Joan of Arcadia was cancled this week. I’m of a divided mind. It’s one less thing to tape on Friday and watch Saturday night/Sunday. It’s an end to unexpected conversations with G-d, except, you know, my own one sided ‘Yo, G-d dude. Thanks for the sunset.’ and stuff similar. Still, for a show that rocked the concept, it’s sad to see it go. On the other hand? This season sucked donkey balls. One out of every 4 episodes was watchable. It was almost like it went from Buffy Season One to Buffy Season Eight in two seasons, and that my friend, is tragic. Joan had too much possibility and not enough structure. It was a quirky drama with comedy, and a bit of the supernatural, without ever being an SF beast.
Part of what I loved about the show was the simple concept: A young girl talks to G-d. I don’t really think it matters which variety of deity you worship, or even if you do at all. The basic idea is there. Doing things for others is good. Okay, so that’s stretching it a bit, sure, but the show was good. It showed you the basic coolness about how every little thing you do can have a great (or bad) effect on others. Personally, that’s what karma really is. When you do good shit, it ripples out and does more good shit.
Lost is still pretty new, but already I can hear the sounds of strain, as it buckles under the phenomenal weight of the X-Filesesque mythos. A theoretical possibility of greatness but lacking the power to make the myth substantial. There was a concept that rocked (see Joan). Plane crashes, 40+ people survive. Now what? Then they threw in mysteries ‘There’s this THING in the woods!’ Then they threw in a crazy French Woman (Mira Furlan! Go Delenn!). Then the ‘others’. Then they had a super strong guy fake being a passenger and kidnap the pregnant woman and almost kill the druggie. Then, the pregnant woman came back, still pregnant, but with amnesia.
You can see where this is going? ER has a problem I call character bloat. Started with 5 characters, now it has 10 main cast. Lost has myth bloat. It has too much possibility and not enough answer. It’s great to see how these 40 peoples lives were intertwined before they … you know, met. But the amount of possibility is starting to make me batshit crazy. There’s not enough answer to the questions that lie in my path.
With Lost as my great example of a mythos gone bad, there’s another show that started out with a giant albatross hanging over it’s head and managed to escape (for now) the smushing. I’ve probably jinxed it.
Battlestar Galactica, is fucking amazing. I’ve been thinking about why I like it, which I do and I don’t, and that got me thinking on religion. Yeah, I know. Weird way to go, but not so if you’re watching the new BG. Oh, yeah, I’m talking about the new show, not the Lorne Greene one. Here’s a rough concept of BG’s religious views. Humans worship the gods (yes, plural) of Kobol, aka the Lords of Kobol. Cylons (aka robots) worship the One God. Got it? Good. So here’s this show, based on a craptacular of SF made for TV movie that became the twinkiest sci-fi show this side of Buck Rodgers (and I say this with an autographed picture of Erin Grey on my desk), and they said ‘Nice myth, we’re going here.’
The new BG side-stepped the crushing weight of the 70s (it only lasted 2 years, hi again, Joan!) by taking what was and embracing it before pitching it into the bin and making a show about … today. Seriously, BG is more like M*A*S*H, with it’s thinly veiled digs at ‘Nam (Korea, whatever) than it’s Star Wars rip-off ancestor. BG drops camp for a serious look at things like our leaders being power grabbing freaks, interrogation and how it can go bad, the filth of war, the abuse of the press … it just keeps going with subjects relevant to us today.
So yeah, there’s the whole God aspect of BG as well, and I love how the humans believe in the many, where the robots are digging the one. In my head, it made sense because we humans were portrayed as being mystical, and in a world where science came back and shot them in the foot, that worked. Oh, yeah, I can see that. When you can’t rely on science, you need to believe that something more organic is out there. Then the Cylons, created by man, believe that there is one being to rule it all. The one OS.
Fuck, I hope I’m not jinxing it.