What Blogging Is All About

What I love about blogging is finding people who comment on weird combinations of interesting things.  Like the impact of facial hair on Presidential politics -- it's not a decisive advantage either way, but Republicans are always more hirsute than Democrats.  Or whether Cal-OSHA should mandate the use of condoms during the filming of adult movies.  Or finding a mash-up of Battlestar Galactica and the Beastie Boys:

It's the juxtaposition of differing areas of life that makes blogs so interesting to read.  Sometimes I just love the internet SO DAMN MUCH!

Daybreak

Well, it's finally over. As I wrote before, TV is something you watch at your leisure, and this weekend The Wife and I got around to watching the series finale for Battlestar Galactica.

I really did think it was the best series on television, and with a few exceptions, the shows were uniformly well-written and creative. I can understand why the writers brought the story to a conclusion and I'm reasonably satisfied with the tying together of the mystical elements of the story -- something finally happened with that Opera House motif they'd been working. I also was amused by the cameos of the producers in the final scenes. I'll look forward to "The Plan" and the new series, Caprica, when they come out. But none of it will have the same intensity as the Battlestar Galactica that just ended.

Spoilers from the final episode follow. Stop reading now if you haven't seen it yet. If you have, I'm curious if you share my gripes.

First, Starbuck's status was never really clarified. Was she a ghost, an angel, or what? Clearly she was something metaphysical. But if so, why did she have to die at all? This plot thread seems to have been needlessly complicated.

Second, we now have some idea of an objective existence of the Six and Baltar avatars that appeared to Baltar and Caprica Six, respectively. I was somewhat pleased to see them redeemed and accepted back into society at the end and to see that they weren't completely insane. Although the idea that their avatars were angels -- and smarmy ones at that -- felt oddly dissatisfying on its own. Kind of a deus ex machina (pun intended), one of many relied upon to tie up the storylines.

Third, if Helo and Athena could have a baby, why couldn't Baltar and Six? Never explained. I can accept that Cylons can't interbreed amongst themselves and I can accept that they can interbreed with humans. So that's why John McCain and Six never successfully produced offspring; that's why Boomer and Tyrol didn't, either. But what was so special about Helo that only he could breed with a Cylon mate?

Fourth, they created a new Six character, Natalie, and then never did anything at all with her. I guess she got to be Boxey's babysitter.

Fifth, if Hera became our "Mitochondrial Eve," why weren't genes from the other thirty-nine thousand colonists transmitted to present-day Earth? The writers made a point of indicating that colonists were placed on multiple continents and far away from one another in their settlements, although it would seem that most of them settled in Africa. It stands to reason, then, that DNA from a fraction of the 39,000 other colonists (and multiple copies of the three Cylons that went with them) would survive in present-day humanity, as well. But instead, Hera is supposed to be the mother of all modern humans. Doesn't stand up.

Sixth, how cool was it to see the old-style Cylons in combat, working side by side with the new Centurions? Damn cool, that's what. All in all, a very pleasing final battle between the Colonials and the Cylons. And a nice throw-in of the old theme music, too, when the fleet got run into the sun to prevent detection by any Cylons that survived the final nukes. Counteracting that, though, was the action-and-flashback style of the last episode, which would have been way, way, way more effective if we'd seen those flashbacks in previous seasons and then in this It's not clear the story was arced in that much detail, though.

I don't pretend I could have done it much better than they did. The multiple plot threads had become excessively complicated. But whether the characters figure out how all the threads tie together is irrelevant -- the audience should, at the ultimate end of the story, be able to see how everything fits. I think I would not have killed Starbuck off and then brought her back. And I'd have given a little more back story on "All Along The Watchtower," and how that keyed in to everything.

Overall, though, the writers produced something very new with the premise; they tackled all sorts of interesting issues, both social and political. They kept things seeming credible and engaging, and did a good job coming up with characters we could all enjoy getting to know. It's kind of odd that so many of the major characters turned out to be Cylons or got killed off. But mainly, it's too bad that like all good things, Battlestar Galactica had to come to an end.

Another Trip Up Geekback Mountain

You know, with only three episodes left, you'd have thought the writers would come up with something more interesting than the Cylon Angstfest. Seriously, that felt as dull and pointless as the black market episode.

Yeah, I can see where it's going to end up -- they're going to have to sacrifice the Galactica in order to find a new home or get peace with the Cylons, and the question is whether Adama goes down with his ship or not -- but this last episode did not contribute to that building sense of dread or any sort of convergence of events leading to a final resolution of affairs. Instead, we got food riots transforming Baltar into a tinpot theocrat, while Adama agonizes over using Cylon goo to keep his ship together long enough to find a habitable planet. Oh, yes, I got the symmetry of both men grieving over losing a child at the end.

I think maybe it's time for the colonials to dispense with the Articles of Colonization completely. They clearly aren't that kind of society any more; the trappings of a liberal, representative, federal democracy seems to be unsuitable for a society of fewer than 40,000 people and extreme scarcity of survival resources. They also need to decide whether they're going to bite the bullet, swallow their years-old anger, and incorporate Cylons into their society or not; it seems the answer would be "no," and that's entirely understandable. But their chances for continuing survival without an effective military would seem to be squat, and with the Galactica about to break up into scrap metal, what choice do they really have?

A Concerned Colonial Citizen Speaks

No, I'm not the only one taking weekly "fishing" trips up Geekback Mountain. Robert Farley has authored the finest and most incisive piece of commentary on current Colonial politics out there. It may be hard to hear, but -- Tom Zarek had a pretty good point.

Teasers

January 16 is the day -- a new episode! In the intervening month, Sci Fi is rolling out brand-new webisodes of Battlestar Galactica. The first one premieres today -- Lt. Gaeta, we hardly knew you! Also, BG junkies, don't miss the cryptic You Will Know The Truth.

Caprica Is Coming

Battlestar Galactica will begin its season-ending run in a month and a half. And when it's gone, it's going to be gone. So it's a great pleasure to see that the prequel series, Caprica, has just been greenlit. It looks like it's going to take on some interesting issues of economic polarization, the impact of emerging technologies, and play off a sense of dread and foreboding based on the knowledge that the primary characters are destined to be the architects of Armageddon. If they get good writers, it will be awesome -- science fiction the way it should be, topical, relevant to contemporary issues, and imaginatively exploring the implications of things that haven't been and maybe can't be thought through all the way yet.

Vote For The Cylon And The ... Other Cylon?

And here's what Bill Clinton thinks of the choice:


And it would seem this is something President Clinton and Senator McCain agree on:

Okay, I'm going to stop blogging about Sarah Palin for a little while now.

Go Ahead -- You Do Better Than This With Those Words

Battlestar Galactica is quintessential science fiction for our modern era. Science fiction is not about some future where problems are solved by technology -- it is about the challenges we face in the modern world; it uses a futuristic setting or a fictional technology to highlight the contemporary issues it would have us face. Adroitly addressing contemporary social, political, and even economic issues in a challenging manner, Battlestar Galactica's characters confront a variety of difficult and unpleasant choices. The moral dilemmas of today play out across Edward James Olmos' crenellated face, and we can see in the penumbrae of the characters' situations many of the same ethical problems we confront in our collective lives -- the role of the military in a democracy; the morality of abortion; the challenge of living up to the virtue of religious tolerance. The writers do this without being pedantic and often enough with a light enough hand that only too late do we realize we have been hoodwinked into identifying with the side we would ordinarily consider "the enemy," Now that the story arc has reached a point where the characters' circuitous route to their destination is completed, and they find only a wasteland, the narrative must take a new direction, and confront an eternal sort of question: If paradise is lost, what next? Will mankind succumb to a soporific depression? Or can new meaning, new challenges, new hope for survival and even prosperity be found? We will have to wait until early 2009 for the final portion of the last season of Battlestar Galactica to find out.

Remarkable Comeback

If you believe this study, the entire human race was reduced to a population of something like 2,000 people about 70,000 years ago. The near-extinction of humanity was, it is suggested, caused by a massive drought. That's a pretty dramatic story.

Makes me wonder. If we did suffer a massive kill-off of people (like, say, if the Cylons attacked) what would be the smallest population size necessary, assuming an equal number of men and women, to create a viable gene pool? I've not the time right now to look around for the answer to that question but it's obviously one of great importance for the 39,000 or so surviving colonists searching for a home called Earth.

Rosslin's Mistake and the Easter Bunny

As is so very often the case, Battlestar Galactica presents its viewers with what seems to be a wonderfully cutting conundrum. There is, though, a great consistency there.

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the second episode of this season yet, you'll want to skip this post. To protect your enjoyment, I've written the background in white type -- mouse over the text to read my summary of the background. But skip the post altogether if you haven't seen and care about watching the episode.

Near the end of last season, Starbuck flew her ship down a gravity well and apparently exploded. Later, the Cylons ambush the fleet, and Starbuck appears out of nowhere to help save the day. She re-lands on Galactica and reports that in the "six hours" she's been gone, she went to Earth and back, but doesn't recall exactly how that happened. There are some very interesting and suggestive photos, but her ship doesn't have any telemetric data or even any signs of use -- accounting for the recent battle, it seems to have just rolled off the factory floor and have never been flown before. It seems to have literally gone back in time. President Roslin has her thrown in the brig (Roslin's usual solution to most problems) and then she and Adama debate what's going on. Roslin is suspicious that this is all a Cylon trick. Adama can't stand the idea of Starbuck in the brig and wants to free her. Roslin says, "Oh, I want to hear this. I want to hear the great atheist Admiral Adama tell me that a miracle just happened." Adama refuses to do that but offers no explanation of his own for what's going on.

It's that last quote, in boldface, that got me so amused. I think Adama reacted to the bizarre circumstance exactly the way an atheist would. He cannot identify a rational, scientific explanation for what has indisputably happened. The evidence is right before his eyes -- it appears to be a resurrection, something that all reason, knowledge, and experience tells him is flatly impossible. His knowledge of the people involved tells him that no one has been lying to him, so the theory of deception doesn't seem to fit. So he has to open his mind to other possibilities, things that neither he nor anyone else has thought of.

One of those possibilities is that his atheism is wrong and that some super-powerful entity has intervened to accomplish what seems impossible. Rosslin wants to call that intervening entity "the Gods," but Adama does not have enough information to either refute or agree with that theory. So instead he merely leaves the possibility open while continues to try and figure out what's going on.

Roslin misunderstands Adama's atheism. Her mistake is the same one that many real-life believers do when addressing atheists: they conflate an affirmative disbelief with a lack of belief.

A "strong atheist" in Adama's position would affirmatively disbelieve in the Gods, positing a world view in which the Gods cannot possibly exist. And from such a person, a statement that a reasonable explanation for an unexplained event was miraculous would indeed be extraordinary. But not so from a "weak atheist," who offers the more modest world view that there is no evidence of the Gods' existence. (Note that if Adama were an agnostic, he would identify things that could be evidence of the Gods' existence and not know the significance of that evidence one way or another. But Adama is not agnostic. This situation, however, might turn him into one, into someone who genuinely does not know.)

Whether you believe in God or not, you probably don't believe in the Easter Bunny. If so, you are an "Easter Bunny atheist." It does not take much belief or faith to be an "Easter Bunny atheist." The evidence in favor of the Easter Bunny is so minimal that the truth of the "Easter Bunny theory" can be disposed of and not later reconsidered without a second thought. But, if you woke up early Easter morning and with your own eyes saw a four-foot tall rabbit depositing multi-colored eggs throughout your house, you might reconsider that position. You might entertain other ideas, as well, such as that a friend was playing a trick on you or that you were hallucinating. But if you could determine that you were not hallucinating and that no one had played a trick on you, then maybe you'd become at least an "Easter Bunny agnostic" if not an actual believer in the Easter Bunny.

Atheists, if they are intellectually honest, must concede that if they were presented with a truly miraculous set of circumstances, that they would at least be willing to serious consider the possibility of divine activity. True miracles, though, would have to be pretty carefully defined. Someone getting better when they are sick and medical science says that their situation is hopeless is not a miracle. It is a case of medical science showing the limits of its knowledge and abilities.

A problem with explaining things by resort to divine intervention is that divine intervention can explain anything, so it is actually not a very intellectually satisfying tool. So the atheist will try, hard, to find a non-divine explanation for a phenomenon -- just as you would try, hard, to find an explanation for the sudden appearance of those eggs in your house that did not involve the activities of a real Easter Bunny. But until a reasonable theory did manifest, you'd have to concede that the Easter Bunny hypothesis might deserve at least as much consideration as other theories. Adama's response to the very bizarre, at least initially inexplicable, and emotionally overwhelming set of circumstances in which he finds himself makes perfect sense to me -- and is perfectly consistent with an atheistic point of view.

I Knew It! It Explains SO MUCH!

It's obvious in retrospect, so who cares about Starbuck -- John McCain is a Cylon. A copy of the Saul Tigh model, to be exact:


"Yes, Mr. President" is soon to be replaced with "By your command."

There Must Be Some Kind Of Way Out Of Here

Friday, 4-4. Season Four. Then there will be no more. Get your geek on.

This creature feature, by the way, looks too cheesy to even be real. Makes me really miss my TV.

We're Back In March

And in the meantime, there's what promises to be a thoughtful and insightful interview about how the legal and political issues that underlie the series. I'll be watching on streaming internet vision.

All Along The Watchtower

Us fanboys (and a few fangirls, like The Wife) have been waiting for a while for a really, really good episode of the best show on television. Tonight, the writers delivered, in a big way. Good acting, good writing, plot twists, plot points resolved and new ones opened up, and a gigantic cliffhanger of a season finale. The next episode won't be until 2008. That's, like, a long time from now.

There will be a straight to DVD movie that will provide background to the story arc. I may not be able to resist the impulse to buy it when it hits the stores, because I'll be starved for more by the time it's there.

There will be no spoilers here. But if you're a fan of the show -- and if you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I've been exhorting you to watch it -- you need to see how the trial of Gaius Baltar ends... and what happens afterwards.

Think The Unthinkable

The Wife suggested last night that we get rid of all of our televisions and not replace them.

There was a time that I did not have a television and was perfectly happy not watching TV, ever. I read books instead; I would watch sporting events at friends' houses or at sports bars. It made me have to really want to see the game in order to go to it.

Now, I would miss TV during football season, although again I suppose I could go to a bar and watch a game on a Sunday morning (and see my Packers every week that way, too). But I would also miss Battlestar Galactica. (This even after last week's blandly anticlimactic event that ought to have weighed larger than it did in the story arc, coming on the heels of several other lackluster episodes.) I suppose I could wait for it to come out on DVD or figure out some way to watch the podcasts. But something tells me that I wouldn't do that, that it would be too much trouble. I have great interest in HBO's series Rome, but I haven't bothered to watch any of it even though the first season is available on DVD.

I wouldn't need a TV player to watch a DVD; the computer shows DVD's just fine and if I really wanted to watch one bad enough, I'd do it. I think later tonight I'm going to do exactly that, with a set of DVD's that I've been meaning to watch for a long time but just haven't got around to yet. So it's not like The Wife's proposition would leave us without audiovisual entertainment.

I wonder what she would do, though -- she watches more TV than I do, I think. She likes to watch "lampshade shows," so-called because they are about people I don't know agonizing over what lampshade to put in a house I've never seen and don't care about. I would miss the Daily Show, although if I don't see an episode it doesn't bother me very much.

So maybe we can think the unthinkable. We'd have to find some way to keep the high-speed internet, though. Can't do without that, not at all.

Union!

Just saw this week's Battlestar Galactica.

Chief Tyrol will henceforce be called "Norma Rae."

That is all.

The Law of BSG

I am not the only one taking notice of the fact that Battlestar Galactica is one of the best-written shows on television. One guy has suggested that this show is a fantastic lens for analysis of contemporary legal issues. He's absolutely right. This is not a "space opera" with vapid adventure stories, silly monsters, and bad special effects. (For that you can enjoy the classic series.) Science fiction is one of the best vehicles available for exploring contemporary issues in a rapidly-changing society, and it has been so since the first science fiction book was ever written.

BSG has explored the role of military tribunals, succession of office, the ethics of terrorism (and of fighting losing wars against it), political and electoral corruption, the proper role of the legal presumption of innocence, and the oft-explored moral issues of ends and means, desparation for survival versus ethical ideals, and the emotional impact of surviving a catastrophe. There has certainly been some exciting space and military combat, and unusual twists in the plot arc and character devleopment.

Seriously, if you're not watching this show, you're missing out.

The Show Returns

I couldn't be more pleased with the return of Battlestar Galactica. The 2-hour season premiere was everything I could have hoped for -- narratively rich, complex, obviously within a large and well-thought out story arc, emotionally compelling, morally ambiguous, and intellectually challenging. What to make of things when the (supposed) good guys use suicide bombers and terrorist tactics? Have we been too harsh in judging Marshal Petain and the Vichys?

Battlestar Galactica Meets The Simpsons

I should get to sleep. But sometimes you find the most amazing stuff when you follow links at random. Sometimes you get some interesting insights on someone's blog, sometimes you find something funny, sometimes you find something really surreal. This time, I found someone with way too much time on their hands who produced a remarkable hybrid parody.

And when you find something good like that, you share. So that's what I'm doing.

Hey, any word yet on when the show will be back for the third season? They're teasing it but I haven't got any dates yet.

The Last Starfighter Meets Hogan's Heroes

I'm still trying to decide about last night's season finale of Battlestar Galactica. If you watch the show, and haven't seen the season 2 finale yet, just skip this post until you have seen it, because I'm letting the spoilers out.

I guess my biggest concern is that the writers seem prepared to abandon the premise. That's not a good recipie for keeping the viewers happy. The story is about a search for safety and a new home, after suffering a horrifying disaster. A story about what it's like for the survivors to live under the rule of their Cylon captors will be too much like Deep Space Nine meets Life is Beautiful. Thank you, I'll pass.

I'm also concerned with the huge time-jump at the end of the episode. There was a tremendous amount of character development and activity that we missed in between the resolution of the election conflict and the very next scene, which began with the fade-in logo "One Year Later." When Six Feet Under jumped ahead fifteen months without letting the viewers in on what had happened, I found the discontinuity so great that I lost some interest in the series -- and combining that with the writers putting new twists on the quirky characters to normalize them made it even harder to sustain my interest.

A lot of people don't like the politics in a series show that deals with issues of government and military power. I love it, especially when the gray areas of morality come in to play. I groove on moral ambiguity, and was really liking the ambiguous nature of the characters' actions in the first hour of the finale. But there's no more shades of gray left, or at least so it seems.

There is room for a lot more combat and action sequences, and that's a good thing. But these don't mean much without a plot arc to adorn. Surely the writers have something in mind for their overall five-season plot arc, or they wouldn't have done what they did. I hope it's worthwhile.