Tuesday, February 10, 2009

BSG Catch Up [Major Spoiler Alert!]   [Jonah Goldberg]

Okay, I hope this isn't too picayune, but I think it's time to sound-off on the final episodes so far.

The last two episodes revolving around the coup are an almost painful reminder that BSG was once such a great show—and why it was so great. The big plot is an unsalvageable mess at this point. "They have a plan" indeed.

But when the show finds a plausible miniplot spanning one or two episodes, it's still possible to re-engage the characters and remember why the show was so addictive in the first place. The pacing, acting, mood and moral ambiguities of the coup episodes were emblematic of everything that was great about the show, before the series plot hadn't gone off the rails.

For example, some people seem to think that Zarek's bloodymindedness was implausible. From the LA Times:

As it became increasingly clear that Tom Zarek was the revolutionary voice behind the coup, we had to wonder if the past Gaeta, the smart guy doing all he could to help keep the ship's computer systems afloat, would revert back to the good guy who just wanted to help.  That was severely tested when crazy Zarek decided to disband the quorum by killing them all. "Shoot them." What?! Where?! Huh?!

This was a misstep, meaning by the writers. Gasp! Yeah, I said it. Though Zarek has been shown to be a ruthless and power-hungry guy, he has not been shown to be an unconscionable murderer.  There was always the sense that he really believed what he was doing was right, though under it all you knew he just wanted to be in charge.  Or at least, that's how it seemed he was set up.  When he killed his fellow representatives, he crossed the line from the people's man to the political butcher and doomed Gaeta in the process.  Obviously, the "Battlestar" story crafters wanted a dramatic shift to occur during the coup, but it felt like a little more than just "doing what had to be done."

I couldn't disagree more. The brilliance of Zarek's night of the long knives was that he understood better than anyone what they were doing. He was the consummate revolutionary and former terrorist, who understood at every step that victory mattered more than anything else (note: as a moral matter, I think this is all nuts) because he day dreamed about power while pretending to be a democrat. What I like about the characters on BSG is that they are flawed, deeply flawed, sometimes idiotically flawed. The notion that  Zarek wouldn't cross that line stems from a misguided belief that people with good intentions don't end up doing terrible evil.

As for the discovery of Earth and the recovered final five's memories of life on Earth, I say: Bleh! I'm sure the producers have a way of reconciling all of this in their own minds. But I've lost all confidence that they will reconcile it in the minds of anybody—but them—who remembers the first couple seasons. The prospect of Col. Tighe's wife returning in any capacity makes me want to find the nearest airlock.

02/10 11:13 AMShare