What is it with sci-fi shows?

You'd think that lessons would be learned from the likes of seminal works such as Farscape and Babylon 5... Farscape with aliens - in the main cast - who weren't actually humanoid with maybe a funny earring or a stripy face and Babylon 5 with it's masterfully constructed plot and continuity.

It seems that even the refreshing Battlestar Galactica is starting to wilt under the continued expectation of excellence. There can be no doubt that BSG understood that sci-fi is not a genre in the true sense of the word... it's merely a backdrop for stories to play out in.

Indeed, many whinging fanboys frequently bemoaned the fact that too often it was about talking and drama and feelings... things your average whinging fanboy would trade in an instant for hours of mindless Matrix Revolution style action. However, I fear that BSG has lost the plot... very literally. It seems as if Ronald D. Moore hasn't taken it upon himself to co-ordinate these episodes...

Oh, naturally, there are some elements of continuity here and more than you'd get in time fillers like Star Trek's Voyager or Stargate and so on... but it feels very much as if a few writers went off and thought "OK, we're off New Caprica - you take episode four, I'll take five, you take six... we'll meet up later and get some kind of continuity."

In a sense, that's how early Farscape felt... but it was far more natural there. With BSG it feels somewhat forced and of course... we have the perpetual Starbuck/Apollo element... LORDS OF KOBOL please, hear this prayer. STOP THAT LOVE QUADRANGLE. It's rubbish, boring and tedious... As if Lee having some forgotten love that he remembered in one episode wasn't enough - given the fact he never seemed to have a problem shagging Starbuck - this is just irritating. The best way to solve this dilemma is just murdering one or more of the participants... and we all know it's minor characters, women and ethnic minorities first... bye bye Dee!