I generally like the Quorom story and the struggles between Lee, Laura and Zarek and the ways they come together to say something about each character in the pay off in the mutiny. I would happily have traded some Demetrius time for more of it. I think that the stuff in this episode is less compelling than that in EV and GWCTD because the judiciary issue goes nowhere whilst the cult and the alliance matter and I don't like that is the one time on a political question that we nothing of Laura's reasoning. But I do think that there's good set up here for the complexity of the story told about Lee and politics between here and the end. We see Lee!s ambition: he wants to matter on this stage and so he asserts himself and won't accept considerations of experience. (His stepping over Jacob to speak again is a nod to that too as well as his more dramatic assertion against Roslin.) And if would acknowledge him in he way he wants to see himself, then he wouldn't be criticising her over the tribunals. We see that Zarek is trying to play him
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Interesting thoughts as ever, Pythia, though I think I will wind up approaching this storyline with a different perspective (I'm sure you're shocked! :) Hee!) I didn't find it particularly dramatic the first time around, but I'm happy to give it another chance and try to find the fun things about it as we delve further into it
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I entirely agree Rachel that Laura is being dismissive Quorum. But the interesting thing to me is that in their different ways all of them are. Lee bypasses the Quorum to become President, entirely excluding the rest of them to find an acting President and then offering the Cylon amnesty without consulting them when he knows that they have been barely board on with the joint mission. I don't blame him at all for those decisions but the importance of the Quorum is something he uses as rhetoric to bash Laura rather than something he is committed to when he is either aspiring to executive power or has it himself. I quite like that as part of the story and I think it fits with the relationship between words and deeds that plays as a theme in this season all the way through to No Exit
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I agree, Pythia, that it takes a lot of work to pull these storylines into something coherent for Lee or for Baltar -- I personally think they just don't hold together, and that to have Lee bouncing from championing the Quorum to threatening to jail them and back again to expanding their power makes no sense for the character. I look upon it as poor writing rather than interesting character ambiguity, but happily of course it's open to more positive interpretations
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I do agree Rachel that from what we see the Quorum must sign off on Lee's presidency in SQN. But I don't think that changes the fact that Lee is as dismissive of it in getting to that point as Laura has been. They both react against what they see as the Qurorum's propensity to start from their own emotions. Laura complains that they are perpetually needy and Lee that they are breathing in fear and exhaling anger. I also think that there is some pay off for both sides of the Quurom versus Lee and Laura. The Quorum do let themselves be manipulated by Zarek because they are not good at thinking things through. But both Laura and Lee are wrong in relation to them too and their combined failings in relation to the Quorom contribute to the tragedy of the Quorum: Laura knows what is required and won't do it and Lee doesn't see that if he turns Jacob he can keep them onside
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I'm actually not so sure the show ultimately endorses Roslin's undemocratic actions and points of view; I must admit that I usually do not do so, as a viewer, and I think that the themes of the overall series are ambiguous enough to leave the debate open and to let viewers take sides and/or pick a middle road between Roslin or Lee's positions in these arguments, while of course recognizing the flaws and consequences of both
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