I just finished this highly-acclaimed science fiction soap opera. I entered it originally with the mindset of comparing it to Babylon 5, which definitely colored my perceptions of it at first, but in the end I stopped doing so, and let it stand on its own.

It didn’t stand for very long.

Funnily enough, I enjoyed the show most when I was comparing it to Babylon 5. The show started off very, very strong, especially with the opening miniseries, and then very quickly started to fall apart. It picked up again in the third season opening miniseries, and then just as quickly fell down again.

The main problem I had with the show was a lack of cohesiveness and direction. I think this show suffered from having too many writers. It was trying to have a four-season story arc, but after season 2, it kind of stopped being completely coherent, and every episode pulled me in a different direction, both plot and character-wise. This had the result of quite a few deus ex machinas in there; the existence of the “Colony” really irked me. Suddenly, amazing superpowerful Cylon base. And they never mentioned this before why, exactly? And then the whole religion and prophecy as a plot device  tendency got irritating very quickly.

It was an incredibly frustrating show to watch, as it had so much potential and wasted it every time. I never liked any of the characters except Dr. Cottle and Romo Lambkin. Whenever I did start to like a character, they would so something that made me hate them again. This made it very hard to keep coming back and watching.

Despite all of these drawbacks, though, it had some good parts. The acting was phenomenal. The characters were sometimes deep, and sometimes shallow; it really varied, and like I said before, each episode sometimes changed the character so much they were hardly recognizable. The special effects were also good, and some of the questions it brought up were also very good.

In the end, however, I did not enjoy it. The world and background appeared underdeveloped, the plot flew all over the place, and a lot of it seemed contrived. It had really good episodes, and a lot more really bad episodes. I just feel like the potential of the plot was squandered in its execution.

Onto my next project: Farscape!