Spoiler-free (kinda) recap of the 2.07 podcast

After listening to this podcast, I have to say I am feeling a bit disappointed. I wouldn't say I am disappointed with the show so much as frustrated with the mythos that the writers, producers, actors are working together to create. I can't say there was anything in this podcast that spoiled the plot of future episodes, but there is plenty that spoiled the speculation currently going on across the forums and BSG blogs.

Note: If you want to preserve your innocence and continue to revel in your speculations, than I urge you not to read this post. But I would suggest you read on... it might save you a lot of time thinking about things that in the grand scheme of the show really aren't that important or haven't even been decided. If it hasn't been decided than there really isn't much use in trying to figure out what the writers are hinting at is there?

This podcast reminded me of a DVD commentary I once listened to for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Michael Piller talked about the season three cliff hanger Best of Both Worlds - Part 1 where Picard is taken by the Borg and Riker gives the order to fire the deflector array at the Borg ship killing all the Borg plus the Captain. The episode ends and we had to wait the entire summer to see how it ended. Now you would think that the writers would put themselves in that situation knowing fully how they would get out of it. It turns out that they had no idea. They were only suppose to write a cliff hanger. They had no clue what would happen or how it would end. They painted themselves into a corner and when writing resumed on the first episode of season four, there first order of business was finding a way out of the situation.

To a science fiction fan, this was a little sad to know... it shattered the reality and suspense of the situation. Somehow knowing that they could change their mind at any moment removed the magic from the decisions that Riker was making. It was suddenly as if any decision held no weight. The writers could put themselves into situations and easily remove themselves. For this reason that episode, Best of Both Worlds - Part 1 & 2, has been lost on me... I can no longer watch it without thinking this fact in my head.

I feel like a similar transgression has occurred in the podcast for BSG 2.07 Home - Part 2. And here it is... in all of its speculation killing glory:

What Sharon says to Adama "And you ask why?" means absolutely nothing.

Moore and Eick say in the commentary that it was Grace Park and Olmos's idea to put that line in and that neither of them (Moore or Eick) have any idea what it will mean or how they will explain it. They said it opens up an interesting question about the Cylons, their powers and abilities, but that they have no idea how to answer it. For someone like me... a science fiction fan... a slave to the universe and mythos they are creating... I find this a bit devastating.

As I read back over my thoughts for episode 2.07, they seem so trite now... so uninformed. I was hoping for something grand like nano technology or divine monitoring or life after death and the truth is... it could be all three of these things.

Extend this out to "The Plan" that the Cylons have... I really want there to BE a plan... I want there to be a singular answer. I want there to be this big mysterious story bible that Ron Moore created that lays out the entire Mythos of the show, the limits, and the end game for the Cylons and I want it to be fixed. I want there to be a framework of beliefs and events that we can rely on. Is it selfish to want these things as a viewer? I don't think so. It is a given truth that when you intellectually engage your audience in the way science fiction often does, it will breed thought and speculation. Science fiction is as much participation on web sites like this as it is about the consumption of the primary show.

Unfortunately it doesn't end there... according to Moore and Eick it was going to be Sharon instead of Six who appears to Baltar in the cage. They decided not to do it, but imagine if they had. What would that say about Baltar's mental state? For him to be able to see and interact with other Cylons, it would confirm his mental illness. The decision to not use Sharon signifies to me a switch that the writers chose to turn off... Sharon = Baltar crazy and is seeing anything his mind dreams up... Number Six = Same old manipulated Baltar. I guess I would have thought that they know where they are taking his character. They know if he is insane or manipulated by Cylon technology and it is up to us the viewers to find it out. What is the point of trying to find it out if they don't even have a solid answer?

The only other thing that disappointed me was Six as Kara. I thought it was so obvious that they were turning Six into a representation of Starbuck based on Baltar's comment about Kara having the baby. Moore and Eick mentioned nothing about this. Their sole purpose was to take away her disarming looks and push the idea that she was going to give up on seducing Baltar because he was crazy. This doesn't bother me that much... I guess I just read into it... but still... I thought I was on the same plane as the writers and I guess I was not.

Another point of eliminated speculation was the constellation map on Earth. Moore and Eick confirmed that the planetarium in the tomb was a projection technology. There was suppose to be a Cylon attack that breaks the projection display causing static to appear and clue in the viewer, but that had to be cut for time and budget... so it isn't anything as fancy as teleportation or anything.... just a really good light show.

All in all, I am really disappointed in this podcast. I don't blame Moore or Eick and I still think the episode was fabulous... I am just partially disenchanted with the mythos at the moment and can't really find a point in arguing the intricacies of it if it isn't solidified. It is only fun to guess if there is a right answer. The more that answer is a moving target, the more pointless the exercise becomes. If you extend this out, who is to say that anyone is a Cylon? Maybe Adama is a Cylon if the ratings get low enough? Is anything sacred to the writers? Maybe this is a question for Ron Moore...

Sorry about the rant people. I was so excited about this last episode from a Cylon mythology standpoint and I feel a bit cheated. I am fully aware that the writing process is organic, but I guess I was overly reminded of that in this podcast. It didn't help that the story element I was most excited about turned out to be a whim on the page with no planned ramifications.

Comments

[Ysrith]

May I suggest that when you are cross posting this to LJ you place the bulk of the text under a LJ CUT in order to avoid people being accidentally spoiled.

So far this season, you have managed to post details about all the episodes that have aired in the US without cut tags, therefore spoiling them for anyone who has not seen them.

I realise that this is a syndicated feed to LJ but it is very annoying.

[Trapper Markelz]

Sorry, I do not tailor my posting to any specific consumption mechanism. Not everyone uses LJ to consume this feed so that is why I put a spoiler warning at the top...if one is needed.

In the case of this post:

"I can't say there was anything in this podcast that spoiled the plot of future episodes, but there is plenty that spoiled the speculation currently going on across the forums and BSG blogs.

Note: If you want to preserve your innocence and continue to revel in your speculations, than I urge you not to read this post."

I feel your pain though... When the episodes aired in the UK ahead of the US last season, it required extra dilligence browsing the feeds and staying away from reviews. That is just part of living in an increasingly globalized world where our consumption of content is out of sync. I would hate to set the precendent that it is on the content creators to accomodate all geographical areas when discussing content... At what point could you really openly discuss it? What about people in Asia who are just now watching season one?

I am of the opinion that the responsibility to avoid spoilers (for broadcasted episodes... anywhere in the world) falls with the viewers.

[Ysrith]

Maybe you should reconsider how you post to LJ then. I have had to stop getting this feed on LJ as it has now accidentally spoiled my f-list a few times.

I see that you put a spoiler warning on top, but then you post a huge post, with comments in block letters. Apart from the spoiler issue, it is also polite to put such lengthy posts under cuts.

Now don't get me wrong I enjoy this blog. However, I am stopping getting the feed at a friend's request.

I cannot understand why you seem unwilling to use cuts. The rest of us do so.

[Trapper Markelz]

Ysrith - I don't use LJ for the battlestar blog... I use Typepad... I also didn't set up the syndicated feed. Someone did it because they were nice.

The LJ cut is specific to LiveJournal. I have people that read this via NewsGator, Bloglines, My Yahoo, Opera RSS, Firefox SmartFeeds, Google Homepage, etc. I can't possibly change my posts for every possible consumption technology. Surely you can understand that?

[Jarisha]

I just had one of those "oh, of course!" moments. This has to do with Baltar and 6. We see Baltar having his brain scanned for chips. Yet we know that human Cylons don't use chips for brains: If they did, it would be very simple to detect them. Therefore, they have biological brains almost impossible to tell apart from humans'. It wouldn't be a stretch to suppose that a portion of Baltar's brain has been "reprogrammed" by the Cylons to contain a small portion of a 6's mind. He's sharing an actual, biological portion of his brain with her! So why would Baltar look for a chip of all things?
Why did she suggest the chip at all? And why dare Baltar to have his brain scanned for a chip? To keep Baltar (a scientist) from speculating freely for himself: She used his human prejudice of Cylons being "toasters" to keep him from suspecting that his mind's been biologically altered.
She's done all of this in order to bring him to the point that HE can no longer believe that he's been under Cylon control. He must be made to believe that he's responsible for everything that's happened and that there's something special - mystical - godlike about himself and his situation.
By setting up the chip solution, then shooting it down, 6 has taken away a refuge: the belief that "I'm not responsible, because I've been controlled by a chip." If she hadn't suggested the chip, he might well have suspected the truth.
She must also reinforce his belief that he's special: that he's seeing things more clearly than other humans and working for god. The other tactic she used to achieve secondary goal was a bit of simple reverse psychology: "No you're not" "Yes I am!" He already fundamentally believes that he's superior to other humans. It's not hard to get him to believe that he's actually an instrument of god.
Why not just replace his entire mind with a completely Cylon engineered one? They didn't expect him to survive at all, did they? He only survived because of events that the Cylons couldn't possibly have controlled. He was originally only useful to get into the human computer systems. 6-in-the-brain found herself in the position of being able to control an asset. But her control hadn't been designed for this situation, so she's had to work at expanding it.
Again: why bother with him at all? Not positive, but it's a safe bet that 6-in-the-brain is going for a Big Plan. Maybe, at some point, she'll push him subconsiously to finally reveal himself to the other humans. Maybe, at that moment, she'll also present him with a chance to sabatoge Galactica and engineer an escape for him. At that moment, he'll be reviled by the humans, and she can convince him that he's doing it all for god. What choice will he have? He's superior, an instrument of god, making his own decisions (no chip). And Baltar will finally join the Cylons in helping them to hunt down the remaining humans.

[Ysrith]

I am afriad I find your attitude towards very disappointing.

You yourself have complained about being spoiled, but are not willing to take any responsibility for that fact that your feed is spoiling other people on LJ.

That takes balls!

So basically what you are saying is that you don't care that you are spoiling non-US viewers on LJ, as you didn't set up the LJ feed!

Unbelievable!

[Trapper Markelz]

Ysrith - Hmmm... sorry I don't think I am being unreasonable. I take just as many steps as any other non-LJ site in protecting my viewers from spoilers... I provide a warning at the top. In this case the spoiler was over four paragraphs into the content... well after the warning. I can't help it if you read further down.

When I was discussing spoilers in my previous post it was because people were putting them in the TITLE of the entry and providing no warnings at all. I find I am perfectly capable of avoiding spoilers in my RSS reader when I see a warning. I assume others are equally capable.

Anyhow, sorry you feel that way.

[Michael]

You make an interesting point, but I can see two sides to this--yours and another one.

What I like is that the continuity and plan isn't so rigid that things can't happen organically and continue to develop. I mean, I am a huge Buffy fan and if you watch season three, you can see Joss dancing around that the villian of the season doesn't work and changing gears halfway through in response to the fans lack of interest in Mr. Trick. So I like that it was fluid enough to change things should they not work. Not that I am saying it's not working here...head over to my blog and read how I lavish praise upon this week's ep...loved every last second of it. But I like it that while there may be an overall master plan, Moore and company aren't so obsessed with it and it's not so detailed that they cant' allow for these types of things to happen.

As for the Piller thing--does it matter? I mean, for all we know when writers write, how to do we know they dont' get to a point and go--I have no idea where to go next. I mean, we know that Piller did this..but does it ruin the episodes? Not as much for me...

[Kai Hecker]

Sidestepping the LJ dispute, I agree with the central premise of the entry - knowing that such a seemingly profound line as "And you ask why?" is an off-the-cuff addition diminishes the show somewhat.

For me, part of the enjoyment in watching BSG is believing that the characters act for a reason and that those actions will have consequences. Underlying this belief is the thought that the writers were working within a framework and towards a known goal (a la Babylon 5) versus writing in an episodic, ad hoc manner (a la ST:TNG, etc.). If an ad hoc space vortex can solve outstanding plot issues, then there is no tension in a show. To date, BSG has had plenty of tension; hopefully, this episode does not mark a turning point.

Moreover, ad hoc, episodic writing changes the debate regarding Sharon’s line; the use of a human astronomical catalog designation for the Lagoon Nebula (M8); and the relationship of the ancient colony names to human constellations from "what does it mean to the story" to "did the writers intend this to be significant". The former fires our collective imagination, the later suggests we should stop wasting our time.

Time - and future episodes - will tell.

ps – I know that BSG is episodic television, but there is a substantial difference between each episode being a chapter in a book versus a stand-alone short story.

[Trapper Markelz]

Kai Hecker - Sorry about the off topic LJ stuff... it happens... Thanks for the comments, I think you said it better with less words than I took! :)

As viewers in a complex show we are continually on the hunt for significance. If every cliff hanger or suspenseful plot device is like Schrodinger's Cat for the writers and they are free to play with the significance of events on a whim, than for me it diminishes the impact of the story.

To answer Micahel above, that is the biggest problem I have with Michael Piller and the Star Trek episode I mentioned. To us the viewers, the Borg ship was either alive or dead on the other side of the season... Either way, there was an answer out there... a reality that had been decided in that universe. To find out his fate hadn't been decided taxes the suspension of disbelief required to perpetuate the mythos of a complex science fiction show... in my opinion.

Sure, I still watched... and I still love Star Trek and I still loved this last episode of BSG... but I am definitely not as excited about where they are going with the powers of the Cylons or their agenda as I was when I wrote my thoughts on Sunday morning.

I am sure I will get over it though. BSG is still a great show. My post was more a warning to the writers to be careful. Kai says it perfectly above:

"If an ad hoc space vortex can solve outstanding plot issues, then there is no tension in a show."

I am hoping the ad hoc space vortexes in BSG can be kept to a minimum... :)

[Corusca]

I wasn't too disapointed to know that the 'And you ask why?' thing was an actor-made line. One of the best Star Wars moments was the 'I know line' that was suggested by Harrison Ford in 'The Empire Strikes Back' and it was developed into a private joke in 'Return of the Jedi', so good can come out of actor input to scenes. ;)

[Rob]

I agree, I fear the show is too made up as it goes along. I'd prefer the writers had more of a Bible. Did you listen to the podcast where Moore gives the impression he had boomer/helo wandering around Caprica season one while he figured out what to do with them -- and it felt like that for viewers too. The show is awesome but the lack of planning sometimes hurts it.

As for Baltar and his brain scan, how do we know that really happened? Maybe Six brought him into a delusionary world, using the chip which really does exist, to trick him into thinking he was given a brain scan.

[Zot]

I'm in the "not disappointed" camp.

If we step back from this a bit to think of how this series is meant to be enjoyed -- for its viewing pleasure -- I think we should remember that the plot has so far maintained a superior level of internal consistency without revealing too much at a time. We should have faith in the process that has lead to this.

One thing we're learning about this process is that the actors themselves are having a great deal of input into how their characters are developing. This is producing some very fine work. Let's not be too hasty to criticise.

Isn't it possible that Moore and his team DO have a fairly carefully arranged Bible and backstory but that they are leaving the door open for changes to occur to take the series into new directions? It's also possible that the broad strokes are in there as far as plot goes and that they know where they're ending up, but that there are areas that are yet to be painted in fully. I think that's to be expected. They've just received a contract to produce 20 episodes when they didn't know if there would even be a second series for sure.

This is almost an enivitability in the US TV industry today. Rather than be upset, I think we should all be grateful that a sci fi TV series has somehow been able to be produced and continues to be produced at such a high quality week in week out.

[Chris Lawrence]

The thing about "why" is that it's the logical question for Adama (and the other humans) to ask... if not about Boomer trying to kill him, then at least about the Cylons exterminating the Colonies.

Boomer's answer: essentially, "because we can." In other words, humans are weak, we are strong.

Anyway, it doesn't really bug me.