The World of The Gunny

Battlestar Galactica: Does it get any better?

Okay, based on all the hype in the Tavern (Ringo's Tavern, Baen's Bar, be there or be a rectangular thingie), I picked up the BSG Season One DVDs. (Thanks alot, guys. /Sarcasm)

Tell me it gets better. I just blew a wad of money on this crap, please tell me it gets better.

I didn't like Season One of Bab5 or ST:TNG and later got to liking both series quite a bit.

But I'm having a hard time thinking that will work with BSG: the problems are too fundamental.

Unless they got a new writer, director and producer I don't see it getting any better. (Okay, and crew. And Special effects guys. And...) Quite frankly, I can't see why anyone would watch it. My problems with it are too numerous to begin to list but just for one:

Any time that you have a technological supply item a requirement in ANY military with sense is that you have second or third party verification. If we get a new radar that's designed to detect stealth aircraft, we eventually have a test where there might be stealth up there or there might not and somebody who is not the designers or closely associated with the designersfinds out which is which. We don't just take the contractor's word for it. "It detects stealth." "I don't see anything." "Must not be anything there..."

Okay, the Cylons are sneaky. I can live with them fucking with the defense computers. Live with it. But...

They've got "stuff" available from multiple "humanoid" cylons by the episode where Balthus creates the "cylon detector" and then fucks them over (again.) (Or they could have, by taking a tissue or blood sample if anyone in the entire crew had a lick of sense.) But nobody, but NOBODY suggests that their geek guy or a third party less affiliated (they've got FIFTY THOUSAND PEOPLE, tell me one of them can't run a fucking test) blind test ten samples to make sure it works or, you know, find out if there's a way to make
another detector (I mean, how much plutonium does it NEED? There's alot of fucking plutonium in a 50 megaton warhead!!!!). They just go along with Balthus. Who, frankly, continually acts like a fucking moron or psychotic instead of a genius. I don't care if the whole human race has been wiped out and everybody is stressed. Anyone who goes around talking to other people needs meds, serious meds. The term here is "psychotic" in a very real and
medically binding (as in straitjacket) sense. Do it once in front of the president and that's one thing. Do it over and over and over again? Come ON!

Here's a shekel or whatever you guys call it, buy a clue.

Every single problem _I_ have has to do with similar deus ex machina
designed to limit the humans. Either the writers can't think things through or they're unwilling to go to the trouble (and it's a pain, trust me) of coming up with another idea when their first, lame-brain, one doesn't work logically. I do, even in my crappiest writing. Are they getting paid too much or what???

Oh, yeah, and check me on this: I seem to remember in the original series that if push came to shove the BSG could take on one Cylon battle whatever and win with some serious damage. One time, IIRC, they took on two and whipped their ass before jumping out. Apparently, that's too violent for the producers. Just fucking once I'd like to see them leave the rubble of a
damned battle whatever behind. It's not inherent to the universe unless you choose to make it inherent to the universe. They so chose. Well. Fuck. Them.

Then there's the acting, if you can call it that. Please: Kill Apollo.
Please kill Apollo. Kill him slowly. No, I take that back, kill him quickly. Just get him off my TV screen. And Balthus and the president (who I actually was GLAD to find out had cancer although if they've got fucking SPACE TRAVEL you'd think they'd have cures for cancer that WE do) and if I have to see one more fucking soft-porn shot with the Hot Cylon I'm going to quit writing the Ghost series. Because sex is starting to make me nauseous.

Starbucks can actually act. So can Adama. I heard he gets killed, though, so there goes the one sliver of hope.

Face facts, the series sucks. Whenever I watch one of these series, military SF all, I keep wondering what the fuck the writers were thinking and what crack den they dragged them out of. I've seen shit ten times better than this rejected from the slushpile. I've seen monkeys that could write better. I normally don't get down on people who've created something and gotten it produced because there's alot of sweat and effort involved. I know. Twenty novels. Trust me I know. But I DO have to scream "WTF Over????" when crap as bad as this gets released. It's like the K-9 Corps novels. "Who in their right mind thought anyone would read/watch this?" Then when the series tanks, the whinging from the producers is always about "nobody would watch it!" Well, here's another shekel, people: "It's the content, stupid."


And what is it about crappy first seasons with SF shows? ST:TNG was AWFUL the first season and then later got pretty decent. Stargate was actually not bad but had some really painful moments. Bab5 was torturous then took off into shining and unholy glory, the only reason that they got the fifth season (which isn't bad for an add-on.) Stargate Atlantis??? Almost in the same realm as BSG. What HAPPENED there? Lousy and unlikeable actors, lousy dialogue and incredibly stupid decisions based on some sort of uber PC garbage. By about the fifth episode I thought the "commander" character was going to outlaw guns as being too "icky." I gave up. Is it that the network people can't recognize crap until it's thrown in their face because it's SF? "Well, it's science fiction. It's supposed to be stupid and incoherent." Then when the ratings come in they go "get it better or get gone?" I dunno. I blame public schools. If people weren't told that Lord of the Flies and Something Wicked were "good" SF they'd have a clue. It's all the fault of public schools. Or, maybe, they just don't have a fucking clue.

Here's a shekel or whatever...

Can somebody please bring back Angel and Babylon Five?