*sigh*

serazin, I feel your pain. TheDonF and I were crazy into it for a while, and both of us sort of got lost/lost interest in the last season, and then it ended and we were all "Wait, that's it? Kara was a... an angel? They're abandoning all their technology?"

It was just such a cop-out. And I didn't appreciate the smarmy warning in the flash forward: don't let technology get out of hand again, peeps!

But it was wonderfully engaging, wonderfully scripted, and I'll probably go back and watch the first two seasons again.

Here's the Metafilter thread.

Well, I liked some aspects of it. At least it came to a definite ending, and most of the characters got some kind of fitting conclusion.

But the plotting was pretty disappointing. Moore basically seems to have bitten off vastly more than he could chew, and wasn't able to make sense of all the things he introduced.

Yea, they sort of wrote themselves into a corner and didn't really know how to get themselves out. That said, I'd rather watch TV that fails than TV that's boring.

My girlfriend's sister believes that boxing episodes are the real death knell for a show, because it's just such cheap filler. ("I know, we need some conflict between characters ... hey, let's have them literally hitting each other! Nevermind that we've never shown any of them caring about boxing or ever will again.") BSG had its boxing episode early, as I recall.

Beyond that, I think when I was where you are, I really enjoyed reading Abigail Nussbaum's blog entries about BSG: 1 2 3 4

I needed so much triage after the finale that I *re-wrote it* to make it make a tiny bit of sense. Gah. Wonderful, wonderful acting, great arcs, but slams into a huge fucking wall in the end. Grar.

I'd rather watch TV that fails than TV that's boring.

Same here. Unfortunately, BSG had a lot of both toward the end. I just kept watching because I simply had to believe they wouldn't keep digging the hole deeper and deeper. Yet, they did.

Ultimately, BSG fell into the same folder I keep Farscape in...the "Great concept with so much promise that devolved into long, weekly bouts with loud, violent paranoia" folder.

So, if I decided to watch BSG, would it be feasible to stop watching a season earlier or so? Or would that just be insanity-making?

I blame New Caprica. Seriously, I feel that's where the show veered from the path. While the show remained good, and remained the most unrelentingly grim TV show I think I've ever seen, I also think it was a left turn that wasn't ever anticipated when the show was first starting. The settlement and subsequent occupation of the planet altered the basic behaviors of both Human and Cylon and their attendant plotlines so much it rippled outward all the way to the last episode.

However, I love epic saga-form storytelling and BSG is something I'll watch again and again for the journey, not the destination.

Also? Do NOT NOT NOT watch "The Plan". Just don't.

...one other thing. I'm surprised to find Caprica is getting generally good reviews. Has anyone actually seen it (since it's been on DVD forever)? Is it worth getting into?

Word. For me, the whole praxis of the series was "what happened to Kara?" are there some meta-cylons running the whole plot? is that really her? Do we have free will or are we bound in an eternal cycle with no escape? etc, etc. BUT IT TURNS OUT SHE'S A MAGIC SPACE ANGEL FROM SPACE. Feh!

I think "what happened to Kara" was that they killed her off so that Sackoff could go work on that terrible Bionic Woman remake and then they had to hastily write her back in when that show failed.

I didn't get into BSG until I saw the FPP about the commercial after Dee's suicide. God, that was depressing as fuck.

As far as the ending goes, I didn't like the things they explained versus the things they didn't. I hated how Kara just poofed and I thought the opera house thing was poorly executed.

I cried so very hard for Baltar's farming thing, Roslin's death, and Athena/Helo/Hera going to go be all family-happy. I really liked Lee's 'yay, let's go exploring even though it sounds totally exhausting' thing even though I always wanted to punch Lee in the face.

Thanks for the links guys - those Abigail Nussbaum posts look pretty interesting.

It was such a bummer to see so many plot lines and characters so poorly worked out. Kara wasn't even the worst one for me. I mean, we'd been building up this frakking Opera House scene for like three seasons and then, so what? Why are we all in the Opera House?

But I admit I'm only so irritated because I love so much about the show. I have never seen female characters like that on TV. So many great ideas. So much great acting - I'm a big Mary McDonnell and Edward Olmos fan, but I've come to love Michael Hogan who I sort of ignored for the first couple seasons and Tricia Helfer who pulls off so many different sub-characters.

Gaspode - I think if you want to avoid all BSG badness you should just watch Season 1 and stop. There are wonderful moments and themes all the way to the very last episode of the final episode, but after Season 1 there are more and more frequent shitty moments.

Oh, but I did enjoy the little toy robots at the very, very end. I thought that was a fun scene that didn't have some big heavy handed comment to make and yet was gently provocative and bemused.

Okay, even though I am only (nearly) through season three, I obvs know what is going to happen because, hello?!? I live on the internet and every skinny male computer nerd and then some over on the blue have been bleating on about BSG for years. I know it's gonna suck, and it has already sucked, but every once and awhile it is SO TOTALLY WORTH IT. We watched the episode the other night when Kat gets outed by Starbuck as a fraud, and Kat goes all heroic and overcomes her past to earn her place in the company of good people and then she up and DIES. That was quite moving. I cried. My husband misted. The dog, she farted. We had a moment. BSG gives you moments, and they are totally worth it.

I miss BSG. Haven't gone near Caprica (yet). We watch on dvd, so maybe when we finish our Deep Space 9 run (just finished season 4), I'll consider it.