As of the end of the third season BSG

[mrissa]

Dear writers/producers of Battlestar Galactica:

I admit that I am, shall we say, perhaps the tiniest bit quirky. But here are two simple rules for you. I don't think they are too much to ask.

Rule 1. You must make a decision at the beginning of a filmed speculative series. Do you have continuity of pop music, or do you not have continuity of pop music? You chose not. You have been using drummy stuff generated for this show. People sometimes wail. Etc. Then, boom! Three seasons in! All Along the Watchtower? Really? Out of the blue we have continuity of pop music and you have chosen a bad remake of All Along the Frakkin' Watchtower??? And as if that was insufficient injury, you add the insult of having Lee and Kara stuff on exactly the line that every fan vidder since the beginning of the show has done Lee and Kara stuff on? Are you professionals in this field? Come on, people!

Rule 2. If you are going to have a really stupid extra-long season ender, you must bribe me with something I want to watch in the extra length. The extra-long stupidity of the end of Season 2 was monumental. It was nearly epic amounts of stupid. But! You bribed me with the first dose of Bearded Union Rabble-Rousing Chief and his Engineery Goodness! He was making speeches to the union hall! Do you see this? Do you know what this means? This means that I am easily bought. That was all it took. Stupid episode, stupid plot twists, but--beard! Rousing of rabble! Speech involving blood and gears!

I seem to remember some show my mother watched when I was small having a character whose political affiliation was the opposite of that of the actress playing her, and every time she had to give a speech that was too far for the actress, the actress got to sing a song in that or a nearby episode, because she liked to sing. Do like that for me. I explained this to George Lucas regarding girl Jedis after The Movie Of Which We Do Not Speak, and he did not listen to me for Those Other Two Movies Of Which We Do Not Speak. I don't really expect it will work with you, either, especially as S4 is almost over. But put in a little effort here, people. It is not that hard.

Sternly,
mrissa

Comments

[daharyn.livejournal.com]

I am not watching BSG so I've not much to say to that part, at least, but I am immensely gratified to hear that my Three Movies Which I Will Never Watch Again are your Three Movies Of Which We Do Not Speak.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

To be a little fair about the "bad remake", the producers wanted the song but didn't want the Dylan version since BSG has no direct connection to Earth.

Personally, I think it's a dumb song with powerful imagery (which is a lot of Dylan), and not set of lyrics with which to drive a plot. But that's me.

And as bad as the whole back story to the Cylons is being handled, that particular element does get paid off in the next season (of which I've seen the first half and will wait for the others to come out on DVD). And no, not the song itself.

[pameladean]

I Don't Speak of Those Movies either, but I can put up with BSG. I may have lower standards for TV. It's hard to say.

P.

[emrecom.livejournal.com]

I actually loved the use of the Dylan song. Actually, you can argue that the shite version heard i the show has a certain verisimillitude...as in, random broadcasts are not lorded over by the masters of good taste.

It's all this impenetrable end-tying that's the problem. I can say with deep, robust assurance that, at this point, I have no idea who's doing what for what reason. It's near-perfect, this confusion.

[pameladean]

I loved the use of the Dylan song too. I was jumping up and down, watching that episode with somebody who didn't know the song and was very impressed with my ability to keep figuring out what people were going to say. I hated to explain. 8-)

I kind of like near-perfect confusion, too, though I'd like it to become near-perfect comprehension at some point.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I find that I am an extremely amiable reader--well, I think you've found that, too. Between you, you and dd_b have lent me a number of things, and I've liked most of them. I am willing to try a lot of stuff in written fiction.

I am less amiable with filmed fiction. I don't know why. I'm still going to watch S4 of BSG with timprov, though.

[pameladean]

Yes, you are quite an amiable reader. I really am not. I am picky and fussy and unforgiving. But there's something hypnotic about television. Actual movies, on the big screen, are actually mostly too much for me and I don't go there very often. But I don't find it easy to be in any way critical unless I feel impelled to multiple viewings, which mostly I don't.

P.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

See, if you had just quit when they didn't put a camera on Baltar's helmet in that one episode, you would have been spared this pain.

OTOH, I'm laughing and nodding at everything you say here, so it's good that you didn't quit, because now I get to read what you think about the rest of the badness.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

I've heard tell that right after Bearded Union Rabble-Rousing Chief is about where they started, to use the technical terminology, Makin' Shit Up...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

See, I am in favor of Makin' Shit Up. I am a professional Maker of Shit Up. It's Makin' Shit Up badly that I object to.

[hypatia-j.livejournal.com]

Dixie Carter in Designing Women. It wasn't that her political affiliation was opposite, it was that Ms. Carter is (for an actress) quiet and retiring but a lovely singer, so she and the producers traded tirades and torch songs.

[elsue.livejournal.com]

No, her political affiliation was also opposite. I was so disappointed when I found that out, 'cause she did a *fabulous* job of expressing my views...

[laurel]

The first time I saw that episode, I did laugh aloud at the appearance of that song (and not in a good way). Eek. It was just weird and took me out of the episode.

I think the tune has grown on me since then when it shows up in shorter subtler bits here and there (yes, it does reappear).

Some folks loved it in the episode you're discussing, some hated it. I go back and forth, though never really swing into "love" territory.

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

I am realizing that I have completely different standards ("amiability" is a good word) for TV versus books, I think because I love being aware of, as we say, the conditions of production. Like the way everyone says the music on Northern Exposure is so important, and I didn't understand why, and it's because they couldn't afford the licensing to put the same music on the DVD! I mean, sucks for me, but so interesting! Yesterday I was watching...Criminal Minds, I think? and they played some classic rock song as soundtrack to an action sequence, and here is what I thought: "Oh, they're really committed to this show now, they bought an expensive song!"

Nevertheless BSG (which I am far more amiable about than you are) made a genre choice to a certain type of SF worldbuilding, and my personal opinion is that "All Along the Watchtower" is nearly as offensive as adding a laugh-track to a non-laugh-track show.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am a Big Meany Meanhead about conditions of production. For example, I think BSG's use of "frak" is explicable under the conditions of production, but it's also really stupid, and they didn't use that limitation to create anything interesting about the society they were dealing with. Limitations of production are my problem when I'm the writer. When I'm the reader or viewer, I will play the tiny sad violin over the limitations of production.

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

Oh sure, it's not that they're actually good reasons. They're just so...I don't know, foreign? and therefore interesting. It's like your union hall: it doesn't make it good, but it makes me happy in parallel to the annoyance. So I agree that they don't explicitly justify "frak," but when I start to think about it, then I think, "Huh, that's why they have a violent war series that's not full of swearing, that's so interesting!" and then I'm distracted.

I bet it's because I didn't watch TV for the first three decades of my life, nearly, and I had to overcome so many objections to the form just to enjoy it at all.

[laurel]

"Frak" dates back to the original series when it was probably even harder to have anything resembling profanity on the air on primetime network TV. I thought it was kinda cute they kept that for the reimagining of the show, though I don't recall the original show using "frak" in such a way as you can easily imagine the word it's subbing for, but then I was just a kid then so wouldn't have known any different.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, it's hard for me not to imagine the word it's subbing in for, they use it so interchangeably. It's like someone did a search-and-replace and I keep expecting somebody to mrak out the horses' stalls, if they had any horses, or srak the snake venom out of a wound, if they had any snakes.

[laurel]

For whatever its worth (hopefully you'll find more data points interesting), as I understand it most pop/rock songs aren't all that expensive (relatively) to put in a show for air. But since when older shows were made, they didn't think of DVD (or VHS or the internet), when they bought the rights for the music, they only had the rights to air the songs on TV. So. For excellent older shows like WKRP or China Beach (which feature multiple pop songs in each episode), the folks putting out DVDs often find they'd have to re-purchase the rights to the songs for DVD purposes and that's an added expense and sometimes a costly one if there are a lot of songs to deal with.

These days when they put a song in a show, the studios/shows usually acquire the rights in such a way that the songs can be included for the show on DVD or iTunes or wherever.

There are some shows that also air with different music in syndicated reruns because they initially only acquired the rights to a song for first run airings or a certain amount of broadcasts.

Some DVD sets are more expensive because the shows are older and include a lot of pop songs and someone felt it worth it to pay for the rights. I've seen some showrunners say that they feel the new music they put in for a DVD set works better than what they had in the show originally, but I think that's rare (or they're lying!).

[rmnilsson.livejournal.com]

I actually liked the use of All Along the Watchtower.

I've always liked the song (and it's the Hendrix cover of it I hear in my head). I thought the version they used was really nutty-sounding, but it worked in the scene for me, since it was a head trip sort of scene. I just didn't like the way they had the characters recite the lines.