Fragged
Hello there, my cylonites. I realize I haven't posted a new review since last weekend. I have a fairly laid back schedule this semester. Only three classes and two of them require very little work at all. But this week got a little busy. I had grad school essays to write, an ethnography documentary to film, the Olympics to watch, and the dog to walk. My free time was uncharacteristically eaten up, and when I wasn't doing real work, I decided I wanted to, say, make fun of the male figure skaters outfits with my friend than write a review.
But now I'm back! I still have to edit my ethnography documentary but I'm seriously lazy so I'm using this review as my excuse to not do school work. So, check out what I thought about Fragged under the cut.
1) The number of fleet survivors is now 47,862. At the beginning of Valley of Darkness, there were 47,874 survivors, so we've lost twelve. Considering all the dead bodies we saw in the last episode, killed as a result of the centurions, only eleven of the twelve dead being attributable to the raid seems low-balled.
2) The most interesting part of Fragged has to do with what head!Six tells Baltar about Kobol. She tells him that Socinus and Tarn will have no afterlife, precisely because they died on Kobol. Baltar is sure that he will not die because he believes himself to be an instrument of God, but head!Six indicates that what happens on Kobol has nothing to do with God. Before the humans made the exodus out of Kobol a couple thousand years ago, God turned his back on Kobol and on the humans as a result of the false idols they worshiped. Despite apparently forgiving the humans, God has not turned towards Kobol.
How fascinating that there are pockets in which God's will actually can't or won't be done. I mean, okay, obviously if there is a God and he's all powerful and blah blah blah, he would control whether or not what happens on Kobol would or would not be his will. But still. I just find this idea very intriguing.
3) I also quite like that head!Six wears black to the funeral.
4) Anyone get the impression that Laura wakes screaming from a nightmare when she's in the brig because she was dreaming about how she's still wearing that awful blue shirt? Just me? Okay.
No, I know that there's a deleted scene in which we actually see that she's dreaming about Billy kind of laying into her and trying to kill her, but I think my version is scarier.
5) Wow, so . . . Tigh's not the guy you want to have in charge in an emergency, is he? What shit has gone down since he's been in charge? Well, first, they lost the fleet. Then a heavy raider breached the ship and killed a bunch of people. Oh, and the cylons were trying to breach Galactica's network with a virus and we all know, spoilers or not, that will come back eventually. So, now, in Fragged, he's boozing around with Ellen, making Laura's mystique even more powerful by allowing the quorum to see her, and he's declaring marshall law.
They'd be better off with Hotdog in charge.
6) In my review of Valley of Darkness, I began the first part of a point I wanted to finish in my review of Fragged. You'll remember that Billy couldn't get Dee to pay attention to him until he used her rank. This was brought up to my by blog friend domsisti and I wanted to use it to do a little Laura-psychologizing.
So, in Fragged, Ellen goes down to the brig to visit Laura. Why, I actually don't know. There's something somewhat sincere in the way she approaches Laura but it's likely she's just trying to gain something for her own image as a result of helping out the poor woman who's been put behind bars. Whatever. That's not the focus of this point.
Laura's half passed out on the cot, muttering to herself. Ellen tries to get her attention by using her rank. She repeats "Madame President" a couple times. No luck. She switches to "Laura". Interesting, it gets Laura's attention right away.
It's interesting to investigate what characters will respond to when they're not quite right in the head. I would argue that the military personnel of Galactica identify themselves by the tasks and duties they perform and their title is a big part of it. They've also been performing these tasks and duties for a while. They were members of Galactica prior to the attack, so they've kind of naturally fallen into their roles. It's what they've kind of always done so it's what they do now.
Laura, on the other hand, is still new to her new role of power. Remember, we're only 50 some days out from the attack. She's had a steep learning curve, for sure, but I imagine that everything is going too fast for Laura to have had the time to really come to terms with her new role. She doesn't respond when Ellen calls her "Madame President" because, I would argue, Laura's subconscious still has trouble realizing she's the president. As far as it's concerned, she's still just Laura. And I think that says quite a bit about Laura's self-identity.
7) And speaking of Laura, she sure shows Tigh, doesn't she? Seriously, Tigh, don't fuck with Laura. Because she will own you. Not only does she already have the sympathy vote for being unlawfully arrested, but now she has nearly the whole damn quorum convinced that she's the dying leader prophezied by Pythia. And you know that news isn't going to stay within the quorum. It's going to get around. And when people are running for their lives and have little to hope or live for, you can bet a lot will turn to religion in order to give their circumstances some kind of meaning. Tigh really shot himself in the foot for underestimating our dear President Roslin.
8) But chamalla withdrawal sure seems like it'd be a bitch, eh?
9) Back on Kobol . . . I'm actually sympathetic for Baltar. Crashdown's plan makes little sense. Why not just take out the satellite in the first place? The raptor pilots are good enough at their jobs that they can dodge the missiles. The real trouble is if the missiles get a lock and chase them in pursuit, which is what the satellite would allow them to do. The satellite in an easier target to destroy, just in terms of its construction, but it also has fewer centurions to take out and, yeah, I'd rather take on two centurions than three. Call me crazy.
But I admit that I also find Baltar justified in shooting Crashdown. His inept leadership abilities got Tarn killed. Hell, maybe his negligence with the second med kit was a deciding factor as to whether or not Socinus would live. Killing Cally made no sense, so it would have been another senseless death and it's unlikely Seelix, Baltar, Chief, and Crashdown would have survived the plan. And the raptor crews would have been screwed.
I'd rather he would have survived, but I do believe that they were all better off without his leadership.
10) But still . . . RIP: Crashdown.
11) This line kills me: "You're welcome." Lee says it after killing those centurions with the raptor, saving Chief, Cally, Baltar, and Seelix. Yeah, it did save their life but it was such a ridiculous thing to say! Lee, you are such a fucking tool!
All in all, I quite liked Fragged. The stuff with head!Six and Laura is really interesting. Plus, the plot can kind of move forward a bit now. The raptor crew had been stranded on Kobol since Kobol's Last Gleaming Part 2, so I'm happy they can move on with that storyline. Now . . . if only Laura could escape the brig and change her outfit . . . Until that happens, though, I'm going to go ahead and give Fragged 3.5 airlocks out of 5.
But now I'm back! I still have to edit my ethnography documentary but I'm seriously lazy so I'm using this review as my excuse to not do school work. So, check out what I thought about Fragged under the cut.
1) The number of fleet survivors is now 47,862. At the beginning of Valley of Darkness, there were 47,874 survivors, so we've lost twelve. Considering all the dead bodies we saw in the last episode, killed as a result of the centurions, only eleven of the twelve dead being attributable to the raid seems low-balled.
2) The most interesting part of Fragged has to do with what head!Six tells Baltar about Kobol. She tells him that Socinus and Tarn will have no afterlife, precisely because they died on Kobol. Baltar is sure that he will not die because he believes himself to be an instrument of God, but head!Six indicates that what happens on Kobol has nothing to do with God. Before the humans made the exodus out of Kobol a couple thousand years ago, God turned his back on Kobol and on the humans as a result of the false idols they worshiped. Despite apparently forgiving the humans, God has not turned towards Kobol.
How fascinating that there are pockets in which God's will actually can't or won't be done. I mean, okay, obviously if there is a God and he's all powerful and blah blah blah, he would control whether or not what happens on Kobol would or would not be his will. But still. I just find this idea very intriguing.
3) I also quite like that head!Six wears black to the funeral.
4) Anyone get the impression that Laura wakes screaming from a nightmare when she's in the brig because she was dreaming about how she's still wearing that awful blue shirt? Just me? Okay.
No, I know that there's a deleted scene in which we actually see that she's dreaming about Billy kind of laying into her and trying to kill her, but I think my version is scarier.
5) Wow, so . . . Tigh's not the guy you want to have in charge in an emergency, is he? What shit has gone down since he's been in charge? Well, first, they lost the fleet. Then a heavy raider breached the ship and killed a bunch of people. Oh, and the cylons were trying to breach Galactica's network with a virus and we all know, spoilers or not, that will come back eventually. So, now, in Fragged, he's boozing around with Ellen, making Laura's mystique even more powerful by allowing the quorum to see her, and he's declaring marshall law.
They'd be better off with Hotdog in charge.
6) In my review of Valley of Darkness, I began the first part of a point I wanted to finish in my review of Fragged. You'll remember that Billy couldn't get Dee to pay attention to him until he used her rank. This was brought up to my by blog friend domsisti and I wanted to use it to do a little Laura-psychologizing.
So, in Fragged, Ellen goes down to the brig to visit Laura. Why, I actually don't know. There's something somewhat sincere in the way she approaches Laura but it's likely she's just trying to gain something for her own image as a result of helping out the poor woman who's been put behind bars. Whatever. That's not the focus of this point.
Laura's half passed out on the cot, muttering to herself. Ellen tries to get her attention by using her rank. She repeats "Madame President" a couple times. No luck. She switches to "Laura". Interesting, it gets Laura's attention right away.
It's interesting to investigate what characters will respond to when they're not quite right in the head. I would argue that the military personnel of Galactica identify themselves by the tasks and duties they perform and their title is a big part of it. They've also been performing these tasks and duties for a while. They were members of Galactica prior to the attack, so they've kind of naturally fallen into their roles. It's what they've kind of always done so it's what they do now.
Laura, on the other hand, is still new to her new role of power. Remember, we're only 50 some days out from the attack. She's had a steep learning curve, for sure, but I imagine that everything is going too fast for Laura to have had the time to really come to terms with her new role. She doesn't respond when Ellen calls her "Madame President" because, I would argue, Laura's subconscious still has trouble realizing she's the president. As far as it's concerned, she's still just Laura. And I think that says quite a bit about Laura's self-identity.
7) And speaking of Laura, she sure shows Tigh, doesn't she? Seriously, Tigh, don't fuck with Laura. Because she will own you. Not only does she already have the sympathy vote for being unlawfully arrested, but now she has nearly the whole damn quorum convinced that she's the dying leader prophezied by Pythia. And you know that news isn't going to stay within the quorum. It's going to get around. And when people are running for their lives and have little to hope or live for, you can bet a lot will turn to religion in order to give their circumstances some kind of meaning. Tigh really shot himself in the foot for underestimating our dear President Roslin.
8) But chamalla withdrawal sure seems like it'd be a bitch, eh?
9) Back on Kobol . . . I'm actually sympathetic for Baltar. Crashdown's plan makes little sense. Why not just take out the satellite in the first place? The raptor pilots are good enough at their jobs that they can dodge the missiles. The real trouble is if the missiles get a lock and chase them in pursuit, which is what the satellite would allow them to do. The satellite in an easier target to destroy, just in terms of its construction, but it also has fewer centurions to take out and, yeah, I'd rather take on two centurions than three. Call me crazy.
But I admit that I also find Baltar justified in shooting Crashdown. His inept leadership abilities got Tarn killed. Hell, maybe his negligence with the second med kit was a deciding factor as to whether or not Socinus would live. Killing Cally made no sense, so it would have been another senseless death and it's unlikely Seelix, Baltar, Chief, and Crashdown would have survived the plan. And the raptor crews would have been screwed.
I'd rather he would have survived, but I do believe that they were all better off without his leadership.
10) But still . . . RIP: Crashdown.
11) This line kills me: "You're welcome." Lee says it after killing those centurions with the raptor, saving Chief, Cally, Baltar, and Seelix. Yeah, it did save their life but it was such a ridiculous thing to say! Lee, you are such a fucking tool!
All in all, I quite liked Fragged. The stuff with head!Six and Laura is really interesting. Plus, the plot can kind of move forward a bit now. The raptor crew had been stranded on Kobol since Kobol's Last Gleaming Part 2, so I'm happy they can move on with that storyline. Now . . . if only Laura could escape the brig and change her outfit . . . Until that happens, though, I'm going to go ahead and give Fragged 3.5 airlocks out of 5.