BSG 3x14: "The Woman King"
Darn it, show! And just when you were doing so well, too. What the hell?
Oh dear. Where do I even begin, really? Sigh.
I don't know. I'm...trying really very hard not to come out and say what I'm sure everyone else is saying, which it to call it the "Black Market" of season 3.
I mean, Helo's a great guy and all, and I guess after all the short end of the stick he's been getting lately as far as footage goes he could use his own episode but...eh.
I mean, I'm trying to make a list as to why this is better than "Black Market", and this is it: lots of shirtless Helo, Sharon in her underwear, the apperance of HeadBaltar, and the fact that this episode involved no hookers at all. Seriously, that's all I got.
Okay, first: the title. It only counts as being clever if there's actually some sort of punchline to the joke, guys. If the character of Mrs. King had actually had something going on there that might have made her a "woman king", perhaps. Just maybe.
I can think of about maybe five different titles that could have worked so much better. And this is without extending any effort on my part at all, and I suck at titles.
Come on people: do your jobs. I know the way you roll is not "let's call it after some vague thing that appears in the episode". Otherwise "Collaborators" would have been called "Jake's Water Dish", and "Downloaded" would have been "Dead Baby", and "Takin' A Break..." would have been "The One Where We All Take Turns Poking Baltar With A Stick".
I'm just sayin'.
Let me preface this next complaint by saying that, first, I understand with how Battlestar is made and the sheer amount of content in regards to footage it actually puts out that they will have to cut things that they really would rather not have to like, all of the time. And, actually, I've gotten to the point where I kind of like it when there's new stuff in the "Previously on..." segment. It's kind of like that much more of the show is new content, rather than a rehash of the old.
That said, when over half of the previouslies are scenes that did not, in fact, ever air on any episode ever, we've got a problem. A big problem.
I could buy Sagittarons being the token colony that gets discriminated against, for the most part. They made enough referances in passing prior to this and all, but still; it gets a little jarring when it's all of a sudden "We Hate Sagittarons" week on the Galactica.
I don't know, I also think I had an easier time accepting the idea when the reason for the bigotry was just some unspecified racial/ethnic thing, rather than there now apparantly being not one but two kooky religious factions among the Twelve Colonies (seriously, did we need two? I mean, we've got the fundamental right wing stuff with the Gemenese, and now the Sagittarons are apparantly a planet-wide bunch of Christian Scientists. Okaaay then).
Also? I want to believe that Bruce Davison is a capable actor, really I do. But out of the four times I've seen him on various TV shows now, this makes all four that he's played the asshole doctor. And he was an asshole politician in the X-Men movie, so that doesn't exactly count.
I get that one can run into type-casting in that particular business, as you do, but if you're only going to be playing one character in everything, ever, it's time to retire.
Is it just me and my crazy pills, but does anyone else feel that this episode might have been a lot better if it turned out that Helo was wrong? It's just, for most of the episode they seemed to be selling the "Helo's looking for something that's not there" idea (selling it so hard, in fact, that it became absolutely impossible to buy)...I kind of feel the purpose would have been better served that way. Or at the very least, made it seem a little less freakin' predictable.
Dialogue that was a little too spot on: "Is that the only thing that defines me? The guy that's married to a Cylon?"
Um, hello fourth wall! Do me a favor, and when you get back from your vacation could you bring the non ham-fisted dialogue and non one-sided characterizations along with you?
You know what, Helo? You're right. That is the only thing that defines you right now, and for what it's worth kudos to the writers for realizing it needs to change. But wow, did they go about that all wrong. If I wanted to watch a guy nail himself to a cross for an entire episode, I'd rather we just focus on Lee again. He does it a lot better.
At the end of the day, the overall plotline just kind of came off as being all about Helo and how he's just the most specialest, wonderfulest, rightest Pinnacle of Good type being in the history of ever.
Gag. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss the torture.
Also, maybe I just haven't tried suspending my disbelief for a long enough period of time and the relevant muscles are sore, but right now I'm a little confused as to the whole business with the Galactica tent-city in the first place.
Did we really lose enough ships coming off of New Caprica that there's no other place for over 300 hundred civilians to go? I mean, really? It's just that we lost like, 5000 people on the planet, and it kind of looks like we've got relatively the same amount of ships hanging around in the space shots to me.
Continuing down the list of WTFery in this episode: Um, hi, Gaeta! Nice to see they let you out of hack and got you integrated back into the crew so damn fast!
And I know it can't have been that long either, since Zarek was just getting around to flipping out at Roslin over Baltar's trial now.
I'm not going to pretend to be all upset that they clearly don't think almost killing someone with a writing utensil is the sort of thing one needs to actually be punished for, since, well, it's Baltar, and they didn't seem to mind when Cally went all Jack Ruby on Boomer back in season 2 either.
(Plus, it's Gaeta; I'm willing to sacrifice realism if it means we keep Gaeta out of trouble. That's just how I roll.)
But, gee, it's sure nice that absolutely no one seems to think that the fact that our usually laid back, straight-and-narrow gool ol' buddy Felix is feeling a might bit homicidal these days is something that anyone needs to look into.
PTSD, anyone? Disillusionment? No one thinks this warrents some counseling, maybe? Could we at least get him a hug and some cocoa?...No? Okay, moving on...
Minor character things I did like this episode: anyone catch the little show Racetrack was putting on for Helo at the very beginning?
"Did I mention I have a date tonight? A really hot one? With someone who isn't you? See how over you I am! And how much sex I'm going to have with someone who's not you! Bet that makes me more interesting to you, huh?? Now that I'm playing hard to get?? WHY WON'T YOU NOTICE ME!"
Hee! She is so going to be boiling a bunny's head in his kitchen any day now. I love it.
Things I can't really figure out: Boomer seemed really...ambivalent when she was talking to Caprica.
Like, I really couldn't figure out whether they were trying to imply that she knew about the eavesdropping and was a willing participant or not.
And I really don't like that I couldn't figure it out. At all. I want to know how I'm supposed to feel about this particular character dynamic, guys; now is not the time to get all vague on me.
Still, the Caprica scene came pretty close to single-handededly saving the entire episode. Of course, I know that's just me.
But you gotta admit, Roslin watching Caprica make out with thin air with that curious tilt to her head...nice throwback to the Baltar/HeadSix shenanigans of season 1.
Can I just take a moment here to get all random fangirl-y and say how much I absolutely love HeadBaltar? I mean...when he shows up, it's kind of like how I felt in the first part of the season when we'd switch from watching Caprica get all weepy to a HeadSix moment: "Shit. That's right, there was a time was she was all poised and seductive and hardcore like that, wasn't there?" We're suddenly popping back in on the guy we barely got introduced to in the miniseries...this smooth, charmingly elegant bastard.
It's kind of creepy, almost. Like, it kind of seems to says that, at any given time, we are all just one catastrophe away from completely coming apart.
(Plus, I mean, HeadBaltar. It's Gaius all clean-shaven and coiffed and in the fun stripey black suit with the red silk shirt again. Rawwwr.)
(And I just now realized that both of my paranthetical breaks in this little analysis have had to deal with the two parts of my Angsty Geek OTP and how much I lurve them. Oh dear. It seems that I just can't win.)
It's kind of interesting, isn't it, that in a way Caprica has now taken on Gaius' role. Before he was hanging around a bunch of Cylons on the basestar, wanting to be a Cylon himself. Now she's on the humans' battlestar, and she wants to be human. I think it's pretty safe to say she's not gonna get her wish anymore than Gaius got his, but still. Very interesting.
I just hope for the sake of our collective sanity she doesn't end up trying to reach her goal the same way he tried to reach his, which is to say through scary religious deals and questionable threesomes (unless that threesome is with Felix and Gaius, in which case, hell yes. Oh dammit, there I go again).
Also, what HeadBaltar said to her was a line worth looking into: that in order to be human, you need to think only of yourself.
Now, on a highly superfical level, of course he's gonna say that, because regardless of whatever kind of frakked up consciouness and/or act of higher power is producing him, he's still a version of Gaius freakin' Baltar, and therefore he will always intrinscally be about himself.
But at the same time, I come to think of it this way...he is both completely right, and completely wrong.
If you think back to the groupthink of the Cylons, the way that one presumes they are "supposed" to be, before they got all screwed up with their Demand Love! movements and their Capricas and their Boomers and their D'Annas and the whole business of rethinking and questioning and actually learning to disagree with each other for once...Cylons are very non "self" oriented creatures. They have no idea of individual personas. Going against the grain is a flaw so deadly you need to be removed from the sequence entirely if you possess it.
And in that sense, yes, to stop thinking of yourself as just a cog in the machine and trying to focus your worldview around your own wants and needs and desires...that's what makes you human.
But at the same time, selflessness is one of the values that humanity considers most precious. "Reason untempered by compassion"...we need compassion. We need to be invested in the presevation of things bigger than ourselves. We need to see a world that does not revolve surviving, that does not revolve around the safety of just our own necks. Self-sacrifice and idealism and matrydom are what make heroes out of common men. The ability to care for the sake of caring, the potential for love, that's what you could argue seperates us from the beasts.
And in that sense then, to not be self-absorbed, to want to live for others, to forget about yourself...that's what makes you human.
It's just interesting to think about.
But, anyway. Looking ahead.
Scuttlebutt says that next week is a Papadama flashback-centric episode. Which...could either go really awesome or really crappy, depending on a lot of things. Of course.
But for now I'm staying hopeful since, after all, it is the Old Man we're talking about here. Plus, it looks like Cally might die.
I'm thinking in positives.
Oh dear. Where do I even begin, really? Sigh.
I don't know. I'm...trying really very hard not to come out and say what I'm sure everyone else is saying, which it to call it the "Black Market" of season 3.
I mean, Helo's a great guy and all, and I guess after all the short end of the stick he's been getting lately as far as footage goes he could use his own episode but...eh.
I mean, I'm trying to make a list as to why this is better than "Black Market", and this is it: lots of shirtless Helo, Sharon in her underwear, the apperance of HeadBaltar, and the fact that this episode involved no hookers at all. Seriously, that's all I got.
Okay, first: the title. It only counts as being clever if there's actually some sort of punchline to the joke, guys. If the character of Mrs. King had actually had something going on there that might have made her a "woman king", perhaps. Just maybe.
I can think of about maybe five different titles that could have worked so much better. And this is without extending any effort on my part at all, and I suck at titles.
Come on people: do your jobs. I know the way you roll is not "let's call it after some vague thing that appears in the episode". Otherwise "Collaborators" would have been called "Jake's Water Dish", and "Downloaded" would have been "Dead Baby", and "Takin' A Break..." would have been "The One Where We All Take Turns Poking Baltar With A Stick".
I'm just sayin'.
Let me preface this next complaint by saying that, first, I understand with how Battlestar is made and the sheer amount of content in regards to footage it actually puts out that they will have to cut things that they really would rather not have to like, all of the time. And, actually, I've gotten to the point where I kind of like it when there's new stuff in the "Previously on..." segment. It's kind of like that much more of the show is new content, rather than a rehash of the old.
That said, when over half of the previouslies are scenes that did not, in fact, ever air on any episode ever, we've got a problem. A big problem.
I could buy Sagittarons being the token colony that gets discriminated against, for the most part. They made enough referances in passing prior to this and all, but still; it gets a little jarring when it's all of a sudden "We Hate Sagittarons" week on the Galactica.
I don't know, I also think I had an easier time accepting the idea when the reason for the bigotry was just some unspecified racial/ethnic thing, rather than there now apparantly being not one but two kooky religious factions among the Twelve Colonies (seriously, did we need two? I mean, we've got the fundamental right wing stuff with the Gemenese, and now the Sagittarons are apparantly a planet-wide bunch of Christian Scientists. Okaaay then).
Also? I want to believe that Bruce Davison is a capable actor, really I do. But out of the four times I've seen him on various TV shows now, this makes all four that he's played the asshole doctor. And he was an asshole politician in the X-Men movie, so that doesn't exactly count.
I get that one can run into type-casting in that particular business, as you do, but if you're only going to be playing one character in everything, ever, it's time to retire.
Is it just me and my crazy pills, but does anyone else feel that this episode might have been a lot better if it turned out that Helo was wrong? It's just, for most of the episode they seemed to be selling the "Helo's looking for something that's not there" idea (selling it so hard, in fact, that it became absolutely impossible to buy)...I kind of feel the purpose would have been better served that way. Or at the very least, made it seem a little less freakin' predictable.
Dialogue that was a little too spot on: "Is that the only thing that defines me? The guy that's married to a Cylon?"
Um, hello fourth wall! Do me a favor, and when you get back from your vacation could you bring the non ham-fisted dialogue and non one-sided characterizations along with you?
You know what, Helo? You're right. That is the only thing that defines you right now, and for what it's worth kudos to the writers for realizing it needs to change. But wow, did they go about that all wrong. If I wanted to watch a guy nail himself to a cross for an entire episode, I'd rather we just focus on Lee again. He does it a lot better.
At the end of the day, the overall plotline just kind of came off as being all about Helo and how he's just the most specialest, wonderfulest, rightest Pinnacle of Good type being in the history of ever.
Gag. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss the torture.
Also, maybe I just haven't tried suspending my disbelief for a long enough period of time and the relevant muscles are sore, but right now I'm a little confused as to the whole business with the Galactica tent-city in the first place.
Did we really lose enough ships coming off of New Caprica that there's no other place for over 300 hundred civilians to go? I mean, really? It's just that we lost like, 5000 people on the planet, and it kind of looks like we've got relatively the same amount of ships hanging around in the space shots to me.
Continuing down the list of WTFery in this episode: Um, hi, Gaeta! Nice to see they let you out of hack and got you integrated back into the crew so damn fast!
And I know it can't have been that long either, since Zarek was just getting around to flipping out at Roslin over Baltar's trial now.
I'm not going to pretend to be all upset that they clearly don't think almost killing someone with a writing utensil is the sort of thing one needs to actually be punished for, since, well, it's Baltar, and they didn't seem to mind when Cally went all Jack Ruby on Boomer back in season 2 either.
(Plus, it's Gaeta; I'm willing to sacrifice realism if it means we keep Gaeta out of trouble. That's just how I roll.)
But, gee, it's sure nice that absolutely no one seems to think that the fact that our usually laid back, straight-and-narrow gool ol' buddy Felix is feeling a might bit homicidal these days is something that anyone needs to look into.
PTSD, anyone? Disillusionment? No one thinks this warrents some counseling, maybe? Could we at least get him a hug and some cocoa?...No? Okay, moving on...
Minor character things I did like this episode: anyone catch the little show Racetrack was putting on for Helo at the very beginning?
"Did I mention I have a date tonight? A really hot one? With someone who isn't you? See how over you I am! And how much sex I'm going to have with someone who's not you! Bet that makes me more interesting to you, huh?? Now that I'm playing hard to get?? WHY WON'T YOU NOTICE ME!"
Hee! She is so going to be boiling a bunny's head in his kitchen any day now. I love it.
Things I can't really figure out: Boomer seemed really...ambivalent when she was talking to Caprica.
Like, I really couldn't figure out whether they were trying to imply that she knew about the eavesdropping and was a willing participant or not.
And I really don't like that I couldn't figure it out. At all. I want to know how I'm supposed to feel about this particular character dynamic, guys; now is not the time to get all vague on me.
Still, the Caprica scene came pretty close to single-handededly saving the entire episode. Of course, I know that's just me.
But you gotta admit, Roslin watching Caprica make out with thin air with that curious tilt to her head...nice throwback to the Baltar/HeadSix shenanigans of season 1.
Can I just take a moment here to get all random fangirl-y and say how much I absolutely love HeadBaltar? I mean...when he shows up, it's kind of like how I felt in the first part of the season when we'd switch from watching Caprica get all weepy to a HeadSix moment: "Shit. That's right, there was a time was she was all poised and seductive and hardcore like that, wasn't there?" We're suddenly popping back in on the guy we barely got introduced to in the miniseries...this smooth, charmingly elegant bastard.
It's kind of creepy, almost. Like, it kind of seems to says that, at any given time, we are all just one catastrophe away from completely coming apart.
(Plus, I mean, HeadBaltar. It's Gaius all clean-shaven and coiffed and in the fun stripey black suit with the red silk shirt again. Rawwwr.)
(And I just now realized that both of my paranthetical breaks in this little analysis have had to deal with the two parts of my Angsty Geek OTP and how much I lurve them. Oh dear. It seems that I just can't win.)
It's kind of interesting, isn't it, that in a way Caprica has now taken on Gaius' role. Before he was hanging around a bunch of Cylons on the basestar, wanting to be a Cylon himself. Now she's on the humans' battlestar, and she wants to be human. I think it's pretty safe to say she's not gonna get her wish anymore than Gaius got his, but still. Very interesting.
I just hope for the sake of our collective sanity she doesn't end up trying to reach her goal the same way he tried to reach his, which is to say through scary religious deals and questionable threesomes (unless that threesome is with Felix and Gaius, in which case, hell yes. Oh dammit, there I go again).
Also, what HeadBaltar said to her was a line worth looking into: that in order to be human, you need to think only of yourself.
Now, on a highly superfical level, of course he's gonna say that, because regardless of whatever kind of frakked up consciouness and/or act of higher power is producing him, he's still a version of Gaius freakin' Baltar, and therefore he will always intrinscally be about himself.
But at the same time, I come to think of it this way...he is both completely right, and completely wrong.
If you think back to the groupthink of the Cylons, the way that one presumes they are "supposed" to be, before they got all screwed up with their Demand Love! movements and their Capricas and their Boomers and their D'Annas and the whole business of rethinking and questioning and actually learning to disagree with each other for once...Cylons are very non "self" oriented creatures. They have no idea of individual personas. Going against the grain is a flaw so deadly you need to be removed from the sequence entirely if you possess it.
And in that sense, yes, to stop thinking of yourself as just a cog in the machine and trying to focus your worldview around your own wants and needs and desires...that's what makes you human.
But at the same time, selflessness is one of the values that humanity considers most precious. "Reason untempered by compassion"...we need compassion. We need to be invested in the presevation of things bigger than ourselves. We need to see a world that does not revolve surviving, that does not revolve around the safety of just our own necks. Self-sacrifice and idealism and matrydom are what make heroes out of common men. The ability to care for the sake of caring, the potential for love, that's what you could argue seperates us from the beasts.
And in that sense then, to not be self-absorbed, to want to live for others, to forget about yourself...that's what makes you human.
It's just interesting to think about.
But, anyway. Looking ahead.
Scuttlebutt says that next week is a Papadama flashback-centric episode. Which...could either go really awesome or really crappy, depending on a lot of things. Of course.
But for now I'm staying hopeful since, after all, it is the Old Man we're talking about here. Plus, it looks like Cally might die.
I'm thinking in positives.