deliver some more important laundry
I'm not wearing socks. This is because it's 50 degrees out and sunny. It's pre-spring. It's a hint of soring, a taste to hold us through the rest of winter. And I'm actually warm enough not to wear socks while I drink my coffee and eat a slice of cinnamon swirl bread fresh from the bakery on this glorious day off.
Once the euphoria of brewing coffee sounds and my steamy shower wears off, I actually have a big library school assignment due tomorrow, and a wall of laundry to conquer, and perhaps most difficult of all, Maelstrom to watch. I just keep thinking some things are worth getting your heart broken for and maybe it won't be that bad, but Lords of Kobol, I love Kara Thrace. And I think that sometimes I must sound crazy when I talk about watching episodes of television like it's the most difficult thing I'll have to do today, but it's the consequence of having stories affect me so deeply. I love that I can disappear into movies, into novels, into week after week and season after season of my favorite shows, and I love that I can be moved by these characters, by the graceful arc of narrative, by a secret revealed at just the right time, a connection made that gathers up all the hints I never saw until that very moment. But it means I fall in love with relationships and turns of events, it means I form emotional attachments , and so when something goes wrong in a story, or when something goes wrong with the character (but right for the story), it stings, it punches me in the gut, it wounds. And I still sound crazy, but that's all right.
I watched Dirty Hands this morning, and I know I'm supposed to write about Eye of Jupiter and Rapture, but this episode is fresh in my mind, as if Starbuck's big grin at the end, and so I might as well dive in.
As far as the recent string of character episodes go, this one was actually good, but when you consider we're talking about The Woman King and A Day in the Life, that isn't saying much. There were two things I really liked about this episode, and one thing I considered to be major problems. And then there was Adama. Let's go in that order.
So, I thought Batlar's book was a genius idea, because manifestos from creepy villains who we still manage to find sympathetic are deeply intriguing. Baltar is brilliant at manipulation, and he's manipulating everyone with this book. It's clearest in his scene with the Chief that he is a master manipulator, so much so that we're manipulated right along with the Chief, because the Aerlon accent, especially when you consider how distinct Batlar's voice has always been, and how his character is known for being well-spoken, makes you think that maybe we have misjudged Baltar, maybe he could have been a poor farm boy turned genius scientist. Maybe he didn't betray the human race to the Cylons, that he was the victim all along. And then the scene ends and you wonder what the hell just happened to your senses.
I thought Seelix's subplot about becoming a pilot was well done in the way that subplots that are there to highlight the larger plot often aren't. I think it was because Seelix was an example to the viewer, and not the Chief - the Chief's moments of epiphany were heavy-handed and we could see them coming for miles, but Seelix's struggle, although still predictable, felt more real. We can recognize and empathize with the unfairness of not being able to get the job that you deserve much more easily than we can recognize being hauled into heavy machinery service after being mistaken for a farmer. Jen Halley also sold her scenes well, especially where she was feeling useless delivering laundry, and then when, in seconds, she went from deck crew to officer to facing Starbuck as a nugget already falling behind on her first day.
(As a predictable aside, I loved Starbuck stepping back into the role of showy, tough flight instructor. It's hilarious to see the facade break when Seelix walks away and Kara grins at the Chief. Starbuck appreciates the rightness of Seelix becoming a pilot-in-training, but there's something about Starbuck seeing someone wanting something badly and delighting in making them work for it, making them make her believe they've earned it.)
Now, for the major problem: Oh, narrative trickery. I have a long-standing problem with trickery, with secrets kept from the viewer that, in the circumstances they should know, and would otherwise know if the writers weren't playing a trick. And I know that half of narrative is trickery in the first place, but this kind of trick always raises my hackles. What I'm talking about is Roslin's collective bargaining with the Chief at the end of the episode. If Roslin felt that way, felt sensitive enough about the situation to feel that the human race could destroy itself without the Cylons if things didn't change, then why did she put the first protester in the brig? Why did she send the Chief out after their second meeting, telling him to fix things and that was the end? It doesn't make any sense. Either she felt that way or she didn't - her positive response at the end wasn't a reaction to the Chief's protest, she didn't appear to have had a change of mind about anything, and nothing the Chief did seemed to make a difference in her eyes, unless it was that he took leadership for the people? But why would she have waited for him to do something as drastic as call for a strike if she saw what the Chief saw all along and agreed with him? The bottom line is that, for all the explanations I tried to come up with, I felt tricked. I felt that Roslin fought with the Chief so we could have conflict, and then came to common ground with the Chief so we could have a happy ending, and everything that got them there wasn't as important as long as we were worried and then we were relieved.
And now, Adama. Oh, god, Adama. He scared me, in the same way he scared me when he kicked Starbuck's chair out from under her and told her she wasn't a daughter to him but a cancer to the fleet. He's been dark this whole season, dark and frightening, and I miss the visionary tough guy, the inspiring leader of the fleet who will guide them through hardship. Adama this season has been ruling by fear, and maybe he thinks that's the only way, but it just leaves me feeling cold, like he's turning his back on people in order to save them, and that's not an Adama I recognize. He does give the Chief what he wanted in the end, face time with the President, but it doesn't feel like he's given him anything when, moments before, he threatened to put Cally up against the bulkhead and shoot her. Sometimes it seems like the President is the only one who can still draw something out of the frozen sternness, and their joke about his invitation for her to share one of his beds was both amusing and painful, because, set up against what we see later in his face-off with the Chief, it just makes it clear how much Adama has changed since New Caprica.
This whole season has, in one way or another, been about how much life sucks for everyone after New Caprica, and I know the search for Earth is supposed to give up hope, but hope spreads pretty thin over this much tragedy.
And on that note, my feet are cold, so it's time for some socks, some lunch, and more of my favorite story of humanity on the run from themselves.
Once the euphoria of brewing coffee sounds and my steamy shower wears off, I actually have a big library school assignment due tomorrow, and a wall of laundry to conquer, and perhaps most difficult of all, Maelstrom to watch. I just keep thinking some things are worth getting your heart broken for and maybe it won't be that bad, but Lords of Kobol, I love Kara Thrace. And I think that sometimes I must sound crazy when I talk about watching episodes of television like it's the most difficult thing I'll have to do today, but it's the consequence of having stories affect me so deeply. I love that I can disappear into movies, into novels, into week after week and season after season of my favorite shows, and I love that I can be moved by these characters, by the graceful arc of narrative, by a secret revealed at just the right time, a connection made that gathers up all the hints I never saw until that very moment. But it means I fall in love with relationships and turns of events, it means I form emotional attachments , and so when something goes wrong in a story, or when something goes wrong with the character (but right for the story), it stings, it punches me in the gut, it wounds. And I still sound crazy, but that's all right.
I watched Dirty Hands this morning, and I know I'm supposed to write about Eye of Jupiter and Rapture, but this episode is fresh in my mind, as if Starbuck's big grin at the end, and so I might as well dive in.
As far as the recent string of character episodes go, this one was actually good, but when you consider we're talking about The Woman King and A Day in the Life, that isn't saying much. There were two things I really liked about this episode, and one thing I considered to be major problems. And then there was Adama. Let's go in that order.
So, I thought Batlar's book was a genius idea, because manifestos from creepy villains who we still manage to find sympathetic are deeply intriguing. Baltar is brilliant at manipulation, and he's manipulating everyone with this book. It's clearest in his scene with the Chief that he is a master manipulator, so much so that we're manipulated right along with the Chief, because the Aerlon accent, especially when you consider how distinct Batlar's voice has always been, and how his character is known for being well-spoken, makes you think that maybe we have misjudged Baltar, maybe he could have been a poor farm boy turned genius scientist. Maybe he didn't betray the human race to the Cylons, that he was the victim all along. And then the scene ends and you wonder what the hell just happened to your senses.
I thought Seelix's subplot about becoming a pilot was well done in the way that subplots that are there to highlight the larger plot often aren't. I think it was because Seelix was an example to the viewer, and not the Chief - the Chief's moments of epiphany were heavy-handed and we could see them coming for miles, but Seelix's struggle, although still predictable, felt more real. We can recognize and empathize with the unfairness of not being able to get the job that you deserve much more easily than we can recognize being hauled into heavy machinery service after being mistaken for a farmer. Jen Halley also sold her scenes well, especially where she was feeling useless delivering laundry, and then when, in seconds, she went from deck crew to officer to facing Starbuck as a nugget already falling behind on her first day.
(As a predictable aside, I loved Starbuck stepping back into the role of showy, tough flight instructor. It's hilarious to see the facade break when Seelix walks away and Kara grins at the Chief. Starbuck appreciates the rightness of Seelix becoming a pilot-in-training, but there's something about Starbuck seeing someone wanting something badly and delighting in making them work for it, making them make her believe they've earned it.)
Now, for the major problem: Oh, narrative trickery. I have a long-standing problem with trickery, with secrets kept from the viewer that, in the circumstances they should know, and would otherwise know if the writers weren't playing a trick. And I know that half of narrative is trickery in the first place, but this kind of trick always raises my hackles. What I'm talking about is Roslin's collective bargaining with the Chief at the end of the episode. If Roslin felt that way, felt sensitive enough about the situation to feel that the human race could destroy itself without the Cylons if things didn't change, then why did she put the first protester in the brig? Why did she send the Chief out after their second meeting, telling him to fix things and that was the end? It doesn't make any sense. Either she felt that way or she didn't - her positive response at the end wasn't a reaction to the Chief's protest, she didn't appear to have had a change of mind about anything, and nothing the Chief did seemed to make a difference in her eyes, unless it was that he took leadership for the people? But why would she have waited for him to do something as drastic as call for a strike if she saw what the Chief saw all along and agreed with him? The bottom line is that, for all the explanations I tried to come up with, I felt tricked. I felt that Roslin fought with the Chief so we could have conflict, and then came to common ground with the Chief so we could have a happy ending, and everything that got them there wasn't as important as long as we were worried and then we were relieved.
And now, Adama. Oh, god, Adama. He scared me, in the same way he scared me when he kicked Starbuck's chair out from under her and told her she wasn't a daughter to him but a cancer to the fleet. He's been dark this whole season, dark and frightening, and I miss the visionary tough guy, the inspiring leader of the fleet who will guide them through hardship. Adama this season has been ruling by fear, and maybe he thinks that's the only way, but it just leaves me feeling cold, like he's turning his back on people in order to save them, and that's not an Adama I recognize. He does give the Chief what he wanted in the end, face time with the President, but it doesn't feel like he's given him anything when, moments before, he threatened to put Cally up against the bulkhead and shoot her. Sometimes it seems like the President is the only one who can still draw something out of the frozen sternness, and their joke about his invitation for her to share one of his beds was both amusing and painful, because, set up against what we see later in his face-off with the Chief, it just makes it clear how much Adama has changed since New Caprica.
This whole season has, in one way or another, been about how much life sucks for everyone after New Caprica, and I know the search for Earth is supposed to give up hope, but hope spreads pretty thin over this much tragedy.
And on that note, my feet are cold, so it's time for some socks, some lunch, and more of my favorite story of humanity on the run from themselves.