BSG 3.06 Non-cartesian infections
I have the feeling I’ll get more from Torn when the DVDs come out, the audio-visual quality of the download was sufficiently sub par that until then I’ll have to make do with my ‘projection’ of the episode.
Another first instalment of a two-parter but more able to stand for itself than Exodus Part 1. In the Cylon/Baltar subplot part of the Cylon fleet becomes infected with a deadly ‘virus’ from the dim and distant past, a development with clear parallels to the spreading discontent arising from the much more recent past in the human camp. The title might refer to Baltar being torn between human and cylon loyalties, unable to decide which would be better for him or which would be better. More generally we see that the rifts between the New Capricans and those who stayed on the Galatica have yet to heal and in Tigh’s case may never do so. There are also intriguing hints of past rifts between the seven visible cylon models and the ‘final five.’ Originally I heard this as ‘primal five’ and assumed they weren’t spoken of in the way Jasmine from Angel S4 could not be named by her believers. On reflection the Voldemort alternative seems more likely with the implications of past intra-cylon war and mass boxing. There was a similar whispered shame aspect to the talk of putting GalacticaSharon into cold storage in Downloaded and she was just one incarnation of one model.
I have more to say about Kara later but note the bitter irony in Adama telling her that she’s no longer a daughter to him while Sharon is given the call sign Athena. Athena was the name of Adama’s daughter on the original show. Tigh is literally and metaphorically the one-eyed, bitter, drunk Adama calls him but there was nothing more heart breaking than that shot of him draining another bottle with Ellen’s picture in one hand and her sweater in the other.
Cylon “projection,” what’s that about and why go into all that exposition if it’s only to briefly make Baltar question his humanity? If he wasn’t sure whether he were a cylon or not it would take either courage or self-loathing to volunteer to recon the plague ship but since he didn’t catch the lurgy presumably that means he’s genetically distinct. But psychologically similar if able to ‘project’ a Six shaped anima and did this universe inherit Jungian mumbo-jumbo along with Ancient Greek mythology 101? I can see how projection, their own internal holodecks, might be a useful attribute to basestar-based cylons if they were human and likely to get bored of the décor. But they’re not, so why programme themselves that particular trait? Maybe consciousness and ennui are inextricably linked “I’m bored, therefore I am?” Alternatively, projection ties in to the confusion about the nature of the virus. It has physical symptoms and it’s implied that it’s spread by physical contact so how would downloading, which transfers the psychical not physical spread the infection? Possibly the writers are confused about the difference between mind and body for their imaginary race of robots but maybe they’re deliberately written as not so easily separable and a newly downloaded consciousness can physically affect the new host body to the point of making it physically diseased in a sort of reverse placebo effect.
Character analysis is not my forte, but anyway thoughts about Kara. I didn’t warm to her much at first, possibly through being introduced to the character by the S1 episode Act of Contrition that seemed to try so hard to make her simultaneously more manly and more main-painly than any man. When I finally caught the miniseries the schtick felt earned and then there were vids like Dualbunny’s “God is a DJ” and Sisabet’s “When I Paint my Masterpiece.” And then, as with Buffy, the more the character endured everything being stripped away the more I loved her.
That ability to take a hit aside, Kara is not much like Buffy though. She’s more like Faith but the BtVS character she resembles most is neither of the above. I think she’s like Spike. They’re both major poseurs, the swagger and the maverick cool a mask to hide a shameful lack within, and they both have this ill defined yearning for someone to ‘see’ them, to save them. With Spike that someone is almost always a romantic ideal, Kara tends more to familial love objects. In the beginning it was Adama but then she found out he lied about Earth. Not a complete deal-breaker but there was some transference of her hopes to Roslin who seemed to see her as more than a dupe. Then came the Pegasus and the discovery that what both Adama and Roslin saw her as was an assassin, a killer. Cain saw something too but Cain was a killer and then a corpse. It was after this that Kara, like all good fighter pilots, went into burnout and I think it’s significant that the one last mission she wanted to pull off before retiring aimed to save lives rather than end them, she had little interest in taking out Scar. The mission also centred around a new kind of saviour, a romantic one, Anders.
So reader she saved him and reader she married him and they went to make a new home on New Caprica. I got the impression it wasn’t quite working out as hoped even before Lebonen took her and made a parody of the whole thing. And she hated him for that and yet. He always did claim to see her.
I think there is some kind of affinity there beyond mutual Stockholm Syndrome. When she’d almost unravelled he brought Casey. He sees her as a mother then? Her own mother was a monster but Kara was down to her last strength and took the bait. Surely her own child might see her, might save her? Except when she isn’t.
Torn ends with Kara responding to Adama’s gauntlet and taking up the challenge of being who she is. It didn’t work so well with Tigh but Starbuck has always respected the big dramatic gesture. Horribly sentimental in some ways but I did like that she went back to see Casey (and damn that kid is cute). It could be the writers are hoping to pull a female Silas Marner and have her saved by reluctantly blessing the child but I’m hoping that what we’re seeing is her learning to care for someone who can’t save her.