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Battlestar Galactica and Television’s Uneasy Mythologies
Let’s call it the “X-Files syndrome.” That feeling you get when a television series that relies upon some type of mystery — usually involving aliens, the government, or both — begins to feel like it’s being made up on-the-fly, episode to episode.
At one point, the mystery captivated you, hinting at untold layers of complexity underneath a more conventional surface. But now it just frustrates you, reflecting a sense that your guess for where the series might be going is as good as the writer’s.
Can you say “Lost“? Or, for the two of us who actually watch it, can you say “4400“?
The most amazing, truly inexplicable thing about the “X-Files” itself was the way it defeated its own descent into randomness by embracing it. The last, campy season ended up being one of its best.
It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. Truly disciplined artists, from J.R.R. Tolkien to Joss Whedon, know how to map out a mythology before creating their worlds.
Then again, part of the fun of television is watching the house of cards teeter and fall. What other medium in history could have inspired Jump the Shark.
All of this is to say that “Battlestar Galactica,” hallowed ground thus far at PopPolitics, is scaring me. As it ended its third season, its compelling universe has begun to feel a little … chaotic.
My uneasiness with the show, in fact, made me break one of my cardinal rules of cultural criticism: don’t read interviews or explanations from the creators themselves.
I was punished. Executive producer Ron Moore, in a recent interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, admitted that the major plot twist revealed in the last episode — which upsets almost everything we presumed to know about the “Battlestar”-verse — “was something I came up with this season as I worked toward the finale.”
What might save “Battlestar” is that, as Moore points out, it does have a clear — prophesied, in fact — end. And, from this point on, Moore seems to have a clear trajectory mapped out in his head.
Those encouraging points don’t completely dismiss the feeling that I’ve been taken for a Viper-ride, but they hint at more ultimate satisfaction than I eventually got from, say, “Roswell.”
Posted at 4:03 PM | Permalink | | 
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Interesting thoughts. Although I see your point and can understand your frustration, I do feel that I have to point out that even Whedon has said that his storylines were fluid within the larger world of his mythology and that he didn’t have Willow and Tara in mind at the beginning of the series. That turn was one of the most thought-provoking on tv at the time.
As far as BSG goes, we were told for weeks that there were a group of final 5 cylons that had yet to be identified, so that reveal wasn’t a surprise, except for the ‘who’.
Posted by jossfangirl on April 1st, 2007 at 10:33 pm
I appreciate your point, but I think there’s a big difference between not knowing how a character like Willow will develop — even if it ends up being a radical development — and undermining the very foundational assumptions of the show as an afterthought.
Posted by Bernie on April 3rd, 2007 at 10:42 am
Well, I agree that it is just a little bit unnerving to learn how much of the “bigger picture” Mr. Moore seems to have made up on the fly. Your two examples of detailed world-crafting, Tolkien and Whedon (two of my own personal Geek Holy Trinity, with Neil Gaiman being the third) have certainly earned their reputations based on careful and considered myth building.
However I have to disagree with your assumption that the “reveal” at the end of ‘Crossroads Part II’ is undermining the very foundational assumptions of the show. Just because we don’t understand what’s going on or how so-and-so could possibly be a Cylon (and I personally have a theory that EASILY explains it, so I trust that RDM can come up with something too) doesn’t mean it won’t ultimately make sense. I have more faith in the creators of this show than I’ve ever had in a show team before, and that includes Whedon and Mutant Enemy (despite my deep love for them, they did let me down more than once). I trust the BSG team.
Having said that, I may have to stop listening to Moore’s podcasts because every time I hear him confess that this idea or that theme came to him the night before filming or something, it does disturb me. *shrug*
Posted by Haunt on April 5th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
I agree that Lost Season 3 is all over the place.
Season 1 had a clear goal - get off the island if we can, and figure out what this hatch is.
Season 2’s goal was mostly about the button, and whether to keep pushing it or not.
Season 3 is about… ummm… the others are up to something… don’t really care what… Claire is related to Jack or something? Although that was 6/7 episodes ago and hasn’t been mentioned since… errrr… hmmm.
Each episode of Season 3 seems to be about something completely random. It’s starting to annoy me, and they need to get it back on the rails in the next season.
Posted by Kurt Munro on May 11th, 2007 at 3:41 pm