We watch... so you don't have to.
Battlestar Galactica is kind of a drag, man
It has come time for me to admit that I don't really care about Battlestar Galactica. Well, I don't mind reading articles about it and talking to people about it. Specifically, I don't much enjoy watching the show.
It's not that I think it's bad. It's obviously a high-quality show with Important Themes and Bitchin' Special Effects. However, it is also a massive downer, which means that I don't look forward to watching the next episode. Actually, the episode I'm currently not looking forward to is the one from two weeks ago, followed by the one from last week. One of the interesting things about having Tivo is that it takes awhile before I have to admit that I'm not watching a show anymore.
Part of the problem is that I don't like any of the characters. They're pretty much all insane or incompetent or both, right? If these 40,000 people are the last remnants of humanity, I don't think there's much of a future even if the Cylons vanished immediately. That settlement on New Caprica was a depressing hellhole (with, apparently, union problems even though I would have thought it would be a most agrarian society) without the robot overlords. I can't bring myself to care if the Galactica finds Earth because I'm pretty sure they'd just screw everything up anyway. Besides, won't the Cylons still be right behind them, all set to enslave humanity again?
I'm perfectly willing to accept that the problem might be with me. I like my science fiction to be at least a little bit escapist, and I can't imagine actually wanting to live in the Battlestar Galactica universe, where nothing good ever happens. Seriously, it seems like there's only a happy ending once in every three or four episodes and then it's something along the lines of "Well, another few thousand people died, but at least some of us are more or less free. For now. Although we hate each other and are mostly crazy." I'd start rooting for the Cylons, but as soon as they started getting a fleshed-out society, they started going crazy too, to the point where I think Baltar might be the sanest one there. At least his imaginary girlfriend seems rational, which is more than I can say for the main Cylons.
So the last two weeks of Battlestar Galactica are sitting unwatched on my Tivo. I know that I "ought" to watch them, but I can't help feeling that my television-watching time would be better spent with something I enjoy
