{"id":9774,"date":"2006-11-05T23:08:18","date_gmt":"2006-11-06T06:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/11\/05\/battlestar-galactica-torn.html"},"modified":"2006-11-05T23:08:18","modified_gmt":"2006-11-06T06:08:18","slug":"battlestar_galactica_torn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/05\/battlestar_galactica_torn.html","title":{"rendered":"Battlestar Galactica:<\/i> “Torn”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/div>\n

When did BG become about spooky Cylon cultural studies?<\/p>\n

Half of this episode<\/a> is great stuff, as Starbuck and Tigh let their internal bitterness and bile infect the rest of the Galactica crew, and Adama has to take harsh action to deal with it.<\/p>\n

The other half, though …<\/p>\n

Shows with mysteries have a terrible problem. Hold the mystery back too long, and the audience eventually gets tired of it, rejects it, is ready to move on. But if you reveal the mystery, or resolve it, you run the risk of alienating the audience who first got hooked on the show because of it.<\/p>\n

To my mind, BG’s strengths have rested on two aspects: the human drama of wartime desperation, and the mysterious adversaries, the Cylons. The former continues, but the latter are becoming the objects of cheap sets, cheesy dialog, and general exemplars of why it doesn’t help to pay attention to the man behind the curtain.<\/p>\n

The tension about the interface between Cylons and Humans was from that mystery. Why did Cylons do as they did? Could they be trusted? Could the Cylons who lived among us truly change? <\/p>\n

By showing us so much of what’s going on with Cylons, by making them understandable, they lose much of that mysteriousness. Now they’re merely more human-looking aliens who spout strange philosophy but who aren’t really much different from Us Folk — and not in a metaphysical fashion, but more in a lack-of-imagination fashion. <\/p>\n

Disappointing.<\/p>\n

But keep up the tension on the human ships about What Will We Do To Survive, and the show remains at least a partial success.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When did BG become about spooky Cylon cultural studies? Half of this episode is great stuff, as Starbuck and Tigh let their internal bitterness and bile infect the rest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-tv"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4964,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/11\/25\/and_on_another.html","url_meta":{"origin":9774,"position":0},"title":"And on another SF front","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Nov-03 8:16am","format":false,"excerpt":"Looking at the new Battlestar Galactica trailers, it's interesting how times change. In the late 70s, when the original series aired, it was still the Cold War. The idea of...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11985,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/12\/18\/never_forget_who_the_enem.html","url_meta":{"origin":9774,"position":1},"title":"“Never forget who the enemy is!”","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 18-Dec-07 8:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Some truly luscious propaganda posters from the Colonial Fleet (Battlestar Galactica).\u00a0 Which go right along with the How to Spot a Cylon poster ... (via BoingBoing)...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/so_say_we_all.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13272,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/01\/bsg_the_oath.html","url_meta":{"origin":9774,"position":2},"title":"BSG: “The Oath”","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 1-Feb-09 9:29pm","format":false,"excerpt":"(No explicit spoilers, but ...)\u00a0 This week's Battlestar Galactica shifts from the ennui and depression of last week into high gear, as the pent-up frustration over Earth, and the...","rel":"","context":"In "TV"","block_context":{"text":"TV","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-tv"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/galactica.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13292,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/28\/bsg_a_disquiet_follows_my.html","url_meta":{"origin":9774,"position":3},"title":"BSG: “A Disquiet Follows My Soul”","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 28-Jan-09 12:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Finally watched last week's Battlestar Galactica off the DVR. My oh my. Things seem headed toward a not-good end, with rumblings of G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung in the background. While some folks...","rel":"","context":"In "TV"","block_context":{"text":"TV","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-tv"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/galactica.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13301,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/26\/faboo_scifi_homage_to_the.html","url_meta":{"origin":9774,"position":4},"title":"Faboo SciFi Homage to the 70s","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 26-Jan-09 2:35pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This was the era I grew up in, SciFi-wise on TV. And this image by Dusty Abell\u00a0(full sized here) shows off a whole gob of folks from the era. This\u00a0is...","rel":"","context":"In "DC Media (DCEU, DCU)"","block_context":{"text":"DC Media (DCEU, DCU)","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/dc-cinematic-univese"},"img":{"alt_text":"scifi-70s-80s","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/scifi-70s-80s.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/scifi-70s-80s.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/scifi-70s-80s.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/scifi-70s-80s.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9796,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/31\/battlestar_galactica_coll.html","url_meta":{"origin":9774,"position":5},"title":"Battlestar Galactica: “Collaborators”","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 31-Oct-06 11:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"There's nothing terribly new in what happens in this episode of BG -- after the revolution, those who worked for of the old regime are always subject to execution,...","rel":"","context":"In "TV"","block_context":{"text":"TV","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-tv"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/galactica.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}