Watched the mini-series, you're right tbh. Prefer the main series tbh, but thx for the watching order :)

Also, why does nothing have corners? 

 

It's kind of an in-joke. Apparently they had to cut so many corners budget-wise, so they decided to have paper without corners. 

If they'd spent less money trimming the bloody corners off everything, then there wouldn't be so much of a budget issue?? 

Doubtful, but who knows... 

Here is an excellent fan made trailer to the first two seasons of the show that introduces it without major spoilers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfF-wHbIBnY

Unfortunately it's a bit out of sync. 

Being as picky as I am, and coming from quality hallmarks like Deadwood and (even moreso) Carnivale, is it not the case that BSG became crap before it hit season 3? If it returned to greatness after that, please inform me - I mean when it started it was great - but it seems very possible from what I know of the series, that they started it meaning to have a limited storyline, and found that public panting just meant that more story was needed - to the point where coherence dropped away, and it did indeed become a cross between soap opera (ie, who's dating who this week) and weekly attack match (who's fighting who, and what spaceships do they have!).

Maybe they fixed it - but I can say, I watched if a lot longer than I should have, and before they fixed it, they fucked it. 

You are right that quality dropped mid-season two, but it picks up again towards the end of the season. Season three is pretty strong again, and season four is a bit of a mixed bag, but overall I'd say it's good. 

Enjoying S1 thoroughly so far, altho am only 8 eps in. But I can imagine how it could become cheese space fight/soap. Shall see.

Oh, and didn't Carnivale go completely terribad in S2? Lost all subtlety, got rid of the scary lesbian subtext, main character went emo, etc... 

s2 wasnt as great as s1 but it was still excellent imho. 

It's probably new in the sense that it tries to be a more comprehensive serious effort of imagining a gritty constant war space scifi world thingy.

So, there will be lots of "children" in the following years.

A bit like twin peaks. I'm no expert, but to me it seems it spawned a new genre of TV series that are slower, more ominous, more movie like and have long plots.

I still have my problems with BSG. I haven't seen it all. It must be hard to constantly invent something in the plot and all these side tracks. Something that doesn't break the illusion. There is some very good casting and acting at places in my view. It feels a bit too contemporary with all the US military cliches.

A very simple BSG drinking game: every time someone drinks, you drink. You could take roles too if you absolutely want. The one playing Adama must have good stamina. Starbuck next... Blah.


Scifi in books is mostly the exposition of ideas, and the world is created to highlight them as the author pleases. At least the scifi I read.

Scifi in TV or in movies is mostly just mundane everyday movies or TV series happening in a scifi environment. Love interests, murders, plotting...

This is why they are actually usually completely different things.

BSG has at least some semblance of those big ideas with the playing around Cylons and the history, so in this sense it's refreshingly book-like. I don't say action or human relations are bad, just that there is so much of it already and there is a void of "idea scifi", which I personally would like so much.

But yeah, I know what you're going to answer anyway - that who the fuck am I to say what tv series should be like - love it or don't watch it. So I guess this discussion thread is not for that - we do not discuss hypotheticals of what could be. 

...that's a good post. 

is 'idea scifi'? 

I think 'idea sci-fi' was Scifi in books is mostly the exposition of ideas, and the world is created to highlight them as the author pleases. At least the scifi I read.

ie, rather than being a direct copy of our society but in space, the very systems of governance/culture/environment within the sci-fi world are created/modelled after some idea/concept that the author wants to expound on. At least that was my understanding from tne post, don't really read much sci-fi myself...

But yeh, good post bamby 

That's how I understood it, too. But I have to say that I find that rather boring (or I haven't read the same books). I think an example of what bamby meant is Star Trek, which explores the idea of a society that has overcome racism, greed and jealousy. But that's exactly what I found so boring about it - it's simply paints a picture of a society that has nothing to do with human nature. I find it far more interesting when a story reflects on those very things that concern us today. But then, maybe there are better examples of what bamby meant than Star Trek. 

I mean, it's not like there's actually very much science in the Dune books, and you wouldn't read them for the quality of the prose...

I've also heard of the idea of "economic fiction": for example, Iain M. Banks culture novels are mostly about a universe without resource constraints. 

an example of what bamby meant is Star Trek, which explores the idea of a society that has overcome racism, greed and jealousy when i read bambs post, star trek was the example that came to my mind for the movie side of scifi. It's like greek gods: they're meta physical beings, but still modeled after the human emotions. They are extremely alike to ourselves.

A better example for idea-scifi would probably be Fiasco ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiasco_(novel) ), where the idea is that humans are not able to communicate with the civilisations they try to find in space, and the complete story, characters, etc. is/are modeled around that central idea. Concept would be a better word, here, probably. Still not a very good example, because the world isn't really "modeled" per se.

OT: wow, it did just occur to me: the "blank" state of mind the protagonist is in emphasises how we physically are not able to understand other civilisations. He isn't even really formed by our society, and still isn't able to understand them. Wow. Need to buy & re-read.

As far as the eye could see, the slopes were covered with throngs of naked, defenseless warts, and as the towering antennas, breaking, fell upon him in flames, he realized he had seen the Quintans. -- last line of the book. 

And that last line is even more depressing when you read 300 pages to be with them when they first communicate, and you have those pages physically in your hands, when you reach that line.

Damnit, bamb, you must know other sci-fi like those lem books, please recommend :D 

Star Trek, which explores the idea of a society that has overcome racism, greed and jealousy. But that's exactly what I found so boring about it...

I would agree with you except the stories are all about the alien cultures and planets they find, which are all flawed and different in interesting ways (in the good episodes at least.) And from what I remember, the Federation was very smug about how advanced and enlightened they are, but they pulled a lot of tricks to resolve the conflicts (maybe Kirk's personality at work there.) 

Carnivale 1 was way creepier and more interesting than S2, but 2 was still good, and definitely had its moments. For me the main difference was simply that they sped the plot up a lot. S1 was like alien, not much action but a lot of sinister ambience, whereas 2 was like Aliens - lots of plotting, fighting, etc.

Brother Justin was an amazing character, as was "Management". I missed Lodz from S1 though.

If by main character nonentity you mean Nick Stahl's character, then I don't know what you mean - it seems to me like he actually figured out what he was supposed to do and started doing it, instead of being a withdrawn bitch like he was in S1. 

wxactly. Realised show was getting cancelled and started tying up things a bit too quickly. 

has one of the best episodes with the maskmaker.

I think the thing is the quality drop is noticeable despite s2 being way above most tv in general. 

Some good discussion ensued!
Stanislaw Lem is a nice example of "idea scifi", especially the short stories (Cyberiad/Kyberias, Pirx the pilot, Fables etc). And it definitely is not boring, it is one of the funniest things written!
I heard they were making a movie of Fiasco. Dunno how that will work. I think the plots of such movies should not be divulged beforehand. It's the plot that is the most important thing. So it doesn't work in blockbusters where everyone knows how it starts and ends. That's also why I never read the back cover of books. The reading experience is almost totally without anticipation and surprises since the back text reveals about 70% of the plot. Same with bad movie reviews. I'm not interested in telling the plot beforehand to decide if I'm going to see the movie. I'm interested in what the movie is like, and decide on that.

There's not much stuff similar to Lem. Philip K Dick is kinda oversurreal but there are bits and pieces of insight I feel (or then I'm just too stupid for him). Ubik sucked but others have been better. Then there's of course the classics, Heinlein, Clarke, haven't read Asimov that much. Hoyle has some goodish stuff but there are a few big problems with his books (won't spoil that tho).

Star Trek is a good point of TV "idea scifi", I hadn't thought of that. I find it very boring - it's so clean and detached. Maybe the ideas would be fascinating but just not for me, or they are presented in such a extremely simplified form that they become meh... 

and Ursula K Le Guin has some society ideas though I kinda haven't decided on them, they just seem nice books for some reason. (Dispossessed and the green forest world book) 

they should just stop making any more crime shows IMHO :)