Actually…you can keep your churchy BS off my TV.

What is up with the churchy turn that so many television shows take as they draw to a close? 

Specifically, I’m talking about BSG (Remember what happened to Starbuck?) and Lost.  

Is is laziness? A lack of creativity? A pervasive conservatism? All of the above? Any way you slice it, I’m sick of this shit. 

It’s not that I’m against  biblical references or innovative takes on Paradise Lost or Dante’s Inferno.  Rather, I’m against bullshit. Or, more specifically, I’m against bullshitting a bullshitter.

It’s fine to make shit up as go along. It’s fine to pretend like you know what you’re doing, even when you have no fucking clue. It’s especially great if you can pull it off. But when your bullshit leads you to some played-out, ham-fisted, biblical shit, I’m gonna have to get Old Testament on your asses. 

First of all, Lost. What the fuck are they doing? Every episode seems like a convoluted attempt to avoid hiring a swarthy actor. Richard Alpert and his guyliner are the darkest thing on a slave ship? WTF! Why are we forced to watch a bunch of white folks speaking Latin all while there’s a ton of mysterious Egyptian shit on this motherfucking island? WTF! Why do we have to have an Oedipal-mommy-daddy-me/Gabriel-Lucifer origin story all while we’ve got polar bears, giant lizards and other fucked up shit going on? Why the turn to facile biblical origins? This does not an epic story make. No. What this does make for is a bunch of (say it with me now!) BULLSHIT!

Now BSG. What the fuck. I know writing about this now makes me a little bit late for the party, but I did make my feelings on the subject known much earlier on. I’m still mystified as to why the BSG writers went through the trouble of creating world where human life and  technology were held in such productive tension with one another, where Nietzsche’s theory of eternal recurrence is seriously explored, where robot fucking became the reasonable, tolerant position, and where a North American audience was compelled into cheering for an insurgency against an occupying force. What’s the point, when you’re going to undo it all with some churchy BS, and an unnecessary love for Bob Dylan. Why do all of that interesting writing when you’re just going to end it all by pretending that that the Galactica folks are our all-white ancient ancestors. 

Oh, no! Wait!! Not only are they our pasty patrimony, they’re also angels with the powers of evaporation. WTF. Say it with me now: BULLSHIT!

(Also, what was with the awkwardly inserted Japanophobia, at the end there. A Japanophobic montage really seals the deal, doesn’t it? Say it with me, one more time, BULLSHIT!!!!)

Now, I’m all for shows and movies getting all stoner-mystical. I like seeing non-sensical stuff, things that barely make sense, things that make you go hmmmmm, etc. I just don’t want to see a carefully erected and awesomely esoteric narrative that promises so much, torn down, in one fell swoop, in favour of some easy-peasy churchy story.

This is because, believe it or not TV writers, the turn towards bible stories does not automatically connect you with a rich story telling tradition, it does not instantaneously make your show a modern-day fable or a “story for the ages”, all it does is reveal a dearth of creativity and an inability to stick with it. Losers!

In the future, please remember that what we- or at least I - want out of my audio-visual entertainment is Hawkwind, not Sunday School.

And a little bit of effort.