my take, the problem with the plan is that what it hints at is this
ultimately the cylons (and they don't realise it) are human in the sense that they make the same mistakes humans do, because the initial attacks on the colonies fail, (because some escape) and then the few cylons in the fleet play at trying to bring things to a close and make a poor showing of it.
some of them, get conscience, some of them become affected by their surroundings and even deviate from the 'plan' because they realise some things about themselves, and humans.
so if that's the message to this slice of galactica, god it took its time getting there.
as moore calls it, the daniel fiasco is a direct by product of his operating maxim of letting things play out,hoping he'll be able to write himself out the whole he just put himself.
example being the end of best of both worlds part 1. I've read articles before where they confessed they honestly had no idea how they were going to get themselves out of that one until they had a few months hiatus to think about it.
while I liked the end of galactica, the whole disappearing starbuck thing still ticks me off, because you have to just accept, as an audience, that on a metaphysical level she was to all intents and purposes, an angel, indirectly under the influence of some divine being (the god like figure the head baltar and head six refer to)
fine, no problem, the only issue is that nowhere else through the entire series is that level of divine intervention hinted at because until the end, we never know, as an audience what head six and head baltar are, so when they are revealed at the end, it feels a bit of a cheat because it comes out of left field with no foreshadowing so we as an audience are not prepared for it.
it makes sense, but it almost breaks the internal rules established throughout the series
at least in the original galactica, resurecction of dead people worked, because we saw them do it with apollo and the ship of lights, so you could accept it on that level.
In the nu bsg we never saw that happen until the end so it jars.
isn't the first time Moore did this either.
think back to the end of season 2 when all of a sudden, out of left field, tyrol thinks he could be a cylon and cavill appears out of nowhere as a religious figure and discusses things with him.
the whole thing felt forced because suddenly it was sprung on us with 3 episodes to go in the season. that really needed to be introduced earlier in the season so we as an audience can look back and go 'ah ha'
instead, it felt contrived.
same goes for the plan. its a nice appetiser and all, but could have been better
Yeah, good points. I mean, I haven't seen The Plan, but good points about the series itself. Much of Moore's approach appeared to be allowing the characters to dictate where the story would go. Character-driven writing. IN GENERAL I don't have a problem with that. I enjoy strong characters who do interesting things. I enjoy seeing writers develop these believable people and then have them react to situations in a believable way.
But, as you point out, this can often leave you having written yourself into a corner. Case in point in NBSG -- Starbuck. you develop the character, have things happen to her, have her react to them and develop more, and so on and so forth. Eventually, you get to a point where she needs to fly into a maelstrom because she's pulled into it, since this is (now) something that has been part of her life for her whole life.
Oops! Now she's dead! What the hell do we do now?! Uh.......she's back! How? Um........She's an.....angel? Yeah! She's an angel! There ya go!
There were some hints at religion and prophecy, but I never really saw some of the more heavy-handed religious elements coming into play. In fact, the show did take some pains to really call into question the truth of religion within the context of the show. Well, the Gods do XYZ. Except Six tells Baltar that there are no Gods, only one God. Except both seem to be coincidentally doing things to help the characters or fulfill prophecies. Except you have a lot of characters who also deny that they exist, right up until yet another prophecy is fulfilled and they start to question. Note that, however: QUESTION. I don't believe that, with the exception of Baltar, we ever saw anyone ACCEPT the Gods/God as having a DIRECT influence on the universe.
So then, at the end, when it's SO CLEARLY God/the Gods bumping the raptor nuke button, or resurrecting Starbuck or whatever...it just was too jarring. There hadn't been enough "No, seriously, the divine is happening NOW. Right HERE. All around you. It's not mere coincidence, it's not spooky supernatural stuff, it's not a simulation. It's really, seriously, a hands-on deity or pantheon or SOMETHING. But it ain't just a coinky-dink." I don't think the show did ENOUGH to lay that out. ESPECIALLY in the context of a science fiction show which, generally speaking, is not the realm of the supernatural or divine.
I guess this is my big gripe about Moore's style and how it influences both his work and his audience.
"There is a plan" is somethign that applies both to the Cylons and implicitly to the show as a whole. Now, "a plan" usually means something a little bit more elaborate than "Uh.....we'll nuke 'em. And god did it. Or something. I dunno, we'll figure it out later." Podcasts referred to a "series bible" which certainly would SUGGEST that the writers know where they're going in an overall sense. Apparently, however, "overall" is a very broad concept. "Overall", god did it. Blew up the colonies, influenced the cylons, killed off the bad cylons, brought back Starbuck, and pretty much acts as the answer to all the mysteries created in the series. Overall.
I suppose a more detailed overall plan is "The cylons will chase them, eventually they'll get to earth, and they'll find otu taht the cylons aren't that different and the war has to end peacefully or they'll all be destroyed. roll credits."
But I think that shows like this lead audiences to believe (A) that the writers have a WAY more detailed plan than THAT, and (B) that because they do, they are brilliant storytellers when, in fact, they're just kinda making it up as they go. Moore has specifically said in podcasts "I had no idea who'd end up beign the final five. I thought it'd be interesting if we made Tigh one, though, so we did it." That, my friends, is LOUSY plotting. That, my friends, is making **** up as you go.
I would have FAR less of a problem with this IF (A) the audience wasn't led to believe that there's a far more detailed plan going on behind the scenes, and (B) if the writers didn't ALLOW the audience to believe that sort of thing. Now, I didn't listen to every episode podcast, so maybe that WAS made clear. But to me, the podcasts should not be require reading to know that, wait, they're really just kinda making it up. The cylons have a plan, but...uh....we don't. And we don't know what THEIR plan is. Yet. We're getting to it.
So, again, I'll say Moore is brilliant at characterization and writing real believable people. He is, however, not so hot at planning his story out -- which is probably by design because that constrains him and makes his characters feel hemmed in by plot necessities. I admit that finding a good balance between plot and characters is HARD. But I think that is ultimately what separates the best writers from the merely pretty good ones. Moore's pretty good. No question. But he ain't the best.
