the listing continues!
BSG is another show that has been pretty formative for me, though unlike AtS, I have kind of been able to process and mostly have good feelings toward it.
One influence that BSG has had on how I watch shows is that I apply the Laura Roslin Test to fictional 'verses now to see how much credibility I give the major conflict. The Laura Roslin test is: can the usual conflicts of this 'verse be sustained if there is a character (1) with moderate-high competence and (2) sufficient agency relative to the other players on the board to use it who (3) operates by some recognizable code of ethics? If so, I'm probably really enjoying myself. If the whole thing falls apart when you try to add a Laura Roslin type character into the mix, or if you have a character with the potential to be a Laura Roslin type whose storyline takes bizarre and disempowering zigs and zags all over the place, then...it might still be good, but it's intellectually limited in some ways. Because a lot of times you'll have the villain be far and away smarter than everyone else, and that means things aren't credible. Or you'll have conflict resting on the heroes passing around the Dumbass Ball. Or the main characters are so much less powerful than their antagonists that there's going to have to be some sheer dumb luck going on.
And that's what...it's probably more symptom than cause, but I think the issue of S4.5 was, quite simply, that BSG itself started failing the Laura Roslin test. Roslin loses tons of screen time and her metaphoric (and eventually, literal) voice. She gets folded away into Love Interest territory because her default of pragmatic ethics would throw the bizarre fatalism and read-the-scriptiness of that final arc into harsh relief.
S1: 33, Water, Six Degrees, Tigh Me Up, Colonial Day (I have a tendency to watch half of Bastille Day and then start trying to put my fist through my head, which apparently is not recommended by physicians?) (5.5/13)
S2.0: Resistance, Home 1 & 2, Final Cut, Pegasus (5/10)
S2.5: RSI (RSII is another one I make it halfway through, but this time because I start wailing "BABYYYYYY" and can't make myself finish it), Sacrifice, Downloaded (3.5/10)
S3: Occupation/Precipice, Exodus 1 & 2, EoJ, Rapture, Taking a Break, The Son Also Rises (8/20)
S4.0: Razor, Six of One, Ties That Bind, Escape Velocity, Guess What's Coming to Dinner, Revelations (7/10)
S4.5: The Oath, Blood on the Scales (2/10 *sad trombone*)
Overall: a lot of political process episodes, and political philosophy episodes, though oddly not LDYB. 4.0 seems to be my favorite to re-watch, which kind of surprises me, because I think I'd say S2 was my favorite overall.
Lots of Lee, and lots of getting upset and running away from Lee. Also formative: I don't think I'd ever changed my opinion on a character as much as I did on Lee before this. I'd go from "like" to "wild about," or from "indifferent" to "don't like," or occasionally "really liked but became indifferent." NOT SO with Lee! I hated him, reader. HATED him. And then at some point in S3 it got a whole lot more complicated and the rest is oh sweet Lords of Kobol not even a little bit f-locked history. (I've re-read a couple of my initial reactions while doing the Great Re-Watch and WOW I WAS NOT IN A GOOD PLACE THAT FALL, which I knew because I was there but still, WEIRD. And I've flirted with the idea of taking them down but like...that whole episode review project is exactly the kind of thing I absolutely LOVE to read and am so pleased and grateful when other people share? So...I DO WHAT I WANT, is the moral of this story.)
Top 10% of episodes:
8. Six Degrees. In which there is NO MORE MISTER NICE GAIUS!
7/6. The Oath/Blood on the Scales, with which there are major problems but they're so fabulous in other ways
5. Guess What's Coming to Dinner
4. Downloaded
3. Collaborators
2. Resurrection I
1. 33
Favorite characters are no secret: Laura, Lee, Felix, D'Anna, and Ellen. If I were going to extend that to top 10...it'd be a lot more likely to change but today I'm inclined to say Gaius, Tory, Kara, Cain, and Zarek.
This entry was originally posted at http://pocochina.dreamwidth.org/299758.html. Leave a comment here, or there using OpenID.
One influence that BSG has had on how I watch shows is that I apply the Laura Roslin Test to fictional 'verses now to see how much credibility I give the major conflict. The Laura Roslin test is: can the usual conflicts of this 'verse be sustained if there is a character (1) with moderate-high competence and (2) sufficient agency relative to the other players on the board to use it who (3) operates by some recognizable code of ethics? If so, I'm probably really enjoying myself. If the whole thing falls apart when you try to add a Laura Roslin type character into the mix, or if you have a character with the potential to be a Laura Roslin type whose storyline takes bizarre and disempowering zigs and zags all over the place, then...it might still be good, but it's intellectually limited in some ways. Because a lot of times you'll have the villain be far and away smarter than everyone else, and that means things aren't credible. Or you'll have conflict resting on the heroes passing around the Dumbass Ball. Or the main characters are so much less powerful than their antagonists that there's going to have to be some sheer dumb luck going on.
And that's what...it's probably more symptom than cause, but I think the issue of S4.5 was, quite simply, that BSG itself started failing the Laura Roslin test. Roslin loses tons of screen time and her metaphoric (and eventually, literal) voice. She gets folded away into Love Interest territory because her default of pragmatic ethics would throw the bizarre fatalism and read-the-scriptiness of that final arc into harsh relief.
S1: 33, Water, Six Degrees, Tigh Me Up, Colonial Day (I have a tendency to watch half of Bastille Day and then start trying to put my fist through my head, which apparently is not recommended by physicians?) (5.5/13)
S2.0: Resistance, Home 1 & 2, Final Cut, Pegasus (5/10)
S2.5: RSI (RSII is another one I make it halfway through, but this time because I start wailing "BABYYYYYY" and can't make myself finish it), Sacrifice, Downloaded (3.5/10)
S3: Occupation/Precipice, Exodus 1 & 2, EoJ, Rapture, Taking a Break, The Son Also Rises (8/20)
S4.0: Razor, Six of One, Ties That Bind, Escape Velocity, Guess What's Coming to Dinner, Revelations (7/10)
S4.5: The Oath, Blood on the Scales (2/10 *sad trombone*)
Overall: a lot of political process episodes, and political philosophy episodes, though oddly not LDYB. 4.0 seems to be my favorite to re-watch, which kind of surprises me, because I think I'd say S2 was my favorite overall.
Lots of Lee, and lots of getting upset and running away from Lee. Also formative: I don't think I'd ever changed my opinion on a character as much as I did on Lee before this. I'd go from "like" to "wild about," or from "indifferent" to "don't like," or occasionally "really liked but became indifferent." NOT SO with Lee! I hated him, reader. HATED him. And then at some point in S3 it got a whole lot more complicated and the rest is oh sweet Lords of Kobol not even a little bit f-locked history. (I've re-read a couple of my initial reactions while doing the Great Re-Watch and WOW I WAS NOT IN A GOOD PLACE THAT FALL, which I knew because I was there but still, WEIRD. And I've flirted with the idea of taking them down but like...that whole episode review project is exactly the kind of thing I absolutely LOVE to read and am so pleased and grateful when other people share? So...I DO WHAT I WANT, is the moral of this story.)
Top 10% of episodes:
8. Six Degrees. In which there is NO MORE MISTER NICE GAIUS!
7/6. The Oath/Blood on the Scales, with which there are major problems but they're so fabulous in other ways
5. Guess What's Coming to Dinner
4. Downloaded
3. Collaborators
2. Resurrection I
1. 33
Favorite characters are no secret: Laura, Lee, Felix, D'Anna, and Ellen. If I were going to extend that to top 10...it'd be a lot more likely to change but today I'm inclined to say Gaius, Tory, Kara, Cain, and Zarek.
This entry was originally posted at http://pocochina.dreamwidth.org/299758.html. Leave a comment here, or there using OpenID.