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It's a beautiful planet, isn't it?
Mar. 21st, 2009 08:10 am
Article about BSG in the Times today - I've marked where spoilers for the final episode start...
Television: Show About the Universe Raises Questions on Earth
By GINIA BELLAFANTE, The New York Times, March 21, 2009
Earlier this week, in advance of the grandly anticipated conclusion of “Battlestar Galactica” on Friday, the United Nations convened a panel to discuss the show’s treatment of terrorism, human rights abuses and religious conflict.
Despite the obviousness of the public relations piggybacking, the United Nations occasion only further legitimized the political seriousness of a series that has explored the post-9/11 consciousness by examining the costs of wartime moral relativism. While a show like “Gossip Girl” might also be said to have ambitions — broadly, to address the injustices of class disparity, let’s say — it is unlikely that the name Blair Waldorf has ever come up at the coffee cart around which the Council of Economic Advisers gathers.
“Battlestar Galactica,” which during its four seasons has elevated the image of the otherwise campy and unambitious Sci Fi channel, has — like most science fiction — conducted an experiment in supposition. Ideas of faith, coexistence and democracy have been delivered with an air of intellectual rigor and a vagueness that has allowed the series to exist as a tabula rasa on which nearly any strain of speculative meaning might viably take shape.
( Read More )
Television: Show About the Universe Raises Questions on Earth
By GINIA BELLAFANTE, The New York Times, March 21, 2009
Earlier this week, in advance of the grandly anticipated conclusion of “Battlestar Galactica” on Friday, the United Nations convened a panel to discuss the show’s treatment of terrorism, human rights abuses and religious conflict.
Despite the obviousness of the public relations piggybacking, the United Nations occasion only further legitimized the political seriousness of a series that has explored the post-9/11 consciousness by examining the costs of wartime moral relativism. While a show like “Gossip Girl” might also be said to have ambitions — broadly, to address the injustices of class disparity, let’s say — it is unlikely that the name Blair Waldorf has ever come up at the coffee cart around which the Council of Economic Advisers gathers.
“Battlestar Galactica,” which during its four seasons has elevated the image of the otherwise campy and unambitious Sci Fi channel, has — like most science fiction — conducted an experiment in supposition. Ideas of faith, coexistence and democracy have been delivered with an air of intellectual rigor and a vagueness that has allowed the series to exist as a tabula rasa on which nearly any strain of speculative meaning might viably take shape.
( Read More )
