…

I’m gonna refrain from saying much about it, it had some good points but was overall pretty disappointing. Especially that 150,000 years later bit with Head Six and Head Baltar which was so goddamn cheesy and heavy handed it would have been too much even for a crappy children’s movie. 

Also, wow, they answered none of the burning questions/plot holes (io9’s list is better than anything I could have come up with since they actually like the show). 

I think I’m gonna go rewatch Babylon 5 for the 4th time now…

[EDIT] In other news, this week’s Dollhouse was pretty fucking awesome. Though I’m kind of dissaponted that the Echo-tampering thing appears to be legitimate tampering and not a massive keikaku (would have made perfect sense to pull that on FBI boy who’s name I still don’t remember to manipulate him). Anyway, sleeper Active was cool, but I called it early in the episode (plus, her getting killed like that would have been way too depressing for a mid-season episode on a mainstream primetime show) not that it makes it less interesting as a plot point. And the Active-rape sub plot was actually pretty interesting (it seems like one of those things that someone might bring up as a “hurr durr that’s unrealistic because someone would totally take advantage of that” kind of  thing and they just went for it

The only other thing I can think to whine about with this episode (which again was awesome because it wasn’t fucking filler shit) is FBI guy’s reaction to seeing Echo in the cult. Given how similar the ideas of someone kidnapped and brainwashed in a cult and in the Dollhouse are, I was kind of surprised that it led him to the conclusion that it did–because honestly I was expecting that to totally throw him off the trail for at least an episode or two–Oh… She was brainwashed by a cult, that explains it. Maybe this Dollhouse thing really just is an urban legend…<–this sort of line of thinking, before seeing her somewhere else or something and coming back to it (really it’s less to do with the way this particular episode was structured and more the way it fits into everything else so far, should have shuffled the cult episode an episode or two earlier into the schedule maybe).

Bored and I’ve been wanting to talk about some of the stuff I’ve seen lately but none of it really deserved it’s own post. Anyhow.

Watchmen: Talked about this a bit in my spring break post. Still don’t know what to think about the movie really. I think I need to reread the GN and rewatch the movie again…

DMC: The movie was pretty disappointing. Might have been more fun if I hadn’t already seen the anime, but it feels like they gutted the story to make it more mainstream. The whole band-becoming-legend, which was easily the bulk of what was covered in the anime and where most of the funny came from, was glossed over. It really bothered me because it got into a telling-not-showing thing there since the movie decided to focus on Negishi coming to terms with his double life than really expanding on the band or developing his Krauser persona. So on some level it ended up just feeling like the whole metal/band thing was just an extraneous gimmick in the movie. On it’s own the movie’s pretty cute an quirky, but ultimately it’s pretty standard story and loses all the charm and character of the anime (and presumably the manga, I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet so I can’t comment). It’s also decidedly less funny than the anime. It’s supposed to be a comedy, not a romantic comedy! :(

Kings: I liked the pilot. The premise of the show’s pretty interesting and it’s nice to see a POLITICS show that’s not dependent on a strictly real-world setting. I don’t have much to say about it yet really, but I’ve got high hopes for it, especially after reading that the first season is–get this–already planned out. Shocking, I know! Also, I don’t see why people are throwing such a fit about the butterfly crown scene at the end of the pilot. I think it fit with the tone of the show just fine (without having to read too much into the scene like I’ve seen some people doing to have it imply that God is meant to be a “real” presence in this universe either). It’s got an epic tone (and that’s “epic” as in the Illiad not “epic lulz”) and that sort of “heavy-handed” symbolic foreshadowing is to be expected. I dunno… Is there something wrong with me if I didn’t think it was stupid and cheesy? It kind of reminds me of space opera, only not in space. Pretty sure that’s why I like it so much already. 

BSG: Last episode’s got me really :\ The pacing’s gotten especially retarded and I don’t see how they could possibly resolve everything satisfactorily in just one episode even if it’s 2x as long. I mean, I enjoyed a good bit of the content in the episode, particularly the flashbacks (except the Rosalin stuff because it feels like we’ve seen her do the same bullshit so many fucking times we really did not need an that painfully long scene of her freaking out in the fountain, it was just a waste of time given that it’s the penultimate episode and added nothing to her character that we haven’t already seen), but the flashbacks were just so… inappropriate given what was going on. I’m not even going to comment on how absurd the concept of the suicide mission seems (okay, I lied, here’s my whine: we already dismantled half the ship, which is all of a sudden falling apart due to stress from jumping which we’ve never seen or heard of before, but we’re going to take it on a suicide mission to the Cylon base taking all our Vipers and most skilled pilots with us to certain doom to save a little girl not even considering that undertaking this mission will likely piss off the “rebel” Cylon faction, which seems to be a whole hell of a lot bigger and more powerful than the “proper” one and probably result in them resuming their extermination efforts–which will probably be a lot easier for them after we’ve thrown all our defenses at them except for the one rebel baseship AND THIS MAKES PERFECT SENSE). 

Dollhouse: This week’s episode looks interesting. I’ve started getting bored with it after episode 3 because it started getting really formulaic. I dunno. I like science boy and I like the theme song and atmosphere of the show, but other than that I’m pretty :| about it right now. 

Also, in my shitty Japanese Film class we started watching The Realm of the Senses in class on Tuesday. Really, it’s just a pretentious artsy porno so far (the dialogue’s like, all generic porn dialogue, but the subtitles keep rendering lines a lot less explicit/cheesy/trashy than they actually are which is really lol, like “Put it in!” becomes “Please take me now!” I know, I know there’s something to be said for proper translation not being super literal, but the thing is it’s generic porn dialogue for the most part, it’s not elegant and people don’t say things “Please take me now!” in porn… usually). Naturally because its’ got fancy camera angles and a stupid pretense of a plot (Ooh, the female lead is hypersensitive to sex! Where have I heard that before? Seriously, there’s a line she has that goes something like “The doctor said I was especially sensitive to sex.”) it’s not “porn” it’s “art.” Of course, the wiki page will lead you to believe this is some whirlwind romance story or something, but there’s about as much of that as you’d see in your average porn-pretending-to-have-a-plot. Anyhow, for our final paper one of our  topic options is to talk about genre, so I think I’m gonna write about Japanese porn because that’s amusing and will probably make my idiot teacher really uncomfortable (or she’ll think it’s brilliant and edgy :D).

Almost half way to the end and I’m still :| about the show. It’s barely entertaining at this point. I am still loling at how BSG and 00 had short lived coups happen around the same time. Also Starbuck (who I keep wanting to call Starbug now after watching so much Red Dwarf in the last couple days–speaking of with, watched the US pilot again the other day, I still can’t get over how bad it is and especially Rimmer who is so flaming he even has a lisp and how in the second one they made the cat a woman played by Dax D:) what’s with her being Cylon sympathetic all of a sudden? Wasn’t she all “If I found out you were a Cylon I’d shoot your ass dead” in the first half of this season? Whatever, not like any of that is surprising. Also, lol @ her shooting with arms crossed and action lawyer Apollo. Ragemodo Rosalin was kinda cool though, she’s alright when she isn’t being cancerlady. Also, sexy engines are sexy. Gotta hand it to the CGI guys and the designers, that was one sweet looking piece of mechanical ass. 

SHIT SUX; NEEDS MORE CYLONS. (and Baltar) kthxbai

This episode:
 - Gaeta is a tool
 - Sleezy Gaius is back :D
 - Adama and Tigh being badass, although it was really pretty lame the way it played out (I dunno, I was watching it thinking this SHOULD be fucking badass but it just felt really :/)

I would write more but I just spent a few hours bitching about why BSG is a terrible excuse for a show on /m/ and laughing my ass off at the people arguing that BSG has “realistic characters” and is “good sci-fi.” Lol, BSG and good characterization should not be in the same sentence. BSG’s worse than R2 with it’s LOL WHAT A TWEEST bullshit.

I’ve never been so happy to have missed the TV airing of something. Watching BSG on Hulu and watching it on SciFi are supremely different, moreso than I’d expected. The main difference being that Hulu’s little commercials are much less intrusive than SciFi’s usually almost 10 minute long breaks (okay, maybe they’re not actually 10 minutes long, but they really fucking seem like it). Not that it really helps BSG much either way. 

This week: Rosalin, Rosalin, Rosalin

Yeah, BSG writers, we definitely care about cancer lady more than finding out more about Earth and the Cylons. Yup. Totally. 

Also, there is still a decided lack of Baltar so far this season and I still contend that he’s BSG’s only redeeming feature (when they’re kicking him around at least). And this week he was relegated to religious-zealot!Baltar, which is fucking boring especially when you don’t get a gag scene/Baltar-is-just-in-this-for-the-women/some other skeevy thing. Baltar, you are not, and never will be G’Kar, stop trying. You could however make a decent Julian Bashir (and it still amazes me that they’re not the same person).

The Tigh and Six are having a baby thing was pretty… Well BSG-esq. By that I mean: this really seems like someone’s throwing darts at a board of plot-twists each week to decide what happens. Yeah I realize they fucked but still the whole idea seemed totally out of nowhere. Same with the whole what’s-his-face’s baby not really being his. 

BSG’s politics were bugging me this week. They’re so… flat. You have the Adamas+Rosalin and you have Tom Zarak, everyone else is a nonentity/yesmen. At least when Baltar was involved in the whole politics thing it was a little more interesting, but even his propaganda/religious bullshit doesn’t seem to be worth anything anymore plot-wise aside from being some kind of sad attempt at being “deep.” I dunno, there’s something missing and it’s making the current political “intrigue” seem really stupid. Also, why haven’t we seen anything from the Cylon camp on this shit? 

Also, it still pisses me off that we have no clue about jump mechanics/limitations. No, BSG writers it isn’t “natural” SF if you just use it as a plot device and write it off as “well the characters know how it works, so they don’t talk about it.” You know, if your characters know about it, you better fucking know how it works if it’s supposed to be “natural” SF. 

As much as I dislike BSG, these last couple episodes have been pretty disappointing. It really seems like the show isn’t even all there anymore and they’re not really trying. And it’s getting to the point that it’s not even entertaining anymore. 

How to fix BSG:
 - More Baltar being sleezy, stupid and/or generally entertaining
 - Cylons, Cylons, Cylons, Cylons, you have robots, do something with them! (or did you just already sell all the Cylon related props and sets before you started filming the second half of the season?) 
 - SOLVE SOME MYSTERIES; no one cares about Rosalin or your pathetic need to feel DEEP and GRIMDARK, we want some motherfucking answers. 

If all else fails: BLOW SOME SHIT UP. Battles, explosions, mayhem, killing off major characters without so much as blinking–all that could easily make up for the booooring.

That was kinda… lame. So the Earth was populated with Cylons and Tigh’s wife is one of the final 5 or something. Dee killed herself for some reason and everyone is full of ANGST and BAW for various reasons. I dunno, honestly all the drama was really kind of cheesy to me. Maybe it’s just because I don’t give a shit about any of the characters at this point. It really just seems like the same shit is going down again (er, not in the cyclical-symbolic-whatever-you’d-call-it-if-it-was-being-used-as-a-legitimate-device sense) Rosalin is having a crisis of faith again, Adama is having another breakdown, the political system is starting to come apart at the seams again.

I mean, on some level I can’t say that isn’t reasonable given the circumstances, but just something about the way they present it comes off as YOU DID THIS SHIT LAST SEASON COME UP WITH SOMETHING NEW FAGGOTS. 

Anyhow, SciFi’s obscenely long commercial breaks really don’t help things either. 

You know, this episode was decidedly lacking in Baltar hijinks, maybe that’s why I especially disliked it.

So, BSG’s final chunk of the last season is starting tonight. I’m kind of excited to be honest even though I hate BSG–actually, maybe that’s why I’m excited about it. BSG is one of those shows that’s really fun to hate. Now, I’m not going to say it’s not an entertaining show, because it is pretty entertaining, but the whole “it’s the best show/SF/etc ever” bullshit makes me RAGE which makes it just that much more fun to be hypercritical of it :D

Why isn’t there any good SF on TV anymore? I miss Star Trek.