Friday, January 27, 2006

Le Migraine

15 minutes into the episode, and I am caving. There will be no post tonight due to a migraine the size and feel of a pounding jackhammer.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Paternal Instinct

Surprisingly, not much to say about this episode. Perhaps another look at it will bring out some interesting points, but that is for later this week.

Broad observation of the night: Tahmoh Penikett would have been cast as Starbuck if that character was still a man. Katte Sackhoff and he act--and even look!--the same.

Quote of the night: "I'm a father, just like you, sir." -Helo to Admiral Adama

Friday, January 13, 2006

Resurrection Ship (Part 2)

West coast time delay means that I have to wait an extra three hours to see the episodes from everyone else in America. It also means I just exited from a one hour mind-job. Before I start my commentary, I would like to say two things about the show that are not related to plot, for once. First off, the near-silence, the muted quality in space is something I have always admired about Battlestar. While no TV show or movie can go so far as to be truly accurate and take out all sounds, BSG comes the closest to reality. Hats off to them for that. However, I will quickly put my hat back on, because it is halfway through the second season, and the wardrobe personnel still have not figured out that they have the crew's shirts on backwards!

Enough of this silliness and on to the show. The first thing I thought of when Lee was floating there in the lake, or river, or whatever it was, was Leoben back in season one. He was talking about being part of the flowing consciousness of god, floating in the river, etc... I have a feeling that this is the parallel the writers are trying to draw, because at the end, Lee tells Kara, "I didn't want to make it back alive." He was experiencing floating on the eternal river, he was one with the Cylon god, until he was rudely interrupted back to life by getting his battery jump-started.

As I composed the previous paragraph, I considered saying that there seems to be a unifed thought on the afterlife and mannerisms of the Cylon god. Then I realized this was not at all true, and would completely contradict my next comment, concerning Natasi vs. Pegasix. Natasi says that over 10,000 Cylons are about to be killed, and god will not forgive this sin. Pegasix, however, says that god forgives everyone. Pegasix is the tender, nuturing person that Gaius has been missing in his multiple-personality universe all this time. Throughout the series, there has been a lot of talk about "love". "Do you love me Gaius?" is a question that has been posed by Natasi a few times now. It seems that Gaius loves the reverse of Natasi (and I do not mean he loves Satan, unless that is Pegasix' true name). He loves the version of Six that has hit rock bottom, gone through the worst kinds of torture anyone can possibly stand. It will be interesting to see where they ended up going and what the dynamic between Baltar and Natasi will be now that he and Pegasix have eloped.

There was a lot of amazingly great lines throughout the episode, all aluding to the end of the episode, but that storyline has pretty much concluded. Not much to say about those, except that they were brilliantly done, and created some amazing tension at the end. (That is, if you didn't read up on some spoilage.)

"Just goes to show you, Bill, never give up hope," says Laura. A very happy-go-lucky quote to end such a dark and tense episode. Last week, I watched Battlestar with my cousin, who had never seen the show before. During one of the scenes between Adama and Roslyn, my cousin turns to me and says, "They love each other." I guess the thought had never dawned on me until then. How their friendship has progressed has been very artfully done. Just goes to show the insights of a fresh pair of eyes.

This brings me to my final point of this week's post...Sharon's line, "Maybe humanity does not deserve to survive." I think what made Adama really reconsider his action against Cain was the moral guidance of a Cylon, the kind of being that was subjected to unending torture by Cain and her crew. The line between friend and foe continues to get more blurry.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

"We" Talk Continued-Gaius

My favorite quote of the whole episode....
Natasi: What you did to me.....
Gaius: What they did to you was wrong. I'm not one of them. You have to believe me.

Gaius is telling you....he is not a human. You people out there who don't think he is....you have to believe him. Aside from this delicious line, his interaction with brain-Six now includes the physical Six's memories of going to the Pyramid court, wishing that Gaius could be there. After re-watching the mini-series, I noticed that brain-Six made her first appearance outside the Raptor, just after Gaius was shown getting blown up in her arms.

Lee is a Cylon (No, Really)

Two great quotes I noticed Friday night... The first was actually from "Pegasus", but was stuck in the "previously" scenes. Lee says to Kara, "Go take some pretty pictures of our Cylon ship." During this past episode, Tyrol and Helo were talking to Lee; Helo says, "The Cylons used to be our enemy." Lee replies, "Now it's us."

This "we" talk is very tricky...it seems that only suspected Cylons do this. The rest refer to it as "the Cylon" or "their" this-or-that. Pay attention to the possesive forms.