The nine episodes beginning with "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I" and ending with "Home, Part II" make up a fairly tightly-knit arc that it doesn't make a great deal of sense to separate them by individual episodes, but rather to spend a blog post devoted to each of the three or four stories that unfold during this time; Starbuck's quest back to Caprica, the FUBAR ground mission on Kobol, the double whammy of Roslin's arrest and Adama's near-death, and finally the Home episodes where everyone reunites on the surface of Kobol.
With that in mind, this particular blog is going to focus on the character of Starbuck (and to a lesser extent, Helo) from the episode "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I" through "The Farm." And yeah, I think I already did a post dedicated solely to "The Farm," but I want to revisit it now that I know how the entire series played out.
So here's a quick re-cap of the important things that happened to Starbuck in the first eleven episodes of Season 1.
-She finally 'fessed up about her role in Zak Adama's death, only to be forgiven about 48 hours later.
-She broke her knee, putting her out of the cockpit for a very long time and causing her to miss the big Star Wars episode.
-She hijacked a Cylon Raider, which she learned how to fly. (Curiously, Tyrol couldn't, despite the fact that he probably built the thing in the first place.)
-She got a big lecture on destiny from a Cylon she was torturing.
-She flirted openly with Apollo, but when he repeatedly failed to act, she shacked up with Baltar instead.
Okay, that last one isn't exactly what happened, and you can see the Baltar/Starbuck thing with the benefit of hindsight. But at the beginning of KLG, when she was in bed with someone, we all assumed it was Lee, and the last-second actor swap to Baltar kind of rang a bit hollow.
Kobol's Last Gleaming
A Raptor team finds Kobol, but when a Cylon Baseship appears, Starbuck immediately starts to draft another certified out-of-the-box Kara Thrace original. This, combined with the fact that she frakked Baltar instead of him, royally pisses off Lee. Well, it probably has almost everything to do with the "frakking Baltar" thing and very little to do with the "you went over my head" thing, because this is the only time in the history of the show that he complains about it.
They punch each other, but then Starbuck storms out before the sexual tension reaches the breaking point and causes a hull breach. Roslin summons her and tells her to defy orders and go back to Caprica to get the Arrow of Apollo because scripture told her to.
Starbuck does. She disobeys orders from a man who has looked the other way at least twice; once when she struck a superior officer in the Mini, and once in regards to the whole Zak thing. Bill Adama is the closest thing she has to a father (not that we know the specifics about her parents yet, but it's true nonetheless). She is part of the family. (Ron Moore's Season 4 comment about Adama, Apollo and Starbuck being the Father, Son and Holy Ghost resonates all the way back here, even though Kara's not a ghost yet.)
Why does she betray Adama? Part of it is the same reason she gives for why she slept with Baltar: she's a worlds-class frakup. But there are other factors that help justify it as well. Adama lied about knowing where Earth is (that scene is great). Leoben's whole special-destiny thing is still gnawing at her. And now she knows what only two other people in the fleet know: Roslin is the dying leader foretold in the prophecies of Pythia (yes, two: Roslin herself, and Elosha. Cottle and Apollo don't know about Pythia, and Billy's clearly agnostic at best). Suddenly, Roslin, not Adama, is the fleet's best chance at finding Earth. And Starbuck is going to take it. Frak the consequences.
Starbuck's decision to steal the Raider, and in so doing endanger the team stuck on Kobol's surface, kicks off a political struggle that will get a separate blog post later this week. But she makes it to Caprica no worse for the wear (she looks like the jump gave her a headache, but I'm sure she's had far worse hangovers). Conveniently, the Arrow of Apollo is in the Delphi Museum, and the Cylons never bothered to remove it. (And yet, per "Home, Part I," the Cylons know all about the Tomb anyway... go figure.)
Starbuck gets into a hand-to-hand fight with a Six, and she only survives because of a lucky bit of rebar that manages to impale Six but not harm her at all, even though they both fall on it. That's when Helo and Athena-to-be show up. Starbuck cottons on to the whole "Sharon's a Cylon" thing, but Helo won't let her kill Sharon because she's pregnant.
The Helo's Journey
Helo's been stuck on Caprica ever since the writers decided not to kill him off off-screen in the Mini and instead bring him back for the show. He's been accompanied by Athena-to-be, whom he only recently found out is a) technically not the Boomer he knew from Galactica, b) a Cylon, and c) pregnant by him. That's enough to seriously screw up anyone's worldview, and Helo handles it rather well. By which I means he shoots Sharon in the shoulder, and then he lets her hijack Starbuck's ride.
So now Starbuck and Helo are stuck wandering around on Caprica, but fortunately Starbuck's old apartment is nearby. This set makes a couple of surprise reappearances in Seasons 3 and 4; the mandala painting is present, but when Starbuck plays a tape of her dad, it's Bear McCreary covering Phillip Glass instead of "All Along the Watchtower." Oh well. Now, in general, the "Meanwhile, on Cylon-Occupied Caprica" scenes tend to feel like filler. There aren't that many significant events that take place there, and yet the planet appears at least once in seventeen of the first eighteen episodes of the show. But this scene always felt different. It was our first real glimpse of who Starbuck was.
It's true that we knew about the hotshot Viper jock with the attitude problem. It's true that we knew about Zak. It's true that we knew a little bit about her mother. But going back to Starbuck's house, seeing her paintings, learning that the apartment runs on batteries because she never paid the power bill... even hearing her dad's music, all of these things tell us so much more about the character. It was in this scene that Starbuck stopped being a hypercharged badass maverick and became a real person, at least to me.
These episodes are also rife with irony, as Helo must endure endless ribbing about how he fell in love with a toaster, when Starbuck's about to do the same thing. And that brings us straight to Anders. Re-watching the entire show from start to finish with my family, I found it jarring how many times Helo or Sharon insisted that they were the only two people left on Caprica, only for Anders and fifty-odd resistance members (suddenly bumped up to ninety-odd in The Plan for some reason) to show up out of nowhere.
Once you get past the initial shock and realize that no, they're not revealing all eight extant Cylon models at once, the first Anders scene plays out fairly nicely. His team have spotted some skin-jobs, so they're going to go take them out. Only problem is, it's actually Starbuck and Helo, and whatever else Destiny Girl and Toasterfrakker are, they're not skin-jobs (look in a mirror, Anders).
So they do the whole "shoot at each other" thing until that somehow resolves into a Mexican standoff, and then Helo and Anders manage to convince Starbuck that the resistance is made up of humans and everybody conveniently forgets that Starbuck and Helo haven't proved their identities. Some obvious questions ensue, such as why the resistance let Starbuck and Helo pull out extra guns, and why they never had to answer any difficult questions ("Starbuck, how many times have you been mistaken for a Cylon and nearly killed for it?" "Only two so far, but I'll have two more opportunities later on this season").
Then Starbuck and Anders play Pyramid, which is foreplay for them. One thing leads to another, and before you can ask why Starbuck keeps needing band-aids on her left shoulderblade, they're frakking. (The band-aid thing gets especially hilarious in "Scar," as the episode cuts between two similar scenes of Starbuck with her shirt off.)
And then we have "The Farm," where Starbuck gets abducted and, per the "What the Frak" special, "gets taken to a creepy baby factory where Simon the Cylon steals her ovary." We get more hints about her past (and again from a Cylon) before she finally manages an escape. She leaves Anders to die on Caprica but promises to come back for him one day, even though that Heavy Raider Athena-to-be stole could probably fit him and a couple of others. Oh well.
She re-joins the fleet in the following episode, and we'll be picking that story up on Thursday. For now, look at the way Starbuck's story unfolds; she disobeys orders for a good reason, but ends up finding out horrible truths about Boomer and enduring a terrible ordeal at the Farm. She finds a new love interest, but has to leave him behind on a radioactive rock. Starbuck's past comes up twice; at her apartment, where she plays her father's music, and at the Farm, when Simon asks about her broken fingers. The Cylons she's encountered so far all seem to know things about her that they shouldn't. Leoben and Simon knew about her mother. Sharon knows all about her because she has Boomer's memories. It's a shame that for the rest of the season the only Cylon threat she faces is the airborne variety, because the psychological damage the Cylons were doing to her looked like it was going somewhere. By the time Leoben reappears, it's almost too late.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
10 reasons why it would suck to live aboard the Battlestar Galactica
I adore that show, but I don't think I'd like to live there. Here's why.
10) Almost everyone you care about is dead. You will now spend the next 4 years cooped up in a metal box with people you hate.
9) Rule of law replaced by a joint dictatorship comprised of a tired old man and a former schoolteacher who slowly becomes a tyrant. Often times they'll make stupid decisions, like wasting half the fleet's fuel looking for Starbuck, or not bothering to court-martial the guy who just cost humanity half their firepower (good job, Apollo) or the other guy who just sabotaged the plan to win the war (thanks for that, Helo). Even when it functions properly, a former terrorist is trying to undermine it for his own ends. At various times, said joint dictatorship replaced by an insane Admiral, a drunk XO, a terrorist-turned-demagogue (and his idealistic, one-legged co-mutineer), or the guy who can't stop talking to his imaginary girlfriend and is partially responsible for #10.
8) Said joint dictatorship takes the better part of four years to realize that the old political system doesn't work anymore - and in the meantime, we have to suffer through President Baltar, Vice-President Zarek, and half a dozen minor political crises. Issues that were once limited just to the Gemenons or the Sagittarons suddenly become fleet-wide issues. In short, the death of federalism (which in turn leads to the rise of demagogues like Zarek).
7) Realization that you're stuck with 24,000 moronic fraks who voted for President Baltar.
6) Algae for breakfast, algae for lunch, algae with a side order of algae and algae on top for dinner.
5) Slave labor. Even if they do compensate you, what are you going to buy? The only things the fleet seems to produce are munitions, booze, and suits (I don't think Apollo or Zarek brought theirs with them). Oh, and peg-legs.
4) 1 in 5 odds you'll die before you reach Earth. (50,293 down to 38K and change by the end.)
3) ...and if you do get to Earth, they outlaw technology. Goodbye, sanitation.
2) Your best friend might be a Cylon.
1) You might be a Cylon. Madam President hasn't fulfilled her airlocking quota this year.
10) Almost everyone you care about is dead. You will now spend the next 4 years cooped up in a metal box with people you hate.
9) Rule of law replaced by a joint dictatorship comprised of a tired old man and a former schoolteacher who slowly becomes a tyrant. Often times they'll make stupid decisions, like wasting half the fleet's fuel looking for Starbuck, or not bothering to court-martial the guy who just cost humanity half their firepower (good job, Apollo) or the other guy who just sabotaged the plan to win the war (thanks for that, Helo). Even when it functions properly, a former terrorist is trying to undermine it for his own ends. At various times, said joint dictatorship replaced by an insane Admiral, a drunk XO, a terrorist-turned-demagogue (and his idealistic, one-legged co-mutineer), or the guy who can't stop talking to his imaginary girlfriend and is partially responsible for #10.
8) Said joint dictatorship takes the better part of four years to realize that the old political system doesn't work anymore - and in the meantime, we have to suffer through President Baltar, Vice-President Zarek, and half a dozen minor political crises. Issues that were once limited just to the Gemenons or the Sagittarons suddenly become fleet-wide issues. In short, the death of federalism (which in turn leads to the rise of demagogues like Zarek).
7) Realization that you're stuck with 24,000 moronic fraks who voted for President Baltar.
6) Algae for breakfast, algae for lunch, algae with a side order of algae and algae on top for dinner.
5) Slave labor. Even if they do compensate you, what are you going to buy? The only things the fleet seems to produce are munitions, booze, and suits (I don't think Apollo or Zarek brought theirs with them). Oh, and peg-legs.
4) 1 in 5 odds you'll die before you reach Earth. (50,293 down to 38K and change by the end.)
3) ...and if you do get to Earth, they outlaw technology. Goodbye, sanitation.
2) Your best friend might be a Cylon.
1) You might be a Cylon. Madam President hasn't fulfilled her airlocking quota this year.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Or... y'know, just no prequels ever
Yes, two posts in one day. All because this got me thinking, and I needed some way to celebrate.
So... why do we have prequels at all? No, seriously, what do they bring to the table? From "Vader was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force" to "The Cylons were created by Man," anything and everything we need to know about a film or TV show's background has been given to us in plain, simple terms. (Note: Caprica > Star Wars Prequels.)
You already know who's going to be alive at the end.
The audience has got to care about your characters. As Joss Whedon finally found out on Dollhouse, people have a hard time getting invested in your characters if they think they're gonna die. Now, Whedon's problem was his penchant for killing fan-favorite characters. Prequels have a slightly different problem.
From the moment it became clear that his younger, whinier sidekick was Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn was a dead man walking. We all knew he was going to die. It was only a question of when. Same goes for literally every person who picks up a lightsaber who is not Anakin or Obi-Wan. Same goes for Padme. We were hoping that the same went for the cartoon rabbit. And we knew that Anakin was going to get dropped into a volcano and put inside a sci-fi gimp suit. So what happened in the Star Wars prequels that we didn't see coming?
While you're pondering that, consider Christopher Nolan's The Prestige. We know from fairly early on that a) Hugh Jackman's character is going to die, and b) that sometime prior to this, he's going to injure his leg very, very badly. Now I'll argue later on that The Prestige is the exception that proves the rule, but for now just consider the fact that you probably started wincing each time Jackman went down that trapdoor. In a nutshell, this is because The Prestige is one self-contained piece; the chronologically-scrambled narrative is here used as a means of foreshadowing. If each of the three acts of the film had been separate films, and those three films were not released in chronological order, it would have been a different story.
Now, Caprica does its best to subvert this. One, it is set more than 50 years before the events of BSG and features a cast of characters who never show up on BSG, plus one character who has the same name as a BSG character, presumably to mislead you into thinking they're the same so that when the character dies, you go "what the frak???"
Still, Caprica has to overcome the big massive hurdle of a fact that everybody will be dead in 57 years at the outset. Now, yes, everyone dies eventually, but it's hard to care about the characters and the society in Caprica since we'd spent four years on BSG getting over the fact that everyone our heroes knew back home were dead and gone. It's like Sarah Connor in Terminator 2. Everyone's already dead, so why does any of it matter?
To its credit, not that it deserves much, Star Trek Enterprise is set way before the Kirk era, and there's not a young Kirk or Spock running around getting in the way. On paper, therefore, you'd think that Enterprise would have a better shot than either Caprica or The Phantom Menace.
You have to reduce the amount of cool technology.
Star Trek had shot its bolt on technological wizardry, and the sane thing to do in order to get a show that wasn't just about a bunch of techno-wizards in space solving all their problems with technobabble would be to do a prequel. But did it have to be so far back in time? The holodeck had, for better or worse, been a staple of Star Trek since 1987, and it suddenly disappeared. We were stuck following the adventures of a guy nobody had ever heard of before in a version of the Enterprise that was conspicuously absent from Picard's collection.
Hell, there are about 75 years between where the Original Series films end and where TNG picks up. We know virtually nothing about that time. You'd lose site-to-site transporting, holodecks, hyper-capable cloaking devices... and, the original show was very rarely about technobabble. So yeah, you'd still have shields, phasers, torpedoes, and that all-important magic-wand-shaped-like-a-deflector-dish. As long as you stayed away from Young Picard, I'd watch a Star Trek show set between TOS and TNG. (Okay, now I'm fantasizing about a Caprica-style Trek show featuring the creation of the holodeck.)
Ron Moore famously took a different approach, qutting Star Trek in general to make Battlestar Galactica, a show in which there are no deflector shields or techno-wizardry. But was that because he wanted to avoid technobabble, or because the Miniseries budget was already stretched to the breaking point? Caprica has oodles of fancy-pants magitech that was never so much as alluded to in BSG. Yeah, yeah, First Cylon War, whatever. (In Star Trek: Holodeck, there is no big calamity at the beginning of TNG to wipe out all our characters and technology. It'd be a hard task to navigate all the continuity and still be accesible to the average fan, but it could probably be done.)
Now in the Star Wars prequels, Lucas tries to have his techno-cake and eat it too. On the one hand, there are no Death Stars. Jedi Starfighters don't have hyperspace capability (gee, it would have been nice if this were a plot point, ever). There are some obvious "precursors" to tech in the classic trilogy, especially throughout Revenge of the Sith.
But on the other hand, despite the 20-year-gap between Sith and Hope, there really aren't that many changes. There's a Death Star, yes. They can now make fake flesh so that Mark Hamill doesn't have to wear a blue glove all the time... I mean, Luke can have a normal-looking hand. The changes are largely cosmetic, except for the Death Star, and don't really affect the story as a whole. How can a 20-year-old droid hack a state-of-the-art trash-compactor?
So, um, what I'm saying here is that the Star Wars prequels actually did a good job with the tech thing...
(The author has a sudden recollection of R2-D2's rocket thrusters.)
Frak.
"How we got here" is not as interesting as "what do we do now?"
Take the superhero genre for a second. Do you care how Thomas Wayne made that fortune that his son squandered on Bat-themed suits, cars, weapons, floodlights, etc? I don't. Or what Superman's dad was up to before Krypton did the big firework? Nah.
Likewise, I don't wanna know how Galactica got constructed or what life was like aboard it prior to the Cylon attack. We saw enough of that in the Miniseries. Not that what we did see was bad, mind you, but it served its purpose as part of a larger story. Here's a quick description of the BSG backstory: "A society a hella lot like ours gets flash-fried by our own robotic creations. The last survivors go on the run. Paranoia, intrigue, and fantastic character-driven storytelling ensue."
Star Trek Enterprise tries to show us what the creation of the Federation was like. Even George Lucas wasn't stupid enough to show us the formation of the Galactic Republic.
Stories should be self-contained. They should start at their beginning and end at their end.
I like that Battlestar even took the extra step of ensuring that there could be no continuation by destroying the Galactica in the finale. To me that sent a very clear message: "we're done here. We've said all we came to say. There will never be more. We promise not to wreck this for you with a sequel. (And if you really want one, just watch Blade Runner.)" It's an entirely self-contained story that doesn't need Caprica. Nor does it need Blood & Chrome. We know everything we need to know.
Now take someone who's notorious for not telling his stories in chronological order. Christopher Nolan has taken the chronologically-scrambled story and turned it into an art form. But note that, aside from his Batman films, which will be discussed in just a moment, each of his films are self-contained. It's true that they don't begin at their chronological beginning, but Nolan builds mystery and suspense by showing things to his audience out of order. The best example of this is, in my opinion, The Prestige. Now, I know I'm part of a pretty small minority when I say that The Prestige is my favorite Nolan film. But I love the fact that once you know Christian Bale is playing twins, it's a whole different story. You'd lose that element if you were given that information at the very beginning. In fact, part of the reason I love The Prestige so much is the fact that you can watch it twice and see a very different film the second time (I rooted for Hugh Jackman pretty much the entire way through the first time, and it was only on second viewing that one of Bale's characters became much more sympathetic).
But imagine if The Prestige only contained the second and third acts. That is, imagine if the story was told in chronological order beginning with Jackman's journey to Colorado and ending with Bale's reunion with his daughter. All you heard about their friendship and early rivalry would be related to you by the other characters. This might just about work, incidentally, though you'd lose a lot. And then later, somebody tried to make the first act into a prequel. Would that be marketable? Would that stand up on its own? I kind of doubt it.
Now the Batman films are a bit different, but they still have self-contained stories to them, with a beginning, middle, end, and in the case of The Dark Knight, an extra end. They're told in chronological order. But would Batman Begins really be a film that could have been made after The Dark Knight? I doubt it. What would be the point?
Why, in short, do filmmakers go backwards after the fact?
See, storytelling is an art. The storyteller has to decide which details to include and which ones to leave out. You're a lot more constrained in television, because every episode has to be 40 minutes and change (and there are a ton of deleted Battlestar scenes I wish had been re-integrated into the DVD episodes, but that's just me).
Star Trek: Holodeck
Now, let's return to my hypothetical idea about a Star Trek show set at roughly 2350 (about 15 years prior to TNG, because if memory serves, the holodeck was a relatively new piece of technology). It'd be set either on or close to Earth and be a character piece - incorporating elements of DS9 and Caprica. No character from TNG, DS9 or Voyager would show up and do anything important. (N.B: the 24th-century Trek shows all had this thing where one character from the previous show would turn up at the beginning in a glorified cameo. I'd be okay with that, so long as it was fleeting enough that it wouldn't lead to a plot hole on the other show.) The only thing that this show would pass on to its sucessors would be the holodeck.
See, the Dominion War isn't really on the same scale as the Nuking of the Colonies in Battlestar, so the whole "everybody's going to die" thing won't really be an issue. As far as cool technology, this would be a show about the creation of the holodeck, the coolest bit of Trek tech ever. I don't know that the holodeck has ever really been used to its full potential. It's been the focus of some comedy episodes on TNG and Voyager, and some "breather" episodes on DS9, and it played an important role in, ugh, Insurrection. The point is that there's a lot of untapped potential here.
There would have to be some conflict, obviously, but it would have to be minor and low-key, to the extent that future/past shows never have/had cause to mention it (something involving Section 31, that secret organization that was introduced on DS9, perhaps). It would in effect be a drama, which is something Trek has never really tried.
Could it work? Maybe, but not under the Star Trek label; drama fans wouldn't watch, and Trek fans would hate it. (Caprica had the same problem.)
So Paramount decided to revive its Trek franchise, but with a "prequel" that knocked everything else out of continuity. Brand recognition, a fresh start, and no continuity problems. Definitely the way to go.
So why do people still think they can make prequels?
So... why do we have prequels at all? No, seriously, what do they bring to the table? From "Vader was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force" to "The Cylons were created by Man," anything and everything we need to know about a film or TV show's background has been given to us in plain, simple terms. (Note: Caprica > Star Wars Prequels.)
You already know who's going to be alive at the end.
The audience has got to care about your characters. As Joss Whedon finally found out on Dollhouse, people have a hard time getting invested in your characters if they think they're gonna die. Now, Whedon's problem was his penchant for killing fan-favorite characters. Prequels have a slightly different problem.
From the moment it became clear that his younger, whinier sidekick was Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn was a dead man walking. We all knew he was going to die. It was only a question of when. Same goes for literally every person who picks up a lightsaber who is not Anakin or Obi-Wan. Same goes for Padme. We were hoping that the same went for the cartoon rabbit. And we knew that Anakin was going to get dropped into a volcano and put inside a sci-fi gimp suit. So what happened in the Star Wars prequels that we didn't see coming?
While you're pondering that, consider Christopher Nolan's The Prestige. We know from fairly early on that a) Hugh Jackman's character is going to die, and b) that sometime prior to this, he's going to injure his leg very, very badly. Now I'll argue later on that The Prestige is the exception that proves the rule, but for now just consider the fact that you probably started wincing each time Jackman went down that trapdoor. In a nutshell, this is because The Prestige is one self-contained piece; the chronologically-scrambled narrative is here used as a means of foreshadowing. If each of the three acts of the film had been separate films, and those three films were not released in chronological order, it would have been a different story.
Now, Caprica does its best to subvert this. One, it is set more than 50 years before the events of BSG and features a cast of characters who never show up on BSG, plus one character who has the same name as a BSG character, presumably to mislead you into thinking they're the same so that when the character dies, you go "what the frak???"
Still, Caprica has to overcome the big massive hurdle of a fact that everybody will be dead in 57 years at the outset. Now, yes, everyone dies eventually, but it's hard to care about the characters and the society in Caprica since we'd spent four years on BSG getting over the fact that everyone our heroes knew back home were dead and gone. It's like Sarah Connor in Terminator 2. Everyone's already dead, so why does any of it matter?
To its credit, not that it deserves much, Star Trek Enterprise is set way before the Kirk era, and there's not a young Kirk or Spock running around getting in the way. On paper, therefore, you'd think that Enterprise would have a better shot than either Caprica or The Phantom Menace.
You have to reduce the amount of cool technology.
Star Trek had shot its bolt on technological wizardry, and the sane thing to do in order to get a show that wasn't just about a bunch of techno-wizards in space solving all their problems with technobabble would be to do a prequel. But did it have to be so far back in time? The holodeck had, for better or worse, been a staple of Star Trek since 1987, and it suddenly disappeared. We were stuck following the adventures of a guy nobody had ever heard of before in a version of the Enterprise that was conspicuously absent from Picard's collection.
Hell, there are about 75 years between where the Original Series films end and where TNG picks up. We know virtually nothing about that time. You'd lose site-to-site transporting, holodecks, hyper-capable cloaking devices... and, the original show was very rarely about technobabble. So yeah, you'd still have shields, phasers, torpedoes, and that all-important magic-wand-shaped-like-a-deflector-dish. As long as you stayed away from Young Picard, I'd watch a Star Trek show set between TOS and TNG. (Okay, now I'm fantasizing about a Caprica-style Trek show featuring the creation of the holodeck.)
Ron Moore famously took a different approach, qutting Star Trek in general to make Battlestar Galactica, a show in which there are no deflector shields or techno-wizardry. But was that because he wanted to avoid technobabble, or because the Miniseries budget was already stretched to the breaking point? Caprica has oodles of fancy-pants magitech that was never so much as alluded to in BSG. Yeah, yeah, First Cylon War, whatever. (In Star Trek: Holodeck, there is no big calamity at the beginning of TNG to wipe out all our characters and technology. It'd be a hard task to navigate all the continuity and still be accesible to the average fan, but it could probably be done.)
Now in the Star Wars prequels, Lucas tries to have his techno-cake and eat it too. On the one hand, there are no Death Stars. Jedi Starfighters don't have hyperspace capability (gee, it would have been nice if this were a plot point, ever). There are some obvious "precursors" to tech in the classic trilogy, especially throughout Revenge of the Sith.
But on the other hand, despite the 20-year-gap between Sith and Hope, there really aren't that many changes. There's a Death Star, yes. They can now make fake flesh so that Mark Hamill doesn't have to wear a blue glove all the time... I mean, Luke can have a normal-looking hand. The changes are largely cosmetic, except for the Death Star, and don't really affect the story as a whole. How can a 20-year-old droid hack a state-of-the-art trash-compactor?
So, um, what I'm saying here is that the Star Wars prequels actually did a good job with the tech thing...
(The author has a sudden recollection of R2-D2's rocket thrusters.)
Frak.
"How we got here" is not as interesting as "what do we do now?"
Take the superhero genre for a second. Do you care how Thomas Wayne made that fortune that his son squandered on Bat-themed suits, cars, weapons, floodlights, etc? I don't. Or what Superman's dad was up to before Krypton did the big firework? Nah.
Likewise, I don't wanna know how Galactica got constructed or what life was like aboard it prior to the Cylon attack. We saw enough of that in the Miniseries. Not that what we did see was bad, mind you, but it served its purpose as part of a larger story. Here's a quick description of the BSG backstory: "A society a hella lot like ours gets flash-fried by our own robotic creations. The last survivors go on the run. Paranoia, intrigue, and fantastic character-driven storytelling ensue."
Star Trek Enterprise tries to show us what the creation of the Federation was like. Even George Lucas wasn't stupid enough to show us the formation of the Galactic Republic.
Stories should be self-contained. They should start at their beginning and end at their end.
I like that Battlestar even took the extra step of ensuring that there could be no continuation by destroying the Galactica in the finale. To me that sent a very clear message: "we're done here. We've said all we came to say. There will never be more. We promise not to wreck this for you with a sequel. (And if you really want one, just watch Blade Runner.)" It's an entirely self-contained story that doesn't need Caprica. Nor does it need Blood & Chrome. We know everything we need to know.
Now take someone who's notorious for not telling his stories in chronological order. Christopher Nolan has taken the chronologically-scrambled story and turned it into an art form. But note that, aside from his Batman films, which will be discussed in just a moment, each of his films are self-contained. It's true that they don't begin at their chronological beginning, but Nolan builds mystery and suspense by showing things to his audience out of order. The best example of this is, in my opinion, The Prestige. Now, I know I'm part of a pretty small minority when I say that The Prestige is my favorite Nolan film. But I love the fact that once you know Christian Bale is playing twins, it's a whole different story. You'd lose that element if you were given that information at the very beginning. In fact, part of the reason I love The Prestige so much is the fact that you can watch it twice and see a very different film the second time (I rooted for Hugh Jackman pretty much the entire way through the first time, and it was only on second viewing that one of Bale's characters became much more sympathetic).
But imagine if The Prestige only contained the second and third acts. That is, imagine if the story was told in chronological order beginning with Jackman's journey to Colorado and ending with Bale's reunion with his daughter. All you heard about their friendship and early rivalry would be related to you by the other characters. This might just about work, incidentally, though you'd lose a lot. And then later, somebody tried to make the first act into a prequel. Would that be marketable? Would that stand up on its own? I kind of doubt it.
Now the Batman films are a bit different, but they still have self-contained stories to them, with a beginning, middle, end, and in the case of The Dark Knight, an extra end. They're told in chronological order. But would Batman Begins really be a film that could have been made after The Dark Knight? I doubt it. What would be the point?
Why, in short, do filmmakers go backwards after the fact?
See, storytelling is an art. The storyteller has to decide which details to include and which ones to leave out. You're a lot more constrained in television, because every episode has to be 40 minutes and change (and there are a ton of deleted Battlestar scenes I wish had been re-integrated into the DVD episodes, but that's just me).
Star Trek: Holodeck
Now, let's return to my hypothetical idea about a Star Trek show set at roughly 2350 (about 15 years prior to TNG, because if memory serves, the holodeck was a relatively new piece of technology). It'd be set either on or close to Earth and be a character piece - incorporating elements of DS9 and Caprica. No character from TNG, DS9 or Voyager would show up and do anything important. (N.B: the 24th-century Trek shows all had this thing where one character from the previous show would turn up at the beginning in a glorified cameo. I'd be okay with that, so long as it was fleeting enough that it wouldn't lead to a plot hole on the other show.) The only thing that this show would pass on to its sucessors would be the holodeck.
See, the Dominion War isn't really on the same scale as the Nuking of the Colonies in Battlestar, so the whole "everybody's going to die" thing won't really be an issue. As far as cool technology, this would be a show about the creation of the holodeck, the coolest bit of Trek tech ever. I don't know that the holodeck has ever really been used to its full potential. It's been the focus of some comedy episodes on TNG and Voyager, and some "breather" episodes on DS9, and it played an important role in, ugh, Insurrection. The point is that there's a lot of untapped potential here.
There would have to be some conflict, obviously, but it would have to be minor and low-key, to the extent that future/past shows never have/had cause to mention it (something involving Section 31, that secret organization that was introduced on DS9, perhaps). It would in effect be a drama, which is something Trek has never really tried.
Could it work? Maybe, but not under the Star Trek label; drama fans wouldn't watch, and Trek fans would hate it. (Caprica had the same problem.)
So Paramount decided to revive its Trek franchise, but with a "prequel" that knocked everything else out of continuity. Brand recognition, a fresh start, and no continuity problems. Definitely the way to go.
So why do people still think they can make prequels?
The Case for Mars
My felow Earthicans, the time has come for a great undertaking that will define our generation and change the course of our lives for the better.
For too long, we have been at peace with a neighboring red planet that has done absolutely nothing for us other than hang there in the sky, like a big red bulls-eye without the rings (that's Saturn. It's still a tad too far away. Also, made of gas. And yellow).
With this in mind, here is a complete and total list of the reasons why we should invade Mars:
1) Mars has no regard for its environment. Whereas our atmosphere is still mostly breathable, the Martians have squandered their oxygen supply. They have proven that they are completely incapable of regulating their environment, and so, to protect the planet Mars, we must invade it.
2) They have money. And if there's one thing that's been really, really obvious here on Earth, it's that we need money. We need it for our college educations, our unemployment benefits, our plastic surgeries, our iWhatevers, our compliance costs, and our heating and water bills if we ever get around to paying them. Now, some people might argue that the Martians have a right to whatever money they've earned. Poppycock, I say! They've only earned that money by completely wrecking their environment (see point 1) and by exploiting their working class.
3) They're exploiting their working class. You can tell because there has never even been so much as a radio transmission from Mars. Even when we landed probes on the planet's now-inhospitable surface (again, see point 1), the poor, helpless workers were unable to get a signal to us. They are probably kept under lock and key 24/7 (or however long a Martian day/week is). We need to do something about that!
4) Just as they can't prove that they aren't exploiting their working class, so too are they completely unable to prove that they don't have massive oceans of oil under their surface. We should help ourselves to some of that. Just think of the jobs that we'll create for all the deep-space haulers who can bring that stuff back to Earth!
5) They almost certainly have weapons of mass destruction by now, and it's only a matter of time before some lunatic comes to power and decides to turn our planet into a parking lot. You might think that this is an argument against invading Mars, but it is not! You see, we have already landed probes on Mars (see point 3) without provoking a response. We have no idea how much time we have left before a new regime that disapproves of our probe-landing comes to power (in a coup). We must strike first before they do! Surely any reasonable citizen can see that.
6) They're godless athiests who need to see the light. I can categorically state that God is not worshipped anywhere on or under the surface of Mars. This is absolutely terrible, and surely the day cannot be far off when He will take issue with them. Look what happened to Venus! You think all that sulphuric acid just showed up one day by its lonesome?
7) Mars has been eyeing our moon for a while now, I just know it. Look at their two crappy little moons; do you think those puny lumps of rock can give the Martians a decent tide? I don't.
8) Earth is overcrowed. And one way or another, that won't be a problem after our war with Mars.
If you agreed with numbers 1, 2 or 3, please vote for the Communist candidate in the next election. If you agreed with numbers 4, 5 or 6, please vote for the Republican candidate in the next election. Finally, if you agreed with numbers 7 or 8, please never vote again. Thank you, and please remember that this is a satire.
For too long, we have been at peace with a neighboring red planet that has done absolutely nothing for us other than hang there in the sky, like a big red bulls-eye without the rings (that's Saturn. It's still a tad too far away. Also, made of gas. And yellow).
With this in mind, here is a complete and total list of the reasons why we should invade Mars:
1) Mars has no regard for its environment. Whereas our atmosphere is still mostly breathable, the Martians have squandered their oxygen supply. They have proven that they are completely incapable of regulating their environment, and so, to protect the planet Mars, we must invade it.
2) They have money. And if there's one thing that's been really, really obvious here on Earth, it's that we need money. We need it for our college educations, our unemployment benefits, our plastic surgeries, our iWhatevers, our compliance costs, and our heating and water bills if we ever get around to paying them. Now, some people might argue that the Martians have a right to whatever money they've earned. Poppycock, I say! They've only earned that money by completely wrecking their environment (see point 1) and by exploiting their working class.
3) They're exploiting their working class. You can tell because there has never even been so much as a radio transmission from Mars. Even when we landed probes on the planet's now-inhospitable surface (again, see point 1), the poor, helpless workers were unable to get a signal to us. They are probably kept under lock and key 24/7 (or however long a Martian day/week is). We need to do something about that!
4) Just as they can't prove that they aren't exploiting their working class, so too are they completely unable to prove that they don't have massive oceans of oil under their surface. We should help ourselves to some of that. Just think of the jobs that we'll create for all the deep-space haulers who can bring that stuff back to Earth!
5) They almost certainly have weapons of mass destruction by now, and it's only a matter of time before some lunatic comes to power and decides to turn our planet into a parking lot. You might think that this is an argument against invading Mars, but it is not! You see, we have already landed probes on Mars (see point 3) without provoking a response. We have no idea how much time we have left before a new regime that disapproves of our probe-landing comes to power (in a coup). We must strike first before they do! Surely any reasonable citizen can see that.
6) They're godless athiests who need to see the light. I can categorically state that God is not worshipped anywhere on or under the surface of Mars. This is absolutely terrible, and surely the day cannot be far off when He will take issue with them. Look what happened to Venus! You think all that sulphuric acid just showed up one day by its lonesome?
7) Mars has been eyeing our moon for a while now, I just know it. Look at their two crappy little moons; do you think those puny lumps of rock can give the Martians a decent tide? I don't.
8) Earth is overcrowed. And one way or another, that won't be a problem after our war with Mars.
If you agreed with numbers 1, 2 or 3, please vote for the Communist candidate in the next election. If you agreed with numbers 4, 5 or 6, please vote for the Republican candidate in the next election. Finally, if you agreed with numbers 7 or 8, please never vote again. Thank you, and please remember that this is a satire.
Monday, October 10, 2011
"I'm Just Here for the Riots" meets "People Are Not Wearing Enough Hats"
Way back in what I jokingly call my youth (jokingly, because I am currently 23 and am referring to a period when I was 20), I took a course on Anarchism.
Why? Well, I had a number of reasons. One, I liked the professor. Two, at that time I described myself politically as a right-leaning libertarian (as opposed to a paranoid wingnut), and, hey, Anarchism's only a stone's throw away, right?
Well, no. Not at all.
It seemed to me that all the anarchists of the early 20th century had far-left agendas, like they'd all read Marx and thought he was way cool, man. If anybody can find someone who threw a bomb in the name of free markets, I'd like to know about him. In general, the whole agenda was "abolish the system so everyone does equal work for equal pay." Or something.
We saw a video about the Seattle riots. I can't tell you what the protestors expected to accomplish, given that a) my memory from three years back is tinged with thoughts like "nobody in their right mind is going to vote for a candidate who said there were 57 states" and "wow, this Doctor Who thing is the best television show, ever!" And b) because they were a bunch of whining, smelly hippies whose goals probably varied from person to person. No, scratch that: their goals did vary from person to person. Because there's really only one thing I remember from that video.
Somehow, a reporter got through the throng unmolested and wound up talking to a member of the crowd. When asked about the rioters' political aims, he replied, "I don't know, I'm just here for the riots."
"I'm just here for the riots."
I guarantee you there are members of the so-called 99% that think the exact same thing. Four years of smoking dope - I mean, free college education? Yeah, sure if that's what you want. Me, I'm just here for the riots. Because stuff burns, and fire is pretty.
Way back in the 80s, Monty Python unleashed their final film, The Meaning of Life, on the world. There are approximately two things I remember from that film: Graham Chapman being chased into a grave by a bunch of topless women, and a corporate executive who said that the meaning of life had something to do with the fact that "People are not wearing enough hats."*
Now unless your job involves the words "Team," "Fortress," and "2," chances are people are in fact wearing enough hats. And although Monty Python is a satire, I have no doubt that there are millions if not billions of people out there who think that all the problems of the world could be solved if only we'd just use less fossil fuels/legalize pot/outlaw gay marriage/abolish the death penalty/tax the rich dry/privatize social security/wear more hats.
So naturally, when the Fart Smelling Movement joined Occupy Wall Street, I thought to myself, "People are not wearing enough hats." And when Occupy Wall Street first got off the ground, I thought to myself, "I'm just here for the riots."
And when the hat-wearing lunatics and the riot-loving lunatics show up in sufficient numbers, well, duck and cover.
Now, you might say that the fundamental flaw with Occupy Wall Street is that they're just fundamentally insane, or they don't understand that college education can never be a free ride, or they just need a good shower. Nah, that's not it.
The notion that they call themselves the 99% is the most ridiculous thing about them, at least to me. 99% of the country will never agree on anything, except maybe that the sky is often blue, and even then only if you're not currently on drugs.
As I mentioned in the last post, there is no "General Will." Let me give you an example of what I mean. Let's say that 60% of the country opposes gay marriage, just for the sake of an argument. Now let's also say that 60% of the country feels the death penalty should be abolished. So therefore, there have to be some people (at least 20% of the population, if my math is right) that oppose both gay marriage and the death penalty. (N.B, I've just picked two random issues here and nothing I say should be interpreted as a position on either. I am not and will never equate gay marriage with the death penalty in any meaningful way beyond saying that they're both political issues.)
When everybody votes on both of these issues, neither gay marriage nor capital punishment will be allowed, but only those who opposed both will be 100% satisfied. Is this the general will? Can the opinions on two issues held by 20% of the population really be called the "general will?"
Throw in a third issue, free hats for all. Let's say that, like the other two issues, 60% of the population supports this issue. But nobody who supports free hats wants to outlaw both the death penalty and gay marriage.
So now who's the big authority on the "general will?" Here's a chart to illustrate my point. Let's say that ten people are polled on three different issues. A green box means that the person agrees with the majority on that particular issue. A red box means they don't.
Why? Well, I had a number of reasons. One, I liked the professor. Two, at that time I described myself politically as a right-leaning libertarian (as opposed to a paranoid wingnut), and, hey, Anarchism's only a stone's throw away, right?
Well, no. Not at all.
It seemed to me that all the anarchists of the early 20th century had far-left agendas, like they'd all read Marx and thought he was way cool, man. If anybody can find someone who threw a bomb in the name of free markets, I'd like to know about him. In general, the whole agenda was "abolish the system so everyone does equal work for equal pay." Or something.
We saw a video about the Seattle riots. I can't tell you what the protestors expected to accomplish, given that a) my memory from three years back is tinged with thoughts like "nobody in their right mind is going to vote for a candidate who said there were 57 states" and "wow, this Doctor Who thing is the best television show, ever!" And b) because they were a bunch of whining, smelly hippies whose goals probably varied from person to person. No, scratch that: their goals did vary from person to person. Because there's really only one thing I remember from that video.
Somehow, a reporter got through the throng unmolested and wound up talking to a member of the crowd. When asked about the rioters' political aims, he replied, "I don't know, I'm just here for the riots."
"I'm just here for the riots."
I guarantee you there are members of the so-called 99% that think the exact same thing. Four years of smoking dope - I mean, free college education? Yeah, sure if that's what you want. Me, I'm just here for the riots. Because stuff burns, and fire is pretty.
Way back in the 80s, Monty Python unleashed their final film, The Meaning of Life, on the world. There are approximately two things I remember from that film: Graham Chapman being chased into a grave by a bunch of topless women, and a corporate executive who said that the meaning of life had something to do with the fact that "People are not wearing enough hats."*
Now unless your job involves the words "Team," "Fortress," and "2," chances are people are in fact wearing enough hats. And although Monty Python is a satire, I have no doubt that there are millions if not billions of people out there who think that all the problems of the world could be solved if only we'd just use less fossil fuels/legalize pot/outlaw gay marriage/abolish the death penalty/tax the rich dry/privatize social security/wear more hats.
So naturally, when the Fart Smelling Movement joined Occupy Wall Street, I thought to myself, "People are not wearing enough hats." And when Occupy Wall Street first got off the ground, I thought to myself, "I'm just here for the riots."
And when the hat-wearing lunatics and the riot-loving lunatics show up in sufficient numbers, well, duck and cover.
Now, you might say that the fundamental flaw with Occupy Wall Street is that they're just fundamentally insane, or they don't understand that college education can never be a free ride, or they just need a good shower. Nah, that's not it.
The notion that they call themselves the 99% is the most ridiculous thing about them, at least to me. 99% of the country will never agree on anything, except maybe that the sky is often blue, and even then only if you're not currently on drugs.
As I mentioned in the last post, there is no "General Will." Let me give you an example of what I mean. Let's say that 60% of the country opposes gay marriage, just for the sake of an argument. Now let's also say that 60% of the country feels the death penalty should be abolished. So therefore, there have to be some people (at least 20% of the population, if my math is right) that oppose both gay marriage and the death penalty. (N.B, I've just picked two random issues here and nothing I say should be interpreted as a position on either. I am not and will never equate gay marriage with the death penalty in any meaningful way beyond saying that they're both political issues.)
When everybody votes on both of these issues, neither gay marriage nor capital punishment will be allowed, but only those who opposed both will be 100% satisfied. Is this the general will? Can the opinions on two issues held by 20% of the population really be called the "general will?"
Throw in a third issue, free hats for all. Let's say that, like the other two issues, 60% of the population supports this issue. But nobody who supports free hats wants to outlaw both the death penalty and gay marriage.
So now who's the big authority on the "general will?" Here's a chart to illustrate my point. Let's say that ten people are polled on three different issues. A green box means that the person agrees with the majority on that particular issue. A red box means they don't.
Where's the "general will" in this chart? It's the stuff in green, you say, right? But hang on, everybody's got at least one red box, which means that everyone goes home slightly unhappy. And if you're person number 4 or 7, you go home really unhappy. (You could even add an 11th row of all red, and every vote would still be 6-5 green.)
If there is a "general will," guess what, it's still not going to favor you 100% of the time. If it did, true total democracy would work and we would have no need for representative government.
Now pretend that folks 1-5 live in one state (State One), and folks 6-10 in a different one (State Two). State One is going to vote yes on issue A, no on issue B, and yes on issue C. State Two will vote no on issue A and yes on issues B and C. Suddenly now people 1, 2, 3, 8, 9 and 10 are prefectly happy; they get their way on all three issues. And if 5 cares more passionately about B than he does about A, he is well within his rights to change states. Vice-versa for 6. (4 and 7 are still SOL because C has a majority in both states.)
My point is that the more people and the more issues there are, the harder it is to find a consensus or any proof of that elusive "general will." So the 99% might just speak for 99% of all Underwater Basket-Weaving majors; it's possible that they speak for 99% of all college grads who have at least $X of student loan debt. It's possible that they speak for 99% of unemployed people who also meet criteria X, Y and Z.
But they don't speak for 99% of America.
*Sigh, yes, Find the Fish, Mr. Creosote, Live Organ Transplants, the Galaxy Song. Happy now?Saturday, October 8, 2011
BSG: A Disquiet Follows My Soul
In terms of "big production milestones of Season 4," 4.12, "A Retcon Follows My Soul" is pretty high up there. It's only the first episode ever directed by Ronald D. Moore. And how does he do?
Well, he stays away from all of Michael Rymer's clichés/signature whatsits; the 360, the crosscutting between identical scenes, the stupid long takes. Other than that, it looks like pretty much any other episode of the show.
As far as writing goes, there's only one real problem with "A Disquiet Follows My Retcon," but I'll get into that in just a bit.
So this is kind of supposed to be the breather episode in between the massive downer that was the discovery of Toasty Earth and the "darkest hour" that is the upcoming mutiny two-parter. At least, that's how I always considered it. There are some people who insist that the mutiny is a three-parter, and that this is the first part. But since Gaeta and Zarek don't exactly steal the spotlight here the way they do in the next two, I don't really agree. Here they're Felix Gaeta, disillusioned dissident, and Tom Zarek, disillusioned Vice-President. They don't become the Gaeta/Zarek tag-team of mutineers until the end of the episode.
So Tigh and Caprica-Six are in sickbay, having an ultrasound done on Caprica's fetus. They talk really loudly about how this kid means the Cylon race will survive, but Nurse Bedside Manner doesn't seem too pleased about that whole thing. She goes over to Gaeta, who's complaining about how his tailor cut the right leg off of all his uniforms so that everyone can always see his prosthetic... I mean, he's complaining about how the stump doesn't fit right in the prosthetic.
Now, Gaeta's probably a character I've gone back and forth on more than anyone else. He perjured himself at Baltar's trial for fairly understandable reasons, but the problem is that he's been so far in the background that unless you've really been following the show, you might forget that he was nearly shoved out an airlock just because he was Baltar's chief of staff.
So now he's minus a leg, bitching at Starbuck (which doesn't endear himself to me, strangely)* and pointing out what's been stupid obvious for four years now: that Adama has a) power over every military decision and b) the ability to declare pretty much anything a military decision. Hrm. This does endear him to me, because I generally like people who are right.
*Under normal circumstances, I don't mind someone taking Starbuck to task for being a world-class frakup, but given all that she's gone through recently, I really would forgive her for belting Felix on the spot.
Speaking of people who are right, at the same time that this is going on, Zarek is making this huge speech about how Adama and Roslin have basically become a joint dictatorship (correct), how Roslin is not legally the president (incorrect), and why each ship should decide for themselves whether the Cylons will be allowed on board or not. On watching the show a second time, it occured to me that Zarek keeps yammering on about a democracy, when in fact the Colonial government is (supposedly) closer to a constitutional republic. (In reality, Roslin is the Queen of the fleet and the Quorum just rubber-stamps her agenda... but that tends to happen here on Earth whenever one party controls both the Legislative and Executive branches.)
Now, permit me to ramble here, because Zarek is one of my favorite characters on the show and this episode is a great chance to figure out what makes him tick. The entire crisis back in "Bastille Day" was kicked off by his (prescient) belief that Roslin would not just step aside when her term expired. Or maybe he just thought that Roslin couldn't possibly speak for the People since they hadn't elected her. It seems to me that Zarek believes in mob rule, and that the moment that any leader violates the will of the people (the so-called "General Will," if you will), they need to be removed from power. Zarek being Zarek, he eventually gets the streams crossed and equates "the will of the people" with "the will of Tom Zarek," which is a mistake that costs him the respect of numerous fans.
But democracy is, as I think James Madison once said, two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for dinner. It's the dirty little secret that Tom Zarek would rather you forget: democracy doesn't work. There is no "general will." Oh, the majority of the country might think the same way on one or two issues, but there is no single platform (encompassing a position on every issue) that can appeal to the majority. There are two many variables. Which is why we, and the Colonials, have a constitutional republic. We elect people who represent a majority of our views, and these people speak for us as new legislation is crafted. They can be removed in various ways legally provided for, such as elections or impeachment. Both the mob and the government are constrained by the law; this is the beauty of our political system.
This is why Zarek is usually about 90% right on any given issue. He can't get over that whole "rule of law" thing and would rather live in a world where he can control the mob and do whatever he wants. Despite those setbacks, he does make some valid arguments, such as the fact that Roslin is basically a dictator. This is what makes him such an interesting character; in the end, it's obvious that he cares more about Tom Zarek than the will of the people, but he takes up the mantle of the demagogue for the better part of four years. He's a master at manipulating other people (although to be fair, you can get Lee to do pretty much anything by using the words "justice" and "democracy"). He's a hypocrite, yes, but he's also right on a surprising number of issues.
The political side of things really comes to the foreground in Season 4. (And no, I don't mean the political subtext, what with Lee's Kennedyesque haircut and dropping the words "hope" and "change" into his dialogue; the obsession with equating him with then-candidate Obama would be hilarious if it weren't so damn tragic. Didn't these guys already do an episode where an empty suit became President and it worked out horribly? And besides, Lee isn't the "community organizer" with no real leadership experience; Zarek is.)
The political system is under more scrutiny in Season 4. Somebody finally calls Adama out on the whole "military decision" thing. We really get that Adama's bad with the press, that he's going to keep a Cylon on as XO regardless of what The People want. Roslin's abdication opens up a power vacuum that lets us see just how ugly Colonial politics can get.
So Zarek undermines Adama and tells the refinery ship to mutiny and run away. Now, this is fun. On the one hand, Adama has imposed "laws" by personal fiat, and his willingness to cooperate with the Cylons causes understandable concern throughout the fleet. On the other hand, after this stunt, the refinery ship should be seized, its captain shot, and its processing facility placed under martial law. That's the entire fuel source for the fleet; you can't leave such a vital thing in the hands of mutineers. Adama/Roslin played nice in "Dirty Hands" and let them have their union, even though they had to have known that production would decrease, and this is what they get for their trouble? (This is why I despise Seelix, incidentally. Adama lets you leave your vitally important job to become a pilot, and you repay him by joining the mutiny? Frak you. Also, when the refinery ship's captain shows up in the finale to demand Galactica's air scrubbers, I was hoping somebody would finally shoot the whiner. Frak Gaius Baltar; how come this jerk hasn't been punted out the airlock? And this is before Adama pardons the other mutineers, mind you...)
So you might argue that the bulk of "A Disquiet Retcons My Soul" is devoted to setting up the mutiny, but the entire refinery ship fiasco is limited to the last act, and Zarek's shenanigans don't take up that much screen time before then.
So what takes up the rest of the episode? Oh, surprise, Chief's kid isn't actually his! This comes out of Frak-all Nowhere and completely fails to explain why Cally wanted to carry the kid out the airlock with her back in "The Ties that Bind." I grumbled as this sub-plot unfolded, to the point that I missed something the first time around.
The confrontation between Chief and Hot Dog (yes, I know Chief isn't the Chief anymore) takes place at one of Baltar's sermons. The subject of the sermon is: what kind of a father/Father does not love his/His children? Poetic. One might even say Whedonesque, because Buffy did this sort of thing all the time, have one discussion that's rediculously apropos to something else going on in the same episode.
So, yeah, whoops, out of nowhere, Chief's kid suddenly isn't Chief's kid. This smacks of retcon, hence all the variations on the title throughout this post.
On the whole, it's a good episode, focusing on the boundaries of Adama's power, what his oath means, what Zarek and Gaeta think they're capable of, and putting things in motion for future episodes. On the other hand, the "Hot Dog is the father" thing comes out of nowhere and is primarily used to clumsily drop an errant plot thread.
Oh, this is also the episode where Adama and Roslin shack up. It's too bad she won't live, but then again who does?
Well, he stays away from all of Michael Rymer's clichés/signature whatsits; the 360, the crosscutting between identical scenes, the stupid long takes. Other than that, it looks like pretty much any other episode of the show.
As far as writing goes, there's only one real problem with "A Disquiet Follows My Retcon," but I'll get into that in just a bit.
So this is kind of supposed to be the breather episode in between the massive downer that was the discovery of Toasty Earth and the "darkest hour" that is the upcoming mutiny two-parter. At least, that's how I always considered it. There are some people who insist that the mutiny is a three-parter, and that this is the first part. But since Gaeta and Zarek don't exactly steal the spotlight here the way they do in the next two, I don't really agree. Here they're Felix Gaeta, disillusioned dissident, and Tom Zarek, disillusioned Vice-President. They don't become the Gaeta/Zarek tag-team of mutineers until the end of the episode.
So Tigh and Caprica-Six are in sickbay, having an ultrasound done on Caprica's fetus. They talk really loudly about how this kid means the Cylon race will survive, but Nurse Bedside Manner doesn't seem too pleased about that whole thing. She goes over to Gaeta, who's complaining about how his tailor cut the right leg off of all his uniforms so that everyone can always see his prosthetic... I mean, he's complaining about how the stump doesn't fit right in the prosthetic.
Now, Gaeta's probably a character I've gone back and forth on more than anyone else. He perjured himself at Baltar's trial for fairly understandable reasons, but the problem is that he's been so far in the background that unless you've really been following the show, you might forget that he was nearly shoved out an airlock just because he was Baltar's chief of staff.
So now he's minus a leg, bitching at Starbuck (which doesn't endear himself to me, strangely)* and pointing out what's been stupid obvious for four years now: that Adama has a) power over every military decision and b) the ability to declare pretty much anything a military decision. Hrm. This does endear him to me, because I generally like people who are right.
*Under normal circumstances, I don't mind someone taking Starbuck to task for being a world-class frakup, but given all that she's gone through recently, I really would forgive her for belting Felix on the spot.
Speaking of people who are right, at the same time that this is going on, Zarek is making this huge speech about how Adama and Roslin have basically become a joint dictatorship (correct), how Roslin is not legally the president (incorrect), and why each ship should decide for themselves whether the Cylons will be allowed on board or not. On watching the show a second time, it occured to me that Zarek keeps yammering on about a democracy, when in fact the Colonial government is (supposedly) closer to a constitutional republic. (In reality, Roslin is the Queen of the fleet and the Quorum just rubber-stamps her agenda... but that tends to happen here on Earth whenever one party controls both the Legislative and Executive branches.)
Now, permit me to ramble here, because Zarek is one of my favorite characters on the show and this episode is a great chance to figure out what makes him tick. The entire crisis back in "Bastille Day" was kicked off by his (prescient) belief that Roslin would not just step aside when her term expired. Or maybe he just thought that Roslin couldn't possibly speak for the People since they hadn't elected her. It seems to me that Zarek believes in mob rule, and that the moment that any leader violates the will of the people (the so-called "General Will," if you will), they need to be removed from power. Zarek being Zarek, he eventually gets the streams crossed and equates "the will of the people" with "the will of Tom Zarek," which is a mistake that costs him the respect of numerous fans.
But democracy is, as I think James Madison once said, two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for dinner. It's the dirty little secret that Tom Zarek would rather you forget: democracy doesn't work. There is no "general will." Oh, the majority of the country might think the same way on one or two issues, but there is no single platform (encompassing a position on every issue) that can appeal to the majority. There are two many variables. Which is why we, and the Colonials, have a constitutional republic. We elect people who represent a majority of our views, and these people speak for us as new legislation is crafted. They can be removed in various ways legally provided for, such as elections or impeachment. Both the mob and the government are constrained by the law; this is the beauty of our political system.
This is why Zarek is usually about 90% right on any given issue. He can't get over that whole "rule of law" thing and would rather live in a world where he can control the mob and do whatever he wants. Despite those setbacks, he does make some valid arguments, such as the fact that Roslin is basically a dictator. This is what makes him such an interesting character; in the end, it's obvious that he cares more about Tom Zarek than the will of the people, but he takes up the mantle of the demagogue for the better part of four years. He's a master at manipulating other people (although to be fair, you can get Lee to do pretty much anything by using the words "justice" and "democracy"). He's a hypocrite, yes, but he's also right on a surprising number of issues.
The political side of things really comes to the foreground in Season 4. (And no, I don't mean the political subtext, what with Lee's Kennedyesque haircut and dropping the words "hope" and "change" into his dialogue; the obsession with equating him with then-candidate Obama would be hilarious if it weren't so damn tragic. Didn't these guys already do an episode where an empty suit became President and it worked out horribly? And besides, Lee isn't the "community organizer" with no real leadership experience; Zarek is.)
The political system is under more scrutiny in Season 4. Somebody finally calls Adama out on the whole "military decision" thing. We really get that Adama's bad with the press, that he's going to keep a Cylon on as XO regardless of what The People want. Roslin's abdication opens up a power vacuum that lets us see just how ugly Colonial politics can get.
So Zarek undermines Adama and tells the refinery ship to mutiny and run away. Now, this is fun. On the one hand, Adama has imposed "laws" by personal fiat, and his willingness to cooperate with the Cylons causes understandable concern throughout the fleet. On the other hand, after this stunt, the refinery ship should be seized, its captain shot, and its processing facility placed under martial law. That's the entire fuel source for the fleet; you can't leave such a vital thing in the hands of mutineers. Adama/Roslin played nice in "Dirty Hands" and let them have their union, even though they had to have known that production would decrease, and this is what they get for their trouble? (This is why I despise Seelix, incidentally. Adama lets you leave your vitally important job to become a pilot, and you repay him by joining the mutiny? Frak you. Also, when the refinery ship's captain shows up in the finale to demand Galactica's air scrubbers, I was hoping somebody would finally shoot the whiner. Frak Gaius Baltar; how come this jerk hasn't been punted out the airlock? And this is before Adama pardons the other mutineers, mind you...)
So you might argue that the bulk of "A Disquiet Retcons My Soul" is devoted to setting up the mutiny, but the entire refinery ship fiasco is limited to the last act, and Zarek's shenanigans don't take up that much screen time before then.
So what takes up the rest of the episode? Oh, surprise, Chief's kid isn't actually his! This comes out of Frak-all Nowhere and completely fails to explain why Cally wanted to carry the kid out the airlock with her back in "The Ties that Bind." I grumbled as this sub-plot unfolded, to the point that I missed something the first time around.
The confrontation between Chief and Hot Dog (yes, I know Chief isn't the Chief anymore) takes place at one of Baltar's sermons. The subject of the sermon is: what kind of a father/Father does not love his/His children? Poetic. One might even say Whedonesque, because Buffy did this sort of thing all the time, have one discussion that's rediculously apropos to something else going on in the same episode.
So, yeah, whoops, out of nowhere, Chief's kid suddenly isn't Chief's kid. This smacks of retcon, hence all the variations on the title throughout this post.
On the whole, it's a good episode, focusing on the boundaries of Adama's power, what his oath means, what Zarek and Gaeta think they're capable of, and putting things in motion for future episodes. On the other hand, the "Hot Dog is the father" thing comes out of nowhere and is primarily used to clumsily drop an errant plot thread.
Oh, this is also the episode where Adama and Roslin shack up. It's too bad she won't live, but then again who does?
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Further Unanswered Questions from Doctor Who Season 6/32
1: Why did the TARDIS explode?
At the end of Season 5/31, there was really only one question: why did the TARDIS asplode? We still don't know. But now there are more questions we don't have the answers to.2: Why River Song?
The suit appears to have a mind of its own. River says that the suit is going to kill the Doctor, and that she just happens to be in it. Why do they need River if they have a spacesuit? Did they put the kid-River in the suit to give her an exoskeleton to duel the Doctor to the death in hand-to-hand combat? Did the suit somehow get isomorphically bonded to her so that only she can use it? It seems like the suit has the ability to just walk around by itself. So why do they need River at all?
3: Why the 1960s?
Given that the Silence from the future (I'm assuming Demon's Run is in the future, or at the very least in 2011) have to know about the fact that the Doctor kicked their collective asses back in 1969 on Earth, I would think that the very last place they'd raise their secret Doctor-killing weapon would be... 1969 on Earth!! Was the plan for kid-River to kill the Doctor before he foiled their plan? Wouldn't that put a big hole in the timeline and let the Clock Roaches in?
4: Who is Kovarian?
Who is Madame Kovarian, where and when does she come from, and why is she working with the Silence? If she's from after 1969, why is she not programmed to kill the Silence on sight? If she's from the future, what's she doing in that bubble Universe? For that matter, how did Alt-Pond capture her so easily?
5: Why isn't River programmed to kill the Silence on sight?
If River studied the Doctor, including eyewitness testimony from 2011 (which would again suggest that Kovarian and Demon's Run are from 2011 at the very earliest), and she knows all about him, then she knows how he beat the Silence. Naturally she'd shut her face about it during "Day of the Moon," because of spoilaaaaaaahs, but still she'd have to have seen the moon landing tape at some point. And everyone who's seen the moon landing tape is programmed to kill the Silence on sight.
6: How come Amy knew everything in the bubble universe, but Rory didn't?
Alt-Pond knows just about everything about the Doctor. Is this because he frakked with her head when she was five? And she somehow remembers that in an alternate universe where time is screwy. But Rory doesn't. Amy is somehow special, because she can always bend time and make causality her bitch. Is this ever going to be explained?
7: When will River learn the Doctor's name?
We thought we had an answer, but unless the Doctor's name is "Lookinmyeye," we don't. Now look, I certainly don't want to learn the Doctor's name. We've gone nearly 50 years without it. We don't need it. It won't add anything. It'll be like finding out what was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. But since River knows the Doctor's name by the time she gets to the Library, he's got to have told her at some point. (And furthermore, did River have any adventures with the Tenth Doctor before/after the Library? We're not likely to get an answer, but I'm guessing it's "yes," given that Eleven seems to know the routine the first/last time he meets her.)
8: Is River going to get a proper sendoff?
Are we going to see the Doctor and River's last date, where he gives her his clapped-out screwdriver (which she somehow smuggles past the guards at Stormcage, or maybe she's out by then)? Or is this basically what constitutes the end of her journey?
9: Are Amy and Rory going to get a proper sendoff?
As far as I know, they're done and a new companion is coming in next year, because nobody since Tegan has done three years. Is that it? Was "The God Complex" really their big goodbye scene, with "Wedding" as some sort of odd addendum?
10: Did/will River have any adventures with any Doctors who were not numbers Ten and Eleven?
Again, probably not. But she's got a spotter's guide as of "The Time of Angels," which suggests that she knows what they all look like.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Who Review: The Wedding of River Song
So. Things I was absolutely right about:
River is in prison for killing the Doctor. Obvious since "Flesh and Stone."
The question is "Doctor Who." Grr. Argh.
Things I was mostly right about:
They use the eyepatches to remember the Silence.
The Doctor uses a double to avoid getting shot to hell on the beach.
So, it's 2011. Winston Churchill is the Holy Roman Emperor. The Doctor is a lunatic up in his tower. As they get chased around by the Silence, the Doctor relates the final journey of his life. He went to investigate the Silence. So first tortures a Dalek for information, which leads him to the Tesselector (that shapeshifting bigger-on-the-inside ship that isn't a TARDIS, honest), who led him to the Cyclops Viking Guy, who led him to the Headless Blue Guy's Head. (I've stopped keeping track of names, because they're all Gargravaar and such.)
Then the Cyclops Viking Guy gets killed off like the no-longer-useful plot device he is, and the Doctor steals the Headless Blue Guy's Head. He does the Tennant routine about doing the big last dance and avoiding his fate for as long as he can (proving that he himself never read the script for "Closing Time," in which he was basically resigned to die... or does this section of the story take place before "Closing Time?" If so, why is he resigned to die if he already got in the Tesselector aw frak it).
And then he finds out that the Brigadier died, and that during his final months, Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart always left a bottle of brandy out in case the Doctor came calling.
Now for those of you who think the first episode of Doctor Who was "Rose," you're probably unaware of who the Brigadier was, given that he got a mention in "The Sontaran Strategem" but never appeared onscreen. Suffice it to say here that the Brigadier was, well, one of the Doctor's most important allies. Watch virtually anything with Jon Pertwee in it and you'll see what I mean.
Once again, Moffat's problem is not repeat not River Song. Love her or hate her, she's never even been in half the episodes of any season. See, the Brigadier's death is what prompts the Doctor to accept his own fate (except here he was, talking about having out with the Beatles... unless he just meant Paul and Ringo, I assume he intended to put that time machine of his to good use). But that portion of fandom that doesn't know a Zygon from a Thal doesn't know who the Brig is, and why his death should affect the Doctor like that. (Now me, I say screw 'em, but this show's considerably more popular now than it was then, so...)
Headless Blue Guy's Head goes on about how the Doctor's going to die because otherwise, at the Fall of the Eleventh (gee, I wonder...), "the Question" will be asked and Silence will fall. (Meaning, presumably, the Silence will fall. As in, downfall.)
Headless Blue Guy's Head also says one of the most unforgivable phrases in all of fiction: "I didn't tell you before because..." Amazingly, Battlestar Galactica, a show whose writers were notorious for making stuff up on the fly, never had to stoop quite that low. In BSG there were reasons why we didn't get all the information about the Final Five Cylons all at once (beyond the fact that RDM was making it up as he went along, there's also the fact that their memories were wiped, so they only got flashes here and there until Anders got shot, which perfectly restored his memory). Here it's just "oh, did I not mention that earlier? Ha ha silly me." Easily my least favorite scene in the episode.
So the Doctor goes back and lets River kill him (except at this point is he in the Tesselector? I would assume so. Why can't he just tell Spacesuit-River he's in the Tesselector? Does the suit know that? Can it adapt to aw frak it).
Only River doesn't kill him, um, somehow. And so time goes all screwy and Amy Pond shows up with an eyepatch and shoots the Doctor and puts him on a train to Cairo. How does she have a train to Cairo? Eh, that doesn't matter, it's an alternate lunatic universe.
So there's a pyramid there full of Silence, which they're keeping alive, for some reason. And the iPatches let them remember the Silence, somehow. And then the Silence break out, somehow, and try to kill everyone wearing an iPatch including Eye-Patch-Lady, for some reason. And the only two people who can resist the killer iPatch patch are Rory and EPL, for some reason. But then Rory collapses and Amy saves him because, yup, that's how this goes.
And then something fantastic happens.
Eyepatch Lady says that Amy can't kill her because the Doctor wouldn't approve. Amy says the Doctor's not here (he's gone up to the roof), and promptly kills Eyepatch Lady. Because, you know, she kidnapped her daughter and wanted to use her as a tool... (at the risk of overdoing my Who/BSG comparisons, at least Athena didn't wig out about killing Boomer).
So the Doctor and River are up on the roof, and River's somehow got her hands on the Master's Universal PA from Logopolis and has sent a distress call to the entire Universe. But do they do anything? Nooooooooo... River says they're ready to help, but the Doctor just marries her and then goes back with her to the beach so she can kill him.
Now, is the River in the bubble universe Spacesuit-River, who knows everything about the Doctor but has barely spent any time with him, or is she Stormcage-River, who's probably frakked him a good dozen times by now? I assumed she was the latter, because she's more sure of herself and into the whole Doctor/River vibe we saw back in "The Impossible Astronaut." But then after Spacesuit-River kills the Doctor, Stormcage-River from "Flesh and Bone" shows up and tells Amy that the Doctor told her that he was in the Tesselector, and thus did not die. Okay, but that's the last we see of her until she dies in the Library.
So the Tesselector, which is all about preserving the timeline, allows the Doctor to fake his own death and then send River to prison for it. (As a consolation prize, River gets to hop in the Tardis each night with her hubby.) Now the thing about conspiracy theories is, the more people who need to lie to cover up the conspiracy, the less likely it is that the theory is true. How many people are on that Tesselector, and how much do they know?
Also, how long does the Doctor have to lay low for now? Isn't he gonna have to change his name when he regenerates? I mean, the first eleven are pretty well-documented (except for poor Two, whose records we mostly lost, and poor Eight, whose records are mostly apocryphal). Is the Twelfth Doctor going to pretend to be from between Eight and Nine? Does the Valeyard still exist? How many more seasons is Matt Smith sticking around for? And what the frak blew up the TARDIS at the end of Season 5?
To continue the Doctor Who/Battlestar Galactica comparison: there's an episode near the end of BSG called "No Exit," which is basically about two of the Final Five Cylons getting their memories back and explaining most of the plot to everyone else. It's a pair of exposition scenes that basically last an entire episode, which basically exists to answer any questions you still have about the Final Five. Likewise, "The Wedding of River Song" largely exists to answer all your questions about River. On the face of it, "Wedding" is better, because there's action as well as info-dumping. But consider what it took to get here: we had to fake out the audience about killing the Doctor at the beginning of the season. We had to endure the sheer insanity that was "A Good Man Goes to War."
All right. There's really only one thing left that I want to point out. "Silence will fall when the question is asked." The Doctor takes it to mean his silence, meaning his death. But I think it means the Silence (that is, the alien cult) will fall (that is, be destroyed).
So basically I've realized that when it comes to Moffat's tenure, I have to make huge glaring exceptions about how technology and physics work - then again, I have to do that to enjoy, well just about any show set in space, including Battlestar, which in case you can't tell, is pretty much on a pedestal the size of the Empire State Building despite its flaws. So I'll try to focus on plot alone from here on out. This would get an 8 out of ten, but I'm going to give it an extra point for the "Brig is dead" scene. Just cuz.
9 out of 10, which makes it the second-best episode Moffat has written since he became the showrunner (the best is "A Christmas Carol").
River is in prison for killing the Doctor. Obvious since "Flesh and Stone."
The question is "Doctor Who." Grr. Argh.
Things I was mostly right about:
They use the eyepatches to remember the Silence.
The Doctor uses a double to avoid getting shot to hell on the beach.
So, it's 2011. Winston Churchill is the Holy Roman Emperor. The Doctor is a lunatic up in his tower. As they get chased around by the Silence, the Doctor relates the final journey of his life. He went to investigate the Silence. So first tortures a Dalek for information, which leads him to the Tesselector (that shapeshifting bigger-on-the-inside ship that isn't a TARDIS, honest), who led him to the Cyclops Viking Guy, who led him to the Headless Blue Guy's Head. (I've stopped keeping track of names, because they're all Gargravaar and such.)
Then the Cyclops Viking Guy gets killed off like the no-longer-useful plot device he is, and the Doctor steals the Headless Blue Guy's Head. He does the Tennant routine about doing the big last dance and avoiding his fate for as long as he can (proving that he himself never read the script for "Closing Time," in which he was basically resigned to die... or does this section of the story take place before "Closing Time?" If so, why is he resigned to die if he already got in the Tesselector aw frak it).
And then he finds out that the Brigadier died, and that during his final months, Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart always left a bottle of brandy out in case the Doctor came calling.
Now for those of you who think the first episode of Doctor Who was "Rose," you're probably unaware of who the Brigadier was, given that he got a mention in "The Sontaran Strategem" but never appeared onscreen. Suffice it to say here that the Brigadier was, well, one of the Doctor's most important allies. Watch virtually anything with Jon Pertwee in it and you'll see what I mean.
Once again, Moffat's problem is not repeat not River Song. Love her or hate her, she's never even been in half the episodes of any season. See, the Brigadier's death is what prompts the Doctor to accept his own fate (except here he was, talking about having out with the Beatles... unless he just meant Paul and Ringo, I assume he intended to put that time machine of his to good use). But that portion of fandom that doesn't know a Zygon from a Thal doesn't know who the Brig is, and why his death should affect the Doctor like that. (Now me, I say screw 'em, but this show's considerably more popular now than it was then, so...)
Headless Blue Guy's Head goes on about how the Doctor's going to die because otherwise, at the Fall of the Eleventh (gee, I wonder...), "the Question" will be asked and Silence will fall. (Meaning, presumably, the Silence will fall. As in, downfall.)
Headless Blue Guy's Head also says one of the most unforgivable phrases in all of fiction: "I didn't tell you before because..." Amazingly, Battlestar Galactica, a show whose writers were notorious for making stuff up on the fly, never had to stoop quite that low. In BSG there were reasons why we didn't get all the information about the Final Five Cylons all at once (beyond the fact that RDM was making it up as he went along, there's also the fact that their memories were wiped, so they only got flashes here and there until Anders got shot, which perfectly restored his memory). Here it's just "oh, did I not mention that earlier? Ha ha silly me." Easily my least favorite scene in the episode.
So the Doctor goes back and lets River kill him (except at this point is he in the Tesselector? I would assume so. Why can't he just tell Spacesuit-River he's in the Tesselector? Does the suit know that? Can it adapt to aw frak it).
Only River doesn't kill him, um, somehow. And so time goes all screwy and Amy Pond shows up with an eyepatch and shoots the Doctor and puts him on a train to Cairo. How does she have a train to Cairo? Eh, that doesn't matter, it's an alternate lunatic universe.
So there's a pyramid there full of Silence, which they're keeping alive, for some reason. And the iPatches let them remember the Silence, somehow. And then the Silence break out, somehow, and try to kill everyone wearing an iPatch including Eye-Patch-Lady, for some reason. And the only two people who can resist the killer iPatch patch are Rory and EPL, for some reason. But then Rory collapses and Amy saves him because, yup, that's how this goes.
And then something fantastic happens.
Eyepatch Lady says that Amy can't kill her because the Doctor wouldn't approve. Amy says the Doctor's not here (he's gone up to the roof), and promptly kills Eyepatch Lady. Because, you know, she kidnapped her daughter and wanted to use her as a tool... (at the risk of overdoing my Who/BSG comparisons, at least Athena didn't wig out about killing Boomer).
So the Doctor and River are up on the roof, and River's somehow got her hands on the Master's Universal PA from Logopolis and has sent a distress call to the entire Universe. But do they do anything? Nooooooooo... River says they're ready to help, but the Doctor just marries her and then goes back with her to the beach so she can kill him.
Now, is the River in the bubble universe Spacesuit-River, who knows everything about the Doctor but has barely spent any time with him, or is she Stormcage-River, who's probably frakked him a good dozen times by now? I assumed she was the latter, because she's more sure of herself and into the whole Doctor/River vibe we saw back in "The Impossible Astronaut." But then after Spacesuit-River kills the Doctor, Stormcage-River from "Flesh and Bone" shows up and tells Amy that the Doctor told her that he was in the Tesselector, and thus did not die. Okay, but that's the last we see of her until she dies in the Library.
So the Tesselector, which is all about preserving the timeline, allows the Doctor to fake his own death and then send River to prison for it. (As a consolation prize, River gets to hop in the Tardis each night with her hubby.) Now the thing about conspiracy theories is, the more people who need to lie to cover up the conspiracy, the less likely it is that the theory is true. How many people are on that Tesselector, and how much do they know?
Also, how long does the Doctor have to lay low for now? Isn't he gonna have to change his name when he regenerates? I mean, the first eleven are pretty well-documented (except for poor Two, whose records we mostly lost, and poor Eight, whose records are mostly apocryphal). Is the Twelfth Doctor going to pretend to be from between Eight and Nine? Does the Valeyard still exist? How many more seasons is Matt Smith sticking around for? And what the frak blew up the TARDIS at the end of Season 5?
To continue the Doctor Who/Battlestar Galactica comparison: there's an episode near the end of BSG called "No Exit," which is basically about two of the Final Five Cylons getting their memories back and explaining most of the plot to everyone else. It's a pair of exposition scenes that basically last an entire episode, which basically exists to answer any questions you still have about the Final Five. Likewise, "The Wedding of River Song" largely exists to answer all your questions about River. On the face of it, "Wedding" is better, because there's action as well as info-dumping. But consider what it took to get here: we had to fake out the audience about killing the Doctor at the beginning of the season. We had to endure the sheer insanity that was "A Good Man Goes to War."
All right. There's really only one thing left that I want to point out. "Silence will fall when the question is asked." The Doctor takes it to mean his silence, meaning his death. But I think it means the Silence (that is, the alien cult) will fall (that is, be destroyed).
So basically I've realized that when it comes to Moffat's tenure, I have to make huge glaring exceptions about how technology and physics work - then again, I have to do that to enjoy, well just about any show set in space, including Battlestar, which in case you can't tell, is pretty much on a pedestal the size of the Empire State Building despite its flaws. So I'll try to focus on plot alone from here on out. This would get an 8 out of ten, but I'm going to give it an extra point for the "Brig is dead" scene. Just cuz.
9 out of 10, which makes it the second-best episode Moffat has written since he became the showrunner (the best is "A Christmas Carol").
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Image of the Week: Pearl Harbor and the Fog of War
I follow a lot of naval history accounts, so this "Japanese map showing their assessment of the damage done to the United States flee...
