Firefly/Serenity vs Battlestar Galactica

[tyme]

Which one do you like better and why?

[mtnbkr]

I like Firefly just a little bit more.  It's hard to pin down why.  I think I like the pseudo wild west feel, which is odd because I don't go for westerns much (except for Tombstone and Deadwood).

Chris

[Trisha]

Firefly/Serenity, no hesitation there.  I have had dreams of being Kaylee's character - and that has never, ever happened from any other series or movie.  It's happened from books, sure; but. . .

BSG is good, even very good - but if it wasn't for Starbuck we wouldn't watch it.

[Ezekiel]

I think Battlestar is much grander in scope, grittier and -- in general -- more enthralling.

My model?  Some people like Star Wars, others enjoy Blade Runner.

(I do enjoy both, but I prefer Blade Runner.  I think I just like a grimier feel...)

That's likely why I prefer Battlestar Galactica.

[wingnutx]

I haven't watched BSG yet.

I love Firefly because it is so much like a Pournelle/Niven novel, or the Traveller game.

Rugged individualists in spaaaaaaaaaaace!!!

[AJ Dual]

Both are very good, I'd say they were both the best Sci-Fi TV franchises in over a decade. However, I give the edge to Battlestar Galactica.

Firefly has some great political allegory to the civil war and the wild west, and it's Libertarian and individualistic themes are sorely needed in today's America. (Too bad that a Sci-Fi vehicle is invariably almost allways "preaching to the choir" though...)

Unfortunately, they clubbed you over the head with it every show. The "space western" theme and look of the show puts an unnecessary veneer of silliness over Firefly that detracts from it's excellent storytelling, and pushes it more to "look and prop" driven Sci-Fi, and IMO, knocks it down half a rung towards other lesser franchises like "Stargate" and it's ilk...

BSG does political and historical allegory too, most recently with turned-on-it's-head parallels with AWOT, Iraq and "Insurgency", with an undercurrent of Occupied WWII Europe, but it's kept to an episode or two, and it's a bit more subtle. Then they move onto the next theme. As others have said, BSG strives for a bit more gritty realism. (Such as any "realism" is in Sci-Fi...)

To put it concisely, the "silly" factor is almost completely absent from BSG. If I want silly, I'll just watch comedy instead. And despite the Cylons, the space battles etc. BSG is the absolutely least look and prop-driven Sci-Fi I've ever seen. In some ways, it's almost anti-Sci-Fi. The best example, bar none, is the clothing, instead of trying to design "space clothes" or "future clothes" that will just get dated in re-runs anyway, people wear suits, ties, and dresses. While military uniforms are somewhat "futuristic", even they are pretty toned down.

And even when there is grandiose CGI space combat, they often use "handheld" camera shots and movement which gives it an almost documentary or newsreel feel, like some Allied deckhand from the battle of Midway was filming it.

Very, very cool, BSG is setting the bar very high. And when you consider the unadulterated 1970's cheese of the original BSG that they started with, and "re-imagined" it's even more amazing.

[CAnnoneer]

BSG is by far better.

Firefly is a naive space-cowboy show with disturbing incestuous/pedophilic tinges.

[bdutton]

Firefly is my fave.  I can re-watch episodes of firefly over and over and over again.  It was fun.  Never took itself too seriously.  The cast was perfect.  The characters were interesting.

BSG is great.  BIG kind of greatness.  Firefly was small but that is what made it good because they were just a bunch of people flying under the radar and telling interesting stories.  The future of the human race was not depending on them to solve some giant mystery with a cliffhanger moment at the end of every episode.

Plus, they are pro-gun.

[wingnutx]

And even when there is grandiose CGI space combat, they often use "handheld" camera shots and movement which gives it an almost documentary or newsreel feel, like some Allied deckhand from the battle of Midway was filming it.

They actually got the software to produce that look from Firefly.

[mtnbkr]

Firefly is a naive space-cowboy show with disturbing incestuous/pedophilic tinges.

How so?

Chris

[cordex]

The problem is not that people treat science fiction TV shows as religions; the problem is that so many heretics worship something less than Firefly.

[SpookyPistolero]

Is BSG worth getting into? The few shows I've seen didn't appeal to me. I never had a taste for any of the Star Trek-ish shows.

I really, really like Firefly though. When they have the marathons on Sci-Fi, I could watch it all day long. Few shows entertain me that well.

PS- Pedophile tendences?

[Chris]

What I enjoy about Battlestar is that it isn't so cut and dry in terms of good vs. bad.  It makes you think about perspective.  One hero (Apollo) shot and killed a black marketeer in cold blood.  The hero admiral (Adama) planned the assasination of his superior.  Colonel Tigh ordered suicide bombings during the occupation.  The president tried to steal the last election by falsifying ballots.

Not so clear cut.

Never watched Firefly.  I already watch too much television.   

[BrokenPaw]

Spooky,

BSG isn't a sci-fi in the same sense that Star Trek is.  In Star Trek, the fantasy technology itself is a major character in the story (how many times have the Warp Engines or the Transporters been the focus of a crisis?).

In BSG, the technology is merely the setting in which the story, which is about people, takes place.  There are occasional plot-specific uses of fictional technology, but for the most part, the same basic plot could be set on an aircraft carrier lost in the pacific with nav systems out so they can't find where they're going.  BSG seems to lack a lot of "magic" technology.  Sure, they use the Faster-Than-Light drive as a strategic element in combat and so forth, but they don't re-modulate the field emitter coils to enhance the pattern buffers every time they're getting shot at.

As to the original topic, I can't say which I prefer between Firefly and BSG; they're too different.  The only thing that they have in common with one another is that they're both space-based science fiction.  Other than that, they strike me as essentially orthogonal.

-BP

[AJ Dual]

You've got to watch BSG from the beginning on DVD. It is about as un-Star-Trek'ish as it gets, and still be set in space.

There has been exactly ZERO aliens so far. It's been nothing but the Cylons chasing the humans, lots of empty space, and a few lousy planets. Almost every episode has bearing on the story arc. There have been almost no "stand alone" episodes yet, save for a few about internal fleet politics between the military, and the surviving government, and one about the black market that's sprung up in the fleet with some very dark undertones about prostitution and slavery.

The head "Good Guy" Commander Adama (James Earl Olmos) actualy staged a military coup against the "Civilian Government" at one point, when things were getting out of hand.

It's insanely edgy, and very dark, without being "too dark". (As a few thousand survivors fleeing the genocide of BILLIONS of humans ought to be...) The new BSG is one of the best things on TV period, not just Sci-Fi...

It's much more "people sci-fi" than it is "space" sci fi. Serious crap going down in the fleet as people struggle for power, to survive, etc. is just as important a plot as the Cylons who persue them. And it's not the original 1970s BSG "Oooh, there's criminals on the "disco ship", so let's send Face.. I mean ,Starbuck to investigate!" kind of crap either.

There is a Baltar, the guy who betrays humanity, while he's a weasel, he was initialy duped into it, so he's not purely evil either, so he's got major shades of grey to his character. (Plus major mental illness, and funky stuff going on.)

Other interesting tidbits:

The Galactica is insanely happy when they run into another surviving Battlestar, the Pegasus. However, things go downhill fast. The Pegasus is not run like the Galactica...

There are "Human Cylons", and I was VERY LEERY of this, thinking it was a cop-out to save on the FX budget, but instead, it's made the whole show. The paranoia that there's "sleeper agents" on the fleet is awsome.

The Colonials/humans are pagan pantheists with multiple "gods", even though they wear suits and ties and pretty regular clothes on the show, it's wierd watching one of them "pray to Athena" or "Zeus" etc.  However, the Cylons believe in the "one true God" and his plan for everyone. Very freaky deaky...

If you remember how cheesey and lame the original 70's BSG was, this one is just as dark, edgy and cool as the original was awful...

The reason the show dosen't grab people halfway in is because it's not very effects driven, so while one particular show may be earth shattering in terms of a plot twist, there may not be lots of visual "WOW" factor to hook someone watching it for the first time.

Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of visual "WOW", but it's not just for the hell of it every show. We only get the light show when a big battle or lots of space travel furthers the plot.

[cordex]

Firefly is a naive space-cowboy show with disturbing incestuous/pedophilic tinges.

Used to know this psychiatrist whose absolute favorite joke was the old one about the therapist who pulls out a stack of Rorschach cards and asks his patient what he sees in the first one.  The patient replies, "Two people having sex."  The psychiatrist pulls out the next card and the patient says, "An orgy."  They go through the whole stack and after every one, the patient says that he sees something sexual. 
The psychiatrist frowns and says, "I think you have an obsession with sex."
To which the patient replies, "ME!?!  You're the one with the stack of dirty pictures!"

[Perd Hapley]

BSG isn't a sci-fi in the same sense that Star Trek is.  In Star Trek, the fantasy technology itself is a major character in the story (how many times have the Warp Engines or the Transporters been the focus of a crisis?).

In BSG, the technology is merely the setting in which the story, which is about people, takes place.

I thought the point of good sci-fi was to explore how new technology or scientific discoveries could change culture.  But I also like the sci-fi that demonstrates how human nature remains the same despite such transformation.

[BrokenPaw]

I thought the point of good sci-fi was to explore how new technology or scientific discoveries could change culture. 

It is.  And the technology that shapes the BSG culture is the fact of having to deal with artificially-created life forms that are so advanced that they are "people" as well.  The tech in BSG does affect how the people live their lives. 

What I was deriding about Star Trek is the "Deus Ex Technologica" that seems to occur in every other episode; some major (and as yet unheard-of-in-the-Universe) catastrophe is always about to destroy the Enterprise, and it always just so happens that the universe's foremost expert on some obscure technology that will allow the Good Guys to avert certain death right after the last commercial break, is on board being transported to the bean-shucking conference on Alpha-Hydroxy IV.  Or something.

-BP

[tyme]

Furthermore, Picard is not a realistic human.
http://ambernight.org/archives/2006/10/05/387

I don't have a good handle on BSG yet; I'm still working my way through season 2, but at the moment I like the sociological realism of it more than I like the fantastic escapism and visual beauty of Firefly.

The Colonials/humans are pagan pantheists with multiple "gods", even though they wear suits and ties and pretty regular clothes on the show, it's wierd watching one of them "pray to Athena" or "Zeus" etc.  However, the Cylons believe in the "one true God" and his plan for everyone. Very freaky deaky...

I'm curious... why?  Because "civilized" people are supposed to worship under monotheistic religions, and "neanderthals" are supposed to worship under polytheistic religions?

[Silver Bullet]

Battlestar Galactica is terrific, probably better sci-fi than Firefly.

But Firefly is the best television show I've ever seen, of any genre.  It's a great show that just happens to be in a sci-fi setting with western overtones.

[Silver Bullet]

I was watching BSG last night, and the Baltar thing put me to sleep after 15 minutes.

That never, ever, happens with Firefly.

[AJ Dual]

I'm curious... why?  Because "civilized" people are supposed to worship under monotheistic religions, and "neanderthals" are supposed to worship under polytheistic religions?

Not really, just turning convention on it's ear. Beause polytheisim is more foreign to a Western audience, but you're supposed to identify with the Colonials as the good guys who seem to have western civ attributes in most everything else they do and say, but you've got this as a little reminder that they're "different". Assuming you're not offended by polytheisim, most people in North America and Europe are culturaly conditioned to think of polytheisim as "quaint".

It's that the writers are very good at moral ambiguity and turning everything upside down.

[tyme]

I don't think there is an "up" and "down."  Humans and Cylons are nearly the same.

I think identifying with the Cylons or the colonists merely indicates our own bias.

--edit--
I'm all caught up, and I had no problem with Friday's episode being slow or uninteresting.  I prefer BSG

[Panthera Tigris]

I think Firefly/Serenity is one of the all time great series of any type, let alone scifi.  And, with the lack of aliens in the show, I find it more of a "our earth in the future" program than pure scifi.  Maybe that's what scifi is though.

I watched BSG when it first came on though and did not like it at all.  To me, all BSG is is a classic daytime soap opera in space.  People getting pregnant by someone other than their mate,  lies, deceptions.  To me it's more like The Young and the Restless than other scifi shows.

But, that's just me!   

[Perd Hapley]

Panthera, recommend you direct full power to shields.  Arm photon torpedoes, or whatever.  Incoming!