When basestars attack: tonight at 11!
I spent most of today at a conference, which was great because it felt like a day off. Definitely a good thing, since my students have been wearing on my last nerve. On the plus side, next week is Spring Break -- I'm flying to Dallas to see my new nephew! And when I get back, I'll have only seven and a half more weeks until summer vacation. Excellent.
Time to do my ridiculously long meta post about Sunday's Galactica. At least those of you not into the show will get a break from these for nine months. *sigh* I've been wondering what to do about fandom. I'm very much a fangirl at heart, but I can really only manage one at a time. I held on throughout the seven-month hiatus last time, but nothing new until January? Ouch. I thought about picking up another fandom, but I haven't found anything really inspiring me. Never really got into Doctor Who beyond a general love. I adore Friday Night Lights SO much, but I think I prefer keeping a distance and taking the show as it is onscreen, because it makes me appreciate that gorgeous sense of reality so much more. I don't find any other shows inspirational in a fannish sense. Still, I need to be *involved* in something -- trouble is, when I throw myself into something new, the old one suffers. I still love BSG and don't want to give it up, yet I'm easily bored and enjoy being engaged in a show. Oh, whatever. Guess I'll just see what happens.
Anyway! Enough navel-gazing.
First, I thought I'd put on my Apologista hat and address some of the complaints and questions I've seen floating around in the past few days. I'll preface this by quoting a great bit from Tim Goodman's review of the episode, in which he addresses some of these complaints: "The problem for me is that too much of [the nitpicking] is just too geeked-out for me. I love mythology and conspiracy like anyone else, but if I'm going to exercise my mind on geeky pursuits, it's going to be fantasy baseball. But that's where you come in. Call it 'The Lost Rule.' I don't delve too deeply into what it all means on "Lost" because my head would explode." :)
1. "Roslin isn't a Cylon, because robots can't get cancer."
Technically, robots shouldn't be able to conceive a child or carry a pregnancy to term. A pre-programmed brain shouldn't have free will. Damn near everything about the Cylons is outside of what robots "should" be able to do. If anything, cancer is well-suited to robots, given that it is essentially cells mutating and replicating faster than the body can control. We know so little about Cylon anatomy that damn near anything is within the realm of possibility. I'm not saying that Roslin IS a Cylon -- I'm skeptical of her being the last one for several reasons -- but I don't see it as a specific reason why she CAN'T be one.
2. Hera is special as the first Cylon/Human hybrid. If Nicky's a hybrid, then that totally ruins Hera's importance.
Remember: none of the Seven know who the other Five are. As far as they're concerned, Hera IS the only hybrid -- "the shape of things to come" -- which still means she's incredibly important to them. Even if/when they learn about Nicky, Hera is still the first. Someone also complained that Nicky hasn't yet shown any of Hera's health problems. If I remember correctly, Hera's illness in "Rapture" wasn't disease, but rather a (preventable) bowel obstruction caused by the Cylons' poor treatment. The only other problem I recall is that she looks a bit too small for a child her age, but then she was born premature. One more thing: I'm now officially a Hera/Nicky shipper... though those two kids better not hook up until they're at least of legal age! ;)
3. Baltar's trial was a complete farce that ignored even basic courtroom procedure in favor of the Big Dramatic Moment.
Okay, I don't entirely disagree with this one. As others have said, the writers seem to have based their script on too many Law & Order marathons on TNT. Even Cassidy (the prosecutor) objected to defense co-counsel being called to testify, though -- and this is my point -- Lampkin claimed he could "cite at least seven precedents off the top of my head." Of course this type of testimony would be wildly objectionable... in our legal system. But this is the Colonial Legal Code, which basically gives RDM and his writers free rein to do whatever the hell they want. And that's why I'm willing to handwave the massive legal problems, along with quite a few other things. Should RDM and Verheiden have made it more plausible to viewers familiar with the North American legal system? Sure. But this is fiction, and they were going for the Big Dramatic Moment. (I know many of y'all would argue with me on this one! I'm just explaining why I can live with it. :)
4. The Four are now convinced they're Cylons just because they heard a SONG? That's ridiculous. They're probably just imagining things, and we'll find out in S4 that it was all a mindfrak.
My impression was that the song was a catalyst, rather than the sole reason for the reveal. Tyrol says, "So that's it. After all this time, a switch goes off. Just like that." To that point, the four of them were simply being driven crazy by a phantom song; the Cylon thing seems to take them by surprise. But once they're in the room together, they all simply *know*. None of them really questions the fact that they're Cylons -- they're more upset by the implications for their pasts and futures, yet they all seem certain. I wanted to use Boomer as a precedent, but her experience is complicated by the fact that her confirmation came through seeing multiple naked copies of herself on a basestar. Even before that, she had a gut feeling that she denied. In this case, I think "A switch goes off" is the key. If that scene were only about the song, they would've resisted or found excuses... but none of them do. The way I see it, in that moment something clicks in their brains and unlocks this knowledge. They might not explicitly address it in the dialogue, but they have a gut knowledge that yes, they are Cylons. They just don't know what it means. Like I said, the song is what brought them together, but I don't think it's the only explanation for their new certainty.
5. If RDM planned all along for Kara to return, then why the hell did he kill her off?
Yeah, I'm not thrilled about him "killing" my girl (and I still think she's alive as Kara Thrace and not a Cylon, but more on that later.) I think I've figured out the meta, though. Based on interviews and podcasts, it sounds like the plan all along was for Kara to disappear into the mandala then reappear with the info about Earth in the last scene of the season. So, why go to the length of making the fans believe she was dead? I think it was a means to an end, and though the tease was annoying and manipulative, he thought he needed to go to that length in order to set up those last three episodes. Starbuck really wouldn't have had anything to do during the trial. If she'd simply disappeared, we would've wondered why the hell Apollo and Adama weren't trying to find her. Plus, her death proved a catalyst for several of the characterization arcs in 3.18-20, particularly Lee's disillusionment and Sam's decision to become a pilot. Obviously Kara was not the ONLY reason for their choices, but her death served as a trigger. And we all know RDM loves those Big Dramatic Moments (BDMs!), so he'd definitely want to play that card. Objectively, I can vaguely understand the reasons, though I'll agree that it's frustrating and a bit stupid.
So. Time to talk about the rest! And of course I have to start off with...
The Viper Pilot Formerly (?) Known as Starbuck
Many of the media and LJ reactions have said that Kara is "obviously" a Cylon. I'm not a purist who refuses to believe that *my* Kara would ever by a Cylon, but my brain shuts down when I even consider it. Yeah, we could list plenty of support for the theory, including her reappearance just as the basestars attack, her pristine viper, or that stupid (and I think just a mistake) SciFi promo that we would learn about "the final five Cylons" in the finale. But it just doesn't work for me, and I can't even explain why. Nor do I think she's a hallucination or Head!Kara. Again, plenty of reasons, but they don't work for me. My preference is for her to be the same Kara we've always known, somehow miraculously returned from the "dead" and even better than before, but that's unlikely. I'm not too picky as long as she's *back*, yet I don't want her to be too far removed from how she was before. Right now, my preferred speculation is something along the lines of this theory about the Ship of Lights from the original BSG. gdg wrote it after 3.17, but it still holds water. It would bring in the mythological and religious themes without getting too mystical and alien-ish, and it does tie in the Earth arc that she mentions in her returning words. I'm actually playing with something like this in the fic I'm currently writing, though I'm playing with magical realism and the Aurora mythology.
One of my issues with "Maelstrom" is that characters are often killed off when the writers feel like they've taken him/her as far as they can go. Bringing her back as something different-but-better would also allow them to essentially push the reset button. The problem is that although she dove into a well of depression after New Caprica, I never got the sense that she had truly hit rock bottom. Yeah, the affair was a bit of a mess, and her mandala hallucinations were getting the better of her, but her other scenes in S3.5 didn't suggest that she was utterly beyond repair. Bad, but not desolate. The writers had NOT taken her as far as she could go! Kara is such a complex, vibrant, and malleable character that she could be used in any number of ways, and putting her on a personal redemption path wouldn't have been a stretch. Plus, she's never been pigeonholed into only one aspect of the overall series. (I could say that several other characters have essentially hit their limits, but that's neither here nor there.) So why would Kara need a reset button? Why would she need this (near)death experience to "heal" her and make her as serene and controlled as she appeared to be in that viper at the end of 3.20? All I can think is that the apparent rebirth and personal growth is a byproduct of whatever else RDM has in mind for her next season.
Though I haven't read all the post-ep commentary, I'm surprised that more people haven't mentioned what I saw as the *real* bombshell at the end. Kara specifically says, "I've been to Earth. I know where it is. And I'm gonna take us there." Whoa. That's HUGE. Hell, the search for Earth has been the driving force behind the show since the miniseries. And now Kara says she has been there? Damn. Several possibilities, in reverse order of preference: 1) She's lying. 2) The Cylons or Ship of Light or something else played a trick to make her think she'd been there. 3) She really did make it to Earth. The last seems least likely, given that it would open up a whole new can of worms -- what time period is it here, and did she meet any humans? If this is the case, I'll bet it's either far in the past or future. I can also see it being some type of trick, like in #2. In my fic, I have her waking in the Opera House, which the gods say is on Earth. But I still don't really have any idea about what might've happened to her in the interim, so I'll just skip that speculation for the time being. I do think it's plausible, though. My current spec is that the mandala somehow opened a wormhole that took her to our solar system, and the Gods or someone else guided her and told her what she was seeing. Yeah, her viper exploded, but perhaps that was some kind of illusion or temporal shift caused by her entering the wormhole? Eh, whatever. I'll handwave it since I know almost nothing about astronomy! Whatever the case, Kara's back, and I'm dying to hear what "I've been to Earth" really meant. Again, wow.
We're flawed. That's what makes us different than the machines.
First of all, I think the Final Four are indeed Cylons (and yeah, I know RDM addressed this in that recent interview, but I'm keeping this spoiler-free.) I don't have a long list of reasons why; I just *like* the idea of it being those four, even Tigh! I'm more than willing to handwave the inconsistencies and retcon necessary to explain it all. Them being four of the main Resistance leaders on New Caprica can't be a coincidence, though how it'll play out remains to be seen. When I first heard the names in the spoilers, I actually preferred the idea that they'd been active Cylons all along, working to help the humans against the other Seven. Then I learned that they were sleepers, which is less interesting on a narrative level but much more intriguing with regards to characterization. They come from such disparate parts of the show that the ramifications will play out in some very intriguing ways. I love that Tory, Sam, Tyrol, and Tigh now have this dreadful shared secret, and that they have no idea what it'll force them to do or whether they can remain strong enough to resist it. We've already seen Sharon and Six testing the bounds of innate loyalty, which is what the Four will also have to do. Psychological mindgames like that really fascinate me, and this time the ramifications will be especially delicious: Tyrol and Sam both have wives, and Cally in particular has a habit of being violently anti-Cylon. Can't wait to see her reaction when she finds out! Tory and Tigh serve at the right hand of the two leaders of humanity, and Tigh has a deep personal bond with the Admiral. I have a feeling that their secret won't be exposed until late in S4, and I have absolutely no idea how the humans will react. Framing the Four as sleepers presents some interesting complications: even if Roslin and Adama (as the leaders) trust the Four's loyalty as they currently do with Sharon, they have no idea what these Four might do. Can they continue to keep them around as soldiers, husbands, and friends, risking the danger of whatever that trigger might compel them to do?
What is their purpose, anyway? I've already seen quite a few good theories about how they managed to exist for so long, despite pre-established canon about the Cylons -- too many good theories to quote, and I don't have a decent one of my own! Again, I'm willing to handwave a lot, which is why I'm not too bothered by the huge problems with Tigh's backstory or how nobody noticed gaping holes in the biography of a celebrity athlete like Samuel T. Anders. I do want to address the complaints about the implausibility of how these four just happened to be in the Fleet at the time of the attacks. I teach in a public school system with nearly 10,000 teachers. I barely know the entire faculty at my school; I could have multiple doppelgangers here in my county, and nobody would be the wiser for it. The structure of the military does muddy things a bit -- wouldn't someone else have noticed that Tyrol and Tigh resemble people they've met on other ships? But the Colonial military is huge, with millions of personnel before the Cylon attack. I can buy that multiple Tighs and Tyrols were out there, stationed on various ships just in case theirs managed to survive the initial attacks. Same with multiple Torys. Again, Anders' celebrity is the most problematic, but then he was never really supposed to survive those first nuclear bombs, much less fall in love with a female pilot who'd gone AWOL on a religious quest, then have her be the one to decide to rescue him. All coincidence. Yeah, I'm probably letting this coincidence slide too much, but I don't see it as a fundamental flaw in the storyline.
What is their plan? As I said above, the Seven know nothing about the Five, and they've been programmed specifically not to even think about them. Given the timeline issues with Tigh and Anders, the Five appear to have existed long before the Seven were created. I won't begin to speculate why, but this does suggest that the two factions have very different agendas. I'm curious exactly who is in charge -- seems like they would've needed someone controlling all this from the start, like the ballyhooed Cylon God. Whatever the case, the Five are their own group. I really like the idea that, whether or not it was their original intention when they were created, the Five are now meant to be benevolent, working on the Humans' side and protecting them from the other Seven. RDM has said he wanted to explore the idea of innate vs. chosen loyalties and the idea of what being a Cylon really means. Even with characters like Sharon and the detente in TEoJ/Rapture, the Cylons have fundamentally been the antagonists from the start. If the Four are somehow called to action in S4, perhaps their mission will be explicitly in allegiance with humanity, against the Seven who are "fallen" in the eyes of the Cylon God. Ooh, that would definitely screw things up. Since I can't imagine a series conclusion with the Cylons ultimately prevailing, I think we'll see something along these lines.
Who is the Fifth? The demographics would suggest a woman: if the "only twelve models" thing is true, then we currently have 7 men and 4 women, and RDM does love his gender parity. The problem is that this last Cylon (I'll just call him/her "Twelve") would need to be someone with a huge impact on the show, and the candidates are thin. I still don't buy Kara, though that might be just my personal bias. I've long suspected Dee, but having both of Kara and Lee's spouses as Cylons is rather twee. Cally? Nope. I have a feeling that Twelve knows she's a Cylon and is some sort of mastermind, and that definitely doesn't fit her character. If Twelve is a woman and as prominent as I said above, then Roslin is another candidate... but I really don't buy that either. It simply doesn't work from so many angles, and while I think she does have a complicated tie to the Cylons, it's through Hera's fetal blood. Plus, it's just asking too much of the fans. I've toyed with the idea of Cain -- I've seen hints that she might return, and having her as a Cylon is plausible from what we learned in the Pegasus arc. If Twelve is a known character, my money's on her. That said, my personal preference is for Twelve to be a new character. We've already been asked to accept the convenience of all these familiar characters magically revealed as Cylons, so using an OC would keep the show from stretching credibility even more. Plus, it opens more doors from a narrative standpoint. And since I think that Twelve is some type of puppet master, s/he could be brought in from outside of the Cylon and Human fleets without asking too much of the audience.
ETA: Upon rewatching a few minutes ago, I was struck by how theatrical the Big Reveal scene is. Watch as they all enter the room (37:18 on the .avi) and take their places around the square that now feels like a stage. Their movements are awkward and almost showy, as if they're intent on hitting their marks. Even the dialogue is somewhat stilted. That should come across as really bad acting... but it doesn't. It IS artificial and stagey, but consider the context. They're realizing that they are not who they've always thought they were. They've suddenly shifted from flawed, real human beings to mechanical constructs. And somehow the artificiality makes it so much more perfect for me, and a sign of excellent acting all around, because it's jarring enough for me to suddenly believe that these four people are indeed Cylons.
The Hidden Menace
Last week, I gave the three-hour roundtable podcast another listen. Though it was recorded around the time when they were filming "Crossroads", it almost feels like RDM took to heart Bamber's frustration with knowing "too much" about the Cylons. I realized today that we haven't seen the basestars at all since "Rapture"; in fact, we haven't seen ANY Cylons since then, aside from Caprica and Sharon. Jamie said that the Cylons were the most effective from a narrative standpoint back in "33" when we barely saw them. Perhaps that's why their sudden return made such an impact in the finale. When we see them having philosophical discussions in the Disco Basestar, it's easy to forget their potential for such destruction as antagonists.
One thing I loved about the last half of the episode is the sense of everything being completely out of control, but in a different way than before. In KLG, we had the shock of Adama's shooting, but we all knew that he'd somehow survive. Boomer was activated, but the Marines were there to capture her and neutralize any further damage. The military-government schism was more mental/sociological than menacing. Oh, it was still a brilliant episode, but the real cliffhangers were more about the fascinating psychological and interpersonal repercussions than the fear that it was all going to fall apart. I also loved LDYB, but its cliffhanger was more about the repercussions than the immediate threat. We were left wondering just what the hell happened in that missing year and what the Cylons would do in this new position of control -- I remember being wildly curious but not necessarily feeling dread.
"Crossroads", however, had this incredible sense of fear at the end. We don't have an assumed outcome of "Adama won't die of the gunshot" or "The Cylons aren't going to kill all humans". Instead, we have four new Cylons with unknown agendas and our own personal investment in them. We have eroded relationships all over the place, notably between Adama pere et fil and the President and the Admiral. We have four basestars poised for attack, and with the ability to knock out all power in the Fleet. And we have a presumed-dead character returning with the news that she has found Earth. Taken at face value, those particular cliffhangers aren't categorically more intense or significant than the previous two seasons. Maybe I'm placing more importance on them than they're worth. But the episode itself really made them work, especially the visuals and direction. The power going out throughout the Fleet made me shiver, as did the (cheesy) shot of the Final Five standing on the balcony. I *loved* those slow-motion shots of the hangar deck in disarray as Racetrack and Chief tried to organize the attack, and those heartbreaking shots of Tigh's and Tory's faces as they told Adama and Roslin they were there to serve them. My two main problems with the ending were the cheesy version of "All Along the Watchtower" and that last hokey shot of us zooming through space to see Earth. Yet even though they were a bit too silly, they still contributed to my overwhelming feelings of dread and fear. They triggered in me an emotional response beyond simply, "Ooh, I wonder how they'll solve these problems!" And that's why I'm happy to buy into the narrative intent and stick around for the ride.
All this has happened before....
This is already getting ridiculously long, so I'll focus on a few more things as I wrap it up! And I'm shameless cribbing a few of them from my previous post. :)
Another thing I noticed in the podcast was Jamie's comment that he didn't feel Lee Adama had ever truly lost control until the scenes they'd filmed that day -- which, if I'm not mistaken, turned out to be the courtroom scenes. I really loved his soliloquy and thought Jamie did an amazing job with it, but I didn't get a sense of him losing control. If anything, he went up there and started speechifying without a goal in mind, but he always appeared to know exactly what he meant. I wonder if I'm either misinterpreting the scene or what Jamie intended to do with it.
Lee also became interesting to me in a whole new way. As I've said before, I genuinely like Lee but have never really felt like I *got* him. I still don't have all the answers, but I felt myself connecting with him on an emotional level. I love that here's a man who has lost everything -- his wife, his father, his lover -- and yet he feels a strange sense of freedom from it. As things stand now, he has no real place in the world. Acting on Baltar's behalf separated him from both the military and the civilians, neither of whom will see him as "one of them" anymore. Despite that, he almost seems happy, or just that sense of peace that comes from having been worn down to your essential elements. He grabs his flight suit and boards his viper because he still has to fight, even if he isn't there by rights. I've said before that Dee's line, "You're a soldier who needs a war" was correct, but that she was approaching it from the wrong angle. Lee Adama needs to keep pushing forward, to have a focus and a passion and a belief that he's doing the right thing, and when he doesn't have those, he's left floundering. This time, though, he picked himself up and kept going. Perhaps he made foolish decisions along the way (heck, maybe throughout the season), but HE believed in them. He has burned nearly all his bridges, and though I know he'll build them again next season, I can't wait to see the process. And I love that as he's stripped down to his essential elements at the very end of the episode, he finds his touchstone: Kara Thrace.
One thing I loved about S2 was how the season ended with that shot of Kara Thrace staring up at the sky. In season three, the last person we see is Kara Thrace. As well it should be. Technically, the first *scene* of 3.01 is her putting the dishes on the table, though my whole It's All About Kara theory is complicated by the opening montage. Alas!
The final closeup of Earth (hey, Florida exists!) was awfully cool. Somehow that really hit me. EARTH now exists in their universe.
Tigh: "And if I die today, that's the man I'll be." Uh... until you download? (Yes, I'm evil.) In the replies to my previous post, grapefruitzzz made this hilarious observation: I have more to say, but for now all I can think of is "Oh gods, Tigh's downloading ceremony would be hysterical" Lots of nude Tighs and Dorals all going "WeloveyouSaul", while he's lying there all "What the frak is this?"
Whew. I'm already at over 4,400 words, so I'll stop now before I find even more to talk about! And since I love posing questions, I'll end with this one: Setting aside logic and the narrative confines of TV, what do you think will happen next? What do you want to happen next? :)
Time to do my ridiculously long meta post about Sunday's Galactica. At least those of you not into the show will get a break from these for nine months. *sigh* I've been wondering what to do about fandom. I'm very much a fangirl at heart, but I can really only manage one at a time. I held on throughout the seven-month hiatus last time, but nothing new until January? Ouch. I thought about picking up another fandom, but I haven't found anything really inspiring me. Never really got into Doctor Who beyond a general love. I adore Friday Night Lights SO much, but I think I prefer keeping a distance and taking the show as it is onscreen, because it makes me appreciate that gorgeous sense of reality so much more. I don't find any other shows inspirational in a fannish sense. Still, I need to be *involved* in something -- trouble is, when I throw myself into something new, the old one suffers. I still love BSG and don't want to give it up, yet I'm easily bored and enjoy being engaged in a show. Oh, whatever. Guess I'll just see what happens.
Anyway! Enough navel-gazing.
First, I thought I'd put on my Apologista hat and address some of the complaints and questions I've seen floating around in the past few days. I'll preface this by quoting a great bit from Tim Goodman's review of the episode, in which he addresses some of these complaints: "The problem for me is that too much of [the nitpicking] is just too geeked-out for me. I love mythology and conspiracy like anyone else, but if I'm going to exercise my mind on geeky pursuits, it's going to be fantasy baseball. But that's where you come in. Call it 'The Lost Rule.' I don't delve too deeply into what it all means on "Lost" because my head would explode." :)
1. "Roslin isn't a Cylon, because robots can't get cancer."
Technically, robots shouldn't be able to conceive a child or carry a pregnancy to term. A pre-programmed brain shouldn't have free will. Damn near everything about the Cylons is outside of what robots "should" be able to do. If anything, cancer is well-suited to robots, given that it is essentially cells mutating and replicating faster than the body can control. We know so little about Cylon anatomy that damn near anything is within the realm of possibility. I'm not saying that Roslin IS a Cylon -- I'm skeptical of her being the last one for several reasons -- but I don't see it as a specific reason why she CAN'T be one.
2. Hera is special as the first Cylon/Human hybrid. If Nicky's a hybrid, then that totally ruins Hera's importance.
Remember: none of the Seven know who the other Five are. As far as they're concerned, Hera IS the only hybrid -- "the shape of things to come" -- which still means she's incredibly important to them. Even if/when they learn about Nicky, Hera is still the first. Someone also complained that Nicky hasn't yet shown any of Hera's health problems. If I remember correctly, Hera's illness in "Rapture" wasn't disease, but rather a (preventable) bowel obstruction caused by the Cylons' poor treatment. The only other problem I recall is that she looks a bit too small for a child her age, but then she was born premature. One more thing: I'm now officially a Hera/Nicky shipper... though those two kids better not hook up until they're at least of legal age! ;)
3. Baltar's trial was a complete farce that ignored even basic courtroom procedure in favor of the Big Dramatic Moment.
Okay, I don't entirely disagree with this one. As others have said, the writers seem to have based their script on too many Law & Order marathons on TNT. Even Cassidy (the prosecutor) objected to defense co-counsel being called to testify, though -- and this is my point -- Lampkin claimed he could "cite at least seven precedents off the top of my head." Of course this type of testimony would be wildly objectionable... in our legal system. But this is the Colonial Legal Code, which basically gives RDM and his writers free rein to do whatever the hell they want. And that's why I'm willing to handwave the massive legal problems, along with quite a few other things. Should RDM and Verheiden have made it more plausible to viewers familiar with the North American legal system? Sure. But this is fiction, and they were going for the Big Dramatic Moment. (I know many of y'all would argue with me on this one! I'm just explaining why I can live with it. :)
4. The Four are now convinced they're Cylons just because they heard a SONG? That's ridiculous. They're probably just imagining things, and we'll find out in S4 that it was all a mindfrak.
My impression was that the song was a catalyst, rather than the sole reason for the reveal. Tyrol says, "So that's it. After all this time, a switch goes off. Just like that." To that point, the four of them were simply being driven crazy by a phantom song; the Cylon thing seems to take them by surprise. But once they're in the room together, they all simply *know*. None of them really questions the fact that they're Cylons -- they're more upset by the implications for their pasts and futures, yet they all seem certain. I wanted to use Boomer as a precedent, but her experience is complicated by the fact that her confirmation came through seeing multiple naked copies of herself on a basestar. Even before that, she had a gut feeling that she denied. In this case, I think "A switch goes off" is the key. If that scene were only about the song, they would've resisted or found excuses... but none of them do. The way I see it, in that moment something clicks in their brains and unlocks this knowledge. They might not explicitly address it in the dialogue, but they have a gut knowledge that yes, they are Cylons. They just don't know what it means. Like I said, the song is what brought them together, but I don't think it's the only explanation for their new certainty.
5. If RDM planned all along for Kara to return, then why the hell did he kill her off?
Yeah, I'm not thrilled about him "killing" my girl (and I still think she's alive as Kara Thrace and not a Cylon, but more on that later.) I think I've figured out the meta, though. Based on interviews and podcasts, it sounds like the plan all along was for Kara to disappear into the mandala then reappear with the info about Earth in the last scene of the season. So, why go to the length of making the fans believe she was dead? I think it was a means to an end, and though the tease was annoying and manipulative, he thought he needed to go to that length in order to set up those last three episodes. Starbuck really wouldn't have had anything to do during the trial. If she'd simply disappeared, we would've wondered why the hell Apollo and Adama weren't trying to find her. Plus, her death proved a catalyst for several of the characterization arcs in 3.18-20, particularly Lee's disillusionment and Sam's decision to become a pilot. Obviously Kara was not the ONLY reason for their choices, but her death served as a trigger. And we all know RDM loves those Big Dramatic Moments (BDMs!), so he'd definitely want to play that card. Objectively, I can vaguely understand the reasons, though I'll agree that it's frustrating and a bit stupid.
So. Time to talk about the rest! And of course I have to start off with...
The Viper Pilot Formerly (?) Known as Starbuck
Many of the media and LJ reactions have said that Kara is "obviously" a Cylon. I'm not a purist who refuses to believe that *my* Kara would ever by a Cylon, but my brain shuts down when I even consider it. Yeah, we could list plenty of support for the theory, including her reappearance just as the basestars attack, her pristine viper, or that stupid (and I think just a mistake) SciFi promo that we would learn about "the final five Cylons" in the finale. But it just doesn't work for me, and I can't even explain why. Nor do I think she's a hallucination or Head!Kara. Again, plenty of reasons, but they don't work for me. My preference is for her to be the same Kara we've always known, somehow miraculously returned from the "dead" and even better than before, but that's unlikely. I'm not too picky as long as she's *back*, yet I don't want her to be too far removed from how she was before. Right now, my preferred speculation is something along the lines of this theory about the Ship of Lights from the original BSG. gdg wrote it after 3.17, but it still holds water. It would bring in the mythological and religious themes without getting too mystical and alien-ish, and it does tie in the Earth arc that she mentions in her returning words. I'm actually playing with something like this in the fic I'm currently writing, though I'm playing with magical realism and the Aurora mythology.
One of my issues with "Maelstrom" is that characters are often killed off when the writers feel like they've taken him/her as far as they can go. Bringing her back as something different-but-better would also allow them to essentially push the reset button. The problem is that although she dove into a well of depression after New Caprica, I never got the sense that she had truly hit rock bottom. Yeah, the affair was a bit of a mess, and her mandala hallucinations were getting the better of her, but her other scenes in S3.5 didn't suggest that she was utterly beyond repair. Bad, but not desolate. The writers had NOT taken her as far as she could go! Kara is such a complex, vibrant, and malleable character that she could be used in any number of ways, and putting her on a personal redemption path wouldn't have been a stretch. Plus, she's never been pigeonholed into only one aspect of the overall series. (I could say that several other characters have essentially hit their limits, but that's neither here nor there.) So why would Kara need a reset button? Why would she need this (near)death experience to "heal" her and make her as serene and controlled as she appeared to be in that viper at the end of 3.20? All I can think is that the apparent rebirth and personal growth is a byproduct of whatever else RDM has in mind for her next season.
Though I haven't read all the post-ep commentary, I'm surprised that more people haven't mentioned what I saw as the *real* bombshell at the end. Kara specifically says, "I've been to Earth. I know where it is. And I'm gonna take us there." Whoa. That's HUGE. Hell, the search for Earth has been the driving force behind the show since the miniseries. And now Kara says she has been there? Damn. Several possibilities, in reverse order of preference: 1) She's lying. 2) The Cylons or Ship of Light or something else played a trick to make her think she'd been there. 3) She really did make it to Earth. The last seems least likely, given that it would open up a whole new can of worms -- what time period is it here, and did she meet any humans? If this is the case, I'll bet it's either far in the past or future. I can also see it being some type of trick, like in #2. In my fic, I have her waking in the Opera House, which the gods say is on Earth. But I still don't really have any idea about what might've happened to her in the interim, so I'll just skip that speculation for the time being. I do think it's plausible, though. My current spec is that the mandala somehow opened a wormhole that took her to our solar system, and the Gods or someone else guided her and told her what she was seeing. Yeah, her viper exploded, but perhaps that was some kind of illusion or temporal shift caused by her entering the wormhole? Eh, whatever. I'll handwave it since I know almost nothing about astronomy! Whatever the case, Kara's back, and I'm dying to hear what "I've been to Earth" really meant. Again, wow.
We're flawed. That's what makes us different than the machines.
First of all, I think the Final Four are indeed Cylons (and yeah, I know RDM addressed this in that recent interview, but I'm keeping this spoiler-free.) I don't have a long list of reasons why; I just *like* the idea of it being those four, even Tigh! I'm more than willing to handwave the inconsistencies and retcon necessary to explain it all. Them being four of the main Resistance leaders on New Caprica can't be a coincidence, though how it'll play out remains to be seen. When I first heard the names in the spoilers, I actually preferred the idea that they'd been active Cylons all along, working to help the humans against the other Seven. Then I learned that they were sleepers, which is less interesting on a narrative level but much more intriguing with regards to characterization. They come from such disparate parts of the show that the ramifications will play out in some very intriguing ways. I love that Tory, Sam, Tyrol, and Tigh now have this dreadful shared secret, and that they have no idea what it'll force them to do or whether they can remain strong enough to resist it. We've already seen Sharon and Six testing the bounds of innate loyalty, which is what the Four will also have to do. Psychological mindgames like that really fascinate me, and this time the ramifications will be especially delicious: Tyrol and Sam both have wives, and Cally in particular has a habit of being violently anti-Cylon. Can't wait to see her reaction when she finds out! Tory and Tigh serve at the right hand of the two leaders of humanity, and Tigh has a deep personal bond with the Admiral. I have a feeling that their secret won't be exposed until late in S4, and I have absolutely no idea how the humans will react. Framing the Four as sleepers presents some interesting complications: even if Roslin and Adama (as the leaders) trust the Four's loyalty as they currently do with Sharon, they have no idea what these Four might do. Can they continue to keep them around as soldiers, husbands, and friends, risking the danger of whatever that trigger might compel them to do?
What is their purpose, anyway? I've already seen quite a few good theories about how they managed to exist for so long, despite pre-established canon about the Cylons -- too many good theories to quote, and I don't have a decent one of my own! Again, I'm willing to handwave a lot, which is why I'm not too bothered by the huge problems with Tigh's backstory or how nobody noticed gaping holes in the biography of a celebrity athlete like Samuel T. Anders. I do want to address the complaints about the implausibility of how these four just happened to be in the Fleet at the time of the attacks. I teach in a public school system with nearly 10,000 teachers. I barely know the entire faculty at my school; I could have multiple doppelgangers here in my county, and nobody would be the wiser for it. The structure of the military does muddy things a bit -- wouldn't someone else have noticed that Tyrol and Tigh resemble people they've met on other ships? But the Colonial military is huge, with millions of personnel before the Cylon attack. I can buy that multiple Tighs and Tyrols were out there, stationed on various ships just in case theirs managed to survive the initial attacks. Same with multiple Torys. Again, Anders' celebrity is the most problematic, but then he was never really supposed to survive those first nuclear bombs, much less fall in love with a female pilot who'd gone AWOL on a religious quest, then have her be the one to decide to rescue him. All coincidence. Yeah, I'm probably letting this coincidence slide too much, but I don't see it as a fundamental flaw in the storyline.
What is their plan? As I said above, the Seven know nothing about the Five, and they've been programmed specifically not to even think about them. Given the timeline issues with Tigh and Anders, the Five appear to have existed long before the Seven were created. I won't begin to speculate why, but this does suggest that the two factions have very different agendas. I'm curious exactly who is in charge -- seems like they would've needed someone controlling all this from the start, like the ballyhooed Cylon God. Whatever the case, the Five are their own group. I really like the idea that, whether or not it was their original intention when they were created, the Five are now meant to be benevolent, working on the Humans' side and protecting them from the other Seven. RDM has said he wanted to explore the idea of innate vs. chosen loyalties and the idea of what being a Cylon really means. Even with characters like Sharon and the detente in TEoJ/Rapture, the Cylons have fundamentally been the antagonists from the start. If the Four are somehow called to action in S4, perhaps their mission will be explicitly in allegiance with humanity, against the Seven who are "fallen" in the eyes of the Cylon God. Ooh, that would definitely screw things up. Since I can't imagine a series conclusion with the Cylons ultimately prevailing, I think we'll see something along these lines.
Who is the Fifth? The demographics would suggest a woman: if the "only twelve models" thing is true, then we currently have 7 men and 4 women, and RDM does love his gender parity. The problem is that this last Cylon (I'll just call him/her "Twelve") would need to be someone with a huge impact on the show, and the candidates are thin. I still don't buy Kara, though that might be just my personal bias. I've long suspected Dee, but having both of Kara and Lee's spouses as Cylons is rather twee. Cally? Nope. I have a feeling that Twelve knows she's a Cylon and is some sort of mastermind, and that definitely doesn't fit her character. If Twelve is a woman and as prominent as I said above, then Roslin is another candidate... but I really don't buy that either. It simply doesn't work from so many angles, and while I think she does have a complicated tie to the Cylons, it's through Hera's fetal blood. Plus, it's just asking too much of the fans. I've toyed with the idea of Cain -- I've seen hints that she might return, and having her as a Cylon is plausible from what we learned in the Pegasus arc. If Twelve is a known character, my money's on her. That said, my personal preference is for Twelve to be a new character. We've already been asked to accept the convenience of all these familiar characters magically revealed as Cylons, so using an OC would keep the show from stretching credibility even more. Plus, it opens more doors from a narrative standpoint. And since I think that Twelve is some type of puppet master, s/he could be brought in from outside of the Cylon and Human fleets without asking too much of the audience.
ETA: Upon rewatching a few minutes ago, I was struck by how theatrical the Big Reveal scene is. Watch as they all enter the room (37:18 on the .avi) and take their places around the square that now feels like a stage. Their movements are awkward and almost showy, as if they're intent on hitting their marks. Even the dialogue is somewhat stilted. That should come across as really bad acting... but it doesn't. It IS artificial and stagey, but consider the context. They're realizing that they are not who they've always thought they were. They've suddenly shifted from flawed, real human beings to mechanical constructs. And somehow the artificiality makes it so much more perfect for me, and a sign of excellent acting all around, because it's jarring enough for me to suddenly believe that these four people are indeed Cylons.
The Hidden Menace
Last week, I gave the three-hour roundtable podcast another listen. Though it was recorded around the time when they were filming "Crossroads", it almost feels like RDM took to heart Bamber's frustration with knowing "too much" about the Cylons. I realized today that we haven't seen the basestars at all since "Rapture"; in fact, we haven't seen ANY Cylons since then, aside from Caprica and Sharon. Jamie said that the Cylons were the most effective from a narrative standpoint back in "33" when we barely saw them. Perhaps that's why their sudden return made such an impact in the finale. When we see them having philosophical discussions in the Disco Basestar, it's easy to forget their potential for such destruction as antagonists.
One thing I loved about the last half of the episode is the sense of everything being completely out of control, but in a different way than before. In KLG, we had the shock of Adama's shooting, but we all knew that he'd somehow survive. Boomer was activated, but the Marines were there to capture her and neutralize any further damage. The military-government schism was more mental/sociological than menacing. Oh, it was still a brilliant episode, but the real cliffhangers were more about the fascinating psychological and interpersonal repercussions than the fear that it was all going to fall apart. I also loved LDYB, but its cliffhanger was more about the repercussions than the immediate threat. We were left wondering just what the hell happened in that missing year and what the Cylons would do in this new position of control -- I remember being wildly curious but not necessarily feeling dread.
"Crossroads", however, had this incredible sense of fear at the end. We don't have an assumed outcome of "Adama won't die of the gunshot" or "The Cylons aren't going to kill all humans". Instead, we have four new Cylons with unknown agendas and our own personal investment in them. We have eroded relationships all over the place, notably between Adama pere et fil and the President and the Admiral. We have four basestars poised for attack, and with the ability to knock out all power in the Fleet. And we have a presumed-dead character returning with the news that she has found Earth. Taken at face value, those particular cliffhangers aren't categorically more intense or significant than the previous two seasons. Maybe I'm placing more importance on them than they're worth. But the episode itself really made them work, especially the visuals and direction. The power going out throughout the Fleet made me shiver, as did the (cheesy) shot of the Final Five standing on the balcony. I *loved* those slow-motion shots of the hangar deck in disarray as Racetrack and Chief tried to organize the attack, and those heartbreaking shots of Tigh's and Tory's faces as they told Adama and Roslin they were there to serve them. My two main problems with the ending were the cheesy version of "All Along the Watchtower" and that last hokey shot of us zooming through space to see Earth. Yet even though they were a bit too silly, they still contributed to my overwhelming feelings of dread and fear. They triggered in me an emotional response beyond simply, "Ooh, I wonder how they'll solve these problems!" And that's why I'm happy to buy into the narrative intent and stick around for the ride.
All this has happened before....
This is already getting ridiculously long, so I'll focus on a few more things as I wrap it up! And I'm shameless cribbing a few of them from my previous post. :)
Another thing I noticed in the podcast was Jamie's comment that he didn't feel Lee Adama had ever truly lost control until the scenes they'd filmed that day -- which, if I'm not mistaken, turned out to be the courtroom scenes. I really loved his soliloquy and thought Jamie did an amazing job with it, but I didn't get a sense of him losing control. If anything, he went up there and started speechifying without a goal in mind, but he always appeared to know exactly what he meant. I wonder if I'm either misinterpreting the scene or what Jamie intended to do with it.
Lee also became interesting to me in a whole new way. As I've said before, I genuinely like Lee but have never really felt like I *got* him. I still don't have all the answers, but I felt myself connecting with him on an emotional level. I love that here's a man who has lost everything -- his wife, his father, his lover -- and yet he feels a strange sense of freedom from it. As things stand now, he has no real place in the world. Acting on Baltar's behalf separated him from both the military and the civilians, neither of whom will see him as "one of them" anymore. Despite that, he almost seems happy, or just that sense of peace that comes from having been worn down to your essential elements. He grabs his flight suit and boards his viper because he still has to fight, even if he isn't there by rights. I've said before that Dee's line, "You're a soldier who needs a war" was correct, but that she was approaching it from the wrong angle. Lee Adama needs to keep pushing forward, to have a focus and a passion and a belief that he's doing the right thing, and when he doesn't have those, he's left floundering. This time, though, he picked himself up and kept going. Perhaps he made foolish decisions along the way (heck, maybe throughout the season), but HE believed in them. He has burned nearly all his bridges, and though I know he'll build them again next season, I can't wait to see the process. And I love that as he's stripped down to his essential elements at the very end of the episode, he finds his touchstone: Kara Thrace.
One thing I loved about S2 was how the season ended with that shot of Kara Thrace staring up at the sky. In season three, the last person we see is Kara Thrace. As well it should be. Technically, the first *scene* of 3.01 is her putting the dishes on the table, though my whole It's All About Kara theory is complicated by the opening montage. Alas!
The final closeup of Earth (hey, Florida exists!) was awfully cool. Somehow that really hit me. EARTH now exists in their universe.
Tigh: "And if I die today, that's the man I'll be." Uh... until you download? (Yes, I'm evil.) In the replies to my previous post, grapefruitzzz made this hilarious observation: I have more to say, but for now all I can think of is "Oh gods, Tigh's downloading ceremony would be hysterical" Lots of nude Tighs and Dorals all going "WeloveyouSaul", while he's lying there all "What the frak is this?"
Whew. I'm already at over 4,400 words, so I'll stop now before I find even more to talk about! And since I love posing questions, I'll end with this one: Setting aside logic and the narrative confines of TV, what do you think will happen next? What do you want to happen next? :)