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[pocochina]

BSG is another show that has been pretty formative for me, though unlike AtS, I have kind of been able to process and mostly have good feelings toward it.

One influence that BSG has had on how I watch shows is that I apply the Laura Roslin Test to fictional 'verses now to see how much credibility I give the major conflict. The Laura Roslin test is

Comments

[pocochina]

Now that I've revisited it all in order fairly recently, I think 4.0 is pretty good. The only real dud is SQN.

I was surprised not to have any season finales on that list either. But there's always so much that has to happen, and then the last fifteen minutes are long, looooong setup for cliffhangers, that it's tough to think of them as self-contained episodes.

Boomer is a character that might make the top 10 on some days because I really feel for her. But yeah, I think about her a little bit and start going ".....why. Just, why."

it's funny how few Cylons make it -- or, like, at least of the not-a-secret main set of models.

hahahaha, I'M SUCH A TOASTER-HATER. But yeah, I feel like the show had a tendency to wildly misjudge (a) if and when we would feel sympathy for the Cylons and (b) how much that sympathy would affect our judgment of their actions. And so it ended up hitting the wrong notes so much of the time. Like, early on I was assuming they had some sort of feelings (because otherwise, why bother?) and so I didn't need the whole 'CYLONS R PPL TOO!' business, and also I think I was expecting to get some sort of reason for their actions? But instead of upping the "reason" the show just pounded away on their ~pain, entirely forgetting that with personhood comes autonomy and therefore accountability. People weren't hating the Cylons because they were Othering the Cylons, they were doing it because that is the REASONABLE RESPONSE to what the Cylons did and continued to do to them. And I was MORE on board with that as time went on, not less? But I feel like the assumption was "we're showing them more, they're more FAMILIAR, so they're more HUMAN, so they're more SYMPATHETIC" which was exactly the wrong direction IMO.

[jedi_of_urth]

I was MORE on board with that as time went on, not less

I have the same reaction to the Cylons. I always assumed the initial Cylon war was justified; the humans treated the Cylons as unthinking/unfeeling robots when they were developing into more than that and fought back. Fine, understandable, justifiable. But when the war was done...they went into hiding and the humans let it go. If they had reappeared with their new designs and faced robo-prejudice simply because of what they were then it would have been sympathetic. What they did though was kill off 99%+ of the human race and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM WAS IN ON IT. Yeah, the Ones had more (but by no means better) reasons than the others, but the more we learned over the series the more it became clear ALL of them were in on it.

The remaining tiny fraction of the human race did not hate the Cylons because they were "different", they hated the fact that these being WERE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATHS OF ALMOST EVERY HUMAN ALIVE. And then, when the humans were just trying to get away, leave their homes to the Cylons that had taken them with sch excessive force, the Cylons kept coming, kept killing more of them, and eventually looked to rule over the humans as an ac of "benevolence" by which point the humans weren't doing anything against the Cylons.

The more the show tried to blur the lines between human and Cylon, the less they left it up to the characters or us to decide on an individual level whether the history between them was something that people could get past. If the Cylons had been shown to grow and change and FUCKING TAKE RESPONSIBILITY then they could have made us wonder if, as horrible as what they had done was, they could become better people going forward. But the show could never have them say "Yeah, you deserve to hate us for what we did, and we'll go our separate ways now."

(As this is why Adama plummeted in my estimation in s4.5 I suspect it's also why the writer's had Roslin so sidelined, they couldn't actually make it work. It's definitely why Tigh and his Cylon hating ass became my favorite character for the series' last act.)

Anyway, long way of saying, that I'm pretty anti-Toaster.

[pocochina]

What they did though was kill off 99%+ of the human race and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM WAS IN ON IT.

You know, I didn't even care so much about the "taking responsibility" angle of that? I could've actually been down with an uber-pragmatic "there's nothing we can do about the past right now" and some contrived plotonium forcing the humans to need the Cylons in order to get to Earth, and then examining what effect that had on the humans &c. Which, I think 4.5 tried to backtrack and do a little, with the damaged ships and the mutiny arc. (ofc, this did necessitate the dumb line "four years without a pit stop!" UM, EXCEPT THE YEAR-LONG PIT STOP WHILE PARKED OVER NEW CAPRICA.) Instead we got lots of wailing about ~both sides needing to ~learn to trust.

I don't think it's an accident that D'Anna is my favorite Cylon. I feel like her "GOD FRAKKING HUMANS KEEP HITTING MY FIST WITH THEIR FACES!" attitude is framed as being what it is, and even then, she's still more likely than the other rebels to acknowledge that humans might have the autonomy and motivation not to want to make nice. I can roll with that.

And then, when the humans were just trying to get away, leave their homes to the Cylons that had taken them with sch excessive force, the Cylons kept coming, kept killing more of them, and eventually looked to rule over the humans as an ac of "benevolence" by which point the humans weren't doing anything against the Cylons.

Yes, exactly. Which again, I can wank into being something interesting? ie, that the Cylons are still dependent on the humans as a force against which to define themselves and they don't have a self or group identity outside of that conflict. But I feel like that stays implied rather than foregrounded because that would emphasize how aggressive they are AND how self-protective and justified the humans' antipathy toward them is.

[obsessive_a101]

*inserting lightly* I really like this discussion because it hits on several of the points/issues I have with what exactly they were trying to do with the Cylons...

Though seriously, Booooooooomer. *sobs*

[jedi_of_urth]

I agree that what the show needed to do, and to a certain extent was trying to do, was make them need each other. But once the alliance got going I feel like the Cylons stopped developing and we were beaten over the head with the humans needing to accept the Cylons but not the other way around.

I disagree about the mutiny plot dong anything for that, because I saw those episodes as really unbalanced...or really awkwardly balanced. Because they were giving the mutineers all the points I thought needed to be addressed (except I think Lee got in one or two 'duh not everyone is okay with this' points) yet the show portrayed them as being in the wrong and everyone needed to bow down to the will of Adama. I feel like the Gaetas of the resistance got lost because we were supposed to see them as Zaraks. And after that the human's rightful resistance to/fear of/anger towards the Cylons was all brushed away and we were supposed to see things as all being happy (as much as anything was happy by that point in the show) and settled. We just weren't allowed that many different viewpoints on the subject by that point in the series.

But I feel like that stays implied rather than foregrounded because that would emphasize how aggressive they are AND how self-protective and justified the humans' antipathy toward them is.

Which I think is a shame, and really awkward for the series to have done. I feel something of the show, it's characters, it's realness, and it's complexity was all lost for not acknowledging these issues.

[pocochina]

I disagree about the mutiny plot dong anything for that, because I saw those episodes as really unbalanced...or really awkwardly balanced.

Definitely awkwardly balanced, but I do feel like it was an attempt. I just think it happened too late to counteract so much of the Cylons! have! feelings! too! SO DON'T BE A MEAN HATER AND CRITICIZE THEM FOR MURDERING EVERYONE

Also it was one of those cool storylines that pits all of my favorites against each other and nobody's right and everybody's miserable and that is my FAVORITE THING EVER, so.

Which I think is a shame, and really awkward for the series to have done. I feel something of the show, it's characters, it's realness, and it's complexity was all lost for not acknowledging these issues.

It was still very, very good, and more ambitious on this front than anything else I've ever seen, but...it had a bit more potential, for sure, and this was part of why I was left thinking it wasn't quite fulfilled.

[jedi_of_urth]

more ambitious on this front than anything else I've ever seen,

To be sure this is something I get into one-way arguments with TVD over too, and in that regard BSG was at least more aware that nobody was right in the conflict than TVD acknowledges the vampires are a legitimate threat (but then I'm in the very small Bill Forbes Appreciation Society and think the Founders' Council is usually perfectly justified in the things they do, so...yeah).

[local_max]

Yeah, Abigail Nussbaum's essays about that particular problem are some of the most valuable BSG-bashing (I say "bashing" with love, I mean love for her essays, not the show) (though I do love the show in other ways!) pieces that exist. And I think that's the problem, exactly as you articulate. The other problem is that there is a sense in which the show never quite seems to get around the difference between torturing and raping Cylon prisoners and treating them as legitimate targets of assault and attack, slash being mean to them. I do think some of "the Cylons have feeeeelings" material may have been a little warranted, since I recently read a fan lambasting "A Measure of Salvation" because it's impossible to believe, apparently, that Helo would object to the genocide of the Cylons -- and so there is a fan contingent who don't understand that there are good arguments not to exterminate the lot of the toasters. The show messes this up though, because the question mostly never gets framed in the correct way -- the question gets modified to OMG HUMANS ARE JUST AS BAD GET IT rather than the question of whether genocide is ever a legitimate response, even to another genocide, and even to a species wherein every member to the man and woman with one exception signed onto that genocide. Well, my other problem with A Measure of Salvation is that I don't think that you can play the "we can wipe them all out RIGHT NOW! oh okay no never mind" card over the course of 20 minutes and Helo ex machina it so that the more central characters have to live with neither the moral burden of destroying a whole species nor the knowledge that their hesitation to wipe them out will lead to more deaths among the Colonials.

[jedi_of_urth]

Do you have links to these essays? I can go for some BSG analysis that doesn't fall on the 'the humans need to love the Cylons' kind.

I could rail against Measure of Salvation for a while because yeah the show was pussyfooting out of making a commitment, but I wouldn't protest Helo's characterization surrounding it (I don't think, it's been a while since I watched it). On one hand I feel like the show did properly frame the question of whether this was a proper response on the humans' part, but on the other the end made it clear the writers weren't willing to take the risk that the audience wouldn't agree with them going through with it. It was going for morally grey but couldn't commit to it.

[pocochina]

Max is referring to this blogger. I've had one or two other occasions to recommend the post on the mutiny, though her posts are all refreshingly Cylon-skeptical.

On one hand I feel like the show did properly frame the question of whether this was a proper response on the humans' part, but on the other the end made it clear the writers weren't willing to take the risk that the audience wouldn't agree with them going through with it. It was going for morally grey but couldn't commit to it.

Past that, even. I feel like it did the false equivocation of "a small sample of humans versus ACTUALLY EVERY SINGLE CYLON"? I mean, I hate the "worthy of survival" garbage as applied to anyone, but it especially galls me that it becomes a thing here. Really, ALL OF HUMANITY would have retroactively had it coming if they defended themselves? Little Kacey could stop being WORTHY OF SURVIVAL because of a decision tens of thousands of civilians never even found out was being made? And if that would make the humans not WORTHY OF SURVIVAL, then what about the Cylons who all actually went through with the genocide thing, as an aggressive assault rather than self-defense, who gets to pass judgment on if they're WORTHY OF SURVIVAL? So yeah, I think this is the flip side of the show misjudging what it was showing me by a lot.

IA that Helo's characterization was on point. I choose to put it in context of my Stockholm Syndrome reading of him, though, rather than the "special snowflake of morality" business.

[local_max]

oh yeah you beat me to it, coolness, and yeah. that.

Though, Special Snowflake Of Morality aside, I do kind of support Helo on this, given (and what a given!) that the situation had gotten to the point where literally the only options for him to act were to end the possibility of using that as a weapon or to let every single Cylon besides his wife die. Which -- those Cylons had it coming more than, er, any human we ever saw basically (well, maybe not any one, but you know what I mean), but still not enough. However, the One Righteous Man Special Snowflake where Helo and Only Helo is able to act blah blah does grate.

[jedi_of_urth]

I don’t mind the ‘worthy of survival’ angle exactly, at least not on a character level. That a character would worry about there being more to living than simple survival works; that *they* feel they must have to earn the right to have the life they have. However, I think it’s another of those things that the show got twisted around. That it was applied to the humans as a species (what remained of it) but NOT to the Cylons. Which is the biggest problem with me having sympathy for the Cylons, the humans on the verge of extinction still worry about such things and the Cylons...don’t.

When it comes to the humans we see them debate what morality they will compromise in the name of survival. In my opinion they probably hold onto it too much, but there is a reasonable side to it that if you completely sacrifice what makes you human fighting your enemies it’s harder to put a stop to doing it again anyone that becomes an enemy; so I’m not saying they could or should have gone to a complete ‘survival at any cost’ mentality, but over time we got less and less of a realization what the stakes were in trying to hold onto virtues in the face of such an enemy.

But no one asks the Cylons “Even if somehow we *did* deserve this, what does that make you?” No one internally, externally, or over time apparently among the writers question whether the *Cylons* deserved to survive. Oh no, the humans might use a biological weapon that could kill off a significant chunk of the Cylons; honestly, the Cylon race would probably survive and still be better off than the human race is at the moment; BECAUSE OF WHAT THE CYLONS DID. Do I know that that makes it right? Do I know if it’s what they should have done? Do I know what I would think if I was there, or even from here? I’m not saying that; but while I think MoS understood the questions but was unwilling to realize it, I think by s4 the show really lost any interest to the point of losing sight of the questions.

[local_max]

These are the posts I was thinking of: http://wrongquestions.blogspot.ca/search/label/battlestar%20galactica. Warning: very negative about the show, increasingly so.

I don't have a problem with Helo's characterization in that ep -- I was mostly saying that I think it's bizarre that someone would criticize the characterization that someone could object to genocide. I think the biggest problem I have is that the episode feels rushed and there isn't time for the issues to breathe -- to the point where I wish they hadn't done it at all. Within those limits, though, it is possible that the episode does frame the question well -- it's been a whiiiiile since I watched it.

[jedi_of_urth]

very negative about the show, increasingly so.

My feelings on the show definitely went down over time too, though I think I held out hope longer than some. I wouldn't say I've very negative, but I usually find I agree more with people who are than people who liked the show all the way through, I saw most of the same flaws but only a few of them actually pissed me off as much.

he biggest problem I have is that the episode feels rushed and there isn't time for the issues to breathe

I'm pretty sure I completely agree with that. It's been a while since I watched it too, but yeah the way the two-parter was structured...was not the way it should have been. It ramped up way too quickly and then rushed to a conclusion that was set not to actually matter to the larger story. A lot of things in s3 were rushed through as I recall.