Recalling my in-class excoriation of the practice of radio edits, I may as well address a personal bugaboo regarding Battlestar Galactica: The use of "frak" to replace outright swearing despite all other dialogue being 'translated' from Colonial. This practice, using various other words and placeholders, is by no means limited to BSG, and its use in that show is a particularly good example of type (doubtless helped by "frak"'s homonymity with its Earthly equivalent, and by the actors' ability to (generally) use it without breaking stride), but even so it remains a jarring intrusion into the universe. It's proof of the existence of a censor who has more influence on the writing process than the needs of logic or a good story. And of course, the same argument applies as in the case of radio edits: The word is used in the same contexts, has the same meaning and is meant to have the same emotional impact; the audience replaces it at the cost of a moment's attention and a slight lapse of immersion, and the emotional impact is badly mangled. And all so that a kiddiewink will go perhaps another six or seven minutes before a less scrupulously self-censoring media, or even a fallible human being, says the unthinkable near them. Of course, all this may be merely my fan self-hatred rearing its head against the notion that we need yet another cute identifier to wear on t-shirts and bumper stickers.
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