But we just want to pet your hair

[ace_and_sep]

Sep - don't read the comments on this one. We'll try to keep you spoiler-free.

I just watched the second season finale of Battlestar Galactica and !! Great holey moley! I almost blacked out at one point - honestly! I think I was holding my breath.

Genius. I did not expect any of that.

Comments

[nzraya]

I had some crazy mixed feelings about that ep. I do think the show got back on its skis in eps 2-18--2-20 after some dangerously shark-jumpy stuff there in between 2-10 and 2-17. But dude. All that time wasted on picking lint out of Lee and Kara's navels (and I agree with jennyo that those two characters just are not nearly as interesting when treated separately from the "grown-up" cast), and now we SKIP a year? Not saying the jump wasn't justified by legitimate storytelling considerations, but it can really frak with a gal's sense of pacing when you spend one episode living painfully and in slower-than-real-time through three minutes in the life of one character, and the following week find yourself skipping over AN ENTIRE YEAR in the blink of an eye. If the writers had planned out the arc better, maybe we could've had some consistant sense of momentum and suspense (and avoided the loose-endiness and strained credibility of the "A.N.S.W.E.R" and "black marketeer" plots -- where are those folks now??), instead of yawning our asses off

[ace_and_sep]

Agreed that there were some really crappy and rudderless episodes there for a while. I never lost my faith, though, the way I have with the steaming ass being served up as "Veronica Mars" this season.

Black Market is interesting to me in retrospect because it's when Lee started to recede from view. I knew him less at the end of that episode and he has moved further and further from the core of the show until we se him, one year later, bloated and virtually alone. I'm not sure where they're going with that, but I suppose it could be interesting (Lee is not my favorite character, so I'd like to see him be interesting.)

But I consider putting the year skip before the season break enough of a boon that the fact that it happened doesn't bother me to much. For some reason, that season of Farscape that starts off skipping what everyone did while separated bothered me a lot more. And I don't mind plot developments in the previouslies too much -- I actually think it's a quite clever way to deal with being constrained to 20 40-minute episodes

[nzraya]

Do you listen to the podcasts? Ron Moore did recently compare Baltar to Clinton,

Well crap, then that pretty much confirms my diagnosis. In my previous comment I was speaking from my own casual observations rather than any pretense of understanding the writers' intent. (I don't listen to the podcasts, but the resemblance between what they showed us of Prez!Baltar and the picture the Republicans like to paint of the Clinton Oval Office was pretty striking....as was the "See what happens when you insist on "free and fair" elections and choose a namby-pamby atheist Eurotrash appeasement candidate instead of a proper faith-based ass-kicking candidate who understands the importance of regulating women's wombs to the War on Terror Cylons?" subtext.) Now... well, I can't help but notice that the miniseries essentially validated Guantanamo (OMG that random innocent guy Baltar fingered as a Cylon really WAS one!!) and throughout the show, the moments that I've been thinking of as brilliantly complicating certain philosophical/civic

[boliver]

As a good staunch liberal, I don't feel like the writers tricked me into anything; there might be commonalities with our current-day situation (as in V for Vendetta, but with much less obviousness), but the two worlds and cultures and stakes are so vastly different that I don't feel constrained as a viewer by the guidelines that I follow today

[ace_and_sep]

Isn't Clinton more of a cocksuckee? ;) Agreed, Clinton liked his catting around, but I highly doubt he would have given Monica a nuke to get her on her knees.

Apologize all you want! I'm even a little more in love with BSG after watching two episodes of the new, but still cheesy and one-dimensional, Dr. Who last week.

We are in total agreement about Lee! You can be more, Lee. Please do so immediately.

Whee. I finally got around to listening to the podcast and I totally called the Nazis marching into Paris reference. So I guess Baltar will be starring in a new movie: V is for VichyMoore said in the podcast that Baltar isn't...er, I can't recall the exact phrasing, but he doesn't seem to think Baltar has gone too far. And I am still not convinced

[nzraya]

Totally agree here (with everything! because you so sm4rt!) and I actually feel pretty strongly that we're *supposed* to not agree with many of our fave characters' decisions on this show, to see them as complex and very flawed, and to grapple a bit with the fact that we like them anyway. But then I worry when I look around and no one seems to be doing this -- not because I want to control other folks' reactions to the show but because it reminds me too much of S7 Buffy -- where I was CONVINCED that Buffy's Generalissimo stance was WRONG WRONG WRONG and that the show would eventually call her on it (I mean, come on, Joss!), maybe even by revealing her as the show's final Big Bad, or at least making us rethink the wisdom of the whole Council thing (like, maybe Slayers do have sell-by dates and/or need some supervision). And what happened? The Magic Bomb of Righteousness punished her ungrateful minions and the Magic Guardian Axe Machina confirmed Buffy's place as Most Righteous Slayer of All Time, world without end, amen