The Cylons do *not* have a plan!

(We now interrupt the PDC drumbeat for this random message.)

Since we’re just biding our time ‘til Serenity comes out in theaters, Andrea and I have continued to watch Battlestar Galactica even though we still think it’s only so-so. (Something that I’m sure YAG is going to bug me about when I get to the PDC.) Some episodes are pretty decent, but I still find myself annoyed by many of the characters (never a good sign) and bored in long stretches of some of the episodes. The core problem, to my mind, is that the writers are not particularly good at parcelling out the ongoing mystery very effectively. The X-Files did a superb job of this, in my mind, until about the sixth season when it became clear that Chris Carter was making up the mythology as he went along and had no clear idea where it was all going. I’m beginning to suspect this about BG as well — do the writers really know what the Cylon’s plans are, or are they throwing elements in as they go along? (Contrast this also with Harry Potter, where J.K. Rowling seems to have a very strong idea of how the whole story is going to play out. Much better.)

4 thoughts on “The Cylons do *not* have a plan!

  1. Jeremy

    Ditto. I think Firefly also had the twin advantages of better characters and being more episodic as opposed to BG’s epic storyline. I think the Battlestart Galactica folks are wasting what could be a really cool mythology.

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  2. Christian Mogensen

    The Battlestar Galactica guys do have some sort of vague plan, but a lot of the details are obviously being made up as they go along. The whole Helo/Boomer/Cylon thing just kinda happened as a result of Helo being stranded on Caprica during the initial mini-series. (listen to the podcasts for episode commentaries, where the producers talk a lot about what almost happened, or what got left on the rewrite table. Some truly bizarre ideas got thrown out — having the old Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) starring as God in the last season 1 episode, for example…)

    So obviously not as tightly plotted as Babylon 5, but so far I think the characters and stories are interesting enough to keep watching. Olmos as Adama, and watching Baltar go slowly nuts is great.

    I also miss Firefly. Not long til the movie now…

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