Please Try Battlestar Galactica Tonight
Battlestar Galactica’s third season starts tonight, and I can’t wait. Or rather: I’m excited to stop waiting. It’s been a long summer without it. I’m excited because this show never stops challenging, surprising, and thrilling me with interesting characters and ideas, incredible acting, strong writing, brilliant sets, and haunting music. I mean, it is well done all around.
But it hasn’t won any Emmys.
And I know very few people who actually watch it.
Even my good friend Austen, with whom I share an amazingly similar set of tastes in television shows, refuses to test it out.
Why isn’t it more popular? My theories:
1) Because it’s on the SciFi Channel, which hosts shows such as the Stargate series, which perpetually features actors overacting in jerkins.
2) Because it’s science fiction, a genre consistently mocked for its fan base of geeky, techy, lonely males with stinky socks who overlook the cheesy jerkins and overacting because they’re obsessing over the possible science of teleportation, a fascintation stemming from a high school experience from which they always wanted to but never could flee.
I submit to you that this is characterization distorts the power and art of good science fiction. Some of my favorite authors write in this category: Margaret Atwood, Madeleine L’engle, CS Lewis, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Marge Piercy, Ursula K. LeGuin, Doris Lessing, to name a few. These authors may have their share of eccentricities, but I promise, none of them fits the category of geek.
3) Because of the older version. All I can say is, forget the older version. Forget anything you’ve heard about the show and just watch it. Start with the miniseries — or watch the recaps online.
Reasons You Should Watch:
1) Because you’ve always wondered what the world would be like if there was true gender equality. Aren’t you just a little curious how it would work? If women were presidents and flight squad captains, called “Sir,” smoked cigars, had reckless adventures, and none of this was treated as exceptional or noteworthy, but taken as a matter of course, what would be different? Would women still be feminine? Would they still find opportunity to use their sexuality for manipulation?
Watch BSG. You’ll find the range of roles for both men and women shockingly normal — which is, in itself, shocking. So much for all those complaints that women in the military somehow weaken the force.
2) You’re really tired of black-and-white, good vs. evil foreign policy decisions and/or plotlines. You know the world is more complex than that, and it frustrates you that from the president of the country to the president of the networks, no one seems to know how to use or value subtlety anymore. (I would submit to you that the swath of quality programming this fall season is because of shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica.)
The crux of the BSG struggle is not humans vs. machines. I would find that incredibly boring. The problem is that the machines have figured out a way to look human. And act human. And bleed like humans. And feel like humans. So, it’s not only difficult to tell the difference between a human and a machine, it’s difficult to tell if the machines are necessarily evil because they aren’t human.
And then you start wondering, what exactly does it mean to be human?
And more: Why does being human necessarily mean a person is good? Because no one on this show is 100% good or 100% bad. Everyone makes judgment calls. Everyone makes mistakes. You’re never sure, as a viewer, if a machine is trustworthy, or if a human will sell out.
Not that you don’t root for protagonists — I have incredible love for some of them — just that, you find your loyalties for a character stems from empathy, not because he or she is a “good guy.” In fact, because they’re so — well, human — it’s much easier to invest emotional capital in the characters and their storylines.
3) You admire and are entertained by TV that uses every detail and effect (music, scenery) to weave a rich, layered, texturized world with its own mythology and symbolism.
4) You’re at all fascinated by disaster/end-of-the-world stories.
5) You are sick of guessing all the outcomes of every show you watch.
6) You’re a sucker for love stories.
7) You have nothing else to do Friday nights.
8) You like any of the authors I mentioned earlier in this post.
9) You need a show that both you and your spouse can watch — and you want to think, while he wants to be entertained. Trust me: You’ll both be satisfied.
10) Because you trust that I’ve got good taste.
If you’re interested at all in the “new media” era in which we are living, you’ll also find BSG’s use of podcasts and webisodes, tying the show to other types of media, an interesting test of how successful all this interconnection can be.
I’ve never been one to play the television show missionary, but BSG is possibly the best television show I’ve ever seen period. It’s not only good, I actually think it’s an important addition to our culture. It asks the big questions, challenges the deepest assumptions, and plays with our notions of right and wrong — things all good art does.
Try it!
Eliot
There are those who believe…
Brings back great memories of the summer before the original BSG started. My friends and I were going nuts from all the hype! Maybe we can find someone willing to lend us the DVD set.
Just to mention a few of my old time favorites, off the top of my head: Andre Norton, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, Roger Zelazny (http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/ZELQZNY/forbreat.txt)
Yes, of course Isaac Asimov.
Speaking of good TV, I am hoping Austen can work up a good post for “The Wire” - the Baltimore street patois is visceral, yet bright and often funny (as long as one is not on the receiving end of threats).
Gosh, I do love this blog!!!!!
No, I don’t watch BSG. I don’t watch much on the tube except maybe football and baseball playoff games. My husband would probably jump for joy if I said, “Let’s watch Battle Star Gallactica tonight.” I mean it - he’d think he was suddenly transported into some Sci-Fi etherworld. I love Sci-Fi, but not the Star Trek type — I’m a huge fan of Urusla Le Guin and other more emotional Sci-Fi writers. I read a book earlier in the year that made my mouth drop: “The Brief History of the Dead,” which (if you’re into Sci-Fi) I recommend highly!!!! (Although, I’ll admit there are a few parts where you’ll think, ‘What the?’) Imagine you’re working for Coca-Cola in the South Pole and suddenly all transmissions with the company cease. You wonder what the hell is going on; you are afraid. Back in the “real world” a terrible disease is wiping out all life on planet Earth — and, oh…I almost forgot, your dead loved ones are not totally dead yet…
Nicolle - I read “The Brief History of the Dead” this summer as well! It was great, but I kept hoping our heroine was just hallucinating the last couple of chapters. I really enjoyed the beginning where the author explained the 3 states of life on which the premise of the book was based - I cannot remember the culture. I remember Austen was reading something else, and I kept interrupting her to read passages out loud
I don’t pay for cable. Can’t afford it right now. I do however “love” the Battlestar Galactica series. I’ve watched it via the dvd sets they release after each season. A lot of people I know have seen it that way. So neilsen numbers might not be representative of the real audience for the show.
I’ve also got to wonder- how many Sci-Fi TV series have actually won emmys? And if they have- in what catagories? It’s not a catagory that the emmys generally apreciate.
Additionally I think sci-fi is something that most people won’t admit in public to watching or liking, in part because of how stupid one sounds trying to describe a plotline out loud, and yeah also because of the nerd stereotype that gets pinned to that audience.
And while you’re enjoying the beginning of Season 3. I’ll be watching the 2nd half of season two which I recently purchased.
Have fun.
I don’t think Emmys really equal quality. How many Emmys did “Everybody Loves Raymond” win? Or “Will & Grace”? Emmy tends to shine on the same shows year after year after year. The best show on tv right now is “The Wire” and I don’t think it has even received any major nominations, let alone wins. “Lost” wasn’t nominated for its second season, and, despite the criticism I’ve heard, I think it deserved it.
Faulkner, re “The Wire,” I don’t know what to write. It’s so complex and layered. I think about writing about it, but I can’t get my head around it.
Trvlnmn: Big Head Nod about watching on dvd. I’ve been watching most TV that way this last year, and it’s much more convenient and enjoyable that way - so much so, I’m watching less live TV altogether. Less really IS more!
Nicolle, thanks for the enthusiasm! It’s so nice to know someone’s reading! I’ll definitely be checking out your book recommendation.
Not to forget that Dvd mean’s no commercials too.
And for “the Wire” fans that’s on my must see list as well. It’s just too bad they took so long to release season three onto dvd.
I’m glad to see another local BSG evangelist! The two season premiere episodes were fantastic. The parallels drawn between Caprica City’s insurgency and the war in Iraq are brilliant.
And only Stargate SG-1 features overactig. Stargate: Atlantis is fantastic
[…] For those of you as yet uninitiated into the world of Battlestar Galactica (and again, I cannot underscore enough the importance of this series), “frak” is the invented curse word of the imagined mirror-world of that show. As in: Frak you. Don’t frak with me. He’s a frakking dork. It might look a little nerdy in type, but it actually works when used with the same sincerity and ferocity as any hardcore cuss with which you’re familiar. And it’s a clever way to give certain characters a hard edge without running into the armor-plated tank of authority that is the FCC. […]
Interesting article on the politics of B.G. and how conservative sci-fi fans are having a tough time wrapping their minds around the storyline:
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12172
[…] Austen presents Please Try Battlestar Galactica Tonight posted at Red Inked, saying, “Our blog about writing, words, and culture is written by three women. This post from Eliot emplores tv viewers to try out Battlestar Galactica.” […]