shallowness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shallowness) wrote2021-07-22 11:27 am
shallowness) wrote2021-07-22 11:27 am
Entry tags:
still watching/suffering BSG
I didn’t watch these two episodes at anywhere near the same time.
4.10 Revelations
I was as irritated by aspects of this episode as ever and certainly not in the celebratory mood of the characters, even as they lampshaded how weak the Four (really Sam and Tyrol) leading Kara to the signal was as a way of getting them to Earth. And then on Earth, it looked as if the thirteenth tribe hadn’t got on very well either.
I think, maybe, this should have been stretched into a two-parter because there were so many times where they should have paused and done more with various characters. It’s all very well getting nearly everyone to appear on screen, but so many of them got short shrift, such as Kara finding out Tighe was a ‘skin job’, and really, although her reaction to learning Sam got more screentime, even that was barely a flicker.
I am not entirely sure whether it was Athena helping Kara plan, but they were acting as if killing Natalie never happened (even as they referenced Boomer getting triggered to shoot Adama, though we know that was by subtler programming than the music, because it was back in season 1 when the show was good.) Neither was I sure whether the number eight assisting D’Anna was Memory!Athena.
You had to bring all your own knowledge of Dee and Lee’s history to her standing beside him as he called the shots. We only saw Caprica right at the end, free to go to the father of her child (not that they’re doing anything with that fact). here was no follow-through to Felix not coping with his disability well, and his crew members trying to help, but not having had any ‘disability in the workplace‘ training and doing it wrong.
There was a sense of reverting to the core four (who had seen the constellations), perhaps meant to be in balance to the Four newly revealed Cylons? Although Laura just going ‘Yeah, you can carry on being President, Lee, even though you co-opted yourself, because you made a few good calls, and I’ll just take my pills and concentrate on being emotional with Bill’ seemed weird.
I totally bought Tori finding a way to join D’Anna (hilariously, no one on the Galactica got suspicious.) I actually didn’t mind that there weren’t that many emotional ramifications for Gaius, because she’d slept with him for information/gnomic advice to make her feel better about her place in the world. All the emotion was between her and Laura. It jumped out at me that he was being Willow Rosenburg about the revelation, though.
D’Anna seemed to have stepped in as the leader of most of the Cylon left through sheer force of personality/guest starringness. I was never sure if she had started executing her hostages when she said she had, we had no evidence of it, and the Galacticans on the basestar seemed surprised when the Centurions started rounding them up after that, which suggests she was lying.
Every reference to New Caprica reminded me of how all this history does not hold together.
I’d have been fine with them spacing Tighe just because his angsty manpain has got on my nerves for so long, but anyway, finding out he was a Cylon sent Adama off spirallng (again.) They sort of lampshaded the fact that Adama has seen him grow old over the last thirty years (but Dean Stockwell’s model is no spring chicken, so…!?)
But actually, there was zero tension over whether Apollo would space Tighe (as the self-hating maelstrom of angst wanted him to) because we always knew Kara was going to run in and tell Lee to stop. As it played out, I didn’t feel that Lee and D’Anna learning to trust each other and reject the mistrust that Laura and Natalie etc had so destructively was earned.
Anyway, Adama’s victory of scooping up the earth was not as joyous as previous celebrations (Kara honouring Kat was a nice moment).
Also, D’Anna seemed fairly sure that it was only four on ‘the fleet’ (basically on Galactica to welcome her), but she does know who the fifth is. I’m sort of wondering if it will be someone who died – Billy, Kalleigh or – though I hope it’s not her – Ellen, sitting waitng for them on Earth. There’s a certain bitter enjoyment from coming up with the least plausible theory you can, because of your actual canon.
4.11 Sometimes A Great Notion
With one big caveat, I thought this was a decent look at the unbearable bleakness of hopelessness, but what was learned on Earth made no more sense than most of the other revelations we’ve had for a while. Well, I’ll give them Ellen being the fifth, because I called it and it’s hilarious that Saul murdered her for collaborating for his sake, as urged on by his two fellow Resistance fighters who were just as much secret Cylons as he was. And then he went and knocked up a known Cylon out of grief. (Had they returned Caprica to the brig of underutilisation after her brief foray to Earth?) And presumably his Cylon liver can cope with all his drinking.
On the other hand, beginning with the actress playing Dee getting the voiceover, the previously remembering Dee had a past with Lee that the previous ep had glossed over and her devastation on Earth were unsubtle enough to give me A Really Bad Feeling. I admit I got distracted by berating her for getting involved again with Lee, because the second Kara snapped her fingers…and I think they were trying to misdirect us into wondering if she was the Fifth, but the suicide was not really such a shock.
Not after we’d seen Laura recuse herself from her duties, recoil from Bill, burn books (never a good sign) and leave it all to Lee; not when we saw how the hopes of those waiting on the Galactica were dashed; not when we saw Adama’s response to losing another crew member. Even D’Anna was depressed, while after the scene with Adama, Tighe decided to make like a fox in a story…
Except he couldn’t qute pull that off, but it was also noticeable that while the other three of the Four had had memories of their past lives he still hadn’t up till then.
So the thirteenth tribe were Cylons? WHUT? I am not sure about the artefacts or plant life they found 2,000 years after nuclear devastation, but I can swallow the Five being reincarnated (well, so they were able to age and reproduce without downloading into copies and how does this gel with the more modern seven Cylons and the seeming variety of Earth!Cylons in their memories? And there are probably other questions I haven’t thought of.)
As for Kara, getting dubbed the Harbinger of Death was never going to lead to flowers and songbirds, as she found out. She was avoiding Sam (fair enough) and hanging out with Hey He Has A Name who has now lost his foresight as she searched for the lampshaded signal, and found it came from her ship and that her remains were on Earth. Leaving her and us with questions, although mine are very weary. I suppose we’re meant to wonder if she’s kind of a Cylon, but I’m really not holding out for an answer as to how the thirteenth colony were all Cylons – if it’s ‘we’re all Cylons’, IT JUST MEAKS MY HEAD HURT.
I would have liked a leeeetle more Gaius because he seems to be back in scientist-for-the-fleet mode. I note in passing that Dee was part of the childcare solution for Hera, which they never mentioned whenever I complained about her parents haring off into danger.
Anyway, Lee tried to pick up the ball, but it took the Old Man to lie the fleet into hoping again -although he didn’t know the half of what had been discovered on Earth. Unfortunately, we do know it and it makes SO LITTLE SENSE.
4.10 Revelations
I was as irritated by aspects of this episode as ever and certainly not in the celebratory mood of the characters, even as they lampshaded how weak the Four (really Sam and Tyrol) leading Kara to the signal was as a way of getting them to Earth. And then on Earth, it looked as if the thirteenth tribe hadn’t got on very well either.
I think, maybe, this should have been stretched into a two-parter because there were so many times where they should have paused and done more with various characters. It’s all very well getting nearly everyone to appear on screen, but so many of them got short shrift, such as Kara finding out Tighe was a ‘skin job’, and really, although her reaction to learning Sam got more screentime, even that was barely a flicker.
I am not entirely sure whether it was Athena helping Kara plan, but they were acting as if killing Natalie never happened (even as they referenced Boomer getting triggered to shoot Adama, though we know that was by subtler programming than the music, because it was back in season 1 when the show was good.) Neither was I sure whether the number eight assisting D’Anna was Memory!Athena.
You had to bring all your own knowledge of Dee and Lee’s history to her standing beside him as he called the shots. We only saw Caprica right at the end, free to go to the father of her child (not that they’re doing anything with that fact). here was no follow-through to Felix not coping with his disability well, and his crew members trying to help, but not having had any ‘disability in the workplace‘ training and doing it wrong.
There was a sense of reverting to the core four (who had seen the constellations), perhaps meant to be in balance to the Four newly revealed Cylons? Although Laura just going ‘Yeah, you can carry on being President, Lee, even though you co-opted yourself, because you made a few good calls, and I’ll just take my pills and concentrate on being emotional with Bill’ seemed weird.
I totally bought Tori finding a way to join D’Anna (hilariously, no one on the Galactica got suspicious.) I actually didn’t mind that there weren’t that many emotional ramifications for Gaius, because she’d slept with him for information/gnomic advice to make her feel better about her place in the world. All the emotion was between her and Laura. It jumped out at me that he was being Willow Rosenburg about the revelation, though.
D’Anna seemed to have stepped in as the leader of most of the Cylon left through sheer force of personality/guest starringness. I was never sure if she had started executing her hostages when she said she had, we had no evidence of it, and the Galacticans on the basestar seemed surprised when the Centurions started rounding them up after that, which suggests she was lying.
Every reference to New Caprica reminded me of how all this history does not hold together.
I’d have been fine with them spacing Tighe just because his angsty manpain has got on my nerves for so long, but anyway, finding out he was a Cylon sent Adama off spirallng (again.) They sort of lampshaded the fact that Adama has seen him grow old over the last thirty years (but Dean Stockwell’s model is no spring chicken, so…!?)
But actually, there was zero tension over whether Apollo would space Tighe (as the self-hating maelstrom of angst wanted him to) because we always knew Kara was going to run in and tell Lee to stop. As it played out, I didn’t feel that Lee and D’Anna learning to trust each other and reject the mistrust that Laura and Natalie etc had so destructively was earned.
Anyway, Adama’s victory of scooping up the earth was not as joyous as previous celebrations (Kara honouring Kat was a nice moment).
Also, D’Anna seemed fairly sure that it was only four on ‘the fleet’ (basically on Galactica to welcome her), but she does know who the fifth is. I’m sort of wondering if it will be someone who died – Billy, Kalleigh or – though I hope it’s not her – Ellen, sitting waitng for them on Earth. There’s a certain bitter enjoyment from coming up with the least plausible theory you can, because of your actual canon.
4.11 Sometimes A Great Notion
With one big caveat, I thought this was a decent look at the unbearable bleakness of hopelessness, but what was learned on Earth made no more sense than most of the other revelations we’ve had for a while. Well, I’ll give them Ellen being the fifth, because I called it and it’s hilarious that Saul murdered her for collaborating for his sake, as urged on by his two fellow Resistance fighters who were just as much secret Cylons as he was. And then he went and knocked up a known Cylon out of grief. (Had they returned Caprica to the brig of underutilisation after her brief foray to Earth?) And presumably his Cylon liver can cope with all his drinking.
On the other hand, beginning with the actress playing Dee getting the voiceover, the previously remembering Dee had a past with Lee that the previous ep had glossed over and her devastation on Earth were unsubtle enough to give me A Really Bad Feeling. I admit I got distracted by berating her for getting involved again with Lee, because the second Kara snapped her fingers…and I think they were trying to misdirect us into wondering if she was the Fifth, but the suicide was not really such a shock.
Not after we’d seen Laura recuse herself from her duties, recoil from Bill, burn books (never a good sign) and leave it all to Lee; not when we saw how the hopes of those waiting on the Galactica were dashed; not when we saw Adama’s response to losing another crew member. Even D’Anna was depressed, while after the scene with Adama, Tighe decided to make like a fox in a story…
Except he couldn’t qute pull that off, but it was also noticeable that while the other three of the Four had had memories of their past lives he still hadn’t up till then.
So the thirteenth tribe were Cylons? WHUT? I am not sure about the artefacts or plant life they found 2,000 years after nuclear devastation, but I can swallow the Five being reincarnated (well, so they were able to age and reproduce without downloading into copies and how does this gel with the more modern seven Cylons and the seeming variety of Earth!Cylons in their memories? And there are probably other questions I haven’t thought of.)
As for Kara, getting dubbed the Harbinger of Death was never going to lead to flowers and songbirds, as she found out. She was avoiding Sam (fair enough) and hanging out with Hey He Has A Name who has now lost his foresight as she searched for the lampshaded signal, and found it came from her ship and that her remains were on Earth. Leaving her and us with questions, although mine are very weary. I suppose we’re meant to wonder if she’s kind of a Cylon, but I’m really not holding out for an answer as to how the thirteenth colony were all Cylons – if it’s ‘we’re all Cylons’, IT JUST MEAKS MY HEAD HURT.
I would have liked a leeeetle more Gaius because he seems to be back in scientist-for-the-fleet mode. I note in passing that Dee was part of the childcare solution for Hera, which they never mentioned whenever I complained about her parents haring off into danger.
Anyway, Lee tried to pick up the ball, but it took the Old Man to lie the fleet into hoping again -although he didn’t know the half of what had been discovered on Earth. Unfortunately, we do know it and it makes SO LITTLE SENSE.