Friday, September 11, 2009

Occupation

What do you know, they changed the pre-cap and opening titles again! They changed most of the shots in the pre-cap and went back to the order "They rebelled, they evolved" which I like better. The opening no longer refers to Earth (which is a big mistake), or the number of survivors, which would have to be a total guess since they jumped ahead a year. Now we get text reading how they are "far from home, fighting for survival". Well, maybe if they'd stuck to their mission, they wouldn't HAVE to fight for survival. And are they really fighting for survival? I thought the Cylons were trying to make friends? The changing opening reminds me of Millennium, which had a different opening every season.

What happened to Tigh? Why was he captured, and why did they take his eye? I don't really see how they can pop a guy's eye out but then say they just want peace. Does Caprica Six know about this? Oh, and if I were a real jerk I would mention that a certain Star Trek series that a certain guy used to write for featured a Klingon general who lost his eye in an alien prison camp, but I'll refrain.

In Roslin's opening diary entry, she says that it is Mars Day. Does that mean it's Tuesday? The days of our week are named after heavenly bodies and pagan gods. Sun-day, Moon-day, Saturn-day, and Tuesday is named for Mars (actually for the Germanic god Tiw, but it's Mars in the romance languages). The context doesn't make it sound like just a Tuesday. Still, they generally use Greek names for their gods, but Mars is Roman. So I don't know; I like to think it's Tuesday.

Roslin also mentions that killing the Cylons is useless since they just download into a new body. This is a major point of the Kara story, where she has killed the same guy five times. I guess they must have brought a new resurrection ship with them to New Caprica? Or else set up a resurrection facility on the planet. Essentially this means that the two-parter "Resurrection Ship" last season was useless. The whole point was to stop their ability to reproduce, hoping that would stop their chasing and bring finality to those killed. But now they are downloading again, so it was a waste of time.

I don't often comment on deleted elements, but Ron mentioned on the podcast for this one that the original plan for the resistance was to capture Cylons and keep them alive so that they couldn't download. This is a good plan! Why don't they do this? Instead, they just cause destruction.

Isn't it funny how everyone is married now? We never see people get married when we're watching their everyday lives, but skip ahead a year and characters will always marry in the interim. TNG even went the one step further, having the future Picard marry Crusher, then divorce her. It just strikes me as odd that everyone we saw dating last season is married now. Does no one take it slowly? 

Much is made about the New Caprica police force and how those involved are nothing short of collaborators with the Cylons. Color me naive, but shouldn't there be a police force? Shouldn't they have set one up a year ago when they got there? How do they maintain order? I doubt they put marines in charge of everything, considering how they feel about martial law. At the same time, I doubt they will all run to the President whenever there is a problem. If there was no police before, that's just stupid. Now, whether the Cylons can be trusted to run a fair system is a different question, but they all seem opposed to the very idea.

Have Caprica and Boomer made their plea for peace publicly? It seems that everyone on both sides just expects war. Why then are we even going through the motions on this?

I have a real problem with the resistance movement here. I don't know why it has become a television idea that resistance always means acts of sabotage and terrorism. What is gained for humanity by blowing crap up and angering Cylons? That's not resisting anything; that's just being stubborn. Now I'm all for them getting off the planet, and sending secret transmissions to the orbiting Raptor is a good idea. But suicide bombings? When did that become a good idea? I'm annoyed that the webisodes end up being just set-up for Duck to kill himself. It's one thing to go into a mission knowing you won't walk out. It's quite another to go in with the expressed INTENT not to walk out. Walking into a room where there is a bomb is heroic. Walking into a room WITH a bomb is pathetic. I think maybe what bothers me most about this is these are the heroes. These are the guys we've been rooting for for two seasons, and now they resort to things like this. Suicide bombing is a Cylon strategy. What does it gain, anyway? What do they gain by killing Baltar? What do they gain by taking out the police recruits? The can't really kill the Cylons. I don't see the point. Duck dies for nothing, and that is stupid.

I have many more thoughts on the nature of resistance in general, but I'll save them. Perhaps I'll post them seperately when I've wrapped my head around them. I like that Gaeta is the informant. Though Duck's death is more pointless considering Baltar wasn't even there.

It's good to see Caprica Six and Baltar reconnected. With the real thing, there's no need for the fantasy Six, which is good. I was feeling like that whole element was played out.

What does whats-his-face want with Kara? He has "seen" them together? How did that work, I wonder? What was her plan? Was she just going to keep killing him indefinitely? And why did she seem so surprised when she was locked in? Surely she knew she was trapped, or she would have escaped the last four times she killed him. And just how long has she been here? Anders said she's been missing for four months. Surely she would have killed more of them in four months!

"Occupation" is a passable season opener. I'm not enamored with many of the ideas floating about right now, but it's executed pretty well. The "invisible" effects work is really good in this one. I think this is the best the effects have ever looked. I'm still not sure that I care about these goings-on though. Get them back on the ships already.

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