Can't watch SGA after seeing BSG...

[poundpuppy29]

OK I really don't see the point and making this into a compeition.

TheHomegaMan
The problem I see with your approach is you are acting above us and that is offensive. I have only watched BSG the mini series and season 1 then I lost cable and haven't watched it since but I do plan on buying the DVDs when I have money but I really don't think it is all important show that is soo much better than SGA. I really think you need to realize that different people have different taste and preferances. I am a Sci-fi fan I watch Star Trek TNG ENT, Babylon 5, Farscape, Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis and Firefly. I am also a Star Wars fan. All of these have their Pros and Cons in terms of story and characters so does BSG it is not above everyone I know several SG fans that also watch BSG and they are very happy to be fans of both. BSG may try and say they are not Sci-fi but I think they are fooling themselves because the gendre doesn't get much respect but I think you should know in the people's choice award SGA won over BSG and that is fans not industry and sci-fi fans are like no other they are intelligent well versed and picky and they beat them so it is not a dumb show.

[Naonak]

well a transcript of the show is still not as good as actually watching it. IMO SGA has many points that had I just read the dialogue and the stage notes I might not have been impressed But because I could see the actors faces and see the body language as well the whole scene took on an entirely different flavor.

Indeed.

For example, TheHomegaMan, you say that Todd is a fairly shallow character from your reading transcripts, but in not watching the episodes themselves you've missed out on Christopher Heyerdahl's excellent performance, which adds a great deal of ambiguity and depth to the character.

[TameFarrar]

Indeed.

For example, say that Todd is a fairly shallow character from your reading transcripts, but in not watching the episodes themselves you've missed out on Christopher Heyerdahl's excellent performance, which adds a great deal of ambiguity and depth to the character.

I have to agree here wholeheartedly
Had I not watched Todd's performance I don't think I could have *gotten* this character in the same way.. His movements as well as the *looks* he gave various members of the cast spoke VOLUMES instead of lengthy dialogue.


By the same token, In one episode of BSG Baltar is speaking with one of the robotic Cylons who is vaguely been made self aware. It is a poignant scene, yet in some ways almost pathetic in the way Baltar seems to be grasping at having someone, anyone listen to him from the Cylon perspective.

Had I read that on paper or just read it in a post...I don't think I would have *gotten* Baltar's depth of emotion or feeling from that or how ironic the scene was as a whole without being able to watch Baltar's body language and the agony and despair on his face as he tried so hard to convey his feelings and his need to this robot.

Both shows have such diversity but as Thehomageman has pointed out at its simplest form they do have
the basics
Character development and plot/story development

With the characters
I do feel SGA has grown more overall because the stories themselves lend to just *moving on* and facing each new adventure so the characters must move with that and the audience knows this. Sci-Fi audiences are not stupid and they do know how to fill in the blanks and for those they don't they come here and fill them in together

But for Story development I give the kudos to BSG because they have had more far reaching goals and so far have had a bit more story consistency overall in the canonverse Part of that is because just the overall story is one big story versus being episodic closure each week. There was more of this in the first Season and I have to say I liked it better since it seemed like the characters evolved more naturally with the story. But as for the story itself it has been the most consistent.

Between the two I think that after S1 on both shows SGA characters have grown at a more *natural pace* even given the vast differences in story lines. Just using each show on its own and viewing the characters within their own premises, I still feel SGA has done the better job. BSG has been too erratic with their characters especially for a show that prides itself on being *character driven* . I must agree with the statement made earlier that BSG has begun to make its characters fit into the plot rather than allow the story to fit the characters

[SoulReaver]

Okay, I'll try this from a different approach.
My definition of science fiction is a story that is set in a world that works in a similar way to our own on a mechanical level - that is, the basic laws of physics, chemistry, biology etc apply - has elements that could be conceived as possible within these rules, but do not exist in our own world.
Battlestar Galactica answers these criteria as far as I'm concerned, so yes, I will define it as science fiction.

yeah I got that the 1st time (only back then you didn't specify the "do not exist in our own world" part so I cited baywatch, but I was just messing with ya :-)
my point was there were too few said "elements" to justify the scifi label

btw another problem with your pov is that BSG also has some elements that cannot be explained within the mechanical framework you put forth : ghost companions (head 6), inexplicably omniscient cyborgs (the hybrids), bringing back the dead, etc. which belong more to the fantasy genre. SG1 on the other hand has no such fantasy elements (although that can be argued only after having watched the final seasons & AOT) so it can be considered "pure scifi"

The reason I'm insisting about it is because if you say that everything "drama" is not science fiction

but that is not what I said, in fact there are counter-examples to this (cf. below, the DS9 reference)

you are doing a great disservice to the genre.

actually it's the opposite : if you begin ascribing the scifi label to just about anything with the only criterion that it contain 1 or 2 ingredients relevant to the label then you are only cheapening its image. add a few drops of grape juice & alcohol to a glass of water and have the temerity to call it wine, and 10 to 1 you'll bring upon yourself the ire of just about every oenologist 'round the globe :/
would to refer to schwarzie's Eraser as scifi just because it had an energy weapon ?

Battlestar's emphasis is on characters, their relations and political and religious allegories? Wonderful! Why does this mean it can't be science fiction?

because the scifi aspect is not the main focus and is nowhere close to. it serves as nothing more than a faint backdrop to the storyline (faint, at best, given the scarcity of scifi elements) - and, to top it off, with nary a reference to it within the script (ie. no technobabble, if you prefer - not even occasionally)

Since when do these elements are mutually exclusive to the genre? Years before BSG Isaac Asimov, to name one writer, wrote detective science fiction, political science fiction, drama science fiction, romance science fiction

ah but they're not exclusive, hence their presence side by side, "drama science fiction" to pick up on one of your examples. and I'm *almost* fine with this, as it's basically akin to calling BSG "drama scifi" - except that in this particular case I'd place the emphasis on the "drama" part ^_^ hence "scifi drama"
a good example of drama scifi would be deep space 9 (some even consider it a space opera) with heavy emphasis on both drama & scifi without the former relegating the latter to the background (figuratively at any rate). a decent dose of politics therein as well (after season 2)

The fact there's a tendency in the general public to dismiss science fiction television as rubbish and not worth their time should be fought agaisnt [...] Attract viewers based on quality, not false advertisement, I'd say.

damn straight. and the 1st step would be to stop throwing around labels where they don't belong and call a spade a spade. the fact that many (perhaps the majority) of viewers regard BSG (amongst others) as [true] scifi hasn't helped the show either, this could precisely explain this "tendency in the general public" which you speak of to denigrate scifi. this is precisely the kinda "false advertisement", on behalf not of RDM but the majority of the general public (trying to pass it off as scifi), that may have compromised the show when it failed to live up to a label it was never meant for
I on the other hand very much appreciate BSG for what it is and one of the main reasons for this is that I never treated it as something which it wasn't & by its own creators' admission was never meant to be. BSG is scifi drama & was always meant as such (and it does an honourable job at that)

and people like RDM should insist that they're making quality science fiction drama

but that's precisely what they're doing. we are in agreement, then -_-

[Pitry]

damn straight. and the 1st step would be to stop throwing around labels where they don't belong and call a spade a spade. the fact that many (perhaps the majority) of viewers regard BSG (amongst others) as [true] scifi hasn't helped the show either, this could precisely explain this "tendency in the general public" which you speak of to denigrate scifi. this is precisely the kinda "false advertisement", on behalf not of RDM but the majority of the general public (trying to pass it off as scifi), that may have compromised the show when it failed to live up to a label it was never meant for
I on the other hand very much appreciate BSG for what it is and one of the main reasons for this is that I never treated it as something which it wasn't & by its own creators' admission was never meant to be. BSG is scifi drama & was always meant as such (and it does an honourable job at that)
but that's precisely what they're doing. we are in agreement, then -_-

Mmmm. I'm gonna skip the quote-for-quote, if you shall forgive me

I started this from a comment you, I think?, made about "basically a drama with scifi elements, even RDM said it was never meant to be scifi".
It sounds to my like a slightly apologetic view to the general audience looking down on science fiction. "Look, we're not really science fiction, we're a drama! A proper drama! Really we are! We just have some elements that have appeared in the past in science fiction"....

Sorry for the sarcasm.

The need to describe BSG as a "drama with science fiction elements" in it would suggest a need to make people concentrate on the "drama" and miss the "science fiction".
Which suggests to me some sort of being ashamed of these elements, rather than basking in their glory, so to speak.

My definition of science fiction might be abit large. A bit too large, maybe. But I dare say you would find the definition of those who look down upon science fiction a lot broader than mine. They would hear "future" and "spaceships" - both in abundance in BSG - and wouldn't understand what the arguement is about.
And this - I think - is the audiece RDM is trying to court when he plays with the definition of what BSG is.

Thing is, if it's interesting, and if it's good, then people would watch regardless. How many times have you ehard the "I'm not a science fiction fan but show x/y/z is actually a very good one?" I know I have. And from very unexepcted sources. I don't expect RDM to go on a crusade here, to prove on the back of his BSG that science fiction can be many things and appeal to many people - but I do expect him not to damage "the fight" so to speak.

I know I'm repeating something you've already answered. But I do think this requires more clarification. Because I couldn't disagree with you more when you implied that for a show to be "true" science fiction - whatever that is - its focus should be the science fiction. No. A show can be both a drama and a comedy - would you define Deseprate Housewives (well, seaosn 1 when it was still good and I bothered watching..) A comic drama? A dramatic comedy? I'd say it's both drama and comedy. Are the Indiana Jones movies action or adventure? They're action adventure - it's not the same thing. How about Doctor who (sorry, I have to, haven't mentioned it for like, 3 psots in a row!! ) - a drama and a comedy with a lot of emphasis on aliens and science fiction but is in fact closer to fantasy... you get my point I hope.
There's no such thing as true science fiction IMO. A show, or a movie, or a book don't need technobabble in order to be science fiction - look at Babylon 5, I think they win with something like two mentions of technobabble in 5 years or so, but in the future with energy weapons and aliens and spaceships and people in silly costums, would you really argue they're "just" a drama with elements of science fiction?

[Naonak]

How about Doctor who (sorry, I have to, haven't mentioned it for like, 3 psots in a row!! )

Shame on you!

But good points on the other stuff.

[X-3-0-2]

but that is not what I said, in fact there are counter-examples to this (cf. below, the DS9 reference)

DS9 was very overrated, I thought it was too dull and it borrowed too much from Babylon-5. It was a good scifi but definitely not as good as the original series.
I didn't really like all the DS9 characters - Worf and the Klingons were Neanderthals, how could such a bunch of apes obssesed with blood and ritual suicide ever become a space faring civilization? Dax totally jumps the shark when the actress quit the show
I think the Stargate characters are far more enjoyable than DS9 and BSG and I've got bored with the whole Navy-In-Space structure...its sooo overdone. If you're looking for fx, space battles I think SGA blows both these shows away plus SGA has a more likeable crew without the depressing plots

My bias will show now
Dee is a wonderful support character on the bridge and with small supportive moments with the Admiral or Gaeta. But as a a counter point to a Lead or to carry a scene I found the character completely wooden and stilted and very *out of character* I do not see her as regulated like an old 50's character.... but we will have to each agree to disagree there I am afraid

<mod snip>

The racial distribution of BSG is very biased, thank goodness they have some Lations in lead otherwise it might be also know as the Battlestar KKK show

As dumb as the old series was at least it had African-American actors or black actors in prominent roles.

[TameFarrar]

<mod snip>

The racial distribution of BSG is very biased, thank goodness they have some Lations in lead otherwise it might be also know as the Battlestar KKK show

As dumb as the old series was at least it had African-American actors or black actors in prominent roles.

This is not my argument nor do I want to discuss race distribution on the any show as I am not there nor do I sit in the casting offices so I have no clue what is or isn't determined by any of TPB in this capacity

We do however have a thread dedicated to this subject matter

Where are all the Black people

[Jedi_Master_Bra'tac]

At some point, comparison can and should happen. If everything is reduced to "I'm OK, you're OK, and nothing can be compared", then we find ourselves having no yardstick to measure by. Without that yardstick, we no longer have the ability to see where improvement is needed. The obvious result is stagnation. Perhaps it is high time that the writers of the Stargate franchise realize that somebody is outdoing them in the eyes of the critics in nearly a quarter of the time.

While I agree that competition leads to better products/shows I don't feel SG should compete with BSG
Hasn't this thread taught you anything? If Stargate was made more like BSG alot of SG fans would stop watching. SG is not BSG, it's not supposed to be. They are completely different. They can't be compared and the writers of SG certainly shouldn't try to make themselves more like BSG.
I've mentioned before in this thread my distaste for BSG, that's my opinion, and not the opinion of loads of people who happen to have a degree in journalism and write for some magazine. I dis-agree with a lot of critics, for example nearly every time I've left the cinema in the past year I felt the reviews were way off. LOTR is considered one of the best films ever made and has won god knows how many awards but I personally hate them. I could go on and on about every time my opinion differed from the "mainstream" opinion, but it'd take ages.
I'm gonna quote my all time favourite reviewer here and say
"it's worth remembering that all reviews are subjective to personnel opinion and if you personally enjoyed something they really should get to you" (green goes to the first person who tells me where I quoted that from)
Anyway the point of all of the above is to point out that using "but the critics say it's good" in your argument is ridiculous. Everyone has differing opinions, no one opinion is right or wrong, or more right, or more wrong for that matter. No matter how many "professionals" think something is good, I don't believe it should influence your own opinion.

As for awards, SGA won a people's choice award over BSG. In my opinion more impressive than a peabody because the public have voted for it.

My method of keeping up with SGA is far better than those who don't watch a given show and don't do much of anything to keep up with it. The scripts and transcripts are of obvious significance in judging a story. They don't shoot something, then decide that it just doesn't work. There's a reason that stories are shot down or saved in this phase. I invite you to go back and notice where I point out that numerous people, by their own admission, have left one show or the other behind, yet weigh in. Do you honestly mean to say that what I do to keep up with SGA is on some level equivalent to not having anything to do with BSG?

Your method of keeping up with SGA is terrible, it's like judging a song by its lyrics and lyrics alone.
I have a question for you, why bother? You obviously do not like SGA, so why bother keeping up? Is it loyalty to SG1? Is it mere curiosity? I really don't understand. I don't like BSG, never have, I haven't watched much but I've watched enough to know I don't like it, so I don't watch it, and I certainly as hell don't try and keep up with it. Even if it did mean I could put a better argument as to why I don't like BSG


Tame - I'm greening you because in my 2 and a half years at GW I've never seen a thread as mod-snipped as this one. I do hope Darren's giving you extra magic beans this month

[SoulReaver]

DS9 was very overrated, I thought it was too dull and it borrowed too much from Babylon-5. It was a good scifi but definitely not as good as the original series.

maybe it did, but not having watched B5 as of yet this is pretty much irrelevant as far as I'm concerned
I was put off by DS9's "soap opera" feel at first (even the acting was never really on par with, say, the top notch performance of Patrick Stewart & co. in TnG) but things really got interesting when the Dominion stepped in and lead TnG characters such as Worf & OBrien joined the fun

I didn't really like all the DS9 characters - Worf and the Klingons were Neanderthals, how could such a bunch of apes obssesed with blood and ritual suicide ever become a space faring civilization?

not to mention the ferengis obsessed with profit to the point they sell their own parents :/
(and those aliens who spoke in metaphors, can't remember what they were called)

but then the humans have committed genocide on their own slaughtering millions and look where they are in the 23rd century ^_^

The racial distribution of BSG is very biased, thank goodness they have some Lations in lead otherwise it might be also know as the Battlestar KKK show

on the other hand Tealc may be the role model in SG1 but save for him, not much to be seen in the "anti-discrimination" department. when was the last time they had a non-white general at the head of SGC ? (or even a non-white general in the SG-verse for that matter)

I think the Stargate characters are far more enjoyable than DS9 and BSG and I've got bored with the whole Navy-In-Space structure...its sooo overdone. If you're looking for fx, space battles I think SGA blows both these shows away plus SGA has a more likeable crew without the depressing plots

not more enjoyable than BSG, just more "joyful" :|
BSG sure ain't for the depressed (though if you've ever watched Total Recall 2070, BSG looks like a midsummer leisure stroll down the park compared to this)

I prefer the SG sfx but then again this may be due to the fact that the technology in the BSG verse itself is more primitive - and the viewers knows that and may tend to reflect this on the quality of the fx. phazed polaron beams, event horizons & teleportation rings will always look more "impressive" than space battles featuring flying tin cans, bullets & exploding missiles

but ultimately BSG's CGI team does a very commendable job especially the space battles (such as the one in the s4 intro) which easily matches the one in BASMR (if only you try to forget the hi-tech aspect of the weapons therein for a sec.)
perhaps my only gripe is that the BSG writer left out energy-weapons, major letdown there IMO. surely a civilization advanced enough to develop FTL should've come up with some way to dispense with bullets

[SoulReaver]

Mmmm. I'm gonna skip the quote-for-quote, if you shall forgive me

you are forgiven

I started this from a comment you, I think?, made about "basically a drama with scifi elements, even RDM said it was never meant to be scifi".
It sounds to my like a slightly apologetic view to the general audience looking down on science fiction. "Look, we're not really science fiction, we're a drama! A proper drama! Really we are! We just have some elements that have appeared in the past in science fiction"....
[...]
Which suggests to me some sort of being ashamed of these elements, rather than basking in their glory, so to speak.

that's not the way I see it
scifi drama is not inferior to scifi, just different. perhaps your perception of it as such stems from the fact that you consider the scifi drama label to represent some sort of "hybridisation" between 2 genres (as opposed to the "pure" scifi). it's not a mix of the two, and even if it were, it'd 1st & foremost be a separate genre in & of itself. iron is iron, carbon is carbon, but steel is steel (with its own properties etc.)

oh and and it's not "proper drama" - it's sci-fi drama

The need to describe BSG as a "drama with science fiction elements" in it would suggest a need to make people concentrate on the "drama" and miss the "science fiction".

not miss, miss - just not focus primarily on that aspect (which is rather evident from the start of the 1st battle in the miniseries)
because those who do are bound to be disappointed

My definition of science fiction might be abit large. A bit too large, maybe. But I dare say you would find the definition of those who look down upon science fiction a lot broader than mine. They would hear "future" and "spaceships" - both in abundance in BSG - and wouldn't understand what the arguement is about.
And this - I think - is the audiece RDM is trying to court when he plays with the definition of what BSG is.

maybe you're right - but business is business I guess

Thing is, if it's interesting, and if it's good, then people would watch regardless. How many times have you ehard the "I'm not a science fiction fan but show x/y/z is actually a very good one?" I know I have

so have I

conversely I've also heard the "I am a science fiction fan but show xyz is actually a very good one"
(guess which ?)

I know I'm repeating something you've already answered. But I do think this requires more clarification. Because I couldn't disagree with you more when you implied that for a show to be "true" science fiction - whatever that is - its focus should be the science fiction. No. A show can be both a drama and a comedy - would you define Deseprate Housewives (well, seaosn 1 when it was still good and I bothered watching..) A comic drama? A dramatic comedy? I'd say it's both drama and comedy.

I don't know, I don't watch it ('cept once and I recall a certain car-washing scene) and the only thing I recall from the little I've seen is that Nicole Sheridan is a damn good looking lass and man I'd like to <self-snip in deference to PG etiquette>

Are the Indiana Jones movies action or adventure? They're action adventure - it's not the same thing. How about Doctor who (sorry, I have to, haven't mentioned it for like, 3 psots in a row!! ) - a drama and a comedy with a lot of emphasis on aliens and science fiction but is in fact closer to fantasy... you get my point I hope.

I do. sure there are a myriad of genres but the spectrum is not as "continuous" as you seem to make it out to be. gray areas there may be when attempting to find a label but there are instances where we are waaaay outside such gray areas and BSG is one of them
to answer your points, IJ is action. it is also adventure. it is also action adventure. Doctor Who is scifi (from the little I remember, only watched the old ones like the one where they freeze a whole army of daleks on some planet populated with invisible slaves dressed in pink furcoats). not so sure about the drama part though

also BSG is scifi drama. technically it is drama (by definition) but not scifi

There's no such thing as true science fiction IMO. A show, or a movie, or a book don't need technobabble in order to be science fiction - look at Babylon 5, I think they win with something like two mentions of technobabble in 5 years or so, but in the future with energy weapons and aliens and spaceships and people in silly costums, would you really argue they're "just" a drama with elements of science fiction?

no because there's too many scifi elements to just blot out the scifi aspect. technobabble may not be needed, neither are spaceships for that matter, but if next to none of those ingredients are included then it's safe to dismiss the scifi label. B5 may not have had technobabble but iirc they sure had spectacular space-battles with plenty of beams & energy weapons of all shapes & colours filling the entire screen

if you take an inordinately finicky (almost mathematical) approach you can assert there's no such thing as true scifi (then again this implies there's no such thing as a genre !!!) but past a certain percentage it's safe to give the label. beer with a few drops of water is still beer (I'd say likewise for wine but apparently some palates are sophisticated enough to tell the difference)

[Atlantis1]

What it seems to boil down to is taste in shows. I prefer SGA and what I saw of BSG found very distasteful. I don't need to explain why I like it better, I just do.

[masterling]

But this brings up Farscape again as the closer of the two in comparisons Moya even gave birth to her own baby ship

I have only seen a few scattered episode of farscape, so I wont try and compare it. Thanks for letting me know about the similarities. (Ok the Hives have wraith on them, therefor they are cool)

[s09119]

maybe it did, but not having watched B5 as of yet

Just for that, your entire argument is discredited

[SylvreWolfe]

I quit watching BSG TNS after watching the miniseries and the first few eps and decided to do something better with my time, like watch grass grow.