Saturday, December 1

WHAT WAS ALL THAT ABOUT?

Like many fans of Sci-Fi Network's Battlestar Galactica, I was excited to see the, "special television event," last week. I'm a big fan of the show, and I don't care who knows it! Call me a geek, a nerd, a loser... whatever, I don't care - I'll stand by my show. (Stephen King listed it as one of his top 10 favorite shows, and it won a Peabody Award, so it can't be all that bad.)

But Battlestar Galactica: Razor turned out to be a colossal disappointment, from start to finish. I don't usually get suckered into believing the hype about anything, but given the ramp-up to this event, I was expecting... well, a little more.

For starters, I don't understand when the story took place - not because I'm dense, or don't understand the time line of events in this imaginary world. No, I was thrown by plot inconsistencies, redundancies and recycled ideas. The "new" elements thrown in - for whatever reason - raised more questions than they answered!

In some cases, the action only served to flush out and expand events from prior seasons. But most of the time, these "flashbacks" only served to complicate the plot, unnecessarily. There isn't much point in going back in time, and beefing up the back-story when the current story (at the end of two hours) doesn't evolve. At all.

I guess I'm just spoiled by shows like The West Wing. Nobody tells a story within a story, within a flashback like Aaron Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme. They knew how to frame a story arch, with opposing physical and emotional landscapes, so that you always knew where you were. But the trouble with Razor is, I just don't understand the point in making a special show like this. It didn't advance the plot in any significant way, and only served to frustrate me. I hope this isn't an indication of how the coming (final) season will unfold.

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