Litmus

[teachlikeroslin]

After the awesomeness that was You Can't Go Home Again, it's understandable that the following episode wouldn't measure up to that level of execution. Litmus is an episode I always forget about. I mean always. I was trying to figure out which episodes I still had to review for the first season and came up an episode short. I went to IMDB to look

Comments

Tribunal & hubris

[anonymous]

What did you think of the tribunal and the actions of Sergeant Hadrian? It made sense to have an independent tribunal but why use someone of such low rank and the person responsible for securing the explosives?

Seemed odd to use her.

A key theme throughout the series, at least so far, is the destructive power of hubris-- which plays out in the central Frankensteinian/Promethean themes of 'playing god' and creating life/stealing fire, only to have it come back to kill you.

In Sergeant Hadrian's case we see hubris on a more basic level. She just turns into a jerk.

Btw, Adama doesn't have this tragic flaw, which is why he rocks. And he's edged out Picard as my favorite SciFi captain.

-DAS

Re: Tribunal & hubris

[anonymous]

To be more specific, it seems they should've used someone with legal training, independence, and higher rank- like an equivalent of a JAG lawyer.

Re: Tribunal & hubris

[teachlikeroslin]

Yeah, you caught me. I didn't talk about the tribunal because I found it all too Law & Order and a little boring. But I was also confused as to why Adama granted Hadrian so much power. I don't know too much about military ranks, but the Chief was all snide towards her because she was a sergeant and Crashdown even had more power than her, and he's a refugee newbie

Re: Tribunal & hubris

[anonymous]

Yes, right now Adama is my favorite. He's smart and clever and incredibly rational, but also emotional (as evidenced by his all out effort to rescue starbuck).

I hate to keep relating stuff to star trek but... he embodies the tete a tete relationship of Kirk and Spock in some sense. Okay I won't do that again. Except to repeat he's cooler than Picard and the cylons are cooler than the Borg. Phweeew.

Lastly, you mention the cylons are like terrorists. I see that clearly. But could the cylons not also signify early Christians? And the humans are the polytheistic pagans? Maybe we'll get to that possibility in the coming episodes. [ie. the torture scene with Starbuck and No2 struck me as somewhat passion-like.]

Thanks, great stuff.

DAS