The introverted side of Battlestar Galactica

I just downloaded the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica from the internet video recorder, and something I noticed while spot checking the files was that they changed the text overlay of the trailer.

In the previous seasons you would get a quick recap of the back story, A-Team style, so that even if you weren’t a fan of the series you would be up to speed before you even started watching.

The Cylons were created by man. They rebelled. [picture of robot firing his gun-hand here] They evolved. [woman coming out of her peptide bath] There are many copies. And they have a plan.

With the fourth season a new introductory text was chosen:

Twelve Cylon models. Seven are known. Four live in secret. One will be revealed.

That text assumes two things: one, that you already know the back story (not such a strange assumption), and two, that you care about who the Cylon models are. Without having seen a single frame of season four the series is already trying to tell me what it is going to be about. And I do not know if I care.

The producers of the A-Team also changed the intro, in the fifth series, but in that altered trailer they did not change the promise of its makers to the viewers (namely: Shichinin no Samurai set in the US). Battlestar Galactica seems to be saying it has changed into Lost, a series that has so far failed to hold my attention for longer than it takes to press Next on the remote control.

What is more, if BG really is going to cater for its current viewer base (not to mention only that part of the base that is most interested in the mystery behind the Cylons), there is also a hint of lowering standards. After all, why make the effort when you are not trying to woo anyone any more.

I am afraid, I am very afraid.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 9:46 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.