"Battlestar Galactica," A Frakking Good TV Show

In three weeks, fans of good TV science fiction are going to be in mourning.  That's when "Battlestar Galactica" will conclude its five year run on the SciFi Channel.

If you've never seen BSG you've been missing some very entertaining television because the show is frakking great.  Er, excuse my French.

BSG does everything great science fiction should do, make us think about our current circumstances, our impact as humans on the universe and each other, and also gives us a mirror of our own time reflected in a fictional world.  BSG does all that with depth and intelligence...and some really good space battles.

To my eternal shame, as I told you before, I only started watching BSG during a TV dead zone late last summer.  After hearing such great things about the show from people I trust, I thought it was time to check it out.  Man, am I glad I did!

I got one DVD set after another and watched them voraciously.  I'm actually glad I watched the episodes that way, because no way could I have waited from season to season for all those nail biting cliffhangers to be resolved.

If I'd had to wait months instead of days for all twelve human/Cylons to be revealed one by one, I would have been ripping my hair out.

A little history about the show:  BSG is a retelling of the old BSG TV show from 1978 starring Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, and Lorne Greene.  It was a television offshoot of the "Star Wars" craze and like most TV sci-fi of the time, had cheesy effects, clearly drawn good and evil characters and a hotshot pilot who liked women and big cigars.  The problem was, the best thing about the show was the opening theme music and consequently the show lasted only one season.

Enter executive producer Ronald D. Moore 25 years later.  He re-worked the original Glen A. Larson idea, used first class special effects, hired fantastic actors led by Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos and put together a knock out 3 hour miniseries that led to the current series run on SciFi.

Why I Don't Like Memes, and Why I'm About To Write One: 25 Writers Who've Influenced Me

I've been resisting meme mania.  What is a meme, you ask?  Well that's the same thing I asked when I first saw the word a couple of years ago. 

Basically it's a list of questions on a topic that someone decides to answer.  Often someone else then sees the list and they too decide to answer them.   A meme variation is a list of answers to one question.

In my head I usually pronouce the word "meme" with two syllables, "meh-meh."  But I've discovered it's either pronounced with one syllable and rhyming with dream, "meam," or one syllable and rhyiming with "mem" as in "memory."

Either way, I've successfully avoided them. 

For example, recently there was a huge meme outbreak on Facebook where if you were tagged, you were supposed to write 25 random things about yourself and then send it to 25 people, tagging them, and asking them to do the same and so on. 

Of course I was tagged but I conveniently slipped out the meme net by simply ignoring everyone who tagged me.  I did that for two reasons: 

First, if you read my blog, you'll discover 25 random things about me.  Why should I have to write them out for you in a convenient list?

Joel Stein of the LA Times said it exactly right in his opinion piece, "25 Things Too Many:"

The idea of sending me information about yourself on a social networking site -- where your entire page is full of information about yourself -- makes no sense. It's like having a porn website with extra porn on it.

Second, it felt too much like a chain letter.  One very important random thing about me?   I always break chain letters.

Always. 

So I saw no reason to continue what for me was a glorified chain letter.

Now, having just ranted about not doing the 25 Random Things meme, what am I about to do?  Give you my list of 25 Writers Who've Influenced Me.

Why?  Two reasons:

First, I was tagged by Verite Parlant of Whose Shoes Are These Anyway and though I've never met her, I like Verite quite a lot.  She's smart, insightful and comments on my posts.  Also, considering hers was one of the tags I ignored for the 25 Random Things, I owe her one.

Second, I like the idea of writing about writers who've influenced me.  Also, I have no intention whatsoever of tagging 25 more people to do the same.  If you read this and you love the idea, go at it, but that's the most I will do to guilt you into it.

So here in no particular order, high brow and low brow, from all kinds of media, are writers who've influenced me in large ways and small:

1. William Shakespeare
2. Dick Francis
3. Elizabeth George (The Mystery Writer)
4. Gillian Roberts
5. Maya Angelou
6. Jon Krakauer
7. Tami Hoag
8. Thomas Hardy
9. William L. Shirer
10. Bob Herbert
11. Daphne Du Maurier
12. Charlotte Bronte
13. Jane Austin
14. Zora Neale Huston
15. Dorothy West
16. Edith Wharton
17. Selena Roberts
18. John Steinbeck
19. Joss Whedon
20. Jane Espenson
21. Alex Haley
22. Lynda La Plante
23. Amy Sherman-Palladino
24. Stanley Crouch
25. Grace F. Edwards

You can check out Verite's list here.

If you happen to write your own, send me a link and if I like it, I'll link to it.