Friday, March 20, 2009
Creamtastic / Moving Pictures All Along the Watchtower: Finally, a Reason to Write About the Greatest Show in the History of Television*
Posted by Sean Maloney on Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Tonight is the conclusion of Ron D. Moore's "Battlestar Galactica," the greatest sci-fi show in television history. Scratch that--it's simply one of the best shows ever. Character-driven political drama that matches the mysticism of "Twin Peaks" and the gritty realism of "The Sopranos" but has robots and lasers. It's a really smart, really sexy soap with spaceships and explosions. And there's a Nashville connection. Spoiler-ish-iness ahead!
If you haven't watched the series, here's the Reader's Digest version: There are human-looking robots called Cylons and the Cylons have nuked twelve planets-worth of humanity down to about 40,000 people on a smattering of ships in a rag tag-fleet led by the titular Battlestar. Amongst these refugees are a bunch of Cylons who may or may not know that they are Cylons, hence lots of hemming and hawing about the nature of humanity, the quandry of existence and all the other stuff that they probably won't teach at MTSU in the near future. It's epic in scope but can be very, very intimate in its portrayal of complex emotions. And it has robots. And spaceships.
And Dean motherfrakkin' Stockwell--if he doesn't win some sort of award for the episode where he flips out on his mom, then there is absolutely no justice in this galaxy. Just sayin'.
Anyway, one of the threads that ties the whole narrative is Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower," which, lo and behold, was recorded right here in Nashville at Columbia's Studio A. Hopefully, tonight they'll explain how the song ties in with the story and won't go down the "It's Dylan so it doesn't have to make sense" route.
The "Battlestar" series finale airs at 8 tonight on Sci Fi, but the real nerds are watching the "BSG" marathon that's on right now. Oh and watching this awesome "BSG" rap video:
* If they don't fuck it up tonight.
Editor's note: I have no idea what the fuck Maloney's talking about in this post, so please pardon any alien-robot character name misspellings.
Comments (9)
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greatest sci-fi show in television history.
Second best. Best = Firefly. Third = TNG.
This show is so good that I just called Maloney from this sportsbar in Austin just to make sure his post was spoiler-free. If that doesn't lend some creedence to BSG's excellence, then let it at least stand as a testament to my own geekery.
@tobin: I like-a the firefly, but the cancellation and ensuing bad movie hurts its case for best sci-fi show ever. Also, I am a TNG fan, but I dunno if its even the best Trek show ever.
Live long and prosper,
JHHBjr
I saw the headline and got excited. Then I saw the post wasn't actually about AfterMASH.
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