BSG 1.12 & 1.13: "Kobol's Last Gleaming"
Apr. 7th, 2005 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperOnce more delayed, but now I've had time to process these episodes in my brain, and more importantly, actually type about them. As always, though, don't look behind the cut if you don't want spoilers! Crossposted to my own journal and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
bsg_women....
Damn. I mean, DAMN!
From the word go, this story is in high gear. The opening sequence of the first half is a one-two-three-four punch, and I'm not sure what got me more: Helo shooting Caprica-Boomer (and then realizing he can't kill her), Galactica-Boomer flirting with suicide, Kara crying out for Lee while having sex with Gaius, or Kara having sex with Gaius!
The signs of developing feelings between Lee and Kara are particularly amusing and ironic to me. When the miniseries originally aired, I remember thinking that they were totally going to set Lee and Kara up as love interests, and that this was TOTALLY AND ABSOLUTELY WRONG BECAUSE APOLLO AND STARBUCK SHOULD NOT BE HOPPING IN THE SACK TOGETHER. And yet, now that the first season has proceeded to make me like these versions of the characters even more than the original Apollo and Starbuck by making them richly drawn characters in their own right, the idea seems natural now. Even back as far as episodes 4 and 5, I can see signs that this was on the way with just the level of emotional connection that Lee was showing to Kara. He was right there alongside his father with his unwavering determination to rescue her off the planet where she was stranded. Then later on in "Colonial Day", we get Lee and Kara's water fight--and the charming reaction he has to seeing her in a dress. Which has clearly charmed Kara, too.
And which makes me wonder what exactly drove her into going at it with Gaius.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
solarbird reminds me (I'd forgotten) that way back in the first card game we see Gaius joining, Kara did seem to find the good doctor rather hot--and since then he's certainly proven himself as good at the card table as any of Kara's other usual cronies. We know Gaius is certainly harboring very strong feelings for her. What, I wonder, actually got them together? Who made the first move? Half of me really appreciates us not getting more obvious buildup to what we saw at the beginning of this story--but that would have diminished the impact. The other half of me, though, is really curious as to what exactly was going on in Kara's head. I wonder if she's got any guilt-tripping going on about being attracted to Lee when she's still harboring huge guilt feelings over his brother. It'd be nice to get a quieter scene between Lee and Kara later on down the line where she confesses something of that nature to him.
In the meantime, seeing Helo realizing that he cannot in fact kill Caprica-Boomer was another fine, fine moment--and indicative of not only how he'd fallen in love with her, but clued in on an unconscious level that she's not just an unthinking, unfeeling machine.
And all of this was just the BEGINNING of the story.
President Roslin is getting simultaneously cooler and more disconcerting, as she is not only continuing to have visions, but beginning to buy into the whole idea that she is the dying leader mentioned in the ancient prophesies. Hell, she's even sold Elosha on the idea now. Part of me likes that she's willing to act on faith, but part of me also worries that this is going to go direly wrong further down the line--and that she might be in danger of going down a path akin to Baltar's. It'll be real interesting to see how this gets handled. We've certainly seen Baltar get extremely lucky with his wild guesses throughout the course of the season; will this happen with Roslin as well? We know more of an emphasis on the mysticism of the storyline is coming, so it'll be anybody's guess as to whose mysticism is finally going to win out. Or if either will. Religion has driven conflicts in real-life history for millennia, and you can't have any real winners in such conflicts; I'm hoping that we'll get a strong, substantial treatment of this one.
I really liked the scene where Baltar comes in on Galactica-Boomer when she's got her gun out--and how without saying a word to her, Baltar shows the snidely observing Six that he's got some genuine morality in there somewhere. "You can't stop her, she's a Cylon. But you could sleep with her." And Gaius' retreat from the implication that he's actually encouraging suicide and saying instead that Boomer should do what she knows in her heart to be right. Between that and the off-camera gunshot once Six and Baltar are leaving, I actively winced. But it was a very well-played scene all around.
Regarding the clash between Roslin and Adama: YOW! The speed with which that escalated made my head spin, and in general, it underscored for me one of the biggest things I love about this series: i.e., that we're dealing with complex and often flawed characters. The creators of the show have talked about this as one of their major goals, and I think they've succeeded in spades. The whole attempt to raid Colonial One and arrest the President smacked of two well-meaning leaders making a huge cavalcade of wrong decisions that may well undermine everything they've worked for up to this point, and it kept me riveted all the way even as I wanted to smack them both. I especially liked the exchange between Adama and Tigh, calling out what came across almost as a bigger beef than Roslin going around Adama's refusing her the use of the Cylon raider: i.e., that she got Starbuck to do it and "turned Starbuck against us", quote unquote. I can totally see that pissing off Adama even more than the theft of the raider itself; after all, he loves this girl like a daughter.
Tigh's line on the matter was GOLD: "No one coerces Starbuck! Believe me, I've tried!"
Kobol: nice planet! Those of us watching the episode in my household wondered what exactly drove the Thirteen Tribes off Kobol to begin with; we have seen references to a cataclysm of some kind, without any detail as to what exactly that cataclysm was. It makes me wonder what happened, and whether it was natural or caused by man. Certainly the parts of Kobol we see in this episode are pretty, so the planet seems to have recovered from whatever took place. I very much liked how all the grass was just a little too brightly green, just a touch unnaturally so--good use of a color filter there! ;) It lent all the Kobol scenes a sort of surreality that reminded me 'yeah, this place is Earthlike, but it is in fact an alien world.'
Nice to see a bit of character development for Crashdown, too--how the Chief seemed to be almost more on top of the situation than he was. I got the distinct feeling that Crash was riding on the ragged edge of losing it even though he was in theory in command of the party.
And oh MY, Six leading Baltar off to the ruins of the Opera House. Extremely evocative! I especially liked how Six was clad in an almost virginal white dress, in stunning contrast to her earlier slinky red bombshell outfit. And I liked how she's getting Baltar to step up to the plate on the Cylon's team. He was already on the roster at that point, but now... now he's starting to be brought in on the Plan. And I do wonder whether it was Caprica-Boomer's baby in the vision she showed him, or theirs.
Speaking of BABIES, the look on Helo's face when C-Boomer told him she was preggers was beautiful--especially in conjunction with how fast it seemed to make him realize that yeah, actually, he is still in love with this woman even if she isn't what he thought she was on two different levels. I.e., not human, but not an evil killing machine either.
But the look on Starbuck's face when Helo clued her in was even BETTER. That expression on her face, combined with the scream, powerfully conveyed how Starbuck has now had her world turned on its ear. I mean, here she's gone and stolen a ship under Presidential orders, because she's had it proven to her that the commander she loves like a father has in fact been bullshitting everybody in the Fleet about Earth... and now she discovers that a fellow pilot and officer has GOTTEN A CYLON PREGNANT. I'd be screaming, too, if I were her.
I am now absolutely convinced that the Six we've seen having speaking lines on Caprica is Baltar's Six's corporeal body, or else that all the copies of a given Cylon model have some kind of group memory--because the way Six started pounding Starbuck into the ground when she found her was absolutely and totally personal. That wasn't just a Cylon taking down an enemy. That was a jealous woman taking down a rival.
As the story draws to a close, it becomes Sucks to Be Lee Adama Day. The girl he's starting to care for has been in bed with another man. His father as well as the President he personally admires have apparently both gone off the deep end as near as he can tell, and he is screwed no matter who he chooses to support--because if he supports his father, he has to betray his personal values, and if he supports the President, he has to betray his father. I admire the hell out of Lee for having the guts to pull a gun on Tigh and try to stop the arrest, and I admire Jamie Bamber for that brief fleeting glimpse of Lee in restraints on the bridge where he's got an almost amused look about him. He's just committed mutiny, but at least he's rock-solid about having done something that he believes in.
And then his father gets SHOT.
BY BOOMER. YOW!
What happens with G-Boomer on the Cylon base star, with all the other Boomers walking up to her and murmuring at her about how they love her and always will, is extra-special creepy. But apparently it's enough to push G-Boomer over the edge, because I totally didn't see that ending coming, even with the hints we were getting earlier in the story with G-Boomer murmuring hollowly about being afraid she's going to hurt someone.
GUESS SHE WAS RIGHT!
I have to wonder how long she's going to have to live. Whether or not the Galactica officers decide she's a Cylon, she's just shot her own CO during a time of war, which smells like treason to me. I can see a scenario where they lock her up and she winds up escaping and running into the arms of her Cylon sisters--even as C-Boomer defects to the side of the humans.
This leaves Tigh in command of the Galactica, too. I have visions of Ellen having a field day with her husband being acting commander of the Galactica, and with Adama even temporarily out of the way, being major, major trouble for him next season.
But more importantly, with the President having voluntarily submitted herself to confinement, this puts BALTAR next in the chain of command for the civilian government of the Fleet.
Ohhhhhh dear.
Next season is going to be FUN.
bsg_women....Damn. I mean, DAMN!
From the word go, this story is in high gear. The opening sequence of the first half is a one-two-three-four punch, and I'm not sure what got me more: Helo shooting Caprica-Boomer (and then realizing he can't kill her), Galactica-Boomer flirting with suicide, Kara crying out for Lee while having sex with Gaius, or Kara having sex with Gaius!
The signs of developing feelings between Lee and Kara are particularly amusing and ironic to me. When the miniseries originally aired, I remember thinking that they were totally going to set Lee and Kara up as love interests, and that this was TOTALLY AND ABSOLUTELY WRONG BECAUSE APOLLO AND STARBUCK SHOULD NOT BE HOPPING IN THE SACK TOGETHER. And yet, now that the first season has proceeded to make me like these versions of the characters even more than the original Apollo and Starbuck by making them richly drawn characters in their own right, the idea seems natural now. Even back as far as episodes 4 and 5, I can see signs that this was on the way with just the level of emotional connection that Lee was showing to Kara. He was right there alongside his father with his unwavering determination to rescue her off the planet where she was stranded. Then later on in "Colonial Day", we get Lee and Kara's water fight--and the charming reaction he has to seeing her in a dress. Which has clearly charmed Kara, too.
And which makes me wonder what exactly drove her into going at it with Gaius.
solarbird reminds me (I'd forgotten) that way back in the first card game we see Gaius joining, Kara did seem to find the good doctor rather hot--and since then he's certainly proven himself as good at the card table as any of Kara's other usual cronies. We know Gaius is certainly harboring very strong feelings for her. What, I wonder, actually got them together? Who made the first move? Half of me really appreciates us not getting more obvious buildup to what we saw at the beginning of this story--but that would have diminished the impact. The other half of me, though, is really curious as to what exactly was going on in Kara's head. I wonder if she's got any guilt-tripping going on about being attracted to Lee when she's still harboring huge guilt feelings over his brother. It'd be nice to get a quieter scene between Lee and Kara later on down the line where she confesses something of that nature to him.In the meantime, seeing Helo realizing that he cannot in fact kill Caprica-Boomer was another fine, fine moment--and indicative of not only how he'd fallen in love with her, but clued in on an unconscious level that she's not just an unthinking, unfeeling machine.
And all of this was just the BEGINNING of the story.
President Roslin is getting simultaneously cooler and more disconcerting, as she is not only continuing to have visions, but beginning to buy into the whole idea that she is the dying leader mentioned in the ancient prophesies. Hell, she's even sold Elosha on the idea now. Part of me likes that she's willing to act on faith, but part of me also worries that this is going to go direly wrong further down the line--and that she might be in danger of going down a path akin to Baltar's. It'll be real interesting to see how this gets handled. We've certainly seen Baltar get extremely lucky with his wild guesses throughout the course of the season; will this happen with Roslin as well? We know more of an emphasis on the mysticism of the storyline is coming, so it'll be anybody's guess as to whose mysticism is finally going to win out. Or if either will. Religion has driven conflicts in real-life history for millennia, and you can't have any real winners in such conflicts; I'm hoping that we'll get a strong, substantial treatment of this one.
I really liked the scene where Baltar comes in on Galactica-Boomer when she's got her gun out--and how without saying a word to her, Baltar shows the snidely observing Six that he's got some genuine morality in there somewhere. "You can't stop her, she's a Cylon. But you could sleep with her." And Gaius' retreat from the implication that he's actually encouraging suicide and saying instead that Boomer should do what she knows in her heart to be right. Between that and the off-camera gunshot once Six and Baltar are leaving, I actively winced. But it was a very well-played scene all around.
Regarding the clash between Roslin and Adama: YOW! The speed with which that escalated made my head spin, and in general, it underscored for me one of the biggest things I love about this series: i.e., that we're dealing with complex and often flawed characters. The creators of the show have talked about this as one of their major goals, and I think they've succeeded in spades. The whole attempt to raid Colonial One and arrest the President smacked of two well-meaning leaders making a huge cavalcade of wrong decisions that may well undermine everything they've worked for up to this point, and it kept me riveted all the way even as I wanted to smack them both. I especially liked the exchange between Adama and Tigh, calling out what came across almost as a bigger beef than Roslin going around Adama's refusing her the use of the Cylon raider: i.e., that she got Starbuck to do it and "turned Starbuck against us", quote unquote. I can totally see that pissing off Adama even more than the theft of the raider itself; after all, he loves this girl like a daughter.
Tigh's line on the matter was GOLD: "No one coerces Starbuck! Believe me, I've tried!"
Kobol: nice planet! Those of us watching the episode in my household wondered what exactly drove the Thirteen Tribes off Kobol to begin with; we have seen references to a cataclysm of some kind, without any detail as to what exactly that cataclysm was. It makes me wonder what happened, and whether it was natural or caused by man. Certainly the parts of Kobol we see in this episode are pretty, so the planet seems to have recovered from whatever took place. I very much liked how all the grass was just a little too brightly green, just a touch unnaturally so--good use of a color filter there! ;) It lent all the Kobol scenes a sort of surreality that reminded me 'yeah, this place is Earthlike, but it is in fact an alien world.'
Nice to see a bit of character development for Crashdown, too--how the Chief seemed to be almost more on top of the situation than he was. I got the distinct feeling that Crash was riding on the ragged edge of losing it even though he was in theory in command of the party.
And oh MY, Six leading Baltar off to the ruins of the Opera House. Extremely evocative! I especially liked how Six was clad in an almost virginal white dress, in stunning contrast to her earlier slinky red bombshell outfit. And I liked how she's getting Baltar to step up to the plate on the Cylon's team. He was already on the roster at that point, but now... now he's starting to be brought in on the Plan. And I do wonder whether it was Caprica-Boomer's baby in the vision she showed him, or theirs.
Speaking of BABIES, the look on Helo's face when C-Boomer told him she was preggers was beautiful--especially in conjunction with how fast it seemed to make him realize that yeah, actually, he is still in love with this woman even if she isn't what he thought she was on two different levels. I.e., not human, but not an evil killing machine either.
But the look on Starbuck's face when Helo clued her in was even BETTER. That expression on her face, combined with the scream, powerfully conveyed how Starbuck has now had her world turned on its ear. I mean, here she's gone and stolen a ship under Presidential orders, because she's had it proven to her that the commander she loves like a father has in fact been bullshitting everybody in the Fleet about Earth... and now she discovers that a fellow pilot and officer has GOTTEN A CYLON PREGNANT. I'd be screaming, too, if I were her.
I am now absolutely convinced that the Six we've seen having speaking lines on Caprica is Baltar's Six's corporeal body, or else that all the copies of a given Cylon model have some kind of group memory--because the way Six started pounding Starbuck into the ground when she found her was absolutely and totally personal. That wasn't just a Cylon taking down an enemy. That was a jealous woman taking down a rival.
As the story draws to a close, it becomes Sucks to Be Lee Adama Day. The girl he's starting to care for has been in bed with another man. His father as well as the President he personally admires have apparently both gone off the deep end as near as he can tell, and he is screwed no matter who he chooses to support--because if he supports his father, he has to betray his personal values, and if he supports the President, he has to betray his father. I admire the hell out of Lee for having the guts to pull a gun on Tigh and try to stop the arrest, and I admire Jamie Bamber for that brief fleeting glimpse of Lee in restraints on the bridge where he's got an almost amused look about him. He's just committed mutiny, but at least he's rock-solid about having done something that he believes in.
And then his father gets SHOT.
BY BOOMER. YOW!
What happens with G-Boomer on the Cylon base star, with all the other Boomers walking up to her and murmuring at her about how they love her and always will, is extra-special creepy. But apparently it's enough to push G-Boomer over the edge, because I totally didn't see that ending coming, even with the hints we were getting earlier in the story with G-Boomer murmuring hollowly about being afraid she's going to hurt someone.
GUESS SHE WAS RIGHT!
I have to wonder how long she's going to have to live. Whether or not the Galactica officers decide she's a Cylon, she's just shot her own CO during a time of war, which smells like treason to me. I can see a scenario where they lock her up and she winds up escaping and running into the arms of her Cylon sisters--even as C-Boomer defects to the side of the humans.
This leaves Tigh in command of the Galactica, too. I have visions of Ellen having a field day with her husband being acting commander of the Galactica, and with Adama even temporarily out of the way, being major, major trouble for him next season.
But more importantly, with the President having voluntarily submitted herself to confinement, this puts BALTAR next in the chain of command for the civilian government of the Fleet.
Ohhhhhh dear.
Next season is going to be FUN.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-09 05:27 pm (UTC)