BSG 3.16 Dirty Hands
Feb. 28th, 2007 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakJane Espensons BSG episodes remind me of her DS9 episode Ascenscion: solid, with some excellent individual scenes, but without that sparkle her Jossverse scripts had. I don't mean wit - though Jane E. specialized in comedy on BTVS and AtS, she did write episodes like After Life as well which are very serious indeed - but there was something in any Jane Espenson episode on Jossian shows which just isn't there in her BSG stuff (and wasn't there in the DS9 ep, either). Still, interesting episode.
With the caveat that I'm not sure how much of the way Adama gets written is intentional. Not Roslin, who gets to display both her inner tyrant - and I must say, her scenes with Baltar from the second episode of s3 onwards have become the highlight and most interesting development of the third season - and the woman who negotiated an agreement with teachers' unions the day before the attack on Caprica. As opposed to the Helo episode, where nobody listened to Helo until the showdown at the end, she was presented as listening to Tyrol (and acknowledging his points when he had them) throughout (mind you, how much of this was strategy and how much honesty is always ambiguous with Laura, but hey - either way, she comes across as smart). But Adama starts to disturb me. Both because he really does seem to regard pissing off the President as a reason for an arrest now, and for the threat against Cally; he threatened to do precisely what Cain did to her civilians in order to make the engineers among them cooporate. I happen to think he was bluffing, but Tyrol obviously did not.
As opposed to Dr. Roberts The Evil Prejudiced Murderer, this week's issue was actually presented with both sides - sitting duck, shooting target, the question of mutiny versus strike because of the mixture of military and civilian rules - which I thought worked much better. And the Baltar subplot was intriguing and tied into the main plot. I've seen it question as to why anyone would actually read/listen his book, given his Public Enemy Number One status: well, for starters, precisely because he's public enemy number one. Call it morbid curiosity, but memoirs of war criminals are traditional best sellers. On Baltar's part, it's a very clever move (and he's supposed to be a genius, with a nearly always unfailing survival instinct). Given that he's a) the most hated human being around, and b) can't expect any mercy from the current power holders in the fleet, the one thing that could save him, or at least give him a chance now that he's going to get his public trial, is appealing to the population. And how does he do that? Not by saying "well, look, we all collaborated, and it's true I sucked as President but what would you have done?", no, by recasting himself as Tom Zarek (living proof you can go from being a condemmed and jailed criminal to being a free man).
Incidentally, I once talked with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
likeadeuce about how the fact Lee read Zarek's book despite the later being illegal to read on campus would indicate that the Colonies did have censorship, at least in their academic institutions. And who was secretary of education at that time, hmmmm? So Roslin reacting the way she does to Baltar's book is actually only in part something brought about by the current situation and in part continuing what was already practice in the Colonies. Mostly, though, it's about Gaius Baltar. As I said, her scenes with him and her reaction to him are a highlight of the season, because she well and truly hates him and is aware she does, and is steadily losing the higher moral ground.
As for Gaius B: I have no idea whether or not the backstory he told Tyrol is the truth, and that's the beauty of it. Because on the one hand, he's definitely clever and inventive enough to come up with it due to the earlier mentioned purpose, and on the other, it would completely fit with his psychology. I can so see Baltar pull off a Pip-in-Great-Expectations scene with his parents (or should we call it the "I know thee not, old man" scene from Henry IV, Part II), and inventing accent and persona and everything to be higher class. Speaking of accents, eerie and very effective moment whe he pulled that one on Tyrol, and well played by James Callis. Best of all, of course, is that the points he makes are all good ones - it wouldn't help him at all if he just ranted in his book about how life was unfair to him, whereas the whole class issue is something people will listen to. And that single final remark to Tyrol was brilliant and devastatingly effective. "Do you seriously believe this fleet will ever be commanded by someone whose last name isn't Adama?" And there is nothing Tyrol or anyone else can say to that.
With the caveat that I'm not sure how much of the way Adama gets written is intentional. Not Roslin, who gets to display both her inner tyrant - and I must say, her scenes with Baltar from the second episode of s3 onwards have become the highlight and most interesting development of the third season - and the woman who negotiated an agreement with teachers' unions the day before the attack on Caprica. As opposed to the Helo episode, where nobody listened to Helo until the showdown at the end, she was presented as listening to Tyrol (and acknowledging his points when he had them) throughout (mind you, how much of this was strategy and how much honesty is always ambiguous with Laura, but hey - either way, she comes across as smart). But Adama starts to disturb me. Both because he really does seem to regard pissing off the President as a reason for an arrest now, and for the threat against Cally; he threatened to do precisely what Cain did to her civilians in order to make the engineers among them cooporate. I happen to think he was bluffing, but Tyrol obviously did not.
As opposed to Dr. Roberts The Evil Prejudiced Murderer, this week's issue was actually presented with both sides - sitting duck, shooting target, the question of mutiny versus strike because of the mixture of military and civilian rules - which I thought worked much better. And the Baltar subplot was intriguing and tied into the main plot. I've seen it question as to why anyone would actually read/listen his book, given his Public Enemy Number One status: well, for starters, precisely because he's public enemy number one. Call it morbid curiosity, but memoirs of war criminals are traditional best sellers. On Baltar's part, it's a very clever move (and he's supposed to be a genius, with a nearly always unfailing survival instinct). Given that he's a) the most hated human being around, and b) can't expect any mercy from the current power holders in the fleet, the one thing that could save him, or at least give him a chance now that he's going to get his public trial, is appealing to the population. And how does he do that? Not by saying "well, look, we all collaborated, and it's true I sucked as President but what would you have done?", no, by recasting himself as Tom Zarek (living proof you can go from being a condemmed and jailed criminal to being a free man).
Incidentally, I once talked with
likeadeuce about how the fact Lee read Zarek's book despite the later being illegal to read on campus would indicate that the Colonies did have censorship, at least in their academic institutions. And who was secretary of education at that time, hmmmm? So Roslin reacting the way she does to Baltar's book is actually only in part something brought about by the current situation and in part continuing what was already practice in the Colonies. Mostly, though, it's about Gaius Baltar. As I said, her scenes with him and her reaction to him are a highlight of the season, because she well and truly hates him and is aware she does, and is steadily losing the higher moral ground. As for Gaius B: I have no idea whether or not the backstory he told Tyrol is the truth, and that's the beauty of it. Because on the one hand, he's definitely clever and inventive enough to come up with it due to the earlier mentioned purpose, and on the other, it would completely fit with his psychology. I can so see Baltar pull off a Pip-in-Great-Expectations scene with his parents (or should we call it the "I know thee not, old man" scene from Henry IV, Part II), and inventing accent and persona and everything to be higher class. Speaking of accents, eerie and very effective moment whe he pulled that one on Tyrol, and well played by James Callis. Best of all, of course, is that the points he makes are all good ones - it wouldn't help him at all if he just ranted in his book about how life was unfair to him, whereas the whole class issue is something people will listen to. And that single final remark to Tyrol was brilliant and devastatingly effective. "Do you seriously believe this fleet will ever be commanded by someone whose last name isn't Adama?" And there is nothing Tyrol or anyone else can say to that.
