shadowsong26 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shadowsong26) wrote2011-03-31 12:05 pm
shadowsong26) wrote2011-03-31 12:05 pm
in honor of tuesday's release of the land of painted caves...
The first time I watched Battlestar Galactica, it actually didn't grow on me very much. I never thought it was a bad show, it just wasn't something I got incredibly attached to. The reason for this, I think, is because I had some significant gaps in what I'd seen. I started watching with my mother and brother on DVD, and we were at least a season behind. So I saw all of Season 1, maybe a little bit of Season 2.0, then Downloaded when I was home on a break, then everything from Crossroads through Daybreak.
I think that's where I hit my road block. Everything in BSG (with the exception of a couple of rightly-ignored episodes) builds on previous character development, but significant plot points (eight other Cylons in the fleet, anyone?) are more likely to be forgotten than referenced, unless they explicitly tie into the Finding Earth arc. Crossroads is one of the few story arcs that depends so heavily on previous plot developments. I was completely lost, had no idea why I should care about the trial or the newly-activated Cylons or Starbuck's return...I think that there are arcs where you can pick up the series and not get so thoroughly lost--the Cain arc, actually, comes to mind--though, obviously, starting from the miniseries is best for comprehension, but Crossroads is not one of them.
What actually got me seriously into BSG (and can provide an explanation for the entry title!) was another series--the Earth's Children novels (shut up, I know they have their problems). BSG was sort of drifting around in my head, and I thought "Hey! I can fudge the bullshit timeline a few thousand years and do a crossover!" (Earth's children takes place during the Wurm glaciation, for those who don't know). This crossover (which will eventually materialize, I hope) of course involved rewatching from the very beginning, for characterization purposes.
Holy frak.
What a difference that made.
It helped that a focal character for my planned crossover was Baltar (so I was focusing on learning his voice), as I tend to get absurdly attached to characters whose position on the Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains depends on the time of day. But mostly it just helped to know what was going on (er, as much as anyone does in a show like BSG), to be attached to various characters and storylines. Oh, I'm not saying there weren't points where I got absolutely furious at plotlines, characters, episodes, actions, to the point where I wanted to throw things at my screen or just shut it off. But I kept coming back, I finished the series, and, while the Earth's Children crossover has been sidelined, other stories have taken its place (including the one I'm posting an early version of the first chapter of today), and my brain seems to have been almost entirely subverted.
So, (in an effort to make this post vaguely cohesive), of course, what am I doing in the first major BSG fic I'm posting?
Starting with the Crossroads arc.
And leaving out significant history and past details.
Granted, the first few chapters are kind of a police procedural type thing, so I can get away with it. I hope.
Anyway. This was a long ramble with very little point to it, but it's interesting (to me, at least), and I am going to go ahead and share it. If you made it this far, thank you, and I promise my next post will be that early first chapter, sometime later today.
I think that's where I hit my road block. Everything in BSG (with the exception of a couple of rightly-ignored episodes) builds on previous character development, but significant plot points (eight other Cylons in the fleet, anyone?) are more likely to be forgotten than referenced, unless they explicitly tie into the Finding Earth arc. Crossroads is one of the few story arcs that depends so heavily on previous plot developments. I was completely lost, had no idea why I should care about the trial or the newly-activated Cylons or Starbuck's return...I think that there are arcs where you can pick up the series and not get so thoroughly lost--the Cain arc, actually, comes to mind--though, obviously, starting from the miniseries is best for comprehension, but Crossroads is not one of them.
What actually got me seriously into BSG (and can provide an explanation for the entry title!) was another series--the Earth's Children novels (shut up, I know they have their problems). BSG was sort of drifting around in my head, and I thought "Hey! I can fudge the bullshit timeline a few thousand years and do a crossover!" (Earth's children takes place during the Wurm glaciation, for those who don't know). This crossover (which will eventually materialize, I hope) of course involved rewatching from the very beginning, for characterization purposes.
Holy frak.
What a difference that made.
It helped that a focal character for my planned crossover was Baltar (so I was focusing on learning his voice), as I tend to get absurdly attached to characters whose position on the Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains depends on the time of day. But mostly it just helped to know what was going on (er, as much as anyone does in a show like BSG), to be attached to various characters and storylines. Oh, I'm not saying there weren't points where I got absolutely furious at plotlines, characters, episodes, actions, to the point where I wanted to throw things at my screen or just shut it off. But I kept coming back, I finished the series, and, while the Earth's Children crossover has been sidelined, other stories have taken its place (including the one I'm posting an early version of the first chapter of today), and my brain seems to have been almost entirely subverted.
So, (in an effort to make this post vaguely cohesive), of course, what am I doing in the first major BSG fic I'm posting?
Starting with the Crossroads arc.
And leaving out significant history and past details.
Granted, the first few chapters are kind of a police procedural type thing, so I can get away with it. I hope.
Anyway. This was a long ramble with very little point to it, but it's interesting (to me, at least), and I am going to go ahead and share it. If you made it this far, thank you, and I promise my next post will be that early first chapter, sometime later today.