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rivendellroseWe're moving too fast, and I don't seem to have a lot else to talk about right now (things are mostly good, the weekend has mostly been taken up in errands and housework).
2.07: Home, pt 2
A bit of "constellations don't work that way" (Apollo cannot possibly recognize Scorpio (or whichever constellation it was) or its associated nebula because they would not look the same from any position but Earth), but otherwise a very good and interesting episode. I'm curious how the hell they got back to Kobol, but... apparently they did, so that's all that matters. Maybe the tomb only transports them to that exact place, and as soon as they try to step outside the circle, it transports them back to the tomb? Whatever, doesn't really matter. It's magic, it works, that's all we need to know. At least they didn't try to explain it in terms of technology (although I'm sure that will happen eventually, and I will probably end up cringing. I hate when things that don't need to be explained try to be explained - for example "the Force" being explained in the recent set of Star Wars movies. That was just unnecessary and silly.).
And Gaius is back as he ought to be! Six tells him he's crazy, and he believes her! Eyes bugging out of his head and muttering to himself and banging his head on things and complaining that he's an instrument of God, and have I mentioned how much more I like Gaius when he's behaving like the spoony crazy bastard he is, not being an oddly angst-ridden semi-bad-ass like he was the last few episodes?
Also: Right here and now I must say that while I have always liked the woman who plays Six (she's good at being scary), in this episode my estimation of her as an actress just, like, grew by a billion times. She's going along, Six as normal, Six, Six, Six... Starbuck. Wait. The outfit is different, the hair is different, okay, fine, but hello there getting all of Katee Sackhoff's mannerisms as Starbuck down exactly. I had to pause the DVD and acting-geek for a minute. I love when actors effectively mimic each others' performances. It's one of my major pet-loves as far as acting goes. Because, okay, you play your character your way and I play my character my way, and that's fine, that's interesting, but that's usually all we see of you and me as actors. But if I play your character exactly the way you do, and you play my character exactly the way I play mine, then that's not just us anymore, if that makes sense, that's showing the real skill that underlies the whole thing. What I'm getting at in a very vague way here is that when we see actors, we normally only see them playing one part. I've never seen Katee Sackhoff or Woman-Who-Plays-Six in anything else. I've never seen them as themselves, either. I've only seen them as Starbuck and Six. So all the little ticks and quirks and mannerisms they do as Six and Starbuck seem normal to me. The only way to change that is to see the actors as themselves (usually, but by no means always, not a huuuuuge change) or to see them as a totally different character, which can be a fantastically huge difference if the actor/actress isn't always typecast in the same kind of role, and if they're good enough to really have a lot of variety in the way they portray characters. Long story short, I am deeply impressed that Woman-Who-Plays-Six is. ♥
2.08: Final Cut
My first reaction to the title and the sample shot (of a guy with a camera) - "Oh look, it's BSG's version of "And Now For a Word." And it was. Except it was done without a giganta-fucking-huge bias, without the leaders being so stupid that they didn't take any kind of editorial look at what was going on before it went out, and without "all-access" meaning "we aren't even going to pay attention to where you're looking or stop you if you look at something really, truly dangerous." The people in power tried to be smart about what they said in front of the camera, and Adama was very smart about understanding what the film showed (unlike Tigh, who proves here that he has no fucking clue how PR works). So yeah, whole different ballgame, while having exactly the same root idea. Very interesting.
And then of course there's the bit at the very end. Woah, nelly, did that blow a few things out of the water.
Anyway. First things first. Ye holy gods and fishes, it's Xena! ♥ I admit, I was having one of my major "I know that face, I know that voice, something about this woman is extremely familiar" moments from the instant she showed up onscreen, but I couldn't pin down exactly how I knew D'Anna Biers until Lucy Lawless' name showed up in the opening credits. At which point I squealed, then cackled madly when she next showed up on camera, then had to pause the DVD to explain the reason for my sudden madness to The Boy (who does not read opening credits, and therefore hadn't noticed her name).
Lots of good, good stuff in this episode. Kat gets more to do, which makes me happy as I've always liked her, and we get little bits of interview with everyone, which is awesome. Gaeta (his first name is Felix? God, that won't at all turn out to be ironic, will it?) is having a little... mid-life-crisis type thing because he realized he doesn't have a life outside the ship and tech specs, poor dear, and is going about it by trying to smoke ("I hate cigarettes" ♥) and getting drunk and getting a tattoo (oh, you dear little cliche you), and Tigh is... Tigh, and Helo is, yes, Helo, and everybody is just so adorable. We get some really lovely shots everybody just being themselves. And the little lieutenant or whatever who led the strike on the Gideon tries to kill Tigh, and Tigh actually handles it well (gasp), and has it all cleaned up by the time the soldiers arrive with the press, who have figured things out by this time as well.
And then there's the bit at the end.
First let me say that it amuses the living daylights out of me to see the Cylons hanging out in a movie theater watching a documentary about Our Heroes. They should have popcorn and licorice. Eight is so proud of herself, and Doral is so stern (as always), and Six is... Six, and the baby is apparently such a great thing that it surpasses even her hatred of Eight, which is kind of impressive in a way, and... who's that in front of them? Oh, look, it's reporter-lady. Fucking Xena is a fucking Cylon. Excuse me, I have to go die of laughter, now. We are so fucked.
Hilariously, a reporter who is a Cylon did a more sympathetic piece on BSG than a reporter who happened to be in President Clarke's pocket did on B5. Despite BSG having more to hide, really, when it comes down to it. Sheridan, I suggest you take lessons from Bill Adama in how not to suck at dealing with the press, otherwise I have no freaking clue how your Interstellar Alliance can possibly survive a few days, let alone centuries. All that stuff we saw in "Deconstruction of Falling Stars?" I am beginning to think it was all really his fault, after all. :P
As a last random note, I cannot resist pointing out that Katee Sackhoff, while clearly spending a lot of time on her body for this role (because Starbuck is, after all, a soldier and a very physical creature) is built like a human being. Oh my god, it's a woman on TV who does not have sticks for every appendage and a black hole where her stomach's meant to be. There is a faint possibility that she might actually eat. I may just die of shock.
Of course, the camera adds ten pounds, so she's probably still a good foot taller and fifty pounds or so lighter than me, but hey. I'll take what I can get, and a woman who looks more like she's got muscle than that she's wasted herself to nothing for the sake of the television screen is better than what we usually get.
If I am wrong about this and she's just as anorexic as every other actress we normally see on TV, for god's sake don't tell me right now. We've been off the gym for the last few weeks thanks to the Vegas trip and some busy-ness around home, so I could really use a mental-image role model of an attractive woman who is out of my physical range at the moment but still somewhat slightly, faintly, potentially attainable in a dream world where I remember to do sit-ups every night and run 5 miles at the gym 4 days a week. :P
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have writing that needs doing, a new Terry Pratchett novel that needs reading... and I really need to slow down our progress through this series, before I run out of it. We already had to buy 2.5 much earlier than I was expecting we would, in order to stay ahead of our consumption. Oh, and I was going to make lasagna for dinner tonight. Hmmmm... must look up recipes and figure out what I need before we go to the store.
2.07: Home, pt 2
A bit of "constellations don't work that way" (Apollo cannot possibly recognize Scorpio (or whichever constellation it was) or its associated nebula because they would not look the same from any position but Earth), but otherwise a very good and interesting episode. I'm curious how the hell they got back to Kobol, but... apparently they did, so that's all that matters. Maybe the tomb only transports them to that exact place, and as soon as they try to step outside the circle, it transports them back to the tomb? Whatever, doesn't really matter. It's magic, it works, that's all we need to know. At least they didn't try to explain it in terms of technology (although I'm sure that will happen eventually, and I will probably end up cringing. I hate when things that don't need to be explained try to be explained - for example "the Force" being explained in the recent set of Star Wars movies. That was just unnecessary and silly.).
And Gaius is back as he ought to be! Six tells him he's crazy, and he believes her! Eyes bugging out of his head and muttering to himself and banging his head on things and complaining that he's an instrument of God, and have I mentioned how much more I like Gaius when he's behaving like the spoony crazy bastard he is, not being an oddly angst-ridden semi-bad-ass like he was the last few episodes?
Also: Right here and now I must say that while I have always liked the woman who plays Six (she's good at being scary), in this episode my estimation of her as an actress just, like, grew by a billion times. She's going along, Six as normal, Six, Six, Six... Starbuck. Wait. The outfit is different, the hair is different, okay, fine, but hello there getting all of Katee Sackhoff's mannerisms as Starbuck down exactly. I had to pause the DVD and acting-geek for a minute. I love when actors effectively mimic each others' performances. It's one of my major pet-loves as far as acting goes. Because, okay, you play your character your way and I play my character my way, and that's fine, that's interesting, but that's usually all we see of you and me as actors. But if I play your character exactly the way you do, and you play my character exactly the way I play mine, then that's not just us anymore, if that makes sense, that's showing the real skill that underlies the whole thing. What I'm getting at in a very vague way here is that when we see actors, we normally only see them playing one part. I've never seen Katee Sackhoff or Woman-Who-Plays-Six in anything else. I've never seen them as themselves, either. I've only seen them as Starbuck and Six. So all the little ticks and quirks and mannerisms they do as Six and Starbuck seem normal to me. The only way to change that is to see the actors as themselves (usually, but by no means always, not a huuuuuge change) or to see them as a totally different character, which can be a fantastically huge difference if the actor/actress isn't always typecast in the same kind of role, and if they're good enough to really have a lot of variety in the way they portray characters. Long story short, I am deeply impressed that Woman-Who-Plays-Six is. ♥
2.08: Final Cut
My first reaction to the title and the sample shot (of a guy with a camera) - "Oh look, it's BSG's version of "And Now For a Word." And it was. Except it was done without a giganta-fucking-huge bias, without the leaders being so stupid that they didn't take any kind of editorial look at what was going on before it went out, and without "all-access" meaning "we aren't even going to pay attention to where you're looking or stop you if you look at something really, truly dangerous." The people in power tried to be smart about what they said in front of the camera, and Adama was very smart about understanding what the film showed (unlike Tigh, who proves here that he has no fucking clue how PR works). So yeah, whole different ballgame, while having exactly the same root idea. Very interesting.
And then of course there's the bit at the very end. Woah, nelly, did that blow a few things out of the water.
Anyway. First things first. Ye holy gods and fishes, it's Xena! ♥ I admit, I was having one of my major "I know that face, I know that voice, something about this woman is extremely familiar" moments from the instant she showed up onscreen, but I couldn't pin down exactly how I knew D'Anna Biers until Lucy Lawless' name showed up in the opening credits. At which point I squealed, then cackled madly when she next showed up on camera, then had to pause the DVD to explain the reason for my sudden madness to The Boy (who does not read opening credits, and therefore hadn't noticed her name).
Lots of good, good stuff in this episode. Kat gets more to do, which makes me happy as I've always liked her, and we get little bits of interview with everyone, which is awesome. Gaeta (his first name is Felix? God, that won't at all turn out to be ironic, will it?) is having a little... mid-life-crisis type thing because he realized he doesn't have a life outside the ship and tech specs, poor dear, and is going about it by trying to smoke ("I hate cigarettes" ♥) and getting drunk and getting a tattoo (oh, you dear little cliche you), and Tigh is... Tigh, and Helo is, yes, Helo, and everybody is just so adorable. We get some really lovely shots everybody just being themselves. And the little lieutenant or whatever who led the strike on the Gideon tries to kill Tigh, and Tigh actually handles it well (gasp), and has it all cleaned up by the time the soldiers arrive with the press, who have figured things out by this time as well.
And then there's the bit at the end.
First let me say that it amuses the living daylights out of me to see the Cylons hanging out in a movie theater watching a documentary about Our Heroes. They should have popcorn and licorice. Eight is so proud of herself, and Doral is so stern (as always), and Six is... Six, and the baby is apparently such a great thing that it surpasses even her hatred of Eight, which is kind of impressive in a way, and... who's that in front of them? Oh, look, it's reporter-lady. Fucking Xena is a fucking Cylon. Excuse me, I have to go die of laughter, now. We are so fucked.
Hilariously, a reporter who is a Cylon did a more sympathetic piece on BSG than a reporter who happened to be in President Clarke's pocket did on B5. Despite BSG having more to hide, really, when it comes down to it. Sheridan, I suggest you take lessons from Bill Adama in how not to suck at dealing with the press, otherwise I have no freaking clue how your Interstellar Alliance can possibly survive a few days, let alone centuries. All that stuff we saw in "Deconstruction of Falling Stars?" I am beginning to think it was all really his fault, after all. :P
As a last random note, I cannot resist pointing out that Katee Sackhoff, while clearly spending a lot of time on her body for this role (because Starbuck is, after all, a soldier and a very physical creature) is built like a human being. Oh my god, it's a woman on TV who does not have sticks for every appendage and a black hole where her stomach's meant to be. There is a faint possibility that she might actually eat. I may just die of shock.
Of course, the camera adds ten pounds, so she's probably still a good foot taller and fifty pounds or so lighter than me, but hey. I'll take what I can get, and a woman who looks more like she's got muscle than that she's wasted herself to nothing for the sake of the television screen is better than what we usually get.
If I am wrong about this and she's just as anorexic as every other actress we normally see on TV, for god's sake don't tell me right now. We've been off the gym for the last few weeks thanks to the Vegas trip and some busy-ness around home, so I could really use a mental-image role model of an attractive woman who is out of my physical range at the moment but still somewhat slightly, faintly, potentially attainable in a dream world where I remember to do sit-ups every night and run 5 miles at the gym 4 days a week. :P
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have writing that needs doing, a new Terry Pratchett novel that needs reading... and I really need to slow down our progress through this series, before I run out of it. We already had to buy 2.5 much earlier than I was expecting we would, in order to stay ahead of our consumption. Oh, and I was going to make lasagna for dinner tonight. Hmmmm... must look up recipes and figure out what I need before we go to the store.
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Date: 2010-10-03 10:01 pm (UTC)I hope I'm not wrong, because I'm suddenly afraid that even though I've watched Home Part II like twenty times that I'm forgetting something, but I think that all the constellations only look the way they do if you're in Earth's neighborhood is the point of the map in the Tomb of Athena. Apollo and the others only recognize those constellations because they're the symbols of the colonies - it's only in the Tomb that they realize that they're not random symbols but are the symbols as they appear from the 13th tribe. From Earth. So they know if they look into the sky and see those constellations that they've found the right place.
(Right? Now I'm afraid you're going to be like, "Duh, I knew that, I'm not an idiot. I was talking about this.")
Now, Apollo being able to rattle off that particular nebula's designation was stupid, but understandable from a scene perspective; that scene would lose all its impact if they cut to Baltar's lab, him looking it up, and then going, "That's the direction we need to go!" It's much more dramatic to play it all in one piece, so I forgive it.
Tricia Helfer is woman who plays Six! You think she was good in this? Wait till you get to the Pegasus three-parter, where she is flat-out balls to the wall awesome. I would also wager that the reason (or one of the reasons, since she is such a great actress, too) that she was able to mimic Starbuck so well is because her and Katee are total BFFs forever and ever, and I think may have actually lived together in Vancouver for awhile. It just kills me that Tricia was hired because she was a model and was gorgeous and then they realized that she was serious about acting, and was damned good at it.
Final Cut is another episode that most people seem to dislike. It can be clunky and a little on the nose, but I like it. Tigh is a complete numbskull in this, though. (I also love that Dualla's name is Anastasia, which is just a beautiful name and I love it. Except that she is only referred to by her first name once in the entire series, and even then, she's called "Anna." Still.)
Katee continues to be an actual-sized person. It is remarkable! None of the actresses on BSG seemed to have any problems with starving themselves down into abject skinniness, for which I credit not just the awesome actresses but also the showrunners and the network for not putting any pressure on them, which doesn't usually happen. It was really refreshing to see. Certainly Grace Park and Tricia and Mary are all little things, but you can tell that that's just the way they're built, and not that they're starving themselves.
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Date: 2010-10-04 12:52 am (UTC)You think she was good in this? Wait till you get to the Pegasus three-parter, where she is flat-out balls to the wall awesome
Eeeeeeeeeeee. And, see, this is why we're going so damned fast - I just can't wait to see everything! ♥
one of the reasons, since she is such a great actress, too) that she was able to mimic Starbuck so well is because her and Katee are total BFFs forever and ever, and I think may have actually lived together in Vancouver for awhile.
So cute! ♥ That is seriously the cutest thing ever, picturing the two of them being BFF. The times Starbuck kicks Six's ass now have an added layer of hilarious awesome added on top.
It just kills me that Tricia was hired because she was a model and was gorgeous and then they realized that she was serious about acting, and was damned good at it.
Yes! There is something wonderfully unexpected about it - you look at her and it's like "oh, great, model, whatever, fine..." and then... she acts. Really very well. It's so fantastic!
I adored Final Cut, but, yeah, I could see how people would get annoyed with it. I'm a total sucker for that kind of episode, though. And yes! Anastasia is an awesome name. ♥
It is remarkable! None of the actresses on BSG seemed to have any problems with starving themselves down into abject skinniness, for which I credit not just the awesome actresses but also the showrunners and the network for not putting any pressure on them, which doesn't usually happen.
It really is amazing. I would also credit the fact that they filmed in Vancouver, which is a much less... intense, crazy film-town than is LA. Most of the shows that come out of there still seem to have the same quality of actors that the X-Files used to - actors who are good, but who, on the whole, look at least somewhat like real people. It's absolutely awesome.
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Date: 2010-10-03 11:15 pm (UTC)Also, re: amazing acting skills - keep watching Grace Park (Sharon and assorted other Eights). She positively blew my socks off more than once.
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Date: 2010-10-04 02:39 am (UTC)I think possibly "Final Cut" was one of the reasons "And Now for a Word" fell a bit flat for me. I like it much better, and YES, Pappadama and Roslin are much, much, much better at this media thing than the B5 crew.
I just looked at my old episode reaction posts, and apparently my theory at the time was that Baltar's and Harvey!Six's child was a metaphor for some kind of Cylon political coup.