BSG Season 3: Exodus Pt. 1 October 5, 2007
Posted by Chris in Battlestar Galactica (Re-imagined).Tags: Battlestar Galactica
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Six: “Do you know what I’ve given up for you? Do you?”
Baltar: “You know what, with the occupation and everything, I can’t say I’ve given it that much thought recently.” Cynical.
All through the scene Baltar shows a nice vacillation in tone to Six, whip-lashing between cutting remarks like these to near-begging for her to stay and keep him company.
Are we supposed to believe Kara has fallen for this kid already? It doesn’t seem like very long between when she was introduced to this kid to where she’s already accepting the idea that this is HER kid is very long — a day at most based on the amount of time referenced in the other plot lines. (Spoiler) And why is this kid, if it isn’t hers, so willing to just smile at her and immediately bond with Kara? If anything, she should be near-catatonic from the shock of being taken from her parents. While this seems to be another minor point about the writers falling short, it does seem like every one of these lapses provides an opportunity (planned?) for the writers to reveal an interesting facet of one or more of the characters. In this case, I’m led to question Kara’s motives toward the child based on her previous tactics with the Cylon Leoben where she would feign love to him and then suddenly kill him — repeatedly. She could easily be assuming the kid is a fake and be biding her time until she can get a stabbing angle on Leoben again.
The Doctor stoops to using the loaded, “I was just following orders” talking about why he immediately cremated the baby when it died. Again, we see real condemnation from the writers on the Humans’ actions. While the Cylons have done the most despicable acts, the Humans are always showing they’re quite capable of doing as bad.
BSG Season 3: Occupation/Precipice October 4, 2007
Posted by Chris in Battlestar Galactica (Re-imagined).add a comment
What a great opening montage! The Arab-inspired (or is it actually Arabic? Dumbass blogger!) music at the beginning sets the mood so perfectly, evoking our own bitter occupation in Iraq and personalizing our collective frustrations by association with the frustrations of each character shown.
When Col. Tigh is released from prison, a public address system for New Caprica is talking in the background about food rationing. It’s not clear from the way the plot unfolds or the exposition given, but I assume that the Cylons have no shortage of resources/food — they are simply starving the human population to force submission to their rule. If true, it doesn’t seem like a terribly effective tactic. The other alternative — that the Cylons are actually low on resources — seems implausible. Details, details…this is nit-picky stuff.
Back to the positive, the writers have done an outstanding job of creating sympathy for the insurgency while not stepping over the line to supporting their terrorist tactics.
Tigh: “No boundaries for the Cylons, there’s no boundaries for us! Anything we can do to nail that sonofabitch, Gaius Baltar is worth doing.” Hardcore…
The suicide bomber. We’re led right up to the door…right to the threshold of telling ourselves that his cause is just and his methods justified. How often does television do this, and when it tries, when has it ever pulled it off so successfully? Adama’s Season 1 speech about whether we deserve to survive echoes through the series. At this point, the Cylons have shown the most species growth. They’ve gone from outright, bald-faced genocide to regret and attempted reconciliation, however ill-conceived and poorly executed. From this perspective, they may deserve to survive — but more than the Humans? They’ve been dragged down into the gutter as evidenced by the diary entries of ex-President Roslin who has gone from being a lone beacon of democratic preservation to election-fixer to defender of terrorism. For an alternate view, see Postwatch blog.
Are the Iraqis watching this show? Do they see our own ambivalence and crest-fallen angst? In one way, I’m proud of this show and what its mere existence says about what our country sometimes is and yet can be. Even in the midst of our own shortsighted and downright wrong choices (i.e., the Patriot Act, the invasion and occupation themselves) we are still capable of debating and dramatizing these failures, even on a network owned by a one of the largest military industry conglomerates (General Electric) in history. Even in the midst of our corporate-controlled media landscape, the faint heart of our constitution beats yet.
On the other hand, it’s apalling to realize that as Americans, we’re also the Cylons in this story. We’re the cybernetic society that has gone AWOL from all humanitarian constraints. Abu Garaib, “Gitmo”…what fate have we spun for ourselves? What do we deserve? How do we rate against our Cylon (and Human) mirror-images?
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