I have been trying to write something that can properly express how important Battlestar Galactica has been to me and no matter what, it always comes out sounding a little bit pathetic. That doesn’t matter to me, not really, I just want to write something more coherent than ‘OH GOD I LOVE THIS SHOW WHY IS IT ENDING?!’ Trust me, it would be easy to do, and I have been on my Livejournal. Here though, I want to try and explain how I ended up loving this show and why it has made such an impact.Even though I would love for people to think I’ve been watching this show since the mini-series aired back in 2003, I have to be honest: I had no clue about this show or what it was even in the 80s. That’s how much I dislike the sci-fi genre. I’ve never seen an entire Star Wars movie completely through, I only saw Star Trek once when Whoopi Goldberg was a part of the cast and…honestly, I think the closest I ever came to sci-fi was the Power Rangers when Rita lived in space. When someone handed me a copy of the mini-series DVD in the summer of 2006, I waited until about the end of September to actually watch it. Actually making the time to want to sit still through some stupid outer space show was so not my cup of tea. I started watching, IMing snide remarks to a friend about how slow it was already, and then Six walked on screen, snapped an infant’s neck, and my away message went up, saying something to the effect of: ‘holy shit what am I watching?’
Lucky for me, season three had just started when I finished the mini-series. So when ‘Exodus Part 2’ aired, I watched and of course had no idea what was going on. I just remember incredibly vividly how intense it was to watch Galactica jump into New Caprica’s atmosphere and watch those Vipers launch. Talk about edge of your seat, folks. After an intense watching of seasons one and two and the downloading of the first two season three episodes I missed, by the time the next new episode happened? I was all caught up. Honestly I’m not sure how I did it, and I don’t remember doing it. My commitment to the show was that intense after seeing what I had. It then became my mission to convince everyone I knew that this show was for everyone, not just the people who love sci-fi. I was a smoker back then, and while watching the episode ‘33’ I think I went through an entire pack. Then I did the same thing when I got to ‘Epiphanies’. By the time ‘Taking A Break From All Your Worries’ came around I was a full fledged alcoholic.
Somehow, I managed to convince my dad to watch this show. And by ‘convince’, I mean he couldn’t walk due to a recent surgery and therefore could not prevent me from loading the DVD and forcing him to watch it. He yelled just as loud as I had that he would hate it, and then he was hooked as well. I think for him it was the smut within twenty minutes of the show starting but you know; to each their own. It became a tradition for the two of us at that point to watch the show together, and to date has been one of the only things we can debate about and not get all huffy over. Except when he told me that Adama just wanted to get laid on New Caprica and that he didn’t really care about Laura at all. We did argue over that; oh yes. My brother has been a more casual viewer in that when he watches, it’s once a season or if I’m having a marathon. He loves what he sees but has the attention span of Gaius Baltar, so it’s pretty pointless to corral him into the living room on Friday nights. I’ve recapped this show for a while now in one forum or another and that, combined with watching with my dad has been a tradition for so long that I’m not sure what I’m going to do come Friday the 27th. I’m almost positive I’ll be curled up in a ball on the floor suffering from withdrawals.
This show, for me, hasn’t simply been about who is paired together, or not being able to wait and see what struggle the fleet is going to be hit with next. That stuff is interesting yes, but I am so invested in the human story and emotion; the cylon’s story of life and creation; death and destruction. I need to know how Adama is going to eventually break down. It’s been scary to see him deteriorate from stoic leader to a man slowly losing everything and at the end of his rope. It has absolutely made my heart ache to see Caprica Six finally grow and learn what it truly means to have human emotion only to lose her child and the man she loves. (Because it certainly doesn’t seem like Tigh stuck around after the death of Liam.) It’s those personal story lines that I have to see resolved before the end of the show. Most importantly (for me) will be knowing where they all end up. There are only two possible scenarios in my mind: They all jump back to Kobol or New Caprica (but let’s go with Kobol since it didn’t look like a craphole) because those are the two planets that haven’t been nuked, or they all die. That’s all I can come up with in my head and it’s making my stomach twist up in knots just thinking about it. I’m trying to come to terms with Laura’s death; even though we may not see it. Even though it may not even happen at this point. Let’s face it, if they don’t show her death I’m going to pretend a magical unicorn cured her. And if she dies? Well, I’ll give out the directions to the shiva later.
I can’t explain anymore how important this show is to me by being serious, so let me give some examples. If I had the choice between watching a new episode of this show for one hour and going on an all expenses paid trip to Disney World? I’d watch the new hour. (Let’s pretend that I have no DVR for these scenarios.) If my friends wanted to go out and celebrate a sudden surge in the economy and a new episode of BSG was on? Sorry friends, I’ve got more important things to do. I suppose one good thing about the show ending will be the resurgence of my social life on Friday nights. In trying to come up with a way to cope, I’ve even formed crossover ideas. Here’s my favorite pitch: Galactica is using one of the few jumps it has left before it falls apart. The island on LOST is also jumping through time and it just so happens that Galactica jumps at a time the island is having one of its flashy moments. The crew crash lands and the island cures Laura’s cancer. It turns out the Oceanic Six are the important ones because they are the descendants of the Final Five Cylons. Laura and Bill become King and Queen of the island, they adopt Ben and Daniel, Jack cries a million tears after becoming part of the Lee/Kara/Anders affair, and Kate gets tossed out of an airlock. I like my idea.
It has been a blast and an honor talking about this show so often and recapping it over at The Two Cents.com. I’ve honestly not had a better time with any show, even my first real love, The X-Files. Battlestar Galactica trumps all in the end, and I suspect it always will. Until twenty five years go by and Bodie Olmos plays Adama, the kid who played Boxy plays Lee, and Amy Adams plays Laura Roslin.
So say we all.
