Skip to main content

Further Instructions

What's been interesting about watching the reimagined Battlestar Galactica from start to finish on DVD? Four seasons zoom by much faster than watching them on their original broadcast schedule. Of course that's a big "duh," but comparing my experience with watching LOST -- it's different without the element of waiting weeks or months for a new episode.

I recall when my friend Ryan borrowed my copies of seasons one, two, and three of LOST -- and he finished watching them within two or three weeks. Then he caught up on season four by viewing episodes online since that had yet to appear on DVD. I asked him what he thought about the seemingly-universally-despised-characters named Nikki and Paulo. He didn't mind them, and if I remember correctly, their flashback episode helped tie up some loose threads.

Where I'm going with this is, he didn't have to deal with weeks of analysis and speculation or months of analyzing. If a certain episode felt off, he would watch the next episode after that. There were no morning-after debates on a message board or a comment section. There were no discussions about sharks jumping because of such and such. The experience is just the show and the show alone. That's been my experience with BSG, and I find it's a relief.

I wouldn't trade the experience of watching LOST week after week for anything, but once again, I find it frustrating when people deride the show for being what it is. Not every episode will answer every question posed. Not every episode will make sense right away. That's what is fun about the show (especially rewatching episodes on DVD) but it can be hard to deal with impatient, armchair screenwriters who probably would never take a crack at the computer and come up with a better show.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J