April 8

[Zeke]

Okay, folks, you can resume breathing. Welcome back to FiveMinute.net -- no suffix.


For those who are new here, it's a tradition at this site to do April Fool's stunts that go longer than just one day. This was probably our strangest since the original in 2002, and it got a lot of different reactions. Far more people took it seriously than I expected. Some people may even be disappointed that it was a joke.


To explain a bit, I don't hate BSG. I don't worship it, but I think it's a good show. What I do hate is its fandom -- which I exaggerated for this event, but only slightly. This is a very old story with me; I've been crusading against the B5-worshippers, the Buffy-worshippers, and so on for as long as I've been running this site. Every time a new sf show comes along, it develops a cult based on how infinitely better that show is than Star Trek. We fans are like teenagers in a way -- it's all about rebelling against the establishment. (I guess that makes me like the teenager who thinks the establishment is fine and doesn't get invited to parties.)


But BSG gets under my skin more than any of those shows, because it has somehow managed to spread that line of thinking far beyond sf fandom. It's getting hard to find a blog, a webcomic, anything that's not into BSG. Trek site after Trek site is taking up Adama's aegis to replace Enterprise. And seemingly every one of these new fans thinks BSG is revolutionary and unique. There's a word for that: surrounded.


Now, I've made no secret over the years what I think of Ron Moore. His smugness and condescension toward the franchise that gave him his success began long before BSG. But I didn't let that decide my opinion of the show. I've watched every episode. And I'm here to say that it is not unique, it is not revolutionary, it is nothing we haven't seen before. It's great TV, but it doesn't deserve the pedestal it's on.


So will we be doing fivers? Heck yeah. But I had some steam to let off first.


Anyway, we're now back to normal (I'll repost the BSG stuff in Features), and I hope some of the new readers we've attracted this week will stick around. Our hitcounts were well above average. What annoys me, though, is that rather than coming here for this event, most of them came because Kira's comic fiver is suddenly getting posted about again. It's been there for a year, people! The April Fool's event was the new stuff! Yeesh...


Zeke's Baltar Judgment: That's show biz.


I thought I told you to get lost.