Do you prefer your BSG sweet and dumb, or dark and complex?

Dirk Benedict, who played Starbuck in the original "Battlestar Galactica," recently wrote an article that was highly critical of the new "Battlestar Galactica" series and Hollywood today.  The title itself should give a sense of where he's coming from: "Starbuck: Lost in Castration."

To put that in context, one of the things that Benedict is complaining about is that in the new series, the Starbuck character is a woman played by Katee Sackhoff:

Starbuck would become "Stardoe". What the Suits of yesteryear had been incapable of doing to Starbuck 25 years ago was accomplished quicker than you can say orchiectomy. Much quicker. As in, "Frak! Gonads Gone!" And the word went out to all the Suits in all the smoke-free offices throughout the land of Un-imagination, "Starbuck is dead. Long live Stardoe!"

Benedict also doesn't have very good things to say about the new series:

Witness the "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica. It's bleak, miserable, despairing, angry and confused. Which is to say, it reflects, in microcosm, the complete change in the politics and mores of today's world as opposed to the world of yesterday. The world of Lorne Greene (Adama) and Fred Astaire (Starbuck's Poppa), and Dirk Benedict (Starbuck). I would guess Lorne is glad he's in that Big Bonanza in the sky and well out of it. Starbuck, alas, has not been so lucky. He's not been left to pass quietly into that trivial world of cancelled TV characters.

Well, Benedict's other major role was as Faceman in "The A-Team."  Coincidentally, with the summer upon us, I've been slumming a bit in my TV watching by catching up on reruns of "The A-Team" on TV Land.  As a nerdy teenager during the early 1980s, I was an obvious target of "The A-Team," a cheesy show about a bunch of Vietnam vets falsely accused of a military crime who escape to L.A. and make a living as mercenaries for hire.  But then I went off to college and never saw the last season, where apparently they were captured by Robert Vaughn and forced to work on government missions.

The thing about "The A-Team" is that it exists in the world that could only make sense to teenaged boys, where you can fire several hundred rounds of an automatic rifle at point blank range and never hit, much less, kill anyone.  (In fact, during the first four seasons, the only person I can remember getting killed was in the pilot episode.)  The world of "The A-Team" was one where small town sheriffs were corrupt, local farmers were always victims, and if you locked the A-Team in a shed, they would build a tank out of the available materials.

I guess if that's the kind of show that Benedict thinks is what Hollywood should aspire too, then it's not a surprise that he would find the new BSG series bleak, etc.  But I have the sense that TV audiences have evolved in their TV intelligence, which is why complex shows like "24" and "Lost" are doing so well in the ratings, and ones like "Veronica Mars" do well with the critics.

It's too bad.  I liked the charm that Benedict brought to the original BSG.  But his attitude toward the new show and the new Starbuck are really disappointing.

Comments

[Lugosi]

Not to mention that the new Starbuck could kick Dirk Benedict's butt.

[tom]

And does the new BSG have anybody as hot as Athena? She was reason enough alone to watch the original show, at least for a socially inept 13 year old boy. Same thing as Jane Badler on V. Sigh.

[Tung Yin]

The new BSG is full of attractive female characters, all of whom are much better written than the cardboard stereotypes of the original; and pretty much all of whom are played by much better actresses.

[Kathryn]

Watch out! Don't criticize Dirk Benedict to much or the Dirkette Mafia will come after you. I'm not kidding. They've been after me for three years now and it's been hell.
Dirk, help!

[Carol]

This is with respect to the comment Kathryn posted. What you have said is untrue and very disrespectful and not topic with BSG or what needs to be said here.

[Carol]

I really enjoy the BSG series from 1978.
I don't think of it as dumb. To me that is the only true BSG series. I will always think of Dirk Benedict as Starbuck. I occasionally watch the show on television and have the DVD boxed set of the series.

[Barb]

Thanks Carol! Just ignore that Kathryn. She's been going around the net for years (more than three and counting) and harassing people and Dirk and has the nerve to ask him for help and for him to unblock her. She's been blocked for reasons I won't go into here. She's nothing more than a loud, disgruntled fan who didn't get her way on a cruise. I'm sorry that she found your site......

[Verity]

The character of Starbuck was especially written for Dirk Benedict and with a purpose. It's clear there is much of Starbuck in him. He brought great charm, fun and charisma to the original series, carried the entire show and, indeed, was its saving grace. I adored him! He was utterly gorgeous, (still is, truth to tell), and is far removed from being "dumb"!

I have to say that I dislike what little I have seen of the new show. It is "bleak and despairing" and the world it portrays holds no interest for me. I couldn't care less what happens to any of them. The special effects are superb, of course, and constitute ITS saving grace. Certainly not the new Starbuck. Charmless and graceless, there is nothing of the original intent in her.

For all its faults and ineptitudes, its poor storylines and dismal special effects, the power of the original series was sufficient to rebirth this latest incarnation. In 30 years' time, this child of Galactica and its special effects will also be woefully outdated and its storylines may well be viewed as decidedly questionable. Will any of its characters be remembered with affection - or worth remembering at all?

Enjoy it whilst ye may. It, too, will pass and yield to a greater, (or lesser), moneyspinner of like pedigree. For those who love the series I sincerely wish them great joy of it and hope they will be granted peace and freedom to cherish it for as long as they wish - which is more than has been allowed to those who remember with great fondness the original - and its golden boy - the real Starbuck. :)