Battlestar Friday SUPER HAPPY FUN TIME BIG SPECIAL ~ 09.30.05

Today is the first of fifteen Fridays without a new episode of Battlestar Galactica. Looking at it that way it doesn’t sound too far off. That’s just a couple of more than a baker’s dozen. It’s not a very big number when you’re thinking about it that way or when your thinking of minutes, hours or days… oh, who in the hell am I kidding here? When it comes to new episodes of BSG that fifteen weeks seems like yarens! Like light years even! Well there is nothing we can do about it, but we can pass the time with some serious discussion about where the show has been so far, where we think the show is going and who will be revealed to be the next Cylon sleeper agent.

I want the Battlestar Friday entries to have a lot more substance to them than what I have done in the past. To that effect I have sent emails to a few friends/fans of the show and asked them to contribute. I also want you to participate in the discussion via the comments and I really mean that. Since we all can’t get together and we can’t conference call these entries make it possible for us to talk and share our thoughts on the best show on TV right. With that said I do have to remind you that I have a zero tolerance for spoilers. I am aware that some folks really love spoilers and I respect that. Knock yourself out with them, but do it elsewhere and not on my site baby or it’s out the airlock with you. I expect everyone to respect the zero tolerance spoiler stance. So NO SPOLIERS! These entries of course assume that you are also caught up with BSG through the season cliffhanger of last Friday. Not to sound cold, but if you aren’t I am filing that under ‘not my problem’. Okay, ‘nuff said. Now let’s get on with this week's articles..

Let’s start with guest writer Steve-oBattlestar Galactica as an Examination of Human Nature
by Steve-o, ESQ

First of all, let me lay down the ground rules for
this essay. If you disagree with anything I say, that
is your right. Make any comments you want.
I’ll get back to you, I promise. Conversely,
if you agree with me, think I rock, or want to have
my children, the same rules apply. You can’t have my
children, though.

To my mind, the reason BSG is such a great show isn’t
so much the effects, the settings, or even the acting
(although all of these things are superlative). I
believe the reason the show is so good is the feeling
that you can identify with the characters’ foibles,
plights, and – yes – great moments. Let’s take a
good, honest look at Bill Adama, just as an example.

Who hasn’t hated him for a few seconds during the
show? Who remembers, “Now get out of my office, while
you still can”? Who didn’t sit up a little straighter
in their chair when he said in the last episode, “I’m
getting my men”? Bill believes that the end justifies
the means. Sometimes he fools us, momentarily showing
compassion for Sharon Mk II or someone else; but then
he’s back, holding a gun to someone’s head. But over
the course of watching the show, you get the idea that
he doesn’t LIKE being this way. He would rather be
some other kind of person, but realizes that his
responsibility transcends any morality. He is quite
literally tasked with the SURVIVAL OF THE HUMAN RACE.
One thing that is telling about him is that when these
“dirty” decisions come around, he is always the one to
make them. His conscience is Galactica’s conscience.

Other characters are just as three-dimensional.

This is why I like the show so much – it’s like a
laboratory experiment. The creators put together a
situation, dropped the characters into it and have
just sat back and seen what would happen. I’ve read
that when some novelists (Stephen King being a notable
example) write, they make a sketch of the characters
and then a sketch of the overall situation. The work
after that simply consists of figuring out how the
characters will react and even change based on the
situation.

In bad television (and movies as well), the characters
remain unchanged throughout their experience. In good
theater (we’ll use that as an overarching term) the
characters go through a crucible and emerge on the
other side somehow changed.

The last episode of BG saw a marked change in Adama,
remarkably illustrated by the pained expression on EJ
Olmos’ face when he makes his decision – survival of
the fleet be damned, these are my men!

Next season prognostication? My take on what might
happen is totally worthless, as these superlative
writers have fooled me before, but I’d look for a new
relationship between Helo and Tyrol as they both
realize they would kill to keep Sharon Mk II safe.
Also, some hijinks will ensue when Gaius gets 6 Mk
whatever on the ship. Sure, she’s presented at the
present as a sympathetic character (in yet another
scene that could have been hideously overwrought, but
was not), but how is a Cylon going to react to being
emotionally traumatized?

Bottom line? I don’t have any idea what’s going to
happen, but I’ll be there every Friday to watch it.
*****

Cain and Abel… err… I mean Adama
by Will Burnham

NOTE: If you are not caught up to the Season Two cliffhanger break you may want to skip to the next article.

I am just going to come right out and say it. In the season cliff hanger episode Pegasus, Admiral Cain is 100% right in her actions and Adama is 100% wrong. [dons fireproof suit]. She is the flag officer and when it comes to military affairs her word is the word of the gods. Is she heavy handed? Yes, most definitely. Is she violating military protocol? I am not an expert on military protocol and what I do know I know from my study of the American Civil War, my time in the Civil Air Patrol, my two weeks in the USAF, war movies and M.A.S.H. So there is my lack of qualifications. Be that as it may, the Admiral might be violating something in the US Armed Forces protocol, but, and this is a BIG but, this isn’t the US Armed Forces. This is the Colonial Fleet and frankly we do not know enough about their rules and regs to be sure.

Yes, there are similarities between Fleet and the US Armed Forces because as an audience we need something to relate to. We need that familiarity to get us involved and we need it to give us a basis to make judgments on. From what I do know about the US military though (and again I am no expert) I have to say that the Admiral is right especially in light of the current situation. Regardless if we feel that she is the Queen Beee-otch of Space and that she could pimp slap Emperor Palpatine. The military regs, her rank and the situation give her the right. The arrest and court martial of Helo and Chief Tyrol is justified and I agree with the guilty verdict on the manslaughter of Lt. Thorn (that guy was a major ass-clown). However I totally disagree with the sentence of execution. In my mind and given the circumstances, the desperate situation and the lack of qualified personal the sentence is heavy handed in the extreme and wasteful. Throw them in the brig. Give them a parole similar to the one given the Lee Adama for his mutinous acts (out of the brig when on duty, in the brig at all other times), but don’t pop a cap in their heads! However, I am not in command. I am merely an observer to events. Adama’s actions on the other hand are totally over the top and extreme as well, but knowing him as well as we do and knowing what he and his crew have been through his actions are not unexpected. His reputation and his crew (although they may not say it) actually demand them. Regardless and from the military standpoint Adama is wrong for launching a strike team against an allied ship. He is not following the directives and orders he gives to his own crew. I am going to go back to last week’s Battlestar Friday comments and quote my friend, Tom Atkinson.

“The power struggle between the two crews recalls Apollo's observation that if they don't follow their laws, then "You're not a Commander, I'm not a Captain..."”

William Adama is not following the law and he is therefore no longer a commander, but like his son he is now a mutineer. He is following his heart and soul, but not the directive he issued to Lee and Kara earlier in the very same episode (paraphrase here), “You’re officers. Act like it.” Adama is not acting like an officer. He’s acting like a protective father. He wants his crew to follow the law, the regs, but he himself does not. What sort of example does this set on a military ship? A bad one. Adama has said several times over many episodes that the officers and crew of Galactica have been lax, that they have let things slide, and that there are duties and costs that come with the uniform. He uses that speach when he needs it to keep people in line and get his way, but then he throws it out the window when it interferes with his own wants. He’s done this before and put the entire fleet in jeopardy in the episodes Act of Contrition and You Can’t Go Home again. Recall that Kara is shot down and Willam and Lee Adama squander the fleet’s limited resources in a massive rescue effort for ONE pilot. Guess they never heard that line about “the needs of the many.” But he’s Commander Adama, the Moses of the rag tag fleet leading them to the Promised Land, and this is the crew of the Galactica we are talking about. We’ve been with these folks from the beginning. We know their struggle on a very personal level. We know their tragedies and the few triumphs that they have had. We’ve seen them at their best and their worst and we have come to love them. We have a lot of emotional investment in them. We stand by them and cut them a lot of slack. They are our family and no one is going to frak with them gods damn it!

The Pegasus and her crew on the other hand… They made quite the statement and clearly established what they were all about when they practically ‘goose stepped’ onto the flight deck of Galactica. We knew from the get-go that the Pegasus crew are all about the military business. An officer has been killed at the hands of fellow officers. Military regs and protocol demands a trail and punishment and this is going to be done by the book. Compassion has nothing to do with it. The Pegasus crew is also all about dealing death to the Cylons. To them it’s all black and white and the ends more than justifies the means. The Cylons and those that fraternize and defend them (even Sharon/Boomer) are the enemy and that means they are to be destroyed. Personally I couldn’t agree more about the Cylons. Tyrol and Helo on the other hand are family. I think we need to step back and try on the combat boots of the Pegasus crew. Stay with me here. For months the Pegasus crew have believed that they have been the only survivors of the holocaust. You remember the holocaust brought down by the Cylons – AKA the real BAD guys – that wiped out twelve colonies with billions of people on each. They murdered billions, wiped out a civilization, and are connecting the female survivors on Caprica to some sort of fraked-up impregnating/rape machines out of a Hentai film to make some sort of Cylon/Human hybrid! You remember those guys right? Good. Now put the actions of the Pegasus crew into perspective with what the Cylons did and continue to do. From our one-sided Galactica perspective we see the actions of Admiral Cain as heavy-handed and without compassion, like those of a certain sea captain chasing a certain white whale. Cain has her own white whale and she’s going to get it no matter what and frak Adama and frak President Roslin. Further more we see Cain’s actions and those of her crew as brutal, inhuman… very much like the Cylons. In their quest for vengeance have they turned into the enemy? Hmm. It’s interesting to ponder. Consequently we think Admiral Cain and her crew are inhuman scum and we have been given no choice but to feel that way. The writers have painted an abstract and dark picture of them for us. The writers have shown us nothing in the Pegasus crew to make us feel any bit of sympathy or empathy for them. They are human, but the similarity to our Galactica family ends there. I think we need to cut the Pegasus crew some serious slack. To be fair we don’t know their story, their struggle, their losses and their pressures. They haven’t had the higher cause that Galactica has of protecting humanity. They had no civilian government and no counterbalance (Roslin to Adama) to their strict military lives. The Pegasus crew has struggled day after day doing nothing but fighting off long hours of boredom that have been punctuated by moments of the terror and chaos of battle. It appears that they ran from the fight and if so then they are dealing with that guilt. Each day they draw another line through the names of more of the their fallen comrades, friends and lovers. They have had no hope of reinforcement. They have been waiting for their turn to die at the hands of a Cylon or even at the hands of their own commander. They have been alone and have only had their military training and discipline to hold them together. They have likely viewed their mission as a lost cause and have been fighting to take out as many Cylons as they can before the Cylons wipe them out. They had – until they found Galactica and the fleet – the bleakest future of all, a future of certain death. Consider that when you condemn them.

Adama is the man, but he’s wrong, and still I love him for it and it’s his ship that I would much rather serve on. So say we all.
*****

What I’d Like to See
By Jeff Stoner

The Baltar/Six thing ? what is Six (at least the version of Six that he carries around in his head)? Or more importantly, what is Baltar? Since Six isn't an implant, maybe he really IS crazy. Or maybe he is a Cylon with special programming. After all, the Sharon units can be programmed to think that they are human. At any rate, he will be president very soon. He's going to have to choose sides. He's also going to have to choose Sixes, I'd wager.
[Ed. Note. Six commented that she is an angel of God, but that doesn’t prove that she is or that Baltar is not crazy)

Speaking of the president, doesn't she have the power to make Adama an
Admiral (or Grand Admiral or Sky Marshal or whatever) and name him CiC
of all military assets including Pegasus? Just askin'. As it is, if
Cain is still around when Roslyn croaks the fleet will become a military dictatorship. But I don't look for Cain to stay long.

I'd also like to see the fleet MOVE a little. They seem like they are
always near enough to the old colonies that they could just jump right
back if they had to. They need to actually GO someplace, or at least
drop the hint that "we can't go back anymore". They need to wrap up the Caprica thread. It's not bad, but it detracts from the sense that
Galactica is travelling away from home. Star Blazers [AKA Space Cruiser Yamato] did this exactly right. There came a day when they could no longer talk directly to Earth, and then later a day when they could not even receive transmissions. And the setting never flashed back to Earth after a certain point. You really felt their isolation, and you got a little taste of how far apart the stars really are.
*****

That's the end of this week's Battlestar Friday SUPER HAPPY FUN TIME FAMILY SPECIAL. See you next Friday for more. So say we all.