Right From The Beginning...
The first inclination I had that something was wrong with BSG was near the beginning of the first season, perhaps going as far back as Six Degrees of Separation.
A couple of you have voluntarily tormented yourselves with the ridiculousness of my journal. You may know that I've always been one of the closet fans of Gaius Baltar. Just about every character got treated well during that first season, but Gaius Baltar did not.
The arrogant, cocky genius was replaced by a man who was stuttering and weak-willed, and worse, a total moron. Looking back on it I start to think it's possible that RDM and the writers just didn't know - still don't know - how to write smart characters. I look back through the characters we've been told are smart, and I see... Lee? Lampkin? Roslin? But Baltar was the first to turn into a sniveling idiot. And what's worse, they were so proud of their new sniveling idiot. They were having more fun writing him this way, and to hell with the believability of the character.
I remember that old school Baltar from the miniseries, the one who felt like a tragic hero, a brilliant man undone by his own inflated picture of himself, luring him into villainy - but who got that last moment of redemption, refusing to take advantage of an old lady even if it meant his own death. Do you remember the few times we got that character back? The moment when Baltar maneuvered himself into the Vice Presidency? That scene with Tyrol where he reveals that he worked his way up from abject poverty? Those are some of the most memorable scenes in the series.
The fact that Baltar got treated like crap isn't why I stopped watching. It was the first sign of a disease that spread through every one of the other characters. When was the last time Starbuck played pyramid, or smoked a cigar? What was with Dualla suddenly being thrust into a starring role as the latest plot device in the eternal Lee/Kara thread? When did Zarek stop being a terrorist and start being a bureaucrat? I can't even remember - is Tigh still an alcoholic?
The worst part is these are storylines I could have believed if they'd [i]happened[/i]. But they didn't happen. A character who was getting next to no screen time would suddenly be shoved into a role they didn't fit because the writers didn't want to cast someone new, or a character who was getting plenty of time would just as suddenly lose one or more of their defining character traits - with no explanation.
I always felt there was a storyline coming with Lee assuming political power - and that's one of the few things that I can still like about this show. But that's just about all I can come up with to justify this show anymore - and Lee's not even getting his own scenes.
It's sad because the last couple episodes have been extraordinarily high quality compared to the stuff we'd been getting before. And I feel as if, had these plot threads been where this show was going from the beginning instead of a couple of ideas the writers had a few months ago, I'd be so excited. But I'm not, and it's their own fault.
A couple of you have voluntarily tormented yourselves with the ridiculousness of my journal. You may know that I've always been one of the closet fans of Gaius Baltar. Just about every character got treated well during that first season, but Gaius Baltar did not.
The arrogant, cocky genius was replaced by a man who was stuttering and weak-willed, and worse, a total moron. Looking back on it I start to think it's possible that RDM and the writers just didn't know - still don't know - how to write smart characters. I look back through the characters we've been told are smart, and I see... Lee? Lampkin? Roslin? But Baltar was the first to turn into a sniveling idiot. And what's worse, they were so proud of their new sniveling idiot. They were having more fun writing him this way, and to hell with the believability of the character.
I remember that old school Baltar from the miniseries, the one who felt like a tragic hero, a brilliant man undone by his own inflated picture of himself, luring him into villainy - but who got that last moment of redemption, refusing to take advantage of an old lady even if it meant his own death. Do you remember the few times we got that character back? The moment when Baltar maneuvered himself into the Vice Presidency? That scene with Tyrol where he reveals that he worked his way up from abject poverty? Those are some of the most memorable scenes in the series.
The fact that Baltar got treated like crap isn't why I stopped watching. It was the first sign of a disease that spread through every one of the other characters. When was the last time Starbuck played pyramid, or smoked a cigar? What was with Dualla suddenly being thrust into a starring role as the latest plot device in the eternal Lee/Kara thread? When did Zarek stop being a terrorist and start being a bureaucrat? I can't even remember - is Tigh still an alcoholic?
The worst part is these are storylines I could have believed if they'd [i]happened[/i]. But they didn't happen. A character who was getting next to no screen time would suddenly be shoved into a role they didn't fit because the writers didn't want to cast someone new, or a character who was getting plenty of time would just as suddenly lose one or more of their defining character traits - with no explanation.
I always felt there was a storyline coming with Lee assuming political power - and that's one of the few things that I can still like about this show. But that's just about all I can come up with to justify this show anymore - and Lee's not even getting his own scenes.
It's sad because the last couple episodes have been extraordinarily high quality compared to the stuff we'd been getting before. And I feel as if, had these plot threads been where this show was going from the beginning instead of a couple of ideas the writers had a few months ago, I'd be so excited. But I'm not, and it's their own fault.