How to Ruin a Ship
First, I have not been able to get to my parents' house and watch the BSG they've been recording for me, so I haven't seen anything after "A Day in the Life." *is sad, but taking consolation in the fact that that means will be able to watch multiple episodes at once later*
Second, why the musical titles lately? I'm too young to remember that "Taking a Break from All Your Worries" is a line from the Cheers themesong, but I most definitely know that "A Day in the Life" is a Beatles song. Yes, the phrase isn't exclusive to them, but still. Why that song? I keep expecting the characters to start belting out the lyrics to "Yesterday." ETA: Oh yes, and "Dr. Roberts" is also a Beatles song. "You're feeling fine," indeed.
Third, the weirdest thing happened to me while watching "A Day in the Life": I suddenly saw what I think the writers intended me to see about Lee/Dee all along. This made me angry.
The scene where they joke about the box Adama left ("Is it ticking?"), Lee seems comfortable openly referencing his problems with Adama without needing to explain to Dee how he feels, and they both seem like equal partners who understand each other and feel comfortable and happy together... hey, that actually looks like it could work! And putting it together with Lee getting a possible new direction (law), something he could be passionate about (unlike the military), reminded me of Dee's comment ages ago that Lee needs a war to fight. It's not a war he needs, exactly, but she was getting the idea. I think it's more like the devotion to an ideal and working to make things better.
I re-watched S2's "Valley of Darkness" (the one where they're running around in the dark fighting Centurions) and "Resistance" (sneaking Roslin off the ship), and again had the weird feeling that I finally got Lee/Dee. They worked together well and understood each other, but beyond that, really seemed to have similar ideals and approaches to acting on them. Also, they had a great dynamic when Dee "coincidentally" kept running into Lee as he headed back to his cell, very comfortable and funny despite the tension of their situation. Based on these episodes, I could really get on board this ship.
As much as I love Billy, Dee/Billy was just not going to work. Dee didn't seem to respect Billy. Not exactly in the sense that she thinks he's dumb or anything - though her totally unnecessary mockery of him for being lost in the miniseries makes me mad - just in the sense that they aren't on the same page, that she doesn't really trust him, and that she doesn't see him as much more than an aide who's kind of cute and gets lost sometimes. And he did try to sneakily pump her for information once on a date. Also, he's not military. This wouldn't matter for every character, but it does make it easier for each partner to understand what the other is going through. Lee and Dee seem to like the... I don't know if "orderliness" is the right word, but something like that about the military.
Unfortunately, despite me thinking Billy and Dee would be better with other people, and despite the episodes which make Lee/Dee look good, I have really, really hated this ship for most of the time it's been on the show. I think this is because it happened via the Love Triangle of Stupid Character Death and the Love Quadrangle of Doom.
So Dee feels something for Lee despite being with Billy. Okay, that's fine. It happens. But Dee stringing Billy along despite lukewarm feelings for him and seeing Lee at the Cloud Nine behind Billy's back? First, ick. Second, since when is Dee that spineless? She has no problem laughing at the poor lost guy. She has no problem calling Billy on spying on her. She has no problem accusing him of only coming to her when he's having a lousy time at work. She has no problem telling him she won't marry him, even. So why can she suddenly not explain that she likes him but just doesn't love him that much and isn't sure they're going to work out? And why doesn't she say she's interested in someone else? Yes, she's been feeling depressed lately (especially in the cut scenes where she tells Lee about it), but if she's clinging to Billy because that's all she has, you'd think she'd be less frank the other times. And sure, she might be worried that Lee won't go for her. But, um, he's dressing up to meet her at a swanky bar. And single. (Well, except for the Space Hooker, but I'm not sure Dee knows about that.) And Kara/Lee doesn't seem to be going anywhere at the moment, and Lee does like Dee. And Dee has been known to just grab a guy and kiss him. She's got plenty of reason to hope. So the whole idea of the secret date just makes Dee look like she's deliberately playing two guys because she feels like it. She isn't always nice - and I wouldn't want her to be - but that's just nasty.
And then once the Love Quadrangle of Doom gets rolling, Dee seems happy to follow Lee around and take whatever Kara leaves for her. What did she say, that she thought she was lucky to have him for as long as they would let her? Yuck! Dee used to have scenes with all sorts of characters (Gaeta, Billy, Lee, Adama...), and lots of scenes that had nothing to do with her love life. Once she started mooning over Lee, her scenes were all about Lee. She was either looking at him while working out with Billy, or talking to Billy about Lee, or talking to Lee about their relationship, or talking to Lee about his issues, or talking to Lee about Starbuck, etc. Dee stopped existing independently from Lee. I'm definitely not attracted to a ship where one member voluntarily diminishes herself to essentially beg for scraps and become a barnacle on the other.
And of course Lee spent the whole time thinking about Kara, or trying not to and failing.
I think the problem with this is not just Dee losing her spine and becoming a stereotypical Woman In Love (clingy, jealous, subordinate, etc.). It's the setup where the fictional relationship can't just exist, but has to be constantly compared to the other relationships the characters have had or might have. It can't just be Lee/Dee. It has to be Lee/Dee vs. Dee/Billy. Kara/Lee vs. Kara/Sam. Instead of focusing on the positive aspects, why the ship is and why it works, we're focusing on the negative - what it isn't and why it doesn't work. It's basically ship-bashing for every one of the ships involved at once. For instance, we get both "Lee/Dee isn't antagonistic and frakked up like Kara/Lee!" and "Lee/Dee doesn't have the history and passion of Kara/Lee!" at the same time. No wonder all the ships seemed so distasteful to me.
Even worse, both Love Geometry of Doom arcs were like black holes swallowing up all the other plots. Suddenly, the characters stopped doing much of anything other than angsting over their relationships. They had fewer and fewer scenes where they interacted with characters not in the Love Polygon or did not have Frakked-Up Romance affecting whatever they were doing. For instance, Billy couldn't just die in an unrelated incident after he and Dee broke up; he had to die as a result of Lee/Dee and his reaction to it. Never mind that Billy spent far more time with Roslin and they had a nearly mother/son bond, and that we might have gotten a far more heart-wrenching scene if he had died protecting Roslin or because of one of her decisions - it's all about the Triangle of Doom! Other characters got shunted aside in favor of the Love Polygon, or had Frakked-Up Romance of their own (hello, Tyrol/Cally!). I am not against Love Polygons and Frakked-Up Romance per se, but I prefer it in moderation. And I prefer it when the characters and plots do not have to bend into pretzels to accommodate the Polygons and Romance, thank you.
Obviously, Lee/Dee and Kara/Sam could not have happened without some comparison to Kara/Lee and some angst. But now that the show is recovering from the Quadrangular Black Hole and I'm starting to like all the ships again, I am doubly irked at how the writers handled it all. Not only did I have to suffer through the frustrating Triangle and then Quadrangle, but then I had to see how much I could have enjoyed it if they had just toned things down a little.
I don't think it matters whether the writers are planning to break up Lee/Dee and Kara/Sam to set up (a more permanent iteration of) Kara/Lee later. They could still have treated Lee/Dee as a valid relationship even if it is supposed to fail eventually. They did a little better with Kara/Sam, giving him concerns such as the Circle which didn't always directly involve Kara (though he still lost a lot of his independent existence once they got married - what happened to the other Capricans that came back with him? and what does he do when he's not with Kara?), which is enough to get the idea of how it could have been handled. There's also the Roslin/Adama model: yes, they're interested in each other, but they also have past relationships and other possibilities (like, oh, Roslin/Zarek, disastrous though it would be) which do not have to be seen only in comparison to Roslin/Adama. More importantly, they have lives outside romance, and any sparks which occur do not put those lives on hold. The wasted potential disappoints me greatly.
In summary, this is how to ruin a canon ship:
1) Make at least half the couple underhanded and spineless to get it sailing in the first place.
2) Make another character die because of the new ship.
3) Ignore all previous character traits and dynamics that made the characters want to get together whenever they are onscreen.
4) Make the characters more concerned about how their ship compares to other ships they could be in instead of, you know, each other.
5) Make one character structurally subordinate to the other (as in, no plot or character concerns apart from the other's problems) even though they had been more equal before.
6) Stop giving the characters concerns other than their relationships, and try not to give them so many scenes with people outside the ships (unless they're talking about the ships).
7) In fact, have fewer scenes total which are not about the ships in general.
7a) To really up the shipping-scene quotient, make sure to give at least one character both past and present angsty relationships for one episode only, even if earlier episodes give no indication that they affect the character at all and they never come up again, even when this is one time you should be having the character compare his ships. See: Lee in "Black Market."
Have I missed anything?
Second, why the musical titles lately? I'm too young to remember that "Taking a Break from All Your Worries" is a line from the Cheers themesong, but I most definitely know that "A Day in the Life" is a Beatles song. Yes, the phrase isn't exclusive to them, but still. Why that song? I keep expecting the characters to start belting out the lyrics to "Yesterday." ETA: Oh yes, and "Dr. Roberts" is also a Beatles song. "You're feeling fine," indeed.
Third, the weirdest thing happened to me while watching "A Day in the Life": I suddenly saw what I think the writers intended me to see about Lee/Dee all along. This made me angry.
The scene where they joke about the box Adama left ("Is it ticking?"), Lee seems comfortable openly referencing his problems with Adama without needing to explain to Dee how he feels, and they both seem like equal partners who understand each other and feel comfortable and happy together... hey, that actually looks like it could work! And putting it together with Lee getting a possible new direction (law), something he could be passionate about (unlike the military), reminded me of Dee's comment ages ago that Lee needs a war to fight. It's not a war he needs, exactly, but she was getting the idea. I think it's more like the devotion to an ideal and working to make things better.
I re-watched S2's "Valley of Darkness" (the one where they're running around in the dark fighting Centurions) and "Resistance" (sneaking Roslin off the ship), and again had the weird feeling that I finally got Lee/Dee. They worked together well and understood each other, but beyond that, really seemed to have similar ideals and approaches to acting on them. Also, they had a great dynamic when Dee "coincidentally" kept running into Lee as he headed back to his cell, very comfortable and funny despite the tension of their situation. Based on these episodes, I could really get on board this ship.
As much as I love Billy, Dee/Billy was just not going to work. Dee didn't seem to respect Billy. Not exactly in the sense that she thinks he's dumb or anything - though her totally unnecessary mockery of him for being lost in the miniseries makes me mad - just in the sense that they aren't on the same page, that she doesn't really trust him, and that she doesn't see him as much more than an aide who's kind of cute and gets lost sometimes. And he did try to sneakily pump her for information once on a date. Also, he's not military. This wouldn't matter for every character, but it does make it easier for each partner to understand what the other is going through. Lee and Dee seem to like the... I don't know if "orderliness" is the right word, but something like that about the military.
Unfortunately, despite me thinking Billy and Dee would be better with other people, and despite the episodes which make Lee/Dee look good, I have really, really hated this ship for most of the time it's been on the show. I think this is because it happened via the Love Triangle of Stupid Character Death and the Love Quadrangle of Doom.
So Dee feels something for Lee despite being with Billy. Okay, that's fine. It happens. But Dee stringing Billy along despite lukewarm feelings for him and seeing Lee at the Cloud Nine behind Billy's back? First, ick. Second, since when is Dee that spineless? She has no problem laughing at the poor lost guy. She has no problem calling Billy on spying on her. She has no problem accusing him of only coming to her when he's having a lousy time at work. She has no problem telling him she won't marry him, even. So why can she suddenly not explain that she likes him but just doesn't love him that much and isn't sure they're going to work out? And why doesn't she say she's interested in someone else? Yes, she's been feeling depressed lately (especially in the cut scenes where she tells Lee about it), but if she's clinging to Billy because that's all she has, you'd think she'd be less frank the other times. And sure, she might be worried that Lee won't go for her. But, um, he's dressing up to meet her at a swanky bar. And single. (Well, except for the Space Hooker, but I'm not sure Dee knows about that.) And Kara/Lee doesn't seem to be going anywhere at the moment, and Lee does like Dee. And Dee has been known to just grab a guy and kiss him. She's got plenty of reason to hope. So the whole idea of the secret date just makes Dee look like she's deliberately playing two guys because she feels like it. She isn't always nice - and I wouldn't want her to be - but that's just nasty.
And then once the Love Quadrangle of Doom gets rolling, Dee seems happy to follow Lee around and take whatever Kara leaves for her. What did she say, that she thought she was lucky to have him for as long as they would let her? Yuck! Dee used to have scenes with all sorts of characters (Gaeta, Billy, Lee, Adama...), and lots of scenes that had nothing to do with her love life. Once she started mooning over Lee, her scenes were all about Lee. She was either looking at him while working out with Billy, or talking to Billy about Lee, or talking to Lee about their relationship, or talking to Lee about his issues, or talking to Lee about Starbuck, etc. Dee stopped existing independently from Lee. I'm definitely not attracted to a ship where one member voluntarily diminishes herself to essentially beg for scraps and become a barnacle on the other.
And of course Lee spent the whole time thinking about Kara, or trying not to and failing.
I think the problem with this is not just Dee losing her spine and becoming a stereotypical Woman In Love (clingy, jealous, subordinate, etc.). It's the setup where the fictional relationship can't just exist, but has to be constantly compared to the other relationships the characters have had or might have. It can't just be Lee/Dee. It has to be Lee/Dee vs. Dee/Billy. Kara/Lee vs. Kara/Sam. Instead of focusing on the positive aspects, why the ship is and why it works, we're focusing on the negative - what it isn't and why it doesn't work. It's basically ship-bashing for every one of the ships involved at once. For instance, we get both "Lee/Dee isn't antagonistic and frakked up like Kara/Lee!" and "Lee/Dee doesn't have the history and passion of Kara/Lee!" at the same time. No wonder all the ships seemed so distasteful to me.
Even worse, both Love Geometry of Doom arcs were like black holes swallowing up all the other plots. Suddenly, the characters stopped doing much of anything other than angsting over their relationships. They had fewer and fewer scenes where they interacted with characters not in the Love Polygon or did not have Frakked-Up Romance affecting whatever they were doing. For instance, Billy couldn't just die in an unrelated incident after he and Dee broke up; he had to die as a result of Lee/Dee and his reaction to it. Never mind that Billy spent far more time with Roslin and they had a nearly mother/son bond, and that we might have gotten a far more heart-wrenching scene if he had died protecting Roslin or because of one of her decisions - it's all about the Triangle of Doom! Other characters got shunted aside in favor of the Love Polygon, or had Frakked-Up Romance of their own (hello, Tyrol/Cally!). I am not against Love Polygons and Frakked-Up Romance per se, but I prefer it in moderation. And I prefer it when the characters and plots do not have to bend into pretzels to accommodate the Polygons and Romance, thank you.
Obviously, Lee/Dee and Kara/Sam could not have happened without some comparison to Kara/Lee and some angst. But now that the show is recovering from the Quadrangular Black Hole and I'm starting to like all the ships again, I am doubly irked at how the writers handled it all. Not only did I have to suffer through the frustrating Triangle and then Quadrangle, but then I had to see how much I could have enjoyed it if they had just toned things down a little.
I don't think it matters whether the writers are planning to break up Lee/Dee and Kara/Sam to set up (a more permanent iteration of) Kara/Lee later. They could still have treated Lee/Dee as a valid relationship even if it is supposed to fail eventually. They did a little better with Kara/Sam, giving him concerns such as the Circle which didn't always directly involve Kara (though he still lost a lot of his independent existence once they got married - what happened to the other Capricans that came back with him? and what does he do when he's not with Kara?), which is enough to get the idea of how it could have been handled. There's also the Roslin/Adama model: yes, they're interested in each other, but they also have past relationships and other possibilities (like, oh, Roslin/Zarek, disastrous though it would be) which do not have to be seen only in comparison to Roslin/Adama. More importantly, they have lives outside romance, and any sparks which occur do not put those lives on hold. The wasted potential disappoints me greatly.
In summary, this is how to ruin a canon ship:
1) Make at least half the couple underhanded and spineless to get it sailing in the first place.
2) Make another character die because of the new ship.
3) Ignore all previous character traits and dynamics that made the characters want to get together whenever they are onscreen.
4) Make the characters more concerned about how their ship compares to other ships they could be in instead of, you know, each other.
5) Make one character structurally subordinate to the other (as in, no plot or character concerns apart from the other's problems) even though they had been more equal before.
6) Stop giving the characters concerns other than their relationships, and try not to give them so many scenes with people outside the ships (unless they're talking about the ships).
7) In fact, have fewer scenes total which are not about the ships in general.
7a) To really up the shipping-scene quotient, make sure to give at least one character both past and present angsty relationships for one episode only, even if earlier episodes give no indication that they affect the character at all and they never come up again, even when this is one time you should be having the character compare his ships. See: Lee in "Black Market."
Have I missed anything?