BSG, "Black Market" s2ep14, and the ten steps of fucking with Apollo.
I am completely uninspired to do my usual review of the episode. Last week's was brilliant by comparison, and I didn't like Epiphanies either. That's not to say it didn't have moments of importance, or that the performances were poor, or that the music was bad or obtrusive, or that it still wasn't better than probably 75% of television. What was wrong with Black Market is characterisation.
I'm a bit buzzed on too much cola, tonight, and produced a post on sciffy, and because I'm easily amused, it amused me. It sums up what I think of the characterisation in this episode... and how it was arrived at in the writing process. IE: BACKWARDS. So I'll repeat it here, for your enjoyment / discussion / disdain.
(NB: this is a repost of a post I made on sciffy. If you've read it there, sorry!)
I kind of get the feeling that the writers in this episode started at the wrong end of the character development method. I can see it going something like this:
1)Lee's got to be completely mentally and emotionally screwed for XYZ important plot point in the amazing season finale to make sense. Okay. How do we justify that?
2)Let's see. Lee doesn't have any (personal) backstory, so we can do what we want with it. Lets firstly strip away his reliance on his current emotional support crew. He can be removed from his father during Pegasus, yeah... and have his faith in Roslin's principles shaken, that works... and lets include his dad in that, too. Oh, and Kara.
3)And hey, guilt worked for Starbuck, so lets give Lee some guilt to shoulder. He looked pretty being guilty over the Olympic Carrier. What can he be guilty about that will resonate with the themes we're going to look at in upcoming episodes? Well, duh. Baby, of course. Lee shoulda/coulda/woulda had a baby. Only for him not to have mentioned it before now, it couldn't have been born yet, so the mother must be dead. Most of the colonies are dead, so that's not a problem either.
4)The best way to 'show' guilt and identification with a kid is for Lee to get involved with someone who has one, coz there aren't any babies on Galactica (for which all thinking fans are profoundly grateful). That means a civvie. Hang on, why would he pick a civvie woman when he's been totally gone on Kara for oh, 23 episodes now? Especially seeing he hasn't yet been told about Anders? Oh, and how about that little thing with Dee we were brewing to give Kara and Anders (when we bring him back) some competition for the doomed angsty couple award? Why wouldn't he pick either of them?
5)Oh, that's obvious. He cares for Kara and is attracted to Dee but they're both out of reach at the moment... so he wants something that's 'no strings'. So he has a frakbuddy with a kid. And hey, it would be emphasis for his messy mental state even more if the woman's like, a hooker.
6) So, Lee had a preggers girlfriend before the end of the world, and he's sorry that he didn't save her / want kids / deal with the shock all that well / hasn't thought about her in six months. But obviously it's been subconciously bothering him, because he's suicidal, almost, because the guilt and the parents and the hopeless and the cylons and yada yada... anyway, he's frakked up. And he goes to this hooker for some oldstyle therapy, identifies with the parenthood thing and gets in deeper than he thought.
7) hang on, this is supposed to be frakked up. That's too reasonable. Okay, so the hooker is going to betray him somehow. And anyway, she's a hooker. What can he be paying her with? Ambrosia? Kara's cigars? We haven't discussed money yet. Does the fleet have an economy, anyway? Where DOES Kara get her cigars?
8) OOOOH, politics. Economy. Black market (we've been supposing there's one for a while, may as well use it) boss has his hooker get her hooks in Lee, because he's investigating the illicit trade. He needs leverage on Lee to get him to back off. But if it's on a different ship, then Lee needs a reason to go looking, right? Kill someone.
9) Fisk. We didn't want that drunk tattletale to have the Pegasus for long anyway, he'd just be Adama's doormat as much as he was Cain's... no tension there. So we kill Fisk because he's... um... corrupt! and involved in the black market! (even though the ship's only been in the fleet a week or two and he could have bought all his booze from Tigh, anyhow) and that'll get Lee sent over to deal with the question of who killed Fisk and make sure that the black market boss has to do something about him.
10) now the only question is, how do we keep Starbuck out of this? Can't have Lee dealing with all this crap if she's got his back. I mean, the fact that no matter what they've done for ages and ages now, they've done it together or ended up in the same place, just wouldn't make sense if she wasn't with him for the investigation. And she definitely can't be there, because if she was, she'd just shoot the hooker. In fact, Lee wouldn't have needed the hooker.
Frak, I'm out of ideas. Give Kara a holiday, maybe she's off... repairing Vipers. Pining over Anders. Whatever.
...
The storyline would possibly have worked, except with every other character developmental episode, or scene in an episode, in the entire show, there has been some significant support for what the character experiences. There were mild issues with unsupported development in Epiphanies, but I can hardly describe the out-of-left-field character leaps that happened in Black Market as 'mild'.
I can see why Jacob (TWOP reviewer), who has been amazingly fair and appreciative of the show since taking over the recaps, didn't like it much. I didn't like it much myself.
I'm a bit buzzed on too much cola, tonight, and produced a post on sciffy, and because I'm easily amused, it amused me. It sums up what I think of the characterisation in this episode... and how it was arrived at in the writing process. IE: BACKWARDS. So I'll repeat it here, for your enjoyment / discussion / disdain.
(NB: this is a repost of a post I made on sciffy. If you've read it there, sorry!)
I kind of get the feeling that the writers in this episode started at the wrong end of the character development method. I can see it going something like this:
1)Lee's got to be completely mentally and emotionally screwed for XYZ important plot point in the amazing season finale to make sense. Okay. How do we justify that?
2)Let's see. Lee doesn't have any (personal) backstory, so we can do what we want with it. Lets firstly strip away his reliance on his current emotional support crew. He can be removed from his father during Pegasus, yeah... and have his faith in Roslin's principles shaken, that works... and lets include his dad in that, too. Oh, and Kara.
3)And hey, guilt worked for Starbuck, so lets give Lee some guilt to shoulder. He looked pretty being guilty over the Olympic Carrier. What can he be guilty about that will resonate with the themes we're going to look at in upcoming episodes? Well, duh. Baby, of course. Lee shoulda/coulda/woulda had a baby. Only for him not to have mentioned it before now, it couldn't have been born yet, so the mother must be dead. Most of the colonies are dead, so that's not a problem either.
4)The best way to 'show' guilt and identification with a kid is for Lee to get involved with someone who has one, coz there aren't any babies on Galactica (for which all thinking fans are profoundly grateful). That means a civvie. Hang on, why would he pick a civvie woman when he's been totally gone on Kara for oh, 23 episodes now? Especially seeing he hasn't yet been told about Anders? Oh, and how about that little thing with Dee we were brewing to give Kara and Anders (when we bring him back) some competition for the doomed angsty couple award? Why wouldn't he pick either of them?
5)Oh, that's obvious. He cares for Kara and is attracted to Dee but they're both out of reach at the moment... so he wants something that's 'no strings'. So he has a frakbuddy with a kid. And hey, it would be emphasis for his messy mental state even more if the woman's like, a hooker.
6) So, Lee had a preggers girlfriend before the end of the world, and he's sorry that he didn't save her / want kids / deal with the shock all that well / hasn't thought about her in six months. But obviously it's been subconciously bothering him, because he's suicidal, almost, because the guilt and the parents and the hopeless and the cylons and yada yada... anyway, he's frakked up. And he goes to this hooker for some oldstyle therapy, identifies with the parenthood thing and gets in deeper than he thought.
7) hang on, this is supposed to be frakked up. That's too reasonable. Okay, so the hooker is going to betray him somehow. And anyway, she's a hooker. What can he be paying her with? Ambrosia? Kara's cigars? We haven't discussed money yet. Does the fleet have an economy, anyway? Where DOES Kara get her cigars?
8) OOOOH, politics. Economy. Black market (we've been supposing there's one for a while, may as well use it) boss has his hooker get her hooks in Lee, because he's investigating the illicit trade. He needs leverage on Lee to get him to back off. But if it's on a different ship, then Lee needs a reason to go looking, right? Kill someone.
9) Fisk. We didn't want that drunk tattletale to have the Pegasus for long anyway, he'd just be Adama's doormat as much as he was Cain's... no tension there. So we kill Fisk because he's... um... corrupt! and involved in the black market! (even though the ship's only been in the fleet a week or two and he could have bought all his booze from Tigh, anyhow) and that'll get Lee sent over to deal with the question of who killed Fisk and make sure that the black market boss has to do something about him.
10) now the only question is, how do we keep Starbuck out of this? Can't have Lee dealing with all this crap if she's got his back. I mean, the fact that no matter what they've done for ages and ages now, they've done it together or ended up in the same place, just wouldn't make sense if she wasn't with him for the investigation. And she definitely can't be there, because if she was, she'd just shoot the hooker. In fact, Lee wouldn't have needed the hooker.
Frak, I'm out of ideas. Give Kara a holiday, maybe she's off... repairing Vipers. Pining over Anders. Whatever.
...
The storyline would possibly have worked, except with every other character developmental episode, or scene in an episode, in the entire show, there has been some significant support for what the character experiences. There were mild issues with unsupported development in Epiphanies, but I can hardly describe the out-of-left-field character leaps that happened in Black Market as 'mild'.
I can see why Jacob (TWOP reviewer), who has been amazingly fair and appreciative of the show since taking over the recaps, didn't like it much. I didn't like it much myself.