raven | Battlestar Galactica - 1.12/1.13

First of all, I have spent a wildly entertaining few days exchanging emails with

shipperkitten about Battlestar Galactica, and the shared squee has been keeping us both amused. We both got into Stargate fandom this way, staying up late squeeing at each other, so it's been a nice nostalgic trip into fannish joy. We're good friends, but we move in entirely different circles of fandom, and tonight I realised why this is. She likes het, I like slash, she's into ship fic, I like plotty angst, she likes media, I like fic, etc., etc. It's perfectly clear that we both manage fine on our own, but if we presented a united front, we would so take over the world. It would be too easy. Hence the divine intervention that results in our never agreeing on anything.

Watched the BSG season finale tonight. Oooh. What a cliffhanger! I suppose if he's coming back for another season then Commander Adama can't be dead, but it bloody well looks like it. (No pun intended. Ouch.) I like him as a character, though not in these two episodes; staging a coup? Now? Is this the right time to risk bloodshed within the fleet? I like Roslin, too, and just don't think she's capable of handing the military mind.

I'm beginning to wonder about Gaius and Six. Maybe there is no chip. Maybe he's just crazy. In Hogfather, Terry Pratchett describes Teatime's mind like so:

"[He] had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvelous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken."

This, to me, could apply to Gaius very well indeed. What he is now, paranoid and guilty and hallucinating, is the shattered remains of a once-brilliant mind. I'm pretty sure the Galactica crew and the President know that he's insane, but they need him and he does occasionally manage to hold it together, so they're just putting it out of their minds.

But let's say Six is real. Then where has she taken him? And why, for the first time ever, is he happy and ready to do what she tells him? And the obvious question - is the mysterious "child of the gods" in the crib Caprica!Boomer's baby? It seems unlikely, as Caprica!Boomer and her (unborn!) baby are on, well, Caprica.

Also, re: Cylons getting pregnant. Let's get this straight. They're made of flesh and blood. They're autonomous beings. They can concieve. They have faith in their God and loyalty to their people. They can fall in love. They're fanatics. They're human. I mean, I'm sorry, but surely by any definition of the word, they are human beings? The biological definition of two separate species is two individuals who can't breed to produce viable offspring. Judging from Caprica!Boomer, they're the same species.

And Boomer as assassin! I didn't think she would actually kill herself, but equally I didn't think she would wake up from being a sleeper agent.

Starbuck was brilliant in this entire episode, but in the way she treats Apollo, best of all. I knew Gaius/Starbuck would happen, knew it, and and her yelling out Lee's name at the wrong moment just added a whole new dimension of fucked-up to it. And then Apollo is such an ass - she's absolutely right, she doesn't owe him a damn thing, so why's he picking a fight? And I'm sure I bounced a little when she punched him.

Later on, the way she never gives up against Six - that's fabulous. The hand-to-hand combat was a pleasant surprise for a Buffy fan - no fancy moves and martial arts, just punches and kicks with no art to them, because there's no artistry about trying to break someone. Which is what Six was doing to Starbuck, undoubtedly; a brutal scene that really works. I have to quibble about the odds of Helo being in exactly the right place at the right time, but still, that works too. And Starbuck's imminent crack-up at discovering Boomer's a Cylon rings true. There's no way you can just go on like that without crashing and burning at some point.

So, yes. Great episode. Great series. Roll on the next season!

And as per the meme, these are the pairings I would right at this moment drop everything for:

Gaius/Starbuck
Remus/Giles
Doyle/Cordelia
Giles/Ethan
Daniel/Sam
Sirius/Remus
Remus/Hermione
Daniel/Sha're
Hawkeye/Trapper
Willow/Tara

Five het, five slash. I'm strangely impressed by myself. What do they show about me? That I like friends-becoming-lovers, and not really much else.