(Untitled)

[pellucid]

1. Met with supervisor for the first time in six months, since I've been avoiding her to establish what we might call a home stretch timeline. If all goes to plan, I shall be Dr. pellucid by the end of March

Comments

[pellucid]

See, I didn't actually read Grazier's interview, so...

(Perhaps I should not make judgments without reading, but it was the rage over the weekend when I didn't have internet, and I never quite got to it--nor do I feel all that motivated to do so, since I think it would just piss me off.)

As for hard SF and mysticism, I don't want to think of them as incompatible, but that probably reflects my own worldview a lot. I think it's perfectly fine (in fact, perfectly awesome) to say "there are things that cannot be scientifically explained and verified, and these things contribute to so many people's beliefs in supernatural beings and powers." I think you can even show these things in fiction. But the trick, I think, is that you can't actually explain them--whether through science or through some kind of definitive religious or scientific explanation. Neither of those (if one is so concerned about realism) actually reflects our own world.

To tell the best kind of story involving these elements, I think, we need the hardcore materialist atheists who insist upon a scientific explanation, the hardcore religious believers who insist upon a religious explanation, and the whole myriad of people in between who aren't sure or who have conflicting beliefs (I always loved, for instance, the way that Mulder and Scully each contradicted themselves when it came to religion--that felt very true to me). And most importantly, NO ONE GROUP WINS. The interesting story is not in solving the mystery (and there I would disagree with the reviewer--not that there wasn't a strong mystery element to BSG, but a more interesting approach would have been to show how it couldn't be solved than to solve it) but in dramatizing the actions of people in unresolvable situations.

And what makes me WANT TO CRY, OMG is that BSG DID THIS!!!!!!!!!! They did it better than anyone ever has at the beginning!!!!!! Is Roslin really the Dying Leader, or is she manipulating hallucinations for political gain? Who knows?! Maybe one or the other, maybe both. Does she even believe herself? Probably sometimes. THAT'S INTERESTING!!! Cylon monotheism vs. Colonial polytheism--which is better? Surely the most interesting story comes in answering "neither" and instead dramatizing the similarities and the incompatibilities and, y'know, actually playing with the dynamics that exist between people with inimical religious beliefs who are equally convinced they are in the right. Remember when it wasn't clear whether head!Six was really an angel or a microchip or a manifestation of Baltar's wacky brain? Could we have kept that question unanswered?

If RDM really wanted to be all real world relevant, as he claimed, he should have kept on that track. You want a panel at the UN? Gee, I can't imagine how dramatizing religious conflict in a messy and ambiguous way, without wrapping it all up in an "it doesn't matter what god you're praying to--it's all just 'god,' and he/she/it did it" bow, might speak to situations going on in the real world.

The point where I most agree with that reviewer, I think, is the disappointment of how far this show fell. It was on track to be one of the greatest ever. There is some inconsistency even early on, but there are parts of this show that are as good as it gets, and if they'd gone on as they'd begun, it might have been amazing. But not only did they drop the ball in terms of plot and character and all that (as many shows do), they dropped the ball in a way that was completely inimical to what the show had formerly been about. BSG betrayed its own essential character with that ending, and that, I think, is what makes it so much more disappointing than any other disappointing ending I can think of.

*rages*

[beccatoria]

Along the lines of not providing easy answers, I think that even the kind of show it was was so marvelously fluid until that final season. There was STILL space to view it as a mystery, a soap opera, a hard SF style look at the ethical and societal implications of AI.

You're also so right about HeadSix. Up until really, really late in the series, I believed that she was just Baltar gone crazy. Even with the other head!characters, you know? I don't think we ever really needed an answer to her.

But I think that perhaps the thing that most exemplifies the ways in which BSG failed me, personally, is what it ultimately decided should be left as "unanswered, ambiguous and open to interpretation" (though often I felt that was not the case, because, GOD), and what should be answered absolutely and with no wiggle room.

What Is Head Six gets absolutely answered, while What Was Kara? is left in the air.

And like, I would have been fine with never quite answering the Kara thing. But at the same time, I feel like Head Six was so ingrained into the fabric of the show and so discussed and so many possible answers presented that there was enough around to acutally have a debate about her nature, if they hadn't clarified it. While with Starbuck, you have, um, it must have been God, and no real discussion on various possibilities at all? And yet THAT'S the one they don't give us closure on?

Everything else you say though, just, yes. Just yes. I want to repeat it all a million times and loudly. It was the fact it was this show that did it to me that made me want to stab shit so much more than if it had been any other.