Oh, Battlestar Cracktica, You Evil Manipulator
I was very excited to get our next Battlestar Galactica disc this weekend, only to discover that it only had two episodes on it. Yes, it seems there was a Season 2 and a Season 2.5, and they celebrated the end of Season 2 by (joy) a huge cliffhanger. I felt cheated out of my regular four episodes. This wouldn't be a big deal if I had the boxed set, but it is kind of a blow when you're ordering DVDs from Netflix. Also, you can't tell this sort of thing ahead of time from the Netflix site, so it's always sprung on you when you rip off the envelope.
That said, though, props to Battlestar for surprising me. It was a moment for celebration: "We found another Battlestar! The whiteboard of life total is back up to 49,600!" And then came the interesting twist that, not only did the Admiral on Battlestar Pegasus outrank Adama, they were a bunch of assholes. Humanity cannot get a break, can it? The interesting bits, I thought, were when Adama was making arguments about what had happened on their ship, and the Admiral kept countering him with perfectly good points. This was perfectly highlighted when she lectured him on letting Starbuck and Apollo get away with being insubordinate, and then they cut to the scene in which they both started loudly protesting their new orders in the same breath. But still, you felt for Adama. "Make her watch the show! Not just read the logs! It's different, because you're our friends!"
You realized the things that had been going on in the fleet were sometimes shady-- but at least the Galactica folks were learning from their mistakes. They were stumbling through a lot of tough questions and progressing. That didn't seem to be the case on Pegasus. I think they also didn't understand the implications of having 46,000 civilians in tow, either. Note that when the Admiral got off her shuttle, she said, "Welcome back to the Fleet." Everyone was kinda like, "Whoa, OK. There is one of you. And fifty of us," but politely pretended to ignore the weirdness of the statement. It sure showed what kind of a character she was, right off the bat.
The scene with Baltar and the other Six in the cell was great, too. Good acting there. Starbuck and Apollo are so cute when they're being insubordinate. I hope Apollo kicks his little Raptor pilot partner's ass. And I hate that they're going to hook him up with Dualla. What about Billy? Poor, hapless Billy. And... and...
Coffee. I need coffee. And more Battlestars.
(Note: Yes, I do know what happened last week, because I spend so much time on the internet that it is impossible not to. But I don't watch the current episodes because I'm not finished with Season Two. Therefore I am not speculating about it, or discussing it, and have in fact blocked it from my mind for the foreseeable future.)
5 comments:
I finished this weekend, and let me tell you, the hits just keep on coming! Wait until you get to the end... and wait for the episode "Downloaded"--it's AMAZING. I love love love the character devlopment on this show!
And FYI, the disk that comes after the clifhanger disk, the first episode on it is a "director's cut" or some sort of non-sense of the clifhanger... I was a little tipsy and definitely tired at 3 a.m. when I attempted to watch it and was a bit confused. I thought I had put the same disk in, rather than a new one! So yeah... that kinda torked me off. Frakkin' BSG!
I was going to toss some of my comments about BSG on my own blog, but seeing as how you regularly blog about the show, this seems a better place. And I know we already talked about this, Sarah, after we watched it, but despite my criticisms of the show, I do really enjoy it. Very good acting, good character development.
However, I just can't get over the fundamental logic flaws that run underneath the surface of every episode. For a group of people trying to salvage the very existence of humanity, I never see/hear discussions about the following:
1.Re-populating the human race, i.e., reproduction;
2. Re-building the military fleet; and
3.Finding all remaining Cyclons
It is my sincere belief that no one in the show should really worry about anything else until these three matters are addressed.
As to the former, you have officers discipled for "inappropriate relationships" when their superiors should be saying, hell yeah, make babies, we need them. Starbuck, faced with this theory from a Cylon of all "people," stared in disbelief and horror (and yes, I get the feminist statement, but it seems out of place in this context). At the very least, the civilian government should be addressing this issue, and we as viewers should hear about it if only in passing.
As to the middle, after enough battles, there will be no Viper fighter ships, one gets picked off here, another here, so they need more ships. And to say nothing of how Galactica will get worn down over time. Only the Chief finally did something about this, yet it was more of a personal crusade, and there was no strategy about his choosing to do so; again, the brass seemed inclined to stop him, rather than help. The Cylons vastly outnumber the humans, and this may never change, but the more ships the better.
And as for the latter, the humans will keep suffering catastrophic losses while infiltrators can sabotage, spy, and manipulate events unknown to those humans. Even assuming the Dr. was on the side of right (or in his right mind) he said it would take like 60 years to finish testing the fleet. Unacceptable. Give him 1000 civilians and every possible resource at your disposal to find them; if you need to rip up more nukes, do it. NOTHING is more immediately important than this. Plus, once this is done, everyone can stop looking over their shoulder and second-guessing each other. Also, no one seems to question the fact that he just does whatever he wants whenever he wants. There's no check on his system? We trust the fate of humanity to one person? Stupid. Again, even assuming he was doing the best and being honest, it's stupid. And he's not. And this is to say nothing of how "impossible" it is to tell the difference between them and humanity. Please, Sharon stuck a cable into her arm and networked with the mainframe, then broadcasting a computer virus to invading Cyclon fighters. Right. And there's nothing there different? Come on...you can only suspend disbelief so far.
I guess I get upset that these issues kind of weigh on me every episode and prevent me from enjoying what otherwise is good acting and writing (usually). I give a big thumbs up to the show and its creators, I just wish they would address some of the bigger issues.
There's plenty of talk about reproduction (can't remember which season, either 2 or 3). Not only that but even the Galactica crew start spogging left, right and centre. We'll be seeing the main characters changing nappies next... Won't say any more because I don't want to spoil it for Sarah, in case she hasn't come across the relevant episodes yet.
As for rebuilding the military fleet - what exactly are they going to use for that? Paper clips? BTW there's some rebuilding happening post-Pegasus, as Pegasus had the capacity for repairs and building new ships, whereas the Galactica was just a museum before the attack (remember?).
Finding the remaining Cylons may not be as easy as you think - but I won't say why because all that comes in Season 3.
While I am eager to see that some of the issues I had with BSG are going to be addressed, I think my frustration is that by the end of 2.0 they have not. And even if things are difficult (e.g. building new ships) it's not even the results that frustrate me, but the fact that the human leaders don't even mention it as a problem, as if it was not.
Don't look at me, I'm just in it for the soap opera. :-P
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