A loyal reader pointed out to me at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference up in Phoenix over the weekend that I hadn’t mentioned the sad news that the next season of Battlestar Galactica would be the last. (Yeah, that’s the sort of thing we investigative reporters talk about when we get together. It can’t all be about overthrowing the government or racking the muck.)
Bummer indeed about BSG. While we still have 22 episodes to look forward to next year, I’m sure going to miss it when it’s gone. Although, like The Sopranos, it seemed to lose a step last season, too. Or does familiarity always breed contempt? I’m about due to give Season 3 a second viewing, so the verdict remains out. Maybe I’ll like it better the second time through.
Also going to miss Veronica Mars, which also got the axe. Although, gotta say: Didn’t find myself glued to the set when that plucky Veronica was solving her crimes this season, either. Not that it was bad, by any stretch; what I saw was terrific (including the BSG shout-outs), but it seems like another case of show burnout for me.
Haven’t burned out a bit on The Shield and was very sorry to see just 10 episodes in the recently wrapped Season 6. The final ep seemed oddly anti-climatic, but it’s so much fun to watch Michael Chiklas do his Vic Mackey strut that I can forgive a lot from this show. Like BSG, The Shield is said to be coming to an end next season, so we’ll have to cherish those last 13 hours.
With the end of The Shield, FX is bringing back Rescue Me, Denis Leary’s rich NYC firefighter mix, which returns on Wednesday. This show manages to be funny as hell in one scene and deeply dramatic in the next. Talk about fraked-up people: Tommy Gavin is a wrecking ball who demolishes anyone he comes in contact with. And the rest of the cast members–from the men in the fire station to the women Tommy ends up in bed with–are great, too.
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2007.
“…racking the muck”?
Is that something you do before playing dirty pool?
Oops! Should be “raking,” of course. I’m going blind from so watching so much TV. JB, can you fix?
By the way, I guess you’ll have to dust off those Lost DVDs now. In spite of a ratings dip mid-season, they’re still planning two more seasons. It didn’t hurt that the final 4 or 5 episodes kicked serious ass, especially the finale, which delivered and then just kept delivering.
I tried to Netflix Battlestar Galactica, but Netflix’s database lists Season 2 as “Season 1” and Season 1 as “The Miniseries.” So I ended up giving up on it for a few more queue spots (after The Fountain and For Your Consideration, if you must know).
Your message doesn’t even mention The Sopranos. What, no HBO? I’ve only seen one or two episodes. I’m sure it’s good, but these long-form TV shows seem like such a big commitment, I can only obsess about one at a time.
The pathetic thing about Lost is that now that Season 3 is over, I have this empty, frustrated feeling, knowing I will have to wait for over 6 months to see what the hell is going to happen next. Time to get a hobby….or a life.
Whoops, I didn’t see that you’d written a whole separate post about The Sopranos.
Doi now!
Beefheart, I gave “The Sopranos” its own separate posting. What, I’m supposed to say more? Fuhgedaboudit!
You’ll want to start with the “BSG” miniseries. It’s slow in places–I enjoyed it a lot more after watching the first few episodes what Netflix evidently calls “Season 2”–but have a little patience and you will be richly rewarded. So say we all!
I thought “For Your Consideration” was the worst of the Guest & Co. comedies, which–sadly–have been getting less and less funny with each new arrival.
I gave up on “Lost” after the first six weeks in the cages, though people keep telling me it got better at the end. (OK, I multi-tasked my way through the last couple of eps and what I saw looked good, so maybe it gets another chance on the TiVo.)
Whoops, I didn’t see that you had commented on my whole different post on “The Sopranos”! My doi!
Hey Nintzel, thanks, I will give “Battlestar Galactica” a try. I am afraid of liking it because whoops, there goes two weeks of life down the cushion-padded rabbit hole. I listened to the head writers of “Lost” during a Q&A podcast at last year’s Comic-Con, and they said the whole “Lost” writing team was in awe of BSG and aspired to be as good.
Yeah, I expect “For Your Consideration” to be disappointing, which is why I put it high in the queue until now. (The Netflix queue is a funny thing…I move things around regularly, but try not to remember their placement so that the movie in the mail can be a surprise.) I’ll sit through “For Your Consideration” if only to see Catherine O’Hara, whose children I want to bear. Haw, haw haw haw.
The string of “Lost” episodes in the cages were a low point for the series, and seem very disconnected from the rest of the episodes (both geographically because they’re on a 2nd island, and also due to them airing in a burst of fall months separated from the rest of the season by a winter hiatus). I know it won’t happen anytime soon, but I kinda wish Jack would die. He’s such a whiny boy. “Waaaa…I don’t want to lead the people, it’s too much responsibility, waaaaa….”
Actually, the real low point of Season 3 “Lost” was the episode where they reveal how Jack got his tattoos. That was such filler, and gee, who cares how he got tattoos on his arm? The same way most people do — by drinking too much and falling into the trap of thinking that if everybody else does it, it must be cool. They tried to make his tattoo-acquisition deep and dramatic and meaningful, but really all they were doing is justifying why the makeup department didn’t want to try to cover his real-life tattoos with goop in day after day of Hawaii heat.
The second worst episode of Season 3 was “Desmond Buys His Girlfriend a Ring Then Runs Away.” Seriously, I think the middle episodes were just filler so they could pad the season before getting serious again and build to a big finish.
The one “filler” episode that was actually pretty good was the one with the two characters who came out of nowhere (which a lot of people were complaining about). Their grim fate was creepy and strange and made for a good stand-alone, “Twilight Zone”-ish episode.
In other movie news, I rented the documentary “Wordplay” and it was cool. I thought “Spider-Man 3” was awesome and loved how it juggled plotlines like a Mexican soap opera. Next I am going to see “Knocked Up.”