BSG 3.04: "Collaborators"
Oct. 28th, 2006 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperA bit of housecleaning on my userpics has freed me up a slot to finally grab a nice Starbuck icon to properly represent my BSG fandom. Huzzah! Credit for this lovely goes to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lyssie, who posted it along with a lot of other pretties here. And while we're on the topic of Starbuck icons, this very same creator has a bunch more here.
And this leads very nicely into talking about last night's episode!
The opening was certainly kickass. Poor Jammer. Waaaaah! Having just recently finally watched all of the Resistance webisodes and seen how he reached his decision to join the New Caprica Police, I particularly felt for the poor schmoo.
And right after that, I was pretty pleased to see a lot of my questions from last week get swiftly answered in short order. Now we know that Tigh's returned to duty as the XO--and we know that Zarek did indeed take over as President with Baltar out of the picture.
(This does however lead to an interesting side question courtesy ofrisu, and that is, does anyone in the Fleet have the slightest clue about Baltar's status? Whether he's alive or dead? Of course, one can easily argue that nobody gives a frak where Baltar is at this point, but risu's question did remind me that we haven't seen any sign of any actual impeachment. Or any announcement or even passing reference to Baltar being declared a traitor to humanity, above and beyond any of the collaborators that the super-sekrit jury went after in this episode.)
We also got a nice strong reminder that even though Zarek and Roslin looked kind of chummy down on the planet, Zarek is not made of sweetness and light. I really, really rather liked that the Circle was actually acting on his order. For a little while there, I was half expecting that they were acting entirely on their own--and given that Tigh was involved in the effort to try to rig the election for Roslin, I wouldn't have put it past him to lead a vigilante effort to take out the known collaborators among the Fleet. And we even wondered for a little bit whether the order they produced had been forged. But no! Acting under actual presidential authority!
Very, very cool too that Zarek is clever enough to realize that there's no way in hell that Adama will support him, and the plan to have him name Roslin his veep and immediately turn around and step down was very slick. Especially when Roslin promised him she'd immediately name him her veep. Nicely timed, too, that she discovered his orders about the Circle almost right after she promised him he could be her veep, too.
Meanwhile, I really liked the various glimpses of characterization among the members of the Circle. Now we're seeing that Tigh is turning into even more of a hard-assed martinet than he was before--which is a very believable route for him to take. And I especially liked him coming down hard on Connor and giving him the speech about how they were pursuing justice. Especially effective, once we knew they were acting under actual presidential orders. I liked Tyrol's and Sam's being the voices of reason on the jury as well, which suits what we've seen of their characters all this time. And I liked that Anders finally bailed when he realized he couldn't take it anymore.
Which led of course into what was going down with Kara. Sniff. I'm totally not surprised that she's gone into bitch mode; we've seen her be bitchy and nasty before as a defense mechanism. And after four months locked up with Psycho Cylon Boy, presented with a child she is made to believe is her own daughter and then learning that even that was a lie, she's got a lot to be bitchy about. But it was heart-rending anyway to see her push Sam away in that final little exchange where he gave her her dogtags back and she gave him that final tense kiss. Meep.
And oh, the way she went after Gaeta. There was a viciousness in that, and that we haven't seen out of her before. Ouch. Getting her footing back after this is going to be long and hard. I hope that she'll get back there, though, and I hope she won't really drive Sam away.
Speaking of Gaeta, yee-owtch. I really respect that boy a lot more now, and felt for him as he seemed convinced that slipping vital information to the insurgents somehow just wasn't enough, that he should have done more. And I appreciated that he held his own even when Starbuck was snarling in his face, and that it was her snarling about the yellow dog dish that finally clued the Chief in to what Gaeta had done for them. That he wasn't a collaborator--he was, as Kara had so ironically sneered at him before, "a frakking hero".
And it was amazing how fast the Circle dissolved once this was revealed. Not a word uttered. Nobody meeting anybody's eyes, especially Gaeta's. A powerful, powerful moment as we saw all six of the jurors taking in the impact of this and realizing what they had almost done.
Meanwhile, how about that Baltar on the base ship, huh? Very, very cool. And a much different glimpse of the inside of a base ship than we'd gotten before when Boomer and Racetrack blew up that last one. I'd wondered what the hell happened with Baltar, and now we know--the Cylons did actually take him with them. Very interesting as well to see that they're debating what the hell to do with him.
I very much liked the reaffirmation that the Cylons seem to rule by committee--and not only by committee, but apparently in a vote-by-model system. Very, very interesting, that line of Three's about how the vote on Baltar was three votes for him to stay, three for him to leave--and that the deciding vote was going to be the Sixes. Seven votes. Which leads to the interesting question of, if there are twelve Cylon models, where are the other five in this little scenario? HRmRmRmRmMmmm...
And last but not least--Lee and the jump rope! Yay! ^_^
lyssie, who posted it along with a lot of other pretties here. And while we're on the topic of Starbuck icons, this very same creator has a bunch more here.And this leads very nicely into talking about last night's episode!
The opening was certainly kickass. Poor Jammer. Waaaaah! Having just recently finally watched all of the Resistance webisodes and seen how he reached his decision to join the New Caprica Police, I particularly felt for the poor schmoo.
And right after that, I was pretty pleased to see a lot of my questions from last week get swiftly answered in short order. Now we know that Tigh's returned to duty as the XO--and we know that Zarek did indeed take over as President with Baltar out of the picture.
(This does however lead to an interesting side question courtesy of
risu, and that is, does anyone in the Fleet have the slightest clue about Baltar's status? Whether he's alive or dead? Of course, one can easily argue that nobody gives a frak where Baltar is at this point, but risu's question did remind me that we haven't seen any sign of any actual impeachment. Or any announcement or even passing reference to Baltar being declared a traitor to humanity, above and beyond any of the collaborators that the super-sekrit jury went after in this episode.)We also got a nice strong reminder that even though Zarek and Roslin looked kind of chummy down on the planet, Zarek is not made of sweetness and light. I really, really rather liked that the Circle was actually acting on his order. For a little while there, I was half expecting that they were acting entirely on their own--and given that Tigh was involved in the effort to try to rig the election for Roslin, I wouldn't have put it past him to lead a vigilante effort to take out the known collaborators among the Fleet. And we even wondered for a little bit whether the order they produced had been forged. But no! Acting under actual presidential authority!
Very, very cool too that Zarek is clever enough to realize that there's no way in hell that Adama will support him, and the plan to have him name Roslin his veep and immediately turn around and step down was very slick. Especially when Roslin promised him she'd immediately name him her veep. Nicely timed, too, that she discovered his orders about the Circle almost right after she promised him he could be her veep, too.
Meanwhile, I really liked the various glimpses of characterization among the members of the Circle. Now we're seeing that Tigh is turning into even more of a hard-assed martinet than he was before--which is a very believable route for him to take. And I especially liked him coming down hard on Connor and giving him the speech about how they were pursuing justice. Especially effective, once we knew they were acting under actual presidential orders. I liked Tyrol's and Sam's being the voices of reason on the jury as well, which suits what we've seen of their characters all this time. And I liked that Anders finally bailed when he realized he couldn't take it anymore.
Which led of course into what was going down with Kara. Sniff. I'm totally not surprised that she's gone into bitch mode; we've seen her be bitchy and nasty before as a defense mechanism. And after four months locked up with Psycho Cylon Boy, presented with a child she is made to believe is her own daughter and then learning that even that was a lie, she's got a lot to be bitchy about. But it was heart-rending anyway to see her push Sam away in that final little exchange where he gave her her dogtags back and she gave him that final tense kiss. Meep.
And oh, the way she went after Gaeta. There was a viciousness in that, and that we haven't seen out of her before. Ouch. Getting her footing back after this is going to be long and hard. I hope that she'll get back there, though, and I hope she won't really drive Sam away.
Speaking of Gaeta, yee-owtch. I really respect that boy a lot more now, and felt for him as he seemed convinced that slipping vital information to the insurgents somehow just wasn't enough, that he should have done more. And I appreciated that he held his own even when Starbuck was snarling in his face, and that it was her snarling about the yellow dog dish that finally clued the Chief in to what Gaeta had done for them. That he wasn't a collaborator--he was, as Kara had so ironically sneered at him before, "a frakking hero".
And it was amazing how fast the Circle dissolved once this was revealed. Not a word uttered. Nobody meeting anybody's eyes, especially Gaeta's. A powerful, powerful moment as we saw all six of the jurors taking in the impact of this and realizing what they had almost done.
Meanwhile, how about that Baltar on the base ship, huh? Very, very cool. And a much different glimpse of the inside of a base ship than we'd gotten before when Boomer and Racetrack blew up that last one. I'd wondered what the hell happened with Baltar, and now we know--the Cylons did actually take him with them. Very interesting as well to see that they're debating what the hell to do with him.
I very much liked the reaffirmation that the Cylons seem to rule by committee--and not only by committee, but apparently in a vote-by-model system. Very, very interesting, that line of Three's about how the vote on Baltar was three votes for him to stay, three for him to leave--and that the deciding vote was going to be the Sixes. Seven votes. Which leads to the interesting question of, if there are twelve Cylon models, where are the other five in this little scenario? HRmRmRmRmMmmm...
And last but not least--Lee and the jump rope! Yay! ^_^
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 04:02 am (UTC)I'd thought that nobody asking about the mole on Baltar's staff was *hugely* bad writing, completely blowing credibility just for the sake of trying to create dramatic tension, and it soured me on the whole thing.
But, good food for thought - Allie and I profoundly disagreed over Zarek's actions, and for once *I* was on the gray side. I totally think Roslin's amnesty couldn't have happened if the Circle hadn't taken out the worst of the collaborators, and Zarek was freely willing to pay the price for doing what had to be done.
And, when did I start *really* liking Anders? I'm really glad he's around!
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 09:37 pm (UTC)Oddly, this didn't bother me so much. And I think it's because I can't quite imagine what they would have done in terms of actually finding the mole. It would have been very stupid of them to do so while they were still on the planet, since it would have put Gaeta hugely at risk.
We know now that Gaeta believed he wasn't doing enough to help the insurgency, too, so I can't imagine that he would have come forward on his own once they escaped. Which means that they would have had to launch a public effort to find him, and I don't know if they've really had the time to try to do anything of the sort in the three days that have elapsed since they fled New Caprica. I mean, what could they do? They'd have to take the time to question anybody who tried to come forward and claim that they were the source.
And they were clearly more interested in punishing the known (or perceived to be known, in Gaeta's case) collaborators. Not a very noble priority, but it's certainly one I can understand.
As for Zarek, though--yeah, he was absolutely right, and that's the bitch of it all. And I think Roslin knew it, too. I notice she didn't put up much of an argument to why he'd done it.
And yeah, Anders is really growing on me. :) I really hope he doesn't die tragically or something--Starbuck needs him around to keep from self-destructing, I think.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 04:40 am (UTC)I loved Tigh - no way is that man a suitable XO now, and that's right there in your face. He's been used to running his own ship too long in too stressful circumstances to just sit back and take orders now. And Adama knows it, and can't just fire him, either as hero or as his friend, and there's no-one to go to for the full psychiatric counselling he needs.
I think an actual ruling on Baltar is irrelevant - he's not there, and is therefore probably presumed dead, and in his absence Zarek takes on the presidency whether he is or not. And yes, Zarek's in an impossible situation, and his reaction and Roslin's were both entirely predictable. And then Roslin getting it pushed in her face exactly what she already knew about Zarek when she offered him the position - yow.
Adama being the first to stand up to applaud Roslin's announcement of no retribution - so Adama, and so not military, and that one moment alone would have more than made the ep. Oh, Tigh, you're in for a world of trouble....
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 09:26 pm (UTC)But you do. Not. Fuck. With. Adama.
Oh my yes, world of hurt!
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 12:36 am (UTC)And hell, they're letting the Eights vote, and we know the Eights tend to run right off on their own, too. >:)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 04:52 pm (UTC)