nixsight

… as I was writing an earlier post about “Stargate Universe”, I got major league sidetracked into discussing the notion that it is somehow similar to “Lost” or “Battlestar Galactica”.

It basically muddied the issue on what I thought about the show, so I’m copy/pasting my points right here into a brand-new post. As if this shit wasn’t confusing enough already.

…The comparisons with “Lost” seem to come from the fact that some of the characters have secrets, or at least things about them that we don’t know at the beginning of the pilot, and occasionally, in a sort of non-committal, unstructured way, bits of their past are played out in flashback – though mainly in that first episode. The techniques, very similar to the way most characters in most shows are written, and flashbacks are traditionally used, actually serves to distance the show from “Lost”, which is always rigid about the way it uses the flashbacks – and later flashforwards – within a particular episode, and also goes to great lengths to subvert traditional narratives with them.

(Actually, one of the few things that distract from the simple, uncomplicated pleasure of the pilot episode was the lack of an audio or visual cue when the show was shifting into flashback. It was a little disorienting, and not in an obviously deliberate way.)

The “Battlestar Galactica” similarities are more difficult to disregard, because though superficial, they are definitive. Both shows are set primarily on a huge spaceship, both of which are looking for Earth. Aesthetically, the ships are both dark, and grimy, and at this point, “SGU” is about survival rather than exploration, much like “BSG” before it.

However, drawing a circle around the two is like saying that a 3-door convertible is like a Land Rover, because neither is a motorbike.

That both shows are set on a huge spaceship is simply a function of the fact that both are part of the ‘spaceship’ subgenre of sci-fi. “Star Trek” was set on a huge spaceship, as was “Farscape”, and “Lexx”. “Dark Star”, “Alien” and “Sunshine” all fit the mould, too, as does the novel “The Sparrow”. Very few examples of space-faring fiction, especially ones that fit an episodic model, opt for the tiny ship, because it doesn’t allow for as many story possibilities.

That both ships are beaten-up and offer primarily dark corridors is another aesthetic rather than functional choice – the reason “Destiny” – the ship in “SGU” – is so light-starved and knackered is that it is over a million years old, and has apparently been deserted for longer than we’ve been out of the trees. “Galactica”, on the other hand, is a decommissioned – and later battle-scarred – warship. In fact, the latter only looks that bad from the outside. Inside, it’s corridors are people-strewn and busy, but well-lit.

And this is a decision that showrunners need to make between two very specific styles, anyway – is their universe populated with shiny, idealised futuristic-looking spaces, like “Star Trek”, much of “Star Wars”, and… well, that’s it, isn’t it? I can’t think of many others… or do they go the more functional, industrial or military route, like everything else?

Like some of the easy points of reference drawn to “Lost”, the possible narrative similarities between “SGU” and “BSG” are actually what most illuminate the differences between the two. Though in both, the ultimate dreamed of goal is Earth, what that goal represents is totally different in each.

In “BSG” Earth represented escape, and a new beginning. It was also a fantasy – a total dream, fabricated out of prophesy, an ideal whose only real function was to provide hope. The only things they have left of their previous lives are the people they’ve got with them on those ships.

In “SGU”, Earth is home. The humans, stuck by a sequence of events either manufactured or simply unfortunate on an alien ship that is a vast, incalculable distance away, aren’t trying to escape too anywhere… they just want to get back to their families, and their lives. And in fact, because of that, they have the absence of hope.

When you don’t know where your destination is, it could be just around the corner, or a few weeks away, or a few generations. But when you know that your destination is an impossible distance from where you are, you realistically know you probably won’t get home, even though knowing it’s there, you have to try. And where in “BSG”, Earth is ultimately an idea – the first, perfect hospitable planet you find for your people to settle – in “SGU”, it’s an empirical fact, and as graphically illustrated in the second episode, just settling on a different planet that happens to be life-supporting probably isn’t going to cut it.

The most obvious difference is that despite the cosmetic similarities in their paint-jobs, “Galactica” is a working, life-bearing vessel, imbued with life and a personality only by the fact of the people aboard her, in much the same way that the Enterprise is in “Star Trek”, or ships are in our contemporary world, whereas “Destiny” has a mind of it’s own. Admittedly, “Destiny” probably only has exceptionally good programming, but it’s occurring at a level well beyond the comprehension of the people aboard, who have little to no control of where she’s going, or why she works the way she does. In that sense, the ship in “SGU” has more in common with that in “Farscape”, or “Lexx”, or any number of other shows, than it does “BSG”.