Battlestar Galactica
This post is about the spoilers for the Battlestar Galactica finale that Katee Sackhoff leaked in Portland. If you do not want to be spoiled for the finale PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS POST.
For anyone who does not know, Katee Sackhoff spilled the beans about Kara/Lee versus Kara/Sam in the finale. You can see what hear said here. Basically she talks a lot about Michael Trucco's accident and how they did not know if he would walk again and how what she and his other friends were feeling for him influenced the scenes they were shooting and led to greater emotional intensity between Kara and Sam. While there are lots of interpretations of her words flying around, I personally take from her words:
1. The writers had planned a Lee/Kara relationship ending (note her 'the writers had a Starbuck and Apollo relationship that was going somewhere').
2. Instead we are going to see her end up with Sam.
If you are hanging on to hope despite this, more power to you, but really I don't want to hear about it. For me, this is the final straw and I don't think there's any point in me holding out hope--it would only hurt me more to be let down again.
The crux of it for me is that the writers did not have a clear enough vision of Kara's endpoint as a character. If they did, they would never have wasted time like this vacillating between Lee and Sam and ultimately deciding who she ends up with based on real life context (however tragic). This is a failure of authorship. Yes, Kara is more than who she's with in a relationship sense--the writers could have decided she was going to end up alone--but if so, then why play the relationship stuff (BOTH relationships) so heavily in the build up to the finale?
Also, if this is so, it doesn't just show that Kara's end was malleable and unfixed, it shows that Lee's was as well. Lee even more than Kara has been defined by the Lee/Kara relationship. Gaius even commented on it in this week's episode! 'Why does everything have to come back to your feelings for Kara Thrace?' Well, if it does then Lee is SCREWED, isn't he? Yet apparently not originally... INCIDENTALLY SCREWED. Wow, writers. Wow.
What I keep thinking is that TPTB are going to live to regret this. In fandom, sure, there are lots of Kara/Sam shippers, but in the casual viewing audience? Hardly ANYONE thinks Kara/Sam is the big epic OTP of the series. Even if they don't actively ship them, the casual viewer thinks Kara/Lee is the main romance. BECAUSE IT WAS. If they'd really wanted to write K/S then they should have started writing it much more clearly (without alterna!ship angst!) from a lot earlier in order to sway the audience in that directioon.
This is the final straw in a series of failures of storytelling and authorship that I have seen in Battlestar Galactica over the last season and a half. I'm not going to go into those here. If you don't share my opinion, that's fine, but I believe that the final arcs have been very badly told indeed, that the writers have handled viewer expectations very badly, and that the series has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer these days.
I don't blame Katee for influencing the writers--we have no idea how much she actually openly asked for the ending to be changed. Regardless, it comes down to the writers, and Ron most of all. If he was influenced into changing the ending of the series because of Michael's accident then that tells me all I need to know about him as an author. I'm sorry. Your creative vision should be independent of real life events. A serious creator respects the internal truth, the integrity of their story. They control the start and middle in such a way as to build to a specific end for all their major characters. I don't think RDM knows the first thing about integrity in storytelling.
Other people have discussed why the ending on the show is redundant. What I like best about rawles's Kara/Lee shipper manifesto is that it includes the statement 'I do not respect BSG as a narrative in any way at all'. Nor should we, imo, since it is probably the best example of a failed narrative I've ever seen on television.
And I watch SMALLVILLE and have seen the episode REQUIEM. <<--do not underestimate these words!
BSG is 'spectacular' and 'epic', yes, in the SPECTACULAR EPIC FAIL sense. It started with such a clear vision and it's quite obvious that this just gave way to RDM's need for shock and novelty, indulging personal whims and playing around with ideas in a messy and ultimately not very satisfying manner.
TPTB claimed to have a clear endpoint for the show in mind. Er... really? did that include spending the first hour of the final three in flashbacks? Don't get me wrong, I loved the flashbacks--infinitely more entertaining than the rest of Season 4 (I particularly loved the Gaius material!)--but it doesn't seem like this endpoint needs a lot of screentime, does it?
I don't think I'll watch the finale. And I'm not saying this in a flounce-y melodramatic way. I just really don't need to, y'know? My BSG, my pilots, my Lee, my Kara, they existed earlier... they will always exist in my heart. Frak the finale!
For anyone who does not know, Katee Sackhoff spilled the beans about Kara/Lee versus Kara/Sam in the finale. You can see what hear said here. Basically she talks a lot about Michael Trucco's accident and how they did not know if he would walk again and how what she and his other friends were feeling for him influenced the scenes they were shooting and led to greater emotional intensity between Kara and Sam. While there are lots of interpretations of her words flying around, I personally take from her words:
1. The writers had planned a Lee/Kara relationship ending (note her 'the writers had a Starbuck and Apollo relationship that was going somewhere').
2. Instead we are going to see her end up with Sam.
If you are hanging on to hope despite this, more power to you, but really I don't want to hear about it. For me, this is the final straw and I don't think there's any point in me holding out hope--it would only hurt me more to be let down again.
The crux of it for me is that the writers did not have a clear enough vision of Kara's endpoint as a character. If they did, they would never have wasted time like this vacillating between Lee and Sam and ultimately deciding who she ends up with based on real life context (however tragic). This is a failure of authorship. Yes, Kara is more than who she's with in a relationship sense--the writers could have decided she was going to end up alone--but if so, then why play the relationship stuff (BOTH relationships) so heavily in the build up to the finale?
Also, if this is so, it doesn't just show that Kara's end was malleable and unfixed, it shows that Lee's was as well. Lee even more than Kara has been defined by the Lee/Kara relationship. Gaius even commented on it in this week's episode! 'Why does everything have to come back to your feelings for Kara Thrace?' Well, if it does then Lee is SCREWED, isn't he? Yet apparently not originally... INCIDENTALLY SCREWED. Wow, writers. Wow.
What I keep thinking is that TPTB are going to live to regret this. In fandom, sure, there are lots of Kara/Sam shippers, but in the casual viewing audience? Hardly ANYONE thinks Kara/Sam is the big epic OTP of the series. Even if they don't actively ship them, the casual viewer thinks Kara/Lee is the main romance. BECAUSE IT WAS. If they'd really wanted to write K/S then they should have started writing it much more clearly (without alterna!ship angst!) from a lot earlier in order to sway the audience in that directioon.
This is the final straw in a series of failures of storytelling and authorship that I have seen in Battlestar Galactica over the last season and a half. I'm not going to go into those here. If you don't share my opinion, that's fine, but I believe that the final arcs have been very badly told indeed, that the writers have handled viewer expectations very badly, and that the series has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer these days.
I don't blame Katee for influencing the writers--we have no idea how much she actually openly asked for the ending to be changed. Regardless, it comes down to the writers, and Ron most of all. If he was influenced into changing the ending of the series because of Michael's accident then that tells me all I need to know about him as an author. I'm sorry. Your creative vision should be independent of real life events. A serious creator respects the internal truth, the integrity of their story. They control the start and middle in such a way as to build to a specific end for all their major characters. I don't think RDM knows the first thing about integrity in storytelling.
Other people have discussed why the ending on the show is redundant. What I like best about rawles's Kara/Lee shipper manifesto is that it includes the statement 'I do not respect BSG as a narrative in any way at all'. Nor should we, imo, since it is probably the best example of a failed narrative I've ever seen on television.
And I watch SMALLVILLE and have seen the episode REQUIEM. <<--do not underestimate these words!
BSG is 'spectacular' and 'epic', yes, in the SPECTACULAR EPIC FAIL sense. It started with such a clear vision and it's quite obvious that this just gave way to RDM's need for shock and novelty, indulging personal whims and playing around with ideas in a messy and ultimately not very satisfying manner.
TPTB claimed to have a clear endpoint for the show in mind. Er... really? did that include spending the first hour of the final three in flashbacks? Don't get me wrong, I loved the flashbacks--infinitely more entertaining than the rest of Season 4 (I particularly loved the Gaius material!)--but it doesn't seem like this endpoint needs a lot of screentime, does it?
I don't think I'll watch the finale. And I'm not saying this in a flounce-y melodramatic way. I just really don't need to, y'know? My BSG, my pilots, my Lee, my Kara, they existed earlier... they will always exist in my heart. Frak the finale!