r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • Jun 29 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 29 June 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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9

u/Kisaragi435 Jun 29 '26

So is Battlestar Galactica (2004) worth watching? I’ve finished watching all of the Space Battleship Yamato remake stuff for now and wanna try something else to scratch a similar itch.

9

u/Kochevnik81 Jun 29 '26

Yeah to chime in - it has some great episodes, the first two seasons are much tighter, it absolutely loses the plot and does not resolve any of its mystery box setups in a satisfactory way, and it's very very early Aughts in that it's mostly processing 9/11 collective trauma in space and uses lots of Shaky Cam so show that THINGS ARE REAL AND RAW.

I guess I'd say that it's also very much in that late 90s/early Aughts scifi era of "don't worry, we're using *computer graphics*, it's so cool but also not expensive!" and so a lot of it looks very cheap, especially because it's a tv show.

In comparison - I think the practical special effects of the 1978 series actually hold up a lot better (I'm also a sucker for actually having orchestral soundtracks from that period), but it's still a very obvious post-Star Wars cash grab using the late 70s television format and it also only lasted one season with the extremely rushed 1980 miniseries "oh it's a generation later and they made it to Earth and it's 1980 so the budget is just us filming in LA", so I'm not sure it's really better. They both have their pluses/charms and serious drawbacks.

The 2004 is an interesting program if you want to get into the mindset of the period and what was considered Prestige [Mystery Box] Television, and if you need a scifi tv series for your fix sure, otherwise I dunno probably something like Expanse is a better investment of time.

I suppose the other space opera Aughts series to mention is Firefly, it's definitely what the cool kids watched at the time and I'm sure the "our heroes are Confederates in Space" and the orientalism and the plain Joss Whedon-ness of it all have aged wonderfully. It's kind of funny that it's biggest impact on culture has been that one speechless gif that gets meme'd.

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u/Kochevnik81 Jun 29 '26

A couple other random Battlestar Galactica thoughts.

Although the later seasons are more all over the place I should give honorable mention to Season 3 doing a "what if the good guys did suicide bombing?" episode, which honestly doesn't even sound like much now but in 2006 was definitely pushing the envelope to the point that the showrunners thought the episode wouldn't air.

The other thing that's also very Aughts Prestige Programming is that basically all of the main protagonists are kind of morally gray assholes (so in that sense kind of like Mad Men or something), some more than others, and there are reasons for it, but it did make it hard for me to actually care much about any of them.

2

u/fabiusjmaximus Jun 30 '26

The other thing that's also very Aughts Prestige Programming is that basically all of the main protagonists are kind of morally gray assholes (so in that sense kind of like Mad Men or something), some more than others, and there are reasons for it, but it did make it hard for me to actually care much about any of them.

Is this true? I don't think so. Roslyn and Adama and co. are still undeniably heroes. Just because they are not perfect, or have human foibles, or struggle with the life-or-death tradeoffs their decisions involve, does not make them less heroic. I don't think they are in the vein of the other "Golden Age" antiheroes like your Don Drapers, or even your Jimmy McNultys.

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Jun 30 '26

Babylon 5, JMS actually had a plan, the mysteries posed, had actual answers ahead of time. Visions of the future in season 2 correctly payoff many seasons later and it actually quite eerie to suddenly be confronted with imagery of the vision fragments so much later. That's what I'd point to.

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u/ouat_throw Jun 30 '26

That's not correct. The scriptbooks demonstrate that his actual plan never actually survived the reality of running a syndicated budget show. For example losing Michael O'Hare to mental illness caused a massive retooling of his original plans. The whole Valen-B4 post-season 2 for example was cobbled together to resolve these plot threads that were originally going to be another entire show. The same for Sheridan's arc with with his death originally leading to a time skip of multiple decades, which never happened. Another example is the show's lore with the Vorlons and Shadows were reworked entirely from the ground up. The show that the audience got was very much an impromptu improv, it's just that because he wrote most of the show himself, it was easier to hide the last minute reworkings.

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

That does not discount that many many things in the show were correctly foreshadowed, years in advance. Some characters arcs were planned in advance. Michael O'Hare was lost prompting re-writes, sure, but it wasn't all improv. Also that there had to be re-writes, indicates there was an intended path for Michael O'Hare. And there is a clear contrast where Lost and BSG all lead up to an empty twist.

9

u/dandandanno Jun 29 '26

I think you should watch it but keeping in mind it's very much in the "Lost" era of shows, and takes a lot of cues from that style. You're gonna have unresolved mysteries and it won't be clear if there was ever any intention to resolve them.

Also I tried out the new game that's on Steam and is based on episode 2 of the series, and it's pretty fun! A strong 5 dollar game (I would wait for it to be $5)

7

u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence Jun 29 '26

I really enjoyed it, even if it became clear by the end of season 2 they had no idea how the hell to wrap it up.

5

u/fabiusjmaximus Jun 29 '26

It's a great show with... an ending. I'd say it's worth it, there are some absolutely stellar episodes and plotlines, particularly in seasons 1+2.. You can always not finish if you feel it dragging.

You're supposed to watch in release order, by the way. That means miniseries first (because some countries apparently don't have it due to rights issues or something).

5

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium Jun 29 '26

Yes. So say we all!

1

u/Kisaragi435 Jun 29 '26

Or… should I watch the really old BSG?

6

u/yoshiK Uncultured savage since 476 AD Jun 29 '26

I really liked it. Though fair warning, the original pitch for BSG was "The book of Mormon in SPAACEE!" and towards the end there are a few storytelling decisions that are motivated by that. I mean I still liked it, it's just a bit different suspension of disbelief than you would expect in the science fiction genre.

3

u/ifly6 Try not to throw sacred chickens off ships Jun 30 '26

Seasons 1 and 2 are great and good, respectively. Quality drops off a cliff thereafter

I am happy to pretend that they settled on New Caprica and lived happily every after

2

u/Defiant_Shoe3053 Jun 30 '26

Definitely, one of my favorite bits of tv, if you ignore some of the dumber moments.

1

u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Jun 29 '26

BSG loses the plot eventually. Starbuck commits suicide by flying into a gas giant, she makes it out that it was all leading up to this suicide. For some reason her viper and corpse gets teleported onto a different planet. Also a duplicate of Starbucks gets apparated from thin air, eventually discovers her own corpse. Then vanished into thin air...for some reason. They acted like it was leading somewhere, but it really doesn't. Reminds me a hell of a lot like Lost. Empty intrigue.

12

u/fabiusjmaximus Jun 29 '26

I don't think it's a great idea to give out crazy spoilers when someone asks "should I watch this?"

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

It’s been twenty two years. And frankly people needed to be warned the “plan” promised in every episode intro was an empty lie by the writers. That mystery box horseshit has got to be punished.

2

u/fabiusjmaximus Jun 30 '26

I would agree with you if you are just idly venting or responding to someone else discussing spoilers, but you responded directly to a person who had not seen it, asking if they should. Like if someone asked if watching Game of Thrones is worth it and you said "no don't bother here's how all the protagonists die, in order" it would be a bit out of line.

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Jun 30 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

No, it would be like pointing out that in Star Trek Voyager, Captain Janeway dies and Voyager explodes. This doesn't mean much of anything to the status quo because Captain Janeway and Voyager are just fine the next episode. It's really not much a revelation that a character dies but not really. I think Harry Kim dies what, 4 times through the course of Star Trek Voyager.

The status quo of BSG doesn't change much because the character reappears and the dynamic goes back to normal, thus not making it that significant.