Battlestar Galactica – 2x05

[iainjclark]

Nooooo! The spoilery credits are back!

Battlestar Galactica – 2x05 – The Farm

Adama’s long awaited return is almost anticlimactic at first, as he picks up his implacable deadlock with Roslin right where he left off. Tigh may be off the hook, but the situation continues to escalate rather than cool down.

Adama is also more emotional (expressing his bond with the crew in an odd but interesting scene) and this leads to two cracking moments which embody the way this programme pushes its characters in unexpected directions. The first is Adama gently forcing the Chief to acknowledge that he did in fact love Boomer, fascinating not only because it’s the reverse of every other character’s reaction, but because Adama acknowledges head on that Boomer must have been more than a machine. The second is Adama breaking down and sobbing over Boomer’s corpse, a startling and powerful moment that brings home the complete cognitive dissonance the humans are feeling in dealing with the human-form Cylons.

The scenes on Caprica develop this idea, with Boomer and the other Cylons displaying a disconcerting blend of insight and dispassion. This storyline is a great showcase for Katee Sackhoff as Starbuck and features some excellent moments, but aspects of it are quite mundane and clichéd. The resistance camp is straight out of any number of low-budget Sci-Fi potboilers, and even the hospital scenes teeter precariously on the same brink. What salvages things, other than Sackhoff’s performance, is the show’s typical verve and brutality. It doesn’t try to sell us on the obvious Cylon deception for more than a couple of scenes, and there’s a powerful mood of physical and emotional violation. In some ways it’s cheese, but delivered with conviction.

The remainder of the episode showcases Roslin’s realisation that having played the religion card she has to follow through, something she does with increasing pragmatism. The scene in which she blesses the assembled faithful is particularly uncomfortable. Her religious conviction is an interesting contrast to Adama’s secular contemplation of what it means to be human.

Lastly, I must give a nod to Apollo’s complex reaction to betraying his father, which was not unexpected but very well executed.

Not the best episode of the season, but there are some showstopping scenes and the ideas the show is playing with are never less than compelling.

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Comments

[weyoun-one.livejournal.com]

I'm pleased the "spoilery" credits are back, it felt odd without them.

sarah_elton will be pleased now that Rick Worthy has been cast as one of the Cylon models.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

But... but...the spoilers!

On a vaguely related note, I hadn't realised until someone pointed it out today that the number of survivors mentioned in the opening credits is adjusted every week (downwards, naturally). What a great little touch.

[weyoun-one.livejournal.com]

The "spoilers" are usually misleading though.

I wonder if the number of survivors will go up now if/when Galactica sends ships to rescue the people on Caprica.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Nice thought.

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

Aha! :) I'd been wondering about the survivor count, but couldn't be bothered to check. I had a feeling that BG, of all shows, would do that.

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

First, I found Adama's return thoroughly fascinating and timely. Timely because right now is exactly when these characters require an older wiser head: Olmos's delivery of the, "If you thought you were in love, then you were. That's what love is: thoughts" line was perfectly pitched - slightly irritated and weary. At the same time, he hasn't come back and Fixed Things, which you find anticlimactic but which I find relieving. There's even the briefest, slightest flicker of a smile on Tigh's face when Adama declares that any one stupid enough to go with Roslin should be allowed to: in truth, Adama is not really acting much differently to his XO.

I agree that execution rather than concept saved the Caprica stuff, and agree even more than Sackhoff played a large part in this (but then, I would, wouldn't I?). I found the Cylon hospital creepy rather than cheesy, though - it was shot in a relatively conventional fashion for these kinds of things, but it was very well shot, and the new model was very good. As Aileen said to me: "I'm not going to bother to try to double-guess their double bluff; I'm just going to let them tell me he's a Cylon." That was good writing and good production.

I'm not sure Roslin has the same level of religious conviction you see in her. "I'm going to play the religion card," are hardly the words of someone with a Messiah complex, and her discomfort with blessing the prisoners was more or less as great as ours. Roslin is essentially still being a politician - someone with an agenda she believes right, and which she will see through to conclusion. Marginalised by the military, she has little choice but to use the only tool she can. Ironically, in deposing her from power, Adama has forced Roslin to use questionable and unconventional means which may ultimately provide her with more influence than any democratic mandate.

This episode didn't quite have the same tense feel that has so impressed me in the preceding episodes, but then it was trying to do something different. This was a creepy episode that played with you rather than an inyourface one that beat you around the face with a big stick. It's satisfying that the show has more than one setting.

But danmilburn has some reservations about the consistency of the presentation of the Cylons ...

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

"I'm going to play the religion card," are hardly the words of someone with a Messiah complex

That's my feeling too - and what I was trying to get at. Having played that card, she's now trapped by her own mythology, forced to play up to it for pragmatism's sake. That said, she *is* religious as we saw last year, and does see the world differently to Adama.

Adama is not really acting much differently to his XO.

Definitely - and yet he seems different to Tigh as well. Maybe because he's just as stubborn, but has more going on upstairs. He's more of a thinker.

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

That said, she *is* religious as we saw last year, and does see the world differently to Adama.

Yes, but Adama is an uber-materialist, a total atheist. Roslin has religious faith, yes, but that is not the same as true religious conviction, of the sort that her followers appear to be developing.

Maybe because he's just as stubborn, but has more going on upstairs. He's more of a thinker.

Try this on for size: Adama makes his decisions aware of all the complexities; Tigh makes them without that perspective. But decisions - and difficult ones - they still are. The trick is that the awareness of those complexities helps you to plan for the next decision whilst your making the current one.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Try this on for size

Thanks. It fits nicely if I suck in my beer gut.

Adama is more of a planner, yes. He's pig-headed and blinkered on certain topics in just the same way as Tigh, but I agree that he's far more of a chess-player who spends a lot of time weighing up the likely outcomes. Even this week after his anti-Roslin rhetoric he's still waiting to see how the fleet reacts to Roslin's move before finalising his plans.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

But danmilburn has some reservations about the consistency of the presentation of the Cylons ...

Then he'll have to come and tell me about them, won't he. :-)

I have a vague feeling that, as in most shows of this nature, the Cylons are passing up opportunities to kill Our Heroes in favour of more dramatic options. But it's hard to say, since we don't know exactly what their goals are. Clearly procreation is a big one, but it must be deeper than that.

[danmilburn.livejournal.com]

the Cylons are passing up opportunities to kill Our Heroes in favour of more dramatic options

Well, they are (as it now seems Boomer could have killed everyone on board the Galactica any time she chose), but I think it's more than that.

The Cylons are basically whoever and whatever the writers want them to be for whatever story they're trying to tell at the time. Galactica Boomer is different from Caprica Boomer is different from the Cylon in Baltar's head is different from others we've seen. Not just different characters but in nature. And none of them bear any obvious relation to the toasters, who just seem to kill things indiscriminately and then disappear at convenient moments. :)

All this would bother me less if the show didn't keep telling me They Have a Plan at the beginning of each episode. That's always been far more annoying to me than the spoilery frames.

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

As you know, you broke my mind with you comparison of Boomer's water tanks adventure and the toasters' attempt to suck every living thing on Galactica into the voids of space. I agree that if only there wasn't reputedly a unified Plan it'd be easier to suggest that the Cylons have conflicting agendas - possibly the models have one thing going on and the toasters don't know. It does seem to me, though, that as soon as you create sentient human-like things each copy will act differently. Certainly, the two Boomers we know of have been through very different experiences (both involved love). Are we looking at an argument about nature or nurture?

I'm inclined to think Moore knows what doing. I mean, he made sense of the Klingons, for crying out loud. Plus, stop spoiling my new show, you git.

[danmilburn.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to think Moore knows what doing. I mean, he made sense of the Klingons, for crying out loud.

He wrote Trials and Tribble-ations? Yay!

I am too. There are certainly things that are starting to bug me about the show, but to a large extent, I'm being picky because I'm enjoying it so much and because it's fun winding you up. Season 2 so far has never been less than superb TV, much more consistent than the first.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

He wrote Trials and Tribble-ations? Yay!

He did actually. He was also the one who took on the Klingons during The Next Generation and wrote most of the pivotal episodes that created their general mythology. I have mixed feelings about this, since the Klingons are so very dull, but he did write a ton of the best TNG episodes.

There are certainly things that are starting to bug me about the show

The show continually bugs me by, well, being less than it can be. All that stupid stuff with the Cylon virus is just unnecessary, and there were several first season episodes where the characters and visual style were great but the actual story-of-the-week was fairly shoddy.

I'm more forgiving of the Cylons acting inconsistently because it's a common failing with programmes of this kind; when analysed logically, the apparently cunning villains have to do unreasonably stupid things in order for Our Heroes to survive. Also, we genuinely don't know their true agenda, and we do know for a fact that Boomer is not acting wholly in line with the other Cylon models, so some inconsistency there is quite explicable.

When we do finally know the full picture it may all fall apart, of course. I suspect Moore has the Cylon philosophy worked out, but the detail of their week to week plots is more ad hoc, and so open to inconsistency. Moore himself has said he prefers not to plan things out in great detail a long way in advance, but instead accept input from the other writers and let the creative process throw up new ideas.

Season 2 so far has never been less than superb TV, much more consistent than the first.

Definitely.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Well, that was dull.

- The cylons have artificial wombs, or similar, because they're growing lots of clones. They don't need the wombs of women. It would be far easier and more efficient for them to steal the sperm of human men and go about their cross-breeding that way.
- The mysticism is really starting to annoy me.
- Adama's emotional openness/breakdown was completely unconvincing.
- The credits are much much better this way.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Curse your sudden but inevitable backlash! :-)

I agree that this was a relatively weak episode, and yet the Adama stuff kept me riveted. As I said, I found the actual Starbuck plotline (like many in Season 1) to be drawn from the Bumper Book of SF Cliches, but the execution gave it more credit than it deserved.

I don't agree with you that the Cylons must have an effective replacement for the human womb, since we know precisely nothing about how the Cylons create more of themselves. I do agree that it would make more sense not to hook women up to some cheesy machinery straight out of an Outer Limits episode, which seems out of step with other aspects of what the Cylons are doing. (Of course it's implied that this is a continuation of their earlier experiments, which have since grown more subtle.)

I disagree about Adama's emotional breakdown being unconvincing, given the opinions he displayed earlier in the episode, and his warm interactions with Boomer at the end of last season. His scene with the Chief and his scene with Boomer are both about finding out that someone you care for is not who you thought they were. Adama's reactions to Boomer are quite similar to the Chief's, but more intellectually filtered. In a platonic way he cared for Boomer and has been inexplicably betrayed by someone who is inhuman, but remains as real and three-dimensional a person as any human being he ever met. He's re-evaluating his most basic assumptions about what it is to be human, and asking a lot of questions as a result. This, in a nutshell, is the entire Cylon theme boiled down to a single scene.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I don't agree with you that the Cylons must have an effective replacement for the human womb, since we know precisely nothing about how the Cylons create more of themselves.

At this point, if the cylons don't turn out to be H.sapiens clones running toaster software I will be (a) stunned beyond belief and (b) frankly, disappointed. They look like humans; they bleed like humans; I will bet my bottom dollar that they share genetic material with humans. And they're being mass-produced.

And I didn't find the Adama stuff unconvincing for plot or thematic reasons; I just didn't think the acting was very good.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

H.sapiens clones running toaster software

Huh. That's the first time this has been suggested to me. Which doesn't mean it's not right, of course; it makes a lot of sense. But it hasn't been signposted as a possibility within the series itself (except thematically), and it's definitely not so obvious that we should be assuming it and using it to complain about plot holes.

And I didn't find the Adama stuff unconvincing for plot or thematic reasons; I just didn't think the acting was very good.

Fair enough. I disagree. But you knew that. :-)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

What else could they possibly be? They are similar enough to humans that Baltar needs a very specific, very sensitive biochemical test to tell the difference. They are similar enough to humans that Boomer can get pregnant.

And even if they are not human clones, their existence still tells us the cylons have a way of mass-producing biological entities. The plot needs to give a reason for them to be doing the baby-farm thing, and it doesn't.

(Mind you, the plot could have done with having, you know, an actual conversation between Adama and Tigh about what happened in Adama's absence. I have no problem with him continuing on from Tigh's choices in the way that he did, but we should have seen his reactions to being told.)

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

The plot needs to give a reason for them to be doing the baby-farm thing, and it doesn't.

This is one of the show's failings IMO, and one reason the first season sometimes felt both bitty and repetitive. It spends ages making the same point over and over, but then makes big leaps forward without filling in all the necessary gaps.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Of course, they're also different enough from humans that a biochemical test can tell the difference, and that the radiation in the pilot affects cylons but not humans. Isn't the implication that they're silicon based biological life, or something along those lines?

And we know they only have 12 models (for some as yet unrevealed but no doubt deeply unlikely reason). They can only recreate what they already are, not create something new. I could imagine all manner of reasons why they might need to use human wombs; we just don't know.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

One other thing:

The mysticism is really starting to annoy me.

This is the point, shirley? Or one of the intended reactions, at least.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

No. Roslin conciously using religion as an opiate for the masses is a nice touch, but I'm getting the distinct impression that beneath all the mumbo-jumbo there's something supernatural going on. Whether it's on then human or cylon side is unclear. Either way, it's annoying, and muddled.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I, too, feel uneasy about the idea of genuine supernatural elements in the show (which is odd, as I could accept prophecy perfectly well in Babylon 5).

However, how can we possibly say that it's muddled based on the available evidence? We don't even know if it's real, and even if it's real we don't know how much of it is real, or in what context.

So far the show has taken great pains to leave things ambiguous, using Roslin's addled mental state as the get-out clause to explain anything that might otherwise be inexplicable. Only her vision of the cylon flying out of the airlock has any trace of verifiable prophecy.