Hell is other people and robots
My DirecTiVO receiver developed the annoying habit of rebooting every 40 minutes or so just in time for last night's TV-fest, so I want to admit up-front that I might have missed a few important things in the five minutes or so that it took to come up every time after it did that.
BSG 4.15 - "No Exit"
I'm pretty sure that even without the receiver problems, I wouldn't have caught everything that we got told about the history of the Cylons in this episode. I guess the hospital-bed exposition dump was aesthetically supposed to be dramatic, but honestly, it would have been easier to follow if they'd just given Michael Trucco a whiteboard to stand in front of so that he could diagram it out as he talked.
But when you put the infodump aside, it seemed like what this episode was about was bodies, physical forms: how they can change, their limitations and their strengths, and, mostly, how they define us.
Cavill hates his body; it, as much as anything else, is the source of his rage and his thirst for what he calls justice but we properly understand as vengeance. He doesn't want to be made in God's image; it's too limited. So he traps the five in their own bodies, in the human experience; he destroys the colonies, and tries to destroy the human race; he forces Ellen to have sex with him on New Caprica and violates her physically as well as emotionally.
Ellen confirms that the Boomer model really was, literally, built for love. It's what she is; it's what she accepts, when she leaves Cavill and his quest for more perfect machinehood, and does so flying a different machine: a Colonial Raptor.
A bullet pressing on part of his brain helps Sam to remember; that same bullet threatens to kill him. It's an opportunity and a risk; and he has to fight aphasia, a crossing of the wires, to get his story out. He thinks his Cylon memories are too important to risk losing; Kara wants him to survive. In the end, neither of them get what they want; his body survives the operation, but he's gone; that human brain is too fragile.
And the Battlestar Galactica herself, made by humans with their weaknesses and their shortcuts, can't take the damage of the past four years; she's crumbling. The only way for Adama to save her is to make her part Cylon, literally, physically. It's an extension of what he's already done with his crew, the organic part of the ship, with his Cylon XO and now his Cylon deck chief.
So they're all becoming hybrids, in one way or another. After asta77 reminded me that Kara's father's name was Daniel, and he was an artist, I too am convinced that Kara was the first Cylon/human hybrid. It would also seem that the child Caprica Six is carrying might be the first hybrid in the other direction, between the original 13th Tribe Cylons and the new human models. Although I think there was probably a tremendous amount of retconning going on in the writers' room when they planned the show finale, I think that push towards unity has always been there, from Boomer and Helo on Caprica on.
Given those themes, I think that the scene between Laura and Lee was necessary to advance some plot points for the next episode, and I think Lee's right that whatever government they constitute now has to be based on their current identities, not echoes of their destroyed past, but it really didn't fit with what was going on around it.
In conclusion: Huh!
* * * * *
TSCC 2.14 - "The Good Wound"
So Sarah's vision of her younger self, the waitress, melds into a vision of Kyle. (Sadly, Jonathan Jackson is no Michael Biehn ca. the early eighties; then again, who is?) And the Kyle in her head, in her memories, in her past, coaches her through connecting with the doctor, finding a common ground, getting her on her side. Because in this episode, Sarah can't do it alone: she has to trust the doctor enough to let her put her under; she has to call Derek for help--and Derek makes a point of how serious it must be for that to happen. She needs the people around her, and the last time she was probably so open to outside help ("Come with me if you want to live") was with Kyle.
The final standoff between Sarah and the doctor and Connor Trinneer's sheriff was wonderfully complicated and surprising. I was expecting the doctor's loyalties to waver, but I wasn't expecting her to shoot him. In some ways, it was like the violence in Sarah's life is a contagion, infecting everyone she comes into contact with: Charlie, Ellison, and now the doctor. But it happens because the doctor has identified with Sarah's pain, and then identifies with her strength. Sarah takes the responsibility for that transformation by taking the blame, and by letting the doctor believe that nothing she told her was true.
In the meantime, John Henry's development continues to absolutely fascinate me. Ellison tells John Henry that humans are made in God's image; and John Henry has done the research and knows he was made in the image of a particular human. In doing this, John Henry is trying to answer one of the basic human questions, one of the first questions children ask: where do I come from? And he did so using two keywords: James Ellison. But humans are imperfect; they could have better joints. He's dug further into where he's come from, and figured out that where he came from is connected to Catherine Weaver, his mother figure; he was made in the image of something else too. And like a mother, everything she does, she does for him--including covering the tracks of her corporation's coltan (sp?) transactions in that warehouse in the desert. Ellison is right that John Henry would make a good detective; and he's grown to the stage where he's able to keep secrets, just like Cameron has.
* * * * *
I'm afraid that Dollhouse pushed the limits of the ridiculous a little too hard for me. Structurally, the episode was a mess; the scenes of Tahmoh Penikett's FBI agent seemed to be inserted at random. Emotionally, it was a blank; I felt no connection to or interest in any of the characters. I think part of that is a problem with the show's premise: in order to care about characters, you have to develop a sense of who they are, and these people are blank slates, literally. I could see that Joss was trying to use shots of Echo's past, and her weird blips, as a way of trying to do that, but it didn't really work.
I liked Eliza Dushku as Faith, but I don't think she's that strong of an actress, and when I heard about the casting, I didn't think she could carry a show. I still don't, but I will admit that she did better than I expected.
There were also a couple of other things about the show that I felt shot way wide of the mark. I had a really strong negative reaction to Topher. I suppose we're supposed to find him kind of creepy, but I doubt we're supposed to find him overtly revolting? I also think the way the "dolls" were filmed was supposed to be overtly objectifying, as a way of making a point--like the open, unisex shower and the blandly stylish facilities, a focus on the bodies, the interchangeable, beautiful shells. In some ways, I did think the premise was less icky in implementation than it was in theory, but that focus on bodies, along with FOX's gratuitous promos, was actually more icky than I was expecting it to be. And I was expecting it to be fairly icky.
And they live in the floor? REALLY?!?
Also, whoever wrote the promotional dialogue for Summer Glau and Eliza Dushku should be beaten with a shovel. Jesus.
* * * * *
One of my co-workers is in town from Bangalore for three weeks; since she doesn't know anyone in the area, I volunteered to take her around the city. There isn't a ton of travel budget for technical writers, so this is a rare opportunity for her; it seemed a shame for her to fly all the way here and then not get out of Mountain View. However, based on the state of the long-range forecast earlier this week, I chose Sunday, and now it looks like it's going to storm like a mofo tomorrow. My tour guide repertoire is amazingly focused on outdoor stuff, and I'm trying to develop a plan B. Local people, any good suggestions of things to do indoors in the city on a weekend day? Unfortunately, I don't think she'd enjoy the usual museums, so I'm kind of stumped.
BSG 4.15 - "No Exit"
I'm pretty sure that even without the receiver problems, I wouldn't have caught everything that we got told about the history of the Cylons in this episode. I guess the hospital-bed exposition dump was aesthetically supposed to be dramatic, but honestly, it would have been easier to follow if they'd just given Michael Trucco a whiteboard to stand in front of so that he could diagram it out as he talked.
But when you put the infodump aside, it seemed like what this episode was about was bodies, physical forms: how they can change, their limitations and their strengths, and, mostly, how they define us.
Cavill hates his body; it, as much as anything else, is the source of his rage and his thirst for what he calls justice but we properly understand as vengeance. He doesn't want to be made in God's image; it's too limited. So he traps the five in their own bodies, in the human experience; he destroys the colonies, and tries to destroy the human race; he forces Ellen to have sex with him on New Caprica and violates her physically as well as emotionally.
Ellen confirms that the Boomer model really was, literally, built for love. It's what she is; it's what she accepts, when she leaves Cavill and his quest for more perfect machinehood, and does so flying a different machine: a Colonial Raptor.
A bullet pressing on part of his brain helps Sam to remember; that same bullet threatens to kill him. It's an opportunity and a risk; and he has to fight aphasia, a crossing of the wires, to get his story out. He thinks his Cylon memories are too important to risk losing; Kara wants him to survive. In the end, neither of them get what they want; his body survives the operation, but he's gone; that human brain is too fragile.
And the Battlestar Galactica herself, made by humans with their weaknesses and their shortcuts, can't take the damage of the past four years; she's crumbling. The only way for Adama to save her is to make her part Cylon, literally, physically. It's an extension of what he's already done with his crew, the organic part of the ship, with his Cylon XO and now his Cylon deck chief.
So they're all becoming hybrids, in one way or another. After asta77 reminded me that Kara's father's name was Daniel, and he was an artist, I too am convinced that Kara was the first Cylon/human hybrid. It would also seem that the child Caprica Six is carrying might be the first hybrid in the other direction, between the original 13th Tribe Cylons and the new human models. Although I think there was probably a tremendous amount of retconning going on in the writers' room when they planned the show finale, I think that push towards unity has always been there, from Boomer and Helo on Caprica on.
Given those themes, I think that the scene between Laura and Lee was necessary to advance some plot points for the next episode, and I think Lee's right that whatever government they constitute now has to be based on their current identities, not echoes of their destroyed past, but it really didn't fit with what was going on around it.
In conclusion: Huh!
* * * * *
TSCC 2.14 - "The Good Wound"
So Sarah's vision of her younger self, the waitress, melds into a vision of Kyle. (Sadly, Jonathan Jackson is no Michael Biehn ca. the early eighties; then again, who is?) And the Kyle in her head, in her memories, in her past, coaches her through connecting with the doctor, finding a common ground, getting her on her side. Because in this episode, Sarah can't do it alone: she has to trust the doctor enough to let her put her under; she has to call Derek for help--and Derek makes a point of how serious it must be for that to happen. She needs the people around her, and the last time she was probably so open to outside help ("Come with me if you want to live") was with Kyle.
The final standoff between Sarah and the doctor and Connor Trinneer's sheriff was wonderfully complicated and surprising. I was expecting the doctor's loyalties to waver, but I wasn't expecting her to shoot him. In some ways, it was like the violence in Sarah's life is a contagion, infecting everyone she comes into contact with: Charlie, Ellison, and now the doctor. But it happens because the doctor has identified with Sarah's pain, and then identifies with her strength. Sarah takes the responsibility for that transformation by taking the blame, and by letting the doctor believe that nothing she told her was true.
In the meantime, John Henry's development continues to absolutely fascinate me. Ellison tells John Henry that humans are made in God's image; and John Henry has done the research and knows he was made in the image of a particular human. In doing this, John Henry is trying to answer one of the basic human questions, one of the first questions children ask: where do I come from? And he did so using two keywords: James Ellison. But humans are imperfect; they could have better joints. He's dug further into where he's come from, and figured out that where he came from is connected to Catherine Weaver, his mother figure; he was made in the image of something else too. And like a mother, everything she does, she does for him--including covering the tracks of her corporation's coltan (sp?) transactions in that warehouse in the desert. Ellison is right that John Henry would make a good detective; and he's grown to the stage where he's able to keep secrets, just like Cameron has.
* * * * *
I'm afraid that Dollhouse pushed the limits of the ridiculous a little too hard for me. Structurally, the episode was a mess; the scenes of Tahmoh Penikett's FBI agent seemed to be inserted at random. Emotionally, it was a blank; I felt no connection to or interest in any of the characters. I think part of that is a problem with the show's premise: in order to care about characters, you have to develop a sense of who they are, and these people are blank slates, literally. I could see that Joss was trying to use shots of Echo's past, and her weird blips, as a way of trying to do that, but it didn't really work.
I liked Eliza Dushku as Faith, but I don't think she's that strong of an actress, and when I heard about the casting, I didn't think she could carry a show. I still don't, but I will admit that she did better than I expected.
There were also a couple of other things about the show that I felt shot way wide of the mark. I had a really strong negative reaction to Topher. I suppose we're supposed to find him kind of creepy, but I doubt we're supposed to find him overtly revolting? I also think the way the "dolls" were filmed was supposed to be overtly objectifying, as a way of making a point--like the open, unisex shower and the blandly stylish facilities, a focus on the bodies, the interchangeable, beautiful shells. In some ways, I did think the premise was less icky in implementation than it was in theory, but that focus on bodies, along with FOX's gratuitous promos, was actually more icky than I was expecting it to be. And I was expecting it to be fairly icky.
And they live in the floor? REALLY?!?
Also, whoever wrote the promotional dialogue for Summer Glau and Eliza Dushku should be beaten with a shovel. Jesus.
* * * * *
One of my co-workers is in town from Bangalore for three weeks; since she doesn't know anyone in the area, I volunteered to take her around the city. There isn't a ton of travel budget for technical writers, so this is a rare opportunity for her; it seemed a shame for her to fly all the way here and then not get out of Mountain View. However, based on the state of the long-range forecast earlier this week, I chose Sunday, and now it looks like it's going to storm like a mofo tomorrow. My tour guide repertoire is amazingly focused on outdoor stuff, and I'm trying to develop a plan B. Local people, any good suggestions of things to do indoors in the city on a weekend day? Unfortunately, I don't think she'd enjoy the usual museums, so I'm kind of stumped.