Peeved

Man, I blame so many people for all the bad shit that’s happened to me. The evil of my parents, the ingratitude and downright vicious usury of my idiot friends in high school, ex-lovers who are fucking retards for leaving me, and whoever was responsible for Galactica: 1980.

Seriously, though. Sure, family, friends, and lovers all betrayed me and left me alone in the horrific wilderness of my life…but what the fuck was going on with Galactica: 1980? That’s my only real question after 39 years on this planet full of horror and suffering. And no one can answer it. There is no answer. I don’t think there ever will be.

But, anyway. I was at dinner tonight with a friend — not one of those horrible fuckhead friends from high school who should die alone and afraid, a real friend — and she said, hey, if I was so full of angst and hatred for humanity, how’d I make it to this point? I told her it was blind stupidity and cowardice. Any rational person in my shoes would have long ago killed themselves. I’m not kidding. I have no idea why I’m still alive because, Jesus Mothercunting Christ, everything really is awful. I know it’s like, ha-ha, Nacho. But, seriously — what the fuck? And I’m not just talking about Galactica: 1980 now. I’m talking about life in general. I’m really quite…I don’t know…peeved.

My friend asked me what I was like in college, and I confessed my master plan. Every semester, I would take on a roommate (or close friend or lover) and attempt to convince them to kill themselves. Allegedly, if this happened, I would get all A’s for the semester. Therefore — and I think you’ll all agree that this is reasonable — if I killed a roommate every semester, I’d be sitting pretty with a perfect 4.0. Why should I study or apply myself when there’s a plethora of depressed teenagers to prey upon? And they are easy pickings because I’m not a lone voice in the wilderness when I challenge the rationality of Galactica: 1980.

I’ve recently applied this strategy to my hideous day job, especially in light of the fact that my day job has now achieved an attrition rate of one suicide and one stroke-related death every three months. I’ve started to think that, maybe, I should start working on the emotional distress angle. I’m so, so, so shaken up about the death of…whoever-the-fuck…that I just can’t function at work. I need mental health disability to cope with the loss of…uh…whoever-the-fuck. That chick whose brain blew up in the stairwell. So sad. Hits me…uh…you know, right here. And shit. or whatever. I don’t know. Think if she was still alive she’d put out? No, no! Nevermind! That’s another topic!

The “dead roommate” plan hit me with such force today that I started to plant the seeds of suicide with several co-workers. I doubt HR has the same rule as my podunk WVA college, but it can’t hurt to try. I’d verify this if it wasn’t so much fun trying to kill my co-workers. So even if I don’t get time off for mental distress, I’m pretty confident that it’ll still be very amusing to come into work on Monday and find that one of my co-workers has been hanging from the rafters all weekend, being gnawed on by rats. I’ve started coming to work an hour early on Mondays just in this case this has happened. It’s like sweeps week on TV. I can’t bare to be away from the action. If there’s a rumor of someone stroking out, I hover at the door of their office. Yo, what’s up? Stressed? Oh, man, if only you knew what I knew. Big darkness, man, screaming down the pipe. I didn’t say anything! But you have kids, so just between you and me, you’d better be prepared. Shit is hitting the fan. Wink, wink. Stay strong. Watch your back. The chair is against the wall… You didn’t hear shit from me. Did you know that Ed is dead? No choice. Look at the world of hurt that happened to him. We’re at the bottom of the hill, man. Bottom of the hill! Gotta go. Vigilance!

So, anyway, the problem with Galactica: 1980 is mystifying. Battlestar Galactica was a cult hit, but very expensive to film. So, for the third season, they decided to be Earthbound. The fleet finds Earth — in 1980 — and hides themselves in orbit (yes, 220 civilian ships with 40,000+ civilians on board hid themselves in very close Earth orbit). Now, when last we left our intrepid heroes, they were far away from Earth. So, for 1980, they decide to make it BSG: The Next Generation. They fire the whole cast except for Lorne Greene — and they do this in an underhanded way so that the stars of the show don’t know that they’ve been fired till the third season starts airing — and they pick up with the 30-something children of the former cast who must now lead covert missions to Earth to defend us against human-form Cylons. Because, like with the reboot, it’s expensive to have Cylon suits. So the Cylons in 1980 are “androids.” Great! We have actors to play the bad guys! No SFX! But…they’re robots. So, where a blaster was the weapon of choice in the original BSG, turning on a microwave does the trick in 1980. Also…product placement galore. It’s like Alec Baldwin working for GM in 30 Rock.

Of course this fails horribly, so they bring back Starbuck towards the end. They tell this weird story where Starbuck — circa sometime between the original BSG and 1980 — gets shot down by a Cylon raider and they both crashland on a barren world. (Yes, you saw this episode in the reboot — and several other unused scripts from 1980). One of the pilots of the raider survives. So we finally get a chrome-plated Cylon, and they do the whole Robinson Crusoe/Enemy Mine thing where Starbuck, bored to tears, rebuilds the Cylon and reprograms him. Actually, a nice nod to the Old West episode where Apollo has to have a showdown with Red Eye.

Starbuck eventually finds a crashed ship with a beautiful cokehead Stevie Nicks kind of girl, they get it on, they have a baby. Turns out she’s one of the Beings of Light — from the original BSG and, in my opinion, the creatures controlling Head Baltar and Head Six in the reboot — and the starchild is rocketed back to Galactica.

We flash back to the present to discover that Adama is telling this story about Starbuck to Doctor Zee — the 8 year old genius who now controls the fleet and offers sage advice — KILL. ME. — at Doctor Zee’s request for Adama to tell Doctor Zee about his true father. (Yes, this really happened.) Even though it’s clearly been 30 years since Starbuck was last seen.

No matter! The series is rapidly cancelled, by the grace of God, and we’re done.

The plan, however, was to bring back Dirk Benedict’s Starbuck, using the Beings of Light to explain the immortality, and repopulate the failing franchise with all the actors they fired a year ago.

Good job, idiots.

(And I bet you thought the reboot’s finale was bad…)