Letters to the Editor

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Monday: The yuppies-making-babies sitcom "Notes From the Underbelly" returns. Plus: What did you think of "Battlestar Galactica: Razor"?
  • Not very sharp

    It was at best so-so, and I've really liked the show in the past, but briefly:

    There were about four stories being told in Razor, and at least two of them had NO need to be told because they were already told in dialogue prior to this. We KNEW what happened to the Pegasus, how it survived the initial attack, how Cain shot her original XO, how they pillaged and conscripted off of some civilian ships, et cetera.

    Retelling this visually was mildly cool but added absolutely nothing to the mythos or really to the movie itself, nor did it make Cain seem more sympathetic in retrospect. At one point I was expecting some good BSG style commentary on torture in the way they've commented on the current administration and Iraq, but they just left that dangling. WEAK.

    IMO you could have completely dropped the "Kendra Shaw" AND the "Pegasus origin" stories in favor of some expansion to the "Young Adama" and the "Hybrid" stories, and you'd have been left with a much better piece overall.

    Also, as previously noted by HH, the concept of broadcasting supplemental material over the web and then expecting the viewers of the TV show to have it in mind is lame.

    I managed to catch a couple of the "Razor Flashbacks" at scifi.com; if I hadn't done that the Young Adama scenes would have made no sense at all--and they didn't make much anyway. Apparently they'll be included on the "uncut" DVD next week.

    Call me old fashioned, but I think media should be self-contained in most respects. I shouldn't have to read a prequel book to grasp a movie story, or watch webisodes for a TV show to make sense, et cetera. In some cases the "multimedia" concept is legit, but in most, if the thing doesn't stand alone, it's weak.