DPP: Pilot Season

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

  

So, although it's ALWAYS pilot season around here... it's currently pilot season for Hollywood! New shows are getting ordered to series (Hurrah for Dr. Bamber in Monday Mornings come Summer 2013!) and I thought it might be fun today to talk about what your ideal TV show featuring Kara and Lee might have been? Is BSG exactly the show you wanted for them? Do you have a secret love for musicals and you would've liked to see them hoofing and singing? What parts of pilots backstory would you keep and which would you revise if you gave them a different TV show to star in? Who else from the BSG universe would you include, or who would you draft from other TV shows for the cast?

Comments

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I am so contradictory on this, because I love closed-environment shows like BSG, I just love the forced dynamic of it and the camraderie and tension that springs up because "we're the only ones here/left" so like if pilots had been Jack and Kate in Lost (far more awesome versions of both), that could have totally worked for me because we would get so many of the same elements of depending on each other and working together to save the people and missing home and all those good things.

Like you, I did not care about the cylons on BSG one iota. I enjoyed the mystery of "There are five more among us" but that never really went anywhere, did it? (Hell, Sam wasn't even among them at the time, neither was Ellen!) So if I could have early seasons BSG without that --- ok if they had won and wiped out the cylons but still had no home to go to and had to go in search of earth? THAT WOULD BE GREAT. (Boomer could be the token cylon among the humans and her assimiliation would have to be a bigger storyline than it was actually--and a different actress would have to play Boomer too.) I would've liked more stories about the military believe it or not. Give me a whole episode about the frat regs, give me more like Hand of God and Captain's Hand. (Apparently there should be hands in everything! Especially Lee's in Kara's pants!!)

I agree too that I'm not so into procedurals, so cops and docs nah. I could maybe be down with Kara/Lee as spies...but...not married spies. I want to see them get together. I want close calls on missions. I want the angst and the UST and the almosts. That's my favorite part of relationships.

Mostly though, I want Kara and Lee to be the leads of whatever it is. No sidelining. Front and center in every episode. And...I want a guaranteed happy/together/nobody dying ending for them.

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

Even if personally I really like procedurals and I didn't understood 100% percent the and a different actress would have to play Boomer too but that might be becuase I'm really tired or because Grace rocked this week's episode of H50) I do agree with most of what you said. especially this part

Give me a whole episode about the frat regs, give me more like Hand of God and Captain's Hand. (Apparently there should be hands in everything! Especially Lee's in Kara's pants!!)

This really made me laugh and all that I can say is SSWA.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Grace Park is not a good actress, IMO, and if she was to have that much screen time and story--I'd want it to be played by someone far more skilled.

(Oddly, she never bothered me much on BSG, but when I started watching Hawaii 5-0, she HORRIFIED me by how terrible she was in those early episodes.)

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

if she was to have that much screen time and story

ok, now I totally get it. told you I was tired... and apparently a little slow today.

and yes, she was terrible in season 1.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I find her very charming and funny in interviews however (much like Trucco), makes me think they should both be on sitcoms.

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

(Oddly, she never bothered me much on BSG, but when I started watching Hawaii 5-0, she HORRIFIED me by how terrible she was in those early episodes.)

This is because in my experience good writing covers a lot of not great acting (particularly in cases where the not great actor is being written for specifically). While I have issues with the big picture plannig of BSG, it was well written on an episode by episode basis in most cases.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. Plus, the people on BSG didn't ever really have to say very much (not like they would delivering terrible expositional dialogue in a procedural like H50 anyway) and Boomer was kind of numb/shellshocked in most of her early scenes anyhow.

[koolaidmom11.livejournal.com]

I totally agreed...I was shocked how bad she was on five o

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

As I watch Game of Thrones, I am kind of vaguely imagining it as a very, very AU BSG :p . So Arya/Gendry = Kara/Lee in mah head.

Also--YES! ME TOO IN A WEIRD WAY! YOU SHOULD WRITE SOME KIND OF ARYA/GENDRY = KARA/LEE STORY.

[n-e-star.livejournal.com]

Lee as a hot, sweat covered blacksmith?

Kara as a lord's daughter who runs around with a sword and is a BAMF?


Yes, please!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Ooh indeed! <3

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

The cracktastic side of me would love to see them in something far far less doomy-gloomy. FUNNIES. SMILES. DIMPLES. AND OMG YES GIVE ME THAT MUSICAL SERIES. We already know Katee can sing. Jamie can...uh... I DON'T KNOW. LOOK PRETTY AND WEAR HIS TOWEL A LOT. :) He can be the stage director! Lee would so be a stage director. And he'd be annoyed by Kara, the hot leading lady who is always late to rehearsals and a bit of a diva, but he can't take his eyes off her when she performs and everyone loves her because she's a STAH, baby.

[n-e-star.livejournal.com]

Oh dear lord, I'm now recasting "Slings & Arrows" with the cast of BSG.

Baltar is the crazy director who talks to a ghost.

Ellen is the chain smoking leading lady who's so afraid of getting old she sleeps with younger and younger men.

Kara is the actress trying to break into the biz and is pissed that all the speaking roles go to the producer's niece.

Lee is the action movie star looking for a way to stretch out of his box.

Laura is the manager who is running around trying to find a way to keep the whole thing going (which I guess would make Bill the ruthless corporate sponsor?).

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Ooh! I've never seen Slings and Arrows but it sounds like my kind of show. (Although it does have CKR in it, doesn't it? Maybe not then...)

[n-e-star.livejournal.com]

Surprisingly, this is one Paul Gross post-"Due South" production without CKR in it.

I think the first two seasons are on YouTube if you want to check it out.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Ah! Maybe...someday...when I have time to kill. (Which never seems to happen! LOL)

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

In a BSG world, I would have made their relationship about rebuilding and reconsiliation. Kara would have been a cylon, revealed just after she and Lee had reconsiled thier 'human' relationship, yah know to capitalize on the angst of Lee's hatred of cylons and to keep things off kilter just enough between them until towards the end.

In a non-BSG world, well in TV in general, my favorite shows are the ones that balance freak of the week with over arching storylines (think Buffy or Veronica Mars) so I'd put Lee and Kara in something like that probably as spies cuz I love spies. :D

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I like that idea a lot. Kara should have totally been the final cylon. I didn't like that idea at first, but more and more lately I've come to believe it was the only way to resolve things and I'm not sure why they balked at it.

I would love to see a dueling PI show in the vein of an older V. Mars. That'd be fun. Or maybe one's a reporter and the other's a PI. that works well as a combo.

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why they balked at it.

Because they didn't seem to know what 'big' story they were telling. BSG starts out about the battle between good and evil and then it's sort about reconciliation between warring parties and then it's about gods and angels and I don't actually know because I'm not entirely sure they did either by that point. ;)

And I think they first two, good and evil and reconciliation could have been a great story, but it's like they didn't trust it or something because it's so obvious and yet so muddled, IDEK. (I have a whole lotta rant about this in my head but it's nearly as unclear and randomly directed as BSGs mythology. *shakes head*)


Dueling PIs or a PI/reporter combo would be great. :D

[n-e-star.livejournal.com]

Totally cracktastic, but could you see a learning show set in the BSG verse?

Lee is the geeky guy who talks you through the science of why a Viper flies while Kara is the kick ass hot shot who shows off the moves.

"And watch as the pull of gravity from the small asteroid is used to gain a slingshot effect which... what the frak? Kara! You were just suppose to do a simple turn, not a triple barrel roll into a flip!!!"

[onlyariana.livejournal.com]

A little like the dynamic between Adam and Jamie on Mythbusters. That'd be high-larious!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

ha! That's a great example. Heee!

[howlinchickhowl.livejournal.com]

Academy Pilots! You know how I feel about coming-of-age dramas and all that jazz, I would have loved to have seen them young and free and running round pulling pranks.

But then I am also with you on the idea that, I really like the closed-in nature of the show, the oppressiveness of being stuck on a Battlestar, in deep space, with nowhere to go and no allies, it makes for really great drama and situations that can't happen anywhere else and that's a lot of what i loved about BSG. Everyone HAD to live together and work together and trust each other and that makes for a very high-pressure environment, which makes for great drama. So if I could have had more of that, I would stick with the original show.

But since I can't, Academy Pilots.

[indigo419.livejournal.com]

I haven't figured out a whole show (yet... give me a few days ;P) but I think I told you that if I won the lottery, I'd buy back the BSG sets and film an alternate series ending, culminating in a Bollywood dance number. Because that would fix everything! :D

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I am ok with the show we got - or I would be, if it didn't try to pull stupid shit like pretending that pilots' secondary love interests were IT for them. Though here's what I would change:

1. LESS CYLONS. Especially from S3 onwards, idgaf about what life on a base star looks like or endless ramblings about God.

2. Cut out Caprica Six's Pregnancy of Pointlessness(why was it even there, anyway) and, as Bee calls it, the Miscarriage of Not Enough Love.

3. Leave Kara alive/don't make her poof at the end. **RAGE**

In many, many ways I love, as you put it, the enforced close quarters of a Battlestar, it shaped their relationship in such interesting ways and them both working together made for an amazing, many-layered dynamic. But what I WOULD add is a little more of their time together before Zak's death/funeral, you KNOW they were hot and we needed to see more of that!

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Oh, and you know what I could get behind? Pilots as Avengers-style superheroes, with Bill as Nick Fury, Helo as Captain America (they're both equally straight good-guys, lol), Six as someone, Boomer as someone else (they're the only Cylons I care about, really), and Kara and Lee as Black Widow and Hawkeye respectively - their dynamic has slight hints of pilots anyway, and just think what a tv series could do to explore them.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Oh, and sorry for bombarding the comments, but - pilots as detectives! Or some form of crimesolvers anyway. I could go for any alterna-story where they are a team, especially when they're partners and have to have each other's backs. So much potential there.