Scab Peeling

Every so often, I check the stats thingamajigger and see what search engine keywords led people to my blog.

A recent one was "battlestar galactica motto", which lead to this article, which was printed after the airing of the third show of the final ten. The article had these paragraphs (which I have edited down somewhat):

Yes, there are other dramas that turn their spotlight on humanity in all its flawed glory: the bleak and bittersweet The Wire, the ambiguous The Shield, the darkness that lurks at the core of The Sopranos or Deadwood. Yet great though all these shows are, none of them have BSG's relentless refusal to temper or lighten the load. ...

Not BSG. Three episodes in and, in addition to suicides, breakdowns and a pervasive feeling of general despair, we now have mutiny, destruction and Saul and General Adama facing their own private Alamo. "Trust no one" is Battlestar Galactica's motto. Well, either that or "No one here gets out alive".

And that is the most interesting thing about this show. Not since the sadly cancelled prison drama Buried or Peter Kominsky and Leigh Jackson's brutal, brilliant war drama Warriors has a show been so determined to look at humanity's flaws without flinching. Yes, the end result is depressing and harrowing and seemingly determined to show us humanity at its venal, self-serving worst but the key to BSG's brilliance is that it remains true to that vision, no matter how grim. And that's ultimately why America's most depressing show is also among its very best.

That is why the last hour of the last episode sucked so badly. It betrayed the entire run of the show. And yes, that is why I'm not going to watch "Caprica".