BSG 4.07 Guess what's coming to dinner
May. 21st, 2008 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hazelkI’m taking the title with its riff on Guess who’s coming to dinner as validating being interested in what the final fifth is and not who.
Ever since Crossroads things have felt different, it’s as if someone’s put something in the music. The music on BSG has always been distinctive, often brilliant but it’s always been part of the background ambience never something you’d assume the characters could hear too. Then with All Along the Watchtower the subtext suddenly became text, the non-diegetic diegetic, sea level was breached and it’s as if someone jammed the floodgates open. My auditory memory is pretty shaky so if in previous seasons the characters had their own musical themes I didn’t notice but now even I can recognize the Dylan every time one of the final four hoves into view. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It seemed bad the first time but I’ve been softening to the whole thing (although quoting the actual lyrics remains a mortal sin) and it’s become almost textual with Lebonen’s babble about vibrations only Kara can hear. Even though it isn’t literally true it feels as if between the hybrid’s ramblings and RadioBaltar the BSG universe has acquired its own soundtrack to which Gatea’s lament is the most recent addition.
Quick aside – I suppose there’s not much musical precedent for mourning lost appendages. Footloose maybe but that’s a little upbeat.
I’m glad the Gatea’s get a voice in this, that there’s still a place, albeit a bitter one, for those whose collective unconsciousness is broken, who can’t join the rush to assimilate into this grand new destiny. As far as Destiny is concerned they might as well be dust or dinosaurs although really it’s worse than that, Destiny isn’t just indifferent to sacrifice, it demands it. Every step on the way has required a death, the priestess in Home, D’Anna and the Threes for the Eye of Jupiter, the nameless Eight whose blood triggered the Hybrid into talking prophecy, Natalie for this latest development. Not to mention the billions who died just to get this whole “must find Earth” show on the road.
The Opera House vision now seems to end with Hera being carried into the light and the doors slamming behind her shutting out Roslin and Athena, human and Cylon both. I wonder if for all the Greek trappings the series might not be going for a Ragnarök ending. The universe consuming itself in fire and ice, gods and giants both destroyed in the struggle and the new world rising with only Hera and Nicky left to populate it.
Ever since Crossroads things have felt different, it’s as if someone’s put something in the music. The music on BSG has always been distinctive, often brilliant but it’s always been part of the background ambience never something you’d assume the characters could hear too. Then with All Along the Watchtower the subtext suddenly became text, the non-diegetic diegetic, sea level was breached and it’s as if someone jammed the floodgates open. My auditory memory is pretty shaky so if in previous seasons the characters had their own musical themes I didn’t notice but now even I can recognize the Dylan every time one of the final four hoves into view. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It seemed bad the first time but I’ve been softening to the whole thing (although quoting the actual lyrics remains a mortal sin) and it’s become almost textual with Lebonen’s babble about vibrations only Kara can hear. Even though it isn’t literally true it feels as if between the hybrid’s ramblings and RadioBaltar the BSG universe has acquired its own soundtrack to which Gatea’s lament is the most recent addition.
Quick aside – I suppose there’s not much musical precedent for mourning lost appendages. Footloose maybe but that’s a little upbeat.
I’m glad the Gatea’s get a voice in this, that there’s still a place, albeit a bitter one, for those whose collective unconsciousness is broken, who can’t join the rush to assimilate into this grand new destiny. As far as Destiny is concerned they might as well be dust or dinosaurs although really it’s worse than that, Destiny isn’t just indifferent to sacrifice, it demands it. Every step on the way has required a death, the priestess in Home, D’Anna and the Threes for the Eye of Jupiter, the nameless Eight whose blood triggered the Hybrid into talking prophecy, Natalie for this latest development. Not to mention the billions who died just to get this whole “must find Earth” show on the road.
The Opera House vision now seems to end with Hera being carried into the light and the doors slamming behind her shutting out Roslin and Athena, human and Cylon both. I wonder if for all the Greek trappings the series might not be going for a Ragnarök ending. The universe consuming itself in fire and ice, gods and giants both destroyed in the struggle and the new world rising with only Hera and Nicky left to populate it.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 08:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 12:45 pm (UTC)I was linked to it just a few days ago and read the whole archive in one sitting. I found it extremely interesting and rather enlightening.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 08:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 02:04 am (UTC)"You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace."
They all have to die, IMO. I'm thinking... en masse resurrection via a rewired Cylon resurrection ship.
I was going to put a smiley face at the end of that sentence, but perhaps I shouldn't tempt destiny. LOL.
The character-specific music is literally becoming a groove: the soundtrack of destiny?
no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 08:27 am (UTC)