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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Apocalyptic Plot Holes

I just finished re-watching the new Battlestar Galactica.  My opinion is pretty much the same the second time watching it as the first:

Two seasons of sci-fi, two seasons of TV drama.  

It's sad that such a great premise and story couldn't find enough content for more than two seasons of sci-fi episodes, particularly when you consider programs like Star Trek and Eureka managed to eek out at least 5 solidly sci-fi seasons before ending the show.

It's nothing like the original, but it had so much potential and they threw it all away in the second 1/2 of the program, particuarly the crummy 3-part ending that didn't really resolve the sci-fi plot lines.

Setting that aside, I find a couple of things glaringly incorrect about this apocalyptic show:

  1. They went looking for bullets at the beginning of the show, but then they suddenly had plenty.  Where did those come from?
  2. There was an early comment made by the President about only have three outfits.  But later on, you see other people in brand new suits and even the president in new clothes.  Where did those come from?  I mean, I understand that people could be a loom or knit or crochet on a ship, but where do the rough materials come from?  I don't think they have any sheep for wool suits.  I don't think that they have any silk worms for making silk scarves.
  3. When people die, they lay these flag-like shrouds over the bodies.  Where do those come from?  Gruesome as it might seem, I understand if the military personnel are given their own death shroud when they join on, but what about the civies?
  4. Why aren't bodies stripped of their belongings before throwing them out to space?  If it's the apocalypse and there's no rubber factory to make boots, wouldn't you scavenge what you could?
  5. Paper- ok, paper is very easy to recycle.  HOWEVER, the quality of the paper would be very difficult to maintain, but you never see this as a problem in these shows.
  6. Most obvious of all, there is no sound in space.  It's something that the new Star Trek movie got right- first sci-fi program yet to get it right.  Space is a vacuum. Sound does not travel in a vacuum.
Alas, it's all in the details.  I don't know why they pick and choose which details to focus on.

Still, with all of these glaring issues AND the poor acting characteristic of a serial TV drama, I still got the blues when I finished watching the show.

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