Why Start Something You Can't Finish?
So Battlestar Galactica aired its final episode last Friday, and...well, it sucked. If someone made a vacuum cleaner powered by a black hole, it would still suck less than the BSG finale.
What I don't understand is, why? Why in the world did they start down this road with no idea where they were going? Why introduce mystery after mystery, year after year, with absolutely no idea what the answers were? Were they hoping a coherent explanation would magically present itself somewhere along the way? Were they hoping the fans would forget, or just wouldn't care?
And, even more difficult to comprehend, why does this keep happening? Why do shows like Battlestar Galactica and Lost not learn from the mistakes of The X-Files and Twin Peaks? If you're going to make a mystery the centerpiece of your show, you have to resolve it! I have a lot of difficulty comprehending how Ron Moore, who is clearly a talented writer and who has given us some of the best drama ever seen on television, could fall prey to this incredibly basic error. I mean, seriously, this is Creative Writing 101 stuff.
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To be fair, Lost seems to By Chas on March 25, 2009 2:52 PMTo be fair, Lost seems to have realized this after the pretty lame 2nd/3rd seasons. I agree though, it's really annoying to see TV shows introduce mysteries that they don't have any idea what the answer actually is, let alone how to resolve them. Yet another example of extremely poor world building.
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Well, Lost is still a By Number 127 on March 25, 2009 3:18 PMWell, Lost is still a decent show, but they've pretty much dumped their original premise in favor of a secret global conspiracy, like pretty much every J.J. Abrams show does in the end. I'm starting to think he really is in some kind of secret cabal and he's fnord subtly trying to drop hints.
I could understand it if they had a cool concept for a show and wanted to get started even if they hadn't completely fleshed it out. Lord of the Rings was written that way. The thing that drives me absolutely nuts is when they keep piling puzzle on top of puzzle on top of puzzle without any intention of resolving them, and then plead innocence and exclaim, "But my show is about the characters, not the intriguing labyrinth of mysteries I've been meticulously constructing over the last four years!"
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