That he doesn't point out that the Galactica is actually searching for you know... us, Earth, leaves a nice bit of irony out of it.

So is he a fan of it? Because it's an excellent show...

So if I recognize that BSG, even with its (horror!) sci-fi trappings, is one of the best dramas on TV, does that make me a "Mountain Dew swilling reject?"

Seriously, reading this, it's pretty obvious why Mr. Tolkien so vehemently rejected allegorical readings of his work. Seems to me that what Ron Moore has done is mine real human responses to desperate situations of war and survival in order to add dramatic interest to a FICTIONAL story.

So if I recognize that BSG, even with its (horror!) sci-fi trappings, is one of the best dramas on TV, does that make me a "Mountain Dew swilling reject?"

Seriously, reading this, it's pretty obvious why Mr. Tolkien so vehemently rejected allegorical readings of his work. Seems to me that what Ron Moore has done is mine real human responses to desperate situations of war and survival in order to add dramatic interest to a FICTIONAL story.

For that matter, in his audio commentaries, producer Ron Moore says that writer discussions have made more use of analogies like Vichy France and the Roman occupation of Gaul than Iraq. He has a powerful dislike of allegory, and is instead interested in recurring qualities of experience.

Neil, I'm sure you're right, and Bruce's evidence backs that up. If anything, that only bolsters the point made in Brad R.'s article, which is basically about how silly these loonies are getting their undies in a bunch over how much or how little a frickin' TV show matches their favorite little war.

Wow, way to insult both the neocons who misread the show as a simple black-and-white tale of heroic Murricans human survivors versus genocidal Muslims robots, and the folks who enjoy it because it's complex, messy, and forces us to contemplate uncomfortable truths about human behavior in wartime.

My apologies -- I didn't realize the /strike/ tag didn't work here.

My apologies -- I didn't realize the /strike/ tag didn't work here.

Glad I'm not the only one that felt that Reed was slamming ALL fans of the show for liking it.

Well, let's see. I'm a Trade Union Anarchist, and I love the show...So obviously neocon fascism is not a prerequisite.

I suspect what we have here is more of attempt by the right-wing to co-opt something cool, and make it their own. Remember all the furor about 'south park republicans'? Yeah, that was bullshit too.

Anyone who actually watches the show would realize that both of the main authority figures are pretty obvious liberals. The characters believe in personal freedom, rule of law, gender equality, reproductive rights (one of the most shocking episodes is when the president has to sign an executive order banning abortion, simply because the human race is actually DYING OUT...And it's actually explicitly stated that this is the ONLY thing that makes such a terrible change in the law justifiable)

For some reason, Sf has always been attractive to the rightwing, which is ironic, considering that so much of it embodies liberal ideals in utopian or near-utopian societies.

Finally, I would not be shocked of the producers and writers of the show are doing this quite deliberately...I know if assholes like those guys were stroking to my show, I'd do damned near anything to turn them off.

It's not just that they're basing policy on sci-fi. It's that they're basing policy on BAD sci-fi, and misreading it at that.

Frankly, most comic books written today have more moral nuance than these idiots.

As a fan of the show and a great deal less than a neocon, or Galacticon, or whatever superfunnyclever label Reed prefers, I find myself in agreement with the bulk of the comments so far. Reed's contention that the show "morphed" in its current season is chowderheaded: all along, it's been complex, challenging, humanistic (and sometimes, um, Cylonistic), and staunchly resistant to stroking the conventional wisdom of either side of the political spectrum. It's still not, if closely watched. More in line with Miklós Jancsó's "The Red and the White," a war drama in which the shifting of demands on audience sympathies is dizzying, Moore's show is admirable in its contentiousness. If wankers like Goldberg and JPod get pissy when it doesn't tow their fantasy line (Reed's sole salient point), well, frak 'em.

It's a great show. Its fun (yes I'm a dork) to mentally footnote where the political ideas or phrases come from in the political history of the 13th colo-- err, Earth.

For example the president's speech at the end of tonight's episode, within two sentences, I realized she was going all Nelson Mandela on us-- and 10 seconds later she announces the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Can't wait to see how they tackle the great ethanol/butanol controversy. :o)

I have to agree with the bulk of what's been said. What makes this show remarkable -- and in this way it is very similar to what was very good oftentimes about The West Wing -- is its somewhat Brechtian strategy, by which I mean that it absolutely refuses to allow the audience to clearly and unproblematically sympathize with *any* of the characters, and presents the situations in which they find themselves less as problems to be solved than as contradictions that seem fundamentally intractable. In fact, the show fits in with another theme in modern western political life, which is that a fictional Robinsonade (of which the show really is, if one thinks about it, a sort of variant) turns out to be the most readily available mechanism by which we can think through some of the very basic foundational questions of social life. The fact that the show manages to connect these questions in recognizable, but at the same time distinct, relation to current events does not make it an allegory. Rather, it is precisely the productive variation, the multiple and often assymetrical inversions of contemporary reality that it engages in, which give it is conceptual power, and its power as a tool for inducing reflection. This is not the classic Brechtian theme of distancing the audicence from the action of a drama, but it is close since the show consistenly frustrates our attempts to identify with what goes on there while at the same time offering us just enough of a relationship between ourselves and these characters to make such an identification tempting.

The fact that much of what is going on at the moment does raise or force us to consider the same kinds of foundational questions of polis and civil society that the show is built on means, in many ways, that we ourselves are involved in a truly major crisis. However, acknowledging that is understandably difficult in reality, which is part of the reason why dramas such as this, which offer us a fictional means of parsing some of these questions and seeing thier nuances, are both valuable and deeply compelling in ways that go far beyond the sort of 'geek' culture to which the author of your article seems to want to reduce BG. Frankly, while he may be right that the current story arc does cause right wingers who thought a simple identification between us and the humans on the show offered some kind of ideological allegory justifying thier positions to appear basically idiotic, his own enunciative position in making this argument is hardly less stupid and shows him to be about as sophisticated a critic of literature, film, and culture as the morons he's criticizing.

So yeah, this is a wildly dissapoinging article and not up to the prospects usual standards at all.

It's pretty clear that Bruce is at Mister Groovy on Friday nights, and he hasn't figured out the Tivo yet. His description is based on what he can get from the neos' disappointed whines, and a hazy memory of the last Star Trek ep he saw.
Other than the most esoteric works, sci-fi is usually a disguised genre work. BSG started out as a war movie--an early war movie: clear-cut choices, us vs. them. Then it turned into a late war movie, with less clarity and more ambiguity. Now it's a political thriller with even more ambiguity. The cons are pissed because Admiral Papa no longer knows everything. They're probably going to desert enmasse to Jericho, where Father Still Knows Best, even after the electromagnetic pulse.

It would take an extremely willful and stubborn reading to interpret the first two seasons as anything pro-neo-con.

The main(est) character takes his moral compass from his father, a "civil liberties attounrey" for god's sake.

However, no one can deny that the corner is willful and stupid.

And it's funny how modern Republicans can look at the cylon's clearly christian-like mythology, and only find a way to mock Islam. One would think maybe they don't take priesthood of all believers monotheism that seriously.

Yet another who agrees with MOST of the above posts -- remarkable how many (a couple above, and a slew elsewhere)manage to read so badly -- I thought I wasn't a very subtle reader of literature/drama, but compared to some of these characters, I'm a wonder of subtle perception. (Another BG fan [and earlier Buffy fan].)

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