Catching up on BSG

[annathepiper]

I actually watched both of these episodes when they aired, but I've fallen behind on posting about them for one reason or another--working on the book, going to Norwescon, ship mode at work, etc. However, mamishka came over for our Wednesday night TV, and she watched 9, 10, and 11 back-to-back. So that got 10 and 11 back into my brain!

Crossposted between my own journal and bsg_women...


While "Flesh and Bone" beat this one for Starbuck mileage, there is still a great deal of excellent Starbuck in "The Hand of God" as well. I have this theory that Adama is grooming Starbuck for command, a theory Mimi backs me up on, and which is summarized very neatly in this exchange between the two characters:

S: I never wanted this responsibility.
A: The Cylons never asked us what we wanted. Welcome to the big leagues.

I see more of it in practically all of Kara's scenes in this episode, too: how she presents her plan to the others in the War Room, how she interacts with Apollo when she tells him "don't frak it up by overthinking", and how Adama clearly has respect for the way her mind works, enough to let her pretty much run the entire operation. That Adama stands back and lets her does her thing, not stepping in to help until the President hits her with the question she doesn't expect, also very much said to me 'senior officer letting junior officer stretch her wings'. And it's all also very gratifying on the personal level of how these two characters interact, as well. It'd be easy to portray Adama doing this because he's got personal ties to Kara--she almost married one of his sons, after all, and we know as viewers that the closeness between them survived the revelation that she'd deliberately passed Zack on through his flight training even though he didn't deserve it. To see Adama supporting her on a professional level, though, makes the personal tie between them richer. I definitely approve.

Speaking of Lee, I must also say that he absolutely shone in this episode, too. I liked seeing his initial reluctance about Starbuck's running the op shifting over to his realizing that she was absolutely right and that he couldn't let himself think and analyze too much--that sometimes he would just have to do. His anxious muttering to himself as he piloted his viper down the tunnel was a great subtle touch. And well, the piloting! That boy made his viper dance, and it was fabulous to see. Equally fabulous: the scene between Lee and his father on the flight deck, the night before the op. Very touching father/son mileage, all the more so when you consider the rocky state of their relationship in the miniseries. They've come quite a long way since then, and it's been only weeks in story time since the destruction of the Colonies!

Intriguing mileage with the President seeing the snakes--especially as Elosha boggles over hearing what seems to be the ancient prophecies of Pythia coming true. I really liked the phrase "caravan of the heavens", just for the way it sounded--and I liked seeing more touches of the mysticism and religion that have been underlying themes of everything going on.

Meanwhile, on Caprica, we've got Caprica-Sharon beginning to angst, and hard, over her awareness of what she is and the fact that she's begun to love Helo. Very interesting that both Sharons on camera are in love with humans; it makes me begin to wonder if all of the copies of a given Cylon model share similar tendencies and personality traits and suchlike. And I'm wondering now if we're going to see Caprica-Sharon resolving this crisis by defecting.

Last but not least--oh MAN, the mileage between Six and Baltar. Starbuck walking in on them going at it in the lab and seeing what she thinks is Baltar *ahem* 'flying solo' was priceless. Six's little throwaway comment that there was indeed something intriguing about Starbuck plays into all the questions going around about why exactly the Cylons have a specific interest in her. And seeing Baltar fumble his way closer to where Six wants him to be began to set off all the little warning bells in my brain. Especially at the end, where all I could think was "oh my god, he's beginning to BUY IT". Before he seemed to be humoring her for the sake of hot Cylon nookie--but now?

He's beginning to BUY IT. And the implications about where this is going to lead Baltar are simultaneously fun and spooky. I'm waiting to see how long it's going to take him now to start deliberately screwing things up for the humans--and how long it's going to be before he commands a base star like his predecessor did in the original series. ;) Only this time, we're going to have us a much, MUCH more chilling Baltar because we're coming with him on his trip into La-La Land, and watching the mania take hold is like watching a nuclear meltdown in progress. Six's large smile as he wonderingly called himself the "hand of God" was extremely creepy, too!

Which leads me right into...



... "Colonial Day", and OH MY GOD Baltar is now the Vice-President! That, of course, was the overall huge "OH MY GOD" of this episode, but it had plenty of smaller punches to deliver before that final knockout blow.

First off, though, my two complaints. One, I'm a little vexed that we're only just now seeing Wallace Gray, who apparently has been a critical figure in helping the President run the civilian side of things in the Fleet and who has a lot of history of working with Roslin in politics as well. But if he's that critical a character, why hadn't we seen him before? I mean, yeah, there's something to be said for the "okay NEW CHARACTER, here's what you need to know about him, CATCH UP" approach--but on the other hand, the show has been excellent thus far in introducing characters we need to know about and giving us time to get familiar with them, and Wallace's introduction struck me as a bit of whiplash. Hell, the President's assistant Billy the Boy Wonder has had all this camera time; you'd think they could have spared a fragment of a scene or two to show us this other critical person working with the President. (I wonder if he's in any of the scenes that got deleted out of prior episodes, though. I'll have to go look.)

Two, what the HELL was Lee thinking when he dropped that little "we're watching you" crack at Zarek during the Quorum? NICE WAY TO TIP HIM OFF THERE, boy!

Now then, in no particular order, all the goodness that was this episode:

* Lee and Kara in a water fight on Cloud Nine, giggling at one another, was quite cute and charming.

* Cloud Nine in general was cool. I liked the idea of a luxury liner with simulated daylight and weather--nice addition to the ships we've had on camera thus far in the Fleet.

* The journalists debating Roslin's actions thus far as President and the validity of the selections for the Quorum of Twelve totally reminded me of "Crossfire".

* I noticed something I'd missed the first time through this episode, a throwaway line about this being an interim Quorum. Makes me wonder if, when the time for the next Presidential election rolls around, they'll have a real Quorum election at the same time.

* Speaking of the Quorum, I was a bit baffled as to the means of choosing the people who were to hold the seats--certainly there was no sign of people actually running for the seats, anyway. It was much more of a 'surprise! You get to be the representative of your Colony now!' kind of deal. But then I got to thinking about how there's only just under 50,000 people in the fleet, and doing things this way seems oddly, and appropriately, more communal. It can be easily assumed that the people were polled off-camera, and everybody cast their votes as to who they'd like to see representing them. One also assumes that the ones chosen would also have had the opportunity to decline their nominations if they wished.

* Tom Zarek: deliciously ambiguous. Richard Hatch is definitely warming up to this role, and as Tom Zarek, he does a great job of saying all the right words to the people of the Fleet to rally them to his support. And an equally great job of making the viewer just not KNOW whether he's genuinely committed to the things he's preaching--or whether he is in fact a self-serving, amoral bastard. Or both!

* More Colonies' names have been noted! Yay! Though I only got passing glimpses of the various signs in the Quorum meetings, so I'm not entirely certain of the spelling of a couple of them. I did confirm Canceron and Virgon, though.

* DAMN, Roslin is a pit bull when she's pursuing her goals, isn't she? And this was underscored by her asking Wallace to pull out of the race for Veep. Nice to see that touch, actually--because it rounds her out as a character and shows us that she's got some less-than-nice tendencies, too.

* Very amusing appearances by Six--including just enough of a creepy touch to remind you that she is indeed a jealous Cylon bitch and is not above harming Baltar BADLY if she's provoked.

* Also very amusing to see the female journalist hitting on Gaius--especially after Roslin asks him to be her Veep. "Wow! What now?" "Now... I'm going to give you an exclusive." *chortle*

* DEAR GODS AND LORDS OF KOBOL, the arms and shoulders on Lee! Who knew that boy was so built under his uniform? NOT ME! He's generally so quiet and unassuming that I had no prior inkling that he was actually buff. YUM.

* Speaking of YUM: Starbuck in a dress with her hair fluffed out! And to see Lee's jaw practically drop at the sight of her was also very giggleworthy. "Your knee looks pretty good... and, um, the other one doesn't look bad either!"

And, because it bears repeating, OH MY GOD BALTAR IS NOW VICE-PRESIDENT! How long, one wonders, will it be before this comes around to bite the Fleet in its collective ass, and hard?

I'm looking forward to finding out.

Comments

[eveshka.livejournal.com]

I guess I shouldn't tell you that I have episodes 12 and 13? ;)

No, I haven't seen them, so.

[annathepiper]

*giggle* We have episodes 12 and 13, too. ;) Dara scarfed the entire season off Bittorrent, and we've got 12 sitting on the Tivo as well. I just haven't had a chance to watch it yet, and I'm planning to watch it and 13 back to back tomorrow night.

[eveshka.livejournal.com]

*giggles*
I did too.... largely because our DVR botched and didn't record 12. :(

[annathepiper]

Oh, bummer! We had a similar screwup at the beginning of the season; the wishlist item Dara had set to pull in the show had a typo in it, and we didn't notice until it was time for episode 3. So we had to pull 1 and 2 down from Bittorrent. This was before the Sci-Fi channel had made "33" available on its official site for the show, too.

It's kind of cool to hear the difference between the opening theme in the American release vs. the UK one, though I prefer to watch the episodes on the Tivo just because of the higher picture quality. :)

[eveshka.livejournal.com]

*grins*

I'm not sure what I have, though I do know that they were all HDTV captures... so the quality is stunningly high :)

I'm slowly getting used to HDTV... we got the DVR/HDTV package from our cable company for less than Replay was charging.

And I loved Lee's reaction to The Dress... though, I can't say thatI liked the top of it. I figured the character would go for something a little more... casual. Like a halter style.

[annathepiper]

Oh cool, I haven't had any exposure yet to HDTV. :)

As for Kara's taste in dresses--heh, who knows? That may be the only dress she owns. ;)

[eveshka.livejournal.com]

Maybe so. :)
It was a pretty color, though.

[starsongky.livejournal.com]

As for Kara's taste in dresses--heh, who knows? That may be the only dress she owns.

More likely, she borrowed it from someone else. She's an officer on active duty, wouldn't she normally just wear her dress uniform? (Pre-Cylons, I mean.) It's not like they had time to go home and pack their civvies.

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I would like to point out that you can see the marvelous Jamie Bamber using his native accent in the "Horatio Hornblower" movies. He plays Midshipman Kennedy and wears a funny hat.

*much with the Jamie love*

[annathepiper]

Dude! He's BRITISH? Excellent! I had no idea, because he does a fantastic American-flavored accent. :D

Thanks for the pointer on the Hornblower movies, too!

[solarbird]

hee hee hee hee "hornblower" hee hee hee hee

mmmmmm apollo / gaeta slash mmmmmm

^_^

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I'm all about Kennedy/Hornblower. Jamie Bamber and Ioan Gruffudd... lovely, lovely men, the both of them.

[annathepiper]

I am not familiar with Mr. Gruffudd, either, but he gets points with me for that name alone. :) My initial guess is Welsh?

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

As Welsh as leeks and sheep. He was recently Lancelot in "King Arthur" (which I've not seen yet), and a lawyer on "Century City", which was very short-lived.

[annathepiper]

Ah-ha! I didn't see either of those. I heard the Arthur flick was... less than good, though.

[annathepiper]

Makes you wonder what ELSE Mr. Gaeta can do in 33 minutes, doesn't it? >:)

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Absoulutely, in a fine Shakespearian tradition. He's from London (though his mother is Irish and his father is an American - probably why he can do the American accent so well, I can do Dorset and Yorkshire pretty easily).

He was in "Band of Brothers", too.

[annathepiper]

I looked our Mr. Bamber up on imdb.com, yeah, and I saw the data there about his parents. :) Yeah, his dad being American would make his easy handling of the accent make sense.

Not familiar with "Band of Brothers", though.

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

*legasp*

"Band of Brothers" is an award-winning miniseries set during the Seconf World War. It's a Spielburg oeuvre.

It's very good.

[annathepiper]

I begin to see a trend in Mr. Barber's choices of role. ;) Hee!

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

yeeeees... he is in a uniform rather a lot.

Durn good thing, too. *ogles shamelessly*

I mean.. well... look at him. *ogle ogle*

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I really liked the Horatio Hornblower movies, and Jamie Bamber's character, though I just realized it was the same actor. The movies are good fun, though apparently stray quite a bit from the books.

I didn't recognize him as the same actor who played a (lower profile) part in Band of Brothers, either. He was also good in that role.

I think he's one of those actors that does a good job inhabiting characters, so that you remember the characters and not him as an actor.

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Archie Kennedy has maybe two lines in the first book, has a fit, gets jettisoned, and that's it. They made him a recurring character because Jamie did such a good job :)

He's a marvellous actor. *is in awe*

[annathepiper]

That does speak very highly of his ability, yeah! Way cool. :)

[annathepiper]

Well, I'm certainly impressed with him so far. :) I think Mimi and I shall check out the Hornblower movies at some point, and then we'll see if this holds up when seeing him in other roles!