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selenakDoctor Who:
If you've watched Scream of the Shalka, this is not news, but it's still nice that Paul Cornell told the world (i.e. a con) that
the Doctor and the Master were doing it.
Marvelverse:
Fascinating article about Sue Storm and the way female characters were and are written through the decades.
Now, about the two shows with robots and humans.
Battlestar Galactica
This was one of the episodes where I really wished I still liked Bill Adama instead of wanting to yell "go away" on my screen every time he shows up, because if I still liked him, I'd have been all over the True Love of Saul and Bill. As it was, and even though Bill did not do anything to tick me off in this episode, I still was torn between wishing he'd disssappear for ever and ever and enjoying what he brings to the Who's Afraid Of The Final Five? show. For verily, the Edward Albee-ness of Ellen's and Saul's marriage was alive and thriving. I found that somewhat reassuring, for as much as I had enjoyed Cylon Creator!Ellen last week, I was still missing the immensely flawed woman who had died on New Caprica whom I had loved with all her flaws, and this week showed she's just as present as Ellen's Cylon--ness is, and of course it would be Saul who'd bring it out in her. Oh my intergalactic George and Martha, I have missed you.
(Also, I was amused that as much as Ellen resents the Bill Adama love, Bill is jealous of her as well. Just watch that expression of his in all the scenes she was in.)
What didn't quite work for me, as ever, was Tigh/Caprica. Not the child (incidentally, Jane E., naming the kid Liam - was that a shout-out to Angel?) and the shared joy and grief for same, but the two actually feeling something for each other and having a bond of their own. Tigh hardly ever saw Caprica with all the Ellen projecting, he doesn't really know her. And while for us, the audience, Saul Tigh is a rich and fascinating character, the few scenes he and Caprica shared in the first part of s4 didn't exactly show something to her she could fall in love with, either, other than he was a masochist who wanted to be punished for killing Ellen. So BSG does that thing again where they use a never before seen scene in the previouslies and have Caprica talk of "our love", I'm going "what are you talking about?"
All this being said: I did like the Ellen and Caprica scene, with Ellen wavering between being manipulative and bitchy on the one hand and on the other having flashes of genuine empathy and revealing vulnerability of her own, switching between treating Caprica as a rival and as a daughter. I also like that the show, continuing with last week's incest theme, has Ellen basically go "you slept with our daughter?!?" in addition to "how come she's pregnant and I never was" on Saul. I just wish the show had been able to make Caprica/Tigh credible to me as well.
One more Ellen thing: until she pointed it out to Adama and Roslin it hadn't occured to me but: the Final Five being the last survivors of the original 13th tribe, of the genocide on Earth, makes them a miniversion of the colonials in the fleet and another story of survival after an apocalypse in themselves.
And speaking of Final Five/ Significant Seven relationships: season 1 and early s2 must have left me with a soft spot for Tyrol/Boomer, because I went "aw" at him recognising her, at Starbuck advising him to go and see her in the brig, and later at him being there when she slept. Presumably we'll get more next week. I'm in two minds about Boomer being thrown in the brig at all; on the one hand, that shooting was so long and several amnesties ago, on the other, she has become part of the Cylon war effort since then (i.e. the shooting wasn't Boomer's fault, but her actions on New Caprica and after certainly were her own responsibility and no one else's), on the third, if you let all these other Cylons, all of whom used fight Colonials as well, walk around your ship, Bill, this really looks like another case of double standard. And then there's the pragmatic aspect - how do they know Boomer isn't programmed to betray them yet again? Which would make the brig sensible. In conclusion, I can't make up my mind on that one.
Many of the Cylons wanting to call it quits with the humans as long as they have the possibility of biological procreation among themselves, after the recent mutiny and being aware of the general mood on Galactica: makes sense from their pov, but is still wrong-headed, as yes, Cylon/Human mingling is the only way to prevent more repetition of all that happened before and the next genocide.
The Baltar subplot: at first I was in two minds about this as well as it seemed a step back after Blood on the Scales, but then we got the Baltar/Head!Six (for the return of same much thanks, show) conversation about whether he really wanted to help, and the fact he did, that it might have started as a ploy to outmaneouvre Paula but became more, and this made it a continuation of previous events. Callis is funny as ever with the expressions, of course, and it's good the sons of Ares are back if only because otherwise they would have been an entirely pointless plot device in s4.1. The subplot also addressed the fact that just because the mutineers were defeated, the general population at large hadn't magically become pro-Adama and accepting of all his orders. Now obviously that last shot with the guns was deliberately ominous to cause suspense, but I doubt they'll do another mutiny - sorry, Gaius, revolution - story again directly after the last one, so no, I don't expect the former cult girls to storm CiC or to massacre the next bunch of civilians. (I've no idea where this will go, though, and am willing to be surprised.) I also think it's significant that this time Adama didn't dismiss the points Baltar brought up but actually listened.
Lastly: Roslin's conversation with Caprica about the opera house vision is an obvious reminder to the audience, so I'm assuming SOMEONE will visit the opera in their dreams again soon, but that something will have changed from the previous visions.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles
This is so my favourite running show, with its density and richness and character interaction and - everything. Structuring the episode around the funerals of the factory workers not only served in terms of moving the plot forward - i.e. letting Sarah & Co. find out more about the factory - but brought home that these were human beings, each with their own story. It underscores how deeply humane this show is; no "stuff happens" or "colleteral damage" attitude here, as Sarah interacts with the widow of the first human being she killed. She had to, to save her own life, and it was self defense, but the man wasn't a machine but had a life, family, and story of his own. I love you, show.
The way grief affects you, or not, shows up in all the different plot threads; Sarah and Derek each accuse the other of being unable to let Kyle Reese go, Cameron and John interact with a girl who supposedly lost her father, but is really faking it as he survived. Meanwhile, the late Logan Weaver is really dead but his widow isn't really his widow, and as opposed to Cameron, who spots the teenage girl's non-reactions, doesn't know there is a need to fake grief until the conversation with Ellison alerts her to it. Now, on a lesser show, all the Catherine and Ellison subplot would have served for was to give Ellison reason to suspect Catherine Weaver is not who she says she is. On this show, the pay-off scene at the end of the episode isn't Ellison going "hmmmm...." but Catherine Weaver interacting with "her" daughter Savannah, and this scene fascinated me as much as their earlier ones several episodes ago did. Because T-Catherine doesn't really need to do the grief interaction with Savannah; after all, she's not doing it in front of Ellison or anyone else she could impress with it, which would have been the logical thing if it it's all about maintaining her cover. Instead, she first recites Ellison's memory which he had meant as comfort like a student does a lesson of one's teacher, and then tries to understand Savannah's reactions and respond to them very much like Cameron did in early s1 when that student in her and John's class had committed suicide.
Now, the next mystery is that if Quark's brother Rom, err, Catherine Weaver's agent as played by Max Perlich, was in pursuit of Long Hair Guy (and eventually died of his hands), and Long Hair Guy was able to recall the Skynet Probe and store it in his truck, it means that there are two different agendas going on there, neither of them good for Our Heroes, of course. But it lends support to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
londonkds' Catherine-Weaver-is-Saruman thesis: her agenda with current Skynet is not necessarily current Skynet's agenda, and most likely she wants to change its nature for her own purposes by the whole John Henry project.
If you've watched Scream of the Shalka, this is not news, but it's still nice that Paul Cornell told the world (i.e. a con) that
the Doctor and the Master were doing it.
Marvelverse:
Fascinating article about Sue Storm and the way female characters were and are written through the decades.
Now, about the two shows with robots and humans.
Battlestar Galactica
This was one of the episodes where I really wished I still liked Bill Adama instead of wanting to yell "go away" on my screen every time he shows up, because if I still liked him, I'd have been all over the True Love of Saul and Bill. As it was, and even though Bill did not do anything to tick me off in this episode, I still was torn between wishing he'd disssappear for ever and ever and enjoying what he brings to the Who's Afraid Of The Final Five? show. For verily, the Edward Albee-ness of Ellen's and Saul's marriage was alive and thriving. I found that somewhat reassuring, for as much as I had enjoyed Cylon Creator!Ellen last week, I was still missing the immensely flawed woman who had died on New Caprica whom I had loved with all her flaws, and this week showed she's just as present as Ellen's Cylon--ness is, and of course it would be Saul who'd bring it out in her. Oh my intergalactic George and Martha, I have missed you.
(Also, I was amused that as much as Ellen resents the Bill Adama love, Bill is jealous of her as well. Just watch that expression of his in all the scenes she was in.)
What didn't quite work for me, as ever, was Tigh/Caprica. Not the child (incidentally, Jane E., naming the kid Liam - was that a shout-out to Angel?) and the shared joy and grief for same, but the two actually feeling something for each other and having a bond of their own. Tigh hardly ever saw Caprica with all the Ellen projecting, he doesn't really know her. And while for us, the audience, Saul Tigh is a rich and fascinating character, the few scenes he and Caprica shared in the first part of s4 didn't exactly show something to her she could fall in love with, either, other than he was a masochist who wanted to be punished for killing Ellen. So BSG does that thing again where they use a never before seen scene in the previouslies and have Caprica talk of "our love", I'm going "what are you talking about?"
All this being said: I did like the Ellen and Caprica scene, with Ellen wavering between being manipulative and bitchy on the one hand and on the other having flashes of genuine empathy and revealing vulnerability of her own, switching between treating Caprica as a rival and as a daughter. I also like that the show, continuing with last week's incest theme, has Ellen basically go "you slept with our daughter?!?" in addition to "how come she's pregnant and I never was" on Saul. I just wish the show had been able to make Caprica/Tigh credible to me as well.
One more Ellen thing: until she pointed it out to Adama and Roslin it hadn't occured to me but: the Final Five being the last survivors of the original 13th tribe, of the genocide on Earth, makes them a miniversion of the colonials in the fleet and another story of survival after an apocalypse in themselves.
And speaking of Final Five/ Significant Seven relationships: season 1 and early s2 must have left me with a soft spot for Tyrol/Boomer, because I went "aw" at him recognising her, at Starbuck advising him to go and see her in the brig, and later at him being there when she slept. Presumably we'll get more next week. I'm in two minds about Boomer being thrown in the brig at all; on the one hand, that shooting was so long and several amnesties ago, on the other, she has become part of the Cylon war effort since then (i.e. the shooting wasn't Boomer's fault, but her actions on New Caprica and after certainly were her own responsibility and no one else's), on the third, if you let all these other Cylons, all of whom used fight Colonials as well, walk around your ship, Bill, this really looks like another case of double standard. And then there's the pragmatic aspect - how do they know Boomer isn't programmed to betray them yet again? Which would make the brig sensible. In conclusion, I can't make up my mind on that one.
Many of the Cylons wanting to call it quits with the humans as long as they have the possibility of biological procreation among themselves, after the recent mutiny and being aware of the general mood on Galactica: makes sense from their pov, but is still wrong-headed, as yes, Cylon/Human mingling is the only way to prevent more repetition of all that happened before and the next genocide.
The Baltar subplot: at first I was in two minds about this as well as it seemed a step back after Blood on the Scales, but then we got the Baltar/Head!Six (for the return of same much thanks, show) conversation about whether he really wanted to help, and the fact he did, that it might have started as a ploy to outmaneouvre Paula but became more, and this made it a continuation of previous events. Callis is funny as ever with the expressions, of course, and it's good the sons of Ares are back if only because otherwise they would have been an entirely pointless plot device in s4.1. The subplot also addressed the fact that just because the mutineers were defeated, the general population at large hadn't magically become pro-Adama and accepting of all his orders. Now obviously that last shot with the guns was deliberately ominous to cause suspense, but I doubt they'll do another mutiny - sorry, Gaius, revolution - story again directly after the last one, so no, I don't expect the former cult girls to storm CiC or to massacre the next bunch of civilians. (I've no idea where this will go, though, and am willing to be surprised.) I also think it's significant that this time Adama didn't dismiss the points Baltar brought up but actually listened.
Lastly: Roslin's conversation with Caprica about the opera house vision is an obvious reminder to the audience, so I'm assuming SOMEONE will visit the opera in their dreams again soon, but that something will have changed from the previous visions.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles
This is so my favourite running show, with its density and richness and character interaction and - everything. Structuring the episode around the funerals of the factory workers not only served in terms of moving the plot forward - i.e. letting Sarah & Co. find out more about the factory - but brought home that these were human beings, each with their own story. It underscores how deeply humane this show is; no "stuff happens" or "colleteral damage" attitude here, as Sarah interacts with the widow of the first human being she killed. She had to, to save her own life, and it was self defense, but the man wasn't a machine but had a life, family, and story of his own. I love you, show.
The way grief affects you, or not, shows up in all the different plot threads; Sarah and Derek each accuse the other of being unable to let Kyle Reese go, Cameron and John interact with a girl who supposedly lost her father, but is really faking it as he survived. Meanwhile, the late Logan Weaver is really dead but his widow isn't really his widow, and as opposed to Cameron, who spots the teenage girl's non-reactions, doesn't know there is a need to fake grief until the conversation with Ellison alerts her to it. Now, on a lesser show, all the Catherine and Ellison subplot would have served for was to give Ellison reason to suspect Catherine Weaver is not who she says she is. On this show, the pay-off scene at the end of the episode isn't Ellison going "hmmmm...." but Catherine Weaver interacting with "her" daughter Savannah, and this scene fascinated me as much as their earlier ones several episodes ago did. Because T-Catherine doesn't really need to do the grief interaction with Savannah; after all, she's not doing it in front of Ellison or anyone else she could impress with it, which would have been the logical thing if it it's all about maintaining her cover. Instead, she first recites Ellison's memory which he had meant as comfort like a student does a lesson of one's teacher, and then tries to understand Savannah's reactions and respond to them very much like Cameron did in early s1 when that student in her and John's class had committed suicide.
Now, the next mystery is that if Quark's brother Rom, err, Catherine Weaver's agent as played by Max Perlich, was in pursuit of Long Hair Guy (and eventually died of his hands), and Long Hair Guy was able to recall the Skynet Probe and store it in his truck, it means that there are two different agendas going on there, neither of them good for Our Heroes, of course. But it lends support to
londonkds' Catherine-Weaver-is-Saruman thesis: her agenda with current Skynet is not necessarily current Skynet's agenda, and most likely she wants to change its nature for her own purposes by the whole John Henry project.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-21 02:17 pm (UTC)But how could this not be picked up again in RTD New Who?
(Okay, pre-9:00 pm watershed. Plus the Master's final moments in that special. Cor!)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-21 05:07 pm (UTC)Also, I'd say New Who is pretty obvious about the Doctor/Master state of affairs, with the slashiest phonecall ever, and given these two characters, that's saying something, as the Third Doctor and Roger Delgado as the Master started this fine tradition way back in the early 70s.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-21 02:27 pm (UTC)Word.
Long Hair Guy is played by John Pyper-Ferguson, whose face I will never forget since it was distinguished by a gigantic pulsating boil on an early episode of The X-Files. (He was also on Brothers & Sisters for a while, as a character that was named Joe Whedon when Marti Noxon worked there.)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-21 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-22 11:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-21 02:44 pm (UTC)Also, your comments on "Sarah Connor" are spot on - I'm so so sad that this lovely show is most likely going to be cancelled after this season :( I really love how it explores exactly what it means to be human, and I loved that they were willing to make the father of the scared and not-grieving girl a murderer, because even murderous humans have families whom they love sometimes, right? Catherine Weaver is such a fascinating enigma! (Though I think her husband's name was Lachlan - very Scottish!)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-21 05:24 pm (UTC)Lachlan, right. I only heard it spoken and had to guess about the writing! And hey, I'm a hopeless optimist. This show was pronounced dead at the start of this season already and people expected it would not get more than half a season, and it got a complete one. I say let's not bury it yet, ratings be damned!
I loved that they were willing to make the father of the scared and not-grieving girl a murderer, because even murderous humans have families whom they love sometimes, right?
Not just sometimes, looking at my own country's history. Which I was also reminded of when the mother said "we took the money and we looked away".
no subject
Date: 2009-02-21 06:18 pm (UTC)I love this show and can't stop myself talking about it. So far I hooked my dad and my sister plus boyfriend... And I wish I could convert more because it's so brilliant.
And I too loved the concept of centering the ep around the funeral. And wow, the show got even more interesting with the other bad guy and the skynet drone ACTUALLY SEEING JOHN CONNOR! And Sarah and Cameron. I am sure it scanned them and that doesn't bode well.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-22 06:54 pm (UTC)Thank you! Tigh spent most all his time w/Caprica projecting Ellen, so if it's love that makes a Cylon baby? It's Tigh's love for Ellen that did it in Caprica. Besides, on her end she's still tied up in Gaius, and I won't be convinced otherwise. I can see a certain amount of flattery in the attentions of a Final Five-er maybe resulting in a crush of some sort on Caprica's end, but love? Real love?
Speaking of HeadSix! & Gaius, I am so very very happy that it's back in the show.
Oh, and Tyrol/Boomer. It needs to happen. /shippiness
no subject
Date: 2009-02-22 10:13 pm (UTC)As wonderful as it is to see Ellen again, I'm starting to lose my ability to follow the characters. There's just too much moving the characters around like chess pieces to serve the plot and I'm having a harder and harder time getting a sense of these characters as people. Baltar's 'conversion experience' worked for me, if only because it was so much about his own ego, but Tyrol just flat stopped making sense, Tory never has, Caprica doesn't work for me as a passive victim pregnant lady, and although I can sort of make it work in my head I felt like I wanted to show me more how Ellen from this week was the same as Ellen from last week. And no way I believe that having Saul choose between Caprica and Ellen would tear him apart. If the choice was between Ellen and his son, maybe, but I have a hard time buying that anyone - except maybe Ellen - could believe that Saul's relationship with Caprica is in the same league as his relationship with Ellen.
I did like the appearance of Baltar's son. It worked nicely as a reminder of the consequences of his selfishness, but also put him in a position where if nhe wanted to help his son without acknowledging him he'd actually have to do some good.
That horrible suggestion that a momentary lapse of love can kill babies - I'm going to go with that it's just Cylon superstition. Caprica miscarried because she had just been beaten up, period.
The last scene also rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, yes, lots of Cylons died helping the fleet, but the memorial wall wasn't just for those killed during the journey, it was first and primarily for those killed in the original attacks. I was much more convinced by Ellen's statement about 'what if there were only five?' Now that I put it this way, it would have been interesting to see a memorial wall on which the final five try to reconstruct images of their dead loved ones from Earth. But a Cylon memorial wall across from the humans' really felt like an example of the Cylons just Not Getting It about their responsibility for the death of 99% of humanity.
And yay for canon!Shalka porn! Yes, they so were.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-15 04:08 am (UTC)