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Oct. 7th, 2006 01:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenThe season premiere of Battlestar Galactica was everything that the season premiere of LOST wasn't: tautly paced, adequately divided, mysteries appropriately revealed or concealed, and effectively conflicted. This is a show that routinely juggles a dozen characters of major importance (Adama, Apollo, Starbuck, Helo, CapricaBoomer, Gaeta, Tyrol, Roslin, Baltar, CapricaSix, Three, GalacticaSharon, and those are just the main ones; if I started listing all the supporting characters of major importance, I'd never stop), and you never feel as thought you've been cheated of time with any of them. They show up, they devastate you by being themselves in as succinct, terse a way possible (not necessarily emotionally, either, which is killer, too) while still developing plot, character, theme, and moral quandry. It's uncomfortable how awesome this show is because, with few exceptions, it doesn't pull punches and the premiere lived up to that reputation and then some.
The development with the humans becoming the insurgents made everyone I know uncomfortable because it is obviously cribbing a lot from current events. It confuses the loyalty we have for the human heroes we've come to love, flaws and all, because they are an oppressed people and, at the same time, unreasonable terrorists. When the issue of the suicide bomber came up, I was morally offended, but I applauded the man who went through with it. Why? How? How could this show make me admire something as reprehensible as that? How could I watch him kill his fellow survivors of the destruction of the colonies and not only not hate him, but consider only his strength? It's a dangerous sympathy, and a wrong one, I know it. The thing is, the show allows me to understand and appreciate the drive and courage of the bomber without condoning his actions. The bomber has a clarity of purpose the Cylons should envy. He has no God or Gods. He has a memory of love, powerful enough to mean more than his entire existence without it. It is revenge, that cannot be doubted. It is murder. But it is also love, and one theme of the show has been that love is more powerful than any motivator--more than hate, more than fear, in the end, love is the most terrible, awesome force. Witness what people will do for love, what they will sacrifice--pride (Baltar, Tigh), integrity (Roslin, Ellen Tigh, Tyrol), morality (Anders), independence (Starbuck), freedom (CapricaBoomer and Helo, together as one), life (the bombers).
The Cylons who have gone along with GalacticaBoomer and CapricaSix only reluctantly cannot touch that purest emotion, so they rely on the lesser ones. Which is why they can't win. What they can do is force the humans capable of love into a position where their love is a poison against themselves, and they did it really effectively. I joked to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ivy03 that it was like the power play by the Emperor in Attack of the Clones--make the enemy seem stronger and more debased and desperate (or drive them to that point), and you can strengthen the power of the central government and its miiltary while looking benevolent. It's a scary good play for the Cylons still paying lip service to the drive of the DEMAND LOVE movement started by GalacticaBoomer and CapricaSix. You can't even hate them for it, really, which is yet another reason this show is genius.
I hurt for and hated on each and everyone person or machine in this episode, that's how good it was. I sat there watching Gaius with a gun to his head, wishing against his character that he would finally do the right thing. How amazing is it that the way the show is written, the way Gaius is written, he would never chose the selfless option, yet every time, I half believe he's reached some kind of limit where he just might do the right thing? Then he doesn't, and I'm disappointed in him, but I totally understand why he did what he did. His lack of integrity is bottomless, but the other options are usually just as terrifying to me as losing Baltar altogether. In that vein, I'm worried that, now he's outed as a traitor who is complicit not only with Cylon-dominated rule but murder of humans who balk at Cylon control that he won't have as strong a drive dramatically and narratively. Gaius was at risk all along of being outed as the traitor of the colonies through multiple angles--outright discovery with the Six-plant and her doctored pictures, with the bogus Cylon detector, with his crazy insistance upon preserving CapricaBoomer and Helo's baby (not to mention his squirrelly, insane behavior since forever). Without that risk, with him being exposed, even if it's only for the murders of hundreds instead of billions, Baltar isn't living with secrets (other than Six), and the chances of his being forgiven if the resistance and Fleet do overthrow rule or at least escape New Caprica are slim to none. If he is forgiven or redeems himself somehow, he will never be trusted. Villfied, he can only be marginalized. They'd have to do something pretty important to make him indispensible once again (given that they have CapricaBoomer to be the Cylon expert, one that's fully vested and trusted now).
It's like how I'd stop watching if Chief Tyrol were ever killed. Adama is daddy, Roslin mommy, Apollo and Starbuck easy favorites, but the Chief is...the Chief. He is the heart, the one that hopes and loves and breaks. There is no way for him to die that won't destroy me utterly and make this show entirely impossible to watch (kinda like the scenes with Fat!Lee). I know the TWoP reviewer says that Helo is our heart, but I disagree. He is wonderful, don't get me wrong, and the running Helo story on Caprica was necessary and perfectly executed, but I never loved Helo more than when he and the Chief were both in hock for killing the man about to rape CapricaBoomer. It's the Chief what does it. He is Galactica. The first time he says "We have a baby!" to Gaeta when Cally is taken, it sounded stupid, kinda nothing dialogue, but you watch the Chief, who has had more than his share of misery for being the heart, just break apart and away from logic until all he can articulate of the animate bond between him and his wife is that beautiful being they created together (the kind of love he shouldn't be able to lose for losing Cally, but which he will lose if she goes because he'll lose himself to grief and never recover). For the love of all that is holy, they can never kill the Chief. His hurt is my hurt, and his death will be the death my interest. Imperilling him or what is his (love, always love, which is why Cally's blind devotion and forgiving love isn't annoying to me, because I would be the same way for him) is the surest way to make me die. Cally escaping makes me all kinds of uncomfortable. Because Roslin cannot die, and she will not, and if she and the others in front of the firing squad are spared, the chances of a second miracle for Cally are nonexistant. Not without a price, miracles.
Babies seem pretty important, too, and I wish the ploy Leoben used on Starbuck had worked. I think she was amazing, but only in the way that she is still her, and that Starbuck is, has, and always will be incredible. However, it seems less dramatic against the rest of the cast growing more and more dark in outlook, confused in loyalty and direction. Cassie is not her daughter. It is a trick (Hera, from the previews, is shown to be younger than Cassie, and she would have been conceived first, as CapricaBoomer was pregnant before Starbuck was taken to the farm; logically, there is no way for the two-three year old child that Cassie is to be Starbuck's), and Starbuck either knows it and is doing a long con on Leoben (which, though I said she is smarter than him, I think I am wrong, and he will outlast her if she tries to fool him into believing she loves Cassie) or she is so broken by Leoben, she's forgotten she cannot be it's mother. I don't think it's the latter, but I fear the consequences of the former. I also feared that Leoben would be mad that Cassie was hurt when Starbuck wasn't watching, but it was revealed to be set up (think about it, how precious she would be if she truly were half-Cylon, half-human, and you know that he wouldn't be given leeway to put her in jeopardy with a hostile nanny, which is yet another reason Cassie, though an innocent, is a trap). I am more afraid still that he will be less than forgiving when she cannot love him even when they should be bonded (as the Chief and Cally are) through a baby (even if it were theirs, I do not think he could ever force her by using a baby--Starbuck is not a mother; it is the wrong tactic to use on her, and Leoben, unless he's too far gone to realize, should know that).
As demonstrated by the pair-bonding revealed in full this episode, union cannot be forced or coerced. Ellen Tigh and Cavill, Starbuck and Leoben, the Cylons and Humanity--these are lies masquerading as forms of love (attraction, obsession, care-provision), and they will be destroyed or self-destruct, usually taking one or the other partner with. Then you have the bonds that stand in opposition to that falseness: ones where the recognition of its existance is outstanding it its own right (Sharon Valerii becoming Sharon Agathon, so no longer only CapricaBoomer); the practical, even-exchanged if not entirely content (Lee and Dualla Adama); the devoted to the point of madness and dissolution (Saul and Ellen Tigh); and loves stronger for the deprivation and doubt and destruction around them (Kara Thrace and Sam Anders, Tyrol--gah, can't call him Galen, just can't!--and Cally, the suicide bomber and Nora). These will survive every challenge, except those from within, which I predict will be the new redirection of the Cylon attention whenever it is they figure out they cannot break the bonds from without.
As for the rest:
-MAJOR SQUICK for Col. Tigh losing his eye, but the way he not-dealt with it when Anders and Tyrol stared and told them about it? FRAK. That's up there for the most uncomfortable moment in the whole episode, against other heavy contenders, like the suicide bombing and CapricaSix being boxed (be honest, she's not coming back; they can't let her). His torture (gah, wanted to KILL Cavill when he said the Cylons changed out the scratches he'd been making in his cell) is another way the show made me understand his motivation to resort to the suicide bombing. I don't forgive Tigh--he's a rotten leader, as he proved with the previous military coup when Adama was shot--but I understand him. Again, I love, I hate, I cannot judge Tigh. I cannot.
-Anders is growing on me. The guy is hardcore in a way that has not previously generated the respect it ought. In "Downloaded," he was determined to kill the Cylons, even though they would regenerate in new bodies because they would remember the pain of dying and that humans had caused it. That's fucking HARDCORE. Then when he snapped at Tyrol and Tigh in the premiere, I was all up in their grill, too (he made me angry at the Chief for being ignorant, and that's impressive given my massive Chief-love). This guy has been through this before, which, non-military guy that he is, gives him the one-up on an officer like Tigh or an engineer like Tyrol. He had been left behind before, and he's understandably bitter about it. He was rescued only barely on the second return journey of Galactica crew to Caprica, and on the day of his rescue, half the people he'd been leading were slaughtered. His doubting Adama, which is intolerable as it is in Adama we trust, is perfectly justified. His line about Starbuck being the only reason he was alive killed me. I never liked the conflating of his sexual attraction to her and hers to him as love, but to watch the actor say "my wife" and then cover, badly, how very much he misses her finally convinced me. It may be desperation, clinging to something to build new futures from the ashes of the past, but the devotion, however shallow the beginning, is without limit now. Starbuck is indelibly linked to him (the tattoos make sense for them, as they don't for the others married of late), and she to him. Even if they fall out of love, they will always be.
Also, note that it is Anders who does the grooming for the suicide bomber. It's Tigh's strategy, but it is Anders' op. The man dying is his man (making Tigh's dismissive, "I feel guilty about all my men dying" that much more hollow--he barely acknowledges the guy). Anders will not lose this man for anything less than complete assurance the man is ready, willing, and able. How scary the bomber is in his utter lack of hesitation is matched only by Anders asking it of him, allowing the compassion of understanding if he cannot do it, and accepting that he sends this man to die. Chills, yo.
-The confrontations of conflicting parties:
Boomer and Cally--I don't think Cally is jealous of Boomer, only naturally suspcious. GalacticaBoomer is able to resume her life with Tyrol if she wants; she is not able to be offed and gotten out of the way, as Cally can be. With enough pressure, GalacticaBoomer can insinuate herself back into the Chief's life the way Sharon Agathon did in Helo's. Cally doesn't trust GalacticaBoomer because she was the one who killed her, a, and because she does not know how love of the Chief has reformed this Cylon against the ideal that led her to betray that love in the first place (how can she? Cally has always loved the Chief faithfully, and cannot know the pain of betraying him as such, so, understand Cally's position, but pity GalacticaBoomer).
Roslin and Baltar--You can see how hard it is for her to sublimate her absolute hatred of him, of herself for being better than him and not taking from him the power he doesn't deserve. At the same time, he is desperate, so willing to forgive her previous slights and beg her assistance in good faith to save lives that he forgets he is more deeply in shit with her than she with him. Amazing, if brief, scene (got a laugh over his calling her a "lovely lady"--she ain't never gonna touch you, squirrel boy).
Roslin and Zarek--One time allies, last seen in opposition. Their time together is too brief, but every moment a joy. He is an indescribable character, his loyalties and motives more mysterious than Baltar's for being unexplored beyond the surface (pity, he has no ChipCylon to explain it to us). Together, Zarek and Roslin are incompatible yet powerful. No alliance will last between them, but the ones that spring up will level their enemies. Now is the time to recruit Zarek, though it will mean the end of Baltar as we know him.
Lee and the rest of the Fleet--I gotta be honest, this caught me out of nowhere. When last we saw him, there was no hint he'd stopped being, well, Commander-ly (ha ha, Commander-Lee). When he took control of Pegasus in "The Captain's Hand," his natural mastery of it was astounding and right--he was stepping into shoes that belonged to him and that had always been waiting for him. Where he fell off that in four months is impossible to guess. He wants to rescue the New Capricans, but he is too much a student of Roslin as she exists in opposition and as a check to Adama, where the rest of the Fleet is loyal to Adama, first and last (the Galactica crew trust no other, the Pegasus crew believe in the chain of command existing above all other authorities, as Cane's behaviors proved). Lee takes her lessons to heart, and he really has the right idea of humanity first, friends and attachments second in the grand scheme of things. However, what point is there to a humanity that is cowed, hounded, dwindling, and friendless? Look at the bonds that survived among the Fleet that jumped. You have Helo and his wife only because she is a prisoner (and he would never leave her). You have Lee and Dee, a constructive, honest sort of relationship (she hits hard, though not as hard as Adama, of course) without the pizazz of any of the New Caprican-bound lovers. The Fleet, as represented by these loves? Doomed. So, Lee is right. Going back for the New Caprican contingent may result in the destruction of the Fleet and the permanent subservience of the rest of humanity to the Cylons, which will only end in humanity's ruin, one way or another. But Lee is also wrong, because without that contingent, the Fleet is loveless, imprisoned, and, ultimately, doomed. It could have been done more fairly to Lee (boy, did he take hits), as his side needed to have more weight (ha ha ha, right) as it wasn't totally wrong (or, at least, no more so than the other side). I wish he'd had someone backing him up. That's where it fell flat, having everyone think he was just a nagging nay-sayer (including frakking Kat grumble grumble grumble--where the hell is Hotdog when I need him? Why do people think he's dead? When would that have happened?).
Previews: Yes, happy we haven't forgotten little Hera, the object of Roslin's hubris, the real miracle next to the false promise of Cassie. No, Gaius, you're not a Cylon. You don't know that, but we, the audience, do, because all of the Caprican Cylons know him for a human, call him a human, and marvel at CapricaSix for being able to entwine a human so deeply that he gave up the worlds for her. I will be pissed if they try to build serious suspense around that. Want serious suspense? Question Gaeta's loyalty. He's in a position of trust, he's barely acknowledged by the Cylons, suggesting he is either not worth their time (on the contrary, with what he's privy to, he should be) or is trusted by virtue of being one of their number). How about Tory, the Total Cylon aide to Roslin? Hurrah for not-Fat!Lee. Can't get him onscreen fast enough. Goodbye, good riddance to the Adamastache, too.
My Gods, that took me nearly two hours. I am so drained. But soooo worth it. Must discuss, must. Someone, please, talk about it with me? It's so...perfect.
I love this show.
The development with the humans becoming the insurgents made everyone I know uncomfortable because it is obviously cribbing a lot from current events. It confuses the loyalty we have for the human heroes we've come to love, flaws and all, because they are an oppressed people and, at the same time, unreasonable terrorists. When the issue of the suicide bomber came up, I was morally offended, but I applauded the man who went through with it. Why? How? How could this show make me admire something as reprehensible as that? How could I watch him kill his fellow survivors of the destruction of the colonies and not only not hate him, but consider only his strength? It's a dangerous sympathy, and a wrong one, I know it. The thing is, the show allows me to understand and appreciate the drive and courage of the bomber without condoning his actions. The bomber has a clarity of purpose the Cylons should envy. He has no God or Gods. He has a memory of love, powerful enough to mean more than his entire existence without it. It is revenge, that cannot be doubted. It is murder. But it is also love, and one theme of the show has been that love is more powerful than any motivator--more than hate, more than fear, in the end, love is the most terrible, awesome force. Witness what people will do for love, what they will sacrifice--pride (Baltar, Tigh), integrity (Roslin, Ellen Tigh, Tyrol), morality (Anders), independence (Starbuck), freedom (CapricaBoomer and Helo, together as one), life (the bombers).
The Cylons who have gone along with GalacticaBoomer and CapricaSix only reluctantly cannot touch that purest emotion, so they rely on the lesser ones. Which is why they can't win. What they can do is force the humans capable of love into a position where their love is a poison against themselves, and they did it really effectively. I joked to
ivy03 that it was like the power play by the Emperor in Attack of the Clones--make the enemy seem stronger and more debased and desperate (or drive them to that point), and you can strengthen the power of the central government and its miiltary while looking benevolent. It's a scary good play for the Cylons still paying lip service to the drive of the DEMAND LOVE movement started by GalacticaBoomer and CapricaSix. You can't even hate them for it, really, which is yet another reason this show is genius.I hurt for and hated on each and everyone person or machine in this episode, that's how good it was. I sat there watching Gaius with a gun to his head, wishing against his character that he would finally do the right thing. How amazing is it that the way the show is written, the way Gaius is written, he would never chose the selfless option, yet every time, I half believe he's reached some kind of limit where he just might do the right thing? Then he doesn't, and I'm disappointed in him, but I totally understand why he did what he did. His lack of integrity is bottomless, but the other options are usually just as terrifying to me as losing Baltar altogether. In that vein, I'm worried that, now he's outed as a traitor who is complicit not only with Cylon-dominated rule but murder of humans who balk at Cylon control that he won't have as strong a drive dramatically and narratively. Gaius was at risk all along of being outed as the traitor of the colonies through multiple angles--outright discovery with the Six-plant and her doctored pictures, with the bogus Cylon detector, with his crazy insistance upon preserving CapricaBoomer and Helo's baby (not to mention his squirrelly, insane behavior since forever). Without that risk, with him being exposed, even if it's only for the murders of hundreds instead of billions, Baltar isn't living with secrets (other than Six), and the chances of his being forgiven if the resistance and Fleet do overthrow rule or at least escape New Caprica are slim to none. If he is forgiven or redeems himself somehow, he will never be trusted. Villfied, he can only be marginalized. They'd have to do something pretty important to make him indispensible once again (given that they have CapricaBoomer to be the Cylon expert, one that's fully vested and trusted now).
It's like how I'd stop watching if Chief Tyrol were ever killed. Adama is daddy, Roslin mommy, Apollo and Starbuck easy favorites, but the Chief is...the Chief. He is the heart, the one that hopes and loves and breaks. There is no way for him to die that won't destroy me utterly and make this show entirely impossible to watch (kinda like the scenes with Fat!Lee). I know the TWoP reviewer says that Helo is our heart, but I disagree. He is wonderful, don't get me wrong, and the running Helo story on Caprica was necessary and perfectly executed, but I never loved Helo more than when he and the Chief were both in hock for killing the man about to rape CapricaBoomer. It's the Chief what does it. He is Galactica. The first time he says "We have a baby!" to Gaeta when Cally is taken, it sounded stupid, kinda nothing dialogue, but you watch the Chief, who has had more than his share of misery for being the heart, just break apart and away from logic until all he can articulate of the animate bond between him and his wife is that beautiful being they created together (the kind of love he shouldn't be able to lose for losing Cally, but which he will lose if she goes because he'll lose himself to grief and never recover). For the love of all that is holy, they can never kill the Chief. His hurt is my hurt, and his death will be the death my interest. Imperilling him or what is his (love, always love, which is why Cally's blind devotion and forgiving love isn't annoying to me, because I would be the same way for him) is the surest way to make me die. Cally escaping makes me all kinds of uncomfortable. Because Roslin cannot die, and she will not, and if she and the others in front of the firing squad are spared, the chances of a second miracle for Cally are nonexistant. Not without a price, miracles.
Babies seem pretty important, too, and I wish the ploy Leoben used on Starbuck had worked. I think she was amazing, but only in the way that she is still her, and that Starbuck is, has, and always will be incredible. However, it seems less dramatic against the rest of the cast growing more and more dark in outlook, confused in loyalty and direction. Cassie is not her daughter. It is a trick (Hera, from the previews, is shown to be younger than Cassie, and she would have been conceived first, as CapricaBoomer was pregnant before Starbuck was taken to the farm; logically, there is no way for the two-three year old child that Cassie is to be Starbuck's), and Starbuck either knows it and is doing a long con on Leoben (which, though I said she is smarter than him, I think I am wrong, and he will outlast her if she tries to fool him into believing she loves Cassie) or she is so broken by Leoben, she's forgotten she cannot be it's mother. I don't think it's the latter, but I fear the consequences of the former. I also feared that Leoben would be mad that Cassie was hurt when Starbuck wasn't watching, but it was revealed to be set up (think about it, how precious she would be if she truly were half-Cylon, half-human, and you know that he wouldn't be given leeway to put her in jeopardy with a hostile nanny, which is yet another reason Cassie, though an innocent, is a trap). I am more afraid still that he will be less than forgiving when she cannot love him even when they should be bonded (as the Chief and Cally are) through a baby (even if it were theirs, I do not think he could ever force her by using a baby--Starbuck is not a mother; it is the wrong tactic to use on her, and Leoben, unless he's too far gone to realize, should know that).
As demonstrated by the pair-bonding revealed in full this episode, union cannot be forced or coerced. Ellen Tigh and Cavill, Starbuck and Leoben, the Cylons and Humanity--these are lies masquerading as forms of love (attraction, obsession, care-provision), and they will be destroyed or self-destruct, usually taking one or the other partner with. Then you have the bonds that stand in opposition to that falseness: ones where the recognition of its existance is outstanding it its own right (Sharon Valerii becoming Sharon Agathon, so no longer only CapricaBoomer); the practical, even-exchanged if not entirely content (Lee and Dualla Adama); the devoted to the point of madness and dissolution (Saul and Ellen Tigh); and loves stronger for the deprivation and doubt and destruction around them (Kara Thrace and Sam Anders, Tyrol--gah, can't call him Galen, just can't!--and Cally, the suicide bomber and Nora). These will survive every challenge, except those from within, which I predict will be the new redirection of the Cylon attention whenever it is they figure out they cannot break the bonds from without.
As for the rest:
-MAJOR SQUICK for Col. Tigh losing his eye, but the way he not-dealt with it when Anders and Tyrol stared and told them about it? FRAK. That's up there for the most uncomfortable moment in the whole episode, against other heavy contenders, like the suicide bombing and CapricaSix being boxed (be honest, she's not coming back; they can't let her). His torture (gah, wanted to KILL Cavill when he said the Cylons changed out the scratches he'd been making in his cell) is another way the show made me understand his motivation to resort to the suicide bombing. I don't forgive Tigh--he's a rotten leader, as he proved with the previous military coup when Adama was shot--but I understand him. Again, I love, I hate, I cannot judge Tigh. I cannot.
-Anders is growing on me. The guy is hardcore in a way that has not previously generated the respect it ought. In "Downloaded," he was determined to kill the Cylons, even though they would regenerate in new bodies because they would remember the pain of dying and that humans had caused it. That's fucking HARDCORE. Then when he snapped at Tyrol and Tigh in the premiere, I was all up in their grill, too (he made me angry at the Chief for being ignorant, and that's impressive given my massive Chief-love). This guy has been through this before, which, non-military guy that he is, gives him the one-up on an officer like Tigh or an engineer like Tyrol. He had been left behind before, and he's understandably bitter about it. He was rescued only barely on the second return journey of Galactica crew to Caprica, and on the day of his rescue, half the people he'd been leading were slaughtered. His doubting Adama, which is intolerable as it is in Adama we trust, is perfectly justified. His line about Starbuck being the only reason he was alive killed me. I never liked the conflating of his sexual attraction to her and hers to him as love, but to watch the actor say "my wife" and then cover, badly, how very much he misses her finally convinced me. It may be desperation, clinging to something to build new futures from the ashes of the past, but the devotion, however shallow the beginning, is without limit now. Starbuck is indelibly linked to him (the tattoos make sense for them, as they don't for the others married of late), and she to him. Even if they fall out of love, they will always be.
Also, note that it is Anders who does the grooming for the suicide bomber. It's Tigh's strategy, but it is Anders' op. The man dying is his man (making Tigh's dismissive, "I feel guilty about all my men dying" that much more hollow--he barely acknowledges the guy). Anders will not lose this man for anything less than complete assurance the man is ready, willing, and able. How scary the bomber is in his utter lack of hesitation is matched only by Anders asking it of him, allowing the compassion of understanding if he cannot do it, and accepting that he sends this man to die. Chills, yo.
-The confrontations of conflicting parties:
Boomer and Cally--I don't think Cally is jealous of Boomer, only naturally suspcious. GalacticaBoomer is able to resume her life with Tyrol if she wants; she is not able to be offed and gotten out of the way, as Cally can be. With enough pressure, GalacticaBoomer can insinuate herself back into the Chief's life the way Sharon Agathon did in Helo's. Cally doesn't trust GalacticaBoomer because she was the one who killed her, a, and because she does not know how love of the Chief has reformed this Cylon against the ideal that led her to betray that love in the first place (how can she? Cally has always loved the Chief faithfully, and cannot know the pain of betraying him as such, so, understand Cally's position, but pity GalacticaBoomer).
Roslin and Baltar--You can see how hard it is for her to sublimate her absolute hatred of him, of herself for being better than him and not taking from him the power he doesn't deserve. At the same time, he is desperate, so willing to forgive her previous slights and beg her assistance in good faith to save lives that he forgets he is more deeply in shit with her than she with him. Amazing, if brief, scene (got a laugh over his calling her a "lovely lady"--she ain't never gonna touch you, squirrel boy).
Roslin and Zarek--One time allies, last seen in opposition. Their time together is too brief, but every moment a joy. He is an indescribable character, his loyalties and motives more mysterious than Baltar's for being unexplored beyond the surface (pity, he has no ChipCylon to explain it to us). Together, Zarek and Roslin are incompatible yet powerful. No alliance will last between them, but the ones that spring up will level their enemies. Now is the time to recruit Zarek, though it will mean the end of Baltar as we know him.
Lee and the rest of the Fleet--I gotta be honest, this caught me out of nowhere. When last we saw him, there was no hint he'd stopped being, well, Commander-ly (ha ha, Commander-Lee). When he took control of Pegasus in "The Captain's Hand," his natural mastery of it was astounding and right--he was stepping into shoes that belonged to him and that had always been waiting for him. Where he fell off that in four months is impossible to guess. He wants to rescue the New Capricans, but he is too much a student of Roslin as she exists in opposition and as a check to Adama, where the rest of the Fleet is loyal to Adama, first and last (the Galactica crew trust no other, the Pegasus crew believe in the chain of command existing above all other authorities, as Cane's behaviors proved). Lee takes her lessons to heart, and he really has the right idea of humanity first, friends and attachments second in the grand scheme of things. However, what point is there to a humanity that is cowed, hounded, dwindling, and friendless? Look at the bonds that survived among the Fleet that jumped. You have Helo and his wife only because she is a prisoner (and he would never leave her). You have Lee and Dee, a constructive, honest sort of relationship (she hits hard, though not as hard as Adama, of course) without the pizazz of any of the New Caprican-bound lovers. The Fleet, as represented by these loves? Doomed. So, Lee is right. Going back for the New Caprican contingent may result in the destruction of the Fleet and the permanent subservience of the rest of humanity to the Cylons, which will only end in humanity's ruin, one way or another. But Lee is also wrong, because without that contingent, the Fleet is loveless, imprisoned, and, ultimately, doomed. It could have been done more fairly to Lee (boy, did he take hits), as his side needed to have more weight (ha ha ha, right) as it wasn't totally wrong (or, at least, no more so than the other side). I wish he'd had someone backing him up. That's where it fell flat, having everyone think he was just a nagging nay-sayer (including frakking Kat grumble grumble grumble--where the hell is Hotdog when I need him? Why do people think he's dead? When would that have happened?).
Previews: Yes, happy we haven't forgotten little Hera, the object of Roslin's hubris, the real miracle next to the false promise of Cassie. No, Gaius, you're not a Cylon. You don't know that, but we, the audience, do, because all of the Caprican Cylons know him for a human, call him a human, and marvel at CapricaSix for being able to entwine a human so deeply that he gave up the worlds for her. I will be pissed if they try to build serious suspense around that. Want serious suspense? Question Gaeta's loyalty. He's in a position of trust, he's barely acknowledged by the Cylons, suggesting he is either not worth their time (on the contrary, with what he's privy to, he should be) or is trusted by virtue of being one of their number). How about Tory, the Total Cylon aide to Roslin? Hurrah for not-Fat!Lee. Can't get him onscreen fast enough. Goodbye, good riddance to the Adamastache, too.
My Gods, that took me nearly two hours. I am so drained. But soooo worth it. Must discuss, must. Someone, please, talk about it with me? It's so...perfect.
I love this show.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 09:02 am (UTC)I wished I could have seen your reaction to Starbuck chopsticking Leoben and then eating dinner.
I doubt Casey is hers - she looks too old. Starbuck is smart enough to realize it, and clever enough to play along. I'm worried about how long she can last.
What really creeps me out is that Leoben has her trapped in that apartment in an attempt to force her to settle with him. From the brief characterization we got from him in season one, I thought he had enough respect for Starbuck to realize that anything resembling domesticity and Life With Cylon Hubby would be hell. Unless this IS his revenge for torturing him?
Feverish and tired. talk later.
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Date: 2006-10-07 07:02 pm (UTC)Do I think this is just about torturing her, though? No. Cylon love is demented. In reality, CapricaSix is dangerous, threatening Gaius even as she saves him, casually telling him he is responsible for the death of the worlds, and dismissing his fear as weakness. She loves him, no doubt, but it is the same being, albeit the one in his head, who said he could love sexually anyone he wanted, but she owned his heart and could rip it out of him if she chose. So, yeah, Cylon love? Scary.
Leoben is a strange model. We've met him only twice before this, once with Adama, once with Kara. Adama warned her the guy was capable of twisting loyalties, confusing your hatred of what he is with his appearance of profundity and ability to get into your head, and she went ahead and let him do it (Adama could kill him, but Roslin acted to get rid of Leoben, not Kara--I think the difference lies in the desperate way she wants love, wants to be beautiful and the experience that Adama has to the point where love has never done anything except bite him in the ass--Lee, I am looking in your direction). What he wants, how tolerated he is by the other models is questionable. You notice he isn't among the members of the inner sanctum on New Caprica--Six, Three, Eight, Five, and whatever number Simon is, they're there; Leoben is not. It's funny to think of all the malfunctioning models (Sharon Agathon, CapricaSix, GalacticaBoomer) as somehow off when there seems to be an entire model series that the rest of the humanoid models don't want to be around, mm?
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Date: 2006-10-07 02:49 pm (UTC)I hadn't considered your thoughts on Baltar--that now he's an obvious traitor, and though he can probably spin it a little there's no getting past that. Hmm, I hope that doesn't ruin everything with him. The best part is that even HE doesn't know which side he's on.
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Date: 2006-10-07 06:44 pm (UTC)That's true, and he's always conveniently clung to the side that will keep him alive longer, guided by Six, his more cunning, cleverer self (I believe she's just a part of him schismed off to appear as a counterpoint to himself, to confront him with the parts of himself he doesn't acknowledge openly; in the same way, Chip!Gaius is the same for CapricaSix). At this point, I don't see him being able to beg his life from either side or be indispensible to either side to the point they would spare him or rescue him from the other. As the Cylons crack down, they increasingly realize the pathetic uselessness of clinging to the human government won't make them loved, so they'll get rid of it. Bye bye, Baltar. If the humans resurge enough or escape New Caprica, they're not going to stop and run a dangerous op to save one man, and Baltar gets left behind (or, if they have another bomber handy, killed).
Either way, Gaius is defeated or dead, and without a position of any respect, he can't be a powerful force on the show. How this will affect his personal mission from God, only Six knows, and she's gonna be on ice, you wait and see...
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Date: 2006-10-08 02:10 am (UTC)The other big thing that upset me about this was that the various weddings, despite being STUPID, upset the tension. I loved the tension between Starbuck and Apollo. It didn't matter if they were fucking someone else, the tension was there and you could see that they were both wondering "What if...?" everytime they were alone together. Now that they're in Serious Committed Relationships that's gone. Not to mention the fact that Starbuck was previously TRAUMATIZED by her former engagement and I can't imagine she would just get married without equally serious emotional angst. Also, what about the tension between Sharon and the Chief? Not GalacticaSharon but the one on New Caprica RIGHT THERE and SO CLOSE to him. Also, I think the whole relationship with Lee made Dualla almost unrecognizable as a character. I see nothing of the first two seasons in her anymore. She used to be quiet, confident, and isolated. Now she's Sexy and a Bitch. Huh?
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Date: 2006-10-08 03:00 am (UTC)And I'm also pissed that, in four months of occupation, GalacticaSharon never ONCE went to see the Chief and Cally. She obviously was surprised to hear that the Chief had gotten married when Jammer told her. That's fucking lazy storytelling, as the Chief and love for him was part of the reason she and CapricaSix started the whole DEMAND LOVE movement within the Cylon body. There's no way she wouldn't have inquired after him, tailed him surreptitiously, or outright confronted him before Jammer telling her. That's just stupid. And it ignores a significant source of tension and drama throughout GalacticaBoomer's time among the Fleet to never deal with that, what it did to the Chief, and how it changed her. You can't just cover it in "Downloaded" and forget about it, darn it.
As for Apollo and Starbuck, I think that Lee's relationship is the more shallow, and, following as he ever does in his father's footsteps, he's going to wind up unhappy or making Dee so that she leaves him. Lee is definitely in love with Kara, but it's almost as disastrous, destructive, and unhealthy a love as Leoben's for Kara. He loves her for the precise reason that she is everything attractive and repulsive to him at once (someone equal to him in skill, better in attitude and insubordinate, respectively), but Kara doesn't love him that way, and thus, tension. Always will be. I have no worries on that score.
I do lament Dee being turned into Ho!Dee, as is the popular term in fandom. She jumped ship on the cute relationship she had with Billy without giving him adequate reason, on top of the fact that she and Lee weren't established beyond mere hints at the point she did so. She pigeonholed Apollo by calling him on his flirting instead of ignoring it or letting him off easily (as Kara does) like most women do with him, and he was stuck having to acknowledge it. That's fair, honestly, because he does flirt a hell of a lot and then doesn't get it when people come onto him (hell, you know Roslin felt it a little, when they first met). Though I hate the frakkin' episode, "Black Market" established him as a runner, and all that did was confirm what we'd seen before--Lee runs from commitment. Dee held him to it, and, cornered, trapped, apparently pissed at the one obsessive love he couldn't ever leave (Starbuck), he married her. That's gonna be explosive when it detonates. Dee is determined and focused on getting what she wants, which is great except that she was originally painted as being content with small steps and romantic gestures (with Billy, which, given how she ended up, we're supposed to believe wasn't cute and perfect but completely out of character despite that being how she was introduced...grumble). When Lee isn't providing or is tempted away, she won't wait on him. More drama.
What scares me more is that Starbuck's relationship is beginning to take on weight and depth that suggest its dissolution will be more messy than Lee's. I hope they don't let it be destroyed by Lee's continuing obsession with her even if she caves to it (if Kara ever had sex with Lee, I'd say it would happen as it did in "Scar"--a fit of drunken libido--or as a favor to him, knowing that he's a friend she can't shake, and that he's in pain for not being enough for her, she helps him resolve some of his obsession with her). She and Anders deserve to be shown together and not taken apart because it's coming in the way of the favored pairing of Starbuck and Apollo. Also? Would be nice if they EVER talked about Zak being a major source of weirdness if Kara and Lee ever did hook up...
no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 02:59 pm (UTC)Adama Sr. is on the run, desperately waiting for the signal that it's time to fight again.
Adama Jr. is Captain, now a commander rather than an actor, but he is functionally commander of nothing, mere executor of his father's order to bide.
Kara is trapped where all her abilities and will serve her naught. She can kill Leoben over and over and over (AND DOES), but it doesn't help in the slightest. She's not disempowered or weakened, but her power means absolutely nothing.
Tigh is broken but won't accept it. His only option is to do what we know he hates more than anything -- send soldier after soldier after soldier to die simply to create chaos and disorder. He's turne into his own devil.
Tyrol keeps having things taken away, successively. What he has, they take. He could easily be content with his bride and a job and some pride, and that's exactly what gets taken from him.
Baltar is a puppet and knows it. Can you possibly imagine anything worse for Gaius Baltar than to be knowingly and totally without volition? The great thing about his story is, and has been, that his actions over all are monstrous, catastrophic, and selfish, but each one, every time, seems like only a tiny compromise with the darkness.
Anders is trapped back on Caprica. This is what he was doing there, and he can't escape it no matter what he does. He gets a year with Kara, and then right back to playing his ballgame in the moments to breathe between deaths in service of an unwinnable war.
Laura Roslin is stuck knowing that she could have stopped this if only she'd made one little compromise with the darkness. Because her ethics would not bend even that far, all was lost. And she lives every day with that.
I suspect, given this show and what we've already seen with Kara, that the way each of them will escape is surrendering to what they hate most about themselves and their circumstance -- Kara has seemingly started to find a way out that doesn't rely on her existing skills, Laura admitted that she should have sinned, The Adamas have seemingly decided that they can't be what they had to be this past year -- they have to simply be what they are, even if that's the wrong thing to be for the time, and so on.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 06:52 pm (UTC)Wow, way to sum up in one sentence what took me two hours and two thousand words to only hint at. You're a lawyer, aren't you? Just. Brilliant. BigScary, I mean that.
I suspect, given this show and what we've already seen with Kara, that the way each of them will escape is surrendering to what they hate most about themselves and their circumstance.
Oh, no, that will kill me because it will mean the Chief has to lose and embrace loss and give in to the notion that he must just not be allowed to have. Noooo!!! I like this idea, though. I can see easily what it will mean for the Fleet: Adama will have to accept he cannot be the principle actor when Lee abandons command, strands Galactica with the Fleet and takes Pegasus to do his own rescue plan (not the one chosen by the committee, which, frankly, couldn't have been that good if it was decided on by frakkin' Kat). This will mean giving up the respect he enjoyed as Commander (he is so busted, probably down to Captain again), the one thing that made him a man in his father's eyes originally (being a Viper pilot was the start, being a decorated, admired officer the second). Adama will let it happen, somehow, knowing he will sacrifice their relationship when Lee gets back by clinging to rules and ostracizing him again.
Starbuck, gah, she'll have to be a mother, and that is the ninth circle for her. Tigh...my Gods, how do you bring Tigh any lower? That's gonna hurt. He and Ellen, crazy as their relationship is, that will probably be hte death of him, when he discovers her as the one who betrayed the Galactica meeting (which, if they're caught instead of killed by the Centurions, the Cylons will think GalacticaBoomer betrayed them and the humans will think it was Sharon Agathon, which puts Helo nicely back into the Hell he was living in at the end of last season and GalacticaBoomer back into the hell that is her life...).
Gah! So tense!
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Date: 2006-10-07 07:34 pm (UTC)Starbuck has been made to lose faith in herself -- Her victory will be through mothering Casey, I suspect, but NOT for some stupid surrender reason. It will be because caring for Casey is her first instinct, but she second guessed it because it came from Leoben. Looking back, the sign Starbuck can't win until she changes was that after doing what comes naturally to her (stabbing the shit out of Leoben), she then sits back down and has dinner, smiling. THAT was the surrender, not mother Casey, and not screaming for release.
Victory will be treating Leoben as dirt on her shoe, not her captor to buck against.
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Date: 2006-10-07 09:44 pm (UTC)Leoben is trying to be that, and what she needs to do to win is not be on her own. Using Casey in that respect, to ostracize him and leave him on the outside of them together I can see being the key to her escape, but not because she's naturally mothering. That's facing the worst aspect of herself, her inability to foster love as opposed to being in it. It's not natural to her, being a mother, but if she does what is abhorrent to her well enough, she will be free (because you know that Leoben will trip a shit over it).
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Date: 2006-10-08 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-08 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 05:15 pm (UTC)The whole episode was an obvious Iraq War commentary. ("You thought they'd greet us with... oh, nevermind." Loved that.) I think it's wonderful that the humans are placed in the role of the Iraqi resistance. Didn't make me feel uncomfortable at all; the Cylons have benevolent intentions, the humans motivated by (understandable) hatred and a desire, simply, to be left alone; yet our sympathies lie with humanity, where they should be.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-07 07:06 pm (UTC)a few quick words
Date: 2006-10-09 03:00 pm (UTC)-Baltar and CapricaSix...... if my guess is right they play into something far larger than we seen so far (if they are borrowing from the original series like I think they are). As such both will survive and will not be put into cold storage (or at least not for long). Since some who might be reading this have voiced "don't want to know" I will say no more.
-More deep cover Cyclons. Baltar isn't one, however I have some "guesses" on a main character or two who might really be one. I'll have to wait and see, but I can already hear your post about it =-รพ
Re: a few quick words
Date: 2006-10-09 03:14 pm (UTC)2) I disagree about Caprica Six. She's killed at the start to midway point of the second hour, and we do not see her again. There has been time, too, as there's time for the order to go through, the trucks to be sent out, all that, and nothing. I think she's been boxed. Without her defending Gaius, he'll be more pliable, and I think that's something they all know. But do keep quiet on what you know from the old series, m'kay?
3) I was boiling it down for myself last night after watching the miniseries. People it definitely isn't: Starbuck, Adama, Tigh, Sam Anders, Chief Tyrol, Helo, and Gaeta. It could be Roslin, actually, or Tory her Totally Cylon Aide. It could be Lee, actually, or Dee or Kat. Those are just based on the people who obviously aren't or can't be (Helo is the human half of Hera; Adama has children; Tyrol was the love interest for GalacticaBomer; Anders was recognized as treated as a human by Three; Tigh's been tortured by the Cylons, gleefully, and they don't do that to their own--they might kill them, but not torture; Starbuck is the human counterpart for Leoben's obsession; and Gaeta is more a guess, but the Cylons completely ignore him as not worht their notice). Dee and Kat aren't any one I'd say certainly is a Cylon, but they're possibles. Lee..man, I'd just really like to know that I can get a Bamber-bot, myself.