Battlestar Galactica: Almost done

So I thought I’d open up a BSG thread, just so we can talk about the last two episodes and what we want/expect/dread from the finale. A few bullet-points to start us off:

  • I’ve been on the fence about Helo – but over the last few episodes he’s really pissed me off. I find the way he’s interacting with Athena really entitled. I get that he’s grieving, but his grief seems to be all about demanding stuff from her. Which I wouldn’t have a problem with in and of itself, but the writers seem to think that we’ll think it’s awesome and noble and so I go all contrary and dislike him.
  • I usually like it when TV shows focus on friendship, but the fact that half the episodes this season have been about the Adama and Tigh, just underscores to me that the only people the writers’ care about are those with power. That last week they found time for yet more Adama Tigh bonding, but didn’t even tell us what was happening with the Chief really typified that for me.
  • If they do the “Woman redeemed by child” plotline with Boomer I will be more than a little pissed off.
  • I’m sounding very negative, sorry. I thought the scene where Kara and Adama drew the line and we saw the ship talking was really well done.
  • But the flashbacks? Boring as boring.
  • This entry posted in Whatever. Bookmark the permalink. 

    25 Responses to Battlestar Galactica: Almost done

    1. 1
      DaisyDeadhead says:

      I wanted more religious fanaticism with Gaius and his pseudo-Manson-girls, but I guess that isn’t going to be a major plot line. :(

      Yeah, the flashbacks are formulaic.

    2. 2
      nojojojo says:

      Yay, a BSG thread!

      I was actually really happy with the flashbacks. One of the things that’s always made me happy about BSG is its focus on character to the exclusion of flashy stuff-blowing-up, or cyberpunk technobabble. (Unfortunately, because of the latter I don’t get as much of the Cylons as I’d like to see. But I can live with that.) But I loved that we got to see all the characters who are probably going to die, in more “normal” times, before they went off and became the central figures in what will probably be humanity’s greatest story (assuming some chunk of humanity survives). I’m especially glad we got to see more of Six being more human than Baltar; I’ve been hearing a peculiar meme in fandom about her losing her baby in “penance” for the child she murdered in the first episode of the series. But everything she’s done has been an act of mercy, throughout the series; I can’t see how her own loss would tie into that. I’m glad they re-emphasized her merciful nature here.

      I get that he’s grieving, but his grief seems to be all about demanding stuff from her.

      I don’t get that. It seems to me that he’s reacting to the rape by Boomer, needing reassurance that Athena’s not capable of giving him right now (last week’s ep, in which he asked whether she hated him, and she didn’t respond). It felt to me like he was desperately trying to hold onto some sense of security, when that’s been taken from him — from both of them, really. A very realistic response to rape, IMO.

      They told us what was happening with the Chief; he’s becoming a misogynist. -_- What kills me is that he seems to be ladling his feelings about Cally onto the Eights too. I’m kinda hoping he dies now.

      What I want to know is what happened with Six. Did Tigh just up and leave her after the miscarriage? Did she leave him, so that Ellen could have him? I see Tigh and Ellen together now, and it’s clear Six is on her own, but I’m not sure what that means in terms of who wronged whom.

      They had better reveal WTF is up with Kara by the end, or I’m going to have a conniption.

      …and I’m still hoping the Galactica turns into a giant robot.

    3. 3
      Jeff Fecke says:

      I pretty much disagree with every point here, for reasons I’m going to go into in a long post. Suffice to say that I find both the Agathons’ responses realistic and imperfect — and I find your lack of empathy for a rape victim rather surprising.

    4. 4
      nojojojo says:

      Jeff,

      It took me awhile to accept Helo as a rape victim, personally, since he was shown so enthusiastically going at it with Boomer. But in retrospect (and rewatching) I realize now why they made Boomer so aggressive in that scene — a) to highlight that Helo should’ve picked up on the difference, not just gone “woo! rough sex!”, and b) to emphasize that she’s using him. Also, it wasn’t done for Boomer’s pleasure; it was done to hurt Athena — e.g., for power. People have been speculating on whether Boomer is now pregnant, but I’m thinking no; there might’ve been love on Helo’s part, but there was none on Boomer’s. (And how does it work when Helo’s love is directed toward Athena, not Boomer? Argh, the whole “love is needed for conception” idea makes my head hurt.)

    5. 5
      Jeff Fecke says:

      I can understand why it wouldn’t appear to be “rape” in the classic sense, and why one wouldn’t see Helo as a victim. It has to do partly with the way many of us, even feminists, have internalized the message that rape isn’t rape without physical force. It also has to do with the cultural view of male sexuality — that men pretty much always want sex from anyone, and that you can’t rape someone who likes sex.

      To me, the scene reminded me of the scene that takes Revenge of the Nerds completely beyond the moral event horizon, where the not-Anthony-Edwards nerd rapes the pretty cheerleader by pretending to be her boyfriend wearing a Darth Vader mask. (She, of course, loves it, even after finding out the deception. Because it’s that kind of movie.) There’s no doubt that it’s rape, because he’s having sex with her under false pretenses; in reality, he’d be doing hard time, and rightly so.

      So it is with Helo. Maybe he should have known it was Boomer — but he didn’t, and so he’s left dealing with the sort of pain that is common to rape survivors (i.e., “I should have done _____, I shouldn’t have done _____, it’s all my fault that my rapist raped me.”) He’s looking for absolution from Athena to assuage his own feelings of guilt, feelings he shouldn’t have but does, because he’s human. Athena, meanwhile, isn’t able to give that absolution because she’s suffering her own guilt, and because she does blame Helo for being raped, and does think at some level he deserved or wanted it.

      Those aren’t flattering portrayals of either character, but they’re very realistic ones, ones that are only surprising because of the characters’ genders. I don’t view Helo as particularly heroic here, but I do view him as a victim of both rape and the worst thing that can be done to a parent. (I would be willing to be raped and tortured forever to prevent my daughter from being kidnapped and killed; the vast majority of parents would agree with me.) And of course, Athena is the victim of that, too. I don’t think either is being privileged; I think both are damaged, and that it’s remarkable either gets through the day without emulating Dee. I don’t know if I could.

    6. 6
      Roger says:

      I don’t have anything to say about the final two episodes. I just want to say that this is arguably the best sci-fi television series ever produced, and I am a long-time lover of Star Trek.

    7. 7
      Charles S says:

      The flashbacks for me brought home that BSG is actually Lost in Space. We are down to the end of the series, and we get the flashbacks to remind us who this show is really about: Mommy, Daddy, the 3 children, and the nefarious scientist (oh, and the daughter’s love interest who was never very important, and the robot who is associated with the nefarious scientist).

      My hope for the series is that all of the major characters except Baltar, Caprica, and Hera die during the final episode, and we get to see Baltar and his followers found a new home for the hybrid children of humanity and the cylons, preferably on Kobol. And I want plenty of Opera House references throughout the attack on the Cylon colony.

    8. 8
      DaisyDeadhead says:

      and we get to see Baltar and his followers found a new home for the hybrid children of humanity and the cylons, preferably on Kobol.

      Ohhh! This sounds fabulous!

    9. 9
      Maia says:

      Charles – That would be an awesome ending

      Jeff – I said that my reaction to Helo was about what I see as the writers intentions. If I’d thought even for a moment that anyone involved framed what happened to Helo as rape I’d have a different reaction. As it is I don’t think we’re supposed to see it as about that. It’s framed as being in reference to him losing a child, and his reaction to them both losing a child seems to be about demanding things from Athena.

      Nojojo – Yeah we saw what happened to him the Chief week. I guess I should be glad, as I don’t like him, that he’s being shown as the misogynist I think he is. Although I’m worried that he wont’ die.

      I thought the stuff about Baltar and six was the only interesting character stuff in the flash backs, and even that could have been much shorter. I get if they’re going to want to have the flashbacks all come together with something in the next episode. But for them to work you have to be interested in the characters, and I’m deeply uninterested in Adama and the president.

      About Starbuck: I thought it was basically established that she was Daniel’s daughter and half cylon? I’m just curious if they’ll ever learn this, or if it’ll be enough that the audience know.

      Oh and incidentally the idea that there were a whole bunch of people who participated in the rebellion who are just sitting in jail cells? Wow that’s a productive use of resources. I’m really annoyed that they didn’t show that this was coming back and biting them on the ass, because of shortages, instead they’ll all get to take part in the heroic rescue of the miracle baby.

    10. 10
      Charles S says:

      There are apparently cut scenes in which it is made clear that the Sons of Ares took over food rationing because of the shortage of marines caused by locking up all the marines who participated in the rebellion, so the idea that locking up the crew was a bad idea was something the writers recognized but didn’t think was worth making explicit or paying much attention to.

      The thing I didn’t like about the Six-Baltar flashback is that previously we were led to believe that Six and Baltar had a several year relationship because Six was able to rescue him from the fact that he had over-committed himself to a task he wasn’t intellectually sufficient for (redesigning the defense network), which seemed to fit very well with Baltar’s issues over the course of the series, but now we learn that Baltar accidentally betrayed humanity because Six was nice to his daddy.

      The only flashback image I liked was the pigeon in flight. I feel like we’ve seen that image before, but I can’t remember where.

    11. 11
      Jeff Fecke says:

      I’m really annoyed that they didn’t show that this was coming back and biting them on the ass, because of shortages, instead they’ll all get to take part in the heroic rescue of the miracle baby

      They also showed that the reason Cylons were flying CAP and everyone was on a 6-day rotation was because they were down pilots due to the mutiny. This wasn’t shown as a positive.

      Oh, and in folklore, a bird in the house is an omen, specifically a harbinger of death.

    12. 12
      Raine says:

      I really enjoyed the flashbacks, and didn’t find them boring at all–though I definitely agree with the points about who it was we get to see in flashbacks. There are lots of characters that I’d like to see more of in flashbacks, and it does seem like the writers are very focused on who is in power. It’ll be interesting if they do any more flashbacks in the finale (it doesn’t seem likely with all of the things they need to tie up, and the flashbacks not bringing much to the table besides texture).

      At the same time, reflecting back on the episode now, I don’t think I’d like the flashbacks as much if they didn’t give the great moment with the line being drawn down the middle of the ship. The flashbacks in combination with the line made me reflect back to the first season when tragedy was fresh and there were these constant decisions that needed to be made (such as Roslin’s insistence that the war was already lost when Adama and the military wanted to leave the civilians and continue the fight).

    13. 13
      Maia says:

      Jeff – I’m looking for a little more than ‘not positive’. When you’ve got 40,000 people and heaps of work (we’ve seen on the Tillium ship there are huge consequences to the short handedness, and we can imagine similar situations in othe rprocessing ships) locking people up in a cell is madness. “We’ve locked all the pilots up, but its OK, because look we have some more pilots on hand” is convenience, not a consequence of that short-handedness.

      I liked the pigeon too. Charles – thinking about it I agree with you about Baltar and six. I also find it frustrating that they were telling us stuff about Baltar that we already know. It was the same problem I had with the Pegasus flashbacks in Razor – they were showing us things we already knew.

    14. 14
      Elizabeth Anne says:

      Yes, you should keep people who very recently murdered several hundred people out and wandering around.

    15. 15
      Maia says:

      Hundreds of people? Where does that figure come from? It doesn’t gibe with what we saw on the show. I’m guessing the number in the credits: “numbers of people died during the time of the rebellion” does not equal “number of people killed by Racetrack”

      Where ever the numbers come from there are serious problems in that argument. The most obvious is that the cause of the rebellion was the presence of cylons (including Caprica Six and those who were part of the ruling class on New Caprica) in the fleet. Clearly mass-murderer does not rule one out from being part of the fleet.

      Secondly, and more importantly, prisons, like everything else, need a material basis to exist. Unless you have enough resources that you can give resources to live to all those in prison and the people guarding them, prisons are not a solution to anti-social behaviour or behaviour that challenges those in power. By ignoring this the writers of BSG have made prisons seem inevitable and natural, rather than arising in a particular time and place.

    16. 16
      Sailorman says:

      Maia Writes:
      March 16th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
      Secondly, and more importantly, prisons, like everything else, need a material basis to exist. Unless you have enough resources that you can give resources to live to all those in prison and the people guarding them, prisons are not a solution to anti-social behaviour or behaviour that challenges those in power. By ignoring this the writers of BSG have made prisons seem inevitable and natural, rather than arising in a particular time and place.

      yes, but what’s the other option? historically, humans tend to deal with people who they are concerned about in two basic ways: either lock them in prisons (by which I include prison islands and certain types of exile); or kill/maim them.

      If you have someone who has committed a heinous crime and you can’t afford to keep them humanely in prison, it’s not clear that the default human answer would be “let them go free,” rather than “keep them unhumanely” or “hell, just kill them.” History suggests that the latter two are far more likely.

    17. 17
      Maia says:

      Sailorman – I’m not arguing for BSG to be humane, I’m asking it not to be a liberal tribute to dictatorship.

      The other option besides prison cells, incidentally, is work camps. Send people who you don’t like to the tillium ship or whatever. But you couldn’t do that with the rebellion – the last thing you want to do with an organised group is send them somewhere where they could stop everything if they used their labour power.

      So the options with dealing with an organised group like the mutiny would actually be kill them all or negotiate with them. Because in reality power can only be maintained with force. The less force you are able/prepared to use the less you can be a dictatorship. But in the BSG world Adama’s always right and can do whatever he wants against the will of the people, without taking steps which would make him a bad person (according to most people, obviously I enjoy hating on leaders).

      So I’d be much happier with the rebellion plot line if Adama had actually killed all the rebels.

    18. 18
      Sailorman says:

      For some reason or other I find it insanely amusing that you and I are in agreement about this particular point. All the things we disagree on but “hey, movies should just me more rational and have more people get offed” we are total agreement. Heh. :)

      I don’t watch BSG but I am always annoying my wife by wondering why the characters of films/books/etc, who are purportedly acting with few moral qualms, don’t just kill people most of the time instead of taking them prisoner.

    19. 19
      Charles S says:

      I think that merely killing the level of ringleaders below Gaeta and Zarek (plus anyone who was unwilling to recant), and then decimating the remaining rebels would probably have been sufficient. Merely because someone participates in an armed rebellion doesn’t mean that they will actively instigate another one if the first one fails horribly. But yes, locking them in cells for the foreseeable future doesn’t seem like a good solution from any vantage point.

    20. 20
      Elkins says:

      But yes, locking them in cells for the foreseeable future doesn’t seem like a good solution from any vantage point.

      Oh, well, nobody ever seems to stay in those cells for any length of time anyway. Seriously, I think that the unfortunate Kelly may be the only character we’ve ever seen actually put in the brig and stay there (until he was liberated by the rebellion, that is). Everyone else just sort of…leaves the brig eventually, and no one says boo about it. Caprica? Got knocked up by her interrogator and so was, apparently, released. Athena? Apparently randomly assassinating the leader of your would-be allies for no sane reason, thereby jeapordizing an alliance of life-or-death importance, isn’t sufficient to keep you locked up. Tyrol? Oh, well, so long as he’s willing to volunteer for a suicide mission, he’s good to go. Boomer (the first time)? Assassinated. Her assassin, Cally? Just kept for a brief stint and then let go. Ditto for Socinus.

      It would seem that the best strategy, if you are a female character in the BSG universe who is being detained for terribly serious crimes, is to have a damn bay-bee. The BSG writers love bay-bees.

    21. 21
      Maia says:

      Presumably the rebellious are on the prison ship not the brig Elkins – since we saw the Brig and it wasn’t full. But yes Athena’s shooting of Six was possibly the most annoying nonsensical plotline we’ve seen (although I’m of the opinion of the ret-coning of Nicky’s parentage comes pretty close).

      Charles – Good point they wouldn’t have needed to kill every member of the rebellion, just either destroy them to the extent they would be part of the fleet without fermenting more rebellion, or negotiate with people so they don’t want to.

      But every time I think about this I get pissed off at how the BSG writers want Adama to always be right and do anythign he wants, without actually having to do the work to maintain the dictatorship.

      Sailorman – that is quite funny.

    22. 22
      grendelkhan says:

      Maia: I also find it frustrating that they were telling us stuff about Baltar that we already know.

      No–they were showing us that Baltar was actually telling the truth about growing up on Aerelon. I’d taken that as just another bit of self-preservation from him; I was actually pretty surprised that he wasn’t making it up.

      So the options with dealing with an organised group like the mutiny would actually be kill them all or negotiate with them. […] So I’d be much happier with the rebellion plot line if Adama had actually killed all the rebels.

      In the final consideration, as I mentioned before, the popular revolt that you’re hoping for isn’t going to happen. The people’s fury was expressed, then subverted. You’re in Gaeta’s position–unable to believe that the self-appointed spokesfolk may not have had your principles in mind, but instead, were animated solely by their own lust for power. I can see that you’re disappointed; this is the point. Popular revolts do not always, as you may have noticed, actually make things better.

    23. 23
      KatyBee says:

      Just to point out, on the question of executing the members of the rebellion–this isn’t how the military works. Only the leaders (Gaeta and Zarek) would be killed because the general assumption made is that people take orders from their superiors and are therefore not responsible for what they do if they were following orders. Maybe a couple more people at the top could have been executed, but anything more would have been unrealistic in a show that has tried very hard to replicate military culture closely.

    24. 24
      Charles S says:

      KatyBee, I don’t think that is true at all. First of all, members of the military are forbidden from obeying unlawful orders. Furthermore, wikipedia kindly provides the US uniform code of military justice section dealing with mutiny, which states:

      (a) Any person subject to this code (chapter) who—

      (1) with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority, refuses, in concert with any other person, to obey orders or otherwise do his duty or creates any violence or disturbance is guilty of mutiny;
      (2) with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of lawful civil authority, creates, in concert with any other person, revolt, violence, or other disturbance against that authority is guilty of sedition;
      (3) fails to do his utmost to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition being committed in his presence, or fails to take all reasonable means to inform his superior commissioned officer or commanding officer of a mutiny or sedition which he knows or has reason to believe is taking place, is guilty of a failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition.

      (b) A person who is found guilty of attempted mutiny, mutiny, sedition, or failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.

      Members of the crew of Galactica who merely treated Gaeta’s seizure of power as legitimate would not clearly be guilty of mutiny, but everyone who participated in actually staging the mutiny is guilty, as is everyone who knew about it, whether they joined it or not.

      But my knowledge of the military is very little, so if you can point to specific cases of mutiny in which the lower ranking collaborators were actually treated very lightly or not punished at all, I’d certainly be interested to see them.

    25. 25
      KatyBee says:

      If you look at the cases involving torture and such, (I just woke up and can’t remember the name of that place where they took those pictures), the generally attitude of the military was “they were following orders, ergo they are not responsible”–regardless of whether it was legal or not. (Obviously, this is not mutiny. But it is the attitude of the military–of which my husband is in, so I see it/hear it a lot).

      Yes, they CAN be executed for mutiny. However, they can also be prosecuted for having sex in positions other than missionary (including receiving or giving oral sex) and for committing adultery. The point is, lots of laws in the UCMJ aren’t used and are just there to give them wiggle room (they can execute them, but they also have the option not to) for how they deal with things (like many laws, really).

      I wasn’t particularly talking about the UCMJ either, but what would actually, more likely happen in a situation like that. And in a situation where they can’t afford to execute a whole lot of the crew for various reasons, and where many people were following orders from above them, they would have probably done very nearly what was in the show.

      My initial reaction was also “why wouldn’t they just execute everyone for rebellion?” which caused my husband to explain and point out that that’s not how the military really works. The people at the top take the blame for everyone below them, for everything, even if they didn’t know what was going on (ex: something gets stolen, paperwork gets misfiled, etc–it’s the NCO’s or sometimes the officer’s fault).