A brief post about the penultimate episode of BSG season 3

[grinninfoole]

Don't read this if you don't care, or don't want spoilers.

I like that the writers have realized that they have too many interesting characters, and too much interesting plot, going on to follow it all closely anymore, so they are letting us 'find things out'.   Not just the obvious example of 'Roslin has cancer again!", but a little thing like 'Sam Anders is training to be a pilot?"  (And what's going on between him and Seelix?)

That said, they seem to have too much going on that's just hanging in space, like the 'bless my baby' scene in Baltar's cell, or the scene where Tory goes to the bar.  Other than implying a connection between her, Anders and that mysterious music, what did that scene prove?  And why did she go there?  It seems completely outside of her usual habits, so why the change? (other than plot.)

Admiral Adama and Dee turning on Lee also seemed a bit arbitrary, especially Dee.  I don't really see why she's turning on him now, and I can't tell if she understands better than Lee realizes (and has a valuable insight that she should at least try to share with her husband) or if she really doesn't get it.  Either way, I feel that she's dropped the ball.  The admiral has too, even though I get where his bitterness and resentment come from more clearly.  (Though Lee's behavior for as long as we have known makes it clear that his sense of integrity is his most important possession, so Bill's really making an ass of himself there.)

This does, as I type, remind me of a larger problem that I perceive has developed on the show, namely that characters behave in ways that seem out of character, but that could make sense as consequences of their development in response to the plot, but that we aren't shown.  The example that has pissing me off all year has been Boomer, where we have gone from Downloaded 'killing humans is wrong, let's try something new' to the Occupation episodes 'let's try living together--crap, this isn't working as I'd hoped' (oh, and it took her THREE MONTHS to look up the Chief?  To even TRY and talk to him, or at least find out that he's married?  I find that simply unbelievable--and I mean that literally, as in 'my disbelief is crashing down' unbelievable) to... what?  what does she do about the decision to order mass executions?  Does she agree?  Does she disagree?  We don't know.  Agreeing with them is TOTALLY contrary to her character theretofore, but if she doesn't agree, why doesn't she do something, anything, to stop them?  Or does she?  Since we don't see her again until the episode where she's prevented from talking to Adama by Athena, we don't know, but she's still willing to be with the Cylons.  And a couple of episodes later, when Athena downloads to get Hera, all Boomer can say is 'that part of my life is over now' and then threaten infanticide.  This is what's become of the character who struggled so long in season one against murderous impulses, who rejected being a cylon in season 2 and tried to lead her two peoples and identities into reconciliation?  OK, yes, that could indeed be what she's become.  But I haven't seen enough to buy the transition.  As it is, it's another Ophelia for me--'wait, why have you gone nuts, exactly?'

(And talk about great drama arbitrarily stopped cold by the writers.  Were they too chicken to put her and Adama on screen together again?  Afraid they'd screw it up?  At this point, they probably would.)

So, in the teaser for the season finale, we have a voice (Anders, I think) say something like 'so we're all cylons'.  And I'm very, very close to calling shenanigans on the whole show.  Anders (and presumably Tigh and Tory) are cylons?  I would have to see a lot before I find that a plausible, much less satisfying, plot twist, and the pattern for the past season has been to show too little about too many things.  BSG is grappling with the interesting problem of having too many interesting things to put into the time allotted, and in many ways that's so much cooler than, say, Enterprise, where so little of interest happened in the first season that I never bothered to watch the rest.  (and I watched the whole first season.)  [My hope is that this is deliberate misdirection.  After all, there's no reason why Anders and the others can't come to believe that they are cylons and just be wrong.  Baltar was, after all, and he is incomprehensibly smart.)

However, doing a crappy job with too much has damaged my interest in the show in ways similar to what happened to Enterprise.  I'm not saying that I'm going to stop watching (far too soon for that), but I'm not sure that I feel the need to own season 3 the way I did seasons 1 and 2.  Borrow them from a friend or rent them for an evening to check out bonus material and deleted scenes, maybe, but own and watch over again?  We'll see.

Comments

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

Lee is acting very out of character. I got his decision to help defend Baltar, which seems in keeping with the noble aspects he's shown before..though it would have made much more sense for Helo.

But the way he treated Roslin was totally out of chracter.

We'll see how things play out.

I didn't think it was Anders speaking-I thought it was Adama.

The music is interesting..Tigh wasn't the only who heard it. I wonder if that's something only the final 5 can hear.

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

I disagree about Lee's interaction with Roslin. He clearly wasn't pleased to be questioning her like that, to be distressing her like that (and I think that she could tell), but turning on her was no more emotionally wrenching than turning on his father at the end of season 1, and he did it for the same reason: when faced with conflicting priorities, Lee has consistently chosen to preserve "the system", either political or legal, whatever the personal cost to himself. Roslin may be upset with him, may even no longer like him, but I daresay she still respects him, which is more than one can say for his father.

re: the music, I hope that it's connected to ancient humans whose trail the fleet is following, and not the cylons.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

If he wasn't questioning her just to mess with her, what was the point? Nothing that she admitted was in any way relevant to the one crime we've heard Baltar be accused of-signing the death warrant.

It would be interesting if the music is connected to Earth-the original show had a bit where they were monitoring the aether for signals, and when the monitoring station was unmanned, they picked up the broadcast of the Apollo 11 landings. (This led into Galactica 1980, eventually, about which little should be said except that it was pretty bad..even though the concept of humanoid Cylons originated on that show.)

[millari.livejournal.com]

I didn't think it was Anders speaking-I thought it was Adama.

Well, obviously we see Anders in that moment, but actually, on subsequent listening, I'm actually coming round to thinking that the voice that utters that line is Tyrol.

Of whom we suspiciously haven't seen more than one second in this episode.

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

I think Tyrol is an interesting choice to be a cylon and, while surprising, not totally out of left field.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

Tyrol as one of the final 5 would be very interesting, given his interactions with Brother Cavil, although it would be in keeping with the seeming lack of knowledge the Cylons have about the final 5.

[millari.livejournal.com]

I agree with both sides of what you've said about the too much stuff to fit. I appreciate a show that expects me to be intelligent enough pick up on side details like, "Oh! Anders is a Nugget now." "Six knows about Gaeta stabbing Baltar!" "Kara is training pilots again!" without having to waste a scene or more with it. But yeah, the stuff where they overplot and have to include bonus scenes every episode? Not so cool. Other people have complained about this too, and specifically, I've seen lots of WTF???? about the "bless my baby" scene. I could buy it if it we got the impression that it's the tiny faction of crazies that attach themselves to every celebrity criminal, but I think that is supposed to be a stand in for all the people reading Baltar's book. Some people were wondering if it was supposed to imply that Baltar's been spreading the word of the Cylon God in his book. If so, we've got no hint of that.

Regarding Dee: I think what it comes down to is Dee just married the wrong Adama. As soon as Lee turned away from the whole Bill Adama way of thinking, which is really the life she signed up for, I think, she finds Lee completely incompatible and despicable too. Not a shining moment for Dee, but I think that's what's going on.


Yeah, no one ever talks about Boomer and whatever happened to her. I think that there wasn't enough money to pay Grace Park for two storylines, and perhaps not enough time, and so they decided that the Athena integration story arc was ultimately more important. Still, that doesn't mean that I don't wish I knew what happened with her. And I don't think it was necessary to have her be there in that scene where they rescued Hera from the Cylons. It was out of nowhere, and pointless, if you're not going to develop it further. Instead, we get sweet, childlike Sharon from Season 1 transformed into bitter, bitchy Medea Sharon, for 60 seconds and no explanation. LAME.

So, in the teaser for the season finale, we have a voice (Anders, I think) say something like 'so we're all cylons'. And I'm very, very close to calling shenanigans on the whole show.

Shenanigans. Ha! Perfect word choice. Yeah, if Anders, Tory and Tigh turn out to be Cylons (and Tyrol - see my other comment), I will can't imagine a world in which I'm not annoyed by that. I feel like there's absolutely no lead up and therefore, the explanations will ring completely hollow. I've been unable to stop myself from looking at random spoiler phrases on the Interweb (tm) now and then that lead me to believe that the finale is going to have some twists that piss me off mightily, but I'm praying that I'm misinterpreting or that they're "foilers" deliberately planted out there by RDM and co to throw fans off the scent. But given the previews seeming to confirm some of these things, I don't have much hope. Yeah, I'd like it though, if Anders and Co. were just wrong.

Still, I do want to own Season 3, at least the first half, for all the stuff on New Caprica. And how could I not own the only episodes in which my favorite character Gaeta has actual stuff to do? :)

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. We'll see, of course, but I think you might be right about Dee. Which leads me to wonder if BSG is dark enough to have her ACT on that? Do you think Bill would go for it? That would be frakked up.