Letters to the Editor

• I have to disagree

  [Read the article: And the Buffy goes to...]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  I gave this show a chance because of Salon (and a few friends who are fans of it), and am left wondering at why it’s so popular. Cutesy-snide articles like this one only make me dislike it and it’s fans more. Deep? Heavy? Reflective of “real human life”? No. I like their eagerness to touch on big issues, but that doesn’t mean they do it well. If they even did it passably I’d be okay with it.

  I’d like to offer 10 real reasons that I find this show unwatchable instead of the smug ones in the article. It was hard to keep this list to 10, but I’ve done my best. Plot holes, logical problems, stupid affectations… It’s as bad as anything else on TV. To wit:

  10. Must they cut the corners off of every rectangle? Must they really? Does that make it more spacey?

  9. The captured cylon raider was laid out in such a way that a human being could just crawl right inside of it, pull out a few muscles and tendons, and have the controls right where they need them in order to be able to fly it. Why would that be? Why would a super-intelligent race of robots build their ships to accommodate 4-limbed humans? I can understand why the producers of a schlock Sci-Fi TV show would lay it out that way, just not the cylons.

  8. If this is a society from some other galaxy that’s trying to find the earth, why does all of their technology look like ours? Why the phones? Why the computers that use our alphabet?

  7. Networked computers are supposed to be vulnerable to the cylons, and Galactica survived by not having networked computers. So how is it that the other ships in the fleet survived? How is it that they run into other battleships that survived even though they have networked computers?

  6. How is it that a massive number of reporters survived when most people didn’t? And how is it that, floating through space with a desperate goal of surviving, they felt that the most important thing they could do was stage chat shows and engage in Palast-esque investigative journalism? Were I on a death march after watching most of my species be destroyed by nuclear blasts, I wouldn’t be filling my time going to press conferences or doing chats. And how do they distribute this work? The odds are against there being any presses on space ships; the internet as we know it would require a lot of networked computers (a no-no); inter-ship broadcasts probably would only go through a central point on the deck, no to everyone living on those ships… How does this press distribute its work? And don’t get me started on Lucy Lawless’ character and her “report”.

  5. The stupid camera work. The jerk-zoom that they’ve affected isn’t stylish, it’s just annoying. Proof that unique doesn’t mean interesting. I like some of the hand-held camera work, even if it does tend to be overly wobbly to let you know that they’re using hand-held cameras, but the ships in space with the jerk-zoom is just trying.

  4. It’s based on a bad mormon TV show which made a metaphor of the 12 tribes of Israel and Jesus’ post-crucifixion journey to the US. I’m willing to overlook a lot, but that’s the philosophical premise of the original show and I can’t get around it personally. And the Mormon affectations abound, like “frack”: Mormons don’t swear, but have no problem using words that sound like swear words, a frustrating bit of literal-mindedness that runs through the whole faith. And the original show.

  3. The number of available Vipers on the Galactica is something like 14 – something that the deck-crew guy has complained about regularly in order to highlight the fact. The number of pilots is in the 20s and 30s. The cylon raiders number in the hundreds. How is it that the Galactica has defended itself and its cluster of outlying ships, exactly? And run patrols?

  2. The Cylons had infiltrated the colonies and were living with humans. Since their sinister goal is to mate with humans, why didn’t the super-smart robots do that before blowing up the colonies?

  1. All of the duplicitous, manipulative characters are women. Strong female characters? Please! Yes, Starbuck is a fascinating, lovable, and sympathetic mess, but that’s about it. Roslin is a manipulative politician who does what she thinks she should do to achieve her goals – which, much like GW Bush’s, are derived from religious visions. But for the sake of argument, put her in the “good” category, too. Now: about those cylons – who, coincidentally, constitute the majority of the rest of the female characters. In human form they are mostly female (as far as we know), and they use their wiles to make bad things happen – much like Eve. They are bad biblical stereotypes, using men to get what they want. Damn them, seducing their way into power! You women should be draped from head to foot to protect us stupid men folk from your corrupting ways. It gives me the creeps that this kind of world view gets aired these days, let alone applauded in Salon. If it were a few characters I’d consider it a rich, textured view of varied character types. Here it’s the huge majority. I’m depressed by this.

  Permalink Monday, August 28, 2006 12:00 AM