BSG: Taking a Break from All Your Worries
This is late because my boy (who I love, I really, really do) decided that Monday would be the best ever day to pick me up from work and say, “Hope you don’t mind, I had to unplug your computer.” Anyway, I’ve seen it now and I liked sections of it but didn’t really feel it held together as a cohesive episode.
While it perhaps raised some interesting parallels I felt the intercutting of the love quadrangle and the Baltar interrogation was unnecessary and forced. It stole power from the quadrangle and made it appear, more than ever, petty and stupid in the greater scheme of things.
I’ll talk about the quadrangle first. I think they pushed it over the line with this episode. I know many people think it stepped over the line a long time ago, and if it were purely a matter of personal taste, I’d agree (plus the fact I’d prefer Lee with Laura and Kara with Leoben, neither of which will happen). However, in the context of the show I didn’t feel the storylines were inherently flawed (again, personal distaste of triangles/quadrangles aside). I mean, accepting that Kara was hung up on Anders and Lee fell into a relationship with Dee because he was depressed and didn’t know what else to do with his life and she was a nice girl - accepting that, and then accepting the one-night-stand during the missing year, their trajectories from that point onwards were fairly organic. Soapish perhaps, but organic. They don’t talk, finally they start talking (Unfinished Business) and then there’s the awkwardness of re-establishing their friendship and falling into a not-quite affair. Problem is, they either need to go with the affair (which they didn’t) or have wrapped it up more quickly. Perhaps this is realistic, and I do give the show credit for portraying both Kara and Lee negatively and making the whole thing seem rather unseemly as opposed to glamorous. But I still felt it ate up too much of the episode. It was doubling back over everything. First Lee wants to leave Dee for Kara but Kara won’t leave Sam. Now Kara will leave Sam but Lee’s realized Kara’s not a sure thing and Dee is… I wanted to shout, MAKE UP YOUR MIND, PEOPLE!
And even now, it doesn’t feel finished. At this point I WANT Lee to stick with Dee and Kara to stick with Anders because to not do so is so juvenile it makes me want to cry given all the choices they’ve made, to not do so is terribly selfish. But I can cope with that. The main reason I want this storyline to be over is that we have been OVER THIS GROUND WITH A BACK HOE at this point and to see them YET AGAIN decide to up and leave their various spouses for each other…well, why would I believe it next time? Maybe when Dee and Anders are dead or cylons, THEN I’ll believe it. Gah.
Sorry for ranting, but I feel I’ve been fairly accommodating of this plot line until now.
To make some semi-serious non-ranty observations, Lee has always been terrible at personal relationships, but I will refer you all to the fabulous Lee Epiphany Post by asta77 for a more coherent discussion on that. It was nice to see the actress who plays Dee get some actual material; she’s pretty good. Though she needs better self-esteem. I don’t pretend to guess how Lee feels at this point or why, really, he went back to her (beyond the obvious, Kara would never be what he wanted - I think Anders’ comment about him not being the first really affected him). But I did really feel that Dee…deserves better. I liked that she was angry at herself and at Lee for the way she felt lucky. I wonder now if she was angry at herself because, somewhere, she still feels that way.
I think Kara and Anders have the healthier relationship. Kara is slowly stopping lying about what’s happening and I think Sam might do more thinking than is readily apparent at first. Perhaps it’s latent reverse-sexism creeping in here, but I feel much less sorry for Sam. I think it’s because he sees extremely clearly what and who Kara is, and I think his decision to love her anyway and to accept, essentially, a polyamorous or open relationship, is not based in his own insecurities or a belief that he’s beneath Kara and lucky to have her (as it is with Dee).
Lee keeps trying to make it make sense, to get the security and safety and love Dee gives him from Kara, or to shut off his feelings for Kara when he realizes that won’t work. Lee had his existential crisis at the start of season 2.5 and has spent the whole of his life since then trying to achieve banality (because Roslin let him down, Kara rejected him, his relationship with his military career ambivalent at best despite his competence); he wants (thought he wanted) the comfortable commander job during peace time, a wife easier than Kara, no idealistic role models to let him down. Even when the exodus from New Caprica sparked something in him, it was focused very much on his job, not on the high political ideals he’d once held, it was focused on a fallacious idea that Kara would be all that Dee was with extra passion, not on the reality that Kara is difficult and cruel and unreliable (and once he re-realised that what did he do? Go back to Dee.)
Kara’s done the reverse. She had her existential crisis in Leoben’s prison and instead of building lies around herself she’s lost them all. She’s drowning in brutal truth, even her destiny is becoming clearer. I mean she’s always had an impulse control problem, just like Lee’s always had problems expressing himself. Their reactions aren’t unrelated to their characters. But the point is, everything Kara does now is honest. It’s horrible, unjustified, but her intentions are honest these days. She tells Dee what’s going on. She won’t lie to Sam about whether she loves Lee or not. She’s never, as far as I know, apologized for her treatment of Gaeta. She’s nearly all id. Which leads me to a completely unrelated query: have Starbuck and Adama actually interacted since he disowned and assaulted her? I don’t think they have. Hmm.
And that’s it for the quadrangle. It basically boils down to: there are some interesting character moments in this quagmire but I’m so tired of it I have trouble caring. Also, Starbuck fascinates - she really has become more interesting to me this season. Also, I mourn for Lee. He’s so lost and has been since 2.12; no one has found him yet and he doesn’t’ seem able to find himself. He really has become someone different. Not out-of-character different, just…he’s changed. Bravo to the show for showing that change reasonably organically but it doesn’t mean I have to like what he’s become.
Moving on to Baltar. Now, this again, ought to have been fascinating and the idea is a fine one. But again, I felt that the whole was less than the sum of its parts. The floating-in-the-water device fell short; I frequently feel these ‘mental-state-visualisations’ do. It wasn’t overly imaginative. Perhaps in the Galacticaverse people near death like to float, alone in dark lakes?
I can’t decide if the more casual use of drugs as a torture interrogation technique is supposed to show the way morality and principles have been sacrificed to necessity as the series has progressed, or a sign that they all hold Baltar in such contempt, or a sign that the writers have different ideas to me or have forgotten the highly moralised stances they took at the beginning of the series.
Of course, being all about Roslin, I do have thoughts about her.
I know she was acting when she was threatening to throw Baltar out an airlock, but I don’t think she was totally acting. And I actually liked seeing her lose it in a way she has never lost it before. If she was just grandstanding for Baltar, she wouldn’t have started shouting at him about how he let his people down because she’d know that’s not what will get at him. That’s what gets to her. That’s her view of the presidency and how utterly Baltar betrayed it. She lived through the "snake-pit" of New Caprica and we’ve had hints before at just how much it made her seethe, at how much rage it filled her with. But until now, she’s never had any outlet for it - it wouldn’t have been practical. So do I think she genuinely lost it in that cell with Baltar? No. I think she was trying to play him. But I also think everything she said was true. Because suddenly she had a chance to say it and didn’t have to worry if it would or wouldn’t make a difference, if it was politically expedient, or if she was indulging in complete and absolute pettiness. She had a chance where she could - no, was encouraged to - vent her anger and her hatred of this small-minded, arrogant, dangerous man who had destroyed everything good she built, who threatened the survival of her species - sacrificed it on the altar of his ego, who will not take one iota of blame onto himself. Baltar, more than anyone or anything else in Galactica’s universe, can fill Roslin with ire.
Every other time Roslin has broken the law, casually disregarded someone’s human rights, I’ve understood it more than this, even when I was angry at her for the vice-presidency swap with Zarek. This felt more casual, more routine, more, why yes, of course we’re going to use psychotic drugs on him, sleep deprive him, use sensory deprivation and other non-violent torture techniques to get him to talk. It was probably the way it was just going on already in the background. The way it didn’t seem like it was about getting an answer, but more the answer they wanted.
I felt, and still feel, it was easier for them to do this because of who they were doing it to. Personal bias, personal anger and blame affecting the treatment of the prisoner. It’s why I like the idea that part of Roslin really lost it in that cell. For the first time, she’s just mad and totally dangerous and abusing her position of power because whether or not it’s for the greater good, that’s not 100% honestly, why she’s doing it.
It makes her decision to give him a fair trial at the end much more powerful. And it’s interesting to watch Roslin struggle with overpowering anger, to succumb to it, but to ultimately bring herself under control. That’s not something I think we’ve seen before. She’s usually so tightly controlled it really says something about what Baltar did to her. And considering Roslin’s most overriding goals and what Baltar stands accused of, I can understand why.
Also: very creepy lullaby in the beginning.
Also: apparently, the podcast (courtesy of asta77 says this was originally supposed to be a lighter episode. HA HA.
Also: the image of Six kissing Baltar underwater as he’s breathing was gorgeous.
Also: where were Caprica Six and Hera? Well, at least Head Six got a good sized role and Tricia Helfer is getting some material again.
Also: next week - hooray! Political things!
Also: that is all.
I should also mention that from Friday (actually extremely late Thursday) to Wednesday (actually extremely late Tuesday) I shall be either IN Germany or traveling TO Germany to stay with the wonderful and fantabulous hmpf. I am excited. The rest of you probably aren’t (except perhaps hmpf because I’M JUST THAT EXCITING!) but I forgive you anyway. May you all have happy weekends whether you are in Germany or not.
edited to include a VERY important question: What the frak was Roslin doing lying on Adama's bed at the end? Was that even where they were? I'm really, really confused about this. And this confusion does not stem from any shipperish or non-shipperish tendencies. I'm just flat out confused... Light shedding, anyone?
While it perhaps raised some interesting parallels I felt the intercutting of the love quadrangle and the Baltar interrogation was unnecessary and forced. It stole power from the quadrangle and made it appear, more than ever, petty and stupid in the greater scheme of things.
I’ll talk about the quadrangle first. I think they pushed it over the line with this episode. I know many people think it stepped over the line a long time ago, and if it were purely a matter of personal taste, I’d agree (plus the fact I’d prefer Lee with Laura and Kara with Leoben, neither of which will happen). However, in the context of the show I didn’t feel the storylines were inherently flawed (again, personal distaste of triangles/quadrangles aside). I mean, accepting that Kara was hung up on Anders and Lee fell into a relationship with Dee because he was depressed and didn’t know what else to do with his life and she was a nice girl - accepting that, and then accepting the one-night-stand during the missing year, their trajectories from that point onwards were fairly organic. Soapish perhaps, but organic. They don’t talk, finally they start talking (Unfinished Business) and then there’s the awkwardness of re-establishing their friendship and falling into a not-quite affair. Problem is, they either need to go with the affair (which they didn’t) or have wrapped it up more quickly. Perhaps this is realistic, and I do give the show credit for portraying both Kara and Lee negatively and making the whole thing seem rather unseemly as opposed to glamorous. But I still felt it ate up too much of the episode. It was doubling back over everything. First Lee wants to leave Dee for Kara but Kara won’t leave Sam. Now Kara will leave Sam but Lee’s realized Kara’s not a sure thing and Dee is… I wanted to shout, MAKE UP YOUR MIND, PEOPLE!
And even now, it doesn’t feel finished. At this point I WANT Lee to stick with Dee and Kara to stick with Anders because to not do so is so juvenile it makes me want to cry given all the choices they’ve made, to not do so is terribly selfish. But I can cope with that. The main reason I want this storyline to be over is that we have been OVER THIS GROUND WITH A BACK HOE at this point and to see them YET AGAIN decide to up and leave their various spouses for each other…well, why would I believe it next time? Maybe when Dee and Anders are dead or cylons, THEN I’ll believe it. Gah.
Sorry for ranting, but I feel I’ve been fairly accommodating of this plot line until now.
To make some semi-serious non-ranty observations, Lee has always been terrible at personal relationships, but I will refer you all to the fabulous Lee Epiphany Post by asta77 for a more coherent discussion on that. It was nice to see the actress who plays Dee get some actual material; she’s pretty good. Though she needs better self-esteem. I don’t pretend to guess how Lee feels at this point or why, really, he went back to her (beyond the obvious, Kara would never be what he wanted - I think Anders’ comment about him not being the first really affected him). But I did really feel that Dee…deserves better. I liked that she was angry at herself and at Lee for the way she felt lucky. I wonder now if she was angry at herself because, somewhere, she still feels that way.
I think Kara and Anders have the healthier relationship. Kara is slowly stopping lying about what’s happening and I think Sam might do more thinking than is readily apparent at first. Perhaps it’s latent reverse-sexism creeping in here, but I feel much less sorry for Sam. I think it’s because he sees extremely clearly what and who Kara is, and I think his decision to love her anyway and to accept, essentially, a polyamorous or open relationship, is not based in his own insecurities or a belief that he’s beneath Kara and lucky to have her (as it is with Dee).
Lee keeps trying to make it make sense, to get the security and safety and love Dee gives him from Kara, or to shut off his feelings for Kara when he realizes that won’t work. Lee had his existential crisis at the start of season 2.5 and has spent the whole of his life since then trying to achieve banality (because Roslin let him down, Kara rejected him, his relationship with his military career ambivalent at best despite his competence); he wants (thought he wanted) the comfortable commander job during peace time, a wife easier than Kara, no idealistic role models to let him down. Even when the exodus from New Caprica sparked something in him, it was focused very much on his job, not on the high political ideals he’d once held, it was focused on a fallacious idea that Kara would be all that Dee was with extra passion, not on the reality that Kara is difficult and cruel and unreliable (and once he re-realised that what did he do? Go back to Dee.)
Kara’s done the reverse. She had her existential crisis in Leoben’s prison and instead of building lies around herself she’s lost them all. She’s drowning in brutal truth, even her destiny is becoming clearer. I mean she’s always had an impulse control problem, just like Lee’s always had problems expressing himself. Their reactions aren’t unrelated to their characters. But the point is, everything Kara does now is honest. It’s horrible, unjustified, but her intentions are honest these days. She tells Dee what’s going on. She won’t lie to Sam about whether she loves Lee or not. She’s never, as far as I know, apologized for her treatment of Gaeta. She’s nearly all id. Which leads me to a completely unrelated query: have Starbuck and Adama actually interacted since he disowned and assaulted her? I don’t think they have. Hmm.
And that’s it for the quadrangle. It basically boils down to: there are some interesting character moments in this quagmire but I’m so tired of it I have trouble caring. Also, Starbuck fascinates - she really has become more interesting to me this season. Also, I mourn for Lee. He’s so lost and has been since 2.12; no one has found him yet and he doesn’t’ seem able to find himself. He really has become someone different. Not out-of-character different, just…he’s changed. Bravo to the show for showing that change reasonably organically but it doesn’t mean I have to like what he’s become.
Moving on to Baltar. Now, this again, ought to have been fascinating and the idea is a fine one. But again, I felt that the whole was less than the sum of its parts. The floating-in-the-water device fell short; I frequently feel these ‘mental-state-visualisations’ do. It wasn’t overly imaginative. Perhaps in the Galacticaverse people near death like to float, alone in dark lakes?
I can’t decide if the more casual use of drugs as a torture interrogation technique is supposed to show the way morality and principles have been sacrificed to necessity as the series has progressed, or a sign that they all hold Baltar in such contempt, or a sign that the writers have different ideas to me or have forgotten the highly moralised stances they took at the beginning of the series.
Of course, being all about Roslin, I do have thoughts about her.
I know she was acting when she was threatening to throw Baltar out an airlock, but I don’t think she was totally acting. And I actually liked seeing her lose it in a way she has never lost it before. If she was just grandstanding for Baltar, she wouldn’t have started shouting at him about how he let his people down because she’d know that’s not what will get at him. That’s what gets to her. That’s her view of the presidency and how utterly Baltar betrayed it. She lived through the "snake-pit" of New Caprica and we’ve had hints before at just how much it made her seethe, at how much rage it filled her with. But until now, she’s never had any outlet for it - it wouldn’t have been practical. So do I think she genuinely lost it in that cell with Baltar? No. I think she was trying to play him. But I also think everything she said was true. Because suddenly she had a chance to say it and didn’t have to worry if it would or wouldn’t make a difference, if it was politically expedient, or if she was indulging in complete and absolute pettiness. She had a chance where she could - no, was encouraged to - vent her anger and her hatred of this small-minded, arrogant, dangerous man who had destroyed everything good she built, who threatened the survival of her species - sacrificed it on the altar of his ego, who will not take one iota of blame onto himself. Baltar, more than anyone or anything else in Galactica’s universe, can fill Roslin with ire.
Every other time Roslin has broken the law, casually disregarded someone’s human rights, I’ve understood it more than this, even when I was angry at her for the vice-presidency swap with Zarek. This felt more casual, more routine, more, why yes, of course we’re going to use psychotic drugs on him, sleep deprive him, use sensory deprivation and other non-violent torture techniques to get him to talk. It was probably the way it was just going on already in the background. The way it didn’t seem like it was about getting an answer, but more the answer they wanted.
I felt, and still feel, it was easier for them to do this because of who they were doing it to. Personal bias, personal anger and blame affecting the treatment of the prisoner. It’s why I like the idea that part of Roslin really lost it in that cell. For the first time, she’s just mad and totally dangerous and abusing her position of power because whether or not it’s for the greater good, that’s not 100% honestly, why she’s doing it.
It makes her decision to give him a fair trial at the end much more powerful. And it’s interesting to watch Roslin struggle with overpowering anger, to succumb to it, but to ultimately bring herself under control. That’s not something I think we’ve seen before. She’s usually so tightly controlled it really says something about what Baltar did to her. And considering Roslin’s most overriding goals and what Baltar stands accused of, I can understand why.
Also: very creepy lullaby in the beginning.
Also: apparently, the podcast (courtesy of asta77 says this was originally supposed to be a lighter episode. HA HA.
Also: the image of Six kissing Baltar underwater as he’s breathing was gorgeous.
Also: where were Caprica Six and Hera? Well, at least Head Six got a good sized role and Tricia Helfer is getting some material again.
Also: next week - hooray! Political things!
Also: that is all.
I should also mention that from Friday (actually extremely late Thursday) to Wednesday (actually extremely late Tuesday) I shall be either IN Germany or traveling TO Germany to stay with the wonderful and fantabulous hmpf. I am excited. The rest of you probably aren’t (except perhaps hmpf because I’M JUST THAT EXCITING!) but I forgive you anyway. May you all have happy weekends whether you are in Germany or not.
edited to include a VERY important question: What the frak was Roslin doing lying on Adama's bed at the end? Was that even where they were? I'm really, really confused about this. And this confusion does not stem from any shipperish or non-shipperish tendencies. I'm just flat out confused... Light shedding, anyone?