BSG, Firefly, and Babylon 5

Here's an excerpt from a BSG review that I found interesting. The
writer compares the underlying philosophies of the show with both
Firefly and Babylon 5 (a show I've never seen).

http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/newbsgseason1.php

[ ... ]

On the run and with little chance of defending itself, humanity may
not have much of a future. To give the survivors hope, Adama tells
them of a safe haven far away, a lost colony known as Earth. He knows
the way, if they will only follow him and never give up.

He is lying.

It is this last detail, Adama's necessary lie—the pragmatic, perhaps
cynical, approach to the aftermath of war—that most strongly sets the
new Battlestar Galactica apart from its predecessor—and from most
other shows in this genre. The old Commander Adama would never lie,
because he was the good guy. And in melodrama, good guys don't lie. In
real drama, they do. But rather than make a sustained comparison
between the new BSG and the 1978 version, which has been done by
others, I want to evaluate why the show works in three steps. First, I
want to draw some comparisons between BSG and its most recent and
critically acclaimed antecedents, Babylon 5 and Firefly. (The
differences from the Star Trek franchise should be apparent as I
continue.) Then, I want to break down the key characters and their
relationships, because a survey of the plot threads of the first
season (so far, I've only taken you through the miniseries, which sets
up the show to follow) would be too complex and spoil too many
surprises. Finally, I want to focus on one episode, the series
premiere "33," in order to highlight the show's strengths and
weaknesses.

Babylon 5 was a sprawling space opera. Joe Straczynski charted his
story 1,000 years in both directions, and there is a sense that the
main characters, as pivotal as they appear, are really just bumps in
the grand course of history. Replace one captain with another? Write
out one character and have another step in with similar powers or
prospects? While the emotional core of the series was always anchored
in the evolution of the characters, their role in the historical
process was almost modernist in sweep: Hope will endure because
evolution will endure. And the grand themes—good and evil, moral
responsibility—were drawn with wide gestures, even if the characters
themselves were a little gray.

Firefly (and I am including Serenity here) was quite different. Joss
Whedon does not seem interested in grand themes of good and evil (he
never seemed particularly comfortable handling them in the Buffyverse
either, although he apparently felt they were necessary for the
mythology). Character interaction is the core of his more enclosed
universe. Apart from some political satire, there is only one key
theme developed over the course of the show: the quest for paradise.
The urban inner worlds versus the rural outer worlds—both sides are
looking for their little patch of heaven, and they have very different
definitions of what that heaven entails. The best episodes (as well as
the movie) work because we can follow the desires of the characters:
what they want, and what they will do to get that. Those desires drive
the engine of the series.

Battlestar Galactica fits neatly in between both these shows, at least
with respect to its balance of character and theme. Ronald D. Moore
and David Eick have created, much like Firefly but unlike Bablon 5, a
hermetic environment. The human world is all there is: We created the
Cylons, we created the colonies, and now everything is coming apart.
(There are hints emerging in the series that the Cylons are developing
their own culture, but the details so far are sketchy.) There is a
desperate, linear focus to the series: We must survive. No "let's
explore the universe" or "let's set up a new life in a vast, open
space." There is no openness. The cramped command deck, tiny cockpits,
cluttered decks and quarters, fevered close-ups—the BSG universe is
always tightly enclosed. Characters sweat. The desaturated color and
murky lighting make everything on the battlestar appear oily and
uncomfortable. Even exterior locations like the planet Caprica are
filmed from low angles and in dense forests or abandoned ruins. One
day, open space might beckon, but for now, heads are down and focused
on the immediacy of the situation.

In fact, open space is a threat on BSG. On B5, space is potential,
progress. You never know who will be around the next corner. On
Firefly, space is freedom, the distance you can put between yourself
and those who oppress you. On Galactica, space is an obstacle, either
for the humans to get around or for the humans to use as a roadblock
to stall the Cylon advance. There is none of the "wonder of space"
that marks nearly all other science-fiction television. Space is dark,
empty, and very cold.

If this sounds depressing, well, Battlestar Galactica is in part about
surviving a catastrophe. The characters are trying to work through
their immediate problems, and their survival, even their hope, is only
achieved incrementally. Curiously, this makes every small victory on
the show taste a little sweeter, because you can never be sure they
will succeed enough in the task of the moment (finding water, finding
fuel, surviving this attack) to get them a step ahead on the next
crisis. So when they do take that small step ahead, the show feels
momentarily invigorated.

But (and here is where the show is more like Straczynski than Whedon),
Ron Moore and David Eick are also interested in exploring questions
about the nature of evil, the complex role religion plays in our
political identity, and the problem of cultural perspective. The
Cylons believe they have a holy mission (the parallels here to 9/11
have been much discussed already by fans), that their one god has
plans for the heathen polytheists of the human race. These plans, as
they have evolved over the course of the series thus far, are far more
complicated than the usual "kill 'em all" of melodramatic villains.

(more at the link, but this was the bit I found interesting)

-- 
-pcg
 [email protected]

-- 
dadl-ot mailing list
http://mail.thehood.us/mailman/listinfo/dadl-ot_thehood.us
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.music.dadl.ot