One of the things that initially made Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica so popular was the simple fact that it had ‘vision’. Most television shows have had what are known as ‘series bibles’; documents created by the producers in order to give staff writers a sense of how the show works. Admittedly, there have been some famous television auteurs, and most of them were even working in the scifi genre; Gene Roddenberry creating Star Trek as a liberal utopia, or Chris Carter using The X-Files for his paranoid conspiracy thinking (who was, himself, inspired by David Lynch and Mark Frost making Twin Peaks). It would also be ridiculous to ignore Joss Whedon or David Chase a mere few years before Moore.
There are a few things that make Moore special here. In a way, he was institutionalizing what these other creators were doing and bringing the idea to a mass audience; I believe much of the ‘miniseries’ style of television production popular in American television these days is in debt to him, with intense levels of focus brought to both what a series is trying to say and a very consistent sense of style. And even if this isn’t factually true, I think his version of Battlestar Galactica lays out the problems with this kind of approach, precisely because it’s also so successful at points.
Moore’s series bible is a masterpiece, not just laying down the principles of the series, but selling them. One of the major reasons Moore’s BSG was so successful was because it was a violent rejection of Star Trek, which if nothing else, made it novel. I do believe Moore backs this up with substance within the context of the bible; this direction is stale and boring so we’re going in that direction, which is cool and awesome and soulful. An important part of goal-setting isn’t just knowing where you’re going, but knowing where you’re not going.
He backs this up with a very clear-eyed sense of the technical process of how he’s going to get there. One of my favourite parts has always been explaining how he’s lifting the show structure from Hill Street Blues, with plots resolved in one episode, plots resolved in a few episodes, and plots taking plots over the course of a season (the specific example he uses drives the first season, when the characters are looking for water, drilling the planet they find, and then defending the planet).
This clear-eyed sense of the story we are trying to tell right here, right now is a large part of why the show was instantly compelling. The miniseries alone has so many great moments, like Commander Adama tearfully embracing his son in a hug after finding out he survived the initial attack, or President Roslin abandoning half the fleet (including a little girl she met) to the Cylons, or Helo’s self-sacrifice to get Boomer off their home planet. You can easily see why its confidence was so attractive that so many scifi shows (and even non-genre shows) would embrace its aesthetic in an attempt to imitate the cool kid.
Unfortunately, the show also became famous for not holding up. I’ve never seen past the second season, because the latter half of that season is so lousy, and the finale feels like the writers throwing random bullshit at me like a parent jiggling keys for a toddler, desperately trying to keep me entertained. I used to think it’s because they’d lost the sense of story they were telling, but now I think it’s actually the exact opposite problem.
One way of interpreting ‘vision’ is asking: what problem am I trying to solve? You ask Gene Roddenberry, what problem is Star Trek intending to fix? And he’ll tell you, it’s creating a model for a utopian society in which diversity is celebrated, peace is rewarded, and humanity can pursue intellectual and spiritual enlightenment without fear of violence. You can argue this is a problem not worth solving, and you can argue this is a problem that cannot be solved, and you can argue that Roddenberry’s methods are not the way to solve it, but you can’t say he doesn’t know what star he’s following.
The problem with bringing this attitude to television is that once you’ve solved a problem… It’s solved. ‘Vision’ is something usually associated with film directors, which makes sense because even the most languid Zack Snyder joint is ultimately a short experience. A film director can ask a single question and answer it over the course of a few hours. A television show is long enough that eventually, you’re gonna stumble across the answer to whatever question you’ve asked.
Most shows get around this one of two ways: getting cancelled before we have a chance to get sick of them, or by constantly evolving. A show doesn’t necessarily have to completely reinvent itself for this to work; my favourite example is Always Sunny, which is always about the five worst people in Philadelphia getting into dumbass schemes, and it simply swaps out schemes every episode, as well as slowly collecting continuity and allowing its characters to morph into absurd, unique creatures.
(And even then, while I disagree, I notice fans have started falling off Always Sunny the last couple of seasons)
The Simpsons managed to hold out as long as it did by swapping out showrunners, each of whom respected the central point of the show and characters but also brought their own sensibilities and, more importantly, goals; bringing greater depth to side characters, or using animation to achieve incredibly ambitious jokes that couldn’t be done in live action. Even something like Mad Men, very much led by one guy all the way, could constantly evolve simply because the world kept changing around the characters, giving the writers new and fresh topics of satire and angles to see the characters through and situations to put them in.
The problem with Moore’s BSG is that, when it succeeded at its goal, it tried to just start over. Ironically, for something that was so groundbreaking, it ended up returning to the basis of TV as a medium: going right back to the status quo. Like, yeah, the miniseries and first season and a half wildly succeeded at creating a Grey vs Grey morality where no one person could be seen as entirely clean or seen as Good or Evil and humanity was exhausted and on the run. The problem is that, on an individual level, this position is untenable.
Eventually, people have done too much for you to ever forgive, or they’ve done so much that your loyalty to them is unbreakable, or they build families and manage to hold onto them, or they lose absolutely everything, or they just get fucking tired of whatever status quo they’re trapped in and will violently break out of it. Moore was so trapped in his vision of what his world was supposed to be that he couldn’t let it naturally evolve, and the show suffered for this critically in both a short-term and historical sense.
By the way: I also recommend the series bible for Batman: The Animated Series, which is the equal of Moore’s BSG bible but pointed in a very different direction. Just like that book, it points to the future and rejects aspects of the past in a very compelling way.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Department of
Conversation
What Did We Watch?
The Others
Not much of a movie. I went in knowing the twist, and I think it made it worse, but not much worse – the hints are kind of obvious, and the movie is only an exercise in capital-A Acting from Nicole Kidman anyway. There’s almost something here in Kidman’s character having a troubled relationship with a willful daughter as she struggles with a metaphor for mental illness, but the movie is too interested in being Stately and Dignified to actually do anything with it.
Oh good, another Others hater. This falls into the big pitfall of twist-ending movies: the twist belongs in the middle, because the fallout of the discovery would be so much more interesting than the lead-up to it. The fact that most of the “scares” are just building tension until something scary ALMOST happens certainly didn’t help.
Starship Troopers – First time seeing this not seated in the theater between my high school girlfriend and her stepfather Phil. For once streaming on Amazon is the more optimal experience. This was also my first Verhoeven and it more or less shaped my view of the guy’s work. And now that I’m a lot more familiar with the guy’s output and proclivities… I don’t think my initial assessment voiced after the first watch was as far off as Phil’s disapproving stare would suggest. This time I was much more prepared to clock the satire built into the movie. Yes, Verhoeven’s aware he’s cast pretty faces on not particularly self-aware actors as battle-hardened soldiers. No, he’s not interested in treating Heinlein’s source material as a useful story map. Yes, he knows the officer uniforms make them look like Nazis, because Heinlein was writing glowingly about fascism, you see.
These astute observations of Verhoeven’s impish sub(?)text still leaves a whole lot of gooey battles with giant bugs. These relentless planetary skirmishes have a very distinct look (memorably parodied in the Futurama episode “War is the H-word”) and the film as a whole manages an iconography of its own within a long tradition of space battle b-pictures. It’s a gleeful, bloody mess of a good time, but dressing NPH as an SS officer doesn’t make it more than that. Nodding to something is not the same as saying something.
The definitive scene in the Verhoeven oeuvre continues to be the scene in Robocop where Kurtwood Smith and his cronies use their new rocket launchers to destroy random storefronts, laughing maniacally all the way. Nothing in this scene really says anything about a dystopian Detroit or American policing, nor does it need to. It’s just fun as the H-word! And Verhoeven’s made a playground where he can indulge that kind of mayhem while giving the smartier pantsed among us a bit to decipher. Starship Troopers is an exposure of a fascist novel as a fascist novel that also has time for a guy to get his brains sucked out like boba going through a straw.
This maybe sound more like a complaint than it is. Mostly it means when the surface fails, Verhoeven falls apart for me (witness Showgirls). But as long as he can send wave after wave of digital bug at the screen, we may have a chance of getting through. Also “Would You Like to Know More?” is never not hilarious.
“The film as a whole manages an iconography of its own within a long tradition of space battle b-pictures. It’s a gleeful, bloody mess of a good time, but dressing NPH as an SS officer doesn’t make it more than that. Nodding to something is not the same as saying something.”
I don’t know if it’s the definitive scene in his body of work (and a grim nod of approval for your deployment of “Verhoeven oeuvre,” I hope you’re pleased with yourself), but Quaid learning he is Hauser and the subsequent choice in Total Recall gets to something important, I think. Like DePalma, Verhoeven digs around in bothness, the contradictions created in violence and the idea that in a violent world (aka, the world) it is a bigger lie to pretend those contradictions don’t exist. Nazi Howser MD is blunt and obvious, “It’s afraid!” is still a great moment. Our Dawson’s Creek Marines can’t act but their airbrushed patriotism becomes validated by mowing down bugs within that battle iconography. Dumb satire points out hypocrisy, good satire embraces it.
On the other hand, regarding Verhoeven and philosophy/methods this is the sharpest Occam’s Razor has ever gotten:
https://x.com/JFrankensteiner/status/1900744057951055914
Hahaha, I think this is the real thesis of every Verhoeven movie. And you know what? The man may have a point.
That certainly explains Total Recall!
It has the most unique sense of humor within the new world it creates. But not only in the fascist satire but also in the satire of the THX90210 soap opera first act. The romantic relationships are just so silly and overwrought against the fascism. It’s an irregular and off balance mix providing amusing moments – coed showers and overwrought moments of love in the heat of battle. Like Elizabeth Berkley I really think Verhoeven got the similar truly awful performance from Denise Richards he wanted with her assuming she was in safe hands.
I’m not the first to say this, but I think if the second half were more in the same vein as the first (or at least shortened the endless machine-gunning of giant bugs) I’d be higher on the movie as a whole, but where the best Verhoeven delivers a smarter version of the baser stuff, after a while most everything in ST falls into the basic category.
What elevates Starship Troopers as an anti-fascist parody is the repeated insistence of people who think it’s not parody. The X Twitter take cycle has accelerated this; every couple months someone goes viral saying that it doesn’t work as anti-fascist satire because it depicts the enemy as a degenerate subaltern and the good guys as beautiful and healthy.
MONSTER JAM — monster trucks, motherfuckers! A buddy got tickets for his birthday so we braved the cold and rain to house 20 ounce beers and watch giant ass trucks splatter mud everywhere and do rad jumps and wheelies and flips, hell fucking yeah. Bari Musawwir’s Zombie truck was the rightful winner, incredible air time on the jumps and sick stunts in general, but special appreciation to the several drivers who went for big flips and didn’t stick the landing, go big or go home. An excellent time, much hooting and hollering and also mockery of the poor color guy who was stuck out in the rain with the rest of us and was clearly masking his misery with forced enthusiasm, sorry dude.
Little Odessa — gangster Tim Roth goes back to see title for a hit, but the real danger is his estranged family (abusive dad, dying of cancer mom, younger brother Edward Furlong) and the old emotions his return kicks up. James Gray made this when he was 25 and it looks great, chilly as hell and a clear sense of place that is reminiscent of Andrew Davis in Chicago. But Davis’ flicks are genre first with interesting thematic stuff second, here the mob activities are a feint and the relationship stuff is the meat and the meat has a lot of gristle (in particular Moira Kelly as The Useless Chick, a girlfriend who is only there as a plot device, and Kelly is someone who is not a bad actor but who almost always doesn’t fit so it’s doubly timewasting with her). There is a lot of good stuff here but a badly miscalculated ending — Ebert’s review calls it a visual setpiece instead of a dramatic one and he fucking nailed it there — is a big comedown. A monster truck would’ve really helped matters here.
I don’t think we’ve ever done “wooo, monster trucks!” before, and I’m honored to start.
Looks like Dave is officially Media Magpies’ Shane Vendrell.
This would explain my cocaine intake.
And here I thought your racism was more of a Boston thing.
Primal, “Scent of Prey” through “Slave of the Scorpion”
I will cop to finding the back half of this season slightly weaker, partly because the more explicitly magical episodes (“Coven of the Damned” and “The Night Feeder”), while good in their own right, weren’t grounded enough to scratch the practical problem-solving itch these stories usually do, and partly because I thought Mira went from “new companion” to “obvious plot hook” too quickly. (I wish she’d gotten introduced at least an episode earlier.) But this is still great: Spear’s spiny beetle brass knuckles! The nightmarish horror of the maddening, flesh-melting plague and the sense of pity and awe at that falling ash! The sparks from the spear striking the rock helping scare off the Night Feeder! Spear pulling Fang on the giant stretcher!
It annoys me just slightly that while Spear’s character design is beautifully, expressively, individualistically unrealistic–like he’s a brick wall come to life–both Mira and his short-lived wife are standard-issue animated-woman hot, with all the typical Barbie proportions. At least Mira gets a longer face than usual.
Eager to see where the more serialized S2 goes, with Spear and Fang out to save Mira.
Hacks, Season 3
Ready to catch up with S4 tonight! Getting to see my wife’s unspoiled reaction to the end of “Bulletproof” was fantastic.
Major guest star highlight: the slightly older gay guy Marcus talks to in “Yes, And,” who is funny and weathered and possibly the best-adjusted character to ever appear on the show. His speech about accepting Deborah missing Pride–as Cher did, the year of the Believe album–is one of my favorite moments of the series. (And he also gets an especially hilarious line, too: “Are you okay? I don’t know you, maybe this is just your personality.”)
Only Lovers Left Alive
I would be such a good vampire. Anyway, article pending, but 1) this remains excellent, and 2) I’m still annoyed by anyone, even Jim Jarmusch, breaking out anti-Stratfordian theories.
Nightfall
Article possibly pending here too, but since it will be at least a week: this is really entertaining. (I think Dave pitched this to me originally? If so, thank you, Dave!) Perfect casting, especially with Aldo Ray’s tough but somehow guileless face. Both the slight fake-out at the start of this, with us belatedly finding out the rationale behind the “chance” meeting, and then the double fake-out with John and Red pretending Marie’s been in on it with them, work really nicely. And the layers of deceit function especially well with the sense of emotional realism here–this is a very character-centric noir, eventually ramping up the desperation but having some breathing room beforehand, so we see the characters defined both on their own terms and in extremis. Made me want to rewatch both Pitfall (the department store mannequins!) and Too Late for Tears (just because of those bus station lockers).
Aldo Ray’s Jim is one of the few noir characters to find a bag of money and want it for any other reason besides it being money.
I don’t think I can take credit; while I recently recommended Night Game Nightfall appears to be somewhat different (Aldo Ray instead of Roy Scheider, 50s mannequin noir instead of 80s baseball giallo) but despite that it sounds excellent!
The plague Primal is incredible horror, you can’t punch the plague away so escape is the only option. Relentless. And while Coven is an odd one I sort of like the explicit magic angle, it feels of a piece with the “cavemen and dinosaurs living together why not” pulpiness of the first season — the second season, as you might be able to see already, tends toward a different direction although the supernatural is not excised.
The plague episode also has the show’s best use of dramatic irony to date, where we can make a guess at how the plague is transmitted but the characters can’t do the same (at least not to the same extent). Shots like the infected dinosaur vomiting blood into the watering hole or the slime flying off its skin and almost hitting Spear and Fang are so agonizing to watch, because it feels like they’re skating on the edge of a horrific precipice and don’t even know it.
Live Music – went to see some Philadephia goblincore on Friday night, largely because friends were going but it ended up being a really fun one. The touring band, Evil Sword, are hard to describe but their instrumentation was an unconventional drum kit (played standing up) and bass guitar, played in a virtuoso manner, and they both sang. And were dressed as goblins. One of the supports was not really my thing, gothy post-punk with occasional slap-bass, but I loved the other one – kinda experimental, mostly spoken-word vocals over loops and really intricate drumming with (I think) a sense of humour, at least parts of it made me laugh in a way that I THINK was intentional.
And then on Sunday afternoon I played my second gig of the year at a matinee show, it went OK – the on-stage sound wasn’t great which always gets to me even if I get plenty of reassurance afterwards that it sounded great out front (which I did!). The other local supports were good, I hadn’t seen either before but one of them had a bunch of friends in it and sounded really slick and good with some krautrocky breakdown sections, the other band were kinda shoegazey and did it well but they didn’t stick around to watch any of the other bands and I never get the best vibe from bands like that.
High Potential, season 1 finale – didn’t expect this to end on a big cliffhanger for some reason, although it makes sense as a choice. Kind of a less grisly take on Saw, I guess? Mildly curious to see where this goes next, it’s the kinda show I’ll keep watching if I happen to be subscribed to the right service when season 2 rolls around but I wouldn’t specifically subscribe for.
Justified S6, “Noblesse Oblige” – watched this after the aforementioned matinee gig so I was a little drunk and sleepy but it seemed like another solid mid-level episode. Mary Steenburgen and Sam Elliott both having recurring roles is cool, bringing out the big guns for the final (yeah I know) season.
Woooooo live music! Wooooo sounding great even if the monitors suck (the monitors always suck)! And this — “they didn’t stick around to watch any of the other bands and I never get the best vibe from bands like that” — is almost always a bullshit move, traveling bands are excepted because they need to get to the next gig but fellow local folks generally hang out and it’s very clear when that doesn’t happen.
The other show I did last month had the best on-stage sound ever and it may have ruined every other venue for me!
Yeah I thought it was a bit odd, surely hanging out with other musicians is one of the best bits! Maybe they had a good reason for leaving immediately after they played but even the promoter seemed a little surprised that they were on the premises so briefly.
Woooooo live music!! And woooooo playing live music!!
Yeah, I enjoyed High Potential but by the end it didn’t really build as much past a standard procedural as I’d hoped. Whereas Matlock has been doing excellent work down the stretch complicating and paying off the broader story.
SUNDAY
Live Music
A Tijuana outdoor expo had famous local electronic duo Bostich + Fussible from Nortec Collective to close the event for free so my wife, her brother and I went to see them. We had a few minutes before the show to tour the expo, where we got some wine and mezcal samples, plus we got a killer plate of tostilocos. The show started early while we were still getting food but we saw all of it. It was more of a DJ set than a live performance but it was still a great time. Nortec is famous for their mix of Mexican banda with electronic music and they’ve got a lot of hits to showcase here. The show started mostly chill and laid-back but steadily caught heat, and by the time my beer kicked in we were fully in dance mode, just in time for their most fun, upbeat tracks, specially “Tijuana Makes Me Happy”, “One Night”, “Tijuana Bass” and “Tijuana Sound Machine”.
My wife and I had seen them once before at a beach club some thirteen years ago in an amazing show with a full backing banda with accordion, guitars and a tuba player that ended up playing in the middle of the crowd. (Reportedly they had another such show a month ago in one of Tijuana’s biggest nightclubs and we lamented missing it.) By comparison, this was a far smaller, more casual show, full of older rockers, dads watching the show with their children on their backs and people dancing with their dogs and cats, very much a fairground vibe. It was like a youthful party nested in a clean nostalgic afternoon for grownups with some beloved local heroes. And on a personal level, it brought me back to my college times in Tijuana when Nortec was at its cultural peak here. I still have a complicated love-hate relationship with Tijuana, and nights like these are highlights of the “love” part of the equation.
Wooooo! Live complicated remembrances of the past!
And to further complicate things, I got the news of Mario Vargas Llosa’s death right in the middle of the concert. Very good writer going by the one book of his I’ve read (La Ciudad y los Perros), no comment on his political career. R.I.P.
Wooooo live music! It is always interesting to see bands weather getting older, I do like the idea of the music being accessible to kids in the sense of kids seeing music as a living thing in the community. It can be the kind of stuff that might get bypassed in the teen years and returned to later on.
Scott Thompson live – Don’t ask me how, but somehow in the year 2025, I’ve gotten to see two different Kids in the Hall perform live in the last couple of months. Anyway, this was great fun. This was only the second show on the tour, and it was clear some things were still being worked out, but Thompson did both an hour as Buddy Cole (it is “The Last Glory Hole” tour, after all, per the sketch from the new season) and then about ten minutes as himself. I really enjoyed it. Never thought I’d get the chance.
Further thoughts may reach beyond the remit of the discussion section.
Oh, and I keep forgetting to mention, make sure to check out our new series for the weekly review in TV, where you can find more thoughts on what I’ve been watching.
the three body problem. B&W (and Alex Woo, but I’m seeing a lot of benioff and weiss repeating the strengths and weaknesses of GOT) are frustrating because even when they are very stupid they have enough filmmaking instincts to be really compelling.
Episode 5 gives us the judgment day sequence. SPOILERS****[ The humans allied with the aliens (the san-ti here (chinese for 3 body (I’ll get to that again in a second)); trisolarans in the english adaptation of the book) use a converted oil tanker as a mobile base of operations. They are going through the panama canal. One of our characters is a nanomaterials scientist who has invented an extremely thin, strong wire, which, under tension will cut through anything that is pushed into it. You may see where this is going. There are adaptation choices here that are bizarre—specifically, why are there hundreds of children on the boat? The whole idea is that this is happening quickly and silently enough that the crew of the boat won’t be able to erase any data; why do we get so many scenes of children fleeing in terror? But we also get moments of film-making brilliance, like children’s artwork in the hall falling off the wall as the boat moves forward. ***end SPOILERS It’s both more gruesome than it needs to be but also well-executed, devious spectacle.
After this display of force by the human opposition to the aliens, the aliens unleash a massive spectacle in return. Incredible spectacle, very eerie, but b&w can’t help but gild the lily a bit. (B&W unfortunately don’t adapt what would have been the most spectacular bit from the book, so we don’t get to see what happens when, for instance, a single proton is unfolded into an infinitely long 1-dimensional object and then decays into ever smaller line fragments). But it is really compelling as a piece of tv.
The choice to put part of books 2 and 3 at the same time as book 1 means that instead of ending on that note, we get the set-ups to books 2 and 3–the wallfacer program and project staircase.
The wallfacer idea is conceptually interesting. There’s one way to prevent the aliens from knowing our plans, and that’s to give a couple individuals near dictatorial power and tell them not to tell anyone what the plan is. Project staircase is an attempt to send a human being to the aliens by creatively thinking outside the box (and then ultimately thinking inside a smaller box).
The book’s politics are ultimately pretty anti-democratic. The wallfacer idea is obviously anti-democratic. Project staircase likewise relies on giving a few scientists huge amounts of resources without legal or democratic oversight. (I like the books, but they are evil).
The show doesn’t seem to be questioning the book’s politics or ethics. But maybe that is what Salazar is for later. We’ll see.
also, I don’t just want to Comic Book Guy quibble over errors, but one change is either a major change to the plot or is the showrunners ignoring the math. SPOILERS In the books, project staircase malfunctions at the end and sends the brain in a jar off at just less than 3000 km/s on the wrong angle. In the show; it malfunctions are the start and sends the brian in a jar off at 80 km/ s. In 200 years, the book brain in a jar is 2 light years away. In the show, in 200 years, the book brain in a jar is almost .01 light years is an away. For what has to happen for the plot points that come later they have to ignore that.
What Did We Play?
Blue Prince – this exceedingly well-reviewed puzzle / roguelike game turned up on Game Pass so I ditched Atomfall (which friends have really enjoyed but just felt like a bit of a slog to me) and plunged in, this is way more up my street so far. You play as the potential heir to a large family estate, but the condition is that your puzzle-obsessed grandfather will only grant you the inheritance if you can find your way to the hidden 46th room in the mansion. Each time you open a door you get to pick from a selection of room options so the layout is different each day, so many of them end in premature dead-ends but seeing new rooms and figuring more stuff out leads to advances that do persist. I’ve figured out a few of the bigger puzzles but still feel like I’m in the dark about a lot of stuff – I figured this would be more of a Witness-style “march around solving things” game so the random / daily reset element is a fun twist. Also the game encourages you to keep a real-life notebook handy and I’m enjoying scribbling notes.
Wishlisted!
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
My buddy just texted me last night that he’s been hooked on Blue Prince, too.
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia – Castlevania Dominus Collection on Nintendo Switch
The Retronauts podcast started a play-along (they call it a book club discussion) of that game and I’d been thinking of replaying one of the games in this collection so I gave it a whirl. I’ve always maintained this is one of the best games in the series and even then I was surprised by how quickly I was hooked. This is a deliberate, tough game, just the way I like Castlevania games. I was also surprised by how quickly the infamous crab boss shows up, though he remains as satisfying to beat as always. And another thing that I didn’t remember was the cats that you can rescue and get back home. I entered a room where a cat was meowing and one of my real cats heard it from the other room and came over to the couch looking for it. 10/10 game right there.
Mega Man X3 – Mega Man X Legacy Collection on Nintendo Switch
Still trying to make my way, finally beat one level (out of the first eight). Getting through the levels is manageable, the problem is that I haven’t found any upgrades and it leaves me wide open for the bosses. Also it seems you can use Zero but it’s not very well explained and it looks like if you lose a life with him (very easy in a game with insta-death spikes and pits) you might lose him forever? Or maybe just until the next game over. It’s not very clear, and I might pick up a guide before I continue with it.
Finished Nine Sols, in Story Mode with both endings, and it was a lot of fun. I do not know if I have it in me to take on Standard Mode. After you beat the game there’s a mode where you can go back and fight bosses, but it seems to be set in standard mode and even with the extra power I got my ass kicked by the first one. So that might be a bit much.
My buddy recommended Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown as my next platformer type game, and it went on sale on Steam this week, so that might be next for me.
Co-sign on recommending The Lost Crown.
I remember hearing that Ron Moore and the other BSG writers were huge fans of The Shield, and that checks out–you can really see that influence on the best dramatic parts of the show. Weirdly, I think that leads to some of the show’s problems–its drama is stronger than its SF, but it eventually has to make the two work together if only so that the characters and the audience understand the demands and limitations of the show’s world … and not being able to make that happen forces some of the circular storytelling. Like, The Shield doesn’t have to be set in 2000s LA, but it nevertheless has a very strong, vivid sense of what 2000s LA is like and how Farmington and police precincts work, and that means there’s an understanding of what Vic et al. can do and get away with and where they can go. Adama’s moving about on a canvas Moore doesn’t know (and can’t convey) as well, so the solutions and escape routes can’t feel as natural as the interpersonal problems.
All that said, I’ll always be glad I watched this. I don’t think I’ll go back to anything besides the miniseries, which is kind of a masterpiece, but watching this in college was a great experience, frustrations and all. I remain especially fond of Six and Baltar.
The solutions being an issue is how I remember it as well – in my memory the show is great about setting up a story, then pretty bad about resolving it (all the way to the last moment). My joke has been the show is about the evolutionary process, where the least-prepared and capable group of humans eventually dies out because they can’t hack it. Some really great moments, but it fails to stick almost any landing, when it bothers to attempt one.
Thank you for comparing a show to The Shield so that I don’t have to.
The lost potential is partly what makes this show so frustrating, rather than something to be dismissed entirely. Commander Adama! President Roslin! I even go to bat for Lee Adama, who has that Cyclops/Norrington problem of being a responsible worker (famously uninteresting to people who like to think of themselves as rule-breaking rebels) but is such a well-sketched, soulful expression of that, and the things he does during the civil war arc are so exciting. They could have had it all!
Lee Adama? Eh. FAT Lee Adama? A plus character, should’ve gotten a spin-off. But yes, the good characters here are all-timers, Adama and Roslin are so fucking great and Moore’s insight to make the kindergarten teacher far more ruthless than the general was a brilliant one.
One of us will always respond when the Shield-signal lights up the night sky.
I’ll also second the appreciation for Lee Adama (and Commander Adam and President Roslin, but I especially like your take on Lee). The Cyclops/Norrington comparisons are spot-on, and I love those guys too. He’s another kind of character you need in a good dramatic mix, and Bamber plays him with a real clarity and inner life.
Your last sentence just unlocked something for me — I really could not stand Helo as a character and it’s because he may have clarity as an instrument of action he has no inner life and the show keeps suggesting otherwise without its writing or Penikett’s performance actually indicating it. Bamber is a total annoying Cyclops but he’s a person.
“Eventually, people have done too much for you to ever forgive, or they’ve done so much that your loyalty to them is unbreakable, or they build families and manage to hold onto them, or they lose absolutely everything, or they just get fucking tired of whatever status quo they’re trapped in and will violently break out of it.”
Every part of this is Gaius Baltar! My running joke from the beginning was Baltar was the only guy you knew was not a secret Cylon because he was such a huge mess he could only be human. James Callis somehow contains all of this and I think the show recognized his greatness and made him its nexus for escaping that restricted vision, unfortunately it did not do the same for other characters who would’ve benefited from it (Starbuck, for example). The other person who fits this on a smaller scale — at least the last bit — is Gaeta, and it is no surprise that his deal in the last season is a huge shot in the arm for the show.
Year of the Month update!
This April, we’ll be looking at 1999, so you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, et al!
TBD: James Williams: 10 Things I Hate About You
TBD: Ruck Cohlchez – Summerteeth/The Soft Bulletin/Utopia Parkway
TBD: Lauren James – Storm of the Century
Apr. 15th: Ben Hohenstatt: The White Stripes
Apr. 16th: James Rodriguez: The Scooby Doo Project
Apr. 17th: Cameron Ward/Cori Domschot: The Mummy
Apr. 18th: Gillian Rose Nelson: The Hand Behind the Mouse
Apr. 21st: Bridgett Taylor: Fight Club
Apr. 24th: Cori Domschot: The Matrix
Apr. 25th: Gillian Rose Nelson: Disney on DVD
Apr. 28th: Ben Hohenstatt: The White Stripes
Apr. 29th: Dave Shutton: American Pie/Class of 1999
And the open call for May starts now! Our year will be 1962, so you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, et al!
May 2nd: Gillian Rose Nelson: Moon Pilot
May 9th: Gillian Rose Nelson: Bon Voyage!
May 15th: John Bruni: L’Eclisse/Il Sorpasso
May 16th: Gillian Rose Nelson: Big Red
May 23rd: Gillian Rose Nelson: Almost Angels
May 30th: Gillian Rose Nelson: In Search of the Castaways
I remember watching the initial BSG miniseries that launched the show and struggling to get into it because every time the characters had philosophical discussions or what have you, I always felt like the writer was just using them to tell me his thoughts on God. I’m sure I’ve said this before.
One thing about BSG the series that has made it hard to forgive is that the first episode is the best one they ever did. It’s like what they told us the experience of hard drugs is like — it’s so good the first time and never again, but you keep turning in in the hope.