BSG Watch: Honey, I Can 'Splain!
Spoilers for Friday's Battlestar Galactica coming up after the jump:
I'm back. Kind of. First, I want to offer a public thanks to TIME's Richard Corliss and John Cloud for their volunteer guest-blogging last week. It's a nice feeling to fire up your browser, go to your blog, and see that somebody has already written something for you there. A guy could get used to that.
That said, I feel I owe an apology, at least to John. He got stuck reviewing the weakest episode of Lost so far this season (more on that later, time permitting). And only the intervention of the hotel cable service kept him from drawing duty on a surprisingly off BSG.
Now, before I complain about the episode, I should first say that I don't agree with the complaints I've already seen in other recaps and comments: that BSG squandered one of the few remaining hours on a "character episode." What makes BSG a great series rather than just a cool story is that it has always been a layered character saga—even though Sci Fi and a fair chunk of the fan base would probably be just as happy with one episode after another of heavy Cylon mythology, like we got last week.
But when you do character stories, you have a responsibility to have the characters behave, well, in character, and not to change their characters in service to the plot. This week's BSG offended on a few fronts, but the main problem was Ellen.
I can't fault Kate Vernon's performance, because the fault lies with the whiplash turns of character the last two scripts have required of her. Aboard the baseship with Cavil, we saw a far different Ellen from the scheming boozehound of earlier seasons, before her death. Presumably—given what we were told about the Five and how Cavil fiddled with their mental circuitry—this was the default Ellen, or Ellen as her personality existed pre-Cavil. This Ellen was generous, rational, mature, forgiving, self-aware and—a big shift from when we saw her last—tremendously composed, able to measure her reactions and control her behavior in a high-stress situation. This episode, Ellen stepped off the Raptor, and while her bearing was different, in about five seconds flat she became Old School Ellen again.
Now there are reasons that her behavior might swing wildly aboard Galactica. (Though the fact that your viewers have to work at rationalizations for a character shift is itself a sign something is wrong.) For starters, she was reunited with Tigh. This, no doubt, was what their reunion-frak scene was meant to convey—that once they saw each other, the old dysfunction and fire clicked into gear again. And of course, there was the little matter of Tigh having knocked up Caprica Six—naturally, dude would have some 'splainin' to do. It would have been unrealistic for there not to be fallout.
But this fallout? Lashing out and manipulating in the same petty way that pre-New Caprica Ellen would have? I couldn't buy it. Consider: Ellen has undergone an experience that more or less makes her the most literally self-aware person/Cylon ever to have existed. She has recovered memories of thousands of years of her existence, has confronted the results of the Five's creation of the skinjobs, and learned Cavil's role in making her what she was. For all that, she still loved the sadistic, fratricidal Cavil as her own son.
Now that Ellen returns to Galactica and finds that Saul—who not only believed her dead but was unaware of the Five's creation of the skinjobs—and not only does she not take this into consideration, but she jeopardizes the future of the Cylons out of personal hurt? How does this comport with the way we saw her on the Baseship? Should we assume she might have acted better if only she had gotten a yoga session in?
OK—we have to consider emotion. She could not but be devastated by Saul and Six's coupling, and it's believable that she would consider it to be incest. But that makes her behavior simultaneously too absolutist (about the "infidelity") and too forgiving (about the "incest"). You could make a good argument that for a "mother," Saul's violation of their "daughter" was the greater offense than his finding another woman. (Not to mention, oh yeah, his having killed her, which does not keep her from wanting him back.) In that case, though, it makes absolutely no sense that Ellen would treat Caprica—her badly used daughter, in this reading—like a romantic rival, threaten to reveal her to Cavil and possibly cause her miscarriage. (Again, this is the Ellen who told Cavil she loved him, even after Daniel, his Oedipal rape of her, and all the rest.)
In fact, for the newly aware Ellen to be anguished by Six's pregnancy and Saul''s betrayal—and yet, to realize that the greater good requires her to manage her emotion—would not only have been more in character with New Old Ellen of the baseship, but it would have been a more emotionally interesting story than the soap opera love triangle that played out. (It also could have played more on Adama as the true object of Ellen's jealousy, the one redeeming feature of the episode's climax.) To have her suddenly become Old Ellen, on the other hand, went beyond simply falling back into old emotional patterns—it seemed more like temporary, and plot-contrived, insanity.
Because the only way I can explain Ellen's swing is that it was driven by plot. There needed to be conflict—in this case the drama over whether the Five would leave the fleet. The Tigh-Caprica relationship (and the pregnancy) needed to be driven to crisis. And so the script undermined the fascinating transformation of Ellen's character that we'd seen just a week ago. Combined with some other character swings—Tyrol's inexplicable vote to leave the fleet (which again seemed driven simply by the need for a deadlocked vote) and Baltar's lurch once again from true believer to fraud—made this episode a letdown.
That said, the cast did good work with what they were given, particularly Michael Hogan and Tricia Helfer, whose scenes in the sick bay and with (respectively) Adama and Roslin were gut-wrenching. And given that the resolution of the love triangle seemed largely limited to this episode, I'm ready to look past it and move on. Maybe Ellen is, too.
[Oh, a bonus question, since we never got to discuss the Cylon backstory from last week. Now that we know the origin of the Cylon models—Kobol's humans begat the Thirteenth tribe, who begat the skinjobs for the Centurions—what does this mean about the relationship of BSG's "Earth" to our Earth? Is it our Earth or, as it would now seem, a similar planet that, in this story, happens to have the same name? That is, the Earth Cylons, if I'm not mistaken, knew that they were Cylons, and knew how they came to Earth, correct? They didn't believe they had evolved from Australopithecines and later come to discover their true origins, right? Because otherwise—talk about an intelligent design theory. Apologies if this has been covered here or was explained in the episode and I somehow missed it.]
I'm well over a thousand words, have barely even touched on the other storylines of the episode and am still, technically, on vacation. So I'll let you discuss the human-Cylon merge, Galactica's osteoporosis, the piano in the bar and Baltar's harem/army in the comments. Good to be back.
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1
I believe that Ellen's animosity towards Caprica stemmed from jealousy. While I do think that her behavior seemed jarring having just come from last week's episode, I also think we have to take into consideration her belief that Love is what is required to make a Cylon child, and if Tigh was able to make one with Caprica, and not her, then what does that mean about their relationship? Ultimately I think she knows that Tigh loves her, but she's only human. Yeah, I said it.
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2
I absolutely agree, that this was a surprisingly weak episode, since there are only a few left. Rethorical Question: Why mention an eigth cylon, if it wouldn`t matter to the rest of the series?
Either Daniel will show up in the last 4 episodes or -more likely- in the follow-up/ prequel "Caprica".
Ellen described Daniel as a sensitive artist, if i remember correctly.
Could this have anything to do with Felix Gaeta`s passion for painting and architecture, revealed in one of his last scenes, and his wish, that "one day people will understand, who i really am"?
I mean after all the wriers add details like that for a purpose. -
3
Thanks, James! I was worried I was just being cranky in my reaction to this episode (I have a friend who accuses me of picking apart every show we watch). I love BSG and will watch it to the bitter end even if ALF shows up as the supreme lord of Kobol. However, this episode bothered me, for many of the reasons you lay out:
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For one thing, Ellen Tigh just doesn't do it for me. I especially can't reconcile last week's Ellen (all-knowing, preternaturally calm, mother/buddha extraordinaire) with this week's Ellen (jealous drunken harpy willing to destroy everything the F-5 was working for).
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Also, why does Tyrol want to leave the fleet? His character's been really muddy for me lately. One minute he's apparently completely misanthropic, the next minute he's ripping his fingernails out trying to save Adama's command and resuming his role of Chief, and now he's voting with no apparent reservations to abandon Galactica. I know he's supposedly got nothing holding him there (dead wife, son not his, etc.), but it just doesn't quite gel.
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And SPEAKING of his son not being his, does anyone else get the impression that the writers suddenly realized they need Hera to be the only "special" child, so they give Tyrol's paternity to Hot Dog and kill Tigh and Caprica's baby? And if Hera's so freaking important, you'd think we'd see a little more of her (and Helo/Athena).
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Anyway, "Deadlock" had some nice moments, but generally speaking, the last two episodes have been frustrating for me. It feels like we're moving too fast (or at least learning too much too fast) while simultaneously spinning our wheels.
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Oh yeah, and why's everyone being so mean to Boomer? -
4
I didn't have a problem with what appeared to be a character change. In the previous episode she was in a bubble. By herself, locked in a room, and interacting only with Cavil and Boomer. And for what? A year and a half? The fact that her personality changed when she actually saw people again doesn't surprise me. Ultimately she is still an emotional creature, even if she is labeled "cylon." Personally, it appears to me that the issue wasn't the infidelity per se, it was the belief that the baby showed that Saul had never loved Ellen but did love Caprica. They had developed this deeply rooted belief that only love could create a baby, but Saul and Ellen had never been able to have one, for thousands of years. Then she comes back and suddenly he's gotten ANOTHER CYLON pregnant. That would be pretty traumatizing I think. The incest thing was only briefly mentioned and never really harped on.
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5
I don't have a problem with "character" episodes, in fact I prefer them. This just wasn't a very good one.
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Ellen's personality change problem is indicative of all of the final five. Who are they? Apparently Tigh loves "Adama, the ship, and the uniform" more than Ellen or Caprica6. So 40 years of an amnesiac bromance in the military is who Tigh really is (and always wanted to be before he was brainfrakked by Cavil), as opposed to thousands of years as a Cylon scientist/lover?
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@murdoc, I agree. Some fans have been debating this baby stuff for almost two years now. Perhaps they couldn't have known about Tyrol on New Caprica, but ultimately they should've taken responsibility and done the work to make those babies more integral with the mythology, instead of fudging things to get pieces in place for the endgame.
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@James, as for your bonus question, I really don't think the writers want to take on the issue of Darwin at this point. It would have been interesting to know where all those 20th Century business suits and American vernacular came from, but I think we'll have to let it go.
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(By the way, I've been staying away from Lost reviews lately because I love the show too much to be level-headed and I get really defensive and depressed. But I've had my problems with it lately (character-glossing, a lot like BSG), and I wanted to say that, despite a few problems, I liked this episode more than the last few. It felt like the old Lost again, instead of dramatic hood removals and murder by dishwasher. I really enjoyed the study of a changing Jack. While the intrigue behind the other O6 members was a little frustrating and at times logic-leaping, I liked how it created an ambiguous dread overshadowing Jack's POV. The more I think about it, the more I loved the whole creepy plane ride explanation - much more narratively satisfying & complex than finding a Stargate-like wormhole. Individual threads of fate (a guitar, handcuffs) adding up to a quantum deterministic equation!) -
6
Rereading that, it feels like I was too harsh on BSG. I guess I got caught up in the mob mentality. Next week's previews actually look really good.
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7
@murdoc: I totally agree that the writers are trying to get themselves out of the corner they wrote themselves into with the other babies.
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As for why all the Colonials are hating Boomer, she infiltrated the ship, caused acts of sabotage and shot Adama but -- at least from the perspective of the Colonials -- she never repented. In terms of the same folks at least accepting Athena's presence, I guess the Colonials are finally starting to think of each of the models as individuals and judging them on their actions. -
8
Yeah, this episode was just a relative mess.
Tyrol returns the favor of the defacto leader of the humans trusting the Cylons with the very symbol of their survival by voting "I'm out of here at the first opportunity?"
Caprica-Six's parent's and grandparent's squabbling kills a near immaculately conceived child?
Ellen is enraged that her ex-husband moved in with someone else two years into their extreme divorce?
I have to go on the internet to find out that Adama's decision to arm a cult to keep civilian peace is therefore merely dunderheaded as opposed to preposterous.
Just not a good use of time, when the clock is ticking away.
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Speaking of which, for Lost, yes, I understand your (and Sepinwall's, and etc.) opinion that the episode was weak - 35 minutes of Jack's spectatularly boring packing and Jesus foot-washing parallel, followed by ten minutes of interesting but (probably) unimportant mysteries out of the blue, is as exciting as watching someone till a field.
But the whole point of tilling a field is to enable new life to grow - and the seeds of Hawking orchestrating the O6's return, the backstory of Sawyer & Co. living in the DI era for three years (even if the timeline jumps are now suffering from diminished returns), should breath some new life in the show that is suffering from too many mysteries being answered years ago - even if (like BSG) we lament that they are not spending their time on the issues we want (and hoping they aren't spending that time because there are no good answers to our questions). -
9
I was totally disgusted by Ellen's reversion back to the canniving, jealous, manipulative person she was before the previous week. I had high hopes for her being a leader, bringing hope to the humans and cylons, and that was majorly disappointing.
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On the whole, I wasn't that bothered by this episode. I really liked Gaius having to adapt to the changes in his harem while he was away, and liked him trying to figure out what his own motivations were when he returned (merely regaining control or actually having a message worth speaking). I liked Galen watching Boomer sleep. And I felt terrible for Caprica 6 basically the whole time - its interesting how C6 has come sort of full circle, from orchestrating the genocide against humanity, to coming to terms with her own mortality, to creating new life that nobody thought possible, and having that life ripped away.
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I also liked the quiet scenes of Adama personally overseeing the "upgrades" to Galactica. They didn't seem overdone, I got a whole "butterfly and cocoon" vibe - that all these literal and figurative changes are quietly fermenting within the fleet, and that there is a transformation slowly taking place, and that something new is going to emerge. Watching Ellen and Tigh falling back into old patterns of dysfunction (which lead to disaster) was like a metaphor for how the old patterns and habits and animosities have gotten everyone into trouble over and over again. I thought it worked, for the most part.
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The conversation with Gaius and Adama about the fleet not being ready hits on what I've been feeling for awhile now - the fleet needs a frakking LEADER - someone to step up and find a new path, and show people how to get behind that new direction. -
10
I think this is probably the weakest episode of BSG I have seen in a long time. Its disappointing that it comes now when every BSG fan is clutching at each episode as if it were the last (and soon it will be). I can only assume that this episode was just maneuvering on the part the writers to set up the last three episodes.
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I don't really have much to add to what has been said here or on other blogs. The only thing I would like to remark on is how increasingly dissatisfied I am with the Baltar character. He was never a believable religious figure to me. I was glad to see that someone was usurping his power within the Church with Benefits, although there was never really any doubt as to who could out-maneuver who. What's-her-name never had a chance against the (formerly) great Gaius Baltar.
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eh. I have many more quibbles and squabbles with this episode, but I'm just going to forget them and hope that this week is better.
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So say we all. -
11
Do you think there was a Boomer/Tyrol scene that was edited out that might've made his vote make more sense? That's the only thing (besides the aforementioned expediency) that I can think of.
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12
[...] this season, I hit on something about the destroyed "Earth"--not that I was the only one to notice this--that I wish I had followed [...]
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