jlh | bsg season two (Reply)

I know my reading of the recaps was controversial (believe me, I've heard about it) but I've found that watching the show goes a lot better when I know what is going to happen, because then I don't have that sense of overwhelming dread that I had when I didn't know.

This is the thing with BSG: I keep feeling like everyone who is telling me to watch the show wants me to care about it in a way I can't figure out. Is it detached fascination? Is it confirmation that life is ultimately futile, or that humanity no longer deserves to exist? I can't seem to work out where the pleasure is in the show; I'm alternately annoyed and infuriated, with about ten minutes of interest every fourth episode or so.

During the entire Tigh-takes-over period, I actually felt kinda bad for the guy because he was clearly doing his best but his instincts are so bizarre at this point that how could he not make a mess of things? And unlike Slumdog Millionaire, where I could see a lot of plot points coming in an entirely pleasurable way, here they show up and I just feel ennui. Establishment of martial law? Sending the marines to get the supplies when ships refuse to cooperate? An incident in which civilians die? Ellen behaving like a summer stock Lady Macbeth? Tigh drinking like a fish?

What kept me going through all this pointless chaos were the Caprica and Kobol storylines. Random sports team training in the mountains becomes fighter force! Starbuck starts fucking super hot guy and then vows to return for him! Starbuck fights her way out of crazy weirdo hospital! (Though, the whole leaving behind the one other person we'd connected with thing, not so much.) And then Kobol was pretty much nothing but awesome too, and Baltar finally did something useful for once. I understand, given the way sci-fi works, why people hated Cally, but again, I just sort of feel badly for her.

I am not fond of action scenes, so for most of the fight with the cylons in Valley of Darkness I was like, whatever—except for all the bits that lead to Lee Adama and Roslin taking off with half the fleet. I really loved that entire storyline; one thing I do enjoy is the continual reassertion of civilian rule over the military. The show is very consistent about that, however much time we spend with the military (and I have to say, I wish that the show did spend a little more time on non-miliary ships, though my sense is that most sci-fi fans would hate that).

That brings us to Home, which was one (well, two) of the episodes that I wanted to watch from reading the recaps. I also am interested in the mythology/religion on the show, so watching them open up the tomb and work out what was going on was really fascinating. I loved Adama showing up with Chief; I loved the Zarek and Maier storyline mostly because Zarek was like, dude, don't do that; I loved Sharon leading them around and being pretty open about what she remembered from Boomer. (Oh, and I forgot to say, I'm sentimental enough to love that Boomer died in Chief's arms; poor Boomer.)

Another thing I enjoyed about the scenes on Caprica was that we finally got some goddamned new music. As I write this I'm watching Resurrection Ship and the whole strings-over-balletic-explosions thing, not so much.

Right, so then there's Final Cut, another place where I'm so familiar with the trope that watching it play out in an uninteresting way was tiresome—initially antagonistic journalist comes to see that the military are just people trying to do their jobs; wasn't this an episode of M*A*S*H? Again, being spoiled, I knew Xena was a cylon, which made the entire thing even more annoying—why is the person who questions what is going on in the fleet necessarily an enemy?

Flight of the Phoenix is the kind of episode that fills me with the happy, but I know that the plot-centric hate them; it was almost like a beach episode of an anime, really. There was positive yes-we-can-build-it, there was lots and lots of the hot Chief, there was Chief and Helo working out their shit, there was Boomer literally jacking herself into the system which was weird and awesome, there was Baltar actually being useful for twice.

Thank you, thank you, for not extending the Admiral Cain storyline; she was an interesting character but too obviously antagonistic. The integration of the Pegasus was in the best classic "let's break up the team" style, where Our Heroes get demoted and have to prove themselves all over again. That said, why is it that on that entire ship there was no one with leadership potential? They go through three commanders before Lee finally has to go over there and run things himself, and that felt like lazy storytelling, though at least the engineer-captain went out with style rather than being revealed as some kind of mobster like the former XO. During this period we managed to add Anders as a major character, so why couldn't we have some junior officer of Cain's earn the Gallactica-gang's grudging respect?

I found Epiphanies to be interesting with the flashbacks and the Demand Peace people. I was interested in the Number Six who'd been on Pegasus, and it's unfortunate to me that she blew herself up later, and with those consequences. But then again, I love me some Roslin.

Question: Is Scar supposed to be the Cylon raider that Starbuck flew after her crash landing? Great Apollo-Starbuck stuff in that episode, too, and I dig post-Anders Starbuck a whole lot.

While I do love me some Anders, my favorite part of Downloaded had to be the Baltar that haunted Caprica-Six. He was so much more fun, and I felt like Baltar was getting a little of his own back, however briefly. The whole Hera thing was pretty yikes (though Adama and Roslin are so adorable, even when they're being hard core) and felt like a tactical mistake.

Which leads us into Lay Down Your Burdens. I can't say that the events didn't logically follow each other. Starbuck and Anders reunited was a lovely amazing thing, and I like that they get married and go to New Caprica. Poor Chief and his dreams and his smacking around Cally—I couldn't remember if Dean Stockwell was a cylon from the recaps, but I knew as soon as he opened his mouth and was generally an asshole for no particularly good reason. I know this is all supposed to be highly ironic in hindsight, and I'm sad for that, that so many of the personal struggles of the characters (which is my favorite part of any canon) are rendered moot by the narrative.

I wanted to care more about the election, because I care so much about the civilian leadership, but how could I care when Roslin was running against Baltar, and when the story gave Baltar such a gimme issue? It felt so contrived to frustrate the viewer in a way I'm not sure was particularly fruitful. After all, they didn't talk about actual issues that might be affecting the fleet, but only the whole New Caprica thing and how people get tired and want to rest for a while, which felt like blaming the people in a way that isn't particularly helpful (see many Democrats' reactions to the election of '05). And it's only moments later (even though it's really a year) that Baltar caves to the Cylons anyway. Poor Gaeta. At least Roslin could just go back to teaching.

And finally, Labor Organizer!Chief is pretty much everything I find hot: smart, knowledgeable, capable, passionate, plus glasses and a beard! Please, Tyrol, don't turn out to be someone I never should have loved, because that would make me sad.

On to season 3 shortly, thanks to