Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Why I love thee

God, I was just thinking about stuff that makes me really happy... I mean why the heck shouldn't I? Tis the season and all that jazz.

So I am going to add one of my faves...

TELEVISION WITHOUT PITY!

Here's an excerpt from a recap from TWOP
The link to the recap is in the title, enjoy!

THIS IS THE SEASON 3 EPISODE 14 TRAVESTY CALLED THE WOMAN KING. I hated it and I think Jacob's 'cap best explains why:

There's gotta be a better character than Tigh for this role in the story, considering how much he already gave for the Fleet. I mean, I get that there are other kinds of racism than Cylon hating -- that's the best thing this episode does, is make Robert act cool to Sharon and Hera -- but Tigh makes this a weird fit.


So TRUE. I found it really weird the way he was so harsh about it, thanks to Jacob for pinpointing why.

which makes no sense but is a retrofit for later on in the episode when Dualla gets crammed into the Maiden In Distress role that so clearly doesn't fit her that you've gotta dope her up.


True dat!

Cottle bitches -- and he at least makes sense right here, because being a doctor is his entire personality -- that to them, over the last 3000 years, "medicine's been just the great curse." Tigh explains that this is because they're a bunch of "stubborn, root-sucking jackasses holding onto traditions that are a thousand years old." Which is awkward on the heels of the last line, but not as awkward as the Helo Suit getting its Resolved Face on and making a little black mark next to Tigh's name in its Big Book Of Overbearing Moral Judgments.
- Gotta say I laughed for a very long time at this. In fact, I'm laughing now!

Zarek manages not to summon up a little slapping, which I would find difficult, and delivers a speech that is even longer and less musical... I wish the President were a man, don't you? You'd never have to explain basic shit to her if she were a man.

HEE. That's funny! I thought Zarek made a pretty good point and that Roslin was being naive here.

The Zarek Suit leaves with a final virtuous "I'm here if you need me," and goes off, I assume to be anywhere but involved in the Sagittaron storyline, which until I guess today was his whole reason for existing, but no longer concerns him .

I'm glad I wasn't losing my mind! I thought Zarek was Saggitaron in S1 in that prison riot episode AND that election one on Cloud Nine!

She leaves, crying, and the Helo Suit stares after her, and makes another mark next to Robert's name.
- ROTFL

He then instructs Helo to strip off, proving he's not all bad, and Helo -- as though people aren't constantly asking him to take his shirt off -- goes, "Excuse me?" Like he's going to have to add "tried to make out with me" to his list.


I paused that part and the beginning part where he was shirtless! Good lord, there was a puddle of drool on my floor! Must get me a screencap of that.

And MAN do I not like having the black girl on the cast tacitly approving the racism against her own people, based on the fact that they're "pigheaded and argumentative," and thus writing the rest of the cast a pass for their prejudices, which she shares at the same time that they don't apply to her.
- I heart Jacob! I thought that was badly done too... really awkward somehow.

Which is not precisely true: other than marrying a Cylon that even Adama considers family, he only ends up on the wrong side of everything when Michael Angeli puts on his Helo Suit. "You know, maybe Tigh's right. Maybe I want it that way." As though that were a convincing emotional theory for any character ever. Sharon makes a little bit of an ouch face, because nobody likes to be called a symptom of aversive pathology.


OMG this guy is pretty frakking awesome.

There's not a conspiracy among all adults to block your virtue and put your lantern under a bushel or whatever the hell is going on here. They are too busy with their own shit. If you feel like your super-duper awesomeness is getting ignored by the world at large, I'm going to let you in on a secret: you're not that fucking awesome. Helo snits about how whatever, maybe she's right, maybe it's all in his head (IT IS! JEEZ!) and stomps off to be righteous somewhere else.
- Heh.

Cottle throws him out for real and lights a crotchety old cigarette. The total lack of commitment of the actor playing Cottle in this episode is...AWESOME.
Sharon makes the Mean Girl Boomer eyes at him and lets him in on the hideous rumors about Helo and the Sagittarons, how he "might actually be listening to them." My GOD with the Helo Suit right now. Who is this lady pretending to be Sharon Agathon?

OMG!! Too good.

The Helo Suit grows to twice its normal size; people in quarters five floors away start thinking about shitty stuff they can do to make Helo look even more awesome and put-upon.
- I haven't read snark like that since the Buffy recaps by Strega.

"You think that's who I am? That's what I've become, that's my defining characteristic? The guy married to a Cylon?" Wow, did that come out of nowhere or what? I hate this episode so much. This is like trying to walk around if you only had bones and no connective tissue. People yelling shit like this, for an entire hour.
- I was and am crying with laughter at this point.

Tigh and Cottle are still walking, and you already know everything that's going to happen, because this episode is -- did I mention -- embarrassingly poor in quality, so there's a lot more of Dualla whining and Helo being all King Kong with Marines flying around him like biplanes and Robert screaming about unrelated shit. "I don't know what kind of a crusade you're on, or who you're trying to impress, but it seriously is not working," he says. Which is another really awesome line, because: WORD! Stop killing people for no reason and maybe we could be friends, because you really have a gift for the one-liners.
- This is when my flatmate knocked on my door to find out if I was okay. I'm practically cackling!

And Tigh -- I will never forgive him for this -- fully goes, "Yeah, and we should've given it to him." Oh My God, how does that happen? How do you just blatantly go there? Is it a result of not getting hugged enough as a child? What would lead you to construct a narrative so unremittingly bullshitty and then end it with Tigh, the voice of authority -- just because you have major issues with women doesn't mean you get along with men -- being all Adama about it.


Wicked!

Cottle's back to phoning it in: "What the hell happened to 'do no harm,' Doctor," he asks, and Robert yells about how "someone has to make the tough choices here," which would be the writer of the episode telling you desperately that this all Makes Sense Don't It, but it doesn't, because this episode wasn't about the "tough choices" unless the "choices" include the "choice" to air this piece of crap, which is not a "tough" choice so much as a "shitty" one.


My stomach hurts!

and as they're leaving, two more awful things happen.

The first one is that Dr. Robert flails in Dee's direction and screams about how he didn't harm her, and Helo totally says, "Right, she's one of the good ones."

Let that sink in for a second.

The second one is how everything goes into slow-motion and Helo and Mrs. King, who's randomly there all of a sudden, stare at each other in slow-motion for a million years, because she is avenged .

I hope a third thing doesn't happen!


I am SOOO going to e-stalk Jacob after this!

But what offends me here is that first of all, I don't watch science fiction shows for this reason: clumsy moral dilemmas that get solved out of nowhere, black-and-white emotional responses, complete disregard for character continuity, sexless two-dimensional cardboard characters nobody could ever actually care about, misogyny both subtle and overt.
- He's talking about LOST right?

at the very least sitting down to watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica should fulfill the promise that you'll be seeing an episode of that show. And this was not one. It was an episode of a horrible show that I never would watch and never want to see again.
- He's never seen The Brig followed by The Man Behind the Curtain!

and she's holding the baby like a pieta, like that one awful poster for <.i>Brokeback Mountain that had family values, and he walks with his back straight in to his wife, because he is a man and this is what men do, and he's just completely right about everything, and she's sorry for being such a bitch, and they kiss, and it is very, very gay. The end. FOREVER.


AWESOME!!

And just like that, we've gone from a so-so crappy episode about medical ethics to a very crappy story about...serial killers who do things for literally no reason whatsoever.

This guy is frakking amazing, and he's totally talking about LOST in some of these comments.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Love BSG too! Love Jacob too!
I find Jacob's recaps a bit too technical, flowery but this one was just right.