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Battlestar Galactica: Taking a Break From All Your Worries

Lee: "Forget it. This is frakking pointless."

This episode was sort of a drunken ramble about marriage and prison being a whole lot alike; i.e., full of lies and the loss of freedom. And I suppose there was some redemption in there, too.

I must admit I was intrigued to hear what would come out of Gaius' mouth while he was high on interrogation LSD. But then he didn't actually tell them much of anything, dammit. So yes, we learned that Gaius probably isn't one of the Final Five Cylons. (According to Harvey Six, who has been known to lie.) Roslin is obviously capable of losing her cool and screaming, which I found surprising. And Felix Gaeta has been repressing some serious rage toward Gaius. I thought Gaeta was setting Gaius up for Adama and Roslin, and was rather shocked by the pen in the throat thing. (What did Gaius whisper in Gaeta's ear? Must have been interesting.)

Gaius's well-deserved misery was echoed by our confused marital foursome. "Joe's," the hot new night spot on Galactica where everybody really does know your name, has turned into a refuge for unhappy marrieds trying to get away from the tiny bunks they're sharing and the extreme lack of privacy. Dee and Sam showed exceptional classiness and tried to let Lee and Kara go. Lee and Kara showed exceptional idiocy and didn't take them up on it. Can't resolve all that romantic tension so easily, I guess.

Did Lee mean what he said to Dualla? Does he truly love her? Or is he just unwilling to hurt her? Does he just realize that Kara will continue to jerk him around so he's taking himself out of the equation? Whatever. It's still unresolved. Although I bet Lee and Kara will stay away from each other at least for a little while.

Bits and pieces:

— This week's survivor count was 41,403. Last week's was 41,401. Let's see. We re-acquired Athena, Hera and Gaius... but I thought there were at least two and possibly three casualties on the algae planet. So I'm confused.

— We got yet another ambiguous Adama/Roslin scene that suggested they might be sleeping together. Come on, guys. Inquiring (and prurient) minds want to know.

— No more Cylon base star scenes, unless you count Gaius' downloading fantasies. I always found those base star scenes fascinating but uncomfortable and disconnected from the rest of the show.

— Harvey Six knotted Gaius' noose and knocked over the chair. Have we ever seen Harvey Six doing something quite that physical before?

— Gaius, in his long hair and beard, was almost channeling Jesus. He even had a conversation with Gaeta about betrayal. James Callis must have spent a very uncomfortable, wet week when they were filming this one.

— Chief Tyrol and Cally have been fighting. I guess living in a bunk is kind of tough for a family of three.

— Lee and Dee's quarters are luxurious compared to those curtained bunks, but a far cry from Lee's digs on Pegasus.

— Where did all the booze come from? Was it in storage all this time? Did they distill it from algae? (And bleah.)

— I liked the little quid pro quo when Roslin brought Gaius his glasses.

— In this week's Most Obvious Symbolism, a drunken Lee dropped his wedding ring on the deck and was unable to find it. Get a clue, Lee.

— We got a "bonus scene" of Roslin and Caprica Six where Six asked if she was going to be airlocked and mentioned Leoben. Why a bonus scene? If there was time to show it, why not put it in the episode?

— This episode was directed by Edward James Olmos.

A lot happened, but we didn't seem to get anywhere. Dan liked it more than I did and gave it three stars. I think I'll let that stand,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

5 comments:

  1. I was struck at how much Christ symbolism was used in the Baltar scenes. In the prison cell, he had on a long white tunic. Add in the long hair and the beard and it doesn't a huge leap to get there. Not to mention that when he was floating, his arms were outstretched. Too bad he couldn't just get up and walk across the water...

    Glad he's not one of the Final Five, but not all that surprised really.

    I thought both the scene with Laura yelling at him and the drug trip were a bit much. Remind me, who are the good guys here?

    One of the biggest problems I have with television is the forced continuation of unresolved sexual tension. For whatever reason (and I refuse to call it the 'Moonlighting Curse'), writers are terrified that if they bring the couple together, the show will die.

    So, what we get instead is an absolutely wonderful episode where Kara and Lee beat the crap out each other at the same time that we see them shouting to the skies how much they love each other. But instead of bringing them together (and can you imagine the wonderful scenes if he were still her major yet they were sleeping together??), they create ridiculous circumstances to keep them apart.

    If Kara is really so against divorce, why does she have no problem sleeping with someone else and treating her husband like a concubine. If Lee really loves Kara, why would he stay with Dee after she let him go? If he loves her so much, he could leave Dee and sleep with Kara. I can't believe he cares enough about Sam to worry about what he's feeling in all this.

    I could understand Lee's never wanting to have anything to do with Kara after the shenanigans on New Caprica. But, he seemed to have moved beyond it just a while ago. Why bring it up now? Oh yeah, because it conveniently keeps them apart.

    Which would be fine. They had their shot and they both blew it. Move on? Oh no, instead we get longing glances at each across the bar while they are with their respective spouses. Come on, guys. Figure out which way you're going to to and then stick with it.

    Sorry -- a bit of a soap box, but that issue and, therefore, this episode, winds me up just a bit.

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  2. I just can't see the paralelism of betraying your spouse and betraying your spieces so the juxtaposition of Baltar and Lee at the end didn't work for me.

    of course the interrogation of Baltar was far more interesting then the love square. If only Billy didn't die, then we wouldn;t have gotten this plot.

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  3. I'm not sure I can explain how much I don't care about the love square. It seems pointless, contrived and boring.

    The Baltar stuff was good though, i liked the drug induced hallucinations, and Gaetas reaction was both surprising and satisfying to some degree. Though I still also feel sorry for him, which I think is a testament to the writing and acting in the series.

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  4. Oh, come on Patryk--spouse, species, it's mostly the same letters. And I'm with Baz that I'm not all that engaged with the marital problems, it feels like filler drama. And I'm in the minority but I've never really liked Apollo/Starbuck as a couple that much; they feel more like siblings to me. As great a show as this is, I think that modern shows have been right to move toward 10-12 episodes a season. Producing twenty hours of great television a year is really hard.

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  5. Not only did I not enjoy this episode on any merit, I actually got deeply, irrationally angry about Baltar, and Adama identifying him as self-victimizing. HOW CAN HE STILL SEE HIMSELF AS A VICTIM AFTER HANDING THAT NUKE TO GINA FUCKKKKKKKKKK
    I know Adama and co. don't know about that and that's fair, but I get so mad, and feel such satisfaction from Roslin's shouting, whenever Baltar has the fucking balls to get indignant about his treatment. And it's that bad kind of anger, which spills out into hatred towards fans who like him lol. Ugh.

    And although I'm not defending the love quadruple, I actually found it slightly more engaging than the Baltar torture stuff. The latter's too TV, the former is... well, depressing, and I'm a wallower so it at least made me feel something, though I'm sure I'm going to be very vexed when I watch the deleted scenes and see what lost out in favor of the Lee-Starbuck fuckery. At least I'm getting closer to fulfilling a certain goal behind the rewatch, which is to see if I'm justified in defending s4 staunchly against the haters and believing this season was worse. But it's too soon, and I admit I'm really hoping there are more clunkers right up ahead because I don't want to find out I was wrong lol >_>

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