Thing! And another thing!
Feb. 14th, 2009 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI think the "no really wtf?" tag really says it all, don't you?
Because I'm reading other people's reactions to last night's ep, and all I see are accumulating inconsistencies. Not unlike, you know, this show since season two, but seeing as we have a scarcity of new episodes to get it straight, WTF?
1) Cavil put the Final/First Five on the Colonies without them knowing. I call bullshit based on ages and established lines. We know that Tigh made friends with Adama like immediately after the Cylon War. What's the situation with that, then? I assume the Final Five didn't give the Centurions humanoid models, have Cavil rebel and become brainwashed/enslaved in that short time. I mean, maybe he was put out as a hostage, but if Ellen is the brains and couldn't leave the humanoid-model project, how did she play-act as his wife?
2) The planet of robots...created more robots...? They rebelled and went...where? I mean, the Final Five somehow knew to go find the humans at the Colonies (which they did at sublight speed. Even though they had gotten to Earth from Kobol somehow without spending thousands of years doing it?), which they had never been to...to stop humanity from creating robots...and they were too late because the robots already kicked up a fuss...SO THEY HELP THE ROBOTS? I mean, okay, maybe they want to make these less bad than the robots they created that killed them. But isn't this a perfect "fool me once" scenario?? Why couldn't they see Cavil's move coming when they knew to escape NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST on Earth via resurrection?
3) Anders is dead, right? Like breathing but brain dead. They're not going to Roslin-ret-con away an impossible medical complication like BRAIN DEATH (or, you know, TERMINAL CANCER IN ITS FINAL STAGES) with him just spontaneously getting better...right?![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darkling1 suggested that it would be cool if he was resurrecting, or if someone would do the merciful thing (especially if the vegetative state persists) and put him out of his misery only to have him come back. But they can't come back any more.
4) Or can they? What the frak is up with Ellen resurrecting on the Cavil Basestar? Are all the Final Five's other forms there? Are they age-matched to the Final Five as they are now? Presumably, Ellen was A LOT younger when she and Saul kicked it around back on the Colonies. (We know Saul Tigh was because Adama flat-out said, "You used to have more hair and fewer wrinkles back when we knew each other for FORTY YEARS.) Why wouldn't she come back as a hot young thing? (Besides the fact that the actress can't?) Because of Cavil? Is he the hand-waving device now? Cavil did it! (Lucy Lawless was on this show, you know. Emphasis on was, alas.) They must have resurrected on their umpteen-thousand year trip to the Colonies. Where is THAT technology, and why can't Ellen or Anders go there? CAVIL DID IT.
5) The Simons and Dorals are tools and punks. What a frakkin' waste of Cylons. So Ellen created this super-awesome set of 2/6/8s that are, respectively, batshit, god-crazy, and emotionally unstable, but all of them in fun and interesting ways. (And apparently there was a really cool 7. Just one. Who Cavil murdered, naturally.) Then you have Cavil, and for all that he's throwing a teenage snit-shit-fit, he's at least smart and devious and questioning life and hating the answers and being a fascist who brain-fraks everyone so they don't have to know what seeeeeeeeekrit pains he suffers. At least he's doing shit. The Simons and Dorals? Are happy to just not rock the boat. Are happy being the Doctor and the Insurance Salesmen of the Cylon nation Mark 2. The fact that Cavil knew everything means that those two chose to be his fascist tools. He was like "We need not to do this thinking so much," and the Dorals and Simons are all "We're so down with that plan. Sitting around not thinking about shit is what we do, motherfrakker." Cavil is covering up his meddling, but they're totally behind his stated goals. They also have no sense of irony or destiny with the "We want to lobotomize and murder our brothers for thinking too much!" They'd have to--if they thought about what a bad precedent that sets, they'd be on the other side. If the explanation for that is "Cavil made them that way," (OMG, you mean CAVIL DID IT?) the question becomes why was it only them, and why couldn't he do it to the 2/3/6/8s? Or, is it as I suspect, and these models just always sucked? Like, Ellen shot her wad on 1/2/3, fell asleep for 4+5, and woke back up in time for #6???
6) And how did Cavil lobotomize the Final Five without the Simons' help? Or did they help, and he learned enough to lobotomize them in turn? Is it one happy memory mucking about on that basestar or what? CAVIL DID IT.
One of the TWoP reviews about the mutiny pointed out that the Cylons only ever serve to give humanity an outlet for frustration. Without them, the Fleet devours itself. This has always been true--the people of the Fleet split their loyalties between Roslin and Adama (wow, remember when they didn't always get along?); they came to blows over Cain and Adama's people not mixing; they fell over themselves voting for Baltar and trying to make a life on New Caprica despite that planet being less hospitable and generally fouler than the shit-ship. Now that we're tentatively "yay Cylons maybe a little and only a few of them only in small doses?" we need a new bad guy. Guess who it's gonna be?
Because I'm reading other people's reactions to last night's ep, and all I see are accumulating inconsistencies. Not unlike, you know, this show since season two, but seeing as we have a scarcity of new episodes to get it straight, WTF?
1) Cavil put the Final/First Five on the Colonies without them knowing. I call bullshit based on ages and established lines. We know that Tigh made friends with Adama like immediately after the Cylon War. What's the situation with that, then? I assume the Final Five didn't give the Centurions humanoid models, have Cavil rebel and become brainwashed/enslaved in that short time. I mean, maybe he was put out as a hostage, but if Ellen is the brains and couldn't leave the humanoid-model project, how did she play-act as his wife?
2) The planet of robots...created more robots...? They rebelled and went...where? I mean, the Final Five somehow knew to go find the humans at the Colonies (which they did at sublight speed. Even though they had gotten to Earth from Kobol somehow without spending thousands of years doing it?), which they had never been to...to stop humanity from creating robots...and they were too late because the robots already kicked up a fuss...SO THEY HELP THE ROBOTS? I mean, okay, maybe they want to make these less bad than the robots they created that killed them. But isn't this a perfect "fool me once" scenario?? Why couldn't they see Cavil's move coming when they knew to escape NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST on Earth via resurrection?
3) Anders is dead, right? Like breathing but brain dead. They're not going to Roslin-ret-con away an impossible medical complication like BRAIN DEATH (or, you know, TERMINAL CANCER IN ITS FINAL STAGES) with him just spontaneously getting better...right?
darkling1 suggested that it would be cool if he was resurrecting, or if someone would do the merciful thing (especially if the vegetative state persists) and put him out of his misery only to have him come back. But they can't come back any more.4) Or can they? What the frak is up with Ellen resurrecting on the Cavil Basestar? Are all the Final Five's other forms there? Are they age-matched to the Final Five as they are now? Presumably, Ellen was A LOT younger when she and Saul kicked it around back on the Colonies. (We know Saul Tigh was because Adama flat-out said, "You used to have more hair and fewer wrinkles back when we knew each other for FORTY YEARS.) Why wouldn't she come back as a hot young thing? (Besides the fact that the actress can't?) Because of Cavil? Is he the hand-waving device now? Cavil did it! (Lucy Lawless was on this show, you know. Emphasis on was, alas.) They must have resurrected on their umpteen-thousand year trip to the Colonies. Where is THAT technology, and why can't Ellen or Anders go there? CAVIL DID IT.
5) The Simons and Dorals are tools and punks. What a frakkin' waste of Cylons. So Ellen created this super-awesome set of 2/6/8s that are, respectively, batshit, god-crazy, and emotionally unstable, but all of them in fun and interesting ways. (And apparently there was a really cool 7. Just one. Who Cavil murdered, naturally.) Then you have Cavil, and for all that he's throwing a teenage snit-shit-fit, he's at least smart and devious and questioning life and hating the answers and being a fascist who brain-fraks everyone so they don't have to know what seeeeeeeeekrit pains he suffers. At least he's doing shit. The Simons and Dorals? Are happy to just not rock the boat. Are happy being the Doctor and the Insurance Salesmen of the Cylon nation Mark 2. The fact that Cavil knew everything means that those two chose to be his fascist tools. He was like "We need not to do this thinking so much," and the Dorals and Simons are all "We're so down with that plan. Sitting around not thinking about shit is what we do, motherfrakker." Cavil is covering up his meddling, but they're totally behind his stated goals. They also have no sense of irony or destiny with the "We want to lobotomize and murder our brothers for thinking too much!" They'd have to--if they thought about what a bad precedent that sets, they'd be on the other side. If the explanation for that is "Cavil made them that way," (OMG, you mean CAVIL DID IT?) the question becomes why was it only them, and why couldn't he do it to the 2/3/6/8s? Or, is it as I suspect, and these models just always sucked? Like, Ellen shot her wad on 1/2/3, fell asleep for 4+5, and woke back up in time for #6???
6) And how did Cavil lobotomize the Final Five without the Simons' help? Or did they help, and he learned enough to lobotomize them in turn? Is it one happy memory mucking about on that basestar or what? CAVIL DID IT.
One of the TWoP reviews about the mutiny pointed out that the Cylons only ever serve to give humanity an outlet for frustration. Without them, the Fleet devours itself. This has always been true--the people of the Fleet split their loyalties between Roslin and Adama (wow, remember when they didn't always get along?); they came to blows over Cain and Adama's people not mixing; they fell over themselves voting for Baltar and trying to make a life on New Caprica despite that planet being less hospitable and generally fouler than the shit-ship. Now that we're tentatively "yay Cylons maybe a little and only a few of them only in small doses?" we need a new bad guy. Guess who it's gonna be?
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-14 07:35 pm (UTC)I am also starting to think that none of the deaths this season are going to be as permanent as we think, honestly.
Also, lol at the explanations for everything. I loved the crap out of this episode but it made ZERO SENSE.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-14 09:55 pm (UTC)Back on Kobol, for whatever reason, a colony of *humans* left towards Earth. This colony was named Cylon, perhaps the word meant something in their culture, who knows. They brought with them resurrection tech. Since they lacked light speed, they would need to sustain themselves somehow.
When they arrived on Earth and got (back?) to sexual reproduction, the rez tech fell into disuse and over time, was lost. Presumably this happened on the 12 colonies as well. The Cylons eventually developed mechanical robots who became to smart and resentful. Luckily for a group of 5, they rediscovered the tech to create backup flesh bodies.
I suppose the history of Kobol was not lost on Earth, since the Five knew it the planet existed and decided to go there. Yeah, that makes sense ...
I wonder if Number Six is genetically based off of Ellen. That could explain why she is so much more interesting than 4/5. It could also be that Ellen decided 1-5 were too robot-like and flawed. She wanted the Humlons to be more emotional, loving, and sensitive. That doesn't explain Leoben though ...
Oh my head hurts! Cavil did it!!!!
And seriously - why no failsafe?!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-15 10:54 pm (UTC)I don't buy it either, but it would make sense to kill him off. If you introduce a character who literally has all the answers, you have to shut him off for some reason or he'll explain the situation and then, well, there's no mystery. That's why Anders had to have only a short window in which he could tell the story. It's why Ellen can't be free this whole time, she's been trapped with Cavil and we're only seeing itty bitty, non-answery parts of that. Ten-to-one, they spend the next episode freaking out about her being back and not answering questions as everyone wants answers from her at once and she tries to work out what's up with Anders. (She mentioned that the five need to be together for the Hub technology to work or something.)
Anywho, someone mentioned that you might not need a Hub to resurrect a Final Fiver--they're obviously fundamentally different from the Significant Seven, and they only have one body at a time, all of which Cavil has personal control of. Meaning that if Anders dies and can resurrect, he will almost assuredly do so back among the 1/4/5 baseship o'fascists. Which would be cool because just as Ellen gets away, they get another Final Fiver to use as a bargaining chip. But it's also lame because it's just back-and-forth, nothing lost, nothing gained. Yes, Ellen is more important being the head person on the team, but Anders is apparently the musician, and given Cavil's particular disdain for the artistic type, I bet he'll have fun torturing Anders just as much.
Someone suggested that Gaeta was Daniel. I'm personally against Gaeta being a Cylon. We've already done the SHOCK! AWE! THE GREATEST DEFENDERS OF HUMANITY/HATERS OF CYLONS ARE ACTUALLY CYLONS! plot line already. Gaeta was late to the party, sucks to be him. But anyone will take the slightest thing (in this case, Baltar saying "I know who you are, Felix" to Gaeta) and run with it. Because Starbuck's pop was a musician, they assume he was Daniel. Except they already went through the headache of un-making Nicky a partially Cylon kid, so what would be the point of sabotaging that effort if it wasn't of paramount importance that Hera be the only special baby ever?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-15 11:05 pm (UTC)Way back when, I wanked about the numbering system. This was before we know which number Cavil and Simon were. (We knew Doral was five.) Even then, there was no clear progression between the models. Two and Three (Leoben and D'Anna) didn't flow naturally because he was totally mystical, and, up until she became obsessed with the Final Five, she was all about "YAY KILLER ROBOTS, LET'S BE THE BEST!" (This is why she was so buddy-buddy with Tory, methinks.) Five and Six? Forget about it. Five is as boring and literal and nebbish as Six is dynamic and spiritual and smashingly gorgeous. No Seven between Six and Eight, but somewhere between Six and Eight all the confidence got used up and Eights fucking suck at everything (Athena = the only Eight ever to be awesome, and she still went pathetic at points).
So, there's no progression. We know Ellen got to shape the first of the 2nd Gen humanoid models, and maybe that means Tory and the others got some input, too. I would love to know, for instance, which one was Saul Tigh's particular contribution. I think it's fucking creepy (in a Pygmalion way) that Tyrol might have contributed to creating the Eights which he then fell in love with as a human. (This "fuck your parents--no, literally" stuff HAS GOT TO STOP.) Daniel was apparently Ellen's favorite, or so Cavil accuses, but he was an artist. From what we know of their past lives, the Final Five had only one person vaguely talented in non-science-y ways: Anders. Which would mean, if Daniel picked that up from Anders as Anders' contribution, and Daniel is, as you and Dave seem to suspect, Kara's father, OMG WE ARE BACK TO FUCKING OUR PARENTS ONLY THIS TIME SAM IS LIKE STARBUCK'S GRAMPY. EEEEEEWWWWWWWWW.
Why no failsafes? Because these robots really suck at pattern recognition. They acknowledge it exists with the "all this has happened before" talk, but they ignore the fundamental fact that the problem has been robots creating robots. Until the Earth Cylons created robots, no robots ever killed the shit out of an entire race. Until the Final Five came back to teach the Colonial Centurions to make humanoid models, they were only at war with humanity, not trying to eradicate humanity. So the Final Five don't seem to notice this and go right on ahead making new robots in their image and think they've got it so right this time and walk right into their own doom.
But everything else: CAVIL DID IT.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 06:18 am (UTC)Number 7's genetic code and pod goo was tampered with. And it would be funny, since the original Starbuck was male.
But then it would mean our most badass female on the show IS a male after all =(
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 06:34 am (UTC)I think Starbuck's gender is safe, but I'm not exactly reassured by that since I think her humanity is in danger. I'm of a mind that I prefer anyone who is superlative in any way ought to be a human. I like the idea that humanity can have a pilot like Kara who is just that good without her having to be a robot. I like that humanity can have someone as perpetually fucked-up as Gaius Baltar. They are our best and worst, and I don't want "Oh, well, s/he's a robot, so that explains it" to forgive/erase those talents and faults. For the most part, I really like the people that were chosen to be the Final Five because they are so human and fairly normal. Tigh isn't a brilliant leader, just a pretty good one. (He's no Adama.) Tory is a good aide, but Roslin can run political circles around her. Sam is just a really nice guy with enough determination to last but not enough skill to stick out overly. Tyrol is the most human of them all--he has empathy for his fellow beings, cares about inequalities of station, but he's not in charge of anything except the engineers, and, given the pilot-love on this show, that means almost nothing. Then you have Ellen--remarkably flawed, still sort of bad-ass fabulous. I love that the robots are the most normal people, and that people can be so impossibly perfect (or imperfect). That's the show's real strength: blurring that line between what robots and humans are capable of.
Now if only they could get their stories straight.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 06:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 06:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 06:58 am (UTC)What he wants are the perks of both states of being, not surprisingly, and what he's got are the downsides of both. (As far as he sees it, anyway.) A person that deluded probably takes the fact that he is the sole Cylon of the ones the Final Five created that isn't a hot young thing as insult upon injury.
Fine, so go make yourself less human, don't just sail around the universe being a massive cock.
I love the sound of calling Cavil a massive cock. It's so right-sounding, you know? Cockity-cock-cock-cock.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-16 07:02 am (UTC)Not that I think the 12 tribes weren't a bunch of stupid fuckers themselves. From what I got from this episode, they ran out on awkward cousin Cylon and then hunkered down on the Colonies long enough to forget how annoying cousin Cylon was and started to miss him for the laugh value, at least, and brought him back without thinking about how those pea-snorters were eventually going to start blowing boogery pea-missiles at them again when they got half the chance.