BSG 3:14 The Woman King

[hazelk]

I loved the teaser as the crowds spilled into the over occupied deck and the look on Helo's face as the 'disease' warning light clicked on in his brain with geneocidal aftertaste. And then they had to spoil it all with the whole Saggitaron thing. I should declare a bias - possibly my least favourite sf trope is the one about racism/bigotry/predjudice against an invented race/religion/ethnicity. It may have been all fine and ground-breaking when Star Trek did that episode about the half white, half black planet where the only thing that mattered was which side was which. 50 years on those issues can be addressed directly with all the complexity and weight of history that such things have in the real world. Forty minutes of TV doesn't have sufficient baggage to come even close.

They tried, they really tried from personalising Tigh's 'one of us' attitude with the collaborators/resistance angle, to Sharon's non-interest in fellow non-Capricans, to Helo's suspicions that even liberal nobility (and he is noble) may have pathological roots, to Dee showing that not all Sagitarons spoke with one voice. But they completely blew it when Dr Roberts was revealed to be Harold Shipman with a mission, so obviously bad that even Saul Tigh could see the error and the audience could pat themselves on the back for siding with Helo (and I like Helo, I do). Because all that oppressed people everywhere need is a honky.

All that aside the episode did contain two fantastic non-A plot related scenes. Firstly Roslin, Tory and Zareck in conference about Baltar's trial. Her certainty that the guilty verdict was just a formality that had to be passed through to reach go. Zareck's fear of what it might unleash. Her recognition of that fear. The woman is smart and hardcore and compromised in reverse order. Then the Six/Head Baltar convo (and Roslin watching and wondering WTF she was watching). Six wants to be human but to be human is to be entirely self-interested. Which is how the Gaius she knew on Caprica quite straightforwardly was and on New Caprica only slightly more subtley so but is also absolutely what the Cylon would believe of any human, each of them so unique, alone in a way impossible to comprehend.

ETA
Just to be contrary about the impossibility of good sf Otherism I do think having a clonal robot opponent does allow the show to say thing about reactions and relationships to 'the enemy' beyond what a more realistic piece of work could easily convey. Unlike the Saggitaron problem, that relationship has been building throughout the series. Moreover, from the beginning it's had an ambiguity, a fluidity about who the Cylons are a metaphor for, them or us or them again, which gives it real weight.

Comments

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

they had to spoil it all with the whole Saggitaron thing. I should declare a bias - possibly my least favourite sf trope is the one about racism/bigotry/predjudice against an invented race/religion/ethnicity.

I am not sure it was actually the point even though it kind of came out that way because of poor writing. See my second LJ entry on the episode.

[abrakadabrah.livejournal.com]

Hee, I just wrote more or less the same thing - only it sounded a lot less erudite!!!

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Wah! I was so trying to be mean. Punch-pullling and tongue-biting no more.