BSG end of season 2
Dec. 19th, 2020 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessLay Down Your Burdens parts 1 and 2
I have to state upfront that the return of Bill Adama’s moustache distressed me. A LOT.
General impression, true of both eps, is that they covered a lot of time and ground, and that was a bit disconcerting. It felt as if we’d skipped over what could have been enough material for half a season. For instance, we followed Starbuck and mission’s travels to Caprica and then boom, they were back on Galactica in a flash (after the Cylons’ weird capitulation). The effect was a bit unsettling, if I’m honest, and made me wonder how much the writers had planned all this beforehand.
Three strands to the first ep: Tyrol’s one-on-one therapy session, the presidential campaign and the rescue. And although the latter led to the discovery of Habitable, soon to be dubbed New Caprica, which affected the campaign, I was surprised they didn’t use the rescue as part of Roslin’s campaign. ‘Hey, I authorised a rescue mission for some people who may be your loved ones from Caprica. Vote for me.’ I suppose because it was a military op, uncompleted, and could be spun as endangering our soldiers on a reckless mission.
Anyway, I feel a bit lame, because beyond going ‘OOH, DEAN STOCKWELL!’ and enjoying his snarky priest dealing with Tyrol’s issues, I didn’t really consider that he might be a Cylon, and it’s not like the clues weren’t there. He wasn’t the most devout priest, and he seemed to know a lot, even setting aside the ‘secret Cylon meeting’ gag. When Tyrol (having presumably taken the advice to believe he was human and stop feeling suicidal) clocked the rescued copy and jumped him, I thought for a second they wouldn’t believe him, because here Tyrol was again, violently leaping on someone…
That was fairly disturbing, the attack on Kallie. I was also amused at the mention of a therapist – potentially the hardest working person in the fleet – because a lot of characters could have done with that help.
Anyway, awkwardness between Lee and Kara as he tried to talk to her about the very dangerous mission she’d come up with and talked the powers that be into letting her run. I realised in hindsight that it was a bit of a cheek from him making the volunteers listen to the debate for the election he’d set in train.
Helo was such a good lieutenant in this ep, so it was he who talked his girlfriend into going along. There wasn’t quite the pay-off I expected to her feeling of dread (surely she’s still on the brig in the Galactica), I mean, Baltar as president and his terrible decisions were dreadful, but it didn’t affect her or Helo more than anyone else. She was obviously still devastated about Hera, ditto Helo. (I think Roslin has been exceptionally stupid in bringing her adoptive mother into her school, and if Caprica!Sharon launches a mother bear attack on her, it will serve her right, although I simultaneously get a kick out of Roslin having messed with Baltar and Six’s ‘our baby’s destiny’.)
So, yeah, the mission, Kara rescued her man and fewer people than she expected with fewer marines than she expected, and then there was a firefight, and the Cylons' retreat seemed AWFULLY CONVENIENT and unsatisfactory and…yeah. I’ve tried to argue to myself that killing half the Caprican resistance might have somehow been the tipping point for Resurrected!Six and Resurrected!Sharon’s arguments about whether this was what God wanted might have won the day. But I’d like to have seen more evidence of that on screen. But the Cylon messenger (offering an atheistic POV among the Cylons…which demands further exploration, because they aren’t all that uniform) wasn’t reassuring about what they were really up to.
That would be the messenger with the same face as the priest who’d got so close to President Roslin. Totally understandable that she defaulted to ‘space ‘em.’
That was totally Resurrected!Six come to accept terms of surrender from Gaius with all of the emotion in her eyes. RIGHT!?
Before that, genius Baltar and campaign manager Tom (somehow not having second thoughts as Gaius acted all crazy responding to Six) battled against Politican!Roslin and her operator assistant. And Roslin was smugly thrashing him.
But the planet changed everything. Baltar knew rationally it wasn’t a permanent home, but sold the lie for the win. The line about people being locked up for nine months (surely it’s been longer for them) and desperate for hope resonated so hard in this year 2020 AD. I’ll pass on discussing much of what was shown about leadership, except I think it’s fairly inarguable that you don’t want someone who will give a nuclear weapon to a trauma victim who hasn’t even begun to heal/no friend of humanity’s to make the tough choices. I think it would have been more elegant if Pegasus!Six had targeted the Pegasus more directly, but there it was, the first act of Baltar’s presidency. And his response to it was as shabby as Adama had feared.
But to take a step back, the campaign was nicely complicated. Varek wasn’t wrong to complain about military involvement in the election count, as it turned out. I was fairly sure that Roslin knew something but was aiming for plausible deniability. I could buy Tigh, knowing Baltar would be a disaster as President, helping out. Dee? Well, I’m disappointed in her. Loved the detail that made Gaeta realise what had happened (he is so SMRT) and that he went over Tigh’s head.
And made it Adama’s problem. It wasn’t a problem that Adama wanted to have, also knowing what a fail for humanity Baltar in charge would be, and knowing even more after Laura’s revelation that she’d remembered Gaius was in cahoots with Six on Caprica. I felt there was a wrong note in dropping the revelation there and then (again, going back to my feeling that the timing of this double bill wasn’t all it could have been), but Bill bought it. LOVED LOVED LOVED that he loves her enough (that is my reading of it) not to let her do this wrong for the right outcome. The lawyer’s son coming out there. But it’s all very well talking about losing the battle but winning the war, when, as the end of the season reminded us, the Cylons are the enemy.
So, we jumped ahead a year, and I’m sure I’d have more to say about Kara’s wig if it weren’t for Adama’s moustache.
Interesting to see who had stayed on the ships (basically the Adamas), echoing Pegasus!Six’s line about not going to live on the planet – Gaius couldn’t force everyone down, ha! The antibiotics storyline I predicted has not happened, because they’re all running out. Anders, having reverted to a sportsman from Resistance leader the second Adama met him, was a bit of a macho idiot, and maybe Kara was questioning making him Mr Thrace. Most people had switched for a worse civilian life (possibly not character-driven so much as they wanted nearly everyone to be on the planet for what happens next). Whither Gaeta’s moral compass? He was probably hating himself as Baltar’s aide, decadent, irresponsible Baltar. Roslin had made the best of a bad situation and was teaching, looking to the next generation.
And lo, the baseless confidence that they’d be safe was shattered. DELICIOUS that it was the nuke that was Baltar’s fault that tipped the Cylons off. Six’s plan had worked this time. It was going to be awful for humanity, but that’s what he wanted, WASN’T IT? He had better interact with Resurrected!Six soonish. Who knows what the Cylons’ plan is – probably they have several by now.
I guess the writers were desperate to write about humanity under Cylon occupation and a very tiny band of ships able to fight. But I’m not sure that all the ground covered to get there holds up.
(PS my heacanon is that Adama was down visiting Roslin a lot all that year.)
As that was clearly the season’s end, I thought it was a good time to pause there instead of watching a triple bill as usual, and I believe I’m ahead of what’s airing on BBC2. We’ll see how much Christmas telly schedules and Christmas hibernation 2020 style affects my BSG watching.
I have to state upfront that the return of Bill Adama’s moustache distressed me. A LOT.
General impression, true of both eps, is that they covered a lot of time and ground, and that was a bit disconcerting. It felt as if we’d skipped over what could have been enough material for half a season. For instance, we followed Starbuck and mission’s travels to Caprica and then boom, they were back on Galactica in a flash (after the Cylons’ weird capitulation). The effect was a bit unsettling, if I’m honest, and made me wonder how much the writers had planned all this beforehand.
Three strands to the first ep: Tyrol’s one-on-one therapy session, the presidential campaign and the rescue. And although the latter led to the discovery of Habitable, soon to be dubbed New Caprica, which affected the campaign, I was surprised they didn’t use the rescue as part of Roslin’s campaign. ‘Hey, I authorised a rescue mission for some people who may be your loved ones from Caprica. Vote for me.’ I suppose because it was a military op, uncompleted, and could be spun as endangering our soldiers on a reckless mission.
Anyway, I feel a bit lame, because beyond going ‘OOH, DEAN STOCKWELL!’ and enjoying his snarky priest dealing with Tyrol’s issues, I didn’t really consider that he might be a Cylon, and it’s not like the clues weren’t there. He wasn’t the most devout priest, and he seemed to know a lot, even setting aside the ‘secret Cylon meeting’ gag. When Tyrol (having presumably taken the advice to believe he was human and stop feeling suicidal) clocked the rescued copy and jumped him, I thought for a second they wouldn’t believe him, because here Tyrol was again, violently leaping on someone…
That was fairly disturbing, the attack on Kallie. I was also amused at the mention of a therapist – potentially the hardest working person in the fleet – because a lot of characters could have done with that help.
Anyway, awkwardness between Lee and Kara as he tried to talk to her about the very dangerous mission she’d come up with and talked the powers that be into letting her run. I realised in hindsight that it was a bit of a cheek from him making the volunteers listen to the debate for the election he’d set in train.
Helo was such a good lieutenant in this ep, so it was he who talked his girlfriend into going along. There wasn’t quite the pay-off I expected to her feeling of dread (surely she’s still on the brig in the Galactica), I mean, Baltar as president and his terrible decisions were dreadful, but it didn’t affect her or Helo more than anyone else. She was obviously still devastated about Hera, ditto Helo. (I think Roslin has been exceptionally stupid in bringing her adoptive mother into her school, and if Caprica!Sharon launches a mother bear attack on her, it will serve her right, although I simultaneously get a kick out of Roslin having messed with Baltar and Six’s ‘our baby’s destiny’.)
So, yeah, the mission, Kara rescued her man and fewer people than she expected with fewer marines than she expected, and then there was a firefight, and the Cylons' retreat seemed AWFULLY CONVENIENT and unsatisfactory and…yeah. I’ve tried to argue to myself that killing half the Caprican resistance might have somehow been the tipping point for Resurrected!Six and Resurrected!Sharon’s arguments about whether this was what God wanted might have won the day. But I’d like to have seen more evidence of that on screen. But the Cylon messenger (offering an atheistic POV among the Cylons…which demands further exploration, because they aren’t all that uniform) wasn’t reassuring about what they were really up to.
That would be the messenger with the same face as the priest who’d got so close to President Roslin. Totally understandable that she defaulted to ‘space ‘em.’
That was totally Resurrected!Six come to accept terms of surrender from Gaius with all of the emotion in her eyes. RIGHT!?
Before that, genius Baltar and campaign manager Tom (somehow not having second thoughts as Gaius acted all crazy responding to Six) battled against Politican!Roslin and her operator assistant. And Roslin was smugly thrashing him.
But the planet changed everything. Baltar knew rationally it wasn’t a permanent home, but sold the lie for the win. The line about people being locked up for nine months (surely it’s been longer for them) and desperate for hope resonated so hard in this year 2020 AD. I’ll pass on discussing much of what was shown about leadership, except I think it’s fairly inarguable that you don’t want someone who will give a nuclear weapon to a trauma victim who hasn’t even begun to heal/no friend of humanity’s to make the tough choices. I think it would have been more elegant if Pegasus!Six had targeted the Pegasus more directly, but there it was, the first act of Baltar’s presidency. And his response to it was as shabby as Adama had feared.
But to take a step back, the campaign was nicely complicated. Varek wasn’t wrong to complain about military involvement in the election count, as it turned out. I was fairly sure that Roslin knew something but was aiming for plausible deniability. I could buy Tigh, knowing Baltar would be a disaster as President, helping out. Dee? Well, I’m disappointed in her. Loved the detail that made Gaeta realise what had happened (he is so SMRT) and that he went over Tigh’s head.
And made it Adama’s problem. It wasn’t a problem that Adama wanted to have, also knowing what a fail for humanity Baltar in charge would be, and knowing even more after Laura’s revelation that she’d remembered Gaius was in cahoots with Six on Caprica. I felt there was a wrong note in dropping the revelation there and then (again, going back to my feeling that the timing of this double bill wasn’t all it could have been), but Bill bought it. LOVED LOVED LOVED that he loves her enough (that is my reading of it) not to let her do this wrong for the right outcome. The lawyer’s son coming out there. But it’s all very well talking about losing the battle but winning the war, when, as the end of the season reminded us, the Cylons are the enemy.
So, we jumped ahead a year, and I’m sure I’d have more to say about Kara’s wig if it weren’t for Adama’s moustache.
Interesting to see who had stayed on the ships (basically the Adamas), echoing Pegasus!Six’s line about not going to live on the planet – Gaius couldn’t force everyone down, ha! The antibiotics storyline I predicted has not happened, because they’re all running out. Anders, having reverted to a sportsman from Resistance leader the second Adama met him, was a bit of a macho idiot, and maybe Kara was questioning making him Mr Thrace. Most people had switched for a worse civilian life (possibly not character-driven so much as they wanted nearly everyone to be on the planet for what happens next). Whither Gaeta’s moral compass? He was probably hating himself as Baltar’s aide, decadent, irresponsible Baltar. Roslin had made the best of a bad situation and was teaching, looking to the next generation.
And lo, the baseless confidence that they’d be safe was shattered. DELICIOUS that it was the nuke that was Baltar’s fault that tipped the Cylons off. Six’s plan had worked this time. It was going to be awful for humanity, but that’s what he wanted, WASN’T IT? He had better interact with Resurrected!Six soonish. Who knows what the Cylons’ plan is – probably they have several by now.
I guess the writers were desperate to write about humanity under Cylon occupation and a very tiny band of ships able to fight. But I’m not sure that all the ground covered to get there holds up.
(PS my heacanon is that Adama was down visiting Roslin a lot all that year.)
As that was clearly the season’s end, I thought it was a good time to pause there instead of watching a triple bill as usual, and I believe I’m ahead of what’s airing on BBC2. We’ll see how much Christmas telly schedules and Christmas hibernation 2020 style affects my BSG watching.
