"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Battlestar Finale

Season two of Battlestar Galactica concludes. Well, that's certainly a lot of plot advancement in one episode. And with some paraphrasing from Mario Savio too:

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies on the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"

That's right in there. That's part of what makes this show so enjoyable to me.

The artist in me likes that the new format of the serial drama gives creators the liberty to make big narrative moves. It's like soap operas, but less slapdash, and maybe eventually about something. Of course, there's always the pitfall of just becoming a series of climactic plot reversals -- really just becoming a high-budget soap opera -- to such an extent that the whole point is lost. But there's an opportunity there too, a potential reward for the risk; keeping the drama fresh and exploring themes that are grander in scope. We'll see how this turns out.

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