My desert island countdown continues (see last Monday’s post for the full explanation).
Desert Island Musical Artists – Honorable Mention – The Beatles
I’m a bit ashamed that I didn’t include The Beatles in my top five desert island artists, but in order to get the mix just right they had to be nixed.
And so Battlestar Galactica, one of television’s greatest shows, has come to an end, signing off with a rousing finale that highlighted both how wonderful and how frustrating it could be. The series was as maddeningly imperfect as its characters but at its best it was among the most resonant and meaningful works of art I’ve seen in any medium.
From the miniseries that launched this reimagining of the 70s cheese-fest of the same name through the midway point of Season Two, Galactica delivered at a level previously uncharted in the sci-fi genre. Viewers expecting cardboard-cutout heroes and villains and rubber-suit aliens were instead met with brutal morality tales and deeply flawed protagonists. It was often tough to watch, but always rewarding.
Over the past 5-10 years, television has increasingly taken over as the dominant filmed art form in terms of quality. There have certainly been many great theatrical films over that span, and it’s still tough to beat the experience of the big screen, but television’s ability to tell complex tales across multiple seasons and to evolve characters over many years is unique.
I don’t know when the switch came from episodic television that was truly episodic (with each hour or half-hour essentially self-contained) to the complicated mythologies that are so common today. Perhaps it was Twin Peaks or The X-Files, or something earlier that I’ve never seen.
Meet Me In Montauk 