A topic for the discussion of Farscape, Smallville, and Due South. Beware possible invasions of Stargate, Highlander, or pretty much any other "genre" show that captures our fancy. Expect Adult Content and discussion of the Big Gay Sex.
Whitefont all unaired in the U.S. ep discussion, identifying it as such, and including the show and ep title in blackfont.
Blackfont is allowed after the show has aired on the east coast.
This is NOT a general TV discussion thread.
Sometimes the capacity of men amongst themselves to become hidebound in their gendered humor is staggering. Try hanging out in baseball fandom some time.
I agree it's not funny, and without any ironic contextualizing, it's an exceptionally irritating reflection of reality.
They didn't want to know what made him tick.
Which, considering they still didn't have any definitive is/is-not test at that point, was the kind of thinking that gets people into Iraq wars.
Do you expect that kind of complete objectivity in a Sunday Times magazine article, though?
Well, not objectivity, but putting something debatable into a piece, where the debatableness is not the point of the piece, tends to distract from the point of the piece, whatever that point is. There is entertaining digression, and then there is digressive argumentation, and the latter doesn't fold as seamlessly back into the main narrative as the former.
As you can see, because we've been discussing the digressive argument, rather than the piece's main thesis, this whole time.
Really? It's such a military thing to do, I don't even think of it as humor.
that doesn't make it any less insulting.
Is it insulting to
us
that she said it? Insulting to us that Daniel reacted? Insulting to us that we were supposed to laugh?
Vala teasing Daniel about things that I don't find funny -- par for the character's course, really. I don't think paternity questions are that funny either. I do think it was funny she was teasing him, though, effectively or not.
Insulting to us that we were supposed to laugh?
That's the version I meant.
Character A ribbing Character B is much funnier if she's playing on either Character B's known faults or her own. Spike referring to Riley as Captain Cardboard. Wossname glancing at Vala and saying "You should try it some time." Those are funny on two levels: they're well-phrased and they're the truth.
Was the "you
may
be the daddy" thing funny or insulting? Like mentioned above, I didn't register it as funny. Teasing, yes, but I didn't even realise it was supposed to be funny by itself.
I thought "you *may* be the daddy" was supposed to be funny -- Vala's playing on the fact (I assume; didn't see the episode in question) that she's slept with Daniel. Although she then went on to imply that he's bad in bed, not generally a good technique for getting what you want from
a guy.
My take on Vala was that she was a petty little poker. So the paternity, the sex skills slam, the gender questioning -- all in the same category of being an irritant to him. Never thought they were supposed to be funny to me.
Which, considering they still didn't have any definitive is/is-not test at that point, was the kind of thinking that gets people into Iraq wars.
Right. The characters are behaving like people. I assume you don't mean, "and that's bad," but I'm not getting the point.
As for a Cylon-detector, Baltar is creating one. As far as they know, he has successfully identified a Cylon before using the same methods. There's no particular need for a lab rat, and the episode demonstrates why they aren't likely to keep one around "just in case."
putting something debatable into a piece, where the debatableness is not the point of the piece, tends to distract from the point of the piece, whatever that point is.
All of which is, itself, debatable, as is the very definition of what is debatable, and I think I have to bow out of further meta-conversation because I don't have the patience for it.
Right. The characters are behaving like people. I assume you don't mean, "and that's bad," but I'm not getting the point.
I guess I am asking, it never occurred to
anybody
that a bird in the hand might be worth something? I mean, okay, I am kind of depraved (see: new fun with MRI), but when you have a specimen up close for the first time, I'd think you would at least have some random nerd wondering whether he's all wires under the surface. Curiousity isn't all idle, and interrogation isn't all "tell me what you're planning."
(I would also like to ask the cylon designer folks whether they think it's terribly stealty to install taillights into their humanoid models, because, as stealth goes, that's not it.)
I'd think you would at least have some random nerd wondering whether he's all wires under the surface.
Didn't they already know that? Wasn't the issue that there wasn't any easy way to tell, but that they already had a test? The most important thing that Cylon might have had for them was intel. Medically, Baltar had already claimed a test.
