So we've been squeezing in an ep of BSG most nights and we're halfway through the third season - one ep past the Eye of Jupiter thingy. (Note clever spoilerage.)

Please do not add spoilerage to this thread. Thanks.

I am continually intrigued by many parts of the show but growing increasingly disappointed in the showrunners. It's getting increasingly obvious that they had no JMS-like master plan, nor even a coherent story arc, nor (as far as I can tell at this point and from some outside data) even VAGUELY where they were going with the story. There is already a long list of things that make no sense and obviously never will. They aren't even good red herrings or interesting but irrelevant side issues - they're things that were presented as being Very Important and now obviously can't be.

I am also exasperated at the BSG community for being such idiots. In my years of first watching Babylon 5, I only got spoilers when I looked for them. Things like the B5 Lurker's Guide is a masterwork - as long as you don't go past the episode you just watched, there are NO spoilers, only intelligent discussion of what's been seen. The BSG world does not understand spoilers. It's very frustrating not to be able to look up a single isolated datum, like the name of a ship or an episode cast, without HUGE spoilers being casually thrown at you.

Despite strenuous effort to avoid spoilers and trying to rapidly avert my brain when they pop up, I already know the final fate of the fleet, and that colors everything I see now. Much worse, I tried to look up some simple little thing and what pops out, in highlighted text, at the top of the page? The identities of the Final Five. *F*ck*.

But, since I now know who they are, I can think about them and their place in the story.

And not a ONE of them makes a damned bit of sense. Well, one does - the, um, hurm, well, helper person. (I won't contribute to the chain of spoilage.) But the others are close to nonsense and I expect nothing more than the whim of a writer and the drift of a script to expose the first three or so, while maybe, just maybe the last two are better considered.

Not that it matters. There is no way that the overall storyline can be reconciled to these five being the "hidden ones" from some time in the murky past etc. blah blah blah.

Maybe I'm wrong - and if I am, don't tell me, we'll be done with season four in about a month - but I'm deeply disappointed that so much promise, the chance to out-B5 B5, was obviously wasted by lurching from script to script and new, random idea to random idea, without any interest in holding to a coherent story that blends the fascinating elements of two conjoined cultures, a mysterious history half-told in religious babble and a lost city of Eldorado somewhere on the horizon.

Not to mention that there are two or three characters I want to take down to the holding cell and slap until their ears bleed. One more ep of BSG 90210 and I barf.

There is one actor who has impressed the bejeezus out of me, though - Aaron something, plays Chief Tyrol. The guy is so completely damned human and believable in all his situations that I really look forward to seeing him in meaty roles elsewhere.

Onward and outward to the lost 13th colony...

Appreciate your effort to review without revealing. I'm convinced now I should just go back and watch B5 instead. I went to night shift two or three seasons in and would enjoy starting over and working through.

BSG is worth watching... once through.

I stood and looked at the season sets at Sam's Club at $19 a box and almost bought them... then passed. I don't see us every re-watching it (nor Sopranos, nor Rome, nor Mad Men - some things are just "once and move on").

B5, on the other hand, I once taped and watched and wiped, then taped and edited into a complete set (4 eps, no commercials, per tape)... then bought the DVD sets, and we rewatch it starting, oh, every 18 months or so. For all its flaws (uh, you call those sets?) it is perpetually engaging and the small bits you forget are endlessly re-entertaining. The incredibly satisfying solidity of the story line is a treat in itself.

BSG has 50% better production values, enormously better guest and supporting actors (some B5 guest stars were painfully bad, even some big names), Edward James Olmos in a simply mesmerizing role and performance, and some intriguing concepts. But the story wandering around into disconnected nonsense and obviously heading nowhere but to the next script conference makes it a one-time deal.

BSG also falls for some terrible "trouble with the doubletalk generators" plots - we just watched one where two lead stars were trapped in an airlock, and the problem could have been resolved by any teen Heinlein Hero in about four seconds flat. But... a VERY capable character, two of them really, couldn't figure out how to plug a pinhole air leak, leading to a very dramatic but 472% overblown rescue.

I'd say spend a few months watching it through, via Netflix or whatever. B5 will always be there waiting.

So many people had recommended BSG to me (I had never watched any of it as it was being broadcast), I caved and bought the DVD sets. Amazon tells me that the last set, season 4.5, shipped yesterday. There's also The Plan, due to be broadcast in November. I'll TiVo it if I can.