Consonants and vowels all together, equally

Whatever your opinion of the finale, you should enjoy Grace Park answering our burning questions regarding BSG.

I stopped at last week's episode, and I'll watch all of Daybreak in one go on Friday, though I've been spoiled for it. Watching this season was very different—so clearly endgame, and so much less filler, but so many big plot points that seemed either poorly executed or beside the point.

( 4.01-4.06 )

( a note on the ladies )

( 4.07-4.10 )

( 4.11-4.14 )

( 4.15-4.18 )

( a note on Lee and Kara )

I'm looking forward to Friday, partly because I'll be glad when the show just gets to where its going—killing everyone off in a huge ball of fire, or an indeterminate ending where they leave the Gallactica behind and move on through space, or something in between. All endings seem equally likely at this point; I have no issues that I expect the finale to resolve, or even give lip service to. Expectation-free!

So I finished season three this morning.

ali_wildgoose commented on my season two post that it didn't sound the same as when I talked to her about it. This might be because I was trying hard to focus on the things I did like as opposed to the bits I found frustrating, assuming that my frustration was based in not being a fan of the SF genre as such. However, season three, and other things, disabused me of that notion. So, no punches pulled.

( Three questions. )

( 3.01-3.10. In which many things happen but few of them actually matter. )

( The Eye of Jupiter/Rapture: Yay mythology! )

( 3.13-3.19. A lot of filler. )

( 3.20. Yay Mythology! )

( 3.16. Some specific thoughts on Dirty Hands. )

Hence, I have decided that this show is Grey's Anatomy in space. I'm going to keep watching for the same reasons I've watched season 3, namely, the mythology stuff. The rest I either don't care about or actively don't like.

I know my reading of the recaps was controversial (believe me, I've heard about it) but I've found that watching the show goes a lot better when I know what is going to happen, because then I don't have that sense of overwhelming dread that I had when I didn't know.

This is the thing with BSG: I keep feeling like everyone who is telling me to watch the show wants me to care about it in a way I can't figure out. Is it detached fascination? Is it confirmation that life is ultimately futile, or that humanity no longer deserves to exist? I can't seem to work out where the pleasure is in the show; I'm alternately annoyed and infuriated, with about ten minutes of interest every fourth episode or so.

( Season 2. )

On to season 3 shortly, thanks to illogicalvulcan. Season 4 is on the TIVO thanks to Sci-Fi, so I reckon I'll be caught up at least by the finale. Thoughts, anyone?

So this is what happened:

I started watching 2.01, and I wasn't grabbed by it, probably because there was a lot of action in the episode.* So I thought I might read some recaps.

Jacob's recaps at TWOP were very specifically dangled in front of me by Ziggy and S____ as a reason to watch the show. Unfortunately for me, he didn't start recapping until halfway through season two, so I read Strega's recap for 2.02 and I wasn't grabbed by it either, though probably for the same reasons, as 2.02 was mostly about people running around. And then at the start of the 2.03 recap, Strega said:

Credits. 47,862 survivors. I would have liked it if there were more casualties from last week. Not hundreds, but a few dozen wouldn't have been unreasonable.

and I thought, oh Strega, your narrative priorities are not mine.

I decided to skip ahead to Jacob's recaps and found that I could figure out what had happened in the intervening few episodes pretty well, and settled in to read them and posted my intention to do so. Shortly after this I was informed, through channels, that this path was VERY UNWISE.

Now, here I'll note that the first thing of BSG I ever saw was Razor and when the crowd assembled to watch it found out, after it was over, that I hadn't watched any other BSG yet and had spoiled myself, or something, I had a room of about 20 people shouting at me that I had committed a grave sin. As a general rule, I like to avoid roomfuls of people shouting at me, and this incident plus comments from other people certainly set up for me that there is very much a RIGHT way and a WRONG way to watch BSG, and it behooves me to watch it in the RIGHT way in order to avoid more shouting.

In that light, I searched for season 2 recaps and they were actually difficult to find. EW doesn't start recapping until season 3. I found a website that had some recaps, but also had a lot of ads for Saw V, which threatened to freak me out. (Yes, I am so much of a girly wimp about horror films that I have to avert my eyes from the ads for them; a look of horror on someone's face will definitely give me nightmares. Talk about being in the wrong demo for a show.) Finally wordplay told me to try the BSG wiki.

I read the recaps there the other day, and I've started season 3, and I'm not sure I feel like I have all that much to say. ( spoilers! )

So the new plan is to continue to read the recaps on the wiki because they're really fast, and then go back and read the Jacob recaps because even if they're WRONG, I enjoy them, because they talk about the stuff I care about, and I'm used to Jacob and his endless blah blah blah from his Idol recaps, and I actually love him for it. I think this is another reason I'm doing it WRONG? So please avoid shouting at me about it. I'm doing the best I can here.

*I've always been reluctant to say that I don't like something that I know other people like; it seems rude, somehow. Also, I've had something I really like be either dismissed summarily, or get the "everyone knows it sucks" treatment, and been sad. So I'll put it this way: I don't really care for action very much, as such. It is not enough to carry my interest. I've tried very hard to get interested, but I'm just not, and I apologize to all for my girly non-geek mainstream lameness.

So over the last few months I have watched all of the first season of Battlestar Galactica, including the miniseries. And since I watched five of those episodes today, and then read something rather bittersweet and/or melancholy, I am in desperate need of some seriously happy stuffs—I'm watching QI but I'm not sure it will be enough.

Now, there are people that are very influential to me—sisterpandora, ziggy1278, friendsofjunius, calloocallay, and also lillijulianne—who have all been waiting for me to watch this show. But the thing is, there's also, on the other side, a friend of a friend who tends to have the same kinds of misgivings about story structure and narrative priorities that I have, while the above folks, while awesome, often don't. So I'm watching this show with this huge cloud of OMG DOOM YOU SHOULD NOT BE DOING THIS hanging over my head, while at the same time five close friends are like, OMG WHY ARE YOU NOT CAUGHT UP ALREADY and it's sort of stressing me out, so if everyone can please be patient with me?

I've also told ziggy1278 that I'm watching this show without allowing for any speculation on what will happen (which is why i need the second season NOW) and without any shipping at all on my part. I will watch people talk to each other or fuck each other and not allow myself to think anything of it, just smile and nod.

I'm going to do the same sort of listy thing I did for Avatar, but what I will say outside the cut is for the love of god where is the Starbuck femslash????!!!!!!

( Battlestar Galactica Season One )

Am I supposed to be watching webisodes now, or later, or what the hell?