Avatar—Dances With Wolves Meets 2001: A Space Oddessey

Warning: This review will contain significant spoilers for the movie Avatar. Do not read it if you don't want to be spoiled.

On a purely mercenary level, James Cameron's new movie, Avatar is the perfect movie for every demographic. A visually stunning film created with 3D digital technology which didn't even exist a few years ago, Avatar is equal parts Sci-fi, fantasy, action, adventure, and cowboys versus indians space western. There's even a romantic subplot thrown in to appeal to the "chick flick" crowd. While the story is simple on the surface, there also appears to be plenty of room for a very complicated back story.

The comparisons with Dances With Wolves and this film are inevitable. A military man makes contact with the natives and works to earn their respect. He goes native at about the same time that his own people arrive—basically our own western civilization—to play the bad guys. While a lot of people might complain that this is a simplistic movie–and it is—the people who like it, including myself, simply don't care that it's core message can be boiled down to "white people bad, blue people good." There are plenty of crappy movies out there with complicated plots and I'm glad to report that from my perspective, Avatar is neither the former nor the latter.

The movie revolves around a crippled marine named "Jake Sully" who must take the place of his dead twin brother in an ambitious program in which scientists explore an alien moon called "Pandora" by interfacing directly with genetically engineered alien bodies called "avatars." They do this in order to communicate with the planets natives, a race of ten-foot tall blue humanoids called "the Navi." The scientists are working against time as the Navi's "Hometree" is right on top of a mineral called "unobtanium" which a greedy company wants to mine. And that company has plenty of stereotypical marines in its employ who are ready to kill the Navi. Sully initially cooperates with his fellow marines, giving them a run down of the strengths and weaknesses of the Navi stronghold even as he works to gain their trust. Ultimately Sully falls in love with the Navi culture—and with a Navi warrior woman.

Naturally, Colonel Quaritch who is in command of the mission decides that the time has come to show the Navi who's boss—in one particularly effective scene the colonel uses Sully's own videolog to justify cracking down on the Navi. Sully tries to warn the Navi but finds himself rejected by his new people instead. Colonel Quaritch orders an attack on the Navi Hometree which is essentially a reverse 9/11. The heart of the alien culture is destroyed in a single unprovoked attack that echoes the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center by terrorists on September 11, 2001—only this time we're the terrorists and the aliens are the victims.

This isn't the first time we've seen 9/11 echoed in sci-fi. Battlestar Galactica used the Cylon destruction of the human colonies as a metaphor for the 9/11 attacks as well but Avatar is the first time that I've seen this metaphor employed in reverse, as an indictment of our own culture and echoing the destruction of American Indian culture by our own western culture. It's a fairly potent symbol and it really is the only way we can really justify what happens next. Sully turns against his fellow marines and teams up with a hand full of scientists and a renegade marine pilot (played by Michelle Rodriguez who supplies the fairly compelling scene of a beautiful woman in war paint flying a hovercraft into battle against her fellow marines) to lead the Navi as they fight back against the marines.

The Navi retreat to the "Tree of Souls" which is essentially the nerve center of Pandora, a tree which connects all life on this moon into one giant neural network, Quaritch is convinced that the Navi will be broken if the Tree of Souls is destroyed and makes it the next target in his "Shock and Awe"—yes, they actually say that in the movie, Cameron's bluntness as a story teller is his greatest weakness but his movies are so well crafted and so action filled that it is rarely an issue. It's not an issue for me here as the movie is so spectacular and so immersive that it is almost impossible to get pulled out of it.

Sully convinces the Navi to gather all of their tribes to make a stand at the Tree of Souls which ends in a fairly predictable but nevertheless stunning fashion. The evil humans are defeated and banished from Pandora and the Navi gather at the Tree of Souls to download Sully's consciousness into his avatar body. His human body dies and Sully is fully alien now. It's a piece of wish fulfillment which reminds me of the end of Inglourious Basterds where World War II is won in Europe not by a hard long slog through German held lands which kills millions but by blowing up Hitler and the entire German high command real good. Given that this is a sci-fi fantasy movie, it's hard to argue with the film makers' decision.

But I think that there is something else going on besides a extremely well made science fiction, fantasy, and special effects. I can't for the life of me imagine how an ecosystem like the one we see on Pandora can just naturally evolve. While it is fairly common for sci-fi film makers to ignore the laws of science when they interfere with their paper-thin plots, I don't think that this is what is going on here.

Pandora is basically a giant neural network where every living thing is so tightly integrated with rest of the planet that even the fiercest of the woodland animals know to attack the marines when the Navi are almost overwhelmed by the onslaught of the marines attacking with their superior technology. This neural network is so sophisticated that it is actually possible for the Navi to download Sully's mind directly into his avatar body at the end of the movie. This download is actually attempted twice in the movie—a human scientist, Dr. Grace Augustine who is played by Sigourney Weaver, is shot and the Navi attempt to download her mind into her avatar body. This attempt fails because she's too badly injured but before the final confrontation with the marines, Sully prays to "Eywa," the Navi deity to look into Dr. Augustine thoughts and to help them defeat the humans.

The Navi even bond to their animals by connecting a long braid of hair which unravels to reveal tiny tentacles which connect to tentacles on a similar braid which is attached to these animals. It reminds me of an organic version of the human/machine interfaces you see in movies like The Matrix. There is a scientific idea called "The Gaia Hypothesis" which suggests that all life is connected and cooperates to keep Earth livable which on the surface does resemble what we see in Avatar with all of Pandora's life being linked together. But in this movie Ewya is described in a manner which reminds me more of the way that the Force described the early Star Wars movies (before George Lucas ruined the concept in the prequels with technobabble about "midichlorians").

On the surface, Avatar is expressing a very anti-technology viewpoint—love Mother Earth (or in this case "Mother Pandora"), don't destroy her with your technology. This is a fairly common theme in James Cameron's movies; but there is a deeper, more subtle theme here which is never expressed—probably because it would be boring and James Cameron doesn't do boring. Just like John Connor cannot survive to lead the human resistance against Skynet without a Terminator acting as his bodyguard, so the Navi cannot defeat the humans without the interference of Eywa. Could it be that Eywa is just a non-evil organic version of Skynet? Is Eywa an incredibly powerful supercomputer which can be accessed by the Navi?

I think that this is as good as any theory on the "science" of Avatar. It would certainly explain gravitational "flux" which wreaks havoc with the human electronic equipment and which allows the gravity defying Hallelujah Mountains which float in the air with seemingly nothing save for this mysterious flux to hold them up. If some intelligent species evolved on a world where the gravitational and magnetic fields were so screwy that an entire mountain could just hang in mid-air, it might make it hard for them to develop human-style electronics. Any technology that such a species might develop would likely be organic. It's not a huge leap to imagine that some cataclysm—like say, a self-aware organic computer wiping out the existing civilization—resetting all life on Pandora and allowing it to be remade in the image of an all-powerful artificial intelligence which directs its evolution until all that life is part of the giant self-aware computer which first paved the way for its creation. They might even give it a name and make it their deity. Intelligent design sci-fi style or more aptly in the words of Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: A Space Oddyssey, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Bender's Back Baby!

Maybe there's something to this whole Twitter thing. Twitter is where I just learned that Comedy Central has just ordered 26 new episodes of Futurama to be aired sometimes in 2010. Awesome news; Futurama was my favorite show for years and it's exciting to know that it will be back.

For Firefly Fans

Quantum Mechanix produces sci-fi memorabilia, including a lot of Firefly stuff. I'm not affiliated with this company in fact I don't even own any of their stuff. Having said that, I do follow their blog and was very interested to see their Map of the Firefly/Serenity universe. It's pretty elaborate and they also went to the trouble of creating this guide (PDF file) to the history of the Fireflyverse as a companion.

It makes for some pretty interesting reading. They postulate the Firefly system is a small star cluster of five stars and seven brown dwarfs. They also introduce the concept of "helioforming," by which brown dwarfs and very large gas giant planets are compressed and ignited to form artificial stars. It also talks about the terraforming process for the planets on this show suggesting that it would be necessary to compress planets and moons to make them dense enough to raise their gravity to that of Earth's and give them a second rotational axis to simulate the change of season that comes with Earth's 365 day revolution around the sun. It has some pretty interesting and attractive ideas to me and makes for interesting reading for fans of the show.

Continuity Error, Or Mistaken Identity Extra?

There was a "blink and you've missed it" moment in last week's Battlestar Galactica episode where the camera pans around the CNC and shows a woman who looks very much like Anastasia Dualla, Lee Adama's ex-wife who committed suicide in "A Disquiet Follows My Soul." I don't think that this is stock footage of Kandyse McClure, the actress who played Dee that somehow slipped past the continuity police. The woman in last week's episode looks a little "butcher" to me and is wearing a uniform that I've never seen Dee wear. But people on Usenet are asking and it's only fair to compare.

Unidentified (but sure looks like Dee) black female from last week's "Islanded in a Stream of Stars:"

Dee from "A Disquiet Follows My Soul:"

I dunno, maybe.

Trek Through Time Sequel Is Coming

About a week ago, Rick Kelvington, author of the excellent Trek Through Time mash up, e-mailed me a link to the picture you see in this post. Rick's original Star Trek/Dr. Who mash up was one of the best I've ever seen and I'm looking forward to next one....

Blood on the Scales—One Journey Ends

"Blood on the Scales" was an interesting conclusion to the coup which began in "The Oath." With the series ending, the possibility of the bad guys winning, felt very palpable last week. But "Blood on the Scales" dispenses with this very quickly. Just as last week we saw the coup unfold in very straightforward manner, this week we saw it unravel in a similarly straightforward manner. While last week was plot driven action story, this week was more of a character piece as we see each character choose sides and react to the facts on the ground.

We begin where we left off last week with Tigh and Adama knocked out by a flash grenade and captured by marines loyal to Gaeta while Narcho rushes to destroy Roslin's Raptor. Unfortunately for the rebellion, Hotdog is flying with Narcho and insists on playing it by the book and delays attacking long enough so that Roslin can broadcast one message. Hotdog refuses to fire on the Raptor and it escapes as Narcho's missiles hit the Rebel Baseship.

Onboard the Rebel Baseship, Roslin must battle Cylon skepticism the only way she knows how, with an impassioned speech. Last week Roslin and Baltar got into it with an argument over the way each of them has exploited religion during their careers. This week Roslin is preaching the Gospel of Bill Adama.

Gaeta and Adama confront each other again with Gaeta telling Adama to tell Roslin to surrender. Adama defiantly removes his admiral's pins and refuses. By this time the Baseship has moved into the fleet and cannot be attacked. Gaeta orders the ship be isolated and prepares for the human fleet to make a jump.

As with last week, we are being told the time. Tom Zarek and Colonial One arrive at 1116 hours—roughly four hours after the mutiny began. Zarek is joking with Racetrack. Starbuck and Apollo are spying on them as they board the ship.

At 1118 hours Roslin is trying to make another broadcast. This time, Gaeta's people have successfully blocked it. In the brig Helo is still unconscious and the Cylons are still awaiting their fate. Gaeta and Zarek are still disagreeing over tactics. Gaeta's idealism mixes with his past to form the rebellion's Achilles Heel. He insists on a trial for Adama. It's important to keep in mind that Gaeta himself was secretly tried for collaborating with the Cylons on New Caprica so part of his desire to "do the right thing" is colored by this fact. Is Gaeta really interested in justice or does he merely want to take out his pain on his former commander? I doubt that even Gaeta knows for sure.

By 1131 hours Tyrol is skulking down Deck D Corridor 2. He hides as Romo Lampkin, Baltar's lawyer from the end of season three, is escorted down the hall.

By 1148 hours Zarek is charging Adama with treason among other things and he make Lampkin his lawyer. Zarek appoints himself as judge. Adama continues to be defiant and sarcastic. He knows the trial is a joke and refuses to cooperate. As Roslin continues to try get through to the fleet, a Six updates us on their situation. The fleet has scattered and the Baseship is surrounded by Vipers some of which are trying to provoke the Baseship to attack. Tyrol sneaks into a large vent.

By 1222 hours Zarek is speaking to the Quorum. Much like Roslin talking to the Cylons about Bill Adama, asking them to give him time to retake Galactica, Zarek talks to the Quorum about Felix Gaeta, telling them that he's the man to turn around the fleet. But ultimately, he's less convincing than Roslin. The Quorum asks Zarek to leave. Zarek asks a couple of marines to execute the Quorum. It's a stark contrast between Gaeta, calling for trials and pulling his punches with Adama and his people and Zarek, ruthlessly slaughtering his political rivals. When we first meet Zarek, he is in jail for terrorist acts and even after being made Vice President, he never hesitated to dabble in a little violence for example conspiring to assassinate Adama and Roslin on Kobol. Tom Zarek is nothing if not consistent.

"The Truth is told by who ever is left standing."

—Tom Zarek

As he leaves and the shots begin to ring out Zarek sends Aaron Kelly to get Gaeta. By 1245 hours, the Quorum is dead. Gaeta is shocked. Zarek tells him some uncomfortable truths about how coups work and how they require ruthlessness. He also makes it clear that Adama has to go.

As Tyrol crawls through Galactica's access tunnels, I can't help but be reminded of Star Trek's Jeffries Tubes. These little tunnels where the unsung heroes of the show, allowing the good guys to go wherever they needed to go to save the day when the Enterprise on the many occasions when it was taken over by bad guys. Galactica's access tunnels are *a lot* smaller and much dirtier than Star Trek's Jeffries Tubes.

By 1248 hours the Cylons want to jump away. Roslin continues to rattle off rousing speeches off the top of her head and she continues to preach the gospel of Bill Adama, holding him up as the last hope for both humans and Cylons. The big subtext here is that Roslin and Adama are, not merely lovers, for all intents and purposes they are practically husband and wife at this point. And it really shows in the conviction that Roslin uses when she builds Adama up as an almost mythical figure.

Unlike Star Trek's Jeffries Tubes, Galactica's access tunnels do not allow Tyrol to escape. After all his hard work Tyrol finds himself staring at the barrel of Kelly's gun as of 1305 hours in the Munitions Locker. He jokes about his predicament —a Cylon in the middle of an anti-Cylon rebellion at the mercy of an armed anti-Cylon rebel. Kelly joins him in laughter and in nostalgia for Galactica's better days. Kelly lets Tyrol go.

Now is as good a time as any to go over Kelly's history on Battlestar Galactica. We first meet him during the original BSG mini-series, as one of the officers (Gaeta is the other) who tell Adama what an honor it has been to serve under him. We later see him briefly serve as CAG when Lee sides with Roslin when Adama overthrows her. It's not a distinguished tenure as it becomes immediately apparent that Kelly is in over his head as CAG. His military career ends when it is discovered that he is planting bombs and trying to kill Baltar during his trial. So it's interesting to see him Adama's side here when he was initially released from the brig because he was trusted to side with Gaeta. As with many of the major characters, Kelly is a screw up who is seeking redemption. Kelly has screwed up more than most and he doesn't have the advantage of being listed in the show's credits so the general impression is that he probably won't make it out of this episode alive....

Lampkin tries to convince Adama to sign a statement of his innocence. Adama won't even dignify his trial with his testimony. Lampkin reminds him that he has people who are fighting for him and urges him to stall as the guards com for them.

Pee breaks aren't supposed to be deadly but they can be if Starbuck is sneaking up behind you and wants your gun....Back on the Baseship Baltar is sulking.

1337 hours—Starbuck and Apollo argue over the best way to take out the guards at a holding cell. A grenade distracts the guards and great hair twins take them out. Apollo also has some fun at her expense when he reveals that the didn't pull the pin on the grenade. They bust the Cylons out of their cell. A fire fight in the corridor leaves Sam shot in the head and near death. Lee and Tigh go after Adama.

1342 hours—As expected, Adama's trial is more a shouting match than a legal proceeding. When Zarek is informed that the imprisoned Cylons have escaped, he announces that Tigh has been killing during an escape attempt. You have to admire Zarek's ability to lie on his feet. This gives Gaeta some more determination and Adama doesn't want to talk anymore. Zarek declares him guilty and just as chaos is about to ensue, Roslin manages to get through on the wireless again.

As Starbuck struggles to get Sam to Dr. Cottle, she receives help from an unexpected source. Lampkin is being walked out by a twitchy guard who winds up being stabbed with a pen. While he's reluctant to help Starbuck at first, he finally relents.

By 1435 hours Gaeta is back in CIC and finds out that at least ten ships have shut down their FTL drives in response to Roslin's message. He orders that the remaining ships be given jump coordinates and ordered to jump. He also orders Adama's execution. More tension between Zarek and Gaeta.

1447 hours—Adama is being walked to his execution by marines. Kelly is at the back of this pack. He lags behind, sitting at the Wall of Remembrance. He throws away his gun and begins to cry.

Apollo and Tigh arm themselves as Athena stands guard and Tyrol continues to crawl through access tunnels. They find Kelly who is eager to help. He gives them the location of Adama's execution and insists on coming with them.

Adama is shot in a dream by Baltar. It seems that Baltar is feeling guilty about his cowardice despite having a Six who is eager to pleasure him. But he doesn't see his most recent escape as an act of cowardice. He admits that he hates the people who form his cult for their superstition. But he also feels responsible for them and wants to go back for them.

1502 hours—Adama is about to be executed.

1524 hours—Roslin makes another broadcast from the rebel Baseship. Gaeta's hands are shaking as he drops Adama's admiral's pins on his desk and orders Narcho to carry out the execution. "Yes sir," he responds with Tigh's gun pointed at his head. Adama is free and he's pissed. Narcho is apologetic but his hatred for the Cylons won't let him follow Adama's orders. Tigh is about to kill him but Adama orders that he be tied up.

Tyrol has found a bigger access tunnel and is now moving more quickly—a little like a chimp striding along a grassy field.

Zarek responds Roslin telling her that Tigh and Adama are dead and demands that she surrender. This only makes her angrier. She vows to "use every cannon, every bomb, every bullet, every weapon that I have down to my own eye teeth to end you. I swear it. I'm coming for all of you!"

1528 hours—Gaeta is not happy about Zarek's antics in CIC. He orders a jump. But Tyrol has reached the engine room. He's locked out of the FTL control so in classic BSG fashion he starts taking the FTL machinery apart. By now, Adama has a rather large phalanx of troops heading for CIC. As the FTL goes offline, Zarek begins issuing orders but Gaeta is feeling nostalgic instead. "One day soon, there's gonna be a reckoning" he says to himself just as Adama said to him earlier. Gaeta orders a weapons hold as Adama storms CIC bloodlessly. It's over and Gaeta knows it.

"Restaurants shaped like food."

—Felix Gaeta

1532 hours -- As Tyrol looks over Galactica's FTL machinery, he spots a massive gash in its walls. Adama and Roslin have an emotional reunion. Gaeta talks about his youthful ambitions with Baltar. It's hard to tell at this point if this interview is actually happening in real life or in Gaeta's mind as a kind of final statement of how he wants to be remembered. The next scene is Gaeta and Zarek facing a firing squad commanded by Adama. They smile at each other and Gaeta's stump stomps itching as the squad fires.

I'll say one thing about BSG, it always surprises. This episode was surprisingly contemplative, exploring its characters through their reactions to Gaeta's attempted coup. Certainly the depth of Roslin's feelings for Adama are never shown more clearly than they were here. Gaeta's idealism and sentimentality almost certainly doomed his coup from the start. He consistently pulled his punches, blunting Zarek's ruthlessness at every turn. Had he simply executed Adama on the spot when he took over CIC he would have had a better chance. But Roslin's anger and determination when she was told that Adama was dead suggests that even if Gaeta's coup had succeeded, it would have been followed by massive bloodshed.

Indeed it's hard to imagine this coup ending any other way and not just because the good guys were on one side and the bad guys were on the other. The human race on this show is down to a little more than 36,000 people. The more they divide among themselves, the easier they are to pick off and the more likely they are to kill themselves off once and for all.

So we're back to the status quo or what passes for the status quo on Battlestar Galactica. Bill Adama is the commander and Roslin in the president. Presumably a new Quorum will be elected. It will be interesting to see who winds up in the brig and who is forgiven for their transgressions. Kelly who miraculously appears to have survived despite having the word "redshirt" written all over his face is likely to have earned his freedom. Racetrack, who has been around since season one, is likely to be trading in her flight suit for whatever constitutes prison colors in BSG. Up in the air are the fates of Helo and Sam. They probably survived since we didn't see them die on screen but if we never see them again, it is pretty easy to assume that they died given the severity of their injuries.

The biggest question is where Galactica's journey will end. Earth has been eliminated as a new home for the moment. Cavil's Cylons are still out there hunting humanity. And we still don't know a whole lot about the Final Five Cylons and their role. The remaining episodes will certainly have a lot of ground to cover.

The Oath—Attack of the Day Players

One of the difficulties of an episode like "The Oath" that involves a significant portion of the cast turning on the rest is that unless it calls for a series-ending bloodbath (which given BSG's track record and the fact that this is it's final season, is not out of the question), it will require a lot of little-seen day players to come to the forefront. Because of this, a lot of the effectiveness of such an episode will depend on people who normally get only one or two lines per episode if they appear at all. Luckily for BSG, this show has been around for a long time and has a large supply of day players and red shirts.

First and foremost among these secondary characters whom must rise to the occasion is Felix Gaeta. While Alessandro Juliani has always given a nice, nuanced performance in the role and Gaeta has been on the show since the beginning, until recently he has always been a second tier character who mostly labored in the background. Perhaps this is why he has slowly ascended in status and air time over the years, because the writers needed to build someone up to take the fall when the main characters would have to be put through the crucible. Ron Moore is a harsh master indeed.

Our story begins at 0620 hours in the Admiral's Quarters. In his podcast, Moore explains that the purpose of these chirons announcing the time and location was to make the episode feel more fast paced and to give viewers a sense of the scale of the ship. The latter worked very well for me, making the ship feel like a giant set of interconnected shooting galleries—sort of like the environment of a first person shooter. The former however was a little less successful, while Gaeta's machinations as he orchestrates the mutiny become fascinating upon repeated viewing, in the first viewing the action feels a little slow.

Last week's problems are still with Galactica, the civilian ships are still resisting the Cylon upgrades which Adama feels are needed to keep the fleet going. Roslin has effectively abandoned her post as president for the time being and Bill is shouldering the load by himself. But they are happy. Bill and Laura have essentially settled down and are openly a couple. Neither makes an attempt to hide their relationship despite Tigh's obvious discomfort with it.

Twelve minutes later Gaeta shows up in the brig to spring Tom Zarek and the mutiny is underway. As they plot, the first seeds of dissension are being sowed in the co-conspirators. In discussing the Quorum, Zarek without mentioning his name brings up the idea that Lee Adama will have to be killed and Gaeta balks suggesting that Zarek can "push his buttons."

While Laura is still reluctant to get back into politics, she can also sense Bill passively-aggressively trying to push her back. While she stands her ground initially, their conversation suggests that his silent prodding is starting to work. She'll be back sooner rather than later.

In the hanger deck, Racetrack complains about a fuel leak and has the deck evacuated to clear the way for Gaeta to take over. Laird complains that Zarek's shuttle has no permission to take off. While Gaeta tries to smooth things over, Zarek takes a more direct approach, killing Laird with a heavy wrench to the back of the head. Skulls has more lines here than he has had over the entire course of the series in declaring "good riddance" to the former Pegasus and now former Galactica deck chief. Gaeta and Zarek argue again as one of Baltar's chippies witnesses the murder from afar. Zarek's speech about how revolutions can be stopped by even the slightest hesitation suggests on possible way that this mutiny will end.

By 0704 hours, Gaeta is in CIC providing cover for Zarek's escape and setting his plan into motion. Gaeta suggests that the DRADIS is failing and convinces Adama and Tigh to take it offline for a diagnostic. By 0741 hours, Zarek is back on Colonial One claiming that Admiral Adama has backed down. In a gym on Galactica Seelix brings up her non-relationship with him as a ruse for the mutineers to kidnap our favorite Cylon ex-jock. The beat down is brutal but they let him live and take him prisoner in accordance to Gaeta's plan.

Back to CIC. It's now 0809 hours and Gaeta reports a fire onboard close to ship's main antenna array. This fake fire harkens back the series pilot where a fire onboard breaks out during the initial Cylon attack. Recall that eighty-five deck hands were killed in that scene when Tigh ordered the burning compartments to be vented and exposed to space to stop the fire. So shipboard fires are a serious matter on Galactica. Gaeta suggests that because of the location of the fire, which could potentially cut off Galactica's communications with the rest of the fleet, might be the result of sabotage. Adama agrees and orders that a Marine fire team accompany the damage control team and that the deck be evacuated.

There is a blink and you missed it moment in this scene as Adama calls a young crewman, Private Jaffe, by name. I missed it the first time that I watched this episode and it turns out to be an interesting if not critical reveal as this boy who has never been seen before is now marked for death because we know his name at a time when a lot of people are expected to die.

By 0812 hours Starbuck is making fun of Hotdog for his new son in the Jr. Officer's Quarters. Vernon Costanza (Vernon? Really?) comes back and Kara can't take what she dishes out. As the evacuation order comes in Kara is suspicious and talks to Narcho. His brusque reaction makes her even more suspicious and when she spots civilians raiding the weapons locker, it's pretty easy for her to put two and two together. She tries to report it to CIC but Gaeta gives her the brush off.

Back on Colonial One Lee tries to call Adama about Zarek's release and is again cut off by Gaeta who claims to not know anything about the release. Zarek makes an attempt to manipulate Lee into joining him but it's pretty easy for Lee to see through it. He chooses instead to return to Galactica and thus walk into a trap. This is something of a personality trait for Lee, clever insight and idealism mixed with impulsive stupidity. On Galactica Gaeta reports a crisis as the "fire" has spread and cut off Galactica's external and internal communications.

By 0902 hours, Lee is back on Galactica being beat up by Skulls and some marines. It seems that Gaeta's confederates aren't fond of Lee. Defending Baltar at his trial and cutting a deal with the Cylons can do that -- they prepare to kill Lee. Luckily for Lee, Kara has been itching for an excuse to start shooting people and kills the marine who has a gun to Lee's head. She also shoots Skulls and a Caprican stand off ensues. Lee and Kara escape as Racetrack tends to Skulls but she's eager to be followed.

Athena is feeding Hera when Helo hears some commotion. It's too late as the mutineers break in take Athena and the kid and one of Thorn's (Thorn was the torturer from Pegasus who tried to rape Athena and was killed in a fight with Helo and Tyrol way back in season two) friends has Helo beaten bloody and senseless. This is interesting as it's the first time that main character is really hurt in this episode. Normally, the viewer response would be muted as Helo is probably an important enough character that you don't expect him to die. But this is the final season of BSG and they pretty much announced that people were going to die when Dee offed herself two episodes ago. So there is some genuine concern that Helo might not make it out of this one alive.

It's still 0902 hours by the time Starbuck and Apollo make it to Dry Stowage 5-3A-01. A typo? Or is Dry Stowage 5-3A-01 merely right next to the hanger deck? Either way, it feels confusing given that we just switched from Lee and Kara to Athena and Helo and back to Lee and Kara. Presumably these events are happening at the same time but you'd think that more time had passed. Anyway as Lee worries that they might have already lost, Kara plants a big kiss on his lips as she signals that the original Starbuck, the hard-drinking, hard-fighting hotshot who likes to frak around is back and that Apollo needs to come back too. They decide to go after the president.

By 0908 Tigh is furious at the lack of damage reports and Mr. Hoshi is starting to report inconsistencies between the ship's own sensor readings the claims that a fire is ravaging the ship. Gaeta tries to finesse things by claiming that the sensors might have been damaged by the fire but Adama sends Jaffe down to check on the damage control team.

Athena and Hera are hustled into a cell with Caprica Six and Sam Anders. Caprica is terrified thinking that they will be killed but Athena is confident that the mutineers need to keep them alive to use as bargaining chips against the rebel Cylons. As far as explanations of why these main characters have been spared go, it's a pretty good one.

By 0913 hours Starbuck and Apollo are fighting their way down Deck F Corridor 6. The scene is appropriately chaotic as they try to reach the president.

By 0922 hours Private Jaffe reports back there is no fire. Gaeta is forced to call on the marines loyal to him to take over the bridge and take Adama prisoner—likely sooner than he intended to do so—so he is probably improvising at this point. The marines have itchy trigger fingers and as the only named red shirt in sight, Jaffe is quickly cut down along with several marines who are not part of the mutiny. Gaeta is doing his best to keep the body count down but Adama isn't going quietly.

They confront each other. Adama talks about loyalty and the oath and how they've crossed a line from which there is no coming back. And Gaeta says some uncomfortable truths. He talks about Adama being blinded by sentiment and loyalty to his Cylon XO. It's interesting that while Gaeta is essentially right about Adama's blindness he picks the target wrong target. Adama is in fact much more blinded by his relationship with the Laura Roslin than by his relationship with Tigh.

In any case, Adama and Tigh are taken prisoner along with other senior staff, including Mr. Hoshi. The latter is curious as anyone who has seen the most recent BSG mini-sodes knows that Gaeta and Hoshi are a couple. Of course, the mini-sodes weren't filmed until after the series ended, so some continuity errors are to be expected. Of course one could argue that Gaeta and Hoshi's relationship ended following the mini-sodes and before Gaeta hatched his plot. As the mini-sodes are set after Galactica abandons Earth, it's a tight fit timewise. The only room for the mini-sodes would be in the week in between "Sometimes a Great Notion" and "The Disquiet That Follows My Soul."

By 0925 hours Starbuck and Apollo have reached the president and fill her in on the details of the mutiny. Laura's first thought is of Bill and it propels her to action. The steely politician is back.

By 0934 hours Gaeta's confederates are struggling to establish control of the ship. Many of them lack experience with the operation of Galactica's huge CIC and their progress is slow.

By 0942 hours Baltar is preparing his escape and making excuses to the members of his cult. Tyrol is helping to organize them to possibly defend the compartment. Being fanatics, they buy his cowardly lies hook, line, and sinker. Tyrol is considerably calmer and more organized. Starbuck and Apollo bring the president to Baltar's compartment where Tyrol informs her that the Admiral has been arrested. Tyrol offers to help get them and Adama off the ship, "the old man deserves a better fate than what he'll get from them."

By 0947 hours Adama and Tigh are still being walked down to the brig. Adama talks to one of the marines, Neward, about his role in the assault on New Caprica. The other marine, Maldonado, is less talkative. Adama works him over verbally, forcing a confrontation, daring them to kill him. Tigh attacks Maldonado and Adama takes Neward's gun and shoots Maldonado. They take Neward prisoner. If Jack Bauer and Tony Almeida from 24 were old men, they'd be Bill Adama and Saul Tigh.

Roslin talks to Baltar. She wants access to his wireless unit so she can address the fleet. Roslin talks smack about the sincerity of Baltar's conversion and Baltar points out that Roslin herself was rather religious when it suited her politically. She concedes that, "maybe we're both frauds and this is our last chance to atone."

By 0956 hours Tigh and Adama are prowling the halls of the ship, spying on the mutineers and interrogating Neward.

By 1012 hours the fleet is calling in to Galactica asking what is happening. Gaeta talks to Zarek. He's disappointed that Adama is still alive. They are interrupted by a wireless broadcast by President Roslin. She calls for peace with the Cylons, reminding the fleet that there supplies are dwindling and insisting that the alliance with the Cylons is humanity's last hope. Gaeta's co-conspirators are unable to stop the broadcast, forcing Gaeta to abandon his post to do it himself. The fleet starts calling for Roslin when her broadcast is finally cut off.

By 1017 hours Starbuck and Apollo find Tigh and Adama. Starbuck wants to kill Neward and they let him go instead. Starbuck is furious, "They are not you men anymore. They are your enemy!"

By 1021 hours Roslin and Adama are in a secondary storage bay where Tyrol is preparing their escape. Baltar suggests that they both chose their aides poorly when they were president.

By 1023 hours Starbuck, Apollo, Tigh, and Adama are in Waste Water Stowage. Apollo and Tigh argue, tensions between Cylon and human are high even in Adama's extended family.

At 1027 hours Baltar tries to call Gaeta. He begs him to stop and brings up Gaeta's reason for having attempted to stab him with a pen during Baltar's trial. Again, this brings us to the recent BSG mini-sodes which also address the pen attack. Gaeta notices an unaccounted for Raptor. It's Tyrol's escape ship.

By 1032 hours the Raptor has reached the Secondary Storage Airlock. And so have Starbuck, Apollo, Tigh, and Adama. Adama and Roslin share a disturbingly passionate kiss. Tigh and Adama arm themselves and tell Starbuck, Apollo, and Tyrol to leave. They prepare to make a final stand against Gaeta's people as Roslin and Baltar escape in the Raptor. It's an impressive yet incongruous sight, two badass old men arming up for a gun fight.

By 1041 hours Roslin's Raptor is in flight. Gaeta pauses before he orders it shot down.

As Gaeta's men begin to breach the bulkhead, Adama calmly opens fire and settles down for a fight. Gaeta's men through a grenade through the breach and it goes off as the screen fades to black and the words "to be continued" flash on the screen.

Other than Clint Eastwood in Grand Torino and the occasional Die Hard sequel by Bruce Willis, action movies are generally a young man's game. One of the advantages of Hollywood's emphasis on youth is that a lot of older movie actors often become available for television roles. It's hard to imagine Jamie Bamber and Katie Sackhoff—even though they are both good actors—pulling off this confrontation with the style and aplomb that Edward James Olmos and Michael Hogan show here.

And it's not just a man thing. Broadcast and cable television is full of older Oscar caliber actresses like Mary McDonnell and Glen Close. Who says there's no upside to ageism?

One last issue that I'm interested to see addressed is whether Roslin's absence from her duties as president facilitated and encouraged the mutiny/coup. I would say that it did, if there was ever a time when the fleet needed its president it was when Earth turned out to be a nuked wasteland. Of course, Roslin was hit as hard, if not harder, than anyone else by this and she had been weakened by cancer and chemotherapy. But it's hard not to think that her funk created a vacuum that helped Gaeta and Zarek's uprising happen.

In the end, "The Oath" is a powerful and stylish start. Whether the payoff will be as strong is an open question. I'll have to stay tuned.

The Tick—A Superhero Show About Nothing

I'm not sure when exactly The Tick came out on DVD but I've been watching it recently. Based on a successful comic and children's cartoon, it was an ideal, if unsuccessful (it only lasted nine episodes) vehicle, for Seinfeld's Patrick Warburton whose clueless alpha male persona is perfect for the role of an indestructible but dimwitted superhero. Despite having been a relatively short-lived sitcom, The Tick in many respects fits quite neatly into the zeitgeist of it's day with a similar feel to that of more successful 90s sitcoms like Seinfeld and Friends. You rarely saw its superheros doing anything heroic, they would usually just sit around at a restaurant talking about their lives, their relationships, and their jobs. (How exactly do you fill out a report explaining that you had to stop a fifty foot cow with flaming teats by throwing a dump truck at it?)

Perhaps this is the reason why this show was so short-lived—most viewers would expect to see superheros actually performing acts of heroism. But the show also had other problems. It could be uneven at times with some episodes trying unsuccessfully to use superheroes and their sidekicks as a metaphor for something else like homosexuality or relationships. But the show ultimately worked best for me when it really explored its premise—the mundane side of being a superhero.

My favorite episode, The Tick vs Justice, did this very well. This episode follows the trial of "Destroyo," a super villain captured by The Tick and Arthur. The preternaturally dense Tick is quickly found to be in contempt by the judge and put in jail. This leaves Arthur who has no super powers beyond the ability to fly with his winged suit vulnerable to Destroyo's henchman with no one except Bat Manuel (who is really only into the superhero thing because chicks dig the suit) to protect him. Destroyo meanwhile takes advantage of attorney client privilege to brag about his crimes and tries to convince his guards to commit suicide. But Destroyo meets his match in Captain Liberty, a needy super heroine who sees his psychological manipulations as a way of scoring some free therapy for herself. But ultimately Destroyo is foiled not by the Tick's super strength or by the justice system but by Arthur who uses his past as a doughy ballet dancer to get him to confess his crimes in open court. When Destroyo is freaked out by Arthur's taunts of "dance, fat boy, dance" it makes for a hilarious climax to the episode.

Overall, The Tick is hardly a classic TV show but it was an enjoyable little comedy that was always watchable and entertaining.

A Disquiet Follows My Soul—Hard to Rate, Hard to Hate

Battlestar Galactica probably reached an all-time emotional low last week with Sometimes a Great Notion and they continue to wallow in that emotional trough this week as well. Despite its darkness, this week's episode is surprisingly quotable. I don't know how much of the dark humor in this episode was intentional—Ron Moore's podcast this week suggests that at least some of it was—but I found myself strangely amused by everyone's pain in this episode.

"Try looking with your eyes...eye."
—Doc Cottle to the one-eyed Saul Tigh

Unlike last week's episode with its many revelations, this episode was a more slow-paced mood piece. And while the mood is largely foul, little things tended to stand out; little things like Bill Adama stooping over to pick up trash—quick trivia bit, in the podcast for this episode Ron Moore says that he had the wardrobe department fit Adama's costume with pockets so he'd have someplace to put the trash he was picking up and Edward James Olmos loved lording the fact that he finally had pockets over the other actors whose uniforms lack them (military uniforms without pockets, talk about unrealistic)—a sign that he's finally back after descending into despair last week. Cottle and Tigh smoking in front of a pregnant Caprica Six was particularly hilarious.

This brings us to Felix Gaeta who is about as bitter and angry as a one-legged man who has been systematically robbed of all his hopes and dreams and seen his die one by one can get. His increasing distrust of the Cylons builds gradually through this episode leading to a pretty impressive conclusion. His verbal brawl with Kara was hard to watch but helps to prepare us for the reveal where we see Gaeta cooperating with Tom Zarek. Zarek's return as a political antagonist is exciting both because of his history with both Bill and Lee Adama and because he is played by Richard Hatch who played Apollo in the original BSG. Hatch has grown a lot as an actor in the thirty years since the original series and it really shows in his performance this week.

"Their technology—our technology—is way ahead of ours. Yours."
"Maybe you'd like a chart to keep it all straight."
—Tyrol and Tigh

Galen Tyrol has been on a pretty rocky road since discovering that he is a Cylon and has only become more and more isolated from his human crew mates as is seen by his pronoun troubles. This only continues as Tyrol advocates for citizenship for the Cylons in exchange for using Cylon technology to upgrade the fleet. It's interesting how as his arc has progressed, Tyrol has remained an advocate and an activist. When we first meet him in the pilot, he stands up to Tigh and is outraged when his plan to save the ship costs the lives of eighty-five of his Tyrol's own deck hands. On New Caprica he is a union leader as well a leader in the resistance against the Cylon occupation. Back in the fleet, he leads the Tylium ship when they form a union to fight for better working conditions. And here he is again this week fighting for the Cylons to be included in the colonial fleet. While the circumstances of the character have changed drastically since the pilot, the man remains the same. His trust and respect for Admiral Adama also remains the same.

Tyrol's discovery that Nikki isn't his son serves two purposes, it helps to further isolate him and push him into the Cylon camp and it keeps Helo and Athena's daughter Hera as the only Cylon-human hybrid.

Laura Roslin is still pretty low but as she stops taking her cancer drugs she finds that she has more energy and slowly begins to climb out of her pit of despair with a little help from Bill. She's basically neglecting her duties as president to jog, work out, and be happy and Bill is letting that happen. It's an interesting look at how the "old man" thinks. He's very sentimental and is willing to let the rest of the fleet suffer a little for the sake of his loved ones. Even from the first season, he deployed the entire fleet to look for Starbuck when her Viper was shot down. Now he is letting the situation in the fleet get worse to give Laura time to feel better. Even Tyrol trusts that he'll sacrifice the fleet to keep his oath as an officer.

"So I guess a pity frak is out of the question then?"
—Felix Gaeta

If there is someone more bitter and angry than Gaeta, it's Kara Thrace. Starbuck is also perhaps the one person whose life is in greater turmoil than anyone else on the ship. She's angry and mean and bitter and it's not a pretty sight.

Zarek uses Roslin's absence to manipulate the Quorum into passing an anti-Cylon resolution which allows ship captains to resist Cylon upgrades. There is a lot of emotional appeal to his argument and not one bit of reason to it. But it works and Lee as the lone dissenter on the Quorum is outvoted. It's precisely this chaos which makes Laura's unwillingness to return to duty so critical. And while Adama tries to make her face this reality, he ultimately relents and lets her go on ignoring her duty a little longer.

"What manner of forgiveness are you seeking? Is it that of disobedient children? Are you children? Obviously you're a child. We have some children here. But to the rest of you..."
—Gaius Baltar

Baltar and his cult are back and with the recent setbacks, his hedonistic message is growing more popular. It also makes a fine backdrop for Tyrol to confront Hotdog, Nikki's real father. Emotions are already running high and Tyrol and Hotdog's fight triggers a near riot. Baltar just sits back and smiles at the chaos—a subtly masterful bit of gallows humor.

"I don't know anything about being a father."
"It sucks, except for the parts that don't."
—Hotdog and Tyrol

Tyrol introduces Hotdog to his son. They will take turns watching him in the hospital. Hotdog gets the first shift which Tyrol informs him will last until he sobers up. Ah, alcoholism and child neglect—it's comedy gold!

"You know there are days when I really hate this job."
—Bill Adama

Zarek's resolution triggers a crisis as ships start refusing Cylon help. The Tylium ship mutinees, killing a Cylon and two marines. The Tylium ship jumps away with Zarek's support. Adama has Zarek arrested. In the brig, a game of chicken ensues. Adama tells Zarek that he has enough dirt on him to ruin his reputation. His logic is that Zarek will happily die or go to prison as a martyr but is terrified of being outed as a corrupt politician. He wants the location of the Tylium ship and Zarek gives it to him. Again a serious scene ends with a comedic beat as Tigh takes a peak at the Zarek's crime file. "Laundry reports?"

But Zarek has one last card to play as it is revealed that Gaeta is planning a mutiny with him. But again the seriousness gives way to a moment of levity or at least relief. As the news of the Tylium ship's surrender arrives, Adama and Roslin are in bed to together it's both sweet and weird at the same time. Usually depicting sexuality among older people is used a joke on television. And the depiction of a cancer victim in bed with a lover is pretty unheard of. It's a remarkable end to a difficult episode. After having hit bottom last week, the crew of Galactica is slowly coming back.

The Transformers

IO9 recently put up the pilot of the original Transformers cartoon, a show which I loved as a kid. It brought back some good memories. Even if the toys were kind of lame, I loved the show so for no reason at all here it is:

The New Season of Chuck

It's fall and the new television season is beginning—slowly. Hulu has been trying to speed things up a bit by hosting sneak peaks at returning shows. So far the pickings have been slim but they just put up the first new episode of one of my favorite shows from last year, Chuck. It started a bit slowly as the first half of the episode was essentially a recap of the show's premise for newbies. But things picked up quickly and packed plenty of action and character development for all the characters. 

IO9 Says Goodbye to Battlestar Galactica—Listen to Ron Moore Lecture

IO9, the scifi blog for people who kinda, sorta like scifi has a couple of posts on BSG which feature videos of Ron Moore talking about the creative process of creating the show. (Didya know that the idea for the Cylon religion came from a network suit?)

http://io9.com/5033030/bsgs-producer-discusses-corporate-religion

A second post shows behind the scenes videos from the final episodes of BSG.

http://io9.com/5032614/a-glimpse-inside-the-filming-of-battlestars-final-episodes

Thoughts on Dr. Horrible (Now With Spoilers)

Joss Whedon's new web series Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog is a curious and bold experiment. Inspired in part by the success of web series like The Guild, it's probably the first web show by a "name" producer that isn't an ancillary show designed to promote an existing mainstream series.

As a producer who's had mixed success with movies and television, Joss Whedon is a pretty logical choice for experimenting with the web as a content platform. His work has always had a distinctive blend of genre spanning humor, action, and tragedy. Dr. Horrible is no different. Starring TV veteran Neil Patrick Harris as Billy (AKA Dr. Horrible) is video weblog of the rise of a wannabe supervillain. Not only is it jam packed with veterans of other Whedon series (it even includes two news anchors who are played by long-time Whedon writers David Fury and Marti Noxon); it is also full of the hallmarks of Whedon's work: great dialog, a sardonic sense of humor, and tragic twists and turns.

The show opens with a video weblog of Dr. Horrible answering his emails dropping hints about his latest nefarious scheme. But he's distracted by Penny, an adorable little redhead played by The Guild's Felicia Day (who also played Vi on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) with a social conscience and a fondness for frozen yogurt. For example his attempt to hijack of a shipment of "Wonderflonium," the missing ingredient of a "Freeze Ray" which Dr. Horrible is building to stop time, is foiled by his nemesis superhero Captain Hammer when he stops to chat with Penny. I say "foiled" in a very loose sense because Dr. Horrible actually does manage to steal the Wonderflonium even as he inadvertently helps Penny and Hammer meet when Hammer "rescues" her from a runaway van by throwing her into a pile of garbage.

Even though he's a superhero, Captain Hammer is the real bad guy in this story. Played with smarmy glee by one of Whedon's favorite leading men, Nathan Fillion, Hammer is a total douchebag whose only superpower is the ability to hit things very hard. He's mostly into the superhero business because it's a convenient excuse to beat people up and hit on women. Nevertheless, Captain Hammer does do some good. He helps Penny get a new a building for the homeless shelter where she works. He also taunts Billy mercilessly when he finds out that he has a crush on Penny.

Since this is a Joss Whedon production, tragedy strikes at the least expected moment. It seems to me that there are two basic Whedon heroines, the bad girl with daddy issues who is at the front and center of the action and always triumphs in the end even in the face of multiple deaths. The other kind of Whedon heroine is the sweet girl whom usually plays second fiddle to the lead and either evolves into a bad girl or dies tragically. (One of the few reliefs of the quick end to Whedon's brilliant series Firefly is that we never got to see what Whedon had planned in store for Kaylee.) Penny is clearly the in the latter category and dies tragically when Dr. Horrible's death ray malfunctions and sends a hail of shrapnel in all directions.

This event is essentially the origin story for Dr. Horrible. While he existed before it happened, he was basically a joke. He was The Trio from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer -- a big nerd who wanted to be a supervillain because he felt alienated. But just as Warren, the leader of The Trio, turns becomes truly evil once he kills his ex-girlfriend Dr. Horrible similarly becomes truly evil when he kills Penny. This exploration of the origins of good and evil is the most interesting hallmark of Joss Whedon's work and Dr. Horrible pulls it off quite with a lot of panache.

Overall, Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog does a tremendous of blending comedy and tragedy in an appealing musical format.

More Fictional Characters Running for President

With Laura Roslin throwing her hat in the ring. That makes two characters from Battlestar Galactica running for president. Of course if we're talking about desperate times. Settling for a lesser evil might be a mistake. Thus, it might be time to turn to some alternative candidates.

Pondering the Planet of the Apes

Astrobiology Magazine interviews Australian Cosmologist Charley Lineweaver. Lineweaver uses the movie Planet of the Apes to illustrate some of the misconceptions about evolution and its implications for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). It's a pretty fascinating take on how our expectations are shaped by science fiction and on the rareness of human intelligence. No other species has evolved the way we have and even though animals like dolphins have their own form of intelligence, no one expects them—or any other animal—to start building radio telescopes any time soon. And yet we are far closer to the animals we with which we share the Earth than we will ever be to any alien civilization that might exist. Which is what leads Lineweaver to the following conclusion:

"But I still believe that the best evidence we have suggests that we should not expect to see human beings anywhere in the universe except Earth. We should not expect to see Indian elephants or any other forms of life that are genetically, functionally and cerebrally similar to us. I strongly suspect that our closest relatives in the universe are here on Earth, and they’re not likely to be elsewhere."

I used to have the SETI screensaver running on my computer while I was in college. Over the years, I've grown older and more cynical but I still love stories like this one about the possibility of life in the universe.