shuffling alliances

[rivendellrose]

Season 3 episode 5, "Collaborators."



Tonight my opinion of BSG shall be presented in the form of a special version of musical chairs (aka, 'who I like and who I don't at this moment), because I'm tired and that episode left me pretty much untouched except in a "dear god, would you all stop being so mean to poor Gaeta?!" kind of way.

Okay. It pains me to do this, but - Starbuck? Go sit with Tigh on the "I kind of hate you right now" bench. You two will enjoy being drunken assholes to everyone else together, I'm sure. I get that you're all screwed up from the whole weird Leoben thing, but dude - breaking up with Sam and then beating the shit out of Gaeta and trying to kill him is so not the answer, okay? Go kick the punching bag and sleep it off or something.

Sam, go sit with Callie at the "My life generally sucks" table. Tyrol, you can join them, but only because you frakking figured it out before they airlocked Gaeta, you moron. Who the hell did you think was your inside source - Six? Gaius? Frakking D'Anna?

Gaeta, go join Helo and Sharon at the "Dear god, won't things ever stop sucking?" table, aka the table of people I genuinely love and wish the show would stop screwing with. Which, according to both The Boy and narsilion is also the table of people who don't do much of anything and are generally really really passive (at least this is what they said of Helo, which I would resent if I could only come up with some evidence to the contrary and if I hadn't just sort of figured out that, in some weird way, I apparently go for that in fictional characters. WTF is wrong with me? Yay, passive? I, um, what? o_O

(Seriously, this kind of unnerves me. Lemme think... Gaeta, Helo, Lennier, Abe... yeah, I kind of have a thing for, um, kind of passive male characters. It's not my fault! They're good and cute and... I don't know! It's a weird thing that I am only now noticing and I'm not sure what the heck to make of it!)

Caprica, Zarek, D'Anna and Gaius get to keep hanging out in the "awesome but you've screwed with my sympathies so many times I'm just plain confused" section. Keep up this lost-puppy thing, Gaius, and you may get to go join Callie and Sam yet. Don't think for a minute that you're gonna get to sit with Gaeta, Sharon, and Helo, though. I like them. As in I like them as people - would happily go have beers with, etc. They get special privilege. Like me getting genuinely horrified when bad things happen to them. Apollo... oh, for god's sake, just go get together with Starbuck, since that's the only thing that will ever make either of you stop angsting every five minutes, apparently. I'll see you five minutes from then when she's frakked you over in some way, and you can go sit with Callie and Sam in the "provisional suckage" section. D, if that happens that gives you the right to go sit with Gaeta, Helo, and Sharon at the "genuine frakking suckage and love" table. Everybody clear?

Roslin and Adama, just keep doing what you're doing. I love you guys, srsly. Especially you, Roslin - that was a seriously classy move, there, announcing that everyone has a blank slate and that you're going to take down everyone's stories for posterity. ♥ Oh, and Tori's awesome, too, even if she did try to rig the election.

Random resistance people who are now "The Circle" or whatever... just go away, will you? I used to like you, but you're kind of pissing me off now, and I don't know you well enough to even feel bad about that or hope you do better later on or anything. Just go.

Who'd I leave out? Oh, Jammer. Ha. Jammer, you can stay in the airlock. I'm weirdly okay with that turn of events, thanks. You always were kind of a jackass.

Did we get really get through the good bit at the beginning of the season that quickly, or did they just realize they hadn't really really screwed up anybody I genuinely and unreservedly love recently and therefore had to quickly come up with a plot that involved smacking the hell out of Gaeta? (Also, Tigh, way to throw multipurpose insults - when he started ranting about "Toaster-lovers," I genuinely wasn't sure whether he was talking to Gaeta, Helo, or both of them.)

Comments

[icepixie]

The nice (for certain values of "nice") thing about this show is not all of the passive people stay that way. *g*

(Also, um, after reading this post, I would kind of like Gaeta and Lennier to hang out for a while.)

Roslin giving everyone a blank slate made me thankful that SOMEBODY had some frakkin' sense. Of course it would be her. ♥ I mean, it's not like they don't have only 50,000 humans left IN THE UNIVERSE, and the last thing they need is to be killing MORE OF THEM.

Frakkin' Starbuck. *glares*

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

The nice (for certain values of "nice") thing about this show is not all of the passive people stay that way. *g*

I'm a little worried about that, honestly. I keep expecting Terrible Things. D:

after reading this post, I would kind of like Gaeta and Lennier to hang out for a while.

God, me too. Although I doubt they'd be good influences on each other. They could be very... organized and competent together, though. Which would be adorable.

mean, it's not like they don't have only 50,000 humans left IN THE UNIVERSE, and the last thing they need is to be killing MORE OF THEM.

Exactly! I mean, man, I don't like some of them (Jammer comes to mind...), but we kind of need the gene pool, you know?

Frakkin' Starbuck. *glares*

I know, I know. You did warn me. But god she's getting on my nerves lately. I want to love her, but oh my god, girl, stop making your already screwed-up life intentionally worse!

[icepixie]

I'm a little worried about that, honestly. I keep expecting Terrible Things. D:

*whistles innocently*

God, me too. Although I doubt they'd be good influences on each other. They could be very... organized and competent together, though. Which would be adorable.

Oh, they'd be terrible influences on each other, especially S4 Gaeta on Lennier. But they would be very, very cute.

we kind of need the gene pool, you know?

We do indeed.

I know, I know. You did warn me.

Yyyyep. I gave a thought to make a Starbuck voodoo doll somewhere around this point, I think...

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I gave a thought to make a Starbuck voodoo doll somewhere around this point, I think...

I'm not quite there yet, but I'm seriously thinking about it with Tigh. Frakking Tigh.

[icepixie]

I've been googling fruitlessly for Vir's exact quote, but for what it's worth, pretend I'm repeating what he says about how Londo is one day going to surprise us all, and that I'm applying it to Tigh. :)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

So, it occurred to me today that I never went back to reread my comments on BSG after we finished the series, and that it might be entertaining to do so. And it has been. And then I got to this comment, and what you said here:

(Also, um, after reading this post, I would kind of like Gaeta and Lennier to hang out for a while.)

And now that I've seen the whole thing, I thought... yes, that would be lovely. They can be organized and competent together, and then go bugfuck and randomly betray people. IT'LL BE AWESOME. EXCEPT KIND OF NOT. o_O

I mean, seriously. Daaaaamn.

[icepixie]

Bwahahahaha. Yeeeeees, it would be awesome to see them together. I think they should go off somewhere and very competently lead an extremely organized revolution. It would be great. :D

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Collaborators was a really tough episode to watch, but I feel like it would have been inauthentic for anything else to happen. Unfortunately, a lot of people lash out in response to being threatened or harmed, and it really doesn't matter who's in the way. And I can see how people stuck on New Caprica would come to hate whom they saw as collaborators even more than the Cylon occupiers themselves; the Cylons you expect to try and kill you, but your own people? So the whole thing was kind of nasty and difficult and all, but I don't know that I would have bought something else.

There's still a good string of good episodes coming up, although one - Hero - is the first to fall victim to SyFy's bizarre demand that they made the show less arc-driven. Seriously. Made no sense at all. I actually like 80% of Hero, and can totally forgive the 20% that makes balls amounts of sense and contradicts earlier canon because I know that they were kind of in a corner with network demands at that point.

I never tell people this, because I like episodes that everyone else hates or at least is indifferent toward (aforementioned Hero, late S3 episode Dirty Hands), but you can totally skip The Woman King. It's awful. It makes Black Market look like Shakespeare or whatever that cliched comparison is to say that something is really bad.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

It was inevitable - it wouldn't have been at all believable if we hadn't had something like this happen, it just... gaaaah. Gaaaaahhhhhhhh. *Flails*

one - Hero - is the first to fall victim to SyFy's bizarre demand that they made the show less arc-driven. Seriously.

So... Okay, on a lot of shows I might be able to sort of understand that demand, because if your show is super popular, the network wants as many people as possible to be able to watch it, which means it being something that people can pick up in mid-stream. But, dude - BSG goes out of its way to make the plotline understandable to outsiders. Why else are we getting the "Humans made the Cylons, they evolved, blah blah blah" thingy at the beginning of every single episode, followed by the "Previously on Battlestar Galactica" providing exactly what backstory you're going to need for this week's episode. Come on! These guys are bending over backwards to make it easier for new people to understand!

you can totally skip The Woman King.

...Judging from the title and your comment, I have an awful feeling this episode is going to lead to feminist rage. Nrgh. Unfortunately, while I'm happy to take advice like that, The Boy is a completist. We'll see what happens... maybe I can convince him purely on the basis of reminding him how much he hated "Black Market."

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

I don't remember exactly what the deal was with the network wanting more one-offs; I think ratings slipped a bit at the beginning of S3 (maybe because of the hiatuses, hmm, SyFy?) and the network in its infinite wisdom decided that if every episode were just "boom boom killing Cylons" that more people would watch? IDK. Thankfully they got over it pretty quickly, because S4 is pretty much one long continuous arc, aside from a few "oh shit how do we get to the finale again" eps at the end.

You know, actually, it's not a feminist rage thing. There's a female character named King who drives some of the plot and she's referred to as the woman King at some point; I don't actually know why that's the title, though. The episode itself is just really bad. There was a subplot in the New Caprica episodes that ended up getting cut, but they'd already written the episode that was supposed to be TWK; they had to redo the whole thing and it just sucked. Which is not a complete excuse - I think in discussing this once I brought up Fool For Love being written in a weekend and it's one of the best Buffy eps hands down - but at least no one making TWK actually thought they were doing good work. They were just trying to get some shit done for that week.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

the network in its infinite wisdom decided that if every episode were just "boom boom killing Cylons" that more people would watch? IDK.

Niiiiiiiiice. Typical SyFy network decision, then. "Hey, I know - let's alienate our entire fanbase! It'll rock!" >_<

Which is not a complete excuse - I think in discussing this once I brought up Fool For Love being written in a weekend and it's one of the best Buffy eps hands down - but at least no one making TWK actually thought they were doing good work. They were just trying to get some shit done for that week.

Ahhhhh, one of those. Well, that's something, at least - I can handle run of the mill "shitty episode" much more easily than I can "OHMYGOD STOP BEING IDIOTS" type things. Still, that sucks. (And "Fool for Love?" Yeah, totally with you on that one. I think that was my big "okay, I give up, I am in love with Spike and James Marsters fricking rocks" episode. Unfortunately, not everyone is Joss Whedon or his team. ...Hell, even Joss Whedon and his team haven't felt like Joss Whedon and his team, lately... *Sigh*)