I’ve watched three discs of Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica, and while I absolutely love it, the cameraman seriously needs to lay off the juice. I love the handheld feel, which is reminiscent of Firefly, but it’s taken way too far. Firefly found a happy medium, but with BSG, I feel like we’re getting a half-dozen of those “emphasis zooms” in every scene. Emphasis zooms are like a delicate spice; they are not to be abused or overused! Rather than bringing me in deeper, every emphasis zoom on BSG rips me out of the action. If I were watching these episodes on a larger screen, I’d probably begin to feel slightly seasick.
Hopefully, now that I have expressed this opinion, all remaining episodes of BSG will retroactively correct this minor annoyance.
I have no idea which characters are most popular in fandom, so it will be interesting to see how popular or unpopular my opinions are, but I have to say my favourite character at the moment is Gaius. I don’t like him at all, but I love watching him. He’s such an opportunistic little slimeball! His “morality” struggles are far more interesting to me than the live-or-die military decisions Donnie Darko’s mom and the big brass are confronting.
No matter what Starbuck or Adama Jr or Daddy Adama or Madam President decide or do, we the audience are going to empathize and love them regardless. It’s just the nature of the show, as I understand it so far. But Gaius is different. It’s like he wants to do the right thing, but then he’s so easily convinced to do what Number Six tells him to do, because bad things happen to him when he doesn’t.
His utter cowardice represents something you rarely get on TV. Time after time, he’s given a choice between what is easy and what is right, and HE PICKS EASY. He picks easy, and he’s not immediately killed off or transformed into a cackling supervillain. It’s refreshing.
Also Starbuck is treading the lines of Suehood and Adama Jr is duller than a box of used crayons. :D
