BSG 1.8-1.10
May. 10th, 2006 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelkOne more disc to go. It’s still building so I feel confident that something’s going to happen even though it could be argued that nothing has changed about the overall situation since the first episode.
Flesh and Bone
The teaser begins with a dream sequence, which I adored. President Roslin goes into the woods. The woman in white meets the big bad wolf and her answer blows away in the wind.
For the most part the episode follows Starbuck’s interrogation of a captured cylon stowaway who claims to have planted a bomb, a ‘conversation’ which repeatedly brings up the issue of who’s human. She senses his need to prove himself more than a machine by enduring whatever torture she has to throw at him. He unsettles her with metaphysical speculation and shrewd guesses about her mommy issues. It’s very well played but feels a little as if punches are being pulled. Meanwhile in subplot land Caprica!Sharon throws her lot in with human Helo, as Caprica!Six says “she acts like one, she thinks like one, she is one.” Score for nurture. Galactica!Sharon, who unlike her counterpart isn’t yet aware of her cylon nature, has her humanity tested by Gaius. Who lies to her about the results. According to Six this is because he fears that the truth would incite the newly revealed cylon to rise up against him. But why continue to keep the results secret when she’s left the room? Baltar is nothing if not a complete physical coward but since the last episode there are things he fears more than just getting his head ripped off. Clearly Six wants him not to tell and what God wants she gets. Anything that she not abandon him once more.
In the final act Roslin visits the torture cell to make the oblique commentary on events like those of Abu Ghraib rather daringly explicit. From a liberal point of view there’s some interesting ambiguity in the way that the cylon ‘victim’ is dehumanised by fact of nature not just in the eyes of his interrogators. But even metaphysically justifiable torture achieves nothing in terms of useful information. Roslin’s dream comes true and again the idea of visionary leaders is one I instinctively distrust but while her prescience appears genuine the end effect of it is to render her vulnerable to exactly the sort of divisive manipulation she has the cylon terminated for.
Tigh me up Tigh me down
Was this a funny episode? The big philosophical issue of who’s human gets the French farce treatment with soundtrack to match. Test Adama, no test Ellen, no Adama. Gaius gets caught in the act and Tigh’s ex-wife is a footsie-playing, loose cannon whether man or machine. I like the treatment of Roslin here. Ellen’s jibe about the president’s kindergarten origins hit home and her half-angry, half-scared response, her doubts make her very human. These things aside the episode did hit two pet peeves. One the treatment of science/scientists – Gaius’s test is supposed to be completely reliable but it’s such a sensitive and complicated procedure that only he can carry it out and his word is taken as law without any suggestion of the need for controls or double blind trials. The politicians seem to treat him as a court magician, as if explaining the magic will render it ineffective. For the second annoyance blame Captain Kirk. In discussing the Helo/Sharon affair Six and her co-conspirator express an envy of the former’s ability to feel strong emotion. Please, not the aliens-have-no-emotions cliché (kill them now Spock).
The Hand of God
In the next episode it’s intuition not emotion that’s the issue. The cylons have control of the last dilithium or whatever crystals in the universe and the humans plan an attack. Starbuck gets called in to come up with tactics sufficiently crazy that the ever-logical machines won’t see them coming. Six tells Gaius to open his mind to God and make a wild guess at the weak point in the cylon base. These machines may not be capable of intuitive leaps but they certainly respect the process. Hell, they worship it. During the attack Lee also exercises his latent intuition and sets off down a tunnel in a flight of faith to find the target at its end. And duh it’s not about intuition. It’s about sex. The God-approved pro-creative form. The Viper like a sperm head twisting up the tube to explosive conception. Gaius relaxing back post-coitally to the realisation that he’s an instrument of God. And if he’s the instrument, Sharon’s morning sickness reveals her as the vessel. Love is the plan, the plan is death.
Flesh and Bone
The teaser begins with a dream sequence, which I adored. President Roslin goes into the woods. The woman in white meets the big bad wolf and her answer blows away in the wind.
For the most part the episode follows Starbuck’s interrogation of a captured cylon stowaway who claims to have planted a bomb, a ‘conversation’ which repeatedly brings up the issue of who’s human. She senses his need to prove himself more than a machine by enduring whatever torture she has to throw at him. He unsettles her with metaphysical speculation and shrewd guesses about her mommy issues. It’s very well played but feels a little as if punches are being pulled. Meanwhile in subplot land Caprica!Sharon throws her lot in with human Helo, as Caprica!Six says “she acts like one, she thinks like one, she is one.” Score for nurture. Galactica!Sharon, who unlike her counterpart isn’t yet aware of her cylon nature, has her humanity tested by Gaius. Who lies to her about the results. According to Six this is because he fears that the truth would incite the newly revealed cylon to rise up against him. But why continue to keep the results secret when she’s left the room? Baltar is nothing if not a complete physical coward but since the last episode there are things he fears more than just getting his head ripped off. Clearly Six wants him not to tell and what God wants she gets. Anything that she not abandon him once more.
In the final act Roslin visits the torture cell to make the oblique commentary on events like those of Abu Ghraib rather daringly explicit. From a liberal point of view there’s some interesting ambiguity in the way that the cylon ‘victim’ is dehumanised by fact of nature not just in the eyes of his interrogators. But even metaphysically justifiable torture achieves nothing in terms of useful information. Roslin’s dream comes true and again the idea of visionary leaders is one I instinctively distrust but while her prescience appears genuine the end effect of it is to render her vulnerable to exactly the sort of divisive manipulation she has the cylon terminated for.
Tigh me up Tigh me down
Was this a funny episode? The big philosophical issue of who’s human gets the French farce treatment with soundtrack to match. Test Adama, no test Ellen, no Adama. Gaius gets caught in the act and Tigh’s ex-wife is a footsie-playing, loose cannon whether man or machine. I like the treatment of Roslin here. Ellen’s jibe about the president’s kindergarten origins hit home and her half-angry, half-scared response, her doubts make her very human. These things aside the episode did hit two pet peeves. One the treatment of science/scientists – Gaius’s test is supposed to be completely reliable but it’s such a sensitive and complicated procedure that only he can carry it out and his word is taken as law without any suggestion of the need for controls or double blind trials. The politicians seem to treat him as a court magician, as if explaining the magic will render it ineffective. For the second annoyance blame Captain Kirk. In discussing the Helo/Sharon affair Six and her co-conspirator express an envy of the former’s ability to feel strong emotion. Please, not the aliens-have-no-emotions cliché (kill them now Spock).
The Hand of God
In the next episode it’s intuition not emotion that’s the issue. The cylons have control of the last dilithium or whatever crystals in the universe and the humans plan an attack. Starbuck gets called in to come up with tactics sufficiently crazy that the ever-logical machines won’t see them coming. Six tells Gaius to open his mind to God and make a wild guess at the weak point in the cylon base. These machines may not be capable of intuitive leaps but they certainly respect the process. Hell, they worship it. During the attack Lee also exercises his latent intuition and sets off down a tunnel in a flight of faith to find the target at its end. And duh it’s not about intuition. It’s about sex. The God-approved pro-creative form. The Viper like a sperm head twisting up the tube to explosive conception. Gaius relaxing back post-coitally to the realisation that he’s an instrument of God. And if he’s the instrument, Sharon’s morning sickness reveals her as the vessel. Love is the plan, the plan is death.