In an article published in PopPolitics magazine, Sarah Yahm ponders why the reincarnated “Battlestar Galactica,” a show that consistently raised complex and challenging questions over its four seasons, decided to fall back on pat answers in its devastatingly reactionary series finale:

Frederick Jameson, the Marxist literary critic, argues that pop culture consistently provides us with interesting rich alternatives to the status quo and then in the end rejects them. We can escape into alternate (even at times radical) possibilities without actually having to challenge our own cultural system. Because of pop culture, we can go to Oz while simultaneously renewing our commitment to not leave Kansas.

I know I wasn’t alone in hoping that “Battlestar Galactica” was going to break that pattern. Throughout the past four seasons, “Battlestar” has consistently raised rigorous questions about the nature of humanity, the role of government, the importance of community, the definition of family, and the correct relationship between humans and technology.

I had faith the writers were going to resolve these questions in the only way possible — by not resolving them at all and instead forcing us to continue to grapple with them alone. They weren’t going to raise questions and then give us pat answers, I insisted. Frederick Jameson was one smart cookie but he was wrong about “Battlestar.”

But sadly, Jameson was right once again, because Ron Moore gave us some really pat answers. He retreated to an old but faithful amalgam –- the purity of nature, monotheism, the sanctity of traditional hetero families, and, yikes, colonial expansion

Continue reading “Is Lee Adama the New (And Not So Improved) Thomas Jefferson?  Thoughts on the Battlestar Galactica Finale.”

It feels like Christmas morning for sci-fans tonight. Guests are arriving in a few minutes for our Battlestar Galactica finale party. They are bringing their own concoction of neon green ambrosia.

Okay, we’ve just entered a deeper concentric circle of geekdom, didn’t we?

Well, like Christmas, we will soon be experiencing withdrawal, a wave of sadness as we realize the party is over.  But we’ll also be left with a great gift — a sci-fi series that, at its best, had the guts to reflect, on an individual and geo-political level, the complications of life.

We’ve talked a lot about Battlestar over the years at PopPolitics– especially the power of its allegory of a post 9/11 world order.  No need to rehash it here.

But it’s nice to hear that this past Tuesday there was a Battlestar summit of sorts at the UN.  In fact, it’s stunning.  Rarely does a complex allegory like Battlestar have to opportunity to make such a direct impact on its time.

Mary McDonnell, who plays President Laura Roslin, explained the show’s simple but profound goal:

“People who are taking these actions — that are unacceptable — are sometimes in positions where they don’t see the solution,” she says. “The experience of that is what we wanted to expose to our audience.”

McDonnell hopes that dramatizing the way decent leaders can come to wrong decisions intough situations will create more of a dialogue about other ways to use power.

Writing for NPR, Lara Pelligrinelli then wonders what that dialogue might look like:

Although debates about terrorism and human rights have receded to the background for many Americans, Battlestar Galactica may help the U.N. meet the challenge of reaching a broader audience.

Naimah Hakim, a 16-year-old sophomore from Westchester, was one of a hundred New York high-school students in attendance. To her, the show brings home issues in a way that most of her classroom lessons don’t.

“When you’re watching the show, you don’t question why you have to learn it,” she says. “You understand because it’s something that hits the nail on the head.”

Funny how a multi-layered allegory can help us see so clearly.

Lately, we have been inundated with science fiction narratives that have been exploring our collective love/fear obsession with technology in a new light. “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” “Battlestar Galactica,” and (a little ways back) “The Matrix” trilogy of films all envision a world in which humans and machines — as distinct races — attempt to find a harmonious balance.

While sf has long pondered humanity’s relationship to robots or cyborgs — and has offered individual cases in which they win our hearts (C-3PO or R2D2, anyone?) — it rarely has dwelled on machines as a distinct race, and, when it has, they are the very image of horror: a Cold War nightmare, crushing human individuality and freedom (the Borg, anyone?)

One great exception might be the inventor of the modern robot narrative — Isaac Asimov. The more he wrote about robots — and he wrote a lot — the more complex they became. But especially in his early short stories, such as “The Bicentennial Man,” the sympathetic, feeling robots were the exception.

The most thought-provoking and engaging of the new narratives is the “Terminator” TV series, which just ended its second season last week. I’m a big fan of “Battlestar,” and I still think the first “Matrix” was close to cinematic perfection. But only “Terminator” has built a truly diverse community of machines — with multiple agendas, multiple desires — without resorting to some type of spiritual mythology to explain their existence.

Unlike “Battlestar,” in particular, which kept the origins of the “cylons” a mystery to the very end and hinted that their evolution was rather human-like, “Terminator” builds its robot world — its history, its rules — as a convincing extension of reality.

“Terminator,” especially as it began to hit its stride at the end of its first season, just keeps adding layers to the relationships between humans and machines, relentlessly challenging us to negotiate our preconceived notions about the nature of humanity and intelligence. The allegorical resonance of the narrative keeps the mind humming.

It’s really good. I mean, really good.

(more…)