BSG: Occupation and Precipice
I was talking to prillalar last night about trying to wrap my head around BSG's season openers as well as the overall narrative of the series. The following is some of what came out of that conversation, with a little less squee -- actually, due warning, it's pretty critical of some aspects.
I'll say upfront that while I liked and even loved a lot of the details and parts of these episodes, I'm not thrilled with BSG lifting their stories from the front page, only because in their laudable desire to complicate and provide context to our current Political Situation, they're only simplifying it. Complex narratives come out of characters and the situations that develop from character interactions and conflict. Because of the time jump, what we have are characters that we don't quite know living out situations that we haven't seen develop. So to provide context, we have to draw on what *is* familiar -- which of course is the tropes of resistence fighting, Stepford Wife syndrome, the Holocaust, and others that I could probably map out when I watch the episodes again.
I can't totally buy into what's happening because I haven't seen it develop from these characters and this situation. I can still buy into it a little. Certainly they've given us a year and a half to play with, and we're all smart enough to make connections to characters we knew then to characters we're introduced to now. And new situations push characters to do new and interesting things, as we've seen. So while it didn't hook me emotionally, I'll still be there when it does.
On a different topic, while I think the show is moving more into a concern with situational effect and audience reaction than narrative continuity, which isn't it a bad thing if they can manage to keep it compelling and provide some narrative drive, I'm still trying to figure out what the fuck is up with the Cylons. Keep in mind I avoid spoilers, don't read creator commentary, and I haven't even watched the webisodes. So this is all based on what we've been shown on screen (and what I remember, so if I'm getting something wrong, let me know).
Cylon Plan #1: I'm all for the Cylons as the children of humankind, striking back at their parents in a childish fit of genocidal nuclear warfare. They want to be loved. They're acting out for attention with the utter irrationality of machines. It's like adolescence, when you see your parents for the first time as deeply flawed human beings and hate them for it. So their actions in bombing the colonies seem very plausible and even logical in their wonderfully sick way.
Cylon Plan #2: The What Next problem. If their parents are all dead, then who will define the Cylons and tell them who to be? They've shown no particular instinct for survival, since leaving the colonies alone in the first place would have accomplished that more easily. They don't want the resources of the colonies, or I assume they wouldn't have radioactivated them all. If their goal was just revenge, then it makes sense for them to continue to hunt down the remaining colonists, and certainly a big chunk of season 1 posited that. But really, the Cylons don't know what they want. They want to love, they want to be loved, they want to be both children and treated as equals. As I said: adolescence.
Cylon Plan #3: The Baby Farm. Killing all the humans won't work, because there's not much point to the Cylons' existence after that. Enter Hybridization program, which obviously was a plan from early on, since we have Sharon macking on Helo and that weird thing about it being Six and Baltar's baby, which I don't understand unless she meant it in solely in an abstract sense. With Cylon/human hybrids, the lands can be repopulated with a new, better race. The Cylons will finally be able to Belong. There will be other people for them to love and to love them.
Cylon Plan #4: Apparently this isn't enough -- they have to chase down the remaining humans and torture them some more. We're presented with several motivations: continuing revenge, which is always fun; showing up mom and dad with what they've been able to do -- we have hybrid babies now! and it's yours! ha!; and generally governing New Caprica the way you'd expect a teenager would.
In other words, they have no Plan. I love that their reasoning is so driven by emotion. Actually, I think they probably have a very complex and well-developed sense of logic, which we occasionally get snatches of. And on the Cylons' religion, which really isn't presented as a coherent worldview, I can only hope that we get to see the Cylons' god in the flesh, like the original. Only he wasn't a god, he was just a brain, right?
Speaking of, I'll end with how much I love that Baltar, like the original, was responsible for leading the colonists into the hands of the Cylons and continues as their puppet king (though I think he was more gung ho in the original).
I'll say upfront that while I liked and even loved a lot of the details and parts of these episodes, I'm not thrilled with BSG lifting their stories from the front page, only because in their laudable desire to complicate and provide context to our current Political Situation, they're only simplifying it. Complex narratives come out of characters and the situations that develop from character interactions and conflict. Because of the time jump, what we have are characters that we don't quite know living out situations that we haven't seen develop. So to provide context, we have to draw on what *is* familiar -- which of course is the tropes of resistence fighting, Stepford Wife syndrome, the Holocaust, and others that I could probably map out when I watch the episodes again.
I can't totally buy into what's happening because I haven't seen it develop from these characters and this situation. I can still buy into it a little. Certainly they've given us a year and a half to play with, and we're all smart enough to make connections to characters we knew then to characters we're introduced to now. And new situations push characters to do new and interesting things, as we've seen. So while it didn't hook me emotionally, I'll still be there when it does.
On a different topic, while I think the show is moving more into a concern with situational effect and audience reaction than narrative continuity, which isn't it a bad thing if they can manage to keep it compelling and provide some narrative drive, I'm still trying to figure out what the fuck is up with the Cylons. Keep in mind I avoid spoilers, don't read creator commentary, and I haven't even watched the webisodes. So this is all based on what we've been shown on screen (and what I remember, so if I'm getting something wrong, let me know).
Cylon Plan #1: I'm all for the Cylons as the children of humankind, striking back at their parents in a childish fit of genocidal nuclear warfare. They want to be loved. They're acting out for attention with the utter irrationality of machines. It's like adolescence, when you see your parents for the first time as deeply flawed human beings and hate them for it. So their actions in bombing the colonies seem very plausible and even logical in their wonderfully sick way.
Cylon Plan #2: The What Next problem. If their parents are all dead, then who will define the Cylons and tell them who to be? They've shown no particular instinct for survival, since leaving the colonies alone in the first place would have accomplished that more easily. They don't want the resources of the colonies, or I assume they wouldn't have radioactivated them all. If their goal was just revenge, then it makes sense for them to continue to hunt down the remaining colonists, and certainly a big chunk of season 1 posited that. But really, the Cylons don't know what they want. They want to love, they want to be loved, they want to be both children and treated as equals. As I said: adolescence.
Cylon Plan #3: The Baby Farm. Killing all the humans won't work, because there's not much point to the Cylons' existence after that. Enter Hybridization program, which obviously was a plan from early on, since we have Sharon macking on Helo and that weird thing about it being Six and Baltar's baby, which I don't understand unless she meant it in solely in an abstract sense. With Cylon/human hybrids, the lands can be repopulated with a new, better race. The Cylons will finally be able to Belong. There will be other people for them to love and to love them.
Cylon Plan #4: Apparently this isn't enough -- they have to chase down the remaining humans and torture them some more. We're presented with several motivations: continuing revenge, which is always fun; showing up mom and dad with what they've been able to do -- we have hybrid babies now! and it's yours! ha!; and generally governing New Caprica the way you'd expect a teenager would.
In other words, they have no Plan. I love that their reasoning is so driven by emotion. Actually, I think they probably have a very complex and well-developed sense of logic, which we occasionally get snatches of. And on the Cylons' religion, which really isn't presented as a coherent worldview, I can only hope that we get to see the Cylons' god in the flesh, like the original. Only he wasn't a god, he was just a brain, right?
Speaking of, I'll end with how much I love that Baltar, like the original, was responsible for leading the colonists into the hands of the Cylons and continues as their puppet king (though I think he was more gung ho in the original).