Chris Dwan

Tag: tee-vee

  • Galactica

    What did I like about early Battlestar Galactica? (and don’t give me any of that medieval crap, I’m talking about the new BSG):

    1) “Smart” is the currency of the realm. Whether you’re Baltar or ZereK … if you’ve got a couple of decades of getting crap right under your belt, people just do what you tell them to.

    2) Starbuck. Starbuck runs the fighter pilot shop because, until she loses her edge, she’s the hottest pilot, the best poker player, and the toughest roughhouser in the fleet. I mean seriously, long hair is what gets grabbed and stepped on in a fight! No serious fighter would walk around with a ponytail!

    3) Adama. A man lives with his choices. Every day. Yes, he’ll kill a hundred to save his ship. And yes, he’ll make his XO pull the trigger in order to maintain his authority. He’s Adama. He fought the toasters once, and beat them. He’ll beat them again. His crew love and fear him because he’s right, time and again.

    4) Roslin is doing her best, but it’s the best of the Nth in line. She has authority because it’s right and its the law, not because she’s particularly good at what she’s doing. Once she goes all high-priestess on us … things go downhill.

    5) God has a plan, and that plan is the Cylon plan. The idea I love most that humanity is on the run from their created species – and that God loves that new creation more than the original. The Cylons seem to have this direct tap into a supernatural will. They don’t know, really, what they’re doing any more than the humans. However, their theology still works where ours died ages ago.

  • Grudging fan-ship

    After watching the “Demon Hand” episode of the new Terminator TV series, I am grudgingly going to admit that I’m a total fanboy. Bring unto me the next episode.

    It started off with the fact that Summer Glau rules. She’s the odd, quiet girl who knows kung fu. She’s River Tam and she’s the Terminatrix. As with Starbuck in Galactica, that’s enough to have me paying $2 a pop to download it, though not enough to order cable … the “devil’s highway” does not have an exit at my apartment.

    This episode though … it got me right between the eyes. The vindication of seeing the truth after decades of being called a liar. Revenge, a perfect right cross to the nose, after decades of waiting. The simple fact that realizing the truth of the world in all its awful glory is enough to reverse the roles of crazy and sane. The themes of “mother will always love you.”

    But finally the idea that the ultimate punishment inflicted on the human prisoners in the machine regime is to be shown machines making art beyond human art. To be brought to the realization that humans … in the very depths of our humanity … have been replaced. That the machines feel passion beyond our passion, as much as their speed and strength are beyond our strength. Perhaps that they commune with God more directly than we do.

    As long as that special and unique spark of humanity was sacred, they could keep fighting. Once they realized that a truly superior being had evolved … what else was there to do, and why?