BSG, Fifteen Years On

It’s been called to my attention that the last episode of the “new” Battlestar Galactica aired fifteen years ago yesterday?

My favorite part of that finale is that you can tell someone whose never seen it that the whole show ends with a robot dance party, and even if they believe you, they will never in a million years guess how that happens.

And, literally putting the words “they have a plan” in big letters in the opening credits of every episode, while not ever bothering to work out what that plan was, that’s whatever the exact opposite of imposter syndrome is.

Not a great ending.

That first season, though, that was about as good a season of TV not named Twin Peaks has ever been. It was on in the UK months before it even had an airdate in the US, and I kept hearing good things, so I—ahem—obtained copies. I watched it every week on a CRT computer monitor at 2 in the morning after everyone else was asleep, and I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They really did take that cheesy late-70s Star Wars knockoff and make something outstanding out of it. Mostly, what I remember is I didn’t have anyone to talk about it with, so I had to convince everyone I knew to go watch it once it finally landed on US TV.

It was never that good again. Sure, the end was bad, but so was the couple of years leading up to that end? The three other seasons had occasional flashes of brilliance but that mostly drained out, replaced by escalating “what’s the craziest thing that could happen next?” so that by the time starbuck was a ghost and bob dylan was a fundamental force of the universe there was no going back, and they finally landed on that aforementioned dance party. And this was extra weird because it not only started so good, but it seemed to have such a clear mission: namely, show those dorks over at Star Trek: Voyager how their show should have worked.

Some shows should just be about 20 episodes, you know?

Saturday Night Linkblog, “This has all happened before” edition

There was a phrase I was grasping for while I was being rude about Mitt Romney yesterday, something half remembered from something I’d read over the last few years.

It was this From “Who Goes Nazi?” by Dorothy Thompson, from the August 1941 issue of Harpers Magazine:

Sometimes I think there are direct biological factors at work—a type of education, feeding, and physical training which has produced a new kind of human being with an imbalance in his nature. He has been fed vitamins and filled with energies that are beyond the capacity of his intellect to discipline. He has been treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected.

…

Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi.

Haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t.

Correct, Orcas are not our friends

Remember those Orcas? I was reminded today of early summer’s darlings, the yacht-sinking Orcas off Europe.

I partly bring this up so I can link to my favorite Atlantic article of all time: Killer Whales Are Not Our Friends.

I love this because, yes, that’s the whole point. They managed some kind of semantic integer overflow; so contrarian they wrapped around and just said the thing.

Every time the Atlantic gets all “tut tut, poor people are having Bad Opinions” I just think of the montage from the middle of the original 1984 Ghostbusters where the Atlantic cover story is “Do ghosts have civil rights?” and I’m like awww yisss, nothing has changed. “All this has happened before, etc”.

However, the other reason I bring this up is so I can link to what made me think of the Orcas, which was this absolutely unhinged list from the Financial Times: A complete guide to yacht-desking: All the gadgets you need to work on the high seas.

And, sure. The Financial Times, of course, is read by the people who own the country, rich British people who want pretend they’re richer. The premise of the article, which does seem a year or two past the point where it was fully relevant, is that if you’re going to be working from home and outfitting a home office, why not outfit your yacht and work from there instead?

It’s one of those basically harmless cosplay lists, full of things you could buy to show off, maritime clocks costing £55,000 and whatnot. Stuff you buy to show off the fact that you could afford it, mostly. I skimmed it with a sort of amused “yeah, probably” smirk at the work-from-yacht essentials, fancy satellite internet, soloar backups, clocks, yacht-compatable pool tables for “the ultimate breakout zone.”

And then, the recommended laptop is… a midlist Asus Zenbook? What? Neither ”show-off expensive” nor “actually good”, it’s just a mostly fine but overpriced Windows laptop?

I don’t know much about maritime clocks or self-stabilizing pool tables, but I do know something about laptops, and that’s a fine laptop, but not a great one. For the quoted £1,600 you can get way more computer, the industrial design is nothing to write home about, and if you’re looking to spend more on a better looking and higher performance device, Apple is right there. All an Asus Zenbook says is that the owner doesn’t know enough about the subject to not get took by a salesperson.

And so… I have to assume everthing else on the list is the same? Overpriced crap? Is this what the yacht set is filling their boats with?

I take it back. Maybe the Orcas are our friends.