Comments on: Battletipjar Galactica

By: Jonathan Goldberg

Jonathan Goldberg — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 13:28:53 +0000

Whatever you do, don’t waste time on 2001, a Space Odyssey. I found out the hard way, when the turkey first came out, just how utterly boring it is.

By: Kip Manley

Kip Manley — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 15:45:59 +0000

Slash is but a poor substitute for some of us, ancarett. For a wide variety of reasons. (Of course there’s lots of slash: plenty of ho-yay, as noted, and Gaeta, indeed. But that’s no real substitute for dealing with that aspect directly, darn it. —There’s a moment between the actors that play Baltar and Apollo on one of the behind-the-scenes clips that shows the show’s at least somewhat aware of the deficiency…)

But having slagged them for that, I will allow as how it’s an impressively egalitarian show, as far as the integration of the male and female crews. So bully for that. And one last remark: it’s not the first post-9/11 SF epic; it’s the first post-Abu Ghraib SF epic…

By: asg

asg — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 02:49:01 +0000

Battlestar Galactica is unquestionably one of the finest shows on TV right now, and definitely the best SF show to hit the airwaves since Firefly (which is all of, what, 3 years ago? heh).

That said, I find it philosophically frustrating (if the Cylon-humans are physically and psychologically indistinguishable from humans, how are they still Cylons? Derek Parfit would hate this show. And what exactly does Baltar’s test DO? And how did the Pegasus survive the Cylon virus that disabled all advanced ships? And why didn’t Roslin just promote Adama as soon as they came into contact with Pegasus? And and and…)

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 02:29:09 +0000

Avoid Battlestar Galatica unless you are willing to be bombarded by excessive amounts of sleazy sex
Excessive? Lord, you are sheltered.

By: Dan Nexon

Dan Nexon — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 01:26:02 +0000

Anyone on for a discussion of BSG and Mormonism?

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 00:20:23 +0000

Thanks Kip! So I WON’T order the miniseries after all! (whew.)

By: Ancarett

Ancarett — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 22:37:21 +0000

You guys are so far behind the curve. There’s loads of BSG slash popping up now! Yay for sleazy sex.

By: Anarch

Anarch — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 20:53:51 +0000

Plenty of ho-yay, but none at all actually acknowledged except with the winkiest of wink-nudges.

I’ve still got my money on Gayta…

By: Kip Manley

Kip Manley — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 18:46:36 +0000

John, the miniseries is included with the Season 1.0 collection; it’s the entirety of the first disk. You’ll pop it in and three hours later look up and go wha?

And then leap to swap in disk 2. The first “real” episode, 33, will kick your ass.

The season 2.0 disk set is the first ten episodes of season 2, collected just before the second half began (the SciFi channel runs a weird split-season schedule, which means shows with long arcs get a cliffhanger in the middle), which was a lightning-fast and supersmart move, at least from their perspective of me as a consumer; I wanted more, and could get it, quick enough, and now I’m up to speed with everyone else. (Of course, since we can download episodes from Apple pretty much right after they’re broadcast, we don’t have to subscribe to cable to get the new stuff.)—Anyway: good stuff, and I’ll stop nattering about the meta aspects.

(Actually, a question and a caveat: do you know the old skool show at all? And: its one drawback is how relentlessly straight it is. Plenty of ho-yay, but none at all actually acknowledged except with the winkiest of wink-nudges.)

By: Jack

Jack — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 17:23:07 +0000

Where is the outrage at Europe’s free riding on US investment in (entertainment) intellectual property?

By: Ray

Ray — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 16:36:37 +0000

One difference between US and Flemish (for example) TV production is that HBO has a larger potential audience (on first sale) and an awful lot more money. Producing Battlestar Galactica is a gamble for a US channel, but it’s an enormous and unaffordable gamble for RTE or TV3.

By: Dan Nexon

Dan Nexon — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 16:22:03 +0000

P2P and Anime: one of the hardest issues for me concerns “fan-subbed” anime. In general, I find fan-subbed anime much more fun to watch than commerically subbed material in the US. It is also nice to see the latest episodes without months of lag.

1) The translation hiccups are actually quite interesting for a non-Japanese speaker. They provide some insight into the grammatical structure of what the characters are actually saying which, in turn, seems to provide deeper layers of understanding of the interactions;

2) This is most true in the case of honorifics, which must fans-subbed material deliberately (rather than inadvertently) retains. In quite a number of shows I’ve watched over the last few years I’ve found the honorifics to be significant to inter-character relationships and general questions of characterization. English-language equivalents don’t seem to work very well, and some commercial subs ignore many often crucial honorifics (particular -chan and -kun).

The solution for us has been to watch fan-subbed material and to make a good faith effort to buy commercial releases. But see comment #1 for some sense of how consistent we are about doing this. Thus, we probably contribute to the very problem that deters us from purchasing. On the other hand, our alternative would be to rent from netflix, so I’m not sure how much demand impact we have.

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 15:28:56 +0000

a (cf. #21), I have now for several years been telling Belgians that truisms about American TV are simply false – that since the collapse of the three network system, American TV has grown consistently better. It is one of the clear examples of competition increasing quality.

Alas, the size of the American market has seriously distorting consequences in Europe. It is far cheaper to dub or subtitle American shows than to produce your own of comparable quality. Audiences may (and usually do) prefer programs that were originally made in their own language – dubbing lowers perceived quality dramtically – but the proliferation of commercial channels in Europe does not seem to be breeding the kind of improved production values that it has in the US.

When cable first became available in the US, one of the big winners was Ted Turner, simply because he had could sell the TV equivalent of shovelware to channels that were just looking to fill their time. It took a few years before the market started producing genuinely new programs.

It seems that right now new TV stations in Europe are just buying American TV to fill timeslots cheaply, like early American cable. We have two whole channels in Flanders that do nothing but broadcast American shows and cheap, locally produced reality TV. But, I see some signs of hope. VTM - commercial Flemish TV - is pushing Matroesjkas with considerable success. It seems to me to be a low-rent rip off of The Sopranos – more tits, more ass, about the same amount of violence, less than half the character depth – but at least it suggests that the idea of producing different kinds of TV shows has occurred to someone in Europe.

By: Cryptic Ned

Cryptic Ned — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 15:09:40 +0000

I thought Steamboy was really, really good, more intelligent and exciting than Howl’s Moving Castle. Even with the dubbing, it was better than I thought it would be.

By: a

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 12:41:59 +0000

Just to add to what Scott has said, as another expatriate. I find the DVD experience much preferable to watching the series on broadcast TV. My wife and I can choose the start time, and we can watch the series over consecutive nights, rather than once a week. There are no ads and we can pause if we need to (is that W. crying in his bed?). Since it’s pretty much the only thing we are watching, it comes down to about 30 euro for a month’s worth of TV. At times this seems to me to be expensive, at other times it seems to be a bargain.

It’s become pretty much a truism about how bad American culture is, with American TV being the worst. But I think these American TV series (Sopranoes, 6 Feet Under, Desperate Housewives, Lost, and others) are much the best things going today. Would that French TV could show the same inventiveness and creativity, rather than yet another variety show with has-beens singing “Je ne suis pas un hero.”