BSG 3.08: Heroes

[hazelk]

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend

Did anyone else find the resolution to this one reminiscent of the famous line from The Man who shot Liberty Valence? Still if they can have Laura Roslin transform into Nelson Mandela for the resolution to Collaborators aping John Ford is no big deal. There is a problem, as with the earlier episode, of whether the TV series really has the weight to carry the themes of its illustrious predecessors. Collaborators made me wish they’d spent longer on New Caprica. If only to give the audience time to appreciate how the Circle members might have had feelings towards Felix Gaeta to match those of Holocaust sufferers to a supposed Martin Boorman. In Heroes too the ending felt just a little over neat, especially with respect to Tigh coming around. Some of this is a problem with watching in real time as opposed to on DVD, being forced to wait generates less confidence that the series will follow everything up than when you can gorge on 3-4 episodes in one run.

The main controversy about the episode seems to be about retconning Adama’s pre-series history by having him assigned to Galactica only a years before retiring. It’s rather like the arguments over whether Buffy could have been institutionalised. In both cases fans can point out several items of dialogue that appear to refute the new history but Buffy never flat out says she wasn’t and Adama talks about people have been with him or on ‘this ship’ but doesn’t name it. In both cases I’m happy to go with the new version of history because, whether or not it contradicts the precise details of previous dialogue, it explains something important about the character much better than previous assumptions. It’s emotionally truer. Adama’s doubts about the worthiness of humanity make one hell of a lot more sense in the light of the possibility that he and the military might have precipitated the war and that works best if he felt himself part of the military hierarchy at that time not someone living out their retirement on some old bucket. It also makes far more sense of the respect nay deference that the crew show him right from the beginning.

It is true that the problem might have been made much easier had the infamous black ops mission been supposed to take place three or four years before the bombs. I assume the writers didn’t do that because it would have made Adama’s fear that he started the war much harder for the audience to argue against. I like it as they’ve left it. Adama really has no call to play matyr and blame himself alone although one can see why as a military man he might feel that he broke the military rules and deserves to. But what he did was more like the shooting of Archduke Ferdinand than the invasion of Poland. It may have precipitated a war but only because one or both sides were spoiling for one.

Then there’s the basestar and D’Anna getting interesting. Around the beginning of S2 when Laura Roslin was at her most devout-seeming I wondered if there might be intentional parallels between her and Six but I can definitely see the potential for them with Three the way things are going. Admittedly this feeling began by trying to think of archetypal teenagers to go with each cylon, with Ron Moore talking about their emotional adolescence. Brother “and they tried to hurt me” Cavil is Harry Enfield’s “Kevin,” Lebonen is Neil from The Young Ones and D’Anna has a definite air of the head girl Heather from Heathers. One day she’ll make a fine Minister of Education. There’s the faith thing, both of them are ready to believe but neither has Six’s certainty. And the dreams and the Hera obsession and now the brush with death. OK maybe the head girl analogy is more to the point. Three’s trying to be Caprica cool and going all kablooey and self harming to prove it.

Comments

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you find the retcon emotionally true. I wasn't actually bothered by the "which ship was he on" thing, but I was (as I just posted) bothered about this guilt Adama's supposedly been carrying all this time. I can certainly see how that has informed his choices this season, but I can find nothing of this guilt in Olmos' performances in S1-S2, so it feels very emotionally *un*true to me.

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

I think that Adama didn't think about it until they rescued Dixon...he thought they'd killed him, and that the Cylons didn't find out about the incursion. Realizing that Dixon was indeed a captive, and that the Cylons probably found out about the boundary breaking before the attack on Caprica..well, that is pretty guilt provoking.
I didn't mind the retcon either..seems entirely possible that he was "rewarded" with the retirement of Galactica for his part in the black ops thing.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Well for me it's all follow up to his impromtu retirement speech in the mini-series and the questioning of whether humanity deserves to survive. That doubt shows through in his willingness to listen to Sharon making the same point in their conversations in the second season and in his ambivalence about the genocide in 3:07. He's the military he should be all for obliterating the enemy but he stands back and makes Roslin make the decision and won't prosecute Helo. These are just bullet points but I think they illustrate a more general trait, a reticence, a general with doubts.

I don't think we're supposed to believe that all this time Adama has been habouring the guilty secret that he "started it." Like Jane says below I don't think he interpreted things that way untill Bulldog came back. But I do think he saw shooting down Bulldog, using him as you pointed out in your review, as an example of man's inhumanity to man and he did know that the military weren't just sitting and waiting for the Cylons to come to the table. He had doubts, doubts about humanity's innocence, which I had thought might relate to the original war but this works just as well. Better. I think he jumped at the chance to take all the blame because it's actually easier to live with the idea that you're the one bad apple than go on suspecting that your whole society is rotten to the core.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Good point about Adama's overall dubiousness about humanity's right to survive, but I always put that down to a general sense of cynicism -- it was one of the things I really liked about him, that he didn't think people were unquestionably good or unquestionably worthy or incapable of doing wrong just because they are at war. Now I'm vaguely disappointed to find that this is coming from something he personally did, rather than just being part of his worldview.

I think he jumped at the chance to take all the blame because it's actually easier to live with the idea that you're the one bad apple than go on suspecting that your whole society is rotten to the core.

That's certainly an understandable motivation, but it really changes the character for me.

[c-mantix.livejournal.com]

The main reveal of Heroes (that Adama is possibly responsible for the initial Cylon attack) 'should' have resonated much more (it might even have made a great series ender) but was dampened by some strange narrative choices. For example: the Battlestar let a Raider land on its flight deck, wtf?

I continue to follow the Cylon subplot because I'm curious about how they'll get themselves off the bloody basestar.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I saw it as more of a red herring reveal, the real point being Roslin's that many things good and bad on the human side could have precipitated it. It's setting up some more doubts about the whole history of human/cylon realtions being as back and white as both sides wish to believe. I find that more interesting than the rather comic-book idea that one man be responsible.

Was letting the raider land after Adama recognised the distress call and they'd seen the other two chasing it and ignoring the vipers such a dumb decision? The carrying capacity was rather small for it to be very effective as a standard Trojan Horse.

[c-mantix.livejournal.com]

I like your take on why the primary drama was diverted and shall adopt it wholesale (hee). I do hope that it will serve the greater good/history for the rest of the season and that this plot point rears its head again.

Regarding the raider, as it was approaching Galactica and then landing, I was thinking about all the destruction that one small beacon did to the Cylon basestar in the previous episodes! I was completely expecting the Cylons to reciprocate with their own viral Trojan Horse and was surprised that Bulldog wasn't infected with bubonic plague or some such disease.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

You know as I was writng that I was just thinking "I'm not going to get away with this one." *g* Although the possibility that occurred to me was that it might have been a suicide nuke rather than a biological weapon. It's a TV convention I suppose that stories accquire temporary immunity to recently used plot points. And why is it only on TV that vaccines are something you give people to cure diseases after they get them? I mean surely even writers know you don't treat measles with MMR injections.

[laii.livejournal.com]

teehee. i can totally see that correlation now! And we just watched The Man who shot Liberty Valence before the Turkey Weekend in my English class.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

English classes have changed for the better :-)