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Oct. 24th, 2006 02:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenThis is for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
moonlightalice for being patient and not bursting with her need to discuss Battlestar Galactica.
Dear BSG Gods,
Look, I know Lee has sinned majorly and that you are determined to punish him with the extra pounds and the snivelling, but do you have to subject the audience to him at his most disgusting for much longer? Because Lee's always been dangerously unlikeable in many ways (whiney, indecisive, changing sides, flipping out on Daddy Adama), and this is really getting to be Way. Too. Much.
Case in point: the start of this episode. You cannot make us like Lee even if you have decreed that Dualla does (for reasons unrelated to his former glory as the God-man, Apollo, in ability and body). Forcing us to think he's wonderful and all that is less effective than when you allow him to actually be heroic, or at least less stuffy and uptight than he usually is. HAVING DEE VERBALLY GIVE HIS EGO ORAL IS REALLY UNNECESSARY, thanks.
Yours, et&, TrinityVixen
No, really, what the hell? That scene did nothing except remind us that they are in a relationship. As this relationship was sprung upon us suddenly, declared to be deep without the established root system of most of the other relationships on the show, I'm a tad tetchy about the writers forcing me to accept Dee and Lee having some amazing thing going on. I think they did better to show the depth of the relationship when they show the two of them interacting naturally with each member of the couple's uncanny instinct for the moods of the other in the first two episodes of the season. That made the relationship more real than this. No more, please. It's just getting plain creepy how much Dualla keeps referencing Daddy Adama in why she loves Lee, and he's insecure enough that he's going to go off on an uninteresting (and melodramatic) pout about this at the rate you are going.
Ahem, and let's move onto other things. Tigh has become so awesome, he redefines the word for this show. The man has been through hell, and now he's drifting without Ellen. I watched that scene unfold, and it's a testament to how much I knew Tigh needed Ellen that I couldn't believe he actually went through with poisoning her. I was sure it was a sleeping draft or something because...because you can't kill Ellen Tigh. She's not a traitor, not really. It was a mistake. At the same time, I cannot fault Anders' logic--her need to protect Tigh cost three more able-bodied people (important when the human race is on the verge of extinction) their lives and nearly blew the only chance the New Caprican Resistance had to work out rescue plans with Galactica. This is why this show is awesome. I hate that Anders is right about Ellen deserving death because she essentially killed three of their people and was proven to be willing to sell out the movement, but he is right. What punishment is more suited to treason--betraying the human race being nothing less than--than death?
And, as awful as it was, Anders was right again that it should be Tigh who perform the act. Ellen was too cagey to submit to anyone else. I half wondered if she knew about the poison, and her last words were her confession before taking her punishment. I don't actually think this is the case; I think she trusted the frakked up love she and Saul shared could protect her. His not being able to tell her he loved her before she was gone almost made me cry. The only reason it didn't? I didn't believe he killed her. Complete denial, utter nonrecognition. A laugh, a casual, "He didn't kill her...no way?" Then she wasn't back, and it hit me and if I'd known for sure at the time, I'd have bawled and bawled and not stopped crying.
This episode was all about loss. We nearly lost our girl, and when she fell to New Caprica only to FTL-jump away, I cried out in glee and relief and kind of horror, too. Glee in the sheer audacity and insanity of such a plan--such a plan!. Relief in seeing my favorite former nugget--Hotdog, in case you missed me nearly going bonkers in frantic panic over not seeing him yet this season--take to the New Caprican sky to blow Raiders, Centurions, and Cylons out of existence. Horror in watching Galactica fall like Icarus only to soar back towards the sun and be burned once more by base stars jumping in right and left. But we didn't lose her, thank the Gods. Anything but our home, our only defense, the shelter-protector of humanity's uncertain future.
We did lose Pegasus though, and I'd been expecting it since the premiere and I still wanted to die for seeing it. One, the loss of power, the extraordinary power of a ship like the Pegasus. It's been sort of a truth acknowledged but not talked of how superior the Pegasus is to Galactica. We know the technical inferiority of Galactica, but it takes episodes like "The Captain's Hand" and this one to show the real loss in losing Pegasus in order to preserve Galactica: the Pegasus takes out whole base stars, three in all, and that's two it got while dying (even the debris from Pegasus is dangerous, a nice reflective touch on the danger of the fallout from the way Pegasus chewed up and spat out people, parts, and Gina). The Fleet's image is reflected in the hobbled, technologically backward Galactica, but the might of the Fleet and the survivors is every bit that of Pegasus. Given the previews and the new focus on retribution, it would seem you can take the wo/men off the Pegasus but you can't scrub the Pegasus from the wo/men (and, no, I don't mean that literally, I know not all the people angry at collaborators are former Pegasus crew, I just meant it in the allegorical sense).
Lee is so busted. Back down to major if he's lucky. He just lost one half of the military's battlestars. That's going to smart come review time (even if Daddy Adama doesn't smack him one for disobeying orders, which he won't because Apollo is second only to Starbuck in getting away with insubordinate shit). I predict Tigh does not immediately resume as XO. I'm pulling for Helo to stay in place. He's earned it, fuck it all. Damn the man for being so adorable.
Kasey. Gods, SO DO NOT CARE. I knew she was a plant, it's a cheat to have her mother actually show up right the frak away to claim the kid. I mean, there's not even an attempt made to show Kara unravel without Leoben's influence to blame for it. Yes, she ran back for Kasey after Anders got her out, but I want to see Starbuck face the consequences of permanent (or seemingly so) parenthood and to realize that that fear she's always had of it is probably justified and her belief that she's a mother already outweighing that reality is actually insanity. No such luck. This is like killing off Cain--if she's not around, you can't be forced to deal with her and the complications she introduces. Getting rid of Kasey to her biological mother ties up the ends too easily. Without Kasey around, Kara will revert instead of being tested and weathered to the duties of being a mother. So, basically, she gets stunted, stuck at still afraid with only a slice of the crazy "I'm a mother no matter what!" thrown in. Leoben will have to start all over again to save her (yes, that's what he was doing; I get it now, even if understanding him is madness). Next to the shit going down with the battlestars and nothing being able to hold a candle to Saul Tigh being debilitated just that much more, I found Starbuck's contribution to the episode only a few notches above the Lee-Dee non-blowjob at the start of the ep.
Hurrah to Laura Roslin for essentially doing what she should have done at the end of last season: stealing the presidency. Back, in this case. I guess Zarek would be the President, really, but he's clearly ceded it to her and damn if he doesn't want her to be President as badly as the rest of us do (one more mystery of the "one year later" that MUST be explored in addition to the Apollo/Starbuck split, the Starbuck and Tigh friendship, the GalacticaBoomer/Chief confrontation, and the Gaeta disillusionment factor). As for the abandoned: Three, CapricaSix, Gaius, and Hera, what is there to say? Sharon Agathon is going to be mightily pissed at Roslin (but not Adama--"You don't know how hard I worked for those" and the trust goes both ways, so there is no way not to trust Adama), and I'm betting Anders is the one to break it to her. Not that it matters in the sense that, even if her daughter were alive for that year, she's effectively dead again, so unless Sharon wants to hope and hope and hope forever and never come back to the probable reality, Hera is gone anyway. It matters to Sharon. One year is one year longer that she could have had her baby. One year of hating Helo and herself and the Gods for not getting to keep Hera. Yeah, this doesn't end well.
moonlightalice for being patient and not bursting with her need to discuss Battlestar Galactica.Dear BSG Gods,
Look, I know Lee has sinned majorly and that you are determined to punish him with the extra pounds and the snivelling, but do you have to subject the audience to him at his most disgusting for much longer? Because Lee's always been dangerously unlikeable in many ways (whiney, indecisive, changing sides, flipping out on Daddy Adama), and this is really getting to be Way. Too. Much.
Case in point: the start of this episode. You cannot make us like Lee even if you have decreed that Dualla does (for reasons unrelated to his former glory as the God-man, Apollo, in ability and body). Forcing us to think he's wonderful and all that is less effective than when you allow him to actually be heroic, or at least less stuffy and uptight than he usually is. HAVING DEE VERBALLY GIVE HIS EGO ORAL IS REALLY UNNECESSARY, thanks.
Yours, et&, TrinityVixen
No, really, what the hell? That scene did nothing except remind us that they are in a relationship. As this relationship was sprung upon us suddenly, declared to be deep without the established root system of most of the other relationships on the show, I'm a tad tetchy about the writers forcing me to accept Dee and Lee having some amazing thing going on. I think they did better to show the depth of the relationship when they show the two of them interacting naturally with each member of the couple's uncanny instinct for the moods of the other in the first two episodes of the season. That made the relationship more real than this. No more, please. It's just getting plain creepy how much Dualla keeps referencing Daddy Adama in why she loves Lee, and he's insecure enough that he's going to go off on an uninteresting (and melodramatic) pout about this at the rate you are going.
Ahem, and let's move onto other things. Tigh has become so awesome, he redefines the word for this show. The man has been through hell, and now he's drifting without Ellen. I watched that scene unfold, and it's a testament to how much I knew Tigh needed Ellen that I couldn't believe he actually went through with poisoning her. I was sure it was a sleeping draft or something because...because you can't kill Ellen Tigh. She's not a traitor, not really. It was a mistake. At the same time, I cannot fault Anders' logic--her need to protect Tigh cost three more able-bodied people (important when the human race is on the verge of extinction) their lives and nearly blew the only chance the New Caprican Resistance had to work out rescue plans with Galactica. This is why this show is awesome. I hate that Anders is right about Ellen deserving death because she essentially killed three of their people and was proven to be willing to sell out the movement, but he is right. What punishment is more suited to treason--betraying the human race being nothing less than--than death?
And, as awful as it was, Anders was right again that it should be Tigh who perform the act. Ellen was too cagey to submit to anyone else. I half wondered if she knew about the poison, and her last words were her confession before taking her punishment. I don't actually think this is the case; I think she trusted the frakked up love she and Saul shared could protect her. His not being able to tell her he loved her before she was gone almost made me cry. The only reason it didn't? I didn't believe he killed her. Complete denial, utter nonrecognition. A laugh, a casual, "He didn't kill her...no way?" Then she wasn't back, and it hit me and if I'd known for sure at the time, I'd have bawled and bawled and not stopped crying.
This episode was all about loss. We nearly lost our girl, and when she fell to New Caprica only to FTL-jump away, I cried out in glee and relief and kind of horror, too. Glee in the sheer audacity and insanity of such a plan--such a plan!. Relief in seeing my favorite former nugget--Hotdog, in case you missed me nearly going bonkers in frantic panic over not seeing him yet this season--take to the New Caprican sky to blow Raiders, Centurions, and Cylons out of existence. Horror in watching Galactica fall like Icarus only to soar back towards the sun and be burned once more by base stars jumping in right and left. But we didn't lose her, thank the Gods. Anything but our home, our only defense, the shelter-protector of humanity's uncertain future.
We did lose Pegasus though, and I'd been expecting it since the premiere and I still wanted to die for seeing it. One, the loss of power, the extraordinary power of a ship like the Pegasus. It's been sort of a truth acknowledged but not talked of how superior the Pegasus is to Galactica. We know the technical inferiority of Galactica, but it takes episodes like "The Captain's Hand" and this one to show the real loss in losing Pegasus in order to preserve Galactica: the Pegasus takes out whole base stars, three in all, and that's two it got while dying (even the debris from Pegasus is dangerous, a nice reflective touch on the danger of the fallout from the way Pegasus chewed up and spat out people, parts, and Gina). The Fleet's image is reflected in the hobbled, technologically backward Galactica, but the might of the Fleet and the survivors is every bit that of Pegasus. Given the previews and the new focus on retribution, it would seem you can take the wo/men off the Pegasus but you can't scrub the Pegasus from the wo/men (and, no, I don't mean that literally, I know not all the people angry at collaborators are former Pegasus crew, I just meant it in the allegorical sense).
Lee is so busted. Back down to major if he's lucky. He just lost one half of the military's battlestars. That's going to smart come review time (even if Daddy Adama doesn't smack him one for disobeying orders, which he won't because Apollo is second only to Starbuck in getting away with insubordinate shit). I predict Tigh does not immediately resume as XO. I'm pulling for Helo to stay in place. He's earned it, fuck it all. Damn the man for being so adorable.
Kasey. Gods, SO DO NOT CARE. I knew she was a plant, it's a cheat to have her mother actually show up right the frak away to claim the kid. I mean, there's not even an attempt made to show Kara unravel without Leoben's influence to blame for it. Yes, she ran back for Kasey after Anders got her out, but I want to see Starbuck face the consequences of permanent (or seemingly so) parenthood and to realize that that fear she's always had of it is probably justified and her belief that she's a mother already outweighing that reality is actually insanity. No such luck. This is like killing off Cain--if she's not around, you can't be forced to deal with her and the complications she introduces. Getting rid of Kasey to her biological mother ties up the ends too easily. Without Kasey around, Kara will revert instead of being tested and weathered to the duties of being a mother. So, basically, she gets stunted, stuck at still afraid with only a slice of the crazy "I'm a mother no matter what!" thrown in. Leoben will have to start all over again to save her (yes, that's what he was doing; I get it now, even if understanding him is madness). Next to the shit going down with the battlestars and nothing being able to hold a candle to Saul Tigh being debilitated just that much more, I found Starbuck's contribution to the episode only a few notches above the Lee-Dee non-blowjob at the start of the ep.
Hurrah to Laura Roslin for essentially doing what she should have done at the end of last season: stealing the presidency. Back, in this case. I guess Zarek would be the President, really, but he's clearly ceded it to her and damn if he doesn't want her to be President as badly as the rest of us do (one more mystery of the "one year later" that MUST be explored in addition to the Apollo/Starbuck split, the Starbuck and Tigh friendship, the GalacticaBoomer/Chief confrontation, and the Gaeta disillusionment factor). As for the abandoned: Three, CapricaSix, Gaius, and Hera, what is there to say? Sharon Agathon is going to be mightily pissed at Roslin (but not Adama--"You don't know how hard I worked for those" and the trust goes both ways, so there is no way not to trust Adama), and I'm betting Anders is the one to break it to her. Not that it matters in the sense that, even if her daughter were alive for that year, she's effectively dead again, so unless Sharon wants to hope and hope and hope forever and never come back to the probable reality, Hera is gone anyway. It matters to Sharon. One year is one year longer that she could have had her baby. One year of hating Helo and herself and the Gods for not getting to keep Hera. Yeah, this doesn't end well.
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Date: 2006-10-25 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 07:31 pm (UTC)Also, the appearance of CapricaSix means a whole lot less of Six in his head, and she was way more fun.
She is. I like that she was there on New Caprica when he found Hera and that Gaius put together who Hera was on zero evidence (because I ascribe to the theory that chip!Six is actully just Gaius' way of telling himself things he doesn't want to hear or believe--she's just a part of him, the way chip!Gaius is part of CapricaSix--ooh, wouldn't that be a fun foursome? You, your lover, and each of the imaginary copies of your lover?). He basically looked at a screaming baby and knew who it was. CapricaSix was totally oblivious--she didn't even care about Hera; she wasn't in on that (chip!Six difference!) nor was GalacticaBoomer, as it wasn't part of why they started DEMAND LOVE in the first place. It's a great distinction between Chip!Six and CapricaSix, and oooh does that birth lots of new meta in my brain.
I think we'll see more of Chip!Six. I think being with the woman he loved is no longer what Gaius wants--hence the importance of showing him not able to get it up for her (yeah yeah, he signed the death warrants that day, fine, but still). There's an idea of love in his head that's completely rewritten how he feels about the flesh-and-metal robot he's sleeping with. And it would be sad for Caprica except that she is doing the exact same thing. WEEEEIRD!