proteanmix
Plumage and Moult
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2007
- Messages
- 5,514
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- 1w2
So I typically hide my nerdy tendencies, it just doesn't play well with the people I'm around but my one open secret is Battlestar Galactica. For the last four years I've raved about that show to anyone who will listen. Yesterday was the series finale. I just want to say how happy I am when take the bull by the horns, open their mouths and pull the trigger. It is better that way. Don't drag it out and cheapen quality. Better to throw it in the ocean.
As much as I love that show, I was so disappointed by the series finale. After I finished watching the BSG finale, I for some reason thought of Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings. I read Happy Endings in college, a fairly common piece of literature in any upper level ENGL class. I remember how much I loved that story when I initially read it. I don't even know what about it I like(d), it just appealed to me. I think I liked how brief and dense it was. It felt like it was brimming with something unrequited, something you'd write after you were hurt badly
What made me disappointed with the BSG finale was the Happy Ending. Everything was too neat, too tidy, too feel good, too everything's gonna be alright, too optimistic. The certainty of an uncertain future is reassuring. I suppose that is still there, but the finale felt like a cop out. Which reminds me that people who are too optimistic make me want to slash and gash them. I feel like their sunny day real estate is purposely obtuse. OR maybe it's obtuse optimism that doesn't acknowledge the reality of the situation.
BSG dealt with so many bleak and complex and tangled and knotty subjects; the audience knew there was no easy way out. And we were right there with the survivors, toiling with them and feeling them and then this is how it ends?
But that's what we like right? I take this as one of those things you understand intellectually and theoretically, but in practice we all know it don't happen that way. We want the happy ending. I wonder how often the happy ending occurs in real life. It's probably rare which is why we like to see it happen in non-reality. The opportunity to take all the knowledge of mistakes and fuck-ups past and put the wisdom to use in a new place or situation or just away from what we've already dinged and dented.
Perhaps some of what frustrates me about the BSG finale is the luxury of crafting that happy ending. That reminded me that I was watching TV and it was jarring for some reason. Not the plot holes or fantastic technology. What sucked me into the show was that I felt like I was watching something that understood life was not pretty and they weren't being fresh-faced. It was dealing with issues that superseded culture, race, and sex, and class. The very thing it means to be human before we start slotting off into categories. The show was Mrs. Robinsonsy and worldly. It knew what was up. But there was always the inextinguishable hope that kept it from being all out depressing. That's the type of optimism I think I like, not the big grandiose kind. I don't think this kind of optimism is obtuse. It acknowledges and understands what is, but still looks upward.
And now everything comes back to where I started. Maybe I just don't like the BSG finale because of my current circumstances. I don't know, the last three months I just can't think straight. My thoughts spiral into morbid places automatically now. Stuff I didn't think about before I naturally think about now. And it's typically not the sunny stuff. It's a good thing because I feel like there's more nuance to my thinking, but I feel like I'm back at the Happy Ending Conundrum again. I want the knowledge that not having everything work out permits me and I want everything to end well. It's like this hard won education that you really hate the way you got schooled, but it truly is beneficial if you can figure out how to use it without blowing yourself up.
As much as I love that show, I was so disappointed by the series finale. After I finished watching the BSG finale, I for some reason thought of Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings. I read Happy Endings in college, a fairly common piece of literature in any upper level ENGL class. I remember how much I loved that story when I initially read it. I don't even know what about it I like(d), it just appealed to me. I think I liked how brief and dense it was. It felt like it was brimming with something unrequited, something you'd write after you were hurt badly
What made me disappointed with the BSG finale was the Happy Ending. Everything was too neat, too tidy, too feel good, too everything's gonna be alright, too optimistic. The certainty of an uncertain future is reassuring. I suppose that is still there, but the finale felt like a cop out. Which reminds me that people who are too optimistic make me want to slash and gash them. I feel like their sunny day real estate is purposely obtuse. OR maybe it's obtuse optimism that doesn't acknowledge the reality of the situation.
BSG dealt with so many bleak and complex and tangled and knotty subjects; the audience knew there was no easy way out. And we were right there with the survivors, toiling with them and feeling them and then this is how it ends?
But that's what we like right? I take this as one of those things you understand intellectually and theoretically, but in practice we all know it don't happen that way. We want the happy ending. I wonder how often the happy ending occurs in real life. It's probably rare which is why we like to see it happen in non-reality. The opportunity to take all the knowledge of mistakes and fuck-ups past and put the wisdom to use in a new place or situation or just away from what we've already dinged and dented.
Perhaps some of what frustrates me about the BSG finale is the luxury of crafting that happy ending. That reminded me that I was watching TV and it was jarring for some reason. Not the plot holes or fantastic technology. What sucked me into the show was that I felt like I was watching something that understood life was not pretty and they weren't being fresh-faced. It was dealing with issues that superseded culture, race, and sex, and class. The very thing it means to be human before we start slotting off into categories. The show was Mrs. Robinsonsy and worldly. It knew what was up. But there was always the inextinguishable hope that kept it from being all out depressing. That's the type of optimism I think I like, not the big grandiose kind. I don't think this kind of optimism is obtuse. It acknowledges and understands what is, but still looks upward.
And now everything comes back to where I started. Maybe I just don't like the BSG finale because of my current circumstances. I don't know, the last three months I just can't think straight. My thoughts spiral into morbid places automatically now. Stuff I didn't think about before I naturally think about now. And it's typically not the sunny stuff. It's a good thing because I feel like there's more nuance to my thinking, but I feel like I'm back at the Happy Ending Conundrum again. I want the knowledge that not having everything work out permits me and I want everything to end well. It's like this hard won education that you really hate the way you got schooled, but it truly is beneficial if you can figure out how to use it without blowing yourself up.
