BSG 3.16 Dirty Hands

[selenak]

Jane 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 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.

Comments

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

why anyone would actually read/listen his book, given his Public Enemy Number One status

Oh please. Albert Speer, anyone? And from a British perspective, Ian Brady (http://feralhouse.com/titles/crime/gates_of_janus_the.php), although his book wasn't a best-seller.

[greenpear.livejournal.com]

Thanks for tying some of what I thought were loose points together. The banned books under Roslin slipped my mind and how Baltar's part in the episode help cement it all together.

And after all the questions have been answred we're left with twice as many questions now.

Adama didn't seem to be the Adama from the past episodes. Ruder and cruder than normal. And the threat on Cally just seemed a little extreme. He's handled far great crisises in a better manner previously.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I read review after review asking "but why would anyone read something Baltar has written?" and was baffled, because this didn't suprise me at all. As you said, Speer. And they might even be going for just that analogy, given that Baltar is currently in the brig and his method of smuggling his writings out is the same Speer used.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I can see it going all back to the fact Adama put democracy first when calling Roslin on her stealing the elections and the result was New Caprica, Baltar and the Cylon occupation, - that as a result, he's reacting stricter and stricter to where he previously would have put an open mind first - but I'm not sure whether or not that is the intention...

[greenpear.livejournal.com]

Seeing how they've just stuck plot points into stories trying to make pseudo-background that fits the current storyline. There seemed to be a more coherent storyline in the first season that's been lost of late. Charaters are not acting uniformly throughout the episodes.

[abrakadabrah.livejournal.com]

I don't have a hard time believing that people would read the book; but it strikes me as extremely odd that someone who had lived on New Caprica, and had not collaborated, would suddenly read a book by Balthar and realize it explained everything, and then buy it.

I just don't believe someone who was a resistance fighter in France or elsewhere during WWII, would afterwards, when the recovery from the war turned difficult and backbreaking and some famous collaborationist was in jail and had written a book about social ills in Europe pre and post war, would suddenly forget extremely recent history during which time they had suffered, been separated from their children, often been put in fear of death and many of their friends had died.

I think such a person would sense the bs loud and clear, particularly if a public trial was coming up, where the collaborationist needed a certain sympathy.

The BSG staff is committed to the meme of who humanity is screwed up and thus screws itself up. Last year we had the black market episode. This year we get this. I pretty much disliked both.

I thought Adama was bluffing up to a point. If there had been a hint that the strike might cause the fleet to be put in danger, I think he would have acted, though perhaps not immediately as draconically as he suggested. And that is his job. Whereas, it is not the Chief's job to get overly sentimental and call "strike" when he had the clout to negotiate a different kind of settlement. And Callie is just bubbling over with resentment these days.

I agree with you precisely that the magic that JE possessed on BTVS just does not appear in the work on her other shows, which is a shame.

Maybe she'll write for Drive and Tim Minear will give her some free reign, though come to think of it, I didn't particularly like her Firefly script either.

[willowgreen.livejournal.com]

I pretty much hated this episode--I thought it was clunky and messagey and far more annoying than the Helo-centric episode that annoyed you so much. Mostly, I thought the way Roslin dismissed all the reports of hellish conditions on the mining ship as mere inconvenience was completely out of character. Even more OOC was for her to cave and pay attention to Tyrol only afer the strike.

Adama threatening to shoot Calllie, on the other hand, I believed. Like Tyrol, I think he was probably bluffing, but it wasn't a bluff I'd have been willing to call either.

Baltar's "dairy farmer" scene was brilliant, though. Who know there was a whole planet where everyone speaks like old Ben Weatherstaff in "The Secret Garden"?

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I liked this one a lot. I am pretty sure Adama was bluffing (I doubt anybody else knew he made the threat -- though I can't remember, maybe there were other people in the scene -- so he'd have deniability if Tyrol brought it up). I also think Tyrol was pretty sure he was bluffing, but (particularly with the Cain history) there was just enough plausibility that he had to respond. Because, honestly, sometimes the stakes are so high with a bluff that there's no way to call it because you can't afford to be wrong.

My favorite moment in the ep was Laura telling Tyrol that he had made a very good point, and starting to respond. And I wouldn't be surprised if she and Adama collaborated on the bad cop/good cop act (in fact, I'd be surprised if they hadn't).

As for Baltar, i guess I can see real-life parallels, but I was kind of skeptical about the timing of it. Bringing up the class issue here seems like such an obvious red herring; my initial response was that it might have been more effective if the 'book' were anonymous and only gradually revealed to be by Baltar. But maybe that doesn't do such a direct and immediate job of rehabilitating his reputation? I had mixed feelings, but the scene with Tyrol was so good that I don't really mind.

The thing that I think IS consistent with Jane Espenson's writing, across the shows that she's written for (well, I don't know the DS9 ep, but BTVS and Firefly and BSG), is that they usually put me in mind of really good fanfic, the kind that picks up questions that the previous canon hasn't necessarily thought to ask, but that a loving fan and devotee of the show would --)

(And that reminds me that inlovewithnight's Practical Language Policies of the Colonial Fleet (http://www.inlovewithnight.com/practical.html) anticipates a lot of this!)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

No, nobody else was around when he made the threat, he was alone with Tyrol.

sometimes the stakes are so high with a bluff that there's no way to call it because you can't afford to be wrong.

Unless, of course, you're Three and on your way to see the Final Five and bank on the fact Adama won't nuke the planet for one Cylon vessel...

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Well, true. Tyrol =/= Three. Obviously.

I really loved the way Tyrol's characterization in this episode was consistent with who he's been, way back into the mini (the fight with Tigh over whether to risk delay to save lives on the crew). Someone commented that Roslin looks bad in this ep because she ignores a problem, then refuses to negotiate when it gets worse. The way I saw the sequence.

A) Roslin recognizes the validity of Tyrol's initial complaints and takes one step (the rotation) to see how it changes things.
B) It backfires when the rotated worker is injured. If Tyrol were a politician, he would realize that he now has ammunition to go back to Roslin and say "Your plan just made things worse; we need to sit down and negotiate and try something different."
C) He's not a politician; he's Chief, so he goes with his gut and calls the strike before checking back with Roslin.
D) Roslin now can't back down without appearing weak.
E) Roslin and Adama engineer bad cop/good cop act, using a bluff that Tyrol, being who he is, can't afford to call. (Whether Adama was aware of the 'good cop' part, I'm not sure, but I'd surprised if Roslin didn't know the 'bad cop' part).

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Pretty much how I saw the order of events, too. And going by the way Adama immediately said "now, you wanted to talk with the President" after Tyrol gave in, they (i.e. A. and Roslin) must have agreed before hand on how to proceed there...