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shallowness) wrote2020-11-21 09:28 am
shallowness) wrote2020-11-21 09:28 am
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All consequences and little moral high ground (BSG)
BSG – s 2 Home part 2, The Final Cut, Flight of the Phoenix
In Home part 2, Adama decides it’s better for the fleet family that Mama and Papa reunite. There is indeed a touching family reunion on Kobol, father and son, father and daughter figure, Bill benevolently forgiving Laura and her not seeing what he needed to forgive her for (try betrayal, stealing his kids, his self-image etc) amused. And then the Galactica party, including Tyrol because he’d been to Kobol, met Caprica!Sharon i.e. the Cylon with the face of the woman Tyrrell loved who tried to kill the old man!!! I think they wrung out All The Drama.
The reunion also included Billy, and I glomped on the idea of him being a future President, even if Adama made it a backhanded compliment, because I want them to run even more with the idea of the old hands training the young ones, going beyond the military, and as Roslin’s aide, he’s got a grat view of how governing works. And with so few of them, you can’t quite call cronyism.
Kara floated her Caprica rescue plan. Roslin shot her down (although she’d later refer to it to Adama, but I wonder if Starbuck is going to have to co-ordinate it herself.)
I really liked Tricia Helfer’s performance here (channelling Katee Sakhoff as Kara)? as Six pretended she was Baltar’s psychosis. He found out he didn’t have a Cylon chip (no-one who watched Farscape really thought you did, hun) and she gave the holding or literally true answer that she’s an angel from God, sent to hep Gaius comlete the destruction of the human race. Baltar and I started, having not thought that one through. Also Gaius realised the baby wasn’t literally going to be his and Six’s, but Caprica!Sharon and Helo’s, which made more sense.
More bloodshed on Kobol – excellently having Caprica!Sharon be quite smart enough to see the trap being set for her and being deserving of Helo’s trust. I admit I was dubious about giving it to her, although I had been looking forward to Varek’s second-in-command, driven by bloodlust, being inevitably killed somehow. Varek was having second thoughts about killing Apollo to weaken Roslin, which is interesting as to character development for him after his violent past. (But they’ve used this unwillingness to kill by various characters a lot this season, though.)
Only the special four got the Tomb of Athena tour. Good job Apollo recognised a constellation or it would be the most useless map. The ‘old names’ being the astrological names that we are familiar with, and the Archer being where the arrow came in worked well enough.
Another powerful crowd clapping led by Adama scene.
I was all ‘Woo, another non-North American accent’, although later she’d veer into South African to my ear, then ‘is that…? Ooh it is,’ as Lucy Lawless turned up as a reporter/documentary film maker. She was stirring up the Gideon incident/massacre and asking why there’d been no prosecutions, a fair question, even if her method of posing it seemed a bit unscrupulous. (The answer is they can’t afford to lose people and have to hope they’ve learned their lesson, as seems to be the expedient case when non-Cylons kill in the fleet.)
Adama and Rosln wanted a balanced portrait of Galactica’s soldiers in an attempt to restore the military’s understandably low reputation in the fleet after martial law and civilians had got killed. I was all like ‘Are you sure?’ given the frailties we’d seen, and of course we and the film-makers saw more of.
I was mainly enjoying the narrative device, and how secondary characters like Dee, Gaeta and Kat wove into the episode’s story, as well as Tigh and the officer in charge at Gideon, not to mention Lee and Kara. Hee, Adama’s fist pump. It seemed fairly straightforward press freedom versus necessary secrets, (pregnant!Caprica!Sharon) so of course she sneaked the real film in her underwear. The question of what a patriot does was quite enough to be getting on with, and her getting the clue of who was coming after the Tighs seemed to prove she was on he right side even if I should know better. Buto the clips of the final film felt earned. AND THEN Xena turned out to be a Cylon, which led to an explosion of glee from me at BSG indulging in your standard SFF TV Easter Eggery, tbh, but also a real rug pull. (So, we’ve seen six of them, and I love that they brought back that guy from season 1, when they could have plausibly used the fake doctor introduced this season.) And now the Cylons know about Cylon!Sharon’s pregnancy and are delighted rather than not, with yet another Sharon being smug that it worked.
I really liked the third ep showing how frazzled everyone was, partly because, as Adama observed, they were realising this was it – something no doubt stirred up by the questions for the film in the previous ep. It also delved into the complications of how everyone dealt with Caprica!Sharon. My observations is ‘not great if you want her co-operation.’ Granted, Helo’s expectations were totally unrealistic, but most of them are denying her personhood. And yes, that’s because she’s the unnatural enemy, but…
The exception perhaps was pragmatist!Roslin influencing Adama. Of course, the meat of it was the tangled Helo-Chief dynamic, with sides of Kallie being released and Tyrol getting all touchy feely with ships (a la Sharon over the captured Cylon ship. Only with added flashbcks of his time with Sharon.)
I was with Kara on seeing the Chief’s shipbuilding as a positive, and of course she’d fly the (very rapidly assembled once team spirit kicked in) ship. Lovely grace note of naming it Laura, because we knew that it was weeks now (how will that work for the show’s run?) with Adama not picking up on what the return of the book he’d gifted her meant, seemingly, but he did offer her his trust as an adviser. I love that they’re working on repairing that relationship.
Oh, and for the virus to be the consequence of Gaeta’s networking to solve another deadly problem was tasty, while having Caprica!Sharon be the only one who could defeat it worked as drama in terms of the visual of the unshackled prisoner linking into the ship, (though probably less scking if you’ve watched lots of skiffy than it was for the watching humans in command) and all the baggage with the crew. Not to mention the visual of the drifting Cylon raiders. The pilots enjoyed their victory in this one battle.
Lee fancying Dee. Huh. (Well, unlike Kara, he hasn't canonically got some since all this started.) Loved the oxygen deprivation scene. No Six influencing Baltar that I could see.
In Home part 2, Adama decides it’s better for the fleet family that Mama and Papa reunite. There is indeed a touching family reunion on Kobol, father and son, father and daughter figure, Bill benevolently forgiving Laura and her not seeing what he needed to forgive her for (try betrayal, stealing his kids, his self-image etc) amused. And then the Galactica party, including Tyrol because he’d been to Kobol, met Caprica!Sharon i.e. the Cylon with the face of the woman Tyrrell loved who tried to kill the old man!!! I think they wrung out All The Drama.
The reunion also included Billy, and I glomped on the idea of him being a future President, even if Adama made it a backhanded compliment, because I want them to run even more with the idea of the old hands training the young ones, going beyond the military, and as Roslin’s aide, he’s got a grat view of how governing works. And with so few of them, you can’t quite call cronyism.
Kara floated her Caprica rescue plan. Roslin shot her down (although she’d later refer to it to Adama, but I wonder if Starbuck is going to have to co-ordinate it herself.)
I really liked Tricia Helfer’s performance here (channelling Katee Sakhoff as Kara)? as Six pretended she was Baltar’s psychosis. He found out he didn’t have a Cylon chip (no-one who watched Farscape really thought you did, hun) and she gave the holding or literally true answer that she’s an angel from God, sent to hep Gaius comlete the destruction of the human race. Baltar and I started, having not thought that one through. Also Gaius realised the baby wasn’t literally going to be his and Six’s, but Caprica!Sharon and Helo’s, which made more sense.
More bloodshed on Kobol – excellently having Caprica!Sharon be quite smart enough to see the trap being set for her and being deserving of Helo’s trust. I admit I was dubious about giving it to her, although I had been looking forward to Varek’s second-in-command, driven by bloodlust, being inevitably killed somehow. Varek was having second thoughts about killing Apollo to weaken Roslin, which is interesting as to character development for him after his violent past. (But they’ve used this unwillingness to kill by various characters a lot this season, though.)
Only the special four got the Tomb of Athena tour. Good job Apollo recognised a constellation or it would be the most useless map. The ‘old names’ being the astrological names that we are familiar with, and the Archer being where the arrow came in worked well enough.
Another powerful crowd clapping led by Adama scene.
I was all ‘Woo, another non-North American accent’, although later she’d veer into South African to my ear, then ‘is that…? Ooh it is,’ as Lucy Lawless turned up as a reporter/documentary film maker. She was stirring up the Gideon incident/massacre and asking why there’d been no prosecutions, a fair question, even if her method of posing it seemed a bit unscrupulous. (The answer is they can’t afford to lose people and have to hope they’ve learned their lesson, as seems to be the expedient case when non-Cylons kill in the fleet.)
Adama and Rosln wanted a balanced portrait of Galactica’s soldiers in an attempt to restore the military’s understandably low reputation in the fleet after martial law and civilians had got killed. I was all like ‘Are you sure?’ given the frailties we’d seen, and of course we and the film-makers saw more of.
I was mainly enjoying the narrative device, and how secondary characters like Dee, Gaeta and Kat wove into the episode’s story, as well as Tigh and the officer in charge at Gideon, not to mention Lee and Kara. Hee, Adama’s fist pump. It seemed fairly straightforward press freedom versus necessary secrets, (pregnant!Caprica!Sharon) so of course she sneaked the real film in her underwear. The question of what a patriot does was quite enough to be getting on with, and her getting the clue of who was coming after the Tighs seemed to prove she was on he right side even if I should know better. Buto the clips of the final film felt earned. AND THEN Xena turned out to be a Cylon, which led to an explosion of glee from me at BSG indulging in your standard SFF TV Easter Eggery, tbh, but also a real rug pull. (So, we’ve seen six of them, and I love that they brought back that guy from season 1, when they could have plausibly used the fake doctor introduced this season.) And now the Cylons know about Cylon!Sharon’s pregnancy and are delighted rather than not, with yet another Sharon being smug that it worked.
I really liked the third ep showing how frazzled everyone was, partly because, as Adama observed, they were realising this was it – something no doubt stirred up by the questions for the film in the previous ep. It also delved into the complications of how everyone dealt with Caprica!Sharon. My observations is ‘not great if you want her co-operation.’ Granted, Helo’s expectations were totally unrealistic, but most of them are denying her personhood. And yes, that’s because she’s the unnatural enemy, but…
The exception perhaps was pragmatist!Roslin influencing Adama. Of course, the meat of it was the tangled Helo-Chief dynamic, with sides of Kallie being released and Tyrol getting all touchy feely with ships (a la Sharon over the captured Cylon ship. Only with added flashbcks of his time with Sharon.)
I was with Kara on seeing the Chief’s shipbuilding as a positive, and of course she’d fly the (very rapidly assembled once team spirit kicked in) ship. Lovely grace note of naming it Laura, because we knew that it was weeks now (how will that work for the show’s run?) with Adama not picking up on what the return of the book he’d gifted her meant, seemingly, but he did offer her his trust as an adviser. I love that they’re working on repairing that relationship.
Oh, and for the virus to be the consequence of Gaeta’s networking to solve another deadly problem was tasty, while having Caprica!Sharon be the only one who could defeat it worked as drama in terms of the visual of the unshackled prisoner linking into the ship, (though probably less scking if you’ve watched lots of skiffy than it was for the watching humans in command) and all the baggage with the crew. Not to mention the visual of the drifting Cylon raiders. The pilots enjoyed their victory in this one battle.
Lee fancying Dee. Huh. (Well, unlike Kara, he hasn't canonically got some since all this started.) Loved the oxygen deprivation scene. No Six influencing Baltar that I could see.