I’m continually surprised by the lines that BSG treads with regards to the different tv genres it incorporates. I’m also surprised to see how many people are simultaneously bored by this season and frustrated by the lack of “realism” in it - not because there’s anything wrong with being bored or frustrated by a show, because as viewers, we’re relating to the characters and situation, and it can’t all be sunshine and roses. Rather, I’m surprised because BSG is still a post-apocalyptic show telling an epic story, so the lines between realism and fiction are necessarily going to be blurred. I think those lines are also blurred through the visual techniques used - the hard lights and documentary style camera work: those tell of realism, of reality tv almost - it feels like we’re not only viewers but voyeurs, simulatneously immersed in the story and detached from it.  Apocalyptic fiction and epic tales all feature fantastical leaps. It’s part of the nature of that type of text - the unexplainable, the mythical, the mysterious, the frustrating sheer unknowness of some aspect.

What’s plausible, what’s implausible is a big debate about most shows, this one is not exception: people thing, Roslin’s cancer, plausible; Gaius as saviour, implausible.  Starbuck wild and out of control - plausible; Tigh as a Cylon - implausible. But at its very foundation, this is a show set in outer space, telling a story revolving around anthropomorphic robots. When the lines start to blur and I start to get nitpicky about what’s plausible and what’s not, that’s my bottom line. It doesn’t always work.

In other news, there’s a nice review up of Frak You! at SFScope - awesome, smart site if you’re at all into speculative fiction and I’m not just saying that because of the review.

A quick link to a great interview with Michael Trucco (Sam Anders) from Slice of SciFi. I like Michael because, well, he doesn’t take himself too seriously, but onscreen he gives great serious. He’s totally cognizant of the initial reaction of fans and how he had to “earn [his] wings” with them in addition to like, doing his job as an actor. Great stuff.

Interview

(NB: the interview takes awhile to get to (minute 36 or so), but it’s worth it if you’ve never heard of Slice of SciFi. They’re a great site to keep you up to date on all things scifi, in all formats - tv, film, games, books. Check them out!)

This site had some scoopy type stuff on Season 3 DVD’s for BSG. The release date is March 25th, about a month before Season 4 starts up (good timing guys!), but most importantly, the DVD’s will contain a great deal of ‘extras’ - including the webisodes that were unavailable to non-US watchers. As I pointed out in Frak You!, while the webisodes are not absolutely integral to the main storyline, they do demonstrate a couple things that we’re seeing more and more of on the small screen - attention paid to characters and arcs that would normally be deemed secondary, and a rounding out of multiple viewpoints, viewpoints that don’t necessarily accord with the major one the show is invested in. I think it’s great: the different viewpoints of the characters in those tiny webisodes gives texture to their actions in the actual aired episodes, making them seem more fully realized. For actor’s, it’s a chance to show the work they do to bring a fully realized character to life - except that now, the stories that the actor prepares for the character are actually being filmed instead of staying in their head.

Also of interest are Ronald Moore’s podcasts of the episodes, and there’s a tonne of information in them for your above-average fan, or anyone interested in seeing how all the components of telling a modern day story work together. And I’m guessing that if you’re reading this, you’re more than likely one of those kinds of people.

BSG season 4 won’t start airing until April 2008. Whatever you say about Ronald Moore, he’s got guts to let the show go that long without new episodes aside from the one-off Razor. Lesser shows would wither and their fans scatter; I don’t think that will happen with BSG, although that may be partly because season 4 will end the epic story. It’s still an interesting business move though.

In other news, I’m busily going through all the things that didn’t make it into the book for lack of space, so look for new exclusive content in the new year!

To all who celebrate the season and all who don’t, I wish a healthy and happy time.

So NBC finally made good on their promise to pull tv shows from iTunes, including Battlestar Galactica. NBC wanted to charge $2.99 for each download; Apple said, “no, $1.99 is the winning number.” Hard to believe that anyone would refuse to take business advice from Apple… The whole thing reminds me a lot of trying to watch The Resistance during the 2006 hiatus - Canadians (in fact anyone not in the U.S.) were just plain out of luck trying to grab the content from the actual source and had to rely on other means to find out what the webisodes were about. (In a prelude to the writers’ strike currently ongoing in the U.S., the writers for The Resistance were in a position of uncertainty regarding whether they would make any money off the webisodes, because entertainment legislation hasn’t yet caught up to the Internet age.)

I think NBC is cutting off its nose to spite its face, because with iTunes, they were making some money (granted, not as much as they wanted), could track interest and, with a bit of data collection, really do some good work figuring out their different target audiences. Now, although they’ve decided to sell the shows through their own service, unless they do some serious work and come up with a way for people to buy them that’s just as easy and accessible as iTunes, they’re going to have a hard time controlling who does what with their intellectual property.

The Toronto Globe and Mail did a feature story about BSG and just why it’s so popular. It’s not a new episode and it doesn’t abate anxiety over the writers’ strike, but it’s something. I was interviewed as part of the article. If you want to read it, my publisher has the whole article on their site.