Comments | word_geek: Worth the wait?

word_geek

Worth the wait?

Apr 13, 2008 19:32

Am I seriously going to talk about each episode of Battlestar Galactica after it happens? Well, maybe not, but for now, it's looking that way. Hey, I spent the first three seasons on the outside looking in, so now that I can follow it in real time with everybody else, I'm gonna discuss. So, last week I lamented the fact that nothing much ( Read more... )

battlestar galactica, tv, criticism

Comments 11

mmaresca April 14 2008, 00:10:22 UTC

I think Racetrack is CAG now. Helo was never a viper pilot.

One thing I've noticed with BSG is a tendency to maintain a status quo, while giving the appearance of big changes.

word_geek April 14 2008, 00:40:42 UTC

Actually, Helo was CAG after Starbuck "died" and while Apollo was grounded. This was during the time when he was also XO in Tigh's place, Mayor of Dogtown, and presumably Chief Cook and Bottle Washer as well.

At the risk of being extremely geeky, I found a lengthy discussion somewhere that in the U.S. Navy, the CAG doesn't even strictly need to be a pilot, just somebody who can carry out the administrative command duties, although it usually is a pilot. How this applies to Galactica, I don't particularly know. And although the only time we've seen Helo on a fighter was as Boomer's ECO, he's been seen in the pilot ready room, we know he's a wing leader from seeing the flight assignment board (after Kat died), and Apollo ordered him to fly to some checkpoint or other when he was distraught over Starbuck's death. So I think we can assume that Helo can fly something, possibly just a Raptor, but I wouldn't be too surprised if he could fly Vipers as well. Both Apollo and Starbuck have been shown flying both ( ... )

mmaresca April 14 2008, 01:38:55 UTC

All I really know about Racetrack is she was playing strip poker (or the BSG equivalent) during Apollo's party.

laddical April 14 2008, 20:39:35 UTC

a tendency to maintain a status quo, while giving the appearance of big changes

I dunno. I think there have been some serious changes. It's just that the characters keep wanting to go back to a status quo, but never quite do. But while everyone kinda slides back into the comfortable jobs and relationships they've had since the End of the World (and really, what else can they do? It's all they've got.), there's an aggregate change that builds with every revolution. Compare the show now to what it was in "33". The jobs may all have been more or less the same at the end of "Crossroads II", but the characterizations and interactions and even the tone of the show on a meta level were miles apart.

This may or may not be a good thing. On the one hand, "33" was a high point the show never really reached again in terms of hitting every note right for 42 minutes. On the other, while no episode since has been that perfect, the last five minutes of last season was a wonderful punch in the gut that even the destruction of Olympic Carrier ( ... )

tangerinpenguin April 14 2008, 02:09:21 UTC

The President is a lousy shot, isn't she? Or are we supposed to read more into that?

I believe she was supposed to be mildly loopy at the time from the drugs she's taking for the cancer. She also wasn't wearing her glasses, although I seem to remember some mannerisms that suggest she needs them more for reading than distance.

It was definitely fun watching Gaius feeling a bit beside himself, as it were; I'm not at all sure what to make of that, but it's an interesting development. I have to say I'm more intrigued than you about the Cylon politics, where I suspect the decision to take the training wheels off the Centurions may have entertainingly unplanned repercussions.

I was disappointed, though: no Straight Razor Chick in this week's Gaius thread. She struck me last week as having more agenda and less kool-aid in her body language and tone of voice than the other True Believers, and I'm curious to see if that's deliberate or an accident of the acting. Well, that, and she's a whole lot more hawt than Tory.

_kent April 14 2008, 10:43:10 UTC

What I just didn't get about the whole Starbuck Situation is how Adama and Roslin are all cool, aloof and uncommunicative, and she's chewing the carpet. Maybe I'm missing the zOMG DRAMA gene, but I don't see why the whole situation couldn't have been discussed in a civilised fashion over coffee in the admiral's office, with a lot less tears and snot on the part of Kara. So she might be a Cylon. Hera's a Cylon, and nobody's thrown her in prison without trial for ages. I like the resolution. I just hope Helo remembered to pack the invisible flying motorbikes ( ... )

word_geek April 14 2008, 18:09:03 UTC

I agree that the conflict between Starbuck, Adama, and the President was way overplayed, although it did start out with a quiet conversation last week. I can see Starbuck getting all bent out of shape over people thinking she's a Cylon, but she's bull-headed, not stupid, and she has to realize that her story sounds odd. Why the President wasn't willing to take a chance on her, that's harder to understand, as I said last week.

You get big Nerd Points for mentioning the invisible flying motorbikes.

fish_tie April 14 2008, 17:52:25 UTC

Roslin hasn't had another treatment because the kid disappeared during the evacuation of New Caprica.

As for Virtual Gaius, I think it might have been a symbolic switch when he made his sacrfice to the Cylon god. Virtual Six was the just instrument of his conversion. I will be interested to see if I am right or if V-Six makes another appearance.

The Cylon political thing was probably a way to illustrate how these new models have strayed so far from the path that they are making the same mistakes of Mankind. I am intrigued.

And Kent, while Hera isn't in the brig right now, there was almost an entire season where she was. It took them a long, long time for them to develop trust, and even then they still took her child away from her.

laddical April 14 2008, 17:55:17 UTC

The kid is now safely back with Athena (Hera's the kid) and Helo.

word_geek April 14 2008, 17:59:55 UTC

Although if Helo's off on the Mission To Earth and Athena is still a top pilot, odds are that Hera is happily playing with Nicky in the Galactica Daycare Center. (And boy, wouldn't I like to see a scene set there...do you think they hang fluffy bunnies on the corrugated steel bulkheads?)

laddical April 14 2008, 18:17:20 UTC

The President is a lousy shot, isn't she? Or are we supposed to read more into that?

"Yeah, man, that's what it means. That's exactly what it means! God came down from Heaven and stopped the bullets.... We just witnessed a miracle, and I want you to fucking acknowledge it!"

I think, as with everything on this show, we're meant to read more into it.

I think she's getting less and less rational because she's investing more and more in this "dying leader" nonsense. She stopped being that, and she lost her power. Now she has it back, along with her disease, and she's worked herself into a religious fervor, if only in her own mind. So that's reason one I don't think she'd ask.

Reason two is I don't think Athena would give permission.

Reason three is, whatever is left of the Laura Roslin who lost the election to Baltar is too embarrassed by ordering the Hera Deception to go to Helo and Athena to ask.