Monday BSG - A Measure of Salvation
(A Measure of Salvation is the title of the episode, and not my feelings towards BSG. If they were all as good as 33 / Kobol's Last Gleaming / Scar / Exodus: Part 2, well then maybe.)
Ok. Here it is, and it came very quickly. This is the Waarthog episode. We have the opportunity to wipe out the Toasters. And almost everyone made the right choice. Nice to have you back, Airlock. Billy A. was a little skwishy, but he knew how to get it done when it came to it. The whole Dark Lee thing is finally starting to pay off a little (even if I had it figured out a long time before he did). Unfortunately the show that managed to convince me that they might actually blow up the title ship and change the name of the show to Battlestar: Pegasus did not for a moment convince me that they might take out the Big Bads. Ah, well.
I will say AGAIN, that I think that wiping out the entire cylon population is a questionable thing and something to be avoided and probably lamented. I think that if the Cols slugged it out over generations, found Earth, built themselves back up to a viable civilization, and found themselves with the power to turn off the bad guys once and for all, then no, I don't think that would be the right choice. If it were then this would be a very boring show and the cylons would be very boring characters. They wouldn't even be on the level of HAL. The fact that the cylons made a CHOICE to wipe out the human race means they have free will and all that implies. They may even have souls. This is science fiction and this is the conceit that we are presented with. Run with it. If they were JUST machines then they wouldn't be hated. Nobody hates the mill that blew up or the mine shaft that collapses. ANYWAY: Back to the We Win the Day and They Must All Die scenario. Well, if we can defend against the cylons then there is no reason to wipe them all out down to every last little mnemonic circuit. "They wiped us out, so we can wipe them out" is a dumb argument. You destroy (methodically and dispassionately) their means to make war against you and you do your level best to make friends. This method worked pretty well after WWII.
BUT that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking just over 40 thousand folks in the human race against an overwhelming force that may or may not insist on our total destruction (what day is it?). There is no margin. If you pass up this opportunity, there may not be another. This was really for all the marbles. Sorry, Carl. You made the right choice at the really really wrong time. Listen to your wife. This isn't a war for territory or even ideology. This is for survival. Act like it. Of course, he even has the line that makes this still a pretty terrific ep: "Let's keep this all about me." They do, and so the ep can be interesting, ask questions, draw some conclusions, and the only real frak up is Helo. Poor guy. Good thing none of those daring young men and women in their flying machines got into trouble (of the burning wreckage and death in the unforgiving blackness of space variety). I'd have liked to have seen the Agathons at THAT funeral. Get EyeTigh back in CiC, thanks.
Remember when Adama overthrew the Colonial government because Laura interfered with a military op? One that was going to take out a SINGLE base star? (Do they still call them basestars, or am I channeling 1978?) Now with Helo he's just going to let it slide. I wonder how the crew talks about Wild Bill Adama? "Ok, you can TOTALLY break regs any way you want, just make sure you're necessary to the crew (not some third level launch deck flunky like Socinus) and whatever you do DON'T do anything that the old man will take personally (unless you've been involved with one or both of his sons)!" Wonder if any of those wacky spunks from Collaborators are still around? I think Helo's little field trip had better stay one of the best kept secrets in the fleet. Come to that, where IS Anders?
Speaking of Anders, Kara's back on flight status??? Guess she didn't tee of Adama THAT bad (see above). Heh, Hot Dog has a Mark VII and Kara has a Mark II. Wonder what Kat's flying? And where is the one-eyed drunken wonder this week? Nice to see ADA in a background shot. So, everyone hears about the discovery of the Lion's Eye (or whatever) AND a deserted toaster ship and THAT'S when they decide to get their hair done? (Airlock, Helo, and Gaeta, in case you missed it.)
The Gauis Baltar show was ok, it got pretty well overshadowed by the Helo story. And they didn't do anything particularly unexpected. When things start to go WELL for GB again, THAT will be surprising. The whole Three / Six / GB triangle is boring before it starts. (The Caprica Six / Chip Six / GB triangle is woefully undershown.) I'm not buying that Three is going to go all mushy over GB just because he said he loves her (under torture). John McCain probably loves her too. (Ouch, sorry.) OTOH, now that I think about it, GBs profession of undying (yet not very reliable) love for Six is always touching in a profoundly damaged kind of way. One really does have to think of how undeniably brilliant Gaius has to be that he was able to function at ALL back in the Colonies before the holocaust. If he ever came up anything like second best he would have been flushed away like the annoying, self-serving, incapable little rat that he is. I'm assuming he was already very successful before Six came along and wrote the Colonial Defense Systems for him and made him into the Colonies' answer to a combination of Stephen Hawking and Mick Jagger.
Still not watching to "next weeks", so I have no idea where we're going, but I'll be here next week with a new review. So say we all.
p.s. I was watching "33" last week and I realized how much longer the Boom Boom Booms were. They really hung on a shot so you could get a really good sense of time and place. Much more spoilery, I can see that. The new ones are much quicker, more punchy. THIS week, SWIMW flatly declared that Athena was going to save them all because she'd seen it in the BBBs. That's why I love them.
Ok. Here it is, and it came very quickly. This is the Waarthog episode. We have the opportunity to wipe out the Toasters. And almost everyone made the right choice. Nice to have you back, Airlock. Billy A. was a little skwishy, but he knew how to get it done when it came to it. The whole Dark Lee thing is finally starting to pay off a little (even if I had it figured out a long time before he did). Unfortunately the show that managed to convince me that they might actually blow up the title ship and change the name of the show to Battlestar: Pegasus did not for a moment convince me that they might take out the Big Bads. Ah, well.
I will say AGAIN, that I think that wiping out the entire cylon population is a questionable thing and something to be avoided and probably lamented. I think that if the Cols slugged it out over generations, found Earth, built themselves back up to a viable civilization, and found themselves with the power to turn off the bad guys once and for all, then no, I don't think that would be the right choice. If it were then this would be a very boring show and the cylons would be very boring characters. They wouldn't even be on the level of HAL. The fact that the cylons made a CHOICE to wipe out the human race means they have free will and all that implies. They may even have souls. This is science fiction and this is the conceit that we are presented with. Run with it. If they were JUST machines then they wouldn't be hated. Nobody hates the mill that blew up or the mine shaft that collapses. ANYWAY: Back to the We Win the Day and They Must All Die scenario. Well, if we can defend against the cylons then there is no reason to wipe them all out down to every last little mnemonic circuit. "They wiped us out, so we can wipe them out" is a dumb argument. You destroy (methodically and dispassionately) their means to make war against you and you do your level best to make friends. This method worked pretty well after WWII.
BUT that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking just over 40 thousand folks in the human race against an overwhelming force that may or may not insist on our total destruction (what day is it?). There is no margin. If you pass up this opportunity, there may not be another. This was really for all the marbles. Sorry, Carl. You made the right choice at the really really wrong time. Listen to your wife. This isn't a war for territory or even ideology. This is for survival. Act like it. Of course, he even has the line that makes this still a pretty terrific ep: "Let's keep this all about me." They do, and so the ep can be interesting, ask questions, draw some conclusions, and the only real frak up is Helo. Poor guy. Good thing none of those daring young men and women in their flying machines got into trouble (of the burning wreckage and death in the unforgiving blackness of space variety). I'd have liked to have seen the Agathons at THAT funeral. Get EyeTigh back in CiC, thanks.
Remember when Adama overthrew the Colonial government because Laura interfered with a military op? One that was going to take out a SINGLE base star? (Do they still call them basestars, or am I channeling 1978?) Now with Helo he's just going to let it slide. I wonder how the crew talks about Wild Bill Adama? "Ok, you can TOTALLY break regs any way you want, just make sure you're necessary to the crew (not some third level launch deck flunky like Socinus) and whatever you do DON'T do anything that the old man will take personally (unless you've been involved with one or both of his sons)!" Wonder if any of those wacky spunks from Collaborators are still around? I think Helo's little field trip had better stay one of the best kept secrets in the fleet. Come to that, where IS Anders?
Speaking of Anders, Kara's back on flight status??? Guess she didn't tee of Adama THAT bad (see above). Heh, Hot Dog has a Mark VII and Kara has a Mark II. Wonder what Kat's flying? And where is the one-eyed drunken wonder this week? Nice to see ADA in a background shot. So, everyone hears about the discovery of the Lion's Eye (or whatever) AND a deserted toaster ship and THAT'S when they decide to get their hair done? (Airlock, Helo, and Gaeta, in case you missed it.)
The Gauis Baltar show was ok, it got pretty well overshadowed by the Helo story. And they didn't do anything particularly unexpected. When things start to go WELL for GB again, THAT will be surprising. The whole Three / Six / GB triangle is boring before it starts. (The Caprica Six / Chip Six / GB triangle is woefully undershown.) I'm not buying that Three is going to go all mushy over GB just because he said he loves her (under torture). John McCain probably loves her too. (Ouch, sorry.) OTOH, now that I think about it, GBs profession of undying (yet not very reliable) love for Six is always touching in a profoundly damaged kind of way. One really does have to think of how undeniably brilliant Gaius has to be that he was able to function at ALL back in the Colonies before the holocaust. If he ever came up anything like second best he would have been flushed away like the annoying, self-serving, incapable little rat that he is. I'm assuming he was already very successful before Six came along and wrote the Colonial Defense Systems for him and made him into the Colonies' answer to a combination of Stephen Hawking and Mick Jagger.
Still not watching to "next weeks", so I have no idea where we're going, but I'll be here next week with a new review. So say we all.
p.s. I was watching "33" last week and I realized how much longer the Boom Boom Booms were. They really hung on a shot so you could get a really good sense of time and place. Much more spoilery, I can see that. The new ones are much quicker, more punchy. THIS week, SWIMW flatly declared that Athena was going to save them all because she'd seen it in the BBBs. That's why I love them.
p.p.s. On the Blood-Thirsty-War-Monger boards that I read (i.e. conservative, i.e. The Corner) this has been hailed as The Worst Episode Ever. These people must be Clockwork Oranged and made to watch Black Market again.
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