BSG "The Passage"
Dec. 12th, 2006 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakMy main problem with the latest BSG had nothing to do with the episode proper: it was the sound. Maybe it's the quality of the copy or maybe it's me being German, but I couldn't understand a lot of the dialogue. This being said, here's my take on Jane Espenson's episode:
Unfortunately I was spoiled for Kat's death, due to several people mentioning it above cuts. With that knowledge, I could see the episode building up to it, but the problem is that the introduction of a Dark!backstory for Kat at this late point feels like something specifically brought in to give the death a redemptive meaning which it otherwise would not have had. Because seriously, Kat during two and a half seasons on BSG did nothing to be ashamed of (pissing Starbuck off is not a vice), and on a ship where the XO is an alcoholic and Kara drinks quite a lot as well, the stims weren't exactly a fall from grace, either. She was, as Adama says in his final scene with her, a good CAG (given that she must have been CAG not just during the four months of Cylon occupation but also in the year before with Lee commanding Pegasus and Kara on New Caprica, she held that position longer than Apollo, actually), she was a hell of a lot more stable than either Starbuck or Apollo in recent times, and liked and respected by the other pilots, so the insert of a guilty trauma was about as unsubtle as it can get, which Jane E. usually is not. I mean, I can see the parallels to Kara as I'm sure I'm meant to, specifically Kara's lie about Zak and Act of Contrition, but Kara's lie was revealed in the miniseries with Act of Contritition coming four episodes later, instead of all being slammed into one.
Then there is the fact that Kara chewing out Kat because she sees herself in her works on a theoretical level, but with this episode being placed at the point of the BSG saga where it is, after we've seen Kara at her post-traumatic worst for a while, it comes across as hypocritical and jarring in a way the Kara/Kat confrontation in Scar last season did not. In terms of Kara's story, I would have placed this either pre-New Caprica or later in the season.
Last complaint: while being appreciative that we didn't have to endure any more Kara/Lee OTP!fanfic on screen, I would have liked at least one scene with Lee and Dualla adressing the last episode. (Kara and Anders would not have been bad, either, but it's entirely ic for Kara not to seek him out to talk, and Anders isn't that much of a masochist.) I strongly suspect this episode was commissioned from Jane Espenson at a point where the overall storyline wasn't clear enough to specify this would come directly after the boxing extravaganza.
Now on to the good stuff: due to Jane E's reputation for comedy, it sometimes gets forgotten she also also can do emotional angst like no one's business, as in AfterLife, for example. (Her Deep Space Nine episode, which presumably Ron Moore knew her from first, also isn't a comedy episode but deals with the "other" Emissary and Sisko finally not just accepting but embracing his religious icon destiny.) Kat's two death bed scenes, the one with Kara and the one with Adama, are heartrendering, and also a rare present from the continuity goddess. Zak Adama finally gets mentioned on screen again! (Oh, and the two Mrs. Adamas, previously heard of as Caroline (miniseries) and Anne (Scattered), become one, Carolanne, thus resolving the Adama marital status.) Aside from Adama remaining with Kat till she dies being Adama at his best, this scene earlier featured his first gentle gesture towards Kara since their fallout, the hand on her back while she leaves.
But the highlights of the episode for this admittedly biased viewer? Were all the Cylon B-plot. Ever since Six told Baltar about the hybrid's ramblings being thought of as meaningless, except by Leoben, I entertained thoughts of the nature of:
1) Leoben: "To be mad is to see the face of God", and he certainly is the most mad, from a human pov, of the Cylons.
2) Baltar: pushed in the direction of madness ever since the miniseries, and also pushed from self-assured atheist to first pretending and then genuine believer - note that in Exodus II, he in an aside talks about "the wrath of God"
3) Three: the Cylon who went to a human oracle for help, and of course the one who tortured Baltar into his latest break-and-survival recently
Which lead me to speculate that since a mere repetition of the Six/Baltar storyline with D'Anna would not work and in any case she's not presented as romantically in love with Baltar, what she would start to see Baltar as would be a prophet. Or, like the Pythia, an interpreter of the God(s), if you like. So their scenes in this episode made me rather happy, as they tend to support this thesis. Why doesn't the show do this with Six? Because methinks it will end badly for Three. Lucy Lawless isn't a regular, and the number of episodes she was contracted for this season is coming to an end. I'm making an educated (and unspoiled!) guess here and predict that Three, probably with Baltar's help, will find out what she seeks, the truth behind the five missing Cylon models and even the Cylon God, but will be unable to tell anyone because she will get trapped in that space between life and death she keeps revisiting through committing suicide over and over again.
Meanwhile, Baltar's question about being a Cylon, and the hope to be so - the wish to "stop being traitor to one race and being hero to another" is both proof of remaining Baltarian self-centricism and the most human of reactions. It also underscores for me he won't get that reassurance absolving him from his guilt. Moreover, it sounds like the kind of ironic prophecy the Greeks loved, in reverse. Which is to say: I think Gaius' time with the Cylons is drawing to an end, and what he will find, which won't be necessarily the same thing D'Anna will find, is going to lead him back to the humans. His interaction with the Hybrid - touching her, actually listening to what she says - remind me a bit of his interaction with Gina in her cell, but more to the point, they are free of panic; having gone through torture and a complete mental break from reality in order to survive it, he seems to have come out as someone literary between worlds and existences as well. Passage, indeed.
Is it too much to hope the next episode makes the Cylons plus Baltar the A-plot?
Unfortunately I was spoiled for Kat's death, due to several people mentioning it above cuts. With that knowledge, I could see the episode building up to it, but the problem is that the introduction of a Dark!backstory for Kat at this late point feels like something specifically brought in to give the death a redemptive meaning which it otherwise would not have had. Because seriously, Kat during two and a half seasons on BSG did nothing to be ashamed of (pissing Starbuck off is not a vice), and on a ship where the XO is an alcoholic and Kara drinks quite a lot as well, the stims weren't exactly a fall from grace, either. She was, as Adama says in his final scene with her, a good CAG (given that she must have been CAG not just during the four months of Cylon occupation but also in the year before with Lee commanding Pegasus and Kara on New Caprica, she held that position longer than Apollo, actually), she was a hell of a lot more stable than either Starbuck or Apollo in recent times, and liked and respected by the other pilots, so the insert of a guilty trauma was about as unsubtle as it can get, which Jane E. usually is not. I mean, I can see the parallels to Kara as I'm sure I'm meant to, specifically Kara's lie about Zak and Act of Contrition, but Kara's lie was revealed in the miniseries with Act of Contritition coming four episodes later, instead of all being slammed into one.
Then there is the fact that Kara chewing out Kat because she sees herself in her works on a theoretical level, but with this episode being placed at the point of the BSG saga where it is, after we've seen Kara at her post-traumatic worst for a while, it comes across as hypocritical and jarring in a way the Kara/Kat confrontation in Scar last season did not. In terms of Kara's story, I would have placed this either pre-New Caprica or later in the season.
Last complaint: while being appreciative that we didn't have to endure any more Kara/Lee OTP!fanfic on screen, I would have liked at least one scene with Lee and Dualla adressing the last episode. (Kara and Anders would not have been bad, either, but it's entirely ic for Kara not to seek him out to talk, and Anders isn't that much of a masochist.) I strongly suspect this episode was commissioned from Jane Espenson at a point where the overall storyline wasn't clear enough to specify this would come directly after the boxing extravaganza.
Now on to the good stuff: due to Jane E's reputation for comedy, it sometimes gets forgotten she also also can do emotional angst like no one's business, as in AfterLife, for example. (Her Deep Space Nine episode, which presumably Ron Moore knew her from first, also isn't a comedy episode but deals with the "other" Emissary and Sisko finally not just accepting but embracing his religious icon destiny.) Kat's two death bed scenes, the one with Kara and the one with Adama, are heartrendering, and also a rare present from the continuity goddess. Zak Adama finally gets mentioned on screen again! (Oh, and the two Mrs. Adamas, previously heard of as Caroline (miniseries) and Anne (Scattered), become one, Carolanne, thus resolving the Adama marital status.) Aside from Adama remaining with Kat till she dies being Adama at his best, this scene earlier featured his first gentle gesture towards Kara since their fallout, the hand on her back while she leaves.
But the highlights of the episode for this admittedly biased viewer? Were all the Cylon B-plot. Ever since Six told Baltar about the hybrid's ramblings being thought of as meaningless, except by Leoben, I entertained thoughts of the nature of:
1) Leoben: "To be mad is to see the face of God", and he certainly is the most mad, from a human pov, of the Cylons.
2) Baltar: pushed in the direction of madness ever since the miniseries, and also pushed from self-assured atheist to first pretending and then genuine believer - note that in Exodus II, he in an aside talks about "the wrath of God"
3) Three: the Cylon who went to a human oracle for help, and of course the one who tortured Baltar into his latest break-and-survival recently
Which lead me to speculate that since a mere repetition of the Six/Baltar storyline with D'Anna would not work and in any case she's not presented as romantically in love with Baltar, what she would start to see Baltar as would be a prophet. Or, like the Pythia, an interpreter of the God(s), if you like. So their scenes in this episode made me rather happy, as they tend to support this thesis. Why doesn't the show do this with Six? Because methinks it will end badly for Three. Lucy Lawless isn't a regular, and the number of episodes she was contracted for this season is coming to an end. I'm making an educated (and unspoiled!) guess here and predict that Three, probably with Baltar's help, will find out what she seeks, the truth behind the five missing Cylon models and even the Cylon God, but will be unable to tell anyone because she will get trapped in that space between life and death she keeps revisiting through committing suicide over and over again.
Meanwhile, Baltar's question about being a Cylon, and the hope to be so - the wish to "stop being traitor to one race and being hero to another" is both proof of remaining Baltarian self-centricism and the most human of reactions. It also underscores for me he won't get that reassurance absolving him from his guilt. Moreover, it sounds like the kind of ironic prophecy the Greeks loved, in reverse. Which is to say: I think Gaius' time with the Cylons is drawing to an end, and what he will find, which won't be necessarily the same thing D'Anna will find, is going to lead him back to the humans. His interaction with the Hybrid - touching her, actually listening to what she says - remind me a bit of his interaction with Gina in her cell, but more to the point, they are free of panic; having gone through torture and a complete mental break from reality in order to survive it, he seems to have come out as someone literary between worlds and existences as well. Passage, indeed.
Is it too much to hope the next episode makes the Cylons plus Baltar the A-plot?
