Battlestar Galactica

By Myles “Vows” is cheating, in a lot of ways. To overwhelm my critical cynicism, they bring in another Battlestar Galactica alumnus (Jamie Bamber, who played Apollo on the SciFi show); to quell criticism of Eliza Dushku’s performance in the episode, they largely leave her on the periphery and ma...

By Myles As such, Emmy producers really have two entirely different bodies of viewers to be concerned with (throwing out those who would never watch the show in the first place). On the one hand, they have those people who believe in the dignity of the Emmy Awards, who highly respect the work of the Ac...

By Myles So, if you want to follow along with the show or check back later to see my subjective take on a particular moment in the show, here’s where you’re going to want to be. Meanwhile, if you want things elaborate and substantial, check back later tonight for my full analysis of the evening’s winne...

By Myles 2009 Emmy Awards Predictions September 18th, 2009 Writing for a Miniseries or TV Movie Andrew Davies (Little Dorrit) I think that the allure of a literary adaptation (Dickens, in case you didn’t know) will be enough to take the writing category.

By Myles Battlestar Galactica finds Mixed Bag in Final Year After two back to back wins in Visual Effects, and a hugely effects-driven finale, one would have expected the show to dominate in that category. However, to my shock at least, Heroes picked up the Special Visual Effects award for the firs...

By Myles The first, of course, is Laura Roslin, whose Opera House dreams have finally come to fruition in the form of what appears to be some kind of episode that results in her pulse being checked. I am not convinced that Laura is dead, but rather that something has taken over here: there is a part of he...

By Myles As you can see, I lasted until this morning, as I have in weeks past, before needing to delve back into episodes that frustrated me, trends which concerned me, and that voice in my head that for all of my enjoyment of BSG’s four seasons is extremely cynical about the show’s direction when the...

By Myles There were moments in the episode that fit better: Tigh and Adama sitting together, drunk, discussing the dependence they have on the Cylons and the effect on the ship. That’s the kind of scene that works because it plays into the legacy of their relationship, but the rest of the episode the...

By Myles It could be that Moore is just messing with us: that Daniel is in fact Starbuck, or Starbuck’s father, or some other hair-brained scheme. If so, then Moore is doing something perhaps even more problematic, abusing the fans’ desire for immediate context for each episode and purposefully m...

By Myles I think that I would have been more accepting of this quick crash course in Cylon history showing up with such force if it wasn’t for the episode’s other storylines more or less entirely ignoring its impact. The mutiny was supposed to be a reminder that the fleet didn’t support the Cylon side...

By Myles As a result of this, it felt like there were parts of the episode that were inherently fascinating in and of themselves (Lampkin coming out of the woodwork to be assigned to assist Adama, Roslin’s desperate attempts to contact the fleet, Adama’s reaction to being told Tigh is dead, Roslin...

By Myles The fascinating thing is that all of this character development was in one hell of an action-packed episode, which is a testament to Mark Verheiden’s script. All of the action built to something, and there are even loose ends that we haven’t even picked up on heading into next week’s episod...

By Myles This isn’t a good character trait, nor one that can stay forever, but we can’t blame them: the episode was about exploring the human reaction to these events, and dealing with both internal questions and external pressures. One of the problems with the episode is that it can only focus so fa...

By Myles It also, I think, gives Starbuck a more clear trajectory moving into the second half of the season; she slowed down the first half in a large number of places, and it seemed as if she was more angry and annoyed than she was really searching for meaning. Here, with a more volatile secret at stake...

By Myles Related Posts at Cultural Learnings Cultural Learnings’ Coverage of Battlestar GalacticaMy Review of “Revelations” For more details on the Cultural Learnings 2008 Television Time Capsule, click here!] “Revelations” Season Four, Episode 10 Airdate: June 13th, 2008 When Battlest...

By Myles Since New Caprica, Battlestar Galactica has been a series defined by the intersection of two races - of their people, their beliefs, their actions and their futures. At odds with one another from the moment the Miniseries began, humans and Cylons have slowly but surely centralized into t...

By Myles it’s hard to screw up what the show does best, an intersection of human and Cylon combined with meaningful action sequences and a spiritual journey for humanity’s dying leader. There’s a certain diversity in the episode’s tone that could turn some off, with some strangely humorous or lai...

By Myles Yes, certainly, there has been some strong episodes in this first half of the fourth season, so my apparently very late welcome to the series is not to say that the show has been wholly off its form since its premiere in early April. However, with this our 7th episode in the first half of the sea...

By Myles If there's anything that Battlestar Galactica's latest episode asks for, it is certainly the episode's title: faith in its vision, faith in its journey, and faith in its slow as molasses pacing. If there was any hope in this changing, then "Faith" certainly set the record straight: with s...

By Myles I missed Leoben, no question - philosophizing Leoben is one of the best elements the series has seen, and from his first interactions with Starbuck in the first season (Hell, even he and Adama in the miniseries) he has been the strongest at human/Cylon interaction. Here, he is floating in s...

By Myles The Demetrius' story is really simple: Kara has no idea what she's doing, has course corrected a ridiculous number of times, and her entire crew is becoming extremely restless. The big question here is how, precisely, Galactica is operating without so many of its pilots.  With Lee and Star...

By Myles Warning: This discussion will feature major spoilers for Battlestar Galactica: Razor, and the series' third season. Do not read if you wish to avoid these spoilers.] Okay, I think that's about it on this end. Anyone else have their own thoughts to add? Earlier today, I spent some time doing a...

By Myles Battlestar Galactica airs on Space in Canada and SciFi in the U.S. tonight (November 24th) at 9pm EST, and releases on DVD on December 4th with an extended edition that might fix some of the small narrative issues I have with it. In the meantime, I need to get back to "researching my thesis", a te...