episode: battlestar galactica, "someone to watch over me" (4.19)

I thought "Someone to Watch Over Me" was a wonderfully written, visually compelling character-driven episode of Battlestar Galactica, and whereas some people may have felt underwhelmed by the emphasis on love (and with it, absence and betrayal) and wanted a stronger pursuit of dogfights and/or mythology, personally, I think that understanding these characters more will provide for an explosive last few episodes. (I teared up a little when I typed that.) Think about it. A lot actually happened in this episode. We were introduced to Sonia, a Number Six model who has replaced Natalie as the leader of the Cylons. (And I'm assuming she was the Number Six that was at Caprica Six's side in the hospital last week.) Boomer took Hera (more on that below), so now Cavil has the "special" hybrid child. And Boomer pretty much hit Adama with a "point of no return" ultimatum: attempt to shoot her down with Hera on board, and she will jump. Adama didn't back down (boy, he didn't!) and Boomer's jump ripped pieces of Galactica apart. I don't think there's any doubt that the ship Galactica is the "dying leader" of the Pythia prophecies.

Am I forgetting any-- Oh right. Starbuck's dad is Daniel. And kudos to the writers of this episode, David Weddle and Bradley Thompson, for providing this information in such a dramatic way.

Because this episode was primarily about three pivotal characters -- Starbuck, the Chief, and Boomer -- I have divided my thoughts by their character-specific narratives, but in no way do I see these narratives as isolated from one another. The very climax of the episode was heightened by the editor's decision to make Dreilide Thrace's song the connective tissue between the Final Five('s recognition of the song), Tyrol (entering into an empty home), Boomer (jumping), and Starbuck (reawakening from an infantilized state of being). Extremely well done, I say to you, sirs.

Starbuck: First of all, the opening of this episode was brilliant -- and I know I tend to overuse that word a lot with this show, but to be fair, I don't use that word very often elsewhere. BSG is my Plato's Form of the Real, to which everything else must be compared. The episode begins with a montage of Starbuck's routine. This exploration of the quotidian is interesting not simply because she's found herself trapped in monotony*, but because her recitation of the crew's mission (as she is the CAG, once again) comes to her in passing. She is not concentrating on remembering her lines, nor is she preparing for her presentation. As she mentions, "Our mission is the same as it was last week. And the week before. And the week before that." In one simple line, we, the audience, finally find out what the pilots have been doing these past week and what the goal is they're reaching towards. So in this opening montage, it's not just about Starbuck feeling trapped -- because "trapped" implies that one can eventually escape, and as Maurice Blanchot would argue, the everyday escapes [you] and thus you cannot escape it. The opening montage is instead about the despair and desperation found in the everyday. BSG has traveled this road before, most notably with Dualla. The everyday can sometimes be the hardest part of living.

* I particularly appreciated the multiple shots of Starbuck in the shower. She didn't do much other than shower, and there wasn't a strong differentiation between these scenes (she wasn't angry in one, sad in another, for example). And this visual redundancy further emphasized the state of not-being that Starbuck experiences throughout the entire episode.

I had a conversation with my BSG comrades J&G last night, and J. has a difficult time caring for Kara Thrace because she seems to bounce from man to man, taking what she wants from them and discarding them when it's uncomfortable for her. We eventually came to appreciate the fact that people like this exist in the real world (we call them narcissistic self-centered assholes...), but for J., he wants to see a redemptive moment from a character like that. I, on the other hand, because I know of Kara's history with an abusive mother and absent father and losing Zak Adama, I don't need her to bounce back. It's not that she "uses" these men -- Lee, Leoben, and Sam -- but that she gets specific answers from each of them. With Lee, their relationship revolves around competition and action, and he's really the only person she truly trusts. But Kara is a self-destructive person who doesn't think she deserves happiness (because of her mother and because of Zak's death, which she blames herself for), and so her relationship with Lee can never fully flourish because she doesn't trust herself enough to be with him. From Leoben, she gets religious answers -- and his prophetic utterances mirror her mother's assertion that she is special and needs to fulfill that role better -- but Leoben leaves her at the very moment when Kara loses her concept of self. "Kara" is a fighter pilot, but on Earth, she discovered that "Kara" is dead and she has no idea who (or what) she is anymore. And Leoben can't provide those answers anymore. He doesn't know who or what she is either. And then there's Sam Anders, who represents civilian life and normalcy, a side of humanity that Kara never thought she could be part of. When you think of previous Starbuck-centered episodes, she constantly puts herself out on the field (or out in space, rather), even if her chances of dying are 110% likely. That's why "Maelstrom" was such an interesting episode because Kara, I think, has this secret death wish. Dying in battle, dying in a moment of glory, would hold more meaning to her than, say, living on New Caprica and having a life with Anders. And of course, we don't get to see that domestic side of Starbuck for very long before she's held captive by Leoben. And perhaps there's a reason for that. "Domestic Kara" is not Kara at all. So Anders represents this life of normalcy (he's not a soldier, a concept that primarily makes up her identity), and with Anders in the hospital -- and Lee in political circulation -- she really has no one left to provide her with answers. What does she do? She goes to the bar, downs a few shots, and then imagines -- projects? -- a pianist.

I'm not going to go into specifics about her scenes with this pianist, other than to say that they were very well done. Katee Sackoff did some of her best acting in this episode, and a particular highlight is when she tries to press the piano keys and can't. In that moment, she's crying -- but it's not a scene of self-pity. It's a scene of hardened determination. She wants to play the keys as to prove to herself that she can, that the memory of her absent father will not keep from making her own decisions, but instead she cries and she hides these tears from the piano player. Others have compared the ending reveal -- the pianist was never really there -- to The Sixth Sense, but I think that's unfair because that gimmick has been around a lot longer than that movie. But what was particularly satisfying about the reveal was that Starbuck was NOT shown to be shocked. It wasn't really a reveal -- and let's be honest, most of us (should have) figured this out long before the ending, namely since the pianist didn't talk to anyone else and no one in the bar was affected by his playing. So after the "reveal," there is the mid-shot of Sackoff, and she portrays Starbuck as someone who is finally coming to terms with her father leaving her. Just like Anders and Leoben and Lee, her father cannot provide her with any more answers. In the same vein that her father's song made her feel happy and sad all at once, Kara Thrace is a character who finds sadness in happy moments (like marrying Anders the morning after she and Lee profess their love for one another) and the silver lining in despair (such as her determination to find Earth).

Boomer/Tyrol: Oh, Boomer. You make it so hard for me to empathize with you. Boomer, of course, was the first "deactivated" Cylon, and during her secret affair with the Chief, she discovered clues that pointed to her being a Cylon. (And in an interesting parallel, when Boomer was secretly planting bombs aboard the Galactica, it was Tyrol who helped her and almost took the fall for her. The irony, of course, is that back then, neither of them knew their true identity and were dealing with the exact same problems that they face here, almost four years later.) Boomer shoots Adama; Callie shoots and kills Boomer. Her murderer then marries the man she loves and has a child with him. In the episode "Downloaded," we get the initial seed of darkness and anger with Boomer. Whereas she originally felt like she was betraying the humans, she later feels that the humans betrayed her -- that the Chief betrayed her -- and she joins/is manipulated by Cavil to join his band of not-so-merry men, hell-bent on the destruction of the human race. Boomer's entire arc here -- helping Ellen escape to Galactica -- was only a ruse so she could capture Hera and bring her back to Cavil. If there a twisty-mustached villain in BSG, it would be Boomer.

Two things to discuss about Boomer: (1) Does she still really love the Chief, and (2) Why would she sleep with Helo? In response to the first one, my answer is yes, she does still love the Chief. Not only does she ask Tyrol to leave with her at the end of the episode, but her projection of their potential life together -- a life they were planning long before either of them knew they were Cylons -- was so specific to their discussions from four years ago that I got the sense that she has been escaping into this projection reality for the past few years. How often she goes there, I don't know. And then after Boomer leaves Galactica with Hera, Tyrol's projection of the house has him in his uniform (and not grey t-shirt), which shows his own projection -- projection from psychoanalysis, not Cylon-projection -- of heartbreak. Boomer is gone, and Hera, the metaphorical surrogate for their own child, is gone. Tyrol thus enters an empty home which, like a heart, is filled with empty rooms. Did Boomer manipulate the Chief? Absolutely. But manipulation and love are not mutually exclusive. She could very well have used him in the hopes that he would escape with her at the end.

As for the second question, she slept with Helo as a means of responding to the notion of Athena. Boomer was originally part of Galactica then betrayed them for the Cylons, and Athena (waaay back on Caprica in season one) betrayed the Cylons in order to join the Galactica fleet. Athena found love with Helo and they bore a child together, and not only that, but Adama and the rest of the fleet accepted her. (Not initially, of course, that took time, but Boomer wouldn't know about the hard struggles Athena faced.) She sees Athena as a weak Cylon, someone not worthy of being part of her line of Eights, and she resents Athena for being and having everything that she couldn't. Boomer is fully aware that Athena is tied up and would witness her sex tryst with Athena's husband, which is why Boomer comes at Helo like a lion ready to pounce on its prey. It's not sex; it's domination, and Boomer is dominating Athena, not Helo.

Fantastic character-driven episode, and I really think it's created a nice set-up for the upcoming last three episodes (sniff...). These characters are more real than real to me, so I know that saying goodbye -- and not living out the future with them -- is going to be hard. Sometimes I think I shouldn't become so enmeshed in these characters, but this show, more than any experience I've had in the real world, reminds me on a constant basis why humanity deserves a fighting chance, despite our flaws and our mistakes. I'm going to miss that reminder.

gaeta's lament

I'm taking Gaeta's death a bit harder than I could have predicted. I really identified with him... he acted on principle... and I find Gaeta's lament on a loop in my head...

Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man
With my three wishes clutched in her hand
The first that she be spared the pain
That comes from a dark and laughing rain
When she finds love may it always stay true
This I beg for the second wish I made too
But wish no more
My life you can take
To have her please just one day wake

episode: battlestar galactica, "blood on the scales" (4.16)

Warning: Spoilers for last night's episode are to be found throughout this post.

"It stopped."

In the last few moments of "Blood on Scales," Battlestar Galactica broke my heart and I cried. Last week I said "The Oath" was my favorite episode of this season, but I think that award goes to this week's phenomenal ending to a tripartite narrative. I've divided my commentary by characters because, in a well-constructed pairing, this episode was just as much about the characters as it was the plot.

Kara: Last July, I complained about Katee Sackoff's joy at getting to use a gun on the show. I thought it was a fairly unintelligent answer -- compared to James Callis, everyone is intellectually inferior -- but now I understand. After a season of being stranded and essentially physically impotent on New Caprica and another season on an insane chase towards Earth, I now get why Sackoff was so happy to have a gun back in Kara's possession. Some random traitor takes a leak at the urinal, and kick-ass Starbuck comes up behind him and slams his head into the wall. (Let this be a lesson to you men; when involved in a coup, think twice before using the bathroom.) On the one hand, this scene is just awesome, but on the other, it's an exciting storyline for an actress. I also want to note that there was something visually engaging about Kara and Lee's pairing. Kara is in her military uniform, whereas Lee is in his civilian uniform. And yet their conversation and banter is familiar, as if they were never separated by these two worlds.

Roslin: Good Gods, Mary McDonnell was absolutely brilliant in this episode. In general, her acting is hit or miss with me. Sometimes I think she's too ambivalent in regards to Roslin's decision-making process, and other times I feel like her delivery is flat. But she's really been putting everything out there these last few episodes (her book-burning breakdown in the premiere, her rejecting cancer medications after that, and her sleeping with Bill Adama were exceptional), but her outright refusal to give up gave me chills. After Zarek (wrongly) informs Roslin that Adama has been executed, McDonnell delivers this speech: "No. Not now, not ever. Do you hear me? I will use every cannon, every bomb, every bullet, every weapon I have down to my own eye teeth to end you! I swear it! I'm coming for all of you!" I really thought that last week's kiss was a goodbye kiss, so I was pleasantly surprised to see these two reunite at the end of their separation. (And on the note of their separation, I thought this episode did an excellent job of pacing Roslin's scenes on the Cylon basestar in conjunction with Gaeta's scenes in the CIC. That was strong tension-building at its finest.) When Adama and Roslin do reunite, McDonnell does not play straight joy or relief; she mixes in hints of terror and fear, hopeless and despair. Her gentle patting on his shoulder -- in a moment where she can't even look him in the eye -- is so tender and personal that I really found myself caring about her.

Adama: After speaking with my friend who is a veteran, I have a better understanding of Adama's role in the coup. I was looking at this in terms of a civilian, some random person in the fleet who doesn't see one lick of sense in joining forces with a race who killed 50 billion (!!!) of our people. But I think the writers sat down in a room and consciously decided to avoid analyzing Adama's control from outside the military. Practically speaking, if BSG were to tackle civilian thoughts and fears, it would take much, much longer than the series has time for. Artistically speaking, it's a more interesting story to explain the coup from within the military. It's about honor and the uniform. It's about respecting your commanders and taking orders without question to ensure that the ship continues to run. When Gaeta first arrests Adama, the commander's first words are in response to Gaeta being a traitor to his uniform, that he -- that both of them -- had to declare an oath. So this narrative trilogy is less about an uprising in politics and more about an uprising within the military itself.

I bring this up because I was uneasy about Adama's complete disregard for Gaeta's questioning. Was Romo Lampkin just decoration and was Zarek going to find Adama guilty during his "trial"? You betcha. But Adama not explaining himself, not justifying his actions made it seem like he was in the wrong, that he's running a totalitarian regime where no one questions his authority. But in this military world, that's exactly how it needs to be. As my friend explained to me, soldiers cannot just go around demanding answers from the commanding officers. They need to trust and accept their decisions without judgement or skepticism. If Adama starts answering for himself now, he loses his Barthesian "commander-ness." So I was misreading Adama's decisions based on Adama-as-man, rather than Adama-as-commander. And it's very clear that the writers did not want to focus on Adama's relationship to/with civilians (where Adama-as-man would be explored), but rather this idea of trust and loyalty within a structure that needs to survive.

But it is extremely interesting to me that, as a commenter elsewhere noted, "It really is startling to have a not-altogether-unsympathetic character act out of principle and die for it at the hand of the series lead." Adama executed Gaeta. Gaeta, the officer who always tries to do the right thing. Gaeta, the man who wanted to kill Baltar for his shady dealings with the Cylons on New Caprica. And Adama -- our beloved, supposedly morally righteous hero -- killed him.

Lee: As mentioned above, Lee is wearing typical black slacks and a blue button-up Oxford shirt throughout most of the episode, including the final scene where Gaeta and Zarek are executed for their crimes of treason. This is visually significant because you have this well-dressed man with a gun in his hands and the ability to assess situations quickly. Lee is working within two spheres -- the military and the law -- and it isn't until this episode that this dichotomy really becomes a thematic focus. While in the Quorum, and even during his stint as Baltar's lawyer during the season three finale, Lee tried bringing his military knowledge to the political realm, but he never truly had the opportunity (or reason) to showcase his military skills in politics. With Zarek's merciless massacre on the Quorum, Lee is sent into survival mode first, kick ass mode second. Once he is able to secure his life as stable, his first and only order of business is to find and save his father and he does this by carrying a big, scary weapon around the halls on Galactica.

During Gaeta's execution, it's very intriguing having Lee's presence in the room. Whereas Adama's presence represents the world of the military -- and Baltar's presence marks a civilian presence -- Lee is between the two worlds. He is a man of law (truth, justice), but he is also a man of structure (loyalty a la the oath, getting the job done). I don't think that Lee's face should be read as anger, but rather disappointment. Here he was thinking that these two conflicting powers could reconcile their differences, and they couldn't. He's disappointed that Zarek was not the leader he thought he was, and he's disappointed that political order is falling apart. (How can there be a democracy without the Quorum of 12?) He's also disappointed because, like Gaeta, he's a man of principle, and just last week he mentioned that there was some truth to Zarek's concerns.

Baltar: First of all, thank the gods that he admitted he was putting on a religious show (presumably as a means of securing his own survival). Baltar is a creature of habit, as I will discuss in a moment, and I simply did not buy that our scientifically-minded atheist would all of a sudden become a prophet. Even with Head Six telling him there was one and only God. So I'm happy that Baltar admitted to this scam. Second, Baltar's main purpose in the narrative of the series is to run. It's how he's stayed alive. He runs. Some may call this cowardly, but not all humans are noble. I would run, too. Some people would call it selfish, but I don't think there's anything selfish about wanting to live. One of the people I watch BSG with hates Baltar, but during his speech discussing his need to go back to Galactica to save his followers, she said, "Okay, finally I like him." But it's not just this switch of personal behavior that's interesting. What's intriguing about this revelation is that, after having sex with one of the Six models (Lida), he still feels awful and lonely and regretful. Normally when Baltar runs (or is being tortured by D'Anna), he rely on either an apparition or a real-life Six model to make him feel good through sex. But not this time. Even sex will not cure him of his regret. I think Baltar is finally realizing that it's lonely at the top, and even though his followers were strange, he was surrounded by people, and I think Baltar was reminded of his love for the spotlight, his need for people to pay attention to him. And this is in no way a selfish realization. He just realizes that there's more to life than surviving yet another day just to have sex. There are other people. There are other situations outside of him. And I truly think it's this revelation that leads to the beautifully shot coffee scene with Gaeata.

Writer Michael Angeli (see previous post) intended for viewers to think Gaeta got off on the charges. After all, we are in Gaeta's quarters. But between Gaeta's topic of conversation and Baltar's near-tears reactions, I don't think anyone was fooled. Regardless of Baltar's profound pity for Gaeta, Gaeta's reflections on his past -- his love for architecture, then science -- indicated that the end was looming for him, and it really spoke to the logical nature of his character. Gaeta's reflections gave us a further insight into who he is, how got to this point in his life, and what his life was like before Galactica. It's a very touching scene, and Gaeta's complete resolve during this scene really makes you empathize with him. It's also a humanizing scene for Baltar because, following the scene with the Six model Lida, you know that Baltar respects Gaeta. He respects this man who acted on principle, even though it would most certainly lead to his demise. He's sitting across from the man who took to the stands to ensure that Baltar was found guilty (and who later tried to kill Baltar), and he respects Gaeta's rational understanding of the situation. Unlike Baltar, Gaeta doesn't run, he doesn't hide his head, and he doesn't beg for forgiveness. Gaeta knows what he did was wrong (he dishonored the oath), and that has a price. And for the first time, possibly ever, Baltar-the-Coward understands the logic of action and reaction, and he respects Gaeta's stoic acknowledgement of this natural law. There has been no character on the show other than Gaeta who I think is an equal to Baltar.

Gaeta: Alessandro Juliani, my Gods, you broke my heart. During the episode, I thought the cuts to Gaeta's throbbing leg were a bit overdone. We get it; his leg hurts. We get it; there's turmoil on the ship, and the leg gets progressively worse. We get it; Gaeta can't receive better care for his leg because Dr. Cottle is too busy tending to the Cylons. We get it. But then the episode ends on this moment of complete acceptance, and it tore my heart right out of my chest. "It stopped." The pain stopped. The mutiny stopped. Gaeta's life stopped. Everything stops. The absence of Gaeta's leg symbolizes a sort of phantom honor (in the same vein as a phantom limb), in that the absence of his leg is a constant reminder for all the times he sacrificed for his ship. Hell, the secret council (made up of two Cylons and a Cylon's wife) almost airlocked him for being a Cylon coconspirator, when really he was leaking them information from the Cylon camp. Anders shot him in the leg because he tried to save their ship instead of waiting for Kara to come back. Throughout the series, he tried to do the right thing -- the honorable, moral thing -- and what does he have to show for it? Nothing but phantom honor. When his leg was taken, the real pain set in. Gaeta's never really been angry that they took his leg. It was the situation in which his leg was taken that aggravates and disgusts him. When that leg was taken, his honor was taken, and now he's just running on the last bit of gas he has. He's putting all of his chips in. He's acting on the ghost of honor.

When Gaeta and Zarek exchanged smiles before their execution, it was like looking at two sides of the same coin. Both thought that they were right (and I happen to agree with Gaeta, as a non-military citizen), but Zarek knew there was going to be bloodshed whereas Gaeta had a more idealized vision. I don't think Zarek is necessarily evil (killing the Quorum should be seen more as killing democracy than killing eleven individual bystanders), but he understands the necessity of killing the opposition, where Gaeta is still trying to give Adama a proper trial to answer for his crimes. It's two sides of the revolution -- violence and moral high ground -- and both sides lead to death. And then comes Gaeta's line...

"It stopped." This line certainly could have been referencing my heart. This line could have been talking about time, since Gaeta's entire character narrative replayed in my head as if time had stood still. This line was a remark on Gaeta's calmn before the darkness. It was about his acceptance of the consequences, his complete resolve.

First Callie, then Dualla, and now Gaeta. Ron Moore, stop breaking my heart. I only have a few pieces left.

mo ryan's interview with michael angeli on "blood on the scales"

My reflections on last night's mind-blowingly awesome episode of BSG will come later today. For now, Mo Ryan has an interview with "Bloods on the Scale" writer Michael Angeli:

Why did Gaeta insist on a "trial" of Adama? Was it because he wanted to hang on to the idea that this coup was a legitimate transfer of power? Was it because he needed to hear Adama to say that Adama was wrong? What was that about?

For whatever else he was (or might’ve been) Gaeta was an idealist and despite his near occasions of peevishness, he was a romantic. He believed in the idea of government, laws, leadership, service, etc. and if you look at his behavior away back on New Caprica, there was a certain nobleness to his intentions. He wanted to do things right, he was an advocate of justice, fairness.

So, it’s not surprising that even with a coup snowballing, he’d want some form of a trial. But more importantly, Gaeta was conflicted. He loved Adama and just couldn’t get around to killing him. Gaeta was the romantic; Zarek was the realist. For Gaeta, the “trial,” was a stall. And having Adama admit that he was wrong was really about Gaeta convincing his own intellect that Adama should die – because he, himself admits he’s wrong.

Were you channeling Winston Churchill when you wrote Laura's "I'm coming for all of you" speech? What did you draw on for that dialogue?

[Executive producer] Ronnie [Moore]. He told me to bring Laura to a breaking point. So I had Zarek just becoming this terrible liar/bearer of bad news, pulling out all the stops, telling Adama that Tigh’s been shot dead escaping when Tigh was very alive and at large, telling Laura that Adama had been executed (and Zarek assumed that he actually was), all of it building to a point where Laura’s either gonna collapse in a pile or come out swinging.

What worked in our favor was the fact that, because of scheduling problems, we had to shoot this scene after a long day and everyone was exhausted. Mary had been traveling all day, flying back from Europe. We thought she’d be wasted, but she was still on London Time or something and she just rocked everybody’s headsets off. Everyone was clapping after the take, going wild.

That scene near the end between Baltar and Gaeta -- why put those two characters together? What were your reasons for including that scene?

Oh, I think Gaeta and Baltar were so close and had so much history together, it just seemed so right. The scene serves a couple of purposes. First and foremost, it humanizes Gaeta once again. We see the Gaeta we always loved and enjoyed. And it gives Baltar some emotional honesty. It’s obvious that his heart is breaking for Gaeta. And it’s obvious because both James [Callis, who plays Baltar] and AJ [Alessandro Juliani, who plays Gaeta] just killed on that scene, they’re both so frakking good.

I watched the show at Mark Sheppard’s house with some people and Liz Nankin ([director] Michael Nankin’s wife) brought up a really good point, which was that we’re killing off one of our oldest, and to some, one of our most revered characters, and it gives the audience a chance to legitimately say good-bye.

The scene is kind of wicked, too. We’re supposed to believe that Gaeta’s been spared. It takes place in Gaeta’s quarters (Ron’s idea). And Gaeta speaks of himself in the present tense, how he wants people to know who he is, or something to that effect.

Does the title "Blood on the Scales" come from a work of literature? Or was it a title you came up with? Either way, can you talk a little about that title?

I’m sure I was influenced by the title of Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” album and the whole “Watchtower” tie-in. But thematically, it was an oblique signature of Gaeta’s fate and his conundrum. He starts out as the good soldier/idealist, becomes disillusioned (even stabs his hero, Baltar, with a pen), then the loss of his leg colors his perception of Kara and the Cylons. His embitterment eventually grows its own limb – the mutiny. He wants to do the right thing but the, er, scales of justice are tipped not only by the bloodshed of innocent people, but by Gaeta unable to silence his own humanity (his love for Adama), the blood running through his veins, etc.

Why did Baltar have a vision of Adama's execution -- was he psychic or just having a bad dream based on what had been happening?

A lot of Baltar’s story on the base ship didn’t make the cut. Baltar has some deep, underlying guilt for running away -- from his congregation (in the previous episode), from danger, etc. He meets another beautiful Six (Lida) who mistakes his moodiness for injury. She wants to help him feel better and all of it plays on his psyche, which causes the nightmare – which compels him to want to go back to Galactica and face everything.

episode: battlestar galactica, "the oath" (4.15)

Some quick thoughts on Friday's episode...

First of all, this may be my favorite episode of season four. Compared to earlier seasons, this season has been uneven (by Battlestar standards because, as we all know, a bad episode of BSG is still better than the best episode of Friends). This episode stands out for many reasons, least of which is bringing back kick-ass Starbuck. (Seriously, how awesome was it when she shot the guard holding Lee? And how brilliant was Jamie Bamber's reaction shot, complete with blood splatter across the face?) This episode took things forward. It's about time that the civilians revolted against Adama/Roslin. It's about time Zarek put his revolutionary skills to good use. It's about time someone called Adama out on collaborating with the Cylons, just because he happens to know a few of them personally. And it's about time that one of the main characters -- in this case, the morally-solid Lee -- pointed out that Adama is wrong. If I were Joe Nobody in the fleet, hell no, I would not want the murderers of my race anywhere near me. And if I'm not on the Galactica and interacting with them personally, I'm certainly not going to see any way that would benefit me.

As Alan Sepinwall so eloquently wrote:

Of course soldiers from Pegasus would still hold grudges over Adama killing their commander. Of course Anders' ex-girlfriend (or, rather, never-quite-girlfriend) would be furious to realize that the man she was so hung up on isn't a man at all. Of course Lee would be resented for his role in Baltar's trial. Of course the civilian fleet would be fed up with all of Adama's high-hand tactics, and would eagerly greet any opportunity to rebel. Of course the other pilots would fear and distrust Starbuck after her miraculous return from the dead -- What is she? And if she's just Kara, what makes her so special when none of the dead people we actually liked could come back? -- and even moreso when they realized her husband was a Cylon. And, for that matter, of course Starbuck would use this fiasco as an excuse to compartmentalize all her recent angst over who and what she is and get back to being the best at what she does (and what she does isn't very nice).

This episode had a lot of action -- action which beautifully mirrors an episode from season one where some toasters attacked the Galactica, but now it's humans against humans -- but it was so meticulous in its execution that I never felt overwhelmed. The episode spent a lot of time showing just exactly how Gaeta was able to pull off the feat of removing Adama from command, and it was appreciated. You can't just have a bunch of people running around with guns. You need to show me how civilians got these guns. (On that note, one of my favorite minor moments in the episode involves Kara and Lee walking around the corridors, and then Lee points his gun at someone, who immediately puts his hand up and says, "Whoa, whoa." It just showed that everyone's fending for themselves, and you have no idea which side a stranger will be on.)

So even though this episode was action-packed, it still had a few tender, intimate moments that were that much more meaningful because of the nature of the narrative. When Roslin and Adama kiss before she leaves on the ship, everyone looks bewildered by their suddenly open romance. I don't think they were confused or surprised by the kiss -- they all saw it coming -- but that they took the time to observe this random moment of warmth and love. Tigh, Tyrol, Lee, Kara, Baltar... they're all just trying to survive, and here are these two loverbirds saying, what I think will be, their last goodbye. And when Adama stays behind to fight for his ship, Tigh stands by his captain. I don't know why, but romantic gestures make my eyes roll... but grand gestures of loyalty, well, they make my eyes tear up.

Also, this episode has my favorite exchange of (possibly) the entire series -- with the exchange between Apollo and Helo regarding a holocaust of the Cylons as a great contender -- because it summarizes both the themes of this episode as well as the whole series. On survival:

Adama: It's all we have.
Lee: It's all they left us.

Such desperation, such heart. A common theme in this show (and any show that mainly serves as an exploration of the human condition) is survival, as evidenced by the entire existence of Gaius Baltar, and now we're back to combat just like the episode of "33" from season one. But humans have turned against humans. A robot uprising has revealed the true nature of man... save a select few individuals who refuse to let this be the fate of their race.

Then an explosive is thrown at a trapped Adama and Tigh. Roslin and Baltar leave on their ship, which Gaeta plans to blast out of the sky. And all of the Cylons have been rounded up in the brig, ready to be raped and beaten. (This episode is not a particularly happy upbeat one, but then again, none of the episodes really are.) And then... To be continued... This is the only "to be continued" (outside of season finales) that has made my heart jump out of my chest.

mo ryan's interview with ron moore on "a disquiet follows my soul"

Read Maureen Ryan's full interview with Ron Moore here. I've included the bits concerning Tyrol and Cally, mostly because I think they have one of the more engaging relationships on the show. Tyrol was with Boomer, Boomer shot Adama... Tyrol beats up Callie, one year later and Tyrol's married to Cally and they have a baby together... Cally gets airlocked after going crazy because she learned her husband's a Cylon... and then, with Cally's death, one of the most annoying characters on Battlestar became well-loved and lovingly remembered.

Why did you need to establish that Nicky is not the Chief’s baby?

Well, we’re starting to sort of resolve some of the plot threads and provide answers to things and one of the questions was, “Is Hera the only hybrid, the only Cylon-human child, or not?” If Nicky was a Cylon-human child, what does that mean? Now there’s two of them. It was important to the mythology of the show that only Hera be the only one. We had always sort of said that.

So you had to sort of retrofit...

Yeah, we had to retrofit that. We knew that was going to be a problem back when we decided that Tyrol was a Cylon. We said, “OK, how are we going to deal with that?” And [someone] said, “Well, maybe at some point we just find out Tyrol’s not the father.” And we all kind of laughed. And then we said, “Actually, that’s a very elegant solution to it.” We just say, “Tyrol’s not the father,” and we move on.

And that’s kind of how the show is. We take these gambles, then we take time to make sure it fits in with what we’ve got. Or we try to at least address it and make it fit into what we’ve got, so the mosaic is still consistent.

You know what, honestly, I would feel bad if, retroactively, Cally was a cheater. She went through enough.

I don’t think she was cheating. The intention was not that she was cheating on Tyrol. It was that she had some kind of relationship with Hot Dog, you know, before or concurrent with, as she and Tyrol were getting together. In my mind, Tyrol, like, in a moment, proposed to her. And she was stunned and said yes, but she had probably slept with Hot Dog three weeks before or something like that. It was one of those kinds of circumstances.

Got it. Because, you know, the Compendium of Bad Things that Happened to Cally ...

[laughs] I know.

I’ve been re-watching the earlier seasons, and I developed this theory that you guys would sit around and go, “What’s the worst thing that happens in this episode? Can it happen to Cally?”

[laughs] I know.


Just switching gears completely, does Laura want to die? I mean, obviously, she’s got this post-meds euphoria....

I think she’s embracing the fact that she’s gonna die. And in “Disquiet,” she’s just decided, you know, “I want to live a little before I die.” And she just doesn’t want to spend her remaining time caught up in fleet politics and responsibility and all the rest of that [expletive]. She’s just checked out.

She led them to a place that turned out to be false and in her mind, she has nothing more to offer. She was going to take them to Earth, and she did take them to Earth and it was all for naught. OK, now what? Now she’s still dying. She still has cancer. And she doesn’t have any of the answers for anybody else, and she just wants to live her remaining days the way she wants to live them, and “Leave me alone.”

I sensed some anger in Mary [McDonnell]’s performance too, you know, Laura’s angry at herself, the world, the circumstances, the universe. And that’s part of the reason she’s like, “I’m done.”

She was the face of the search for Earth, she was the voice. She was the president. She was the one saying, “It’s all going to be OK. Believe in me. Believe in the prophecies. Believe in Earth. There is a better tomorrow. Come on people, get up. Let’s go.” She was that person. And when it turns out not to be true, I think there’s a huge amount of guilt, of anger, of just incredibly conflicted feelings for Laura.

Baltar’s scene is getting very dark. Is that meant to evoke a Jim Jones/People’s Temple sort of thing, like, “Something bad is going to happen here?”

It’s certainly coming right up to the edge of that, yeah. It felt right that, again, with Earth turning out to be nothing, Baltar has invested in this idea of God, that God will protect His children and take them somewhere. “We all have to give ourselves over to God.” And then God takes you *here*. And Baltar’s response is, “Well, [expletive] God! Maybe he should come down here and apologize to us!”

I thought he was maybe advocating some position like, “We have been unworthy children. What sins have you committed, what have you done wrong?” That kind of thing. Is there that element of it too, perhaps we brought God’s wrath down on us?

There’s a bit of that, but mostly he was saying that, “Is this your fault, what dark thoughts have you had, what evil thoughts have you had? Nothing? Then maybe it’s not your fault.”

So... atheism! It’s Baltar’s new thing!

“Atheism! [laughter] Let’s go back to that!” Because this God thing isn’t working out so well either.

episode: battlestar galactica, "a disquiet follows my soul" (4.14)

Whereas last week's episode mainly concerned itself with philosophical character developments, this week's episode, "A Disquiet Follows My Soul," very much moved the plot forward to the next logical step. When the Twelve Colonies were destroyed, there was despair and anarchy, so now there is no more "road to Earth" (i.e. hope), there is going to be despair and anarchy once again. The main storyline revolves around the politics of Galactica, how Roslin, who is no longer taking her medications and wants to die now, has checked out, leaving Zarek in charge, and how Zarek uses fearful language to influence the Quorum of Twelve's vote to deny any Cylons board amongst the fleet. This story took up a bulk of the episode, but other storylines included Tyrol finding out he's not the father to young Nicky (meaning Hera is still the only hybrid Cylon-Human child in existence) and Gaeta's increasing nihilist thoughts (which seem to be leading into the next episode's major storyline).

Some interesting notes from Alan Sepinwall, who is just fantastic with his recaps:

• "In some ways, this incarnation of Laura is more disturbing than last week's silent, fetal-positioned mess, or the vengeful robot she let herself become for much of the first half of this season. At least then, she allowed herself to feel something about the plight of her constituency, even if she overreacted to those feelings, curling into a ball or curtailing civil liberties. As Laura freely admits, she just wants to live a little before she dies, and the fleet can go crying to some other mommy the next time it stubs its toe. The moment when Bill and Laura finally consummate their relationship, finally give into their feelings even more freely than when she declared her love for him at the end of "Hub," should feel triumphant, the release of four years of anticipated build-up. Instead, it feels sad. I wouldn't begrudge either party their desire to get some before the apocalypse comes, to find some kind of happiness amidst all this tragedy, but I wish they could have reached this point before Laura gave up on humanity, both her own and everyone else's. I look at her glowing, and wish I could share in her happiness, but I can't."

• "It was one thing for the fleet to go along with a short-term alliance, when it seemed like everyone's happy ending on Earth was just around the corner, but Zarek has a point: why should the fleet throw in its lot with the people who put it in this current horrible predicament?"

• "This was Ron Moore's directorial debut after four years of running the show, and several decades as a TV and film writer. A few of the sequences (Adama's multiple bouts of dental hygine obsession, Roslin sprinting through the corridors, Baltar's sermon) called attention to themselves, this final season has become more visually adventurous, so these didn't feel out of place."

Personally, I thought that, although this episode was plot-heavy, it was really well-executed and Ron Moore gave enough visually compelling images to compliment the story that I didn't feel bogged down while watching it. And while I thought the scene between Dr. Cottle and Tyrol was incredibly awkward -- "his father" should have been more ambiguous, but it was obvious when first uttered that Tyrol was not the father -- I thought that the scene between Gaeta and Starbuck was phenomenal. There was such animosity between them, and it was smart of the writers to draw in issues from all of the seasons, rather than current problems. Gaeta wonders what Starbuck's husband Anders was doing on Caprica before they "so conveniently" met; did he set off a few nukes? Gaeta also brought up the irony of the secret council (who almost airlocked him) being comprised of two Cylons and a woman married to a Cylon. Gaeta's bitter, and actor Alessandro Juliani really sold this scene.

I also agree with Sepinwall's assessment that Roslin's story arc is really sad to watch. I really love her character, but during the first and second season, I really thought she was the bad guy -- especially during the whole Cain conflict. She makes decisions without telling anyone, and these decisions come from very selfish reasons. She even tried to steal the election away from Baltar! However "right" her intentions are, she's not a good democratic leader. She and Adama are very much running the show on their own, and I absolutely agree with Zarek over Adama. No, they should not collaborate with the Cylons. They killed 50 billion people and have been manipulating the humans from the start. If I were on one of the civilian ships and I didn't know any of the Cylons personally, hell no, I would not want to be anywhere near these "things" that destroyed my entire way of life. Right, back to Roslin... I think she will die by the end of the season, but I also think -- or hope, rather -- that the prophecies are false. Religion has factored very prominently in this show (in forms of mysticism and mythology), but now I think it would be rational and realistic for people to still maintain hope, even though these prophecies turned out to be completely false. People will read into religious texts and believe in them... but that belief doesn't necessarily make them true. And I think Moore and the writers should stay away from making religion "true."

I'm really looking forward to next week's Gaeta-Zarek-centric episode. Starbuck points a gun at someone!

title origin of "sometimes a great notion"

[Via Maureen Ryan.] As suspected, the title "Sometimes a Great Notion" comes from the title of Ken Kesey's novel. As the writer of the episode, David Weddle, explains:

The day the staff finished putting the cards up on the board with Ron, and the day before we began writing, I flashed on my favorite American novel, Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey. It is a much underappreciated and towering work. Anyone interested in fine literature and great story telling should read Kesey’s masterpiece.

The book opens with a childish rhyme that enunciates the theme of the book and what to me was the theme of our show. “Sometimes I live in the country. Sometimes I live in the town. Sometimes I get a great notion. To jump in the river and drown.”

In Kesey’s book, the hero --Hank Stamper, an Oregon logger -- does constant battle with the river that runs past his home, a river that has claimed the lives of pets and loved ones and comes to symbolize the vast and indifferent power of the universe that both gives life and cruelly snatches it away again. In his notes to himself as he was writing the book, Kesey scribbled something that has become one of the shorthand phrases Brad and I use while writing scripts. Kesey wrote: “Try to make Hank quit.” By that he meant: take this strong, heroic character and pile one misfortune on his back after another until he finally falls. What happens in that moment? Does he despair? Does he get up and go on? For me, there is no more defining moment for a character.

We tried to do this with almost all the characters in this episode: Adam, Laura, Kara, Lee. We ripped everything out from under them then sat back to see what they would do. What were their individual breaking points? And if they did break, would they stay broken or grope toward a recovery?

mo ryan's interview with ron moore

Excerpts from Maureen Ryan's interview with Battlestar creator Ron Moore (read the full interview here). It's very long, but as per usual, Moore gives fascinating answers.

Why Ellen?

There’s a certain logic to it. I sort of figured out early on that I liked the pairing of her and Tigh. [I liked] that there was something deeper to their marriage and deeper to their relationship, that it was literally a relationship that had transcended time and space, that it was very ancient that had gone on for a very long time. It was something that was [mentioned] in the pilot for “Galactica.”

In the miniseries, Tigh is burning her photo, right?

Yeah, and the very first scene that he’s in, he gets upset because Starbuck is pushing his buttons about her, “What about your wife?” And he kicks over the table and then she slugs him.

There was something really appealing about the idea that of the final five, the two of them were a pair, and they were THIS pair -- you know, as drama-ridden as their relationship had been, the idea that there had always been something deeper and more profound at its center, I always really, really liked.

When did you make that selection?

It was somewhere in the course of the third season [that the possibility was first raised.] We killed Ellen early that season and we didn’t have an inkling of that at that point. But at the point that we killed Ellen, around the same time frame, I was starting to come up with the idea that there were five Cylons that had yet to be revealed.

At the beginning of the third season, Baltar had gone to live on the Cylon base ship for a string of episodes. And it was really that plot move that threw into relief -- well, once Baltar’s over in the Cylon world, why wouldn’t he see all 12 of them? How could we get around that and parcel that out? Then I had this idea, well, what if it’s not random? What if there’s a meaning to the fact that we haven’t seen the five of them? And that’s how the Final Five became part of the mythos.

Over the course of the third season, Ellen came and went in my thinking in terms of who the final five were. It probably wasn’t until we settled on the final four that I knew it was Ellen. When we got to the final four -- Tigh, Anders, Tory and Tyrol -- then it felt like, “and Ellen has to be the fifth.” Because Tigh being revealed as a Cylon was such a profound shift in that character, such a big leap for the show, that it felt really natural that she was also a Cylon.

And he had killed her for collaborating with the Cylons! There were layers and depths to that I felt were really fascinating, about guilt and blame and memory and responsibility, and I just really liked the way that all tied together.

Of the first set of seven (Cylons), how many of them knew? There’s part of me that wonders if Cavil knew and was just messing with Ellen on New Caprica because he could. Obviously you didn’t know then that she would be a Cylon, but the possibility of Cavil or others knowing and then playing that complication out in future episodes, did that help you make your decision?

Yeah, the Cavil thing plays in quite strongly. That will be revealed as we get deeper into the season. But that did all flow together really well.

So we will come to know, in this next set of episodes, who knew that Ellen was a Cylon, and that will play out in what’s coming?

Yes.

So we’ll see her again. Does she figure prominently in the season?

I don’t want to give too much away, but it won’t be the last time that you see Ellen.

It seems as though a lot of the final Cylons were leading people or important people on New Caprica. Is there something to that?

That was more just watching how their characters behaved in those circumstances. They had no knowledge of their true nature. What were the actions they would take as human beings in those situations, given who their characters were? That’s how they developed. It was the irony of the fact that they were all fundamentally involved in the resistance against the Cylons was interesting to us.

So in writing Season 4, you had a semi-solid idea that it would be Ellen?

Yeah. As we went into Season 4, we had the writers retreat over the hiatus, we talked about what the general storyline was of the last season, we talked specifically about the first half of Season 4 and we talked about it being Ellen and getting to the place where we would reveal it to be Ellen.

So you gave us a clue, then, when Tigh is visiting Caprica Six in the brig in the first half of Season 4 -- he keeps seeing Ellen’s face instead of Six’s. Was that an acknowledgment of that connection or was that just Tigh being in some kind of fog?

It was about both. It was about his innate sense of longing for the woman he truly loved, and it was also sort of hinting that there was a deeper connection between the two.

[On the idea that someone would not handle the news well.] Was there a discussion of who that would be, the person who would pay that cost? How did you settle on [Dualla]?

We did talk about it, and it felt like in some ways, I mean, unfortunately, it was [a case of,] she was kind of the sweetest character. It would be the one that you would expect the least. It also felt right. Her journey had [been] -- she was in love with Billy and then she was in love with this other man and neither one worked out. And all she really had in her life was this hope of getting to Earth some day. Some day it would all be OK.

Her whole family, her whole world, everything had been shattered. After Billy died and after she splits with Lee, probably all Dualla has is [the goal of Earth]. The job doesn’t mean anything -- what does the job mean at that point? There’s no career, it’s just getting through the next day. So what she had is to get to Earth. And she got to Earth and it turned out to be nothing. So it felt like, she’s done. It’s overwith.

That’s the impact of her death, though -- she’s the professional. It’s not like she’s unfeeling, but she’s going to compartmentalize and get the job done and be an officer and do what she needs to do. And then when she couldn’t do that at all... I mean, she could, to have that date with Lee, but then she was done. For someone like that to just end it, that’s very unsettling.

She just said, “My story ends here. I end here.” It gave her a measure of control, it gave her a measure of decision, she was able to say, “My life is going to end at this point.”

That’s what makes the episode so painful, in a way. Nobody can step up. Nobody can get back up off the floor. We’ve seen them pull themselves off the floor so many times, but they can’t do it this time. Adama’s walking into Tigh’s quarters drunk, with a loaded gun. Roslin’s just checked out. Dee kills herself.

It felt like, if we were going to get to a place where we’re going to find Earth mid-season and it’s not going to be what they’d hoped, it’s all going to be ashes, you had to play it truthfully. You had to say it’s really going to devastate them. It’s going to hit them in a way we’ve never seen before. Our heroes are not going to be heroic. They’re not going to be able to come back from this easily. It’s going to take their fondest hope away from them.

[Discussing the chronology of the 13 Tribes of Kobol.] We see the flashback of Tyrol in that marketplace, and it seemed like a planet full of lots of different kinds of people, not just 12 different models. Is that right?

Yes.

That planet is Earth? We’re not going to find out, “Oh, there’s this other Earth over here...” This is the only Earth we’ll see?

They have found Earth. This is the Earth that the 13th Colony discovered, they christened it Earth. They found Earth.

What I really found surprising about that scene where she appears to find her own body is -- Leoben seems taken aback. Normally he’s the guy who’s spewing this mixture of [not-truth] and truth and getting in her head. But he seems severely freaked out.

Oh yeah. I love the fact that Leoben gets to a place where he says, “I was wrong. I don’t know what to do. I thought I saw streams and rivers and I thought I saw stuff [this refers to Leoben’s dialogue in “Flesh and Bone”], but I don’t know.” That makes him mortal, in a certain sense.

In general with this episode, did anyone at the network or studio say, you know, this is too dark?

I think they had qualms. There were questions about, “Wow, this is really dark. Is anyone ever going to come back and watch the rest of the episodes?” I said, “Well, it is the end of the show.”

My attitude was pretty much, “Look, we’re in the last chapter here. Anyone who’s come this far and doesn’t want to watch the rest -- they’re a minority at best.” People are going to want to see how this turns out. And yeah, this is a very dark chapter. This may not even be the darkest chapter.

battlestar galactica, reflections on "sometimes a great notion"

I've been reading some of the comments left on Alan Sepinwall's "Sometimes a Great Notion" recap, and it really amazes me that there can be so many people out there who love this show as much as I do, and who can formulate connections and search for the meaning of what it means to be human in such deeply touching ways. So below, I've posted some of their comments. Most of them are reactions to Dualla's suicide, which, really, is one of the most heartbreaking moments of the show (see the last comment below).

One of the most interesting facets of the show that I don't feel is discussed enough, is this fluid, impermanent understanding of identity. And not just the ol' "am I human or am I machine" posthuman crisis, which has been prevalent ever since Baltar created a Cylon detector in the first season. But this question of who am I -- is it my actions or my thoughts who determine who I am? How much does my childhood determine my future adulthood? Thinking of Kara's childhood abuse and her mother's lack of love, or reflecting on the effect of Zak Adama's death, I can now add Dee into the mix. She looks at a photograph of her as a child and says she doesn't even remember her then. And when Dee holds Hera, she says softly, "You have no idea what's going on, do you?" It's a haunting portrayal of a character who has tried so hard to hold onto hope -- first through Billy, then through Lee, despite his affections for Kara -- and now she understands, she knows there's nothing left. And this is not entirely unlike D'Anna's wanting to stay behind on Earth to die. Everything that she knew about her species, about who she is -- her identity -- is false. Although at the moment I could predict Dee's death (there were signs pointing the way), I didn't realize how affective it would be in the long-run. Having just watched the episode again, I have to say -- in the history of the show -- she might be the most humanizing portrayal of any of the characters.

Anonymous

Dee's death comes with a great deal of symbolism for the series. I don't know if this is what the writers intended but it struck me that Billy and Dee's innocent love on the ship in the midst of complete devastation was what prompted Adama to choose to save humanity rather than fight to the death at the start of the series. It was that love that was the hope of the human race.

Now Billy and Dee are dead -- and Dee killed herself. It really has come full circle. The hope of humanity now the despair.

The only positive image now is Helo, Athena and Hera. Human, cylon, and a mix together.

Toonsterwu

(Although I disagree with this commenter, I do think it's a beautiful idea, deeply rooted in mythology) I am wondering right now if the Final Five are "angels" of sorts and that a "God" of some sort gives birth to civilizations across the galaxy. People are given free will to decide how they live. If their civilization should get troubled, the Final Five are sent to try and offer assistance of some sort. If all else fails, a harbinger of death is sent. All along, though, people have free will and the ability to change their destiny. Some societies don't, and they end up dying.

theoldboy

The suggestion that Saul and Ellen may have spent 2000 years in a series of dysfunctional marriages is pretty beautiful.

What happened to Dualla was perfect. It's not just that she was a case study in post-Earth fleet grief, it was the logical end for her character arc: she went through losing Billy to a bullet, and then Lee sporadically to whatever Lee and Starbuck had going on, and then Lee again to the Quorum. And she kept all of that inside. It gives that seemingly a little overplayed farewell ceremony where she and Lee said temporary goodbyes back in episode 2 (I think) of this season a lot more meaning in retrospect. Actually this episode makes virtually everything meaningful in retrospect. Even the love quadrangle tons of people didn't like in S3 now has some tragic resonance. The only things that come to mind that this episode doesn't excuse are Black Market and Romo's ghost-cat. (Haha!)

Anonymous

And then Dee took off her wedding ring, put a gun to her head, and pulled the trigger--my jaw hit the floor. The first feeling was shock, I think, and then almost a guilt...guilt for never understanding her character, guilt for blaming her and dismissing her without reason...

Just like you said, everything, EVERYTHING relating to Dee's character now carries a special resonance, speaks to the immense tragedy of a woman clinging to every vestige of happiness that she can, in order to not fall into the void of despair. Even her miniseries spontaneous kiss with Billy-a desperate attempt to grab onto a handhold of happiness in love in the face of unspeakable tragedy and loss.

And her love for Lee-dumb, yes, and weak, maybe, and also unwarranted. But why did I blame her for that? The same argument could be made for Lee and his feelings for Kara, and I love them together. Was I being sexist, or just irrevocably committed to my fervent love for Starbuck and Apollo as an entity...who knows. All I know is that I misunderstood Dee as a person, and that her death sheds light on a measure of hopelessness of which I was before unaware, a deep-rooted despair coupled with a desperate desire to cling to happiness that makes me feel for her character. And for the first time, I looked at Lee, grief-stricken with Dee's jacks, and blamed him-blamed him for marrying her, for trying so hard to be in love with her when he must have known he could never be, blamed him for cheating, blamed him for turning to her in the midst of an apocalypse when he needed a shoulder to lean on, relying on her and taking her support for granted when they both knew, deep down, that it was never going to be. And again, my blaming of Lee, in this situation, is not completely warranted (part of what makes BSG such an emotionally rich, thought-provoking show-but that's another discussion). All I know is that I always thought Dee's departure from the show would be a positive thing, and that tonight I am very, very sad, and deeply moved, by her tragic death.

episode: battlestar galactica, "sometimes a great notion" (4.13)

Holy crap. So here's what we learned in last night's mid-season premiere of Battlestar Galactica (warning, obviously there'll be some spoilers):

1. Kara Thrace died (see episode "Maelstrom") when her plane crashed on Earth. (I think of lot of us were expecting this revelation.) But more importantly, she burned herself at her own funeral pyre and didn't tell anyone about it. Other than her, Leoben's the only one who knows the truth about the "harbinger of death." So if Starbuck died, who is the crazy chick in front of us?

2. The 13th Tribe of Kobol, originally assumed to be human, were actually all Cylons. As the mythology goes, humans and the gods lived together on Kobol until a mass exodus when twelve tribes went to what would eventually be called the Twelve Colonies and one tribe went their separate way to settle/colonize on Earth. So if the 13th Tribe were all Cylons, surely the skinjob models were created on Earth... yes?

3. Tigh, Tory, Tyrol (all T names, interesting...) and Anders all have recollections of their lives on Earth. (Perhaps the 13th Tribe Cylons were hybrids, like Athena and Helo's daughter Hera.) Earth was attacked and destroyed over 2,000 years before Galactica set down on the planet, and it seems like the attacks were just as unforeseeable as the attacks on the Twelve Colonies. On Earth, Tyrol was looking at fruit when Earth was attacked (and apparently Anders sang "All Along the Watchtower" to a woman he loved), whereas Tigh was helping...

4. ...his beloved wife, Ellen, who turns out to be the fifth Cylon. (I, for one, am glad it was her and not Baltar or Kara. If the fifth Cylon were Baltar, it would have excused his inner anguish and multiple identity crises and varying allegiances by stripping away his humanity. And if you rewatch the series from the miniseries, you will find that Ellen's existence has been very suspicious from the beginning.)

5. Dualla, rather than living without hope, kills herself after having drinks and sharing a goodnight kiss with her husband, Lee.

6. And, as it turns out, Leoben does get scared. He certainly backed away from Kara when he realized she died in the crashed viper. But, for someone who so boldly acted on the notion that "all of this has already happened and will happen again," why is he suddenly running the other way?

What was... not good about the episode: I don't know, but Edward James Olmos just wasn't on top of his game tonight. I unexpectedly laughed at some of his deliveries (such as giving the response "I don't frakkin' know" when Lee asks why Dualla killed herself), and although I think Michael Hogan (who plays Tigh) played off Olmos so wonderfully in the scene of suicidal desperation, Olmos just doesn't play drunk very well. Also, I predicted Dualla's fate as soon as she sat with Hera, and I think the script could have been more subtle about where it was going with her storyline. But this is a very minor thing to harp on.

What was phenomenal about the episode: Mary McDonnell. Roslin is ready to give up, to wallow in self-pity and self-doubt, and she sets the text of Pythia on fire... page by page. She slowly tortures herself for bringing her people to a barren wasteland, for leading her people to a place that held no future. Her entire existence, her reason for being, was to bring these people to Earth, and now that she has, where does she go from here? She has no guiding influence anymore. I also enjoyed the Earth flashbacks of Tyrol and Tigh because the visual offered a solid comparison to the attacks on the Twelve Colonies in the miniseries.

But best of all, and what makes this the best show on television, this episode wasn't about politics or where to go next or how to keep going forward. It was about all the leaders hitting the biggest obstacle and then hitting rock bottom. Adama turns to alcohol. Roslin locks herself in her room. D'Anna is ready to stay behind on Earth to die. Lee loses Dualla and finally feels the loss and hopelessness everyone else feels. It's about despair, one of the most basic human emotions. What do you do when you feel like there's nothing left?

Really, a strong episode. Some of the dialogue was obviously tweaked by the network for new viewers (like Lee and Dualla awkwardly reflecting on old times), but it didn't detract from the main focus of the show, which was, as scribbled on the walls of the Galactica, "frak Earth."

sepinwall's interview with ron moore

With the premiere of Battlestar Galactica just two weeks away (my heart is racing in anticipation as I write this), Alan Sepinwall has posted his interview with creator/mastermind Ron Moore concerning the last season of the greatest show on television. I've said this before and I'll say it again... I probably wouldn't like Ron Moore if I ever met him. On the DVD commentaries, he notes which scotch and cigarette brands he's using, and the idolatry of that man is enough to annoy me. But still, he's created the best television show I've ever seen, and he's never insulted the intelligence of his audience, and in a business that is determined to dumb down its audiences, I really respect how Ron Moore has handled this show, its well-constructed characters (there is not a character I don't love -- though Gaius Baltar beats them all), and certainly the brilliance of its episodic and continuous narratives. So here, below, I've included some interesting sections of Sepinwall's interview (including bits on the upcoming Caprica series), though I definitely would encourage any fan to read the whole thing here.


Talk me through the narrative and thematic style of ("Caprica"). You like to compare "Galactica" to war movies and political films from the '70s. What's something that looks like what "Caprica" is going to be?

It's hard to say. The comparison I used to keep making was "It's a sci-fi version of 'Dallas.' But the deeper we get into it, it's not. It's so different in tone and style to what we did on "Battlestar." If you just watched and didn't know the other program or didn't know what the connective tissue was, it wouldn't feel like they're part of the same family. They're very different stylistically. This is really a character piece and a drama that's very political. It has a lot of religious issues too. There are terrorists and terrorists bombings, religious strife... In "Galactica," we talked about monotheism versus polytheism; in "Caprica," those ideas are just starting to percolate.

Prequels can be very tricky to deal with, especially when one of the characters is from the other show, and a lot of what we know about him has to go a certain way. What made you want to tell a story in the past of this universe?

I knew the series of "Battlestar Galactica" was going to end with a period at the end of the sentence. Because of the way we're ending "Battlestar," I didn't see other stories beyond it that I felt were interesting or had any real relevance to what the show is about. But we had a very rich backstory to deal with. I mean, we could have done another Battlestar, or the first Cylon war, but those would have been repeating things we had done. Remi Aubuchon had come to the studio with an idea to do something unrelated to "Battlestar" about robots and artificial intelligence and the creation of life, and when we started talking together, I got interested in the idea of doing a sci-fi show that was set on a planet, did not have an action adventure component to it, is even more of a character piece than "Battlestar," where it really has to live and die on its characters and its story without the Cylons attacking every week. Could you sustain a science fiction show in that kind of context? That's what got me excited.

Ever since you did the reveal of the Final Four, people have been really fascinated by the origins of the skinjobs and how they came to be. How much of that's going to be revealed in this final batch of "Galactica"s and how much will have to be in the new show?

It's mostly revealed in "Galactica." I don't think there are many pieces of the puzzle that are set up in "Galactica" that we held out for "Caprica." Most of the questions raised in "Galactica" are answered in "Galactica." We just said, "The Cylons were created by man and turned against their masters." And now we're telling that story.

The "Star Wars" prequels had lots and lots of problems, but one of the big ones was that we knew they were going to a fixed point, where Annakin is going to turn evil, the Republic's going to collapse, etc. How do you tell the story of the creation of the Cylons when we know what's eventually going to happen to them? Will there be a lot of scenes where one guy says, "Are you sure this is such a good idea?" and his buddy insists, "Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?"

I think that's a good tricky point. I think there's some important differences. We're not tracking a given set of characters through this. Willy will be the only person from the other show who even figures into it, and he's a kid. Internally, it's like doing a period piece. If you do a WWII piece, you know the Nazis are going to lose, that the North is going to win the Civil War, but you can still tell good stories about those periods. The fact that you do know where it's all going to end adds a certain layer of dread. Events have a certain import, because Caprica is doomed. The opening line that we show on Caprica, right now is "Caprica, 51 years before the fall." Right from the get-go we're telling you these people are all doomed. In some ways, we're taking the fact that you know where it's all going work for us.

So, for instance, when you decided who four of the Final Five would be, how much thought did you have to put into it before revealing it in "Crossroads," and how much was, "Oh, we'll say this and figure it out over the hiatus"?

The impulse to do it was literally an impulse. We were in the writers room on the finale of that season, always knew we would end season 3 on trial of Baltar and his acquittal, the writers had worked out a story and a plot, they were pitching it to me in the room. And I had a nagging sense that it wasn't big enough, on the level of jumping ahead a year or shooting Adama. And I literally made it up in the room, I said, "What if four of our characters walk from different parts of the ship, end up in a room and say, 'Oh my God, we're Cylons'? And we leave one for next season." And everyone said "Oh my God," and they were scared, and because they were scared, I knew I was right. And then we sat and spent a couple of hours talking about who those four would be. Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard to lock in who made the most sense and who would make the most story going forward.

One of the things I've thought about since you revealed them is the amazing chain of luck that had to happen for these four to survive everything that's gone down. They survived the genocide, Anders survives his time on Caprica, they all survive being the resistance leadership on New Caprica. Is this a coincidence?

This very topic is wrestled with at the end of the new season. Within the show overall, there's been a constant discussion of, "Is all this a coincidence or is there some meaning to it?" It's a glass half-full or half-empty question. Adama took a hard-line secular view on things a lot of other characters took a miraculous view on, and we the audience have seen a lot of things that can't be explained by rational means. How did these four survive through all of this -- how did all these people survive? -- and ultimately the show does have an answer to it.

One of the things I've always liked about your storytelling style is that you let a lot of things just be assumed: "Oh, the fans are going to understand this, we don't need the technobabble or whatever. I just want to hit the parts of the story that are interesting to me, even if we don't explain everything."

I like doing it that way. On some level, I write the show for me and what I like, and I flavor everything in that light. "This is how I would like to tell a story." And I just assume that the audience is as smart as me, easily and they've seen a lot of TV and seen a lot of stories, and they can fill in the blanks and make the leaps with me on certain things.

A lot of times in the podcast, you'll say things like, "I know people are interested in this, but that's really not where the story's going." You didn't really deal with the toasters becoming sentient again, that sort of thing. After I watched "Revelations," I thought it was a great ending, but I jotted down a list of things that still had to be dealt with. I'm wondering, without you giving it away, whether these things are going to be addressed or whether these are things that we're thinking a lot more about than you were.

Do you have a list?

1. Obviously, the identity of the final Cylon, we will find this out?

Yeah.

2. The origin and nature of the Final Four and how they're different from the rest of them?

Yes.

3. The origin of the rest of the skinjobs?

Yes.

4. What happened to Earth and what happened to the 13th Colony?

Yes.

5. Who, if anyone, is orchestrating all of this?

Basically, yeah. I don't know if it's going to be wrapped up in a neat bow. The show has an answer for it, whether it's a satisfying answer, I don't know.

6. Will "All this has happened before and it will happen again" be explained in some way?

Yes.

7. The opera house?

Yes.

8. What happened to Kara when she went through the Malestrom?

Pretty much.

9. Identity and nature of the "head" characters?

Yes.

10. Tigh and Six's baby, and whether that means Cylons can breed?

Yes. That's not a "yes" to whether they can breed -- the question will be answered.

11. The fate of Boomer and whether there are other 1's, 4's and 5's floating out there?

Yes.

12. Roslin's health?

Yes.

Okay, that's a "yes" on all of them.

See? We knew what all the questions were! I'm kind of proud of myself. "Yes"es to all of them. I thought you were going to throw a curve at me, like, "Oh, (bleep)."

You said there's a part of you that wished you had done what David Chase did with "The Sopranos." How do you want, or how do you expect, people to react when we get to the end of this?

I hope it's satisfying. Ultimately, I hope it's satisfying. This one is a closed-end story to an extent, setting aside "Caprica" for the moment. It's a beginning, middle and end, "Battlestar Galactica." This big story, how it all began, the apocalypse of the 12 Colonies, then the journey, and then they get here. This is the end of all these characters that you have come to know and love. I really wanted it to be satisfying and answer questions that the audience has asked for a long time. I wanted them to like the answers, or at least appreciate the answers, that thought was given to them. At the end, you can say goodbye to the characters as you're saying goodbye to the show, and there's not a dry eye in the house.

Other than the toasters getting free will this year, what are some other stories you had to drop that, all things being equal, you wish you could have done something with?

The big one that we had to make a shift on in the first season is we never got out into the civilian fleet and showed those other ships. I always felt like different cultures would be on different ships, and as time went on, would develop into their own little mini-societies depending on their circumstances. Over here, you have one captain and 50 people, and here you have four captains and 500 people, those are very different worlds that they're trapped in. For production reason, we were never able to leave Galactica for any length of time. That's a big open chapter that I never got to write.

Things I would have done differently was the Lee and Dualla romance. It sounded better in theory than the way it worked out, and I would've laid more pipe to get there in the beginning if I had known. As it was, it felt a little too thrown together and punched in too quickly.