BSG

[shadowkat]

Just finished watching tonight's BSG episode Unfinished Business which is hands down the best thing I've seen all week on the telly. Character development, multi-layered, using flashbacks and the gimmick of a boxing match to ground and further character's emotional arcs, and resolving conflicts. Plus not preachy, yet revealing on the human condition and how you can want to kill the person you love. Reminds me of a great Avenue Q number entitled - "You know you really love somebody when you really want to kill them" or something to that effect, I'm lousy at remembering the titles of songs and/or lyrics.

This episode really just blew me away. Going back to rewatch parts of it again now (the repeat showing at 11pm, not alas by DVR or videotape). Everything about it works. Hands down the best episode of this season. (Methinks I prefer the episodes that don't focus too much on the Cylons.) Really took the Starbuck/Apollo relationship to the next level. And reaffirmed why I adore both characters - they are pricky and complicated and screwed up. And I like screwed up characters.

Also, am a character girl. I honestly don't care about logistics, science, plot bunnies, myth details - give me a good character moment, something chewy, and you have me in the palm of your hand. To me? The character's emotional journey is everything. The writers who get this are few and far between. Ron Moore definitely does. So does Joss Whedon.

Ahh...I think one of the reasons I like Starbuck so much is I identify with her. The desire to do a man's job in a man's world, to be accepted on your own terms, to be an equal, yet still be a woman and all that entails. To want a man who gets that - who wants to be your equal, yet also loves you as a woman, who doesn't expect you to be "the little girl" or "the mommy" - but just who you are. It's hard to explain. You either get it or you don't. And I've always adored Apollo - who I also identify with, in a way I couldn't with Angel - Apollo loves his father, wants to be him, yet doesn't. Admires him, but feels like he can't quite connect. He sees his father in himself and it scares him, yet he also wants to see it, hope's it is there. He's the loyal son, not the prodigal, but the loyal one who envied the prodigal's ability to be rebellious to be crazy - the prodigal who seemed to be what everyone wanted. Apollo will always live in the shadow of his dead brother with both Starbuck and Adama. Who wants bother of them to love him, respect him. I get that too. These two characters just speak to me. Even though they are more screwed up than I am. But I think that's the wonder of stories - the power of them, to be able to identify with people worse off than you or who took risks and paths you might have but wisely or unwisely did not? Or who you might have become if you weren't gifted with a loving family. The might have beens. It shows alternatives. Other possibilites. Show's us our human frailities. Exposes them. And in exposing them, makes me feel humble and thankful and proud to be merely human. I love stories. I breath for them. Sometimes I think it's the only thing that keeps me going - the anticipation of a new story.

At any rate, tonight, BSG reaffirmed why it is my favorite tv show on right now. And by far the most innovative and best science fiction series to air in years. Not cheesy. Not campy. Doesn't put science and special effects before characters. In some ways it has redefined what science fiction can be. Taken it to a new place. It's the show we recommend to people who think sci-fi is silly and campy. It's like the Twilight Zone and X-Files in that regard I think. One of the few series outside of BTVS and possibly the first two seasons of Veronica Mars, that I actually would like to own all of on DVD.

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

It was a very harsh episode, I found the fighting motif hard to tolerate, but of course it worked perfectly within the world of BSG. Fe shows would be willing to go that far, but BSG does push the limits.

I was very struck by Admiral Adama's speech, taking the blame for pretty much everything that went wrong, like it was his fault he let people go down to New Caprica.... It reminded me a bit of when I got an annulment from the Catholic church, all of a sudden I was not a failure in my marriage, and my ex was not a failure as a husband, instead the Church had failed to see that we were not prepared for marriage, and it was all their fault they married us. It was incredibly liberating, it took away the guilt and the bitterness, and let me put the whole painful business behind me. I felt that that was what Adama was giving to his people, letting them release their own failures and taking on the responsibility himself.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think how we interpret what happens on-screen has a great deal to do with our own background.

I like boxing actually. Don't enjoy watching professional boxing per se. But do have an odd appreciation for it - more so now that I've actually taken a couple of boxing classes. Was listening to the podcast today on Sci-Fi site and the actor playing Helio (who has boxed professionally) mentioned how boxing as a sport provides a certain raw release and adrenaline that other sports can't quite touch on. I'd say because it is in some respects the most honest - takes it to the raw element - the desire to "beat" your opponent yet at the same time, have them beat you. There's an S&M component to it that makes a lot of sense. Hurt me for screwing up. Yet I'm furious at you for letting me screw up or contributing to it.
And have found films centering on boxing as a means of getting across a relationship - fascinating. Raging Bull. Million Dollar Baby. The original Rocky. Requiem for a Heavy Weight.

So it didn't seem harsh to me but rather the perfect metaphor for the pain these characters are feeling and my own frustrations. The desire to beat up on yourself and the world for screwing up royally.

Also had a completely different take on the Adama sequence. I think the Chief, who never blamed Adama for giving him permission to stay down there - had the right to make that decision. It was his. He chose to move. To change jobs. To quit the military. He's not a slave after all. Or a child. (This may explain why I'd be horrid in the military and can't handle organized religion.) What the Chief blamed Adama for was leaving them behind. Taking off when the cylons showed up.
It's the same thing - I think Starbuck was so angry at Lee Adama for - for taking off, not providing medical attention when she asked, and well taking off. Sure they came back...but. And yes, under that is the feeling that they all made this horrible mistake choosing to live on New Caprica. But is wasn't a mistake necessarily. They had no way of knowing that Baltar had given Six a nuclear device that would alert the cylons to their whereabouts once it detonated. And there was always the risk the cylons would find them. It is like getting married in a way or taking a job, there's always the risk that it won't work out, that it will turn out to be another dead end - that's life. I learned long ago that it is okay to make mistakes, to fall down, to fail - what is NOT okay is to not take responsibility for our own actions. If you don't own up to it, find a way to live with it, learn from it, how can you move forward? And how can you know you won't do it again?
Will the Chief always be looking at Adama for permission on where he can or should live? Will Callie? Will Tigh? What happens when Adama isn't there? It's like me asking my parents if I should take a job or not, and if I do, I get to blame them for it being a mistake? That's wrong. They can't tell me if it will be a good job for me. I have to trust my own instincts and forgive myself when it doesn't work out. What I find reassuring is the knowledge that we all make horrendous mistakes no matter who we are. It's inevitable. The trick, I think, is forgiving ourselves for them - not others, ourselves.
It appears to be a lot harder to forgive myself for my own failings than someone else, maybe because I can't escape me.

What I loved so much about this episode is the fact that the characters make horrendous mistakes, pay for them, and struggle to deal with them. Struggle to live with them and their consequences. And how boxing is shown as a metaphor for our struggle to deal with that. Beating up on others for our mistakes and at the same time beating up on ourselves.

Not sure that made sense.

[abrakadabrah.livejournal.com]

I didn't get so much of a sense of the chief blaming Adama for leaving them behind. That was a tactical decision for a vital strategic goal that could not be met otherwise, and as a military man, the chief knew that.

It's interesting, though, given their differences, that Tigh is the one that really gets Adama - because they've been through so much together and Tigh has seen the effect of it on Adama.

I thought the Admiral was saying something else. That one reason that led to the failure in New Caprica was because he had allowed his essential humanism and his warm feelings for the people in his command to overrule maintaining necessary military discipline. This loosening led to the fact that the military was in a much worse shape to fulfill its function, which is to fight and protect the remaining humans - when the cylons did attack. He was accepting blame for his own actions, but not absolving the others for their decision. And he was also letting his troops know - and the audience - that a change in the military atmosphere is coming, giving that the previous behavior he had countenanced turned out to be nearly fatal.

What I loved about this episode was the gaps it filled in -- all these niggling details showed to us last year - like a very ill Anders literally playing himself to death in the rain -- now make perfect sense, whereas before they made a lot of people assume that Anders was an idiot.

I still prefer him to Lee. Lee just doesn't do anything for me. But now things have gotten much more interesting, at least, though I can't imagine that Lee will be reconciled to the amount of punishment that Kara needs both to dish out and to take from the ones she love.

Unless we are meant to believe that having fallen for Kacey, she is now prepared to handle love. I'll have to see it to believe it though, given that she can only allow herself to love Lee again after a great deal of pain has been inflicted, both ways.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Part of my problem with the characters of Anders, Dualla, and Helio is how sparsely they are developed. They act as "supporting" or peripherial characters to whomever they are placed with. What do we know about any of them outside of: they can fight, they are in love with this person?

Too much about these characters is left to our imaginations. The writers haven't developed them beyond what is necessary. Listening to the podcast - this decision was brought up, "we had a lot more of Anders and Dualla that was cut", but realized it worked better to keep them in the background. So of course you like Anders. All you've seen of Anders is his good side - the stalwart hero, the guy fighting the good fight on Caprica, the guy who wouldn't kill Gaeta and was done with it. Be hard not to like him. They haven't told us yet why he fell in love with Starbuck, why he didn't spend every waking hour hunting her when she disappeared, why he does what he does. He remains, a "stock" character.

Lee, however, we've been told quite a bit about, quite a bit of it ugly. We know who his Daddy is, we know who his brother was, what life he lead on Caprica, why he married Dualla, why he loves Starbuck, why he struggled with himself. He's harder to like because we know more. And from what I've read? We're about to find out even more about Lee - stuff that will further define his relationships, explain why he does what he does.

Same with Kara - we are about to get more information on her. Why she reacted the way she did initially with Kacey. Why what Leoben did to her was the worste kind of torture possible - worse than putting her in a cell or dunking her head in water. Why she became a pilot. Why she can't let herself love. Another fully defined character.

And I think the Chief did have some resentment, you see it in earlier episodes - when they first get back, with the tribunal, how they reacte to the people on the Galatica initially. It's there. Granted it's not major and you can push it aside, because they intellectually understand what you put so well above.

That said - I do agree with your assessment on Adama. I honestly think that's what Adama was thinking and in that segment we are in Adama's pov not the Chief's. Adama and Tigh's. In an odd way, the battle is between Tigh and Adama.

For a really good analysis of Kara and this episode, see wisteria's live journal analysis.