Galactica.com - I Like to Watch

By Heather Havrilesky, salon.com, on 04-02-2007

Favoured : 129

Starbuck

When you smile, the world smiles back at you. Likewise, when you frown or grimace or roll your eyes, the world gives you the finger and tells you to go frack yourself.

And when you use the word "frack" too often in your column, the world shoves your own geeky reference in your face by putting it into Summer's dialogue on "The OC." And when you insult "The OC," the world makes "The OC" more interesting by getting rid of Mischa Barton and giving neurotic overachiever Taylor a leading role. Then, just when you're beginning to like the new "OC," with its fake French lovers and fake French talk shows (Je Pense!) and its careless, pregnant middle-aged moms, the world cancels "The OC" and blames it all on you for not championing it through the hard times (i.e., the last three seasons).

What I'm trying to tell you, honey lambs, is that when you're feeling disappointed in general, the boob tube offers you specific disappointments on which to project your feelings of generic malaise, from the glacial, soapy pace of "Battlestar Galactica" to the harebrained behavior of Orange County's so-called "Real Housewives" to the disgusting digressions of overly self-indulgent comediennes.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's savor each and every fresh disappointment like the crestfallen connoisseurs of dissatisfaction that we are.

Programmed for love
First things first: Why in the world did "Battlestar Galactica" (10 p.m. Sundays on SciFi) switch to Sunday nights, when it was the one show that I actually watched when it aired (instead of on TiVo) on Friday nights? "Battlestar" is the perfect Friday night show for deadbeats like me who want to rationalize their crusty, shut-in existence. What goes better with Thai delivery and weekend geekery than glowering robots and hot space pilots in love? And why oh why does everyone crowd onto the Sunday night schedule? Somebody hop on over to Monday or Friday already!

Onward. I love "Battlestar Galactica," I do. But Lordy me do I grow weary of Gaius Baltar! First there were those repetitive and increasingly grating scenes last season where Number Six circled Baltar seductively, endlessly whispering about what his next move should be, as the same staccato, suspense-building piano chords were pounded -- brutally, mercilessly -- over and over and over again. Each time another Gaius-and-Six scene aired, it elicited a jittery, violence-prone feeling in me, the kind that could only arise from watching a bad Farrah-seduces-the-criminal scene from "Charlie's Angels" while a caffeine-addled child plays Chopsticks on the piano in the next room.

And this season, Baltar's narrative arc has absolutely flat-lined. After a promising start as the self-serving president of the colonists on New Caprica, Baltar escaped certain death at the hands of his people by fleeing with the Cylons, a move that robbed the eerie machines of at least half of their imposing creepiness. After all, if Baltar can hang with them for a few weeks, they can't be all bad, right? Certainly nothing like the gun-wielding, Nazi-inspired toasters marching through the streets of New Caprica, the ones that sent chills down our spines at the end of last season. Yes, yes, I know that's the point: Who's worse, wishy-washy man or God-fearing machine? But there was still a certain thrill to having the colonists up against a shiny, merciless, mysterious enemy.

I knew things were getting a little sloppy when the writers ripped off that Seer-in-a-tub-of-goo thing from "Minority Report." Yes, having the skin jobs awaken in the goo made some sense, but when they threw the clairvoyant lady into the goo, and had her speaking in catchy, disturbing haikus? It was certainly visually stunning and poetic and memorable on the big screen when Spielberg did it -- a little bit too memorable, in fact, to swipe whole-hog.

But those bad Battlestarians couldn't leave well enough alone! They had to send poor Baltar, with his bloodshot eyes and his veins popping out of his forehead, into the thick of the goo-covered Cylon fantasy. Next comes the plinky, rambling piano music and the long, lighted tunnels; the glowing floors and the big beds in the middle of empty rooms; the dreamlike dialogue and the abrupt jump cuts; and before you know it, every episode of the show is interrupted by 10 or 15 minutes of this aimless French New Wave film fantasy, starring a buggy-eyed, panicked Baltar.

Speaking of which, are you as tired of that look on Baltar's face as I am? You know, his one look: The frantic, darting eyes, bulging out of his head? The scrunched, veiny forehead? How does the man survive, in a perpetual state of panic? And why in the world is he panicked, anyway, when all he seems to do is wander around lighted hallways and lounge about in bed with two hot women?

"Battlestar Galactica" has been fairly uneven this season -- the winter finale, with its never-gonna-happen nuclear standoff, was lackluster at best, and the soapy Apollo-and-Starbuck story line has "Who the hell cares?" written all over it -- but for the most part, it's still a compelling show. So why do we have to sit through this endless Cylon-ship wanking, particularly when it never seems to drive the story forward, and only lessens the sense of mystery and foreboding and fear surrounding the Cylons?

When Baltar almost died last week, I was more than ready to see him go. Kill the guy and let's restore those nasty Cylons to their imposing, fearsome robot selves. They can still have faith in God, and be purer and more deeply ethical than humans are, as long as they have one scary red eye and two gigantic shiny silver man-titties. They can even be skin jobs -- we've still got to meet the "final five" remaining human-look-alike Cylons, don't we? Just keep them away from avant-garde composers and big fluffy beds once and for all.

Source Link: http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/iltw/2007/02/04/silverman/

Submitted by Zipper

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