Brief Thoughts on the Original BSG

[N734NJ]

Hola

 While in Vegas, I've had the lucky chance to catch a few original BSG episodes. So far, I've been impressed. The last episode was actually a continuation of the BS Pegasus storyline where where *spoiler alert* it takes on two basestars and "disappears".  The original series has a certain charm with the 1970's effects. It's much, much less gritty than the new BSG (not saying that's a plus or minus). Comparing old and new seems to compare the times in which they were made, the 70's a bit more carefree and loose, while the 2000's more tense as well as pensive. For seemingly the same elements, there are huge differences in the feel and overall message of the different era'ed shows.

[CX]

If you ask me, the original series was way too light for the premise of the show being based on the genocide of the human race.

[Jedikatie]

^
Considering that the original BSG aired on Sundays when I was a kid during "family hour"--which was anything before 9 pm, 7 days a week during prime time (7-9 on Sundays, and 8-9 on Saturdays) for scripted shows, and were supposed to be kid-friendly shows (something that, sadly, most shows that air at 8 pm no longer are), why does it surprise you that it would be more lighthearted. nuBSG would not have ever aired back in the '70s, or if it did, it would have been at 10 pm, long after the younger kids were in bed. The timing of the show (and Buck Rogers as well) was to capture the crowd who was so taken by Star Wars the year before.

Yes, there were some silly episodes in there, I won't deny it, but as an 8-year-old kid, I can tell you that I enjoyed watching every episode of the one and only season it aired, just as much as I enjoyed Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, even though that show also had its own ridiculous episodes (I mean, a space vampire that can be destroyed by the rays of the sun? A virus that turns grown men into satyrs? Um, yeah).

Now, if you want to talk insipid garbage--look no further than Galactica 1980. *shudder* That show I try and forget as much as possible about, though I still remember scenes from it (more's the pity). The only decent episode of that was the one called "Starbuck Returns".

[CX]

It doesn't "surpise" me that this was probably considered "kid-friendly" because it was a sci-fi, that's just a criticism I have of the old show.  It's the same sort of criticism I'd level at Star Trek in most of its incarnations (the expectation that it should be "kid friendly", I mean).  I will never understand the mentality that sci fi be something for the kiddies. 

[N734NJ]

I will never understand the mentality that sci fi be something for the kiddies. 

I tend to think it's more of a marketing thing, the more people it appeals to, the more merch the companies can push.

[CX]

No, I'd say it's an example of the Viewers are Morons trope in action.  Sci-fi has always gotten the shaft that way, because given its nature, no one in the "mainstream" wants to take it seriously.  I've actually asked people I know and that's pretty much the answer they give.  If marketing aims it at kids, it's a result of that mentality.  Even George Lucas has that mentality and has said as much, which is why there were teddy bears in the Return of the Jedi.  Ironic considering the fan service in the beginning of the movie, but he's the one that said Star Wars was supposed to be a kid's story.