Als das Kind Kind war
It will likely be months and months before most of you on my flist will see this show all the way through (if you bother at all). I carry on nevertheless!
The show is finally getting awesome, I am happy to report. The back half of the season has had some really strong writing and acting, and the last couple of eps have delivered some great fanservice. Two examples:
--The "practitioner on duty" when Amanda Greystone takes her DDS handler Agent Jordan who's been shot (while under-under-cover) to the hospital is Cottle (who will "keep things quiet," we are assured). There's considerable handwringing among fen on this point: is it Our Sherman, who only pretends to be a bastard, or his dad or uncle or older brother? As I commented elsewhere, I can’t help but think that if the writers really wanted to cleave to some kind of recognizable measure of time (and the laws of physics), they’d bust out (theoretical) longevity technology and (mostly theoretical) exoplanetary orbital data and stick their tongues out at us. Years schmears. I mean, yahren schmahren.
--Adamarama: The backstories are piling up, finally! In "The Dirt Eaters," we get the story of how Jusef and Sam became orphans, which ends up being a surprisingly compelling story of valor born of extreme physical and political violence. Sure, Tauron is, as one commenter elsewhere on the internet has said, Planet Mafia. But within that, uh, unfortunate shall we say racial stereotyping, there's some interesting characterization going on. I love the hot and immediate loyalty of Sam (who, wheels within wheels, is secretly funnelling off U87s to arm the Tauron Resistance from the supply that's being directed [under the government's nose] by the iron-(and ham-)fisted Guatrau to Gemenon, to arm the STO). This storyline has the sweep that I loved in BSG's first two seasons - shure it's about robots, but it's also about revolution and war, how the difference between organized crime and corporate-sponsored government is as slender as tattooed epidermis. I would not be surprised if the STO plant in the government isn't a plant, but an agent provocateur masquerading as a plant. (This will stay interesting only until the One True God makes an appearance in meatspace. Then I will snore, in the same aggrieved way I did at the end of BSG.)
Throughout I get flashes of how these stories make great alternate histories (the Tauran Genocide etc.). And they have a slight Wim-Wenders kinda cast to them, that kind of knowing, allusive "documentary" eye on events.**
Berlin, Beirut, Bergen Belsen, the West Frigging Bank
And all the while, I am thinking ANGELS! (Cf my most recent post.)
Speaking of which, the following is meta-fanservice (which is to say, intelligent characterization consistent across works): Starbuck-y Lacy is Starbuck-y! (Not a very elegant instance of that idiom, sorry.) I'm loving how badass she's become, how decisive, stalwart. (From the episode "The Heavens Will Rise.") Someone out there is saying very smart things about the scenes following this one (her interview with Diego, the parliament of U-87s she awakes):
Lacey commands that the U-87 stop.
"Quoi?" says the U-87.
I love how the Cylon soul is shaping up (well, at least the Centurion soul), that its immediate cause is nothing supernatural. That which responds to Lacy is the trace of human ingenuity, accident, and friendship. From this vantage, if you look for the divine (comme Flying Spaghetti Monster), you only see human fervor for it.
As for the Head!Zoe who visits Zoe in "Things We Lock Away," well, it's that pesky Cylon god I was complaining about earlier, innit? And it's mostly confined to the memories of an avatar of a dead girl. The only real leakage into IRL is that Daniel Graystone copied his daughter's drawings to model the first U-87, and who's to say yet whether her drawing them in the first place (let alone being guided out of the fire as a child) is divine intervention, or simply the human mind externalizing its need for meaning? The sauce, it gets weaker and weaker the more Zoe's backstory is told. The Head!Zoe needs to appear in meatspace and move a body around, Escape-Velocity-era-Gaius-style, for me to buy any of this god business.
Speaking of Gaius, it does please me immensely that Zoe stands as analogue to Gaius Frakking Baltar. :D In some ways it makes Zoe a bit more watchable - that actress cannot ACT.
What else? Meg Tilly, that's what else! I love how prim she is in this bloody-minded moment (she's just ordered Lacy's assassination):
The whole scene is worth quoting:
DIEGO: [Lacy's control over the Centurions is as yet] unexplained. This is troubling.
MOTHER: Only if you try to explain it.
MOTHER: Secrets have answers. Now mysteries, they don't have answers. That's why I love them; they're full of endless possibilities, permutations, like God himself. But if you solve a mystery, what are you left with?
DIEGO: A secret.
MOTHER: Exactly. Ah! *shakes head* So ordinary.
Maaan, I wish they hadn't cancelled this show. Just for Meg Tilly and the words they give her. She's so exciting to watch.
And finally, and non-sequitorially,
Shut up, Wesley. (Seriously, that guy is the second coming of Wesley Crusher.)
--------
** This may be entirely Invented By Me. I may just need to watch Wings of Desire again. Can someone please translate the title (or the German, Der Himmel Uber Berlin) into Tauron pls (and if you're feeling ambitious, this)?
In Einem Hochgefühl
The show is finally getting awesome, I am happy to report. The back half of the season has had some really strong writing and acting, and the last couple of eps have delivered some great fanservice. Two examples:
--The "practitioner on duty" when Amanda Greystone takes her DDS handler Agent Jordan who's been shot (while under-under-cover) to the hospital is Cottle (who will "keep things quiet," we are assured). There's considerable handwringing among fen on this point: is it Our Sherman, who only pretends to be a bastard, or his dad or uncle or older brother? As I commented elsewhere, I can’t help but think that if the writers really wanted to cleave to some kind of recognizable measure of time (and the laws of physics), they’d bust out (theoretical) longevity technology and (mostly theoretical) exoplanetary orbital data and stick their tongues out at us. Years schmears. I mean, yahren schmahren.
--Adamarama: The backstories are piling up, finally! In "The Dirt Eaters," we get the story of how Jusef and Sam became orphans, which ends up being a surprisingly compelling story of valor born of extreme physical and political violence. Sure, Tauron is, as one commenter elsewhere on the internet has said, Planet Mafia. But within that, uh, unfortunate shall we say racial stereotyping, there's some interesting characterization going on. I love the hot and immediate loyalty of Sam (who, wheels within wheels, is secretly funnelling off U87s to arm the Tauron Resistance from the supply that's being directed [under the government's nose] by the iron-(and ham-)fisted Guatrau to Gemenon, to arm the STO). This storyline has the sweep that I loved in BSG's first two seasons - shure it's about robots, but it's also about revolution and war, how the difference between organized crime and corporate-sponsored government is as slender as tattooed epidermis. I would not be surprised if the STO plant in the government isn't a plant, but an agent provocateur masquerading as a plant. (This will stay interesting only until the One True God makes an appearance in meatspace. Then I will snore, in the same aggrieved way I did at the end of BSG.)
Throughout I get flashes of how these stories make great alternate histories (the Tauran Genocide etc.). And they have a slight Wim-Wenders kinda cast to them, that kind of knowing, allusive "documentary" eye on events.**
Berlin, Beirut, Bergen Belsen, the West Frigging Bank
And all the while, I am thinking ANGELS! (Cf my most recent post.)
Speaking of which, the following is meta-fanservice (which is to say, intelligent characterization consistent across works): Starbuck-y Lacy is Starbuck-y! (Not a very elegant instance of that idiom, sorry.) I'm loving how badass she's become, how decisive, stalwart. (From the episode "The Heavens Will Rise.") Someone out there is saying very smart things about the scenes following this one (her interview with Diego, the parliament of U-87s she awakes):
Lacey commands that the U-87 stop.
"Quoi?" says the U-87.
I love how the Cylon soul is shaping up (well, at least the Centurion soul), that its immediate cause is nothing supernatural. That which responds to Lacy is the trace of human ingenuity, accident, and friendship. From this vantage, if you look for the divine (comme Flying Spaghetti Monster), you only see human fervor for it.
As for the Head!Zoe who visits Zoe in "Things We Lock Away," well, it's that pesky Cylon god I was complaining about earlier, innit? And it's mostly confined to the memories of an avatar of a dead girl. The only real leakage into IRL is that Daniel Graystone copied his daughter's drawings to model the first U-87, and who's to say yet whether her drawing them in the first place (let alone being guided out of the fire as a child) is divine intervention, or simply the human mind externalizing its need for meaning? The sauce, it gets weaker and weaker the more Zoe's backstory is told. The Head!Zoe needs to appear in meatspace and move a body around, Escape-Velocity-era-Gaius-style, for me to buy any of this god business.
Speaking of Gaius, it does please me immensely that Zoe stands as analogue to Gaius Frakking Baltar. :D In some ways it makes Zoe a bit more watchable - that actress cannot ACT.
What else? Meg Tilly, that's what else! I love how prim she is in this bloody-minded moment (she's just ordered Lacy's assassination):
The whole scene is worth quoting:
DIEGO: [Lacy's control over the Centurions is as yet] unexplained. This is troubling.
MOTHER: Only if you try to explain it.
MOTHER: Secrets have answers. Now mysteries, they don't have answers. That's why I love them; they're full of endless possibilities, permutations, like God himself. But if you solve a mystery, what are you left with?
DIEGO: A secret.
MOTHER: Exactly. Ah! *shakes head* So ordinary.
Maaan, I wish they hadn't cancelled this show. Just for Meg Tilly and the words they give her. She's so exciting to watch.
And finally, and non-sequitorially,
Shut up, Wesley. (Seriously, that guy is the second coming of Wesley Crusher.)
--------
** This may be entirely Invented By Me. I may just need to watch Wings of Desire again. Can someone please translate the title (or the German, Der Himmel Uber Berlin) into Tauron pls (and if you're feeling ambitious, this)?
In Einem Hochgefühl