Battlestar Galactica–plot holes you could fly a Raptor through
by Shannon on Tuesday, 20 of February, 2007 at 7:53 am
Sci-fi Channel reported on February 14 that they would be picking up BSG for 13 more episodes, and stated that it’s move to Sunday had improved the ratings by some 8 percent.
Now, I love this show, I won’t deny it. As far as good sci-fi goes on TV this is by far number one on my list. It’s dark, it’s edgy, it’s got some great special effects, the acting is spot on, those are all the positives. There are unfortunately a few negatives, especially in this past season. And I’d say most of it stems from one plot twist…the jumping ahead one year at the end of last season.
I know, I know if I was going to complian I should have done it earlier, right? Well maybe, but I was waiting to see how they pulled this one out of the bag before I started moaning about it. The idea of jumping forward a whole year was so “out there” in terms of television drama that I wasn’t sure if I would like it or not. And now I can say with complete conviction, it screwed them up.
In the writers room at BSG central I imagine there sits a massive pile of discarded or ignored plot threads just begging to be returned to the sun. Characters who were built up only to be sacrificed on the alter of cool that BSG is trying to build. For the most part they are succeeding, it is a cool show. But there’s been more then a few flops this season.
Let’s see; Hero, The Passage, Taking a Break From all Your Worries, the Woman King are a few of the episodes this season that just fell a little short. On their own they’re not bad, but when you cram all these “filler” episodes into one season without actually getting anywhere closer to your point it makes me wonder if you even have a point. Basically most of the episodes after the survivors are saved from the Cylon occupation force is on shaky ground. And again, I believe it’s because of that jump.
Ron Moore has said he’s forcing the viewer to play “catch-up”, but it’s more then that. He’s forcing the writers to play catch up, and there are more then a few times that they’ve dropped the ball.
The Cylon known as Boomer (the Sharon that shot Adama) has changed considerably and with little shown to explain that change. The only moment she’s truly had this entire season is the exchange between her and Cally on New Caprica. Was this short exchange enough to change her entire demeanor. I realize the occupation and subsequent resistance must have worn away the shine of idealism, but turning her to the point where she threatens to kill Hera seems a bit much.
Further back then that though, what was the deal behind the occupation in the first place? The occupation period seemed to go against the original reasons that the Cylons came to New Caprica. Or at least go against the ideas Boomer and Caprica/Six were aiming for. Did they really think imposing their will on the humans would help? I doubt it. It seems a rather stupid conclusion to come to. A flaw of logic that I don’t think Ron Moore is going for with his Cylons. If the first rule of war it to know thy enemy, then the Cylons are failing miserably if they thought subjugating the humans was a great fracking idea. So, what did lead them to this? Why such a stand off? Okay, and what the hell is wrong with Caprica (the old planet that is) are there still Cylons there? For that matter what the hell is wrong with the Cylon home world? Why the hell are they looking for Earth to be their home? Why try to live with humans at all? If they hated them enough to kill almost all of them in mass genocide, then why are they looking for a path to even more of them.
I mean think about this logically. That’s like Hitler deciding he wants to move to Jerusalem, and expecting something other then the murderous rage he justly deserves. It just makes no sense at all!
These kind of moves don’t make the Cylons seem menacing, they seem more…well to be honest flaky. All be it, flaky and sporting some massive weapons.
And these are just a few examples of the writers fumbling the plot, a fumble that started in the second season and has turned into a full on drop kick in the third season. There are numerous other examples, but let’s hit just one more big one. Baby Hera.
This poor child has gone from the future of Cylon/Human relations and ended up a nearly forgotten subplot in the third, meandering season. We don’t even get more then a cursory glance at Athena’s or Helo’s totally justified rage at President Roslin over being lied to. I really thought Sharon would be feeling a bigger sense of betrayal here, at least more then we’ve been shown so far.
And then there’s D’Anna’s relationship to the baby. It was made such a big deal of at the beginning of the season, but after D’Anna finds Hera there is barely a scene with her and Hera together. It seems once the cylons got their paws on the baby they stuck her in a white room with the bitterly angry Sharon/Boomer and left her there. Parents of the year the cylons are not.
Now, here is some bad news for the plot finally finding it’s way back on track. Apparently Ron Moore is working on a spin off of Galactica called Caprica a kind of prequel to BSG. Any Star Trek The Next Generation fan knows this is not a good thing. After Deep Space 9 started development (and I believe Ron Moore developed DS9 as well) TNG took a steady decline, producing such piece of crap episodes as Sub Rosa (or Anne Rice meets Trek as I call it), Interface, and Dark Page, in fact season seven’s redeeming quality is All Good Things , perhaps the best regular Trek episode ever.
My point is this, Trek didn’t even have a tightly woven plot line. In fact the general rule seemed to be “what happens in this episode, stays in this episode” for the most part. BSG is a whole different kind of series, it lives off of it’s plot, off the development of its characters, and if attention is diverted to a new series the flailing plot may indeed be entering its death throes soon.
Now, in recent interviews, and all over the net people are talking about the end of season three and all the plot twists it will supposedly entail. According to rumor Starbuck will either die or be a Cylon, though no one is saying exactly something major is going to happen and it will involve her character. Considering the level of bitch the writers have Starbuck hitting lately I wouldn’t be surprised if she starts clubbing baby seals or drowning kittens in bathtubs. It is not that I don’t enjoy a good plot twist (or bitches for that matter), I love twists and turns, it’s part of what I love about BSG now. Unfortunately I’m afraid this is just going to be the plot equivalent of a kamikaze flight. They can’t tie up some of the threads they’ve started so instead of being good writers and telling a story the way it should be told they burn the whole damn thing to the ground and start over again. Maybe their hoping if they blow up enough stuff, and throw enough Cylon orgies at us TV viewers we won’t notice that our questions aren’t being answered.
Okay, having reached full on ranting mode I should take a step back here. I am a sci-fi fan, I’ve watched some shows that were strung together with only the thinnest thread of logic, some chessy, badly written, horribly acted shows that make me cringe to think about. I’m used to taking HUGE leaps of faith where the plot, characters, and plausibility of these shows are concerned. And despite all the problems BSG is having it’s actually far better off then most of those shows I’m talking about. I think my problem is that when this show started I was hoping it would rise above all the pit falls other shows have fallen in to.
So, what is a die hard fan such as myself to do? I can’t stop watching, even though there are times I fell like a physic who knows that something horrible is about to happen but is powerless to stop it. I suppose I should have more faith, these people are professional writers after all, right? Surely they know what their doing. And, as we’ve been told at the beginning of every episode, the cylons have a plan. I can only hope the writers and producers have a plan as well.
Category: Television, Reviews, Battlestar Galactica
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