Why the hell come I can't sleep?
Mar. 26th, 2007 03:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI must have stayed up too late this weekend, 'cause it's going on 2:20 am and I'm still up.
Well, it looks like I was right about Tyrol and Anders needing to abscond from humanity to start a "We are not assholes club, and just maybe that makes us worthy of being Final Fivers." Tigh and Tory? Love that it's Colonel Tigh, which makes crazy with the timeline bunches and (I hope) drama with Daddy Adama. Nothing Tigh ever did could embarrass William Adama. What will his (possibly) being a Cylon do to that friendship of forty-odd years? Tory, I think, would have been a stronger AWESOME REVEAL had Billy not been killed off. Oh, for what might have been. Stupid actor leaving the show.
Better, in depth squee-age about this was already done on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deepredbelle's LJ here and here (check the comments on that second one, that's where it got freaky), but I frakkin' love the Chief being a Cylon. Frak yeah. Anders also. Because Anders is awesome. The Chief is the heart of the show. I said it before, I say it again: you kill the Chief, you kill the show (apparently, if the third season is anything to judge by, if you make the Chief boring, you make the show boring, too). The whole "leaders of the resistance" thing with the final five is a little less impact-y on one corner (stupid Billy leaving! How awesome it would have been if he'd been a Final Fiver), but it's still awesome. Because the final five are the Cylons that work. They aren't possessed by the almighty (Six, Leoben, Three-that-was), or chafing under the weight of that faith (Eights, Cavils, Dorals, and, I guess, Simons--they're not in the show enough to know). They have come out the other side of all the counter reformations among the Cylon, among the humans, and they are the perfect love that both sides wish they offered the future.
And, on that note, I declare that I think Starbuck is the fifth of the final five. The missing one who connected and called the other four together. With the exception (again) of Tory, she has intimate history with each of the others, and she's been to Earth (if Apollo's latest fever dream is to be believed). And she brought back Dylan (good choice, 'buck!). A rather American choice, but an appropriate one. This is where I quote song lyrics in a pretentious way to prove some point:
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I--we've been through that
And this is not our fate
I love it. It's so Starbuck, too--every bit the angry, hurt, proud, amazing woman who went away and through and through the serene creature of supreme confidence and love who came back. "Get your asses in line, you frakkers. It's time for us to do our shit. And lo: our shit will be AWESOME." The fact that Tigh, Tyrol and Tory do not deny the call is superb. Of course, it had to be the Chief who says it: "We're Cylons." Admission, self-knowledge, knowing something at a level baser than the brain--the heart. Anders' attempt to shrug it off doesn't last, and yet this is the most strange revelation, stranger still than the shattering of unity among the Cylon-as-humanity-knows-them when Sharon would not go back to being an Eight; when a Six became Caprica; when the Threes got boxed for conduct unbecoming. There was no angst. There was no humor. There was what there was:
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour's getting late
(No unconscious reference to the way the third season played out, I'm sure.) Then there was duty. There is wasn't hatred in Colonel Tigh's eye when he took his position besides his best friend of more decades than he ought to have lived. There was comfort and support when Tory went to a dying woman and said, "I'm here for you." The Chief didn't have time to worry his wife with pesky details like the fact he knew himself not to be human; he had pilots to prep, and people to manage. Anders...god knows what he can do except be that extra pair of hands, the one to lighten the burden of others when they are at their most distressed. There's not the hierarchy you would expect of humans, nor the forced and strained collective of the Cylon. That's what is beyond the false talk and time of no relief.
And:
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl
Of course, it has to be Starbuck. There is just one friend among five coming roaring back but gently. Who else? She's the only one who can save the leaders of humanity, who appeals, always, even when they're mad at her, to Adama and Roslin both, and the only one who can pull Apollo out of his death spiral of useless self-doubt. She responds to challenges because she is ultimately above them--she has been through that--and Apollo does not--has not. He needs the gentle hand, the reassurance that there must be some kind of way out here. Because he has royally frakked it up. So, of course, it is Starbuck at his wing, as he volunteered himself to be at hers.
"Don't freak out." That's my girl. (Wish I could listen to her; the more I think about it, the closer I get to freaking a little.)
I could be mad at the inclusion of the Earth song in the series. It could amount to nothing better than a song-fic. But it does work. It works because it's not being written out. There is not a "substitute this lyric where words, where acting should go." I could take or leave all that happened up until four people met in a locked room waiting for the person singing the song to come back to them, but once the reveal was done, I sort of didn't care. Because there was an understanding of what--nay, who the Final Five were that better answers the lame-ass way the question was ignored until this season. The explanation is forthcoming, but this was the first time I felt okay about where the creators were doing with the missing slots on their Cylon roster since Gaius Baltar asked why there were only ever seven models on New Caprica.
There is something beautiful in the place between life and death, said Three. How much more beautiful do you get than a happy, whole, not written-off Kara Thrace flying aces alongside Apollo? Remember when they were an awesome team? Yeah, it's kinda like that level of chills. Like season one chills. Only, maybe better? Maybe suffering through the angsty shit they threw at us this season, we have a better understanding of how special it is to see them as a team again. If we could have watched the awkwardness, loss, and stupidity that happened after Zak Adama died between them, it wouldn't have been any more tolerable or mature than the pair of them frakking, fighting, hurting, and not understanding each other like they did all this season. All this has happened before, isn't that right?
Sigh. I wonder if I'll still be so wistful in 2008 when the show comes back. And I thought the break between seasons two and three was awful. Woe!
Well, it looks like I was right about Tyrol and Anders needing to abscond from humanity to start a "We are not assholes club, and just maybe that makes us worthy of being Final Fivers." Tigh and Tory? Love that it's Colonel Tigh, which makes crazy with the timeline bunches and (I hope) drama with Daddy Adama. Nothing Tigh ever did could embarrass William Adama. What will his (possibly) being a Cylon do to that friendship of forty-odd years? Tory, I think, would have been a stronger AWESOME REVEAL had Billy not been killed off. Oh, for what might have been. Stupid actor leaving the show.
Better, in depth squee-age about this was already done on
deepredbelle's LJ here and here (check the comments on that second one, that's where it got freaky), but I frakkin' love the Chief being a Cylon. Frak yeah. Anders also. Because Anders is awesome. The Chief is the heart of the show. I said it before, I say it again: you kill the Chief, you kill the show (apparently, if the third season is anything to judge by, if you make the Chief boring, you make the show boring, too). The whole "leaders of the resistance" thing with the final five is a little less impact-y on one corner (stupid Billy leaving! How awesome it would have been if he'd been a Final Fiver), but it's still awesome. Because the final five are the Cylons that work. They aren't possessed by the almighty (Six, Leoben, Three-that-was), or chafing under the weight of that faith (Eights, Cavils, Dorals, and, I guess, Simons--they're not in the show enough to know). They have come out the other side of all the counter reformations among the Cylon, among the humans, and they are the perfect love that both sides wish they offered the future.And, on that note, I declare that I think Starbuck is the fifth of the final five. The missing one who connected and called the other four together. With the exception (again) of Tory, she has intimate history with each of the others, and she's been to Earth (if Apollo's latest fever dream is to be believed). And she brought back Dylan (good choice, 'buck!). A rather American choice, but an appropriate one. This is where I quote song lyrics in a pretentious way to prove some point:
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I--we've been through that
And this is not our fate
I love it. It's so Starbuck, too--every bit the angry, hurt, proud, amazing woman who went away and through and through the serene creature of supreme confidence and love who came back. "Get your asses in line, you frakkers. It's time for us to do our shit. And lo: our shit will be AWESOME." The fact that Tigh, Tyrol and Tory do not deny the call is superb. Of course, it had to be the Chief who says it: "We're Cylons." Admission, self-knowledge, knowing something at a level baser than the brain--the heart. Anders' attempt to shrug it off doesn't last, and yet this is the most strange revelation, stranger still than the shattering of unity among the Cylon-as-humanity-knows-them when Sharon would not go back to being an Eight; when a Six became Caprica; when the Threes got boxed for conduct unbecoming. There was no angst. There was no humor. There was what there was:
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour's getting late
(No unconscious reference to the way the third season played out, I'm sure.) Then there was duty. There is wasn't hatred in Colonel Tigh's eye when he took his position besides his best friend of more decades than he ought to have lived. There was comfort and support when Tory went to a dying woman and said, "I'm here for you." The Chief didn't have time to worry his wife with pesky details like the fact he knew himself not to be human; he had pilots to prep, and people to manage. Anders...god knows what he can do except be that extra pair of hands, the one to lighten the burden of others when they are at their most distressed. There's not the hierarchy you would expect of humans, nor the forced and strained collective of the Cylon. That's what is beyond the false talk and time of no relief.
And:
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl
Of course, it has to be Starbuck. There is just one friend among five coming roaring back but gently. Who else? She's the only one who can save the leaders of humanity, who appeals, always, even when they're mad at her, to Adama and Roslin both, and the only one who can pull Apollo out of his death spiral of useless self-doubt. She responds to challenges because she is ultimately above them--she has been through that--and Apollo does not--has not. He needs the gentle hand, the reassurance that there must be some kind of way out here. Because he has royally frakked it up. So, of course, it is Starbuck at his wing, as he volunteered himself to be at hers.
"Don't freak out." That's my girl. (Wish I could listen to her; the more I think about it, the closer I get to freaking a little.)
I could be mad at the inclusion of the Earth song in the series. It could amount to nothing better than a song-fic. But it does work. It works because it's not being written out. There is not a "substitute this lyric where words, where acting should go." I could take or leave all that happened up until four people met in a locked room waiting for the person singing the song to come back to them, but once the reveal was done, I sort of didn't care. Because there was an understanding of what--nay, who the Final Five were that better answers the lame-ass way the question was ignored until this season. The explanation is forthcoming, but this was the first time I felt okay about where the creators were doing with the missing slots on their Cylon roster since Gaius Baltar asked why there were only ever seven models on New Caprica.
There is something beautiful in the place between life and death, said Three. How much more beautiful do you get than a happy, whole, not written-off Kara Thrace flying aces alongside Apollo? Remember when they were an awesome team? Yeah, it's kinda like that level of chills. Like season one chills. Only, maybe better? Maybe suffering through the angsty shit they threw at us this season, we have a better understanding of how special it is to see them as a team again. If we could have watched the awkwardness, loss, and stupidity that happened after Zak Adama died between them, it wouldn't have been any more tolerable or mature than the pair of them frakking, fighting, hurting, and not understanding each other like they did all this season. All this has happened before, isn't that right?
Sigh. I wonder if I'll still be so wistful in 2008 when the show comes back. And I thought the break between seasons two and three was awful. Woe!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-03-26 01:49 pm (UTC)What I will say?
I totally called that Anders was a Cylon. When he shows up I was like "dude, Cylon", sort of because of Sharon's comment about "Maybe they would've set you up with someone you liked."
Tigh breaks my heart, somehow. Tyrol... I feel like I should be sad about that one? But I'm not. I like him, but I don't feel that absolute omg heartbreaking sense like I for some reason do with Tigh.
And that fourth person I don't know yet or care about.
And I am disappointed that they didn't reveal Kara as the last one.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-26 02:50 pm (UTC)Season Three Tigh will fucking own your ass. I don't mean that in a hostile way. I only mean it in a "It's totally true, your ass is well and truly owned" way.
The Chief will break your heart and yet make the most sense when you see him end of season two/start of season three. That's where you really realize that there is no Galactica without Galen Tyrol, so of course he has to be a Cylon. If the Final Five are about being what the other models can't be--i.e. fully human--then the Chief is the most human human-Cylon among the five. The most.
Anders, to the show's credit, was not immediately revealed as a Cylon the way the last three new Cylons were (Simon, the doctor; Three, the awesome; and Cavil, the Dean Stockwell), so it was more dramatically satisfying that he should have found his place among the crew and been such a vociferous, authentic Cylon-hater and realist (he's the one who killed Cylons just so they would know a human had made them die, once; he also never bought into the Adama-worship because no one came to rescue his ass) and then, many episodes later, come out, reluctantly but assuredly as a Cylon. Also, Anders fucking rocks. He gets soooooo much more cool in season three that it makes up for all the stupid angsting Starbuck did over him. He makes Lee-godsdamn Adama look not like a pussy. That means he's God--or, close as the show gets, a Final Fiver.
Tory is Billy's replacement to Roslin as an aide. She came onboard when the actor playing Billy wanted off the show. It would have been more soulcrushingly wonderful, the way it is to think that Tigh is a Cylon, had it been Billy, but, though I ragged on her a bit, don't count Tory out. She's sly and savvy (and very sexy) and every bit the third hand to Roslin that Billy was. Alas, she has not Billy's moral compass, but she's conscious of her failings in that area, so she's not completely unprincipled.
As for Starbuck, it's not certain, but my guess is she is. The strange chaos that erupted at the end, just as the four others confronted themselves muddled the issue of who was the fifth. There was some strangeness around Baltar to suggest he might have been the fifth, but I think the way the four found each other suggests strongly that the link bringing them together was Starbuck, who only popped back in when they made their last jump to where the show ended. I'm pretty sure she is the fifth.
Unless Lee Adama is having yet another of his "moments" and is freaking out about seeing Kara. I don't think so. I admit that she appeared somewhat like what an Apollo-idealized Starbuck would look like, but I think she was real.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-26 02:56 pm (UTC)Am I the only one who thought, when Anders showed up, that he looked a whole hell of a lot like Lee? I'm sitting here going "Wow, he's like Lee minus angst! It's like someone's been looking at Kara's wishlist and decided to drop him on Caprica as a prize!"
no subject
Date: 2007-03-26 03:10 pm (UTC)You win at life :)
And yeah, I had similar thoughts about him. Lee, minus angst, with better hair, and prettier (Jamie Bamber's not ugly, just he's good sex for his body, not his face, is all). What's not to like.
I agree totally about Baltar. I was disappointed that Tory the Total Cylon Aide (thus named because she showed up out of nowhere abruptly to replace Billy) actually was a Cylon. I was cheering for people who show up randomly not to be Cylons since that's how they did all the reveals of the last three. But I accept her as Cylon before I'll ever accept Baltar. He can't get off that easy. Plus it makes his wanting to be one all that much more fucked up.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-26 03:20 pm (UTC)I'm hoping that the late start to the fourth, possibly final season, means they'll just run straight through to the end, with none of the ridiculous month-long hiatuses or reruns. I could deal with that.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-26 06:22 pm (UTC)Yeah, and it seemed like he was hearing the music, too, right at the end when the chaos erupted. He was definitely in the dream, and it was Gaius, not Chip!Gaius, judging by facial hair. But, then again, Laura Roslin isn't a Cylon, and she was in the dream.
I'm hoping that the late start to the fourth, possibly final season, means they'll just run straight through to the end, with none of the ridiculous month-long hiatuses or reruns.
Oh, wouldn't that be lovely? I am now hoping that, too.