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williamjmThis week I've watched the series finales of two TV series I've been watching for the last 4 or 5 years - Battlestar Galactica and Regenesis (somewhat belatedly in both cases since their last episodes were broadcast quite a while ago - and it has been hard to avoid all the spoilers flying around for BSG).
Some spoilers:
From having looked at some of the online reaction, the BSG finale seems to have been very controversial, with a full range of opinions from 'best finale ever' through to 'ruins the entire show'. I can understand most of the points made by the people thinking it ruined the entire show, but overall I quite liked it, with a couple of caveats. The episode was definitely entertaining, the big space battle in it was one of the better battle scenes in the series, I thought, and the resolutions to most of the characters' story arcs were done well (although having to tie up every character's story did seem to leave it with more endings than Return of the King). It did also resolve most of the plot questions, although leaving one big question glaringly unanswered. On the downside, some details of the plot resolution could have been better written, I think the general concept was reasonable and tied in with some of the themes of the show going back to the first season (I see some people online were complaining about the frequent mentions of 'God', but that's hardly new in the show), but the details were a bit lacking - for example I think the whole 'leaving technology behind' bit made some sense since I doubt 38000 people is enough to really sustain a high-technology society, especially when most of the labour force is going to need to spend most of their time getting food, but they did it a bit too literally in the show by seeming to abandon all their technology. In retrospect, it's probably best not to think too much about some of the show's past plot points because some of them seem a bit pointless (the discovery of the original 'Earth', for example.
Unsurprisingly, I didn't have any problem avoiding spoilers for Regenesis, since not many people seem to watch it, which I think is unfortunate since IMO it's been one of the best TV shows of the past decade. The show is set in a Toronto biology lab of a fictitious organisation responsible for responding to biological threats in North America, everything from bioterrorism and virus outbreaks through to illegal attempts at genetic engineering. It's a Science Fiction show, but not in the all-too-common sense of having some dubious quality science to explain why the show has robots and spaceships, but it is actually a show about science where all the main characters are scientists. It is a rare example of a show that doesn't shy away from using lots of scientific terminology, and as far as I can tell most of it is based in real science - although admittedly, biology was the science I didn't do at school so I'm not best placed to judge, and some of the plots do go a bit beyond real science into genuine Science Fiction territory. It also does a good job of showing the scientific process and the limitations of it - see the multiple episodes where the characters exasperatedly try to explain to the media or politicians why just because a scientific study didn't find a drug was harmful, doesn't necessarily mean it was safe, or that just because they haven't yet explained a disease outbreak doesn't mean it was necessarily a terrorist attack. As refreshing as it is to have a show that is actually reasonably scientifically literate, that wouldn't have made it a great show on its own, but the quality of the writing, dialogue, characterisation and storytelling is very high, the show is fast-moving and frequently compelling both in its plots and the interactions of the characters. The production values, directing and acting are all very high quality as well - the lead actor, Peter Outerbridge, is particularly good in his portrayal of David Sandstrom, a memorable and entertaining character is simulataneously a scientific genius and also an irascible and deeply flawed alcoholic.
That said, after four seasons of frequently excellent storytelling, I found the final episode a huge disappointment and I'd say far inferior to the BSG finale, despite its weaknesses.
The penultimate episode of Regenesis finished with the David Sandstrom being knocked unconcious after being hit in the face with a shovel while trying to stop one of his colleagues doing something potentially very foolish, for reasons I won't go into here. The last episode picks up the story about 20 years in the future with David testifying in court as to why his organisation failed to stop a series of deadly pandemics (partly caused by the reason he got hit in the head with a shovel) and has a few flashbacks showing most of the main cast futilely trying to stop the disaster. However, at the end of the episode after David has finished an admittedly good speech defending the role of science (and neatly encapsulating some of the main themes of show), it cuts back to David groggily regaining consciousness in the present day. It's a bit ambiguous whether the future-set bits of the episode were real (in which they were mostly poorly-executed and an unsatisfying ending for the show) or if 'it was all a dream' while he was unconscious (which is an incredibly hackneyed and undramatic plot device).
Regardless of which of the two possible interperations of the last episode you use, it's almost certainly the worst (by a considerable distance) of any of the 52 episodes of the show. Despite that, I'd still recommend the show, it was more episodic than, say, BSG, and therefore the quality of the earlier episodes is not negatively impacted by the poor ending in the way a more story-arc based show would be.
Some spoilers:
From having looked at some of the online reaction, the BSG finale seems to have been very controversial, with a full range of opinions from 'best finale ever' through to 'ruins the entire show'. I can understand most of the points made by the people thinking it ruined the entire show, but overall I quite liked it, with a couple of caveats. The episode was definitely entertaining, the big space battle in it was one of the better battle scenes in the series, I thought, and the resolutions to most of the characters' story arcs were done well (although having to tie up every character's story did seem to leave it with more endings than Return of the King). It did also resolve most of the plot questions, although leaving one big question glaringly unanswered. On the downside, some details of the plot resolution could have been better written, I think the general concept was reasonable and tied in with some of the themes of the show going back to the first season (I see some people online were complaining about the frequent mentions of 'God', but that's hardly new in the show), but the details were a bit lacking - for example I think the whole 'leaving technology behind' bit made some sense since I doubt 38000 people is enough to really sustain a high-technology society, especially when most of the labour force is going to need to spend most of their time getting food, but they did it a bit too literally in the show by seeming to abandon all their technology. In retrospect, it's probably best not to think too much about some of the show's past plot points because some of them seem a bit pointless (the discovery of the original 'Earth', for example.
Unsurprisingly, I didn't have any problem avoiding spoilers for Regenesis, since not many people seem to watch it, which I think is unfortunate since IMO it's been one of the best TV shows of the past decade. The show is set in a Toronto biology lab of a fictitious organisation responsible for responding to biological threats in North America, everything from bioterrorism and virus outbreaks through to illegal attempts at genetic engineering. It's a Science Fiction show, but not in the all-too-common sense of having some dubious quality science to explain why the show has robots and spaceships, but it is actually a show about science where all the main characters are scientists. It is a rare example of a show that doesn't shy away from using lots of scientific terminology, and as far as I can tell most of it is based in real science - although admittedly, biology was the science I didn't do at school so I'm not best placed to judge, and some of the plots do go a bit beyond real science into genuine Science Fiction territory. It also does a good job of showing the scientific process and the limitations of it - see the multiple episodes where the characters exasperatedly try to explain to the media or politicians why just because a scientific study didn't find a drug was harmful, doesn't necessarily mean it was safe, or that just because they haven't yet explained a disease outbreak doesn't mean it was necessarily a terrorist attack. As refreshing as it is to have a show that is actually reasonably scientifically literate, that wouldn't have made it a great show on its own, but the quality of the writing, dialogue, characterisation and storytelling is very high, the show is fast-moving and frequently compelling both in its plots and the interactions of the characters. The production values, directing and acting are all very high quality as well - the lead actor, Peter Outerbridge, is particularly good in his portrayal of David Sandstrom, a memorable and entertaining character is simulataneously a scientific genius and also an irascible and deeply flawed alcoholic.
That said, after four seasons of frequently excellent storytelling, I found the final episode a huge disappointment and I'd say far inferior to the BSG finale, despite its weaknesses.
The penultimate episode of Regenesis finished with the David Sandstrom being knocked unconcious after being hit in the face with a shovel while trying to stop one of his colleagues doing something potentially very foolish, for reasons I won't go into here. The last episode picks up the story about 20 years in the future with David testifying in court as to why his organisation failed to stop a series of deadly pandemics (partly caused by the reason he got hit in the head with a shovel) and has a few flashbacks showing most of the main cast futilely trying to stop the disaster. However, at the end of the episode after David has finished an admittedly good speech defending the role of science (and neatly encapsulating some of the main themes of show), it cuts back to David groggily regaining consciousness in the present day. It's a bit ambiguous whether the future-set bits of the episode were real (in which they were mostly poorly-executed and an unsatisfying ending for the show) or if 'it was all a dream' while he was unconscious (which is an incredibly hackneyed and undramatic plot device).
Regardless of which of the two possible interperations of the last episode you use, it's almost certainly the worst (by a considerable distance) of any of the 52 episodes of the show. Despite that, I'd still recommend the show, it was more episodic than, say, BSG, and therefore the quality of the earlier episodes is not negatively impacted by the poor ending in the way a more story-arc based show would be.
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Date: 2009-05-24 12:51 pm (UTC)