Liveblog: Battlestar Galactica 1.3 (Bastille Day)

[primeideal]

 It's so...heavy. And, IDK, "checkboxy?" Which is the same criticism I had of "Solo" but here it's in the political sense. Just the whole main plot of this episode (the "we do not negotiate with terrorists") felt like they were checking things off a list. There's Dee, who comes from the same oppressed colony but didn't become a terrorist over it! Apollo: "Oh I read your book in college, you had a lot of good things to say!"

Part of the issue is that we're jumping between so many characters that each episode only gives us a few minutes with the side characters, so it feels like we're barely moving forward. Starbuck is the coolest! Tigh has a drinking problem! Both of the Sharons might be Cylons! The Cylons watching planet-Sharon and Helo in the city made the point that "Cylons are like the children, we have to shove aside our parents in order to be ourselves," which is kind of the same thing Zarek was saying. So are we supposed to suspect him too, or is that just a red herring?

The last bit with Roslin ("we need to give people hope, so help me keep this secret") was unpleasantly shades of Admiral Holdo. TBH I guess a sign of how bad Disney Star Wars is is how many times I've had to go to it to make parallels just three episodes in. We'll see how long I last.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

I know it was brilliant and all my friends loved it, but despite the fantastic actors whom I adored, I couldn't watch it. It was way too grim and dark for me. I gave up halfway through season one.

Maybe your experience will be different. I wanted to like it so much! But I just couldn't.

[primeideal]

Right now my experience is tracking with that, unfortunately! We'll see how far I give it. But I asked another friend who was like "...if you're wondering whether it's going to be too dark after just the first episode, it might be too dark." :(

[isis]

Huh, oddly I don't remember it being all that dark, other than in bits. But I watched it ~10 years ago.

[primeideal]

I may have been imprecise, I wasn't thinking of dark so much as "graphic violence, etc" so much as, idk, ponderous. Like, It's Making A Point About 2000s-Era Politics And It's Doing So In Big Slow Letters. "Heavy." ?

[princessofgeeks]

Well, I am notoriously squeamish for anything dark and gloomy, so there is that.