Blowjobs in Space

On last week’s episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, we learned
that one of the heroes has been seeing a hooker and paying for sex. In and of
itself, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. We’ve seen characters to do
this on TV before…but can you imagine one of the noble heroes of the last four STAR TREK series or the two
STARGATE shows paying for blowjobs, much less admitting they need, want, and
have sex? I just love the way BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is taking a sledgehammer to
the boring cliches, stale formulas and
cardboard heroes that have hobbled TV scifi series for decades. 

To be fair, FARSCAPE started the cliché-breaking trend in TV
scifi, but then fell into a blackhole of hopelessly maudlin melodrama and
needlessly confusing story-arcs  that
sucked the fun out of the show and actively discouraged new viewers (for a
while, there were two versions of the lead character on two different ships…as
well as two versions of the main villain, one of whom only existed in the mind
of one version of the hero). FARSCAPE became so self-involved and groaningly
angst-ridden that even regular viewers like myself needed healthy doses of
No-Doze and Advil to make it through an episode.

BATTLESTAR manages to sustain involving story arcs, and be
gritty and dark, without losing the exhiliration and the pure fun. And, unlike
FARSCAPE, the show can deal with weighty issues and human drama without taking
itself so damn seriously.   

I think BATTLESTAR may be my favorite show on the air right
now (at least until DEADWOOD and THE SOPRANOS return).

By the way…how anyone could watch the new BATTLESTAR and still pine for the crappy, corny, campy show from the late 70s is beyond me. This is one case where the remake is far, far, far better than the original in every conceivable way.

20 thoughts on “Blowjobs in Space”

  1. I have twin one-year-old babies. For the first 5 months of their lives, I was averaging 2-3 hours/night of sleep. There was no such thing as social life, going to movies, or reading books.
    Except one night a week, for an hour, on Friday. That was Daddy’s BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ritual.
    I have little gripes here and there (like the hooker’s reaction after Apollo saves her and her child–sorry, no). But this show is fantastic.
    And I don’t think it’s because of any one thing; I read that essay about the second-in-command being the key, and I don’t think that’s it. I read about moral ambiguity and the subversion of cliché, and I don’t think that’s it, either. Those are all good and important, but they’re not what makes it great.
    I think what makes it great is that it has great talent behind it–in every department–and somebody’s smart enough to gamble on that talent. You can’t quantify greatness. You can only look backward and pick at the details.

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  2. I found this week’s episode fairly incomprehensible, as if it were played out of order. I enjoyed it, but I thought I’d missed an episode somewhere along the way where the hooker and his ex were explained and that that this was the conclusion.
    I will say that it is a true statement of our coolness that both of us spent some part of our weekend watching a space show…I’m off to write some Apollo/Adama slash/incest/fic.

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  3. I have to agree that, plot-wise, this was not one of BSG’s best episode. That said, I liked that it was casually revealed that Apollo has been screwing a hooker for a while. I also liked the line that Richard Hatch’s character had, something to the effect of: “Did you really think we’d float off into space after the Cylons wiped out most of mankind and create some sort of utopian society? Of course there is a black market. Of course there is crime. Get real.”

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  4. I also think that using the “48 hours ago” story mechanism in two show in a row (or 2 out of 3) is a little much. If we’re going to start In Media Res, then fine, but otherwise, it’s just another fake way to build suspense.
    That said, the show has been terrific, and the stories have been awesome. “I hope she’s worth it…” says Richard Hatch. Indeed.

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  5. Sometimes the new version is much better than the original, but I still prefer the original because I’m a sentimental person with a deep love of nostalgia. Even crap nostalgia. No amount of flashiness or ‘new and improved’ can beat the sentimentality out of my soul.

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  6. Wait…wasn’t there a space hooker in the original series? She was called a “socializer” or something and there was a lot of embarassed throat clearing whenever she was around, becuause she kept insisting it was a legitimate profession. But it was TV, so it couldn’t be accepted, really.

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  7. Mac:
    True, DS9 had the holosuites, but were they ever used by the main characters? I didn’t see every episode, but I doubt it.

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  8. Another thing that didn’t help Farscape was the initial price of the DVDs: $20 for two episodes. As over-priced as the new Galactica DVDs are, they still aren’t that expensive.
    And as long as we’re being fair, although she was never seen plying her trade, the character of Cassiopeia in the original BSG started out as a hooker–I believe the term they used was “socialator”–but evolved into a nurse.
    Mark

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  9. But did you ever see Starbuck or Apollo paying Cassiopeia for sex? No.
    Have we ever seen any of the DS9 or ST-NG characters going into a holo-suite for sex? No. Hey, we know when Riker was romancing his holo-babe that he was probably polishing his rod…but it was never said, only vaguely implied.

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  10. Eh. Battlestar Galactica‘s done a lot right, but they keep shooting themselves in the foot. The Magical Cylon Baby was the pole used to vault the shark. (That particular bit of bad writing made the previous episode’s resolution look better by comparison.) But I still keep tuning in. Whether I get a good SF episode or a trainwreck, it’s entertaining.

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  11. This is a stellar show.
    For those who are in L.A. on March 3rd, you may want to check out the Museum of TV & Radio’s special Paley TV Festival… On that night they’ll be gathering together creator/EP Ronald Moore and the entire cast of the show for a panel discussion at the DGA in Hollywood. Tickets may still be available at the MT&R website.

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  12. First off, I love this show. I agree that the character flaws make these people more multi-dimensional and interesting. However, I felt the last episode was one of the weaker ones, which sometimes happens when they veer away from (or alongside) the main story arc. But my biggest criticism was how puffed up and self-important Apollo came across, to the point of not taking him seriously; I remember having the same feeling when Odama asked Starbuck to “interrogate” the cylon guy last season, and she went too over the top with her bad-ass persona. The show is intense enough without the over-dramatization, and I fault the writers more than the actors in this regard. They need to work within the actor’s range.

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  13. Remember Tasha Yar and Data in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”?
    Yar: “You are fully functional, aren’t you?”
    Data: “Of course, but …”
    Yar: “How fully?”
    Data: “In every way, of course. I have been programmed in multiple techniques, a broad variety of pleasuring …”
    Yar: “You jewel! That’s exactly what I hoped.”

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  14. Of course in FIREFLY, the other space show that got me re-hooked on a genre that I thought was pretty much dead on its feet, one of the main characters is a high-class ‘sex worker’ and there’s no sense of any moral apology about it. It generates sparks between the characters but it’s not served up for the automatic disapproval of the audience.

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  15. (for a while, there were two versions of the lead character on two different ships…as well as two versions of the main villain, one of whom only existed in the mind of one version of the hero)
    Actually, that sort of thing (multiple characters) is happening in BSG all the time. I didnt understand what was going on until I got the DVDs and watched all of season 1 from the beginning. I have no idea how anyone can pick up any TV series in the middle anymore.
    And of course, part of the tension between Amara and Mal in Firefly was specifically that he secretly loved her but disapproved of her profession, so there IS an element of moral outrage in that series. Mal is presented as an outlaw and willing to steal and murder, but there are some areas where his code is very traditional, and prostitution is against his morals.
    And by the way, they had covert photos of duplicate Cylons on the resurrection ship, and they never bothered to look at them and see if they could identify other Cylon models that might be living in the fleet? please…

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  16. Oh, and the “hero uses a hooker” thing was done on Buffy a long time ago. Buffy’s boyfriend Riley would visit a vampire “hooker” because he wanted someone who seemed like she needed him.

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  17. I don’t think people really think the original series was better…I just think it reminds them of when they were young, and they, themselves were better.

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