Huh. I don't have time for an essay...

[lyssie]

Some random thoughts about BSG episodes. Mostly non-spoilery? But I'm cutting anyway, so, um, possibly spoilery through the finale.

As far as I can tell, the most reviled episode of BSG seems to be, hands-down, Black Market. The Woman King follows it rather closely, with Dirty Hands being right after it, iirc.

Now. I'm not saying those aren't shit episodes: they are. (at least, the latter two are complete ass. I have a fondness for Black Market that is explicable with my love of guns and Lee shooting things) And all three have some logistical issues coupled with lousy racial tendencies (and that whole: poor people are always unwashed and whiny and need the rich white guys to save them bullshit).

But the one thing they all three have in common is that they remember something large portions of BSG don't: that there is a civilian fleet attached to the military ship, and civilians are not military.

That, right there, is one of the reasons I loved Greg Pak's BSG comic (not that Season Zero bullshit). Because Pak remembered the fleet, and it wasn't just there to be remembered when the writers had run out of ideas and were suddenly reminded, "Oh, hey, we haven't done an allegory about unions yet!"

Frankly, I'd rather have half a season of episodes dealing with the fleet than even ONE Hero or a Day in the Life. You could excise both episodes from show canon and, surprise, not a damned thing would be altered--in fact, all those canon inconsistencies in Hero, and the awful "All Women Are Blonde Drunk Sluts" label from aDitL are pointless, anyway.

What is in any of the five episodes that really needed to be there?

The three dealing with the fleet could have been expanded and integrated into other episodes (multi-arc dissension amongst the civilian populace vs. random "Earth First!" moments? YES PLEASE. Let's not even discuss the destruction of Gina having an actual plot of her own that didn't include Baltar). The two dealing with Adama's Manpain... well, um...

Nope. Got nothing. They were wastes of time.

(although, once again, how did NONE of the main human characters not go "...dur, why do the Cylons want us to find Earth?" in season two? Maybe they all hit their heads in the shower.)

Comments

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I pretty much loathe the entire concept of Caprica, especially after Ron Moore's destruction of the women of the series (given the one woman was dubbed "adulterous wife" in press packets while the men had names...)

So, no. I won't be watching it.

[scarfman]

Wait, the pilot for Caprica aired? When? We watch SyFy all the time and didn't see any promos. I thought it was starting in the fall.

[greycoupon.livejournal.com]

Noooo...it comes out on DVD next week and it has leaked on the interwebs. Do you need a link?

[scarfman]

Oh, no. I just don't want to have missed the broadcast. ...Is there going to be a broadcast?

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

From what GC's said, it's not in the script/show anymore. IDK. But, eh. *handwaves*

THERE ARE NO FLIPPY SHIPS AND PILOTS.

[greycoupon.livejournal.com]

I watched. Which information?

[stealth-rose.livejournal.com]

Maybe they all hit their heads in the shower.

Good working theory for TPTB, too.

*ducks and runs*

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Hitting their heads in the shower is my favorite prevailing theory since season four Reboot.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

My difficulty with Dirty Hands is... two-fold, I think.

1. Adama and Roslin shoved so out of character, it's laughable. (not to mention a few others, iirc). It's really obvious they went, "WE NEED AN ISSUES SHOW." and "Hey, anyone seen Babylon Five? No? Season one has this episode we can totally frak with." "COOL." (B5 did it better, because Sinclair is Awesomesauce) And then they couldn't fit everyone in, because they'd have to create these new characters, so instead they shoved established ones into roles they didn't fit.

2. There is no lead-up and no follow-up. BSG is not supposed to be a bottle show. There is absolutely NO IMPACT from this episode. At all. And that's just pointless.

[scarfman]

I like both Black Market and The Woman King (even though almost all the regulars went out-of-character in The Woman King so Helo could be The Man Alone) (except Tigh, whose skepticism throughout the episode and reversal at the end were both nicely in character). I don't remember which episode goes with the title Dirty Hands. [reading other comments] Oh, the one with the strike? I don't think I was impressed with that one, one way or the other.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

TWK has some painfully, painfully ooc dialog in it that makes me want to punch someone.

The only redeeming bit is Athena visiting Caprica in her cell.

[noybusiness.livejournal.com]

Dirty Hands and The Woman King are fine, Black Market is cringe-inducing. I agree that it would have been better to integrate their plot elements into other episodes.

I'm upset about the underuse of Gina, too. Especially since I remember an interview saying that the point of the character was to have a Six interacting with people other than Baltar. He was still the only main character she interacted with!!!

[greycoupon.livejournal.com]

Always warms my heart that I am not alone in my hate for Hero.

[noybusiness.livejournal.com]

I don't hate it, but I think it came from out-of-the-blue. The Cylons wait this long to release Bulldog for an elaborate scheme, really? Did Caprica and Boomer not know he was there when they were getting all revolutionary?

[greycoupon.livejournal.com]

I never could get past the horrible Valkyrie retcon. Just NO.

[noybusiness.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was problematic. It made some sense that Adama had an assignment before the decaying Galactica, but they flubbed the timeline.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Dude. Truefax? I've watched Hero ONCE all the way through. Once. I have seen the Kara bits maybe two more times. IT WAS SO AWFUL.

And I am STILL SO PISSED. Because it was MARTIAN MANHUNTER IN MY GALACTICA and should have been SO SO AWESOME.

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

I think TWK is generally regarded as even worse than Black Market. At least, Angeli got a name for it in a way that Verheiden never did.

lousy racial tendencies

Much as I like Bill Duke and Sarah Porter and Elosha, I think all the black characters on the show have been religious leaders, pimps, or Dee. Or Skulls, who turned out to be pretty much an asshole. Huh.

Predictably, I like all the non-Adama parts of A Day In The Life. Carol-Anne, though, pretty much cemented my belief that Ron was using this show as free therapy. ;)

It's funny, I had the impression that Dirty Hands was fairly well-regarded by most of the fans who don't think that every episode MUST serve the arc, because it did deal with the Fleet's problems more-or-less realistically. I'm just going by TWoP though; Jacob's Espenson-worship may have gotten it a more favorable reception there. I liked it except for the way they kind of wrote Adama and Roslin out-of-character to serve the allegory about unions. But the scene where Seelix gets her wings will never not be awesome.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Or Colonial Pilots brainwashed by the Cylons to kill Bill "I'm So Special I Re-Wrote Canon" Adama.

(I think I'd like the non-Adama parts of aDitL, if they could be pulled and merged elsewhere? sigh. That whole season needed re-writing to organize everything better and get more plotlines interwoven. AND I KNOW I SAY THAT A LOT.)

Dirty Hands might actually be loved. I don't actually know. I just count is as awful, and wish it could have been better. Seelix getting her wings will ALWAYS be awesome.

[noybusiness.livejournal.com]

The Cylons never did show any aptitude for brainwashing people other than other Cylons. Which is funny (odd) when you think about it. No head chips.

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

with Dirty Hands being right after it
Huh. I really LIKE Dirty Hands. It looks like some people before me said it, but I thought that one had more of a reputation for "underrated stand-alone" than crap episode.

I think Woman King could've been done well, and definitely had stuff in there that could've been interesting to address. I don't think Black Market could be salvaged, because I think the point when they decided it would be ~kewl~ and noir-like to have abused hookers in the fleet was a bad sign of things to come.

I'm trying to think of how many episodes/storylines actually dealt with the civilians (and it was almost always in a way that sucked). I still really love "Colonial Day" from S1 because it's one of the ONLY times they got into the political world.

I hate A Day in the Life. I used to feel neutral toward Hero, but I'd probably hate it now since I grew to hate Adama's manpain in the season and a half that followed.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

But BSG doesn't work as bottle episodes. Either there should be impact on the larger/lesser plots running through the whole morass, or there's no point in making the episode and wasting that 39 minutes! (it makes me so frustrated. Either BSG is good at multi-thread plotting, a la Eye of Rapture, or or sticks in the mud and tells pointless stories that never impact again like Black Market and Dirty Hands and aDitL etc... Which, actually makes me realize that 4.5 had less of those. hrm. Someone to Watch Over Me was one.)

Actually, all of my crankiness boils down to: no one on the writing staff had a plan, sat down, and worked out how to make the civilians part of the overall plot without making them the bad guy/victim. And that sucks.

[noybusiness.livejournal.com]

At least they admitted that Black Market was messed up.

[emmiere.livejournal.com]

Add me to the list of those who kind of like Dirty Hands' scrappiness (actual civilians! doing things!) though I wouldn't really miss any of the others, I have to admit. Hmm, I don't actually remember Hero or Black Market very well now that I think about it.

I would have LOVED to see a multi-arc storyline about the fleet. Or the politics. All of these civilian stand-alones had at least a couple of interesting ideas that were overwhelmed by big messages and speechifying. Maybe with a coherent, plotted arc, they wouldn't have been so half-hearted and one note.

[samstareagle.livejournal.com]

The Woman King's one saving grace was it gave the fans LOTS of caps of Apollo/Helo armporn (for the ladies heehee) and a chance for Racetrack to show that despite the efforts of the writers, some of the Humans looked just as sexy as the Victoria's Secret Robots...er, I mean the Cylons. :P

Besides that it was just silly...

I DID like Dirty Hands for the same reason you did, though...I just wished they'd been a little better about intertwining it back in with the main plot throughout the rest of the series...like a lot of other things...

But S4-4.5...the writers went INSANE. They wrote themselves into a corner after they found "Earth" and the only thing they could think of was to have the main actors kill off most of the secondary cast in an idiotic gunpornfest so they wouldn't have to worry about giving them any more character development...oh, and make Adama a total JACKASS while still imagining that still made him the hero... I've basically completely disconnected all of S4 from being considered canon and will just make up my own version and use that or anybody's ficverse that fixes the show.

Course we've always gotten these characters better than they did anyway, so...;)

[noybusiness.livejournal.com]

Heh, heh.

I'm not big on mythos changing in fanfic plotbunnies, except to make the Final Five the same as the other Cylons. 'Cause having copies is half of the fun of being a Cylon, darnit! Ellen is Seven, Saul is Nine, Tory is Ten, Sam is Eleven, and Chief is Twelve.