Boxey was introduced in the miniseries, but seems to have been a short-lived character. He briefly appeared alongside Kara (inexplicably) for one episode ("Act of Contrition"?), before dropping out entirely. While this is not necessarily a great loss, it troubles me. The one good thing about having a Boxey on the show was to allow generational relationships and few events from a different perspective. But just as Lost had to find a way to write around Walt, BSG found there wasn't really a place for Boxey. I just wish we were told what became of him. I hate when TV characters just disappear; like how both Family Matters and Step By Step lost kids and acted like they never existed. Boxey was supposed to form a kind of family bond with Boomer, but because she was involved in all that Cylon activity it seemed wrong. This is yet another reason that I feel they played the Cylon card too early. It's evident that they hit that note rather heavily early on, then it pretty much drops away for the rest of the season until the finale.
I don't really like the Caprica storyline at all. To me, it feels irrelevant and just an excuse to keep Helo on the show. I don't see how that stuff could go on for over a month with very little to show for it. I don't understand the Cylons' motivation. And since Boomer is a lead character, and we find out she's a Cylon, I've been pondering if that was a good idea. As I think about it, I've wondered if it wouldn't have been better to make Helo the Cylon and play it in reverse. What I mean is, Have Karl be "Boomer" and have Sharon be "Helo". She can still be the Cylon, but that way we don't drastically change who the original Boomer was. Doesn't Grace Park kind of look like a Helo anyway? Oh well.
I'm glad that some of the socio-polital aspects have been better fleshed out. I am bothered though that we see little of any other ship in the fleet (I know this is due to budgetary concerns) or of civilians. In the original, we went over to the Rising Star a considerable amount. Civilians were a part of the show. Not that we need a Cassiopeia, but the series as it stands leans a bit too military/political. What about everyday people? That's an area Boxey could have helped. They talk about what civilians are doing, but we don't see it like we did on the old show. And how many ships are in this fleet? It doesn't look like 200 or so, so how many are there? Regardless, there are several thousand average joes and we barely see them. And so many of them are turning out to be Cylons!
Baltar is a good character, though still not a villain. Does this show have a villain? I suppose maybe Number Six, assuming she's not a manifestation of Baltar's unconscious. I hope they explain just what she is. She is definitely there in some capacity. She can cause Gaius physical pain. I've been wondering if maybe when the planet was nuked, her body died, and so she, unable to jump back to a new Cylon body, placed her consciousness inside Baltar. I don't want to see that dragged on forever until it gets silly.
Let's talk about the use (or overuse) of "frak" on the show. Firstly, I don't like the new spelling. Yes, I know people want to associate it with another four-letter word starting with F and ending with K. This is why it was made a four-letter word. But I think phonetically it really needs the "ck" at the end. When have you ever seen a word that ended in just an "ak". Besides maybe words like "kayak" which is of foreign origin. I think we spell it that way because it's a palindrome and looks cool. But black, snack, crack, jack, pack, track, flack, all these are "ck" words. And I'm no Henry Higgins, but I believe it's spelled that way because when you say it, you very subtly make two "ka" noises; one way in the back of your throat, and one a little further up. Contrary to what we teach children these days, there is a reason for all those letters being in our spelling, and I just think "frack" is more correct. Besides, how do you pluralize "frak"? People have been doubling the K which I guess is right, but with the original spelling you didn't need to. Anyway, I've rambled some. I do think that they go out of their way to make it an analog to the other word, and it goes overboard. Just as "f**k" has become ridiculously conjugated into meaning just about anything, so too has frak. And it got to where characters would say things like "Don't frakkin' tell me you two weren't just frakking in a frakked up way, you frak-wad! I mean, what the frak! Frak you!" To me, this makes it less fun, more funny. I think the word would have held some power had it not been SO used. Maybe we could hear "felgercarb" at some point? Just because these people do say "frak" doesn't mean it's the only word they know. When a word means everything, it has come to mean nothing.
I'm not liking the "All this has happened before, and it will all happen again" thing. Besides espousing the sillier modern ideas in physics that all time and existence is just repeating between creation/destruction singularities, it is reminscent of a certain children's book/play/film. Apparently their sacred scripture is Peter Pan.
The show so far has had some ups and had some downs. I like that the music has improved some. It's not all so morose. I like the addition of Celtic flourishes at times. The show has also gotten some levity which was needed. I still don't like Starbuck. She's not even a tough girl. She's very girly in the end, and just sort of acting tough. She's not so completely aggravating as she was in the miniseries, though I can still only take her in smaller doses. I did not expect that I would find any BSG episodes that I would willingly watch again, but I did. It's not so boring as I remember it, though maybe the boring stuff is yet to come. An improvement overall, but I'm still not blown away by the finale. I hope those elements are resolved soon.
Also, this is more of a criticism of the DVD, but I am incredibly annoyed that the Universal logo was put at the beginning of every episode. I hope this is changed for later seasons and the complete series box set.
Best episode: "You Can't Go Home Again"
Worst episode: "Act of Contrition"
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