Re: BSG, Firefly, and Babylon 5

Warehouse 13 strikes me as Creature Tech-lite.
I don't know anything about Sanctuary.
I tried Torchwood. I liked what I saw in the first season, but for my
tastes, the leader of the group was becoming too... something.

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |


On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 4:54 PM, Karl <[email protected]> wrote:

>  What about Warehouse 13 or Sanctuary?
>
>
>
> Also were you into Torchwood at all?
>
>
>
> *From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On
> Behalf Of *Johne Cook
> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 27, 2010 2:52 PM
> *To:* DADL (off topic)
> *Subject:* Re: [DADL-OT] BSG, Firefly, and Babylon 5
>
>
>
> Two quick things:
> One, I'd never thought about *Firefly* as the quest for paradise. I wonder
> if Joss outlined that in or it just appeared, organicly, as a by-product of
> his well-drawn characters.
> Two, I bet I would have loved *BSG* had I seen it before *Firefly*.
> However, trying to see anything after *Firefly* is going to be difficult.
> It so perfectly scratched an itch that I never knew I had that everything
> remotely close in genre tastes empty to me (or worse, bitter). I tried to
> get into *Doctor Who*. I tried to get into *BSG*. I tried to get into *B5*.
> Nothing has come close.
>
> Sigh.
>
> (I'm holding out some small hope for *Jasper Squad*, but the author needs
> to finish the frackin' story first.) ; )
>
> Johne Cook
> | http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |
>
>  On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 4:34 PM, pcg <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> 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]
>
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