Redstick SF

The episode that explains why Ron Moore never wrote for Matlock, Perry Mason, or any John Grisham movies.

I’m glad I took that week to reflect on Battlestar’s season finale. I was going to praise how ambiguous Ron Moore and David Eick left the final five Cylon situation. After all, how do they know they’re Cylons? You start hearing Bob Dylan in your head?

If that’s the case, we’ve got a Cylon problem around here.

But no, apparently the show’s creators meant for that scene to be a hard and fast confirmation of their Cylon-itude.

Anders…I get.
Tyrol…I get.
Col. Tigh…I really get.

Tory? Who the hell cares?

The thing that surprises me the most, though, is how excited people were about the final episode. The google alert function on my gmail account was working overtime collecting writing from around the net that read basically like this:

IT WAS STARBUCK! OMG!!!! This show ROXORS!

I know what you’re thinking. Very articulate.

It’s not that the final episode is boring. Well, okay, the conclusion to the trial is boring. Mainly because Lee Adama delivers his dissertation on the justice system, democracy, and life.

The final scene lacks something. Perhaps it’s Sackhoff’s wooden delivery but her line, “I’ve been to Earth, I know where it is and I’m gonna take us there,” could just as well have been:

“Lee, I’m going to the store to get a can of those low sodium peas you like. Is there anything you’d like me to pick up while I’m there? No, the low sodium ones! I know that the others make you gassy.”

And so, I’m left with this realization about Battlestar.

This is just a good, not great, show with flashes of greatness from time to time.

Perhaps this isn’t fair to Battlestar, but, as in all things, you’re judged against your peers. Here are some shows currently running on major networks that would make up Battlestar’s peer group (if such a thing existed):

1. LOST: The writing for this show is light-years ahead of Battlestar. Every week this show gives its viewers something vibrant and emotionally complex. They have never lost sight of the fact that story telling is about people, their interactions, their fatal flaws, and their redeeming, if fleeting, virtues. From time to time it feels like RDM gets side-tracked with wanting to blow stuff up or his Cylon/Colonial religious mumbo-jumbo.

What emphasizes the disparity between these two shows is that they are so alike in composition (employing long story arcs) and, yet, LOST doesn’t seem to take an off week. Battlestar isn’t above a boxing episode or a “Helo pisses everyone off again” episode.

Simply put, writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are putting on a clinic.

2. Jericho: The most like Battlestar in its inconsistency. You’ll have an episode or two a season that just might change the way you think about the world (”Occupation” through “Exodus”). And, then, you’ll have your “fire at the local elementary school” episode or, for Battlestar “The Woman King.”

3. American Idol: Insert obligatory Sanjaya Malakar jab here.

For the record, Bob Dylan is not a cylon. He’s just a really poor singer. Those two are frequently confused.

Now, go find something else to do until 2008.