(no subject)

You know, it occurs to me that, someday soon, I really should read my Stardust trade instead of just pulling it out and looking at the pretty pictures all the time...

(of course, I've read the novel version...my first exposure to Gaiman, actually, but I love Charles Vess's work-he really needs to do a second Book of Ballads series, or just GN would work, too-and I should read it as it was originally intended to be read, certainly before the movie comes out.)

(no subject)

You know, it occurs to me that, someday soon, I really should read my Stardust trade instead of just pulling it out and looking at the pretty pictures all the time...

(of course, I've read the novel version...my first exposure to Gaiman, actually, but I love Charles Vess's work-he really needs to do a second Book of Ballads series, or just GN would work, too-and I should read it as it was originally intended to be read, certainly before the movie comes out.)

Battlestar Galactica: The mini

I was planning to save Battlestar Galactica to take with me to the parents this weekend(where I'll be for about 2 weeks) but I ended up deciding to start it last night, and I finished it just now.

To start with, I'm not really a big sci-fi person.  Grew up on Star Wars and occassionally watching Star Trek on TV, but I've always tended to lean more towards fantasy(both high and urban) mystery, romance and historical fiction.  When I do like scifi, it's usually of the near future, mostly earthbound variety.  The only scifi novel series I've ever really gotten into are Simon R. Green's Deathstalker novels and Christopher Stasheff's Warlock/Wizard series(that said, I have a fondness for space comics)  The only Scifi TV series of the deep space variety I've ever really gotten into is Firefly, which, I admit, may have caused me to set my standards too high.  I really liked the first season of Stargate SG-1 when I watched it a couple months ago, but the biggest appeal to me was the historical and mythological takes on the societies of the various worlds.  That said, I really want to watch Andromeda and Farscape, should I ever find them at good prices.

Which brings us to BSG.

I liked the mini a fair bit...though it went from "ok enough" in the first hour to "liking it" by the end.  While I'm not completely convinced yet that that it's my thing, it's definately good enough for me to stick with it, at least through the rest of season 1.  I did,. however, have 1 quasi problem and 2 big problems with it.

The quasi problem is the big cast and the names.  Granted, this was a 3 hour show that had a huge cast and a lot of story to tell, but I know exactly 4 names-Adama, Apollo, Starbuck and Baltar, and I knew the names going in and had the faces figured out after a scene or two.  But I have no idea who anyone else is, really.  The 3 characters I liked the best-the female pilot who had to leave her partner behinmd and is apparently a cylon agent but may or may not know, her partner and her boyfriend-I have no idea what their names are, though I THINK I heard Boomer and Helo or Halo tossed around in relation to them.  I also rather like Apollo, but I don't know how much of that is my liking him, and how much is that my reaction to Jamie Bamber is like my reaction to Ioan Gruffud and Paul MacGann:  I loved them in Horatio Hornblower, so unless the character sucks or annoys me, my instinct is to like hem in something else I see them in.

Problem 1:  Lack of subtlety:  this show is really caught up in it's drama and what it perceives as it's intellect and cleverness.  And while it is very complex and smart enough, the result is that it has all the subtlety of a ton of bricks.  And then after dumping the bricks on my head, the show picked up a brick then started whacking me with it so I wouldn't forget.

Problem 2: Starbuck.  I know this makes me a philistine to many on my flist, but I don't like her.  That brick it kept whacking me on the head with was "Look! Starbuck is a strong female character!"  Now, I like my strong female characters, but I like them to be strong because their women.  Starbuck, at least in the mini, is very much of the "Strong woman equals a man with breasts" variety...everything that was supposed to indicate to us that she was strong were qualities typically associated with men, as in "look, she's as strong as a man" not "look, she's a strong woman."  She rubbed me the wrong way in her first scene, and it never got any better(worse actually)  Like I said, I like my strong female characters to be strong because they're women, not because the main thing that makes them different from the men around is their equipment.  I much preferred the other female pilot and the president.  That said, this is the mini and they were trying to cram a ton of stuff in, so I may like her more once I get to the series.

Hmm...this post actually makes my opinion sound much more negative than it actually is. My overall opinion is pretty positive, there were just a few things that kept drawing me out of it.

Battlestar Galactica: The mini

I was planning to save Battlestar Galactica to take with me to the parents this weekend(where I'll be for about 2 weeks) but I ended up deciding to start it last night, and I finished it just now.

To start with, I'm not really a big sci-fi person.  Grew up on Star Wars and occassionally watching Star Trek on TV, but I've always tended to lean more towards fantasy(both high and urban) mystery, romance and historical fiction.  When I do like scifi, it's usually of the near future, mostly earthbound variety.  The only scifi novel series I've ever really gotten into are Simon R. Green's Deathstalker novels and Christopher Stasheff's Warlock/Wizard series(that said, I have a fondness for space comics)  The only Scifi TV series of the deep space variety I've ever really gotten into is Firefly, which, I admit, may have caused me to set my standards too high.  I really liked the first season of Stargate SG-1 when I watched it a couple months ago, but the biggest appeal to me was the historical and mythological takes on the societies of the various worlds.  That said, I really want to watch Andromeda and Farscape, should I ever find them at good prices.

Which brings us to BSG.

I liked the mini a fair bit...though it went from "ok enough" in the first hour to "liking it" by the end.  While I'm not completely convinced yet that that it's my thing, it's definately good enough for me to stick with it, at least through the rest of season 1.  I did,. however, have 1 quasi problem and 2 big problems with it.

The quasi problem is the big cast and the names.  Granted, this was a 3 hour show that had a huge cast and a lot of story to tell, but I know exactly 4 names-Adama, Apollo, Starbuck and Baltar, and I knew the names going in and had the faces figured out after a scene or two.  But I have no idea who anyone else is, really.  The 3 characters I liked the best-the female pilot who had to leave her partner behinmd and is apparently a cylon agent but may or may not know, her partner and her boyfriend-I have no idea what their names are, though I THINK I heard Boomer and Helo or Halo tossed around in relation to them.  I also rather like Apollo, but I don't know how much of that is my liking him, and how much is that my reaction to Jamie Bamber is like my reaction to Ioan Gruffud and Paul MacGann:  I loved them in Horatio Hornblower, so unless the character sucks or annoys me, my instinct is to like hem in something else I see them in.

Problem 1:  Lack of subtlety:  this show is really caught up in it's drama and what it perceives as it's intellect and cleverness.  And while it is very complex and smart enough, the result is that it has all the subtlety of a ton of bricks.  And then after dumping the bricks on my head, the show picked up a brick then started whacking me with it so I wouldn't forget.

Problem 2: Starbuck.  I know this makes me a philistine to many on my flist, but I don't like her.  That brick it kept whacking me on the head with was "Look! Starbuck is a strong female character!"  Now, I like my strong female characters, but I like them to be strong because their women.  Starbuck, at least in the mini, is very much of the "Strong woman equals a man with breasts" variety...everything that was supposed to indicate to us that she was strong were qualities typically associated with men, as in "look, she's as strong as a man" not "look, she's a strong woman."  She rubbed me the wrong way in her first scene, and it never got any better(worse actually)  Like I said, I like my strong female characters to be strong because they're women, not because the main thing that makes them different from the men around is their equipment.  I much preferred the other female pilot and the president.  That said, this is the mini and they were trying to cram a ton of stuff in, so I may like her more once I get to the series.

Hmm...this post actually makes my opinion sound much more negative than it actually is. My overall opinion is pretty positive, there were just a few things that kept drawing me out of it.