| Top 10 Sci Fi Shows |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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blizzard 
Famous Hero
Urban Legend
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posted January 25, 2026 02:32 PM |
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Edited by blizzard at 15:06, 25 Jan 2026.
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BSG was a "subvert your expectations" show even at the expense of the plot, which actually happened in quite a number of shows and movies from like 2005-2020 until it was common knowledge that this just pissed audiences off. Lost was the worst one but a lot of others did it too. The Last Jedi did it, which ruined the new trilogy.
Babylon 5 gets somewhat into the mystical, but it is NOT what drives the plot of the series or what wraps up the story. It is a background motif. The series itself is driven by plot points instead of "angelic beings made it happen.... we are at a new Earth now with a species with identical DNA... the end"
My theory is that the writers/producers get too wrapped up in wanting to feel original and special that they sort of forget the joy of writing a good story with good characters and good character arcs. They wander off into left field and the show suffers as a result
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 25, 2026 03:35 PM |
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Look.
Just because you don't LIKE the underlying prerequisites of a fictive story and close your eyes for what is obvious, the facts stay what they are. And this show had "religious" prerequisites right from the get-go, from the starting mini series. And the scope of what is actually happening (not really obvious in the first BSG), is actually mind-blowing: we are talking of TWELVE planets with a combined population of, what, 100 billion people?
And they all die, with the exception of 50.000. That's virtually BIBLICAL. And it's on the table right from the start: a holocaust for religious reasons (as opposed to the first war, which was an independence thing).
We KNOW that. From the beginning. And all the time supernatural things happen. A SIZABLE part of the whole show is the transformation - or metamophosis - of Saul to Paul, of Gaius Balthar, a nihilistic (you might say agnostic) narcissist, into a true believer of the one true god, who even offers himself as a sacrifice begging to god to take him and let a sick child live instead - which then actually happens: he has a knife at his throat, keeps at offering himself, is saved in the last moment - and the child is suddenly healed, everyone calling it a miracle.
The show is completely CONSISTENT in that regard.
It's STILL just a STORY. I mean, EVERY SF story is just a story because "Science" or scientific is a name that doesn't hold any water. The beaming technology of Star Trek isn't scientific, just because they declare it a "technology".
And in the BSG story, there simply is a God and he is pissed, and so the drama unfolds.
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blizzard
Famous Hero
Urban Legend
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posted January 25, 2026 04:11 PM |
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Edited by blizzard at 16:48, 25 Jan 2026.
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Not me. When I sat down to watch Battlestar Galactica I was expecting a space epic, and so was most everybody else. Season 1 had some parallels to Genesis and the Jewish Exile and such, but that doesn't mean I was expecting the entire freaking story AND the conclusion to be an "angels did it" finale. Countless shows and movies have Biblical parallels (probably because pretty much every plot you could ever write is contained within one of the books of the Bible or another religious text) but they don't use Biblical parallels to control the plot.
It was lame.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 25, 2026 04:51 PM |
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The first problem with that line of thinking is simply this: Biblical references dont necesserily mean the narrative itself will turn out to be religious. You can have a sci-fi story where the biblical references turn out to be something explaining why that religious story came into existence in the first place. Like how the first Stargate movie did with the religion of ancient Egypt and the pyramids. So even if the religious symbols were meant to be recognized right from the start, that does not undermine the sci-fi/detective story premise of the conventional methods used and expectations of a rational resolve.
As I already explained, I didnt expect that only because I saw spaceships or beaming technology. Yes, they are all fictional stories but there are conventional differences between genres. That’s why Star Wars isnt sci-fi despite the spaceships. But Star Wars doesnt trick you into thinking it is so either. If someone gets the impression it is sci-fi because of the decor, that’s their problem indeed. But their impression doesnt affect their expectations about the plot anyway. However, if I start a Sherlock Holmes style, typical closed-room murder mystery with all the conventional tropes; how did the killer did it an leave the room, it cant be suicide, knife is stuck on the victim’s back, the door was locked, no windows, oh look, a secret passage in the library, oh it is not that, the passage was blocked with a brick wall years ago, the wall is intact and so on and so on… And in the end, if all these pseudo clues and hints go nowhere and… Hey look, a ghost, a ghost used a knife to kill the victim and he flied through the brick wall, the end. That is just bad writing. That is not consistent storytelling only because I used some symbolism regarding ghosts from the start.
And of course sci-fi as a category holds water. There is a gradual difference between soft sci-fi and hard sci-fi, something such as Carl Sagan’s The Contact (which also kind of used “beaming technology”) but they are not just arbitrary categories or determined only by decor or gadgets.
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 25, 2026 08:16 PM |
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It doesn't matter what you EXPECT, what you GET is what matters. And what you get right at the start is a holocaust because of RELIGIOUS reasons. It's virtually the reason why the cylons do what they do.
The religious aspect is in the show right from the start - and it's not secondary. It's the foundation of everything - the reason why this is happening. The MOTIVE.
Secondly, it's not that you are surprised with the angel angle - as I said, it's an issue in season 2 - if you didn't listen, your problem. I mean, if you watch a show that works with magic right from the start - why would you be surprised when something miraculous happened and the expülanation was "magic"?
In this case "god" (and it's a god we KNOW, not just any god) did it (and he can do miracles and create angels) has been part of the show from day 1.
Yes, it works, when it's CONSISTENT. No, it doesn't work, if it's surprisingly introduced in the second to last episode.
In this case it works because RELIGION and THE ONE TRUE GOD being the force behind the curtain is established right away. It doesn't change the fact that it comes in the guise of an SF show with space battles and whatnot.
To remind you of the timeline:
The protagonists of the show are issue of colonists of a planet called Earth, settling on 12 planets, and after the holocaust their goal is to reach the planet they originally come from. When they find Earth it's dead, destroyed, probably by their own inhabitants.
At last they find a planet with a lifeform compatible with them - and they can multiply with them. Fast forward - and a couple thousand years LATER it's ... US. It's PAST, not future.
Reminder: All this has happened before and all this will happen again...
It's absolutely brilliant. It's consistent.
It's not SF in artu's strict sense, but fantasy (religion IS fantasy). And artu, what you say about Star Wars - that it's their problem, when they think it's SciFi - same thing is true for BSG.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 25, 2026 08:40 PM |
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Edited by artu at 20:41, 25 Jan 2026.
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JJ, you switched to brick-wall mode again and I wont run in circles. It’s not the same because BSG presented us certain puzzles in a certain style, raised our expectations and then all of them turned out to be pseudo-puzzles. It’s like the difference between buying a wrong product because of your own ignorance and being swindled into buying a fake product. If it was just a religious allegory, why did you need all those suspenseful puzzles which lead up to nothing? They serve no contextual purpose, they add nothing to character development, they dont add any meaningful layer to the main story.
I’m not against merging genres when it’s done in a truly creative way for the sake of actual originality but this was just for getting people hooked for the next episode. Simple TV trick.
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 25, 2026 09:37 PM |
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I'm not brick-walling - you didn't understand the show, probably because you were ignoring everything you didn't want to see. There ARE NO puzzles - everything is obvious and on the table, right from the start. It's like you'd watch a show (no matter the obvious genre) that CONSTANTLY mentions that there is "magic" - in fact, magic is the reason things are happening at all - then there are happening somewhat inexplicable things, explained as manifestations of magic - and then you'd protest that there was no rational explanation and you expected something else.
It's just because you are not prepared to accept this. You ARE prepared to accept non-specific fiction like "the Force" as "fantasy", but shy away from accepting radical variations on a known fantasy theme like Judaism and the Old covenant books as "fantasy" as well. Because religion IS fantasy. There isn't more proof for the existence of ANY god than there is for the existance of magic.
The Bible is not the oldest fantasy story humanity knows, but it's the most printed and read. What's wrong with a couple variations on it, where the timeline is fuzzy? The show never claims to be something else. It delivers. It's absolutely awesome.
So say we all.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 25, 2026 09:53 PM |
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Again, my problem is not that the Abrahamic tradition is used in fantasy, but certain tropes are used in certain ways that I (and everybody else I know except you) were lead to perceive them as puzzles to be resolved on a non-magical basis. That was “the thing” of the show. What you’re telling me would have been actually brilliant if it was done in a “hiding in plain sight” kind of way, like the envelope in the famous Poe story. But that was not it. I could have given you a more structural summary of why it’s not like that, directly going from scene logic to scene logic but as I said, it’s really been a long time since I watched it and the details are gone.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 25, 2026 10:38 PM |
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Then I would suggest that you watch the show again. Then we can talk. Because I tell you that things WERE actually (not even hidden) in plain sight. As I said, there is no reason to expect "puzzles" to be solved in a non-magical way, when magic is present from day 1. There just is no reason. It was just that many people didn't ACCEPT "religion" as just another kind of fantasy: God, Magic - same thing, actually - but in an SF show?
And there are no "tropes". The Kara Thrace incident is prepared over the course of many episodes. She has visions, she isn't herself. And then she dies for all intents and purposes - but dies following some kind of vision.
Three or so episodes later - cliffhanger - she comes back from the dead.
Now, the thing is, while she has a fuzzy memory ... it's not her Viper she sits in. It's a pristine, unmarred thing. Her Viper DID explode. She probably as well. There IS NO rational explanation, like everyone in the show is acknowledging. And the show works with it. It's not back to normal - it's everyone knows that cannot be. It's not her. A trick of the cylons, whatever. But IN THIS STORY she is made an angel of the one true god and that was her destiny right from the start.
Don't you see how BRAVE that is?
If you watch the show again, keeping an eye on it, you'll probably be surprised by how MUCH in that show is "religion".
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