I’ve been busy, and Battlestar Galactica aired at odd intervals, so I missed it while it was on television. I’m only just now beginning to watch the series on dvd, and am trying (five episodes in) to understand why its viewership is split. I’ve heard die hard fans declare their boundless love for everything about this program. And I’ve heard disenchanted viewers lay down the two-part verdict: boring and depressing. Five episodes in, and I think I’ve solved the mystery behind these disparate views. I could be wrong – but that’s why I’m calling it a theory.
Genres exist for a very good reason, but they sometimes do their job too well. We come to expect certain things (and only those things) when a story bears a genre label. I’m going to use “310 to Yuma” as an example here. It’s a western. Undeniably a western. But usually westerns mean there’s a good guy who faces tough and unfair odds, he rallies his friends (or musters his own courage alone) and saves the day, to ride off triumphant and admirable into the sunset. “310 to Yuma” is about a man who sees himself as a failure, who’s determined to do what he thinks is right in order to better live with himself, whose triumph is open to interpretation and who does not ride off into the sunset. It’s still a western. But fans of traditional westerns may go away unhappy.
That’s the issue with Battlestar Galactica. It involves androids and space ships, set to a militaristic backdrop. But it lacks the heroic quest we identify with Star Wars, and it doesn’t have focus on ain’t-it-cool technology we recognize in Star Trek. Hard core sci-fi fans find themselves wondering “where’s the science fiction?” Once you look past the space ships and the cylons, all that’s left is a very human story. A sad story about how humans struggle and how they fail, how humans are fragile and fallible and, perhaps, ultimately doomed in a very literal sense.
I think, at the very bottom of it, Battlestar Galactica isn’t science fiction at all. It’s dramatic tragedy that just happens to be set in outer space. Our expectations (thank you, genre fiction) tell us that cylons and space ships make it science fiction. It’s the same when we look at “310 to Yuma” and say “yep, horses, cowboys, gun fighting, that’s a western, by god.” We look at the trappings of a story to categorize it – a formula which usually works like a charm. But sometimes stories aren’t what they seem (and maybe that mystery, even with its occassional disappointments, makes storytelling all the more appealing).
I could be wrong. And when I’ve seen more than five episodes I’ll probably post some sort of update. But for right now, what I’m watching isn’t traditional science fiction, it’s tragedy. I can see why the reactions are split… and I can see enough to keep me watching, so, at some point, I’ll have more to say on the matter.
[I will add that any show that can produce music like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxjGOSmH6kw&feature=related is worth my time to investigate. As a wordsmith, I will spend my life wishing I could write music - I will admire such magic for all that I cannot unlock it. If a story was enough to produce songs like this... well, sign me up. I'll probably have more to say about that too....]
Moore has stated in interviews that he planned Battlestar Galactica to be a drama that happened to use SciFi tropes (so your theory is sound). I think the same theory can be applied to other shows which polarize their audiences, like Lost, Firefly, or Jericho, where the whole point of the show is the human drama, not the effects. I think that one thing that got lost in BG is the fallout and post-traumatic disorder after the genocide of the human race in the opening mini-series–however that might be too depressing to watch.