All the joys of the solsticetide to you and yours.

—–

I loved the show for the first three seasons, and liked it for the last two. The balls required to kill off cast members after they’ve had depth granted to them over an arc (i.e. not red-shirts), debate torture and the execution of prisoners, and end up with your protagonists taking up suicide bombing against a technological superior invader who claims to be there to help you is simply unheard of in American television. The weakness on the Baldar/Jesus arc was ultimately what made the last two seasons a “like” instead of a love—I assume that they either ran out of things to say and threw that in there in desperation, or were simply cowed by the fact that it’s an American show.

Otherwise, the nods throughout the series to historical memories (mainly from the 60s) were pretty great too. Zarek as the ultimately amoral radical who published from prison, the camera work on the presidential swearing-in ceremony (Johnson’s swearing in after Kennedy was assassinated), the Terrel’s union meeting (Mario Savio’s Free Speech Movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmbcOKdSpEA).