Revolting Developments

I was going to make some kind of comment to the effect that the reason the Colonials on “Battlestar Galactica” need Cylon technology so much is to enable all their faster-than-light jumps over sharks. But I thought better of it, partly because “jumping the shark” is such a tired expression now, but also because “twirling […]

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I was going to make some kind of comment to the effect that the reason the Colonials on “Battlestar Galactica” need Cylon technology so much is to enable all their faster-than-light jumps over sharks. But I thought better of it, partly because “jumping the shark” is such a tired expression now, but also because “twirling the jacket” is a much stronger image for me, at least where BSG is concerned.

I’ve pretty much narrowed it down to that moment where the show lost me for good. Because Apollo jumping on a table and twirling his jacket in the air was such a corny moment (not to mention being Tom Cruise-style creepy), and it was so prolonged that I knew exactly what was going to happen next. I guess other potential phrases could be “putting Baltar on the Base Star,” “blowing up Starbuck,” “shooting the leg off Gaeta,” or “bringing back the President’s cancer.” (It’s just coincidental that all these phrases are also excellent euphemisms for wanking).

Whatever the exact moment, I can tell I’ve left the flock because this week’s episode (“The Oath”) would’ve been an excellent episode, taken out of context. There was a strong through-line and strong motivation for the characters. Plenty of action without losing individual interactions. All the major characters brought together, each one given a chance to say what he’s doing and why he’s doing it. Tie-ins to previous episodes to put all in context.

Okay, maybe the last bit is the problem. Because I kept getting annoyed at what should’ve been a cool episode, and it’s because so much of it doesn’t make sense if you’ve been watching the show for four years (or two and a half for those of us who came in late).

One of the strengths of the series has always been that stuff happens: they prided themselves on making big changes to characters and their relationships, instead of having everything reset at the end of every episode. That’s fine for drama, but lousy for continuity. And I don’t mean nerdrage continuity issues like “Seelix claims she was rejected by Anders but we clearly saw in episode 314 that she was hitting on Apollo.” I mean motivations that come out of nowhere for the sake of convenience.

A character speaks for the audience in this episode when he tells Starbuck “nobody even knows what you are anymore.” Ostensibly, that’s a comment about how she came back from the dead, but it could just as well be a comment about how her personality changes completely from week to week. The episode is full of unintentional (I’m hoping) meta-commentary like that.

Hey Apollo, remember that trial? Hey Helo, remember the Pegasus, and that time you betrayed the entire fleet and nothing happened? Remember how we had a big moral quandary about planting a virus in the Cylons’ hub, but had no problem destroying the Resurrection Ship? The series is ending, so they’ve got to tie it in together, but that kind of falls apart when the only thing holding the show together is that without a wiki, people tend to forget what happens from one episode to the next. It doesn’t feel like they’re commenting on the characters’ decisions, but on the writers’.

And I don’t know; maybe it’s the intention of the writers that Apollo is supposed to be the most insufferably annoying character on the show, but having him stop in the middle of a desperate firefight and tell Tigh, “You know, maybe the revolutionaries have a point, what with you being a Cylon and all” was ludicrous almost to coat-twirling levels. Meanwhile, everyone is conveniently ignoring the fact that the Cylons are indistinguishable from humans and that they found a planet thought only to be a myth and they found 2000-year-old bones of Cylons on the planet. These would be interesting things to pursue.

It’s disappointing, because for a while, BSG was the most successful and accessible example of “world-building” I’d ever seen on TV. There was a real mythology and history to these characters. It was a little too self-satisfied with its “edginess,” but more than made up for it by delivering mature stories without devolving into “Star Trek”‘s schmaltz or overly-obvious analogies. Now, it just seems like a bunch of people in a writer’s room trying desperately to tie up as many loose ends as they can, spending more time trying to make 45 minutes of drama than something you have to put genuine thought into. I can see a future of half-Cylon babies and madmen with guns screaming, “Can’t you see? She’s half-black, and I’m half-white!!!”

Comments

  1. Rain Avatar

    I’m really getting annoyed at the lack of talk about earth and 2000 (or is it 3000?) year-old-Cylon bones too. Because it seems obvious to me that humans blew up that cylon planet oh so many years ago, yes? Or am I forgetting something that would negate that theory?

    And I’m not saying a “Humans did it first” thing justifies the cylons’ attempts to annihilate the human race, but it does seem that that knowledge should make the “mutineers” think a little harder about continuing a war. Because, you know, there are only 40,000 humans left, why risk losing even more lives? And regardless of some cylons out there still hating humans, they can’t regenerate anymore, so WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL.

    Stop yer cryin’, suck it up, and find another gods damned planet to live on. Sheesh.

  2. hierohero Avatar
    hierohero

    If you listen to ron Moore’s podcasts he says everything happening now will make a lot more sense once we get to the final episodes of the show. Make of that what you will…

  3. Cory Avatar
    Cory

    You stuck with Lost, which had 2 solid years of aimless chain jerking, and now you are writing off Battlestar for 3 episodes of it?

  4. Chuck Avatar

    Lost only had about a year of chain-jerking, but it gave the sense that it was meandering to kill time. And it paid off, because even the “off” episodes of Lost are really good these days.

    And it’s not just 3 episodes, this whole “season” of BSG (which started like 2 years ago) has been getting lamer and lamer. But it’s the kind of lame of people who’ve been blowing their wad since the miniseries ended, and don’t give any indication of being able to deliver.

  5. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    I felt a couple of the episodes this “season” have been wasted especially considering that there are only 6 or show more shows left. I don’t think we needed an entire episode to set up that obvious facts that Zarek is bad and Gaeta is a weasel, especially given all the unanswered questions they introduced in the season opener. That being said I thought part2 of this episode ( blood on the scales? ) was really good and has me excited about the final run of episodes. Everyone always knew Zarek was nasty but he’s really nasty in this episode, and Gaeta well he’s just in over his head, be careful what you wish for. I could have done without the “it was just a dream” part, but all in all this was a good one, it wrapped up some stuff that needed to be wrapped up, and cleared the way to move forward again. Now it’s time to get on with the answers.
    Hang in there Chuck, you’ve made it this far.