All I’ve been hearing for the past few years from everyone I know is “YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS SHOW EVEN IF YOU DON’T LIKE SCI FI OH MY GOD JUST WATCH IT.” I don’t even have anything against sci-fi, really. I think I just put it off on principle, for the same reason I keep putting off reading anything by David Sedaris. What can I say? I’m genetically predisposed to avoid bandwagon-jumping. I can’t help it, even when it goes against my better judgment.
Anyway, I finally did it. And yes: unsurprisingly, everyone was correct. It’s a fantastic show. It was jam-packed with complex characters (although for some reason I was really resistant to remembering any of their names with a few exceptions for almost two seasons), and interesting and long-term plot devices that really kept me invested. What I think I liked best of all, however, was the line they walked between utopian and dystopian futuristic things. Too often, space is portrayed as either perfect, shiny robot land with all freshly imagined weapons and problems, or a total wasteland of crap that make me wonder how these people got off the ground to begin with. BSG did a good job of keeping things reasonable. Nuclear weapons are still the really bad shit that everyone is afraid of. Food is still a problem. Cancer is still around. Things break, but they can be fixed. For being a space fantasy, they did a great job of being realistic. I liked that.
My only major complaint was the final movie. It was utterly pointless. It was almost entirely comprised of things I had seen already, and just had more of a depressing tone. I don’t give a shit what sidekick from Quantum Leap’s perspective was on the whole thing. It dragged on forever, and only served to ruin the really satisfying ending of the series.
The long and the short of it is that now I am one of those people that will tell you YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS. But I will be suggesting that the final movie be skipped. It was rubbish.
88/100 to go.
