If any television show is ready for a higher critique, it is BSG
. The only TV show to overtly present monotheistic super-hot, quasi-immortal cyborgs in a to-the-death struggle with their polytheistic, human creators (frequently named after Greek gods) and to take the complications thereof at least somewhat seriously. To be sure, BSG left a lot on the table. The cans of worms and whupass that it opened were expansive, to say the least, and its hard to criticize them for failing to achieve a perfectly satisfying catharsis in each and every case. What with the necessities of keeping the audience “massive” enough to justify being on TV week-in and week-out for all those episodes. So, I come not to bury BSG, but to praise it.
The thing that most grabs my attention when I come at BSG with the right perspective isn’t themes or plot or characters, but the way that they played with “culture” and “cultural production”. Most obviously was the way that BSG established a unique, comprehensive and coherent aesthetic. Everything from camera angles and movement, to set decoration, soundtrack (and sound effects) and all of those great linguistic turns of phrase that just hung together as obviously part of the same aesthetic universe. “Gods’ frakkin dammit” says Saul Tigh, and it all makes sense. Like someone speaking Klingon or Quenya – except that like everything else in BSG it cuts perfectly, schizophrenically, close to consensus reality to blur that distance completely. There isn’t a single person alive who, watching that particular episode, didn’t suddenly realize that *they* were a cylon. Deep-down. And so it flips. Up vs. Down. Us. vs Them. Gaius Balthar had a better grasp on reality than we did, most of the time.
And lets not leave it there – because it certainly seemed obvious that the folks pulling the strings were fully aware both of the fact that they were shooting a TV show and that they were shooting a TV show that a lot of us spent considerable time watching at a very tender age. How many people had a creeping sensation that when Adama was handing his admirals badges to Lt. Hoshi in the penultimate episode (and Apollo was handing President reigns over to the shades-wearing lawyer) that a spin-off was in the works? How was that? What part of our 70’s and 80’s addled collective consciousness was triggered to draw that conclusion from that set of affects? The same ones that have been programmed to know when the laugh track should go off when Chandler cracks his dutiful wise? Or that knows that you clip the red wire on Lost / MacGuyver explosives? I know that dropping a few notes from the Old Series theme song is a Cheap Trick, but exactly who is the target audience of a modified version of All Along the Watchtower? Web nerds could spend days trying to do a close fit of lyrics to plot lines (and largely failing), but those of us who were just trying to hold onto the couch simply had to deal with the fact that a mysteriously familiar song that carried oddly appropriate emotional resonance for those of us who happened to be cylons.
Nation, there is still a lot of work to be done, but BSG set some new standards and I, for one, look forward to Caprica and watching for that glorious day when we wake up and can no longer tell what is real.
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