| |
|
This show is beginning to feel like a soap opera written by adolescents. Next we're sure to be tormented with the spectacle of a lengthy and dubious trial of Balthar, where Caprica Six will testify that a gun was put to Balthar's head and that's why he signed the death warrants, so you can't hold it against him. Yawn. Perhaps the writers will be struck with the inspiration to make it like the Saddam trial, and we'll get some religious leader reciting poetry as they hang Balthar. (And then Balthar will wake up in the Cylon ship. Is he a Cylon? No - we cloned you while you were here and we thought we'd try to download you!)
Or no doubt they'll drive me to near madness with a torturous romance between Adama and Madame President - which spectacle I could have possibly enjoyed, especially since they've teased and nursed it along so well this season, only I've been brain damaged, perhaps permanently, but the tooth-pulling romance between Apollo and Starbuck. So if the Adama-Roslyn relationship is as 8th grade as the Starbuck-Apollo fiasco, then I'm afraid we'll be treated to more Battlestar 90210.
& were there any Cylons in that episode? Are the Cylons still hunting the humans? Are the humans at all concerned that deadly robots are stalking them? Because, and maybe I just missed something, I didn't here any body express worry about Cylons. They seem to have forgotten that there are human-looking Cylons among them. (Or did all those Cylons book it after the quagmire of New Caprica?)
The married couple in peril subplot - my stomach turns at the memory of it. The answer to the question, Can it get more annoying than Starbuck and Apollo staring at each other across a crowded room? Yes! It can.
This show is losing me. The episodes have lost focus, the through-line of the ongoing war with the Cylons is unraveling fast. Maybe the writers lack the imagination needed to explore other storylines, so all we get are more stories about romances. I seem to recall an active political and religious resistance to Roslyn and Adama, a vocal and growing religious movement, a vocal and somewhat free press, not to mention thousands of civilians (a million stories in the Naked City).
I also seem to recall a particularly ridiculous episode concerning the black market, and Apollo being in charge of that, having assassinated its previous head. Are we to believe that the black market no longer exists, that criminals saw the light after the debacle of New Caprica (where there was a black market). If anyone is watching HBO's Rome these days, you can see where the BSG writers might have taken Apollo's titular position w/r/t the criminal underground. Vorenus and Pullo have transpired great characters arcs, each change in their persona explained through the story; where they are today could not have been predicted, even at the end of last season. Many of BSG's characters are inexplicably behaving as if they've endured personality transplants - whatever changes they have experienced were not as arcs, but sudden shifts. Much of this may be explained by the "one year later" transition in the New Caprica storyline, but most of it is just due to sloppy writing. So sloppy they missed a glaring opportunity in this recent episode: the Chief's newfound religious fervor should have kicked in as he damn near died. Instead, the writers returned to their godsawful carping about family.
More Cylons, more war, less mooning over lost love. I'd love to see a few episodes where we got new characters, even if only to lose them later. The recent Doctor Death, for example: he shows up and I think, Evil. Had they played him for us a few episodes, I'd have thought: weird cranky bastard, holy shit! Evil!
I've said enough. |
|
|
