BSG: Ties that Bind

[holdouttrout]

OMG. KR--watch this ep right away if you haven't already.

There are no spoilers in this post, though I make NO promises about the comments.

These are some general thoughts about BSG.

You know, when it comes to BSG, I ABSOLUTELY love it. Even when other people are kinda meh about it, I think it's pretty good. Partly, this is because I am easy to please, especially when I'm not in a fandom. Well--okay, I'm harder to please than some people, and easier to please than others. And partly, it's because I am not in the fandom. I mean, I LOVE the show. I make a point to watch it. I remember episodes, storylines (some of them).

BSG is like Farscape for me--it's solid enough and odd enough and thoughtful enough and romantic enough and...something else enough, that I don't feel the need to write it or read it--most of the time. I enjoy what's on the screen, and don't NEED to go further myself.

Does that make sense?

(And yes, I've dabbled in BSG and Farscape--but not a lot.)

Comments

[knightedrogue.livejournal.com]

OMG.

OMG.

OMG.

We need to talk.

RIGHT NOW.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

YES. WE DO.

[katcorvi.livejournal.com]

Makes perfect sense for that sums up my love for Buffy and Firefly. I have all the dvds, but I don't seek out the fic or worry about the characters further than what happens on the screen.

Hmm, both are Joss shows...coincidence or does it mean that Joss serves up the complete meal for me? Dunno. Not going to think any more about it.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Joss does a good job for me, too. Enjoyable shows I don't feel the need to pick over.

Mostly.

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

I think that a lot of the people who became disillusioned with BSG did so because they got tired of seeing characters they cared about being written so dark. This has really never been a problem for me: the characters I like best are the ones that are walking these really complex and morally ambiguous lines (Roslin and Tigh are my favorites overall), and the ones who are less morally complex are my least favorites (Lee and Helo). So the more messy and dark the show gets, the more I like it; but I do understand why other people don't. I do agree that even at its mediocre points it's still better than a lot of what's on TV (though there's really no excuse for "Black Market" or "The Woman King").

As for fannish reaction to shows, I also agree that different shows elicit different reactions. There are shows like The West Wing and Babylon 5 that I adore and have little to no desire to read or write fic or meta for (except that I actually do have a B5 fic I want to write, but I'd still call it dabbling). Then there's something like SG-1, where my fannish desire stems from a sense of lack in canon: there are gaps to be filled, more stories to be told, etc., and that's what I want to read and write about.

I'd put both BSG and Farscape in a third category: shows with a really complete canon that inspire me more to meta than to fic (and to fic that is more like meta). I want to unpack the layers, to analyze why this complexity elicits the reaction it does, to figure out why these characters are just so damned awesome. BSG in particular really inspires the meta, and all the fic I've written for it is really more like character analysis or meta in fictional form rather than storytelling.

But yes, that makes sense! :)

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

I thought some more about this--I will often completely overthink books, but I don't do it as much with TV. BSG comes close, in some ways, but on other days, I just want to sit back and enjoy the ride.

I can see why people would get turned off by the moral ambiguity. I don't *like* most of the characters any more--I enjoy them, and love watching them, but they are not people I would want hanging out in my living room.

[gabolange.livejournal.com]

Whereas I completely adore BSG . . . and am completely compelled to write in that universe. But I think my writing there is much more of meta-through-fic than just an excuse to play around in the universe. Just like pellucid, I take fic as an opportunity to delve a little deeper into these already complex and interesting characters and situations.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

I can totally understand that. I really love fic-as-meta. So much fun, and sometimes something hits you and you go, "Ohhhh, so that's what that meant."

[mrspollifax.livejournal.com]

Wait, wait, a BSG post? But I wasn't paying attention this weekend!

This makes total sense to me, because it's pretty close to how I feel about BSG. I don't read BSG fic either, and I think it's at least in part because I love the show and the story - the way it's being told - more than I love the characters in it.

But I'm curious - is this ever the sort of thing that changes for you when the show stops airing? If they leave enough open-ended that you get curious? For me I find the way things end really matters ... BSG may leave enough ambiguous backstory at the end that I get curious.

On the other hand, it may end in such a train wreck that my brain never recovers, so ....

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

I don't know--I've never had a fandom that I felt compelled to write after I'd seen the whole thing that I hadn't written prior.

We'll see. :-)

It was only a little BSG post, you see. Nothin to worry about.