What was on TV? Fri, March 18, 2005

20 years ago, Spain removed the country's last statue of Franco. Let's see what was on TV!

8:00 Avatar: The Last Airbender on Nickelodeon

1x05 "The King of Omashu"

I thought I'd have to wait a couple seasons to see the "my cabbages" meme, but no, here it is! It works out of context as a meme. But it also works in the episode, as one of many silly jokes. The cabbages are a running gag that repeats three times, including in the final moments of the episode. And we also get a crazy old guy, a comedic freeze frame, and lots of stuff falling down and breaking. It reminds you that as much as Avatar is remembered as a complex fantasy with deep themes, it aired on the same network as Spongebob Squarepants. Spongebob and Fairly Oddparents were huge in this era; reruns were frequently among the highest rated cable programs of the week. Lots of people who watched probably turned on Nickelodeon looking for Spongebob, and this show delivered the silly humor they were looking for.

8:30 The Lost Prince (recorded)

Episode 1

This thing has been sitting on my imaginary TiVo for six months. Maybe 2005 me should have deleted it! This miniseries tells the story of Prince John, who suffered from epilepsy and what was likely autism, and was eventually hidden away by the royal family. I was hoping that this miniseries would explore neurodivergence in an ignorant world, but I was disappointed. Prince John's neurodivergence mostly involves being quiet, not answering questions from annoying teachers, and speaking his mind around stuffy royals. He doesn't challenge the audience at all. This sort of portrayal is unfair to all children, neurodivergent and otherwise. Children act out, and not just by speaking truth to power in a charming way. They're growing up, doing the hardest thing most of us will ever do; of course they act out.

So this show steered right into one of my biggest pet peeves. It's also just incredibly boring. Miranda Richardson and Tom Hollander are good as the boys' parents, King George V and Queen Mary. That's about it though.

10:00 Battlestar Galactica on Sci-Fi

1x11 "Colonial Day"

Back in the fall, I watched a bunch of episodes written to coincide with the 2004 Presidential election and wrote a whole post about it. I found most of these episodes unsatisfying. They all felt miles away from our current political moment, and many of them just weren't very good.

But this? Now this is an election episode that resonates in 2025! It's almost too much! Everyone is trying to stop the felon from becoming president and everyone is afraid that this election will be the last one ever. It all takes place in a manufactured paradise and it's soundtracked by annoying cable news-style talking heads. And the supposed happy ending involves putting the venal genius who caused all this one heartbeat away from the presidency, which is especially worrying when the president has cancer. The pomp and circumstance continue, but it feels like one disaster could turn what remains of this democracy into dust.

But this episode is more than eerie parallels to our present. This episode would kick ass in any era. Showrunner Ron Moore conceived it as Battlestar Galactica's version of The West Wing, and he delivers. The Galactica's political system feels fully realized. The pomp and circumstance is both serious and silly, the behind-the-scenes maneuvering both nasty and delicious.

The whole episode is exciting, twisty. disturbing, sexy, hopeful, and more. It's the last two that I'll take with me. So much of this episode is so bleak, and so familiar. (What's more, this episode was almost entirely filmed at the University of British Columbia, where I studied for about three years. So it feels super familiar). But in the end, everyone dances, including all your favorite ships. Starbuck and Apollo flirt, and it turns out Roslin isn't as much of a sucker as you thought. In an episode full of great moments, her conversation with Adama might be my favorite. He trots out the old cliche that "war is politics by other means. And she replies that "in war, you can only get killed once. In politics, it can happen over and over." You don't have to be a politician to feel that way. But these people keep trying and fighting and dancing anyway, and that means a lot right now.

What Else Was On

• The Suite Life of Zach and Cody aired its first episode on The Disney Channel.
• Before they were famous: Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Ann Down were on Law and Order: Trial by Jury. The casting department for that spinoff really knew how to pick its character actors.

TiVo Status

A Frontline documentary and the TV movies Sucker Free City, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Ladies Night. 9 hours total.

Music, 20 years ago

I haven't celebrated the incredible Battlestar Galactica score enough. Here is "Battlestar Muzaktica," composer Bear McCreary's version of a "Cantina Band." Delightful!