Preface
I’m a BSG virgin.
Going into this new series, I only knew these few facts about BSG:
- It was about robots,
- one of the robots was Tricia Helfer,
- and basically everyone on the Internet hated the series finale.
So, yeah. I have that to look forward to.
Naw, to tell you the truth, I was super-excited that you folks picked Battlestar Galactica for me, and it was with gleeful anticipation that I snuggled up on a friend’s couch to watch the miniseries.
That glee was immediately dashed to the ground, its blood-glistening brains left to dry up on the floor. Because, my friends, Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries may be the bleakest, most misanthropic piece of television I have ever seen.*
That isn’t to say I don’t like the show, of course!
But that’s what I want to talk about today, in this first of a many part series on the new BSG. Bleakness. Depression. Ennui. Despair. Misanthropy.
Mmm! Sounds fun! But first, let me recap the miniseries for those of you whose minds haven’t been colonized by Cylons lately.
*Well, except for Neon Genesis Evangelion, maybe. Anyway, the race is close.
Battlestar Galactica The Miniseries: The Recap
Once upon a time, millions of people lived on twelve colonies somewhere in the vast expanses of Space. Those millions of people invented robots, called Cylons, which became sentient and decided to kill their masters for some reason. The Cylons and humans fought a war, and the humans won. Hooray! Hooray for humantity! Only good things can happen from now on!
Ha. Fooled you! You thought this show would be optimistic. But that was just the prologue!
Because now, the robots have come back, and some of them look like peoples! And some people who believe themselves to be humans are really sleeper Cylons waiting to be activated! And every time you kill a human-looking Cylon, it doesn’t matter, because they have copies of themselves and can transport their consciousness from one body to another by some kind of robot-Internet!
Man, Cylons are overpowered. And what do they do with these nearly-magical powers?
Easy. THEY BLOW UP EVERYTHING.
My notes: Hmm. That's kind of bleak.
But, lo, is that some hope on the horizon? Is that the Battlestar Galactica? Yes! Yes, it is! The luddite’s dream, the galaxy’s only analog spaceship! If everything else in the Twelve Colonies was a Mac, the BSG is a PC. Except it can’t get viruses because it doesn’t have a wireless network.
Because the Battlestar Galactica is so outmoded (it was actually a flying museum before everything got nuked) and so well-insulated (it was used in the previous Cylon War), it’s the only human-inhabited thing in the galaxy the present-day Cylons can’t manage to destroy. On this ship are:
- Commander Adama, who was supposed to retire yesterday but ha ha the irony,
- Colonel Saul Tigh, his second in command, who I will refer to from now on as “Colonel John McCain,”
Colonel Tigh doesn't believe in mandates.
- President Laura Roslin, who is played by—oh God, yes!—the first lady from Independence Day,
- Lieutenant Starbuck, who is already my favorite character,
- Captain Lee “Apollo” Adama, the General’s angsty son,
- Lieutenant Sharon “Boomer” Valerii, who is REALLY A ROBOT OMG,
- Specialist Cally, who is being set up as the “Kaylee” of this mission,
- Petty Officer Dualla, the red herring (OR IS SHE?!?!),
- and some other people whatever who cares.
Sidebar:
Let me make special mention of Dr. Gaius Baltar, who gave the Tricia Helfer-bot (a.k.a. Number Six) access to the government mainframe in exchange for hot robot sex yada yada yada. That’s not what I care about. What I care about is his absurd likeness to Dr. Julian Bashir, a character from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a show written in part—wait for it—by Mr. Ronald D. Moore.
Consider the following. Dr. Gaius is a scientific genius with a Britishy accent whose ladies’ man-ish charms and arrogance hide a dark and well-guarded secret. Dr. Julian Bashir is a scientific genius with a Britishy accent whose ladies’ man-ish charms and arrogance hide a dark and well-guarded secret. Consider them side-by-side.
WTF Ronald. WTF.
<End sidebar.>
So, Commander Adama, the world has just ended, you were supposed to retire, and humanity has just been added to the endangered species list. What are you going to do now?
A) Fight the robots!
B) Hide somewhere until you figure out how to fight the robots!
C) Pick a new planet in a new galaxy far, far away from the robots to colonize and start human civilization again from scratch.
D) Go on a mission to find some mythological planet that no one knows about and that you admit probably doesn’t exist, all while the robots continue to chase you.
Did you say D, Commander Adama? Ooh! So close! (That was Olmos right. Get it? Olmos? Get it?)
And that’s the end of the miniseries. Some other things happened along the way—New President Lady started a convoy, Starbuck punched out Colonel John McCain and saved Lee’s posterior, Tricia Helfer is possibly living in Baltar’s MIND—but you get the picture.
Now let’s overthink this bitch.
Moore, Moore, Moore, How Do You Like Me?
You don’t know me, Ronald D. Moore, but I’m getting the feeling you don’t like me very much. I’m not only talking about me, of course. I’m talking about humanity. But I’m part of humanity, sir, and I do not care for your tone.
Don’t take my word for it, readers. Here are Ronald D. Moore’s words, coming out of the mouth of none other than Mr. Edward James Olmos:
“You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question ‘Why?’ Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed and spite, jealousy, and we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we’ve done, like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. And when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn’t our fault, not really. You cannot play God and then wash your hands of the things that you’ve created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can’t hide from the things that you’ve done anymore.”
In other words: Way to suck, humans! You got yourselves into this mess and deserve to die! DIIIIEEEEEE!
All right, I’ll admit, I’m not being completely fair. Fine: these aren’t literally the words of Ronald D. Moore, even though he wrote them. They are the words of Commander William Adama. Maybe Ronald D. Moore doesn’t believe that all of humanity deserves to be blown up by crazy robots. But it’s clear that Commander Adama sorta does.
The question is, Why? Well, let’s put on our “psychoanalytic glasses” and find out, shall we? Commander Adama is still struggling with the death of his son. His other son, Lee/Apollo, hates him and blames him for his brother’s death. Ergo, we can see in this speech the following SAT-style analogy:
Robots : Humans :: Apollo : Adama
Robots are to humans as Apollo is to his father. Humans played God by creating the Cylons; Adama “created life” by having two sons. Then one son died trying to live up to his father’s expectations. The Cylons rebelled against their creators; Apollo turned against Adama. Adama tried to comfort himself in the knowledge that it wasn’t his fault—but that was before. Now he realizes he must be judged. For some reason, he has taken his own self-hatred to a whole new level: he believes that ALL humanity should be judged for its sins, as well.
Way to bleak, Commander Bleakerson.
Hey, Adama. Hey. Look. I know you’re depressed here, and I know you feel bad about your messed up home life, but you’re going a leeettle too far. At some point, a father cannot be held responsible for a son’s actions. We don’t jail parents for their adult children’s crimes, for example. Nor should we. Adult children are sentient and thus able make their own decisions. What I’m saying is, Yes. At some point, especially several decades down the line, we should be able to wash our collective hands of the things we’ve created.
Listen, I like Freud more than your average psychologist and even I believe that the Freudian excuse only goes so far. Example: a father beats his son, so his son grows up to beat his wife. Is the father at fault? Well, obliquely, he is. But the son made the decision to buy the belt, to smack his wife with it, to avoid therapy for his anger issues, and so on. The son goes to jail for this particular crime, not his father.
To say that parental sins=>child rebellion/sin is overly simplistic. Let’s not essentialize human behavior and psychology. Yes, statistically-speaking, abused children tend to grow up to be abusive adults. But—and here’s the crux of my argument here—THEY DON’T HAVE TO. To say otherwise would free them from all responsibility and render our modern legal and ethical systems useless. People aren’t robots. Their parents can’t program them to do anything. Humans have free will. It seems to me that Cylons do, too, but we’ll have to wait and see if that’s the case. And if they have free will, then they, not their parents, are responsible for their actions.
If Robots, Then Apocalypse
Adama’s argument is wrong for other reasons, too. The premises of Adama’s above speech are thus:
- Humans are sinful.
- The sins of the son (the created) are to be blamed on his father (the creator).
- THUS: The evils of the Cylons (the created) are to be blamed on humanity (the creator).
- ERGO: Humanity deserves to be punished.
If we take this argument to its logical conclusion, however, we get a paradox. Lookit:
Premise A
- IF all humans are sinful AND
- IF the sins of a son are to be blamed on his father,
- THEN all sins are ultimately the fault of one ancestral father (a “moral Adam,” if you will). In other words, if I can blame my dad for my sins, then he can blame that sin on his dad, who could have blamed that sin on HIS dad, and so on and on and on forever until you reach back to the first sentient man.
Premise B (for the believers)
- IF the sins of a son (the created) are to be blamed on the father (the creator), AND
- IF you believe in a creator God
- THEN the sins of this “moral Adam” are to be blamed on humanity’s creator (a.k.a. God).
Premise C
- IF all sins of humanity are the fault of either a “moral Adam” OR a creator/God, THEN
- Modern humans are not to blame for their sins (Daddy did it! God did it!), AND THUS
- Modern humans should not be punished.
Premise D
- IF the Cylons are evil, AND
- IF the sins of the created are to be blamed on the creator,
- THEN the sins of the Cylons are to be blamed on humanity AND
- Cylons are absolved of their crimes AND
- Humanity deserves to be punished.
BUT!
Premise E
- IF (as per Premise C), all of humanity’s sins are the fault of their creator (God or a “moral Adam”) AND
- (As per Premise C) Humanity is absolved of its sins, THEN
- Humanity DOES NOT deserve to be punished AND
- The Cylons should not punish them.
In other words, if you buy into the premises Adama outlined in his speech, you shouldn’t believe that the Cylons’ actions against humanity are justified. Logically-speaking, the Cylons shouldn’t be trying to kill modern-day humans at all. They should be killing God.
Conclusions
I guess this is all just a roundabout way of saying that, even though I found the BSG miniseries very intriguing, it didn’t adequately outline the Cylons’ motivation for me. Why, exactly, do the Cylons want to hunt down every last member of the human race? Commander Adama, as we just saw, has some ideas about fathers and sons and playing God and whatever, but I just explained that they don’t really make much sense. Anyway, if humanity “sinned” against the Cylons, what does that even mean? What sins did the “father” visit upon the “child”? What did the humans actually do the Cylons to make them so mad? We don’t yet know.
Moreover, what sin could possibly be so bad that it would require the Cylons to kill not only the specific sinners but ALL of the human race, including that baby Number Six killed and that cute, innocent girl left in the Botanical Gardens to die? That’s like saying that because SOME gorillas kill other gorillas, ALL gorillas deserve to be nuked. As an environmentalist, I have to say I can’t stand by that argument.
Something Adama can stand behind.
In short, I want to hear a specific motivation out of a Cylon’s mouth, and I want it soon. And I want that reason to be good. Because if the motivation is some version of Adama’s, “well, all humans are bad and sinful; obviously they should die!” I’m going to be annoyed. I’m a fairly cynical person, but I’m not going to want to watch a series that is essentialist and misanthropic at its core.
Mlawski’s Predictions (Week 1):
- The Cylons’ motivation is that they’re acting on a program some disgruntled SkyNet employee stuck in them.
- The show will turn out to be a Judeo-Christian allegory that doesn’t QUITE make sense. (Earth is Eden? The ship is Noah’s ark? Number Six is Jesus?)
- Just as Gen. Adama defeated Apollo in the miniseries by hugging him, the Cylons will be defeated by the power of humanity’s love.
- Lee/Apollo will turn out to be a Cylon, pushing Gen. Adama from clinically depressed to some kind of badass lunatic out for revenge.
- Even though you would expect there to be at least ONE therapist on the BSG to help the characters deal with their grief over the apocalypse, there won’t be.
- There will be no mention of the fact that Edward James Olmos is a Latino.
- Just as I started saying “Frick!” after watching too much Scrubs, I will start saying, “Frack!” after watching too much BSG.
A Note: Welcome, new readers! For those of you who didn’t read my Overthinking Lost posts, know that I love love love comments, even if they only point out how stupid my original posts are. However, I must ask you to follow two rules when you comment:
- Play nice. Feel free to disagree with each other, but no name-calling or needless nastiness.
- No spoilers. I’m a freak about spoilers, and even though I know at some point I will be spoiled about one thing or another, I’d prefer if you don’t spoil anything for me here. This rule isn’t only for my sake; some people might also be reading these posts as they watch BSG, too, so let’s be considerate of them.
Also, if you ever have any BSG-related topics you’d like me to overthink, please tell me. I can’t guarantee I’ll answer your question immediately, but there will most likely come a time when I can’t think of a topic for overthinking and will need your help.
Phew. That said, comment away! Otherwise, see you in two weeks!