When I love a story, I usually criticize the heck out of it. I love BSG (sometimes), but as it draws to a close, I don't want to criticize it; I want to praise it. Maybe that's because, while it fails in the usual ways, it succeeds uniquely.

( Vague spoilers for the end of the series follow. )

I Netflixed the start of S3 of BSG and have been enjoying it... but it's a really nice example of the show--in my opinion--vitiating its emotional impact by working with too large a cast of characters. As of S3, there are about 20 separate relationships that are all potentially compelling. But developed in snippets to 4 lines per episode, none of ( Read more... )

I finally finished S2 of BSG. Yes, I’m behind the times. I won't do episode reviews because everything's already been said. But here are some general impressions ( Read more... )

Watching/discussing Farscape has got me to thinking about the pregnancy motif in TV/film science fiction (and fantasy), a motif I find annoying because it usually reinforces a discourse in which it is “normal/natural” for women to be denied reproductive choice (and men, too, but they’re less intimately affected). This denial of choice relates to ( Read more... )

Below I ramble about the Cylons as "machines." Colonial "machine" discourse assumes that "machine" is a stable term with one transparent meaning that allows non-machines to say, for example, "If X is a machine, it's subhuman." I'd argue that, on the contrary, what it means literally and morally to be a "machine" varies depending on your ( Read more... )

Took the BSG quiz that came through 13th_colony. I must say I find the result quite amusing and rather as expected. I knew I identify with Lee and that I'm not a bit like Kara. Tied for Roslin and Zarek; I wonder what that's about? I think I got so high for Tigh, in part, because I didn't know how to answer the drinking question: drinking too much, in ( Read more... )

Behind the cut are thoughts on reproductive issues in BSG. General spoilers through aired episodes of season 2.

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I know this meme was going around a while ago. So here I am a bit behind the times. I picked it up from astrogirl2 (as usual), with whom I agree that it might be the best meme ever ( Read more... )

I’ve been pondering the discourse of “humanity” and the “soul” developed in BSG episode 1.8 (“Flesh and Bone”) and why it makes me just a bit nervous. Spoilers up to that ep.

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damned_colonial's essay on US imperialism in the new Battlestar Galactica galvanized me to write a bit on the show's very contemporary setting. This isn't a direct response to the imperialism essay, by the way. I think damned_colonial's points about excessive US-centrism are valid.

(If you know next to nothing about BSG, minor spoilers follow.)

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