by dtmuller » Well, it's all sort of going somewhere. If you wander aimlessly, you'll eventually get somewhere, and this seems to be what's going on.
Well, I think the consensus now is that the show has reached its stride and found a clear direction. These last episodes seem they'll be fun. So, "eventually getting there somewhere" doesn't seem to do the show justice in my opinion.
Staged hijacking: The chance of pulling that off without destroying both craft have to be the closest thing to zero you can imagine. Trying that for real as an act of desperation because there's no other way? OK, maybe. But not for something staged and intended to cause no physical harm. That was not so much a test for the recruits as it was a con job on the audience.
Oh, boy at such times am I glad I'm not an engineer so I can appreciate a simple TV adventure at face value. That scene was so damned cool! Yeah, now that pointed that out, and considering all vectors and density coefficients... Yeah, seems far-fetched. But do I care? Not at all. It makes cool television. And in the context of the story, it conveys the message that the STO is worse than the Al Qaeda, and they are ready to blow two ships into smithereens just to make sure only the very faithful will make it. The rest are expendable.
Trip to Geminon: Well, we finally see it, but it still doesn't explain why Zoe was so anxious to get there. You remember Zoe, the one who talked to her friends about this wonderful religion that was all about having real moral principals. The one who complained about the people in V-world who were entertained by brutal violence. That's the same Zoe who wanted more than anything else to become a trained terrorist.
Oh, no. Now I have to strongly disagree. But first, ha! I knew you'd say something like that! Anyway... So, we've established Zoe was the ethical one in search of true enlightenment. And that attitude would be incompatible with the terrorist ways of the STO. In fact, a total contradiction. I agree with that part.
Now, think with me. It was Clarice, that devious snake, that recruited Zoe, this innocent, idealistic girl. If you wanted to sell the idea of a cult to someone innocent like Zoe, would you go about and say, listen, I want you to join our cult. We'll take all your money and then we'll make you blow up things. Interested? No, things would have to be much subtler.
I imagine Clarice told Zoe about the monastery, the monks in constant prayer, in communion with the One True God (and she wouldn't be lying). She must have told Zoe about all the peace and quiet of the place and the high principles her faith would ultimately involve. Leaving out the ugly parts to those who are prepared to engage in that kind of action.
What Clarice told Ned Stark, however, must've been something quite different. Tony Stark was ready to take a bomb and blow a train full of people.
I'm totally convinced Zoe was essentially unaware of the terrorist intentions of Clarice's gang. The mag-lev explosion seems to have been the first major STO attack, so before that, it was just a sect with crazy ideas.
Clarice: But is she really all that important in the STO? Yeah, I remember that episode a few weeks ago, where she offically became the STO's Big Kahuna on Caprica. But what has she actually done? A lot of killing, but all of the victims were STO. The police shouldn't be trying to stop her, she's on a roll! Keep this up and the whole STO will be dead in a matter of weeks. OK, a bit of an exaggeration, but still, what has she done that's a real threat to anyone outside the STO?
Have you forgotten already? Clarice masterminded the mag-lev explosion, a major terrorist attack on Caprica. Those people killed were not STO. She also sold the idea to the monotheist bigwigs that she plans to implode an entire stadium full of people (remember the virtual simulation?) in a final incident named Apotheosis. If left unchecked, Caprica would have no trains and no stadiums left.
Given what she has actually done that the police know about, why would they think that taking her down would break the STO? And if her "family" is really a key STO terrorist cell, why has not one of them done, planned or even mentioned any significant action.
Again, have you missed all the conversations Clarice has had with her two husbands (one black and another younger and white) about Apotheosis and using Zoe's avatar program to give eternal life to STO martyrs? Who do you think prepared that realistic-looking virtual stadium-imploding scene to be used as her sales pitch?
OK, I'd admit that perhaps Mar-Beth (and the other wives) was perhaps out of the loop. But the husbands certainly are not. Also, weren't her husbands present when Clarice chained Barnabas and blew up his apartment? They are guilty as hell!
Daniel: Clearly, the writers have no technical consultants, and no clue as to how technical projects work. I don't expect realism in a TV show, but I can't handle absurdity. I've been doing engineering work for 40 years now, and every project I've ever worked on has reached a point where it was close, but didn't quite work. We've sometimes had to re-evaluate and move to a different approach for part of the project, but not once has anyone suggested that we just throw everything away and start over. I'm getting to the point that I don't care what he does, because the next thing he's going to do will probably be random and pointless.
Again, glad not to be an engineer. Yep, I wouldn't erase the program and the backup even if it was far from the desirable. I never do that, and this is why I have lots and lots of DVDs full of junk and my backup HD is almost full...
Again, I'm not an engineer. the closest experience I've had was working with CGI. At some points, the mesh had been divided and redivided so many times, the model was full of unnecessary facets, the bones were wrong, the vectors all screwed, and the whole thing was a mess. Even then I wouldn't throw everything away, but at least I would need to revert to some of the early stages and take the project in another, different direction entirely.
But that happened because I didn't know exactly what I was doing. I'm not a CGI modeler. Which bring to mind: does Daniel know what he's doing? Or is he groping in the dark like I was with Maya?
The answer is, yes and no. He knows how to make an avatar. He has developed that many times for the holobands. That seems to be common knowledge among experts like Daniel. He also used known technology to collect known information about Amanda and use it in the avatar to make it "alive."
But beyond that, no, he doesn't know what he's doing. Because nobody seems to know that. Only Zoe did (and that's the hardest part to swallow perhaps). So, did he promise something fantastic that he didn't have? Absolutely. Can he deliver it? Hardly, but he's highly motivated. Is there a way out for him? Honestly I wouldn't like to be in his position right now.
Cylons: Remember when this show was supposed to be about how the Cylons came to be? I do. From what we've seen, the writers just don't know. Wish they'd told us that in the first place. It's like watching a show that promises to reveal what happend to the "lost colony" at Roanoke, and, in the end, the answer is "everybody disappeared".
The show is still about how the Cylons came to be. But it's also about the decadence of the the Caprican society, and the development of monotheism, an idea that plays a pivotal role in Battlestar Galactica. But I think you've said it all in just three words,
"in the end." Precisely. The show hasn't ended yet. OK, I admit the show has the terrible habit of apparently setting characters aside and seemingly forgetting they exist. Let's see what the final episodes have in store for us before passing judgment.
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dtmuller
11 years ago
(Regarding Zoe going to Geminon):I imagine Clarice told Zoe about the monastery, the monks in constant prayer, in communion with the One True God (and she wouldn't be lying). She must have told Zoe about all the peace and quiet of the place and the high principles her faith would ultimately involve. Leaving out the ugly parts to those who are prepared to engage in that kind of action.
What Clarice told Ned Stark, however, must've been something quite different. Tony Stark was ready to take a bomb and blow a train full of people.
I'm totally convinced Zoe was essentially unaware of the terrorist intentions of Clarice's gang.
That's very reasonable, but then what did Clarice think would happen when Zoe actually got to Geminon and found it to be a terrorist training camp? The options are the 0.000001% chance that Zoe would say, "OK, cool, when do I start?" or the 99.999999% chance that she'd freak and they'd have to shoot her. With someone like Zoe who is clearly not terrorist material, the only sensible course would be to keep her away from the center of things lest she discover what's really going on. Her best use would be to keep her on Caprica, drawing in others who might turn out to be better terrorists. Clarice should have done everything she could to keep Zoe away from even thinking of going to Geminon.
Regarding Daniel's irrational methods: Again, glad not to be an engineer. ... Even then I wouldn't throw everything away, but at least I would need to revert to some of the early stages and take the project in another, different direction entirely.
Exactly! Even without being an engineer, you know that you don't do what he did. I'm going to invoke the "Roddenberry Rule": Take the same behavior and translate it into a different genre--a cop show, medical drama, western, war drama, etc.--and see if it rings true. If it makes a lousy western or whatever, then it'll make a lousy science fiction show. So we have Detective Daniel Graystone of the Detroit Police Department (everything can't be set in New York or LA, dammit!) He's working on a tough homicide case and can't put it all together. He gets some evidence and clues. Works on them. Gets a partial picture. Digs up more evidence. Works more, putting in long exhausting hours. Gets a little closer, but can't quite fit all the pieces together. In frustration, he decides to box up all of the evidence, take it downstairs and toss it all in the incinerator. That is
totally preposterous, and I can say that even though I know nothing about how real police investigations work. I would never buy that on, say,
CSI, and I don't buy it here.
Regarding the staged hijacking: Oh, boy at such times am I glad I'm not an engineer so I can appreciate a simple TV adventure at face value.
Again, I will invoke the Roddenberry Rule: It's 1943 and the U.S. Army Special Services is recruiting commandos for highly dangerous missions. To screen those who will collapse under extreme pressure, they decide to stage a fake commando raid (which the recruits will think is real) to see how they react. Just to make it realistic and exciting for the audience, the trainers stage it by having the whole group actually parachute into Hitler's Wolf's Lair compound to conduct the exercise there. Once again, I've never been in the military, but I'm quite sure
no one would ever even consider doing that.
And if your reaction to the above is, "But this is different! It's science fiction!", then Roddenberry's response was, "Thank you for your time. We can't use you." I'm far from a Roddenberry worshiper, but he was dead on with this rule.
Regarding Clarice: If left unchecked, Caprica would have no trains and no stadiums left. ... Again, have you missed all the conversations Clarice has had with her two husbands (one black and another younger and white) about Apotheosis and using Zoe's avatar program to give eternal life to STO martyrs? Who do you think prepared that realistic-looking virtual stadium-imploding scene to be used as her sales pitch?
I don't get the impression that the mag-lev explosion was an isolated incident, rather that the STO has been doing more than just that. But what has Clarice's cell done? (No, I didn't recall Clarice being responsible for the mag-lev.) But if they pulled off just a single bombing and have done nothing else--and as I said, they never talk about anything else they've done--how do they qualify as the nexus of STO? Yes, they talk about what they could do and make nifty sales pitches. But talk is not action, and I don't see them as being the center of any
ongoing action. Remember I asked what they've done
that the police know about, which is what would lead the police to think they were the big threat. They don't know about the presentation, they don't know what happened on Clarice's trip to Geminon, they don't know what's been said in Clarice's private conversations. They know very little, which is why they're so anxious to plant Amanda as a mole.
See, this is perhaps the crux of the issue I have with the writing. Obviously, they can't show us everything that goes on or explain every detail. They have to show the big picture and main incidents, and let us fill in the details with reasonable assumptions. Too much of this show has that reversed. (Read your own comments about what you assume and what you imagine.) Too much of this show is showing us the details while expecting us to assume major points.
Regarding the show overall: But I think you've said it all in just three words, "in the end." Precisely. The show hasn't ended yet. OK, I admit the show has the terrible habit of apparently setting characters aside and seemingly forgetting they exist. Let's see what the final episodes have in store for us before passing judgment.
No, no, no, no, no! If I'm halfway through a movie, and think it's not making a lot of sense, I can and should wait for the end to see if they pull it all together. But this is not a movie. It's a TV series. I expect the episodes to be more or less self-contained. Yes, there can be two-part episodes and story arcs, but I don't think it is acceptable to expect the viewer to have to watch the entire series through to the end for any of it to make sense. And here, even the story arcs are left hanging and incomplete.
Day Break ran the entire season as one long story arc, but each episode had a sub-plot within that arc that was resolved within the episode, giving clues to the overall arc, and that progressed each week. Many other shows operate the same way. I'm not seeing anything close to that here. Characters come and go. Conflicts come and go. Plot points come and go and get discarded when inconvenient. Shoot this guy, stab that one, play with some software, talk some more. And maybe if we wait until the last episode, it'll make sense. If I were not watching this show as part of our group, honor bound to slug through to the end, I would have done a "William Adama" weeks ago: Disappeared with no explanation.
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madp
11 years ago
That's very reasonable, but then what did Clarice think would happen when Zoe actually got to Geminon and found it to be a terrorist training camp? The options are the 0.000001% chance that Zoe would say, "OK, cool, when do I start?" or the 99.999999% chance that she'd freak and they'd have to shoot her. With someone like Zoe who is clearly not terrorist material, the only sensible course would be to keep her away from the center of things lest she discover what's really going on. Her best use would be to keep her on Caprica, drawing in others who might turn out to be better terrorists. Clarice should have done everything she could to keep Zoe away from even thinking of going to Geminon.
Good points. Well, I didn't say Clarice's plan was perfect. I'd assumed it was in the hopes once Zoe was in their control they would be freer to brainwash her. I suppose that's how cults do. But in fact, I wonder why Clarice wanted Zoe anyway. Did she know about Zoe's programming skills back then?
Exactly! Even without being an engineer, you know that you don't do what he did. I'm going to invoke the "Roddenberry Rule" (...) So we have Detective Daniel Graystone of the Detroit Police Department (everything can't be set in New York or LA, dammit!) (...) That is totally preposterous,
I never understood why characters did that in fact. But it's not the first time I've seen a temperamental artist have a fit and throw everything away, shouting in Italian, preferably. "QUESTO È TERRIBILE!!!!!"
(Trash artist's studio.) I remember a Conan O'Brien promo in which he tries to make his own "Exit" luminous sign and has a "genius fit" in the middle of the process.
Again, I will invoke the Roddenberry Rule: It's 1943 and the U.S. Army Special Services is recruiting commandos for highly dangerous missions.
Oh, no. The comparison with US Special Services is not apt. These are more like Al Qaeda or worse. They are preparing suicide bombers. Do you think they use sane recruiting methods?
And if your reaction to the above is, "But this is different! It's science fiction!",
I would never say that. But I would point out it's an unknown technology on a planet with possibly different gravity and pressure, so I'd be more open to consider that feasible. As for being fiction, this reminds me of Superman lifting an airplane or ocean liner in mid air. Structurally, it would fall apart and would never go up in one piece like that, but we kind of got used to the image and let it pass.
I don't get the impression that the mag-lev explosion was an isolated incident, rather that the STO has been doing more than just that. But what has Clarice's cell done? (No, I didn't recall Clarice being responsible for the mag-lev.)
The mag-lev explosion was carried out by Ben Stark. Ben Stark studied in Clarice's school. Clarice recruited all the kids in that school, as it was her recruiting grounds.. So I'd say, yes, it was her work. Duram has been on to her since the day he tried to search the students' lockers after he found that VHS tape in which the GDD let Ben Stark go free even when he had bomb-making equipment or something. Duram added 2 plus 2 and got 4.
You wouldn't qualify the mag-lev explosion as a major terrorist event? For several episodes they made sure to hammer home to the viewers the severity and the trauma caused by the incident. The mag-lev is their version of 9/11.
I don't think it is acceptable to expect the viewer to have to watch the entire series through to the end for any of it to make sense.
I don't know. It's making quite a lot of sense to me. Especially since I have the complete picture in my mind. But I guess I know how you feel.
Ok, that "MCP doesn’t work, then it works; robot doesn’t work, then it does; can't back up or copy program, then you can, etc" mess makes no sense to me.
Day Break ran the entire season as one long story arc, but each episode had a sub-plot within that arc that was resolved within the episode, giving clues to the overall arc, and that progressed each week.
While I agree Day Break was a better written show, I think it was confusing as hell at times. I needed a notepad to write down so many details and often didn't quite understand how the main characters got to some conclusions based on what he knew by memory... But yes, it was better organized. Not all shows have the same level of story-telling.
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dtmuller
11 years ago
...shouting in Italian, preferably. "QUESTO È TERRIBILE!!!!!" (Trash artist's studio.)
Yes! The "genius fit"! A few years back, a friend of mine was in Italy on business. He speaks English and Turkish (his native language), but no Italian. He flipped on the TV and caught a broadcast of
Back to the Future, dubbed in Italian of course. He joined it just in time to see Doc Brown running around the room yelling, "Quattro millione gigawatte?
Quattro millione gigawatte?" And the guy thought, "Hey! I understand Italian after all!"
(And to save anyone the trouble of responding, I'm sure I butchered the spelling.)
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madp
11 years ago
OH, well, if they can make "Evita" in English with Madonna singing "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" (sigh, questo è veramente terribile!)*, I guess "Back to the Future" in Italian doesn't sound that bad. Actually, in a way Doc Brown's true histrionic personality seems to come alive in Italian.
By the way, I was thinking someone could write an Italian opera named "Jackie." Just imagine an Italian JFK singing an operatic composition.
(* I know Evita is originally an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, but being so close to the real thing here, which is Argentina, it feels really weird having those historical South American icons singing in English.)
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bob-402-252005
11 years ago
Just a couple of other thoughts on the staged raid on the ship:
When the ship first took off, we had a girl show a fear of flying and everyone was sympathetic to her and tried to be comforting except for one boy who viciously told her to "suck it up." That boy was the one who pathetically died whining and begging twice. That girl was the one who went bravely and honorably to martyrdom.
I didn't take from it that they were supposedly dumping bodies out the door, because of the decompression thing. I just assumed from the start that they were being piled up in another "room" aboard the ship.
___________
I'd've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.
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madp
11 years ago
by bob-402-252005 » When the ship first took off, we had a girl show a fear of flying and everyone was sympathetic to her and tried to be comforting except for one boy who viciously told her to "suck it up." That boy was the one who pathetically died whining and begging twice. That girl was the one who went bravely and honorably to martyrdom.
I didn't take from it that they were supposedly dumping bodies out the door, because of the decompression thing. I just assumed from the start that they were being piled up in another "room" aboard the ship.
Great observations there. I guess the ginger boy was a coward all along. Definitely not good terrorist material. You gotta have a rigorous quality control for that kind of thing.
As for ejecting the bodies, I assumed they were using an auxiliary chamber for fast decompression, and the fast decompression and ejection was just made for dramatic purposes as poetic license in fiction. Anyway, they did eject something, even if they were dummies.
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