Battle Star Galatica - the fourth season

[shadowkat]

Well, I've seen four episodes of BSG this year and...is anyone else bored? I watched the rest of last night's episode this morning, attempted to do it last night but it put me to sleep.
Granted I'd had a long day and had watched prior to it - Ugly Betty, Lost and Supernatural. So brain was a bit tired of tv at that point.

Jane Espenson apparently wrote last night's episode, which begs the question - perhaps Jane is spending a bit too much time on her blog? The self-help aspects of blogging appear to have bleed into BSG. I'm wary of what her arc on Buffy S8 will be. With any luck it will not be as preachy and a bit more humorous.

The good...and there wasn't much. [As an aside: I actually miss Sharon and Helo, really miss them. As in, I desperately want an episode devoted only to them - one that will with any luck explain why they left Hera in Roslyn's care to go off with a crazy Starbuck. I also miss the cylons.]

Chief Tyrol - Aaron Singer is an amazing actor. I continue to be impressed with his range. This role is emmy worthy, but since it is cult, he will never be nominated. At any rate, this character's arc does actually work. He is struggling with the irony of having fallen for Boomer, a cylon, and abandoning her for the woman who killed her, Callie, a human, only to discover that he is a cylon himself. That is eating him up inside.

Saul - Michael Hogan is also an amazing actor. And has a similar arc. He had thought at one time his wife, Ellen, was a cylon, they all did. He's struggling with the irony of killing her as a cylon spy - a human who spied for the cylons, only to discover a year later that he himself is a cylon. That's eating him up inside.

The worst thing the writers could do to Tyrol and Saul was make them cylons. This truth is destroying them - because it changes everything they believe about who they are.

The scenes between Cheif and Adama, Saul and Six were quite gripping. I particularly liked the flashback sequence of Cheif with Callie which paralleled Callie's flashbacks in the previous episode.

Other scenes that worked - a brief one between an exhausted Starbuck and Sam Anders, where he appears to be watching her sleep, aching to help and comfort her and the scene between Roslyn and Gaius Baltar - equally brief - where she informs him that she will no longer ignore his infractions. The next time he does something she doesn't like....those two actors also continue to impress me.


Now the bad...I'm getting tired of the Gaius Baltar as Christ references. They are beginning to feel a bit heavy handed not to mention preachy. The scene in the temple reminded me of Jesus's angry outburst in the temple in the new testament - best shown in the television miniseries Jesus of Nazerth which aired in the early 80s. Although this is better than the self-help guru bit we got at the end of the episode - where JC, sorry, meant Giaus, tells his followers that they are perfect and must love themselves as they are. Once they can truly see themselves as they are and appreciate themselves as they are, then they will see others for what they are as well. As bad as he is, he knows he is loved by at least one entity in the universe, that there's a spark inside him that answers to that entity and is loved, and all his followers need to do is find that spark inside themselves. Nice speech, but what is it doing in sci-fi series? This belongs on a blog in lj or maybe a self-help book.

If you like religious philosophy, and many people do, you are getting off on this. And there is something to be said for Baltar's conversion - this is a guy who went from being a complete athesist, who believed in nothing but his own brilliance and the absolute truth of science, facts and figures to a guy who has abandoned all of that for a belief in an entity that he calls god, which he can't quite see, but appears to reside in him in the guise of Six.
Who is Six - Giaus' love for Six. Who is Gaius in Six's head - Six's love for Gaius.

But, I'm finding it sort of boring and incredibly obvious. Not to mention a tad silly in places.

Roslyn is becoming increasingly unlikable. Patronizing and narrowminded. When did Roslyn and Adama switch personalities? He's usually inflexible, unemotional, unweilding sort, and she's the compassionate, flexible, power to the people. Her arc from kind and compassionate school teacher/religious leader to inflexible, cynical, somewhat cruel tyrant is depressing. I can sort of see how she got there and why she is reacting that way now, but it does feel off to me. Adama's speech to a sleeping Roslyn does to a degree underline what he fears is happening to her, and it is a nice counter-point to Baltar's spiel. Roslyn is clearly supposed to Baltar's mirror here, their arcs counter each other. While Baltar has become more compassionate and more religious and more embracing of all life, Roslyn appears to becoming the opposite. She sees no future and when she looks inside herself, she finds nothing but emptiness, no spark, no love, nothing to soothe her. While Baltar looks inside and sees a spark, love, forgiveness, and is soothed. I think the writer overstated this point with the two admittedly eloquent speechs at the end, which feel preachy to me in that they feel like a condemnation of one belief system and a celebration of another - something BSG has done a good job of circumventing up to this point.

I agree with Baltar - his speech is very close to what I actually believe regarding God. And from a philosophical/religious point of view - it's sort of cool. But from a story-telling perspective? It's is overstating the point and could have been done differently.

This episode like the last one focused a bit too much on four supporting characters, characters who if you read the credits are not listed in the headings but rather after those have rolled on by. While I find three of these characters interesting, I'm not sure focusing this much on them serves the story. Lee's arc is making less and less sense as we move forward. Granted he's always been written as a bit of a self-righteous sort - he was that in the first version of BSG, when Richard Hatch played the part. But, at least he had a sense of humor. I'm not quite sure what to make of him now. He's faded into the background.

Next week, we get to focus on crazy Starbuck and the people on the Demetrius - which I have mixed feelings about. Demeter by the way was the goddess of the earth. It was her daughter who was abducted by Hades into the underworld - causing Demeter to wander the earth in woe hunting for her lost child - during this period nothing grew, until finally Zeus ordered Hermes to rescue her. Hades gave Persephone as a parting gift a pomegrante - that whenever she ate from it she had to spend a third of a year in the underworld with him - this is winter, when things do not grow.
The story does in some ways follow Starbuck's journey - on New Caprica she was abducted by Leoben and forced to reside beneath the ground as his wife, she was rescued by Anders or someone, can't remember, but went back to save her child, only to learn it wasn't her child after all, causing Starbuck to feel lost until she found Earth, which renewed her and her ship, and she is now compelled to return to. The writers are being a bit obvious calling her ship the Demetrius - but I'm getting used to that. I've already figured out that the fifth cylon is probably either Roslyn or Zarek (Richard Hatch - since I probably got that name wrong). I don't care who the fifth cylon is. Did last year, don't this year, gotten a tad bored with the storyline. It was more interesting when I thought the fifth was Starbuck, because that would be the worse thing you could do to her. But I know that's not where they are going. Zarek as the fifth isn't all that interesting unless of course you get off on the political stuff. I'm finding it rather dull and derivative. I've been watching the primaries, I've had my fill of political manipulating.

I'll continue watching BSG - it is the last season after all, sort of curious where they go with it. But by the same token, am very glad it is the last season, am not going to miss it as much as I previously thought when it is gone.

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I think I've been enjoying BSG more than you, but then I'm enjoying the religious stuff... but I do agree that it is silly, in fact I think that it is hilarious. Of course the way you get an atheist to become religious is for him to discover that HE is God (of course, it would make sense for everyone to worship Baltar, he has always been the center of his own universe!). I'm still kind of confused about where they are going with all of this, but the whole perfection thing also seems to tie in with the creation being more perfect (more evolved than?) the thing from which it sprang.

They are getting into some very weird areas here, and I don't pretend to get it all, but I'm definitely curious to see where they end up. I expect it to be something way more off-beat and imaginative than just a Brave New World.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I hope so. At the moment, it is feeling very derivative. I think I've read too many religious sci-fi novels, because I've seen it all done before.

Maria Doria Russel's - The Sparrow has got to be the best of the religious sci-fi genre. Although there was a novel about the apocalypse that I reviewed in my journal about a year or so ago that was pretty good.

The original BSG got religious too - and considering this verision is borrowing heavily from the prior one - it's not surprising. In the prior version - the cylons were devils and Baltar was Judas. The head cylon's name was Lucifier - whose namesake or the human he was based on visits the fleet and attempts to seduce Starbuck and Admiral Kane's daughter who is Apollo's lover at the time, Apollo jumps in the way of his attempt to kill both of them and take their souls, sacrificing his own life for theirs. On the way home with Apollo's body, they encounter a ship that is bright and glowing and filled with angels. The Angels take him on board, resurrect Apollo, and they magically have the pathway to earth in their heads.

That was admittedly a heck of a lot cheesier.

And well, how well you are enjoying all of this probably depends on how much you like Baltar and how into the religious stuff you are.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

well I will feel disappointed and betrayed if they go that obvious route of having lame angels (in whatever form) come and make things easy for them. Frankly I'm hoping for something that ultimately lampoons religion and is blatantly sacrilegious (because they can get away with it... that is one of the advantages of Sci-fi). This is what interests me, this is the track I seem them on (but of course I could be wrong).

Baltar was always the comic relief (in a show where everything was always dark and depressing), so I always looked forward to him (and 6, who would brighten the room with her entire lack of presence).

I'm not bored

[hankat.livejournal.com]

The classic line from Baltar was (paraphrase here)"I think I liked it better when you cried." that line made the episode (the second moment when Six was holding him up outside his home). Baltar is stumbling into some sort of messiah role that he may or may not come to feel some passion other than the free nookie from some of his followers. The guy is pathetic and that seems to mean nothing to those clutching at his words.

Tyrol ended sounding like a prick with the cabbage line about Cally. I'd like to see if he finds himself next to Boomer again, that is if she can detach herself from Cavil.

Rufus

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

I'm really liking this season. Very dark and twisted, and I'm fascinated to see where it goes next.