SciFi Needs to Get Back to Science Fiction!

As much as I love the Scifi Channel, I am often bothered by their constant need to put on useless reality shows that take up time slots that would be better suited for reruns of older shows or syndication. There are currently reality shows that pit people against each other in a quest to become the best video game player and then there are a couple of silly shows that are like cheap obstacle courses with nothing exciting about them and clearly nothing “science fiction” related.

Oh, and don’t get me started on Scare Tactics. I really don’t have the time to cover this monstrosity of a poor man’s version of Punk’d meets Candid Camera!

All of that said, I have been a fan of Ghost Hunters for some time, but even that show seems to really have run its’ course. I know it’s really popular and even has it’s international spin off, but the original show is getting boring because it’s really the same thing over and over and over.

Having watched some of the best original programming on television, on Scifi, over the past decade, I would really like them to get back to the scripted science fiction series that really make people say, “If.”

No Holds Barred In Battlestar Galactica Finale!

There’s a moment towards the series finale of Battlestar Galactica that literally transcends generals over science fiction fans. While I don’t want to give any details of the two-hour finale away, I can say that for a brief moment there was a melding of the old and new Battlestar Galacticas. As if in homage to Glen A. Larson’s 1978 short-lived television series, and even perhaps a nod to 1980’s Galactica 1980, the theme most to these two shows played lightly as the fleet traveled together towards the sun. As a fan of all three, I was almost overcome by a sense of pride, and yes, some sadness as well.

I know that BSG will live on in several forms. Caprica, the BSG prequel series has been in production for some time and there are also two movies planned, based on BSG, but standalone. Nevertheless, suffice to say, the end has truly come for what some would consider the most impressive sci-fi television shows ever created.

On Friday night as my wife and I were sitting in a mountain hotel, her preparing for bed, and me getting ready to watch the finale; my wife asked my sort of half-jokingly if I thought this would be the best episode of the show I’d ever seen. I told her I didn’t think that it would be and to be honest, I was wrong. I was so blown away by everything that took place during those two hours. What more could one ask for in a series finale. There was triumph, defeat, death, life, and finality. Unlike most science fiction stories, the one thing that carried into the finale that has always made Battlestar Galactica special is that it has always embraced a theme of humanity above all. I know for a fact that there’s a lesson in there!

Battlestar Galactica lets it all hang out for the final episodes!

If I were to sum up the first few episodes of the final half season of Sci-Fi’s hugely successful show, Battlestar Galactica, in two words; I think they would be despair and anarchy. I k now; not the most pleasant of thoughts, but yikes, these people have been through hell and it only gets worse. The alliance with the Cylons makes sense, but what about the Cylons, who are still evil? That’s a huge loose end that they either need to tie up or perhaps hang it out there for a separate movie after the season ends. Additionally, I’m okay with Earth being destroyed, but the final five having come from Earth is a little silly. Scratch that… Being from Earth is fine for the storyline, but to insinuate that the 13th tribe were all Cylons is just too much, in my opinion.

So with 8 or so episodes left, there is lots of work to be done and to be frank, BSG cannot be left out floating in the middle of space. I think that they have to either find away to return to the colonies with a defeat of the bad Cylons or find a new world or civilization. I suppose they would just be destroyed, but we know that isn’t gonna happen. There is just no way they would kill off Apollo and Starbuck, although it’s not like the latter hasn’t happened before.

At least no one can argue whether or not this was the finest crew in the fleet!

I recently felt compelled to go the Sci-Fi Channel website to see when the remaining episodes of the last season of Battlestar Galatica are going to be aired. Sci-Fi likes to place shows like this on Fridays 'cause, well, apparently the audience likes it more edgy on Fridays. And yet with Stargate Atlantis the only show currently airing new episodes on Fridays right now, I was and am curious as to who will be paired with Battlestar Galactica on Fridays when it comes back for the last segment, so to speak. I found it odd that the only information provided was that there would be new episodes coming soon. Of course, I know that this means little because they haven’t aired any trailers form upcoming episodes and Sci-Fi always heavily promotes new episodes of popular shows. While there, I watched the trailer for Caprica, which is a prequel series set a generation before the current series. While I am very much looking for ward to this show, the trailer didn’t portray it to be anything like BSG and I didn’t see one “Toaster,” although they mentioned a cloned person. Perhaps NBC plans to have the end of BSG air in the fall and then Caprica start right on it’s heals to carry the audience over. Regardless of what they do, the writers, producers, and actors are going have a really hard time filling the shoes of Battlestar Galatica. Several years back when Sci-Fi announced that they were making a mini-series based on the original show, science fiction fans laughed it off. How could anyone recreate such an iconic show? The show's two biggest stars had different takes as well. Dirk Benedict (Starbuck) thought it was great, and he seemed to love that the new Starbuck was a woman. Richard Hatch, (Apollo) on the other hand wasn't so keen on the idea. Whether he felt insulted or just didn't like it, who knows, but after a while even he gave in and became a regular on the show when it became a series, albeit not as Apollo. After the two-part mini-series, there was a lot of buzz about a possible show, but Sci-Fi didn’t confirm anything. A year later they began to air trailers for the series and four seasons later, millions of American speculated that it may be the best overall science fiction series ever. I personally think that such a moniker shouldn’t be given to shows that are still on the air and only time will tell. No one really cared about Firefly until the show had been off the air for a couple of years. Now there are a lot of fans and sales of the series on DVD were so good that Serenity was made. If all those fans had been around to watch when the show was on Fox, it may not have been cancelled after 13 episodes. That all being said, I think I’ll wait reserve judgment for Caprica until it actually airs and will judge BSG’s place in history, well, when it is history.