This is something that I found odd right from the start of the Battlestar Galactica remake. They took Starbuck and Apollo from the original and updated them for the new show. And Adama, Boomer, Tigh and Baltar. All the major characters from the original.
Not quite. All the male characters from the original.
Even smaller male characters from the original show made it to the remake, including the kid, Boxy. They even included Apollo's dead brother who was never seen.
But not one female character had a counterpart in the new show.
Not one.
It's like they never existed. Cassiopeia, Serina, Sheba... gone. Athena, who was Apollo's sister... gone. Okay, they ended up using the name as a call sign later but for a Boomer character. But not his living sister, a major character in the original.
Not one female character made it into the remake. Yet every single male did. What does that say about how the writers feel about the women of Battlestar?
Not one.
It's like they never existed. Cassiopeia, Serina, Sheba... gone. Athena, who was Apollo's sister... gone. Okay, they ended up using the name as a call sign later but for a Boomer character. But not his living sister, a major character in the original.
Not one female character made it into the remake. Yet every single male did. What does that say about how the writers feel about the women of Battlestar?
Posts
4 comments:
As a woman, what can I think?
I am way behind on the show, I've been watching the first series recently...
They wanted something sexier than the women from the 78 and 80 series.... so they went with 2004 images.... and sexier outfits. And isn't the core audience for SF TV shows men, not women? Men 18-35? (I can only speak for the States, even though I own a lot of Britcoms on tape).
but the weird thing is, you ask any Trekkie who the hottest women in Star Trek were- and after Seven they always say Michelle Nichols, or the late Mrs. Roddenberry.
And my two cents, I really stopped watching the Sci Fi channel when they dropped the TV show "Alien Nation" from their line up. For some strange reason, that's my favorite SF TV show of all time.
I am really hooked now on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. My friend just got the BBC America channel.... and I just love the way he yells at those poor people.
Still and all, glad you have cable. My first experiencing working in London- I only had four channels. It was a big deal a year or so later when I went back and the hotel had Sky and Sky Sports.
I don't know what I am saying. I am working so hard on a writing project I hardly ever watch TV.
I need coffee.
Happy Friday the 13th you all.
I don't know. Perhaps the writers thought they needed stronger, more complex women characters than the ones in the original series? Starbuck wasn't meant as a sexy character originally, but as a rogue pilot who confronts the authority; the fact that it's OK to see Starbuck & Apollo engage in a little intimate R&R once in a while says really more about our own society's inability to cope with homosexuality in prime time TV—if that weren't the case, I'm sure that it would have been a much different BSG with most of the women being cylons or civies.
BSG is all about moral ambiguity. The baddies are not monsters and the good guys are no angels. All the characters are deeply flawed, and I dig that very much.
I must admit that Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is one of my guilty pleasures. I don't catch it often but enjoy it when I do.
The thing about wanting stronger characters than the original women or even sexier is that they could have changed them any way they wanted. Boomer, for example, was nothing like Boomer in the original.
And yet, still, only the male characters were brought to the update.
There's other new characters that could have been updated originals too. For example, that mini-movie thing they did, Razor, that was about Cain from the Pegasus (yet another male character brought over) had a very close female second. She could just as easily been Sheba from the original (who was Cain's daughter in the old show).
Dualla could have been Cassiopeia, or Athena or anyone.
It's just... weird.
Post a Comment