groove... so stick with it and give it a chance!
Oooh, I'd definitely watch the miniseries. Because it does all the setup and the show goes on from there.
President Roslyn is my favorite character. I held my breath during that episode about abortion...even though her decision was awful, I felt like her character was given substantial weight; so your comment that she isn't just fulfilling the typical "woman role. insert empathy here" is right on!
Also, I analyzed Starbuck's character over at my blog. I talk about her masculinity, and how it's great that she isn't portrayed as a sex symbol with a gun.
Roslin is definitely ready to airlock someone when the situation calls for it. She's a strong female character. I like how, given her background, she's not what the stereotype leads us to expect.
I like President Roslin too, she often makes the hard decisions and then silently frets about it. I think that's very real.
I find it interesting that some would think the show has bad writing. I think it's great for the most part. I've worked in television and I believe that BSG is far superior to much that is out there.
I also don't mind that often the characters aren't necessarily likeable. I think it would be far too simple to make them all noble. Humanity too often isn't and I think BSG does a good of exploring the fact that humanity wants to survive whether it deserves to or not.
Don't get me wrong, I've always loved Star Trek. But I always thought they put too rosy a face on human nature. I think audiences like to watch man as a superior being and like to believe that we'll always prove ourselves to be ultimately noble. I like to believe this is the case most of the time, but we shouldn't ignore our dark side.
Battlestar Galactica is the best show on TV at the moment - way better than Star Trek with its mumbo jumbo language, fancy aliens and miraculous solutions to overly complicated problems. In fact, the thing I love most about BSG is how realistically the humans are portrayed.
Oh, and Lee, of course ;-)
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