Life Is Good

Y'know, sometimes I love it here at LTSG. Today in chapel, we sang two verses of the hymn a capella--lots of fun. Then at lunch in the refectory afterwards, we had a wide-ranging discussion that (among other things) compared canon issues in Star Trek with those of the Bible, with a few Beatles' references thrown in. This is my kind of place.

And all my papers are turned in, I only have one more class and one final. And then home for the summer!

Babylon 5

So, I fell in love with B5 in high school. Really, lots and lots of love; I'd been raised on Tolkien and Star Wars and Star Trek, but B5 was the one that really got me into a show. I've got seasons 2-4 on DVD (if they were reasonably priced I'd have all of them!) and I'm watching them tonight.

B5 has it's flaws. It was made on a bargain budget, and sometimes it shows in all areas (though they did an amazing job with special effects for the day). The main actors are good, but the supporting characters are often crappy actors. Some of the dialogue is wooden (as in, worse than SW I, II, and III), and there's a lot of infodumping. I mean really a lot. It's a very talky show with lots of monologues, which I as a writer and editor would love to get my hands on and polish. So I watch it and cringe at a lot of stuff.

But. But, but, but. I still love it. Because first and foremost it's a show about ideas. And ideals. It's not afraid to ask tough questions. It doesn't deal with platitudes. It's not afraid to take risks, or do horrible things to its main characters. And while the supporting actors are sometimes crappy, the main actors are universally excellent and compelling. A bit prone to overacting, sometimes, but I think that has more to do with the way the show was written and directed than the actors themselves. And the characters they play are by-and-large extremely compelling, as are the relationships between them. They're not perfect, and they make mistakes (sometimes huge ones!). But oh, I love them, and even when they are making massive mistakes (Big! Gargantuan! Potentially world-ending!), they are wonderful to watch.

Battlestar Galactica tries to be about ideas, too, in a lot of ways. It has a lot higher production values across the board, isn't afraid to take risks, isn't afraid to have main characters make mistakes. But in a lot of ways it's dark and gritty just for the sake of being dark and gritty, and when it tries to have its characters screw up they end up being either emo-whiny or just annoyingly frakked in the head, not in any way that makes the show interesting to watch.