Boxed Set, Vol. III: "That Can't Be Good..."
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.
Lost has "lost" the ability to be analyzed for me. I mean, we had the numbers, but they've gone. What is lostzilla, oh nevermind. There's not enough "there" there.
At least with BSG there's the nature of humanity and civilization. I think it especially helps that so much of it, I think, can be applied to current events. Us vs. them when we, I mean the country on average, don't have a thourough understanding of exactly who "they" are. Contrasting religions. The safety of your people, pushed to an even further extreme than even the worst neocon nightmare, vs. what you as a people want to stand for. I think the premise and mission of the show just holds up better even when inidividual episodes or storylines are all WTF! Monkey Crack!
I have been so frustrated with the lack of any sort of discernible direction this season on BSG, though. I still love my characters, my Helo and my Chief and my Gaeta, the ones who sort of sustain reality for me when Lee and Kara and Bill and Laura and Gaius and Six go all histrionic and indecipherable and WTF? Not that the secondary-tertiary characters can't be all 'splodey too, but for the most part, they're the through-line, when the headliners are chewing the bulkheads.
I think the only characters who did that for me on Lost were Hurley and... Steve? or Scott? Bernard and Rose, and whatever happened to B&R, anyway? And frankly, I just stopped caring. Sawyer and Freckles still hot like burning, and very very pretty. But...enh.
Yesterday I was just saying that I sorta feel about Galactica S3 the way I do about Angel S3: Horribly, horribly flawed in many ways, and with both shows I almost gave up halfway through because, good lord. But man, I love the ideas and the arc now that I can see it as a whole. even if I don't like a lot of the individual episodes.
So I personally feel kinda reconciled (though I do want to watch The Good Bits of the past season sometime soon to re-evaluate) but I realize this is small comfort to those who think of Angel S3 and go, "Ugh."
See, that I get. But again, they still have stuff that appeals to my overall theory of the way things work, that they still have me.
I get that it leads nowhere, but it hits my buttons so I'm there.
ETA: Strega is me, and damn do I feel honored saying that (though, for full disclosure, I should say I seriously disagreed with some opinions expressed in Angel recaps).
I should say I seriously disagreed with some opinions expressed in Angel recaps
Heh. And, honestly, no worries, I think everyone does. Including me, sometimes.
Well, I kinda figured being a recapper, you'd likely have a thick skin regarding that. You watch Jericho for jeebus sake.
Thanks for the Guardian link, Fiona. I think you & I are the only Life on Mars watchers right now.
The finale reinforced a feeling I've had, and it's one I'm glad to see onscreen. Ronald Moore's brief experience with Star Trek Voyager had me thinking.
Voyager was utterly unbelievable. Why? Because the characters responded to their situation... the same way one might respond if one is having trouble purchasing butter at the corner market. A number of people from the Federation are cast adrift, far from home with no certain return, and their mood is that of people sitting in a cafe, musing over the insufficient proportion of cinnamon atop their lattes. Merde.
Society is, I've always believed, a shared web of illusions that help people feel comfortable in chaos. Civilization can be easily stripped away. You take their certainties, their foundation, their jobs, their feeling of being a part of something... and humans can revert to, well, anything. In a situation like the one we're supposed to accept on Star Trek Voyager — and on Galactica — I expect to see only tattered shreds of whatever civilization they once had, that has been stripped from them. I expect to see a society milling on the edge of mob violence, and sometimes teetering over. I expect to see people clinging to many things that drift past, exchanging one belief for another, anything that will give them comfort for one day. Struggling to assert some sense of order upon a universe all too willing to laugh at the theater of human control. Star Trek Voyager failed. But for me, Battlestar Galactica often succeeds.
(more…)
That trial was never, from the beginning, a trial. It was a show trial, an attempt to assert some sense of order over their lives. It was also, I agree with Lee, an attempt to purge their collective shame, to purge everything that had happened to them, and everything they had done, in one swift airlocky moment of cartharsis, charcoaled over in a child's drawing of orderly justice, dispensed as societies do. As the persons in that society agree "Now we are in control, now everything is all right because Justice is here and Those In Charge will help us feel safer."
A show trial, agreed upon because they all felt they needed it.
Of course, Baltar isn't like the rest of them. He truly is an individual nearly bereft of conscience, and every situation is seen in relation to him, and him alone. "Even now," said Six in the miniseries (and I paraphrase from memory), "with your world about to be destroyed, all you can think about is how it affects you. How do you do that?" It's who he is, it's the hollowness that is his soul. Some 40,000 humans losing their balance, falling off the cliff of civilization with no idea what to believe anymore, only nearly becoming what Baltar already is. Like them, he has painted over his hollowness with a civilized fresco, and yet his mask is only in reference to itself. Unlike the rest, he clings to no one. How could he? He barely sees them as people.
(more…)
This is what I want to see in season four: How do they find their footing? I can't imagine Baltar ever finding his soul, though that might be an interesting thing to see, if done right. But as for the rest... BadgerLawyer believes that the legal system is up and running, and civilization as he sees it has a place for him. But these people have a long journey, a need to find a shared belief and a shared hope that will sustain what is a shattered, traumatized mob in need of healing. Moore has allowed my willing suspension of disbelief quite a long way, and brought them all to the abyss, but it's time to see how they walk across together. The fourth season is said to be about what it means to be cylons, which could be interesting (mostly it seems to mean lots of bickering). But I'm far more interested in seeing what the fourth season says about all of these people finding out what it means to be alive... again.
All that said, the execution of the last act was beautiful. Loved the effect of the music against the nebula, the four going about their lives... and Kara, her face free of the trauma and despair that wracks the others, smiling and beckoning the way home at last.
I don't know what happens next, if it gets all hand-wavy, or worse, the even-more-questions-syndrome of Lost Peaks. But I did enjoy this finale on an emotional level. For just a while, I really don't care what it all means.
