"Ellen's Hissy Fit" better title than "Deadlock"

Television, Movies Games and Books BSG-2003
#1

Am I alone in being pretty disappointed with this episode? I’ve been reading around this morning on the webz and seems like an increasing amount of voices wondering what Jane Espenson was thinking.

First off, let me say that I really can appreciate the fact that they let Michael Hogan express a level of emotion he hasn’t been able to before. I realize it was a great performance (as was Tricia Helfer’s) and wouldn’t take that from him.
But why, within 5 or 6 episodes of the end, are we dealing with another character story like this?

And Ellen? Last episode, they spent a lot of time establishing who she really is. I would call her a motherly, noble, caring person capable of almost infinite forgiveness. Then we get her back to Galactica and it’s the same old Ellen with a touch of “Days of Our Lives” thrown in.

Caprica Six losing her baby was foreshadowed (with zero subtlety) early on so we were expecting that to come any second.

…and regardless of security needs on Galactica, giving weapons to Baltar’s Angels? What?

#2

I was not disappointed with it at all. I seriously loved Ellen in this episode. I think that many women would react the same way given the situation - not rational but very realistic. I think Ellen’s personality is just more layered now than it was before but she’s still the same person.

#3

I agree.

I love the character moments, that’s what makes the show for me, and I can’t see a better way to take us to the end (through getting even more into the character relationships).

#4

I understand it this way:

Ellen immediately after resurrection = Ellen on pot :stuck_out_tongue:

Ellen stuck with humanity in the crappy, cramped fishtank called Galactica = The REAL Ellen :eek:

#5

i agree with both of you. i thought it was a great episode, well done, and necessary. but. after giving us so much last week, with only 4 or so left… this episode felt out of place. it felt like something that would have been great in the middle of season 3 or something.

i think that this episode was necessary in that i dont think that you could of had ellen return to find cap 6 and tigh together, and resolve it in one scene. and it was great to see head six back finally. but it felt somewhat out of place within this fast-pace drive to the end.

#6

Wow, exactly… I was still trying to figure out what I was thinking, when you just said it. It didn’t feel like we actually moved towards a conclusion, or got any more answers, which sucked… but there were some great character-moments… and some pretty funny moments, too (Head 6 and Baltar arming themselves with bigger guns… and Tigh “not trusting machines”)

#7

The way Kate Vernon said, “you got her pregnant” was just incredible. She was so shocked, in such disbelief, such… I can’t think of the words. Amazing work

I agree, it would have been a disservice to devote less than a full episode to a marriage thousands of years old in such a place.

#8

This episode featured one clearly standard old fashioned Soap Opera element; Saul Tigh’s extramarital affair with Caprica-6 and that bit of cheesy sexual drama that followed. That head game she played on Tigh and Caprica where Ellen pretended to vote to for leaving Galactica and Saul insists on staying, even if both Ellen and Caprica-6 go. Thus it is, according to Ellen, revealed that it’s Bill Adama and Galactica that Saul loves more than either Ellen or Caprica-6 or his own baby.

It’s old fashioned soap stuff. Some other old fashioned soapy cliches I can find in Galactica: Amnesia (the Final Five had their memories blocked) previously-unknown children (Ellen only recently learned that the Cylons are in a way her children), siblings and twins (of the evil variety) are there in more abundance on Galactica than you’d ever see on a soap. Established characters come back from the dead to upset and reinvigorate the relationships (a character’s death is not necessarily permanent even when you see an on-camera corpse in both soaps and on Galactica). Unexpected calamities disrupt weddings, childbirths, and other major life events with unusual frequency in both soaps and on Galactica.

Okay, it’s not all soap, but Ellen she seemed to be in one.

More here:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2009/02/all-my-cylons-these-are-days-of-our.html

#9

You’re figuring this out now? :stuck_out_tongue: heheh…

Wait till you see Caprica

#10

I have always thought that BSG takes soap operaism to a whole new level based on the complications the Cylon copies cause, like a 3D chess version of a soap opera. Where else can a character sleep with her son that is a copy of her father and not even know it? (Cavil knew however) And the love “triangle” between Chief, Helo and Athena that is a copy of Boomer when they came back from Caprica.

I have noticed from looking over my wife’s shoulder while she is watching her stories that Grey’s Anatomy has a head character storyline.

#11

I think BSG’s reliance on such “soap opera” tropes separates it from other science fiction shows. I’m not saying that unique is necessarily a good thing in this case…the melodrama is pretty much the one thing I don’t like about the show (except for a few times where it worked for me). But yeah, this week had me rolling my eyes like back in Season 3. :rolleyes:

#12

I thought that Hot Dog fathering Nicky (to neatly remove the child from Tyrol’s responsibility) was super-soapy, but I take the good with the bad on BSG. I know that right now they’re trying to nail certain things down in time for everything to fly apart, such as why the FF are staying and the nature of a fleet that is truly blended.

#13

I think the episode would have been better if Ellen’s story had been the B plot rather than the A plot.

I like Ellen, but I’ve never been all that invested in her, and the writers never asked me to be. Before, she would show up for a scene or two, stir crap up, then fade into the background, leaving Tigh to deal with the fallout. Now, for the past 2 episodes, she’s the most important being in the universe and I just can’t care. I want to know about the other characters, the ones I’ve been watching for since the beginning. The Cylon family drama, while beautifully played by all of the actors, just doesn’t feel to me like the best way to spend one of the final episodes.

I agree with everyone that Ellen’s reaction to Tigh/Caprica was realistic. I just wish that I’d had to watch less of it.

Oh and anytime Tory wants to go play in the airlock, that’s fine with me.

#14

I thought this was the worst episode of BSG in its entire run…now, that IS a great run so it still is head and shoulders above every other show out there. The one shining beacon in all of it was Tigh and his multilayered performance.

It started out with such promise and then just went splat…in a nutshell, here’s my problems:

  1. Laura gets to play Queen again and decide if Ellen can see her people…I would have loved to see her deny that.

  2. What the frak was Cap Six doing in Dogsville to begin with?!

  3. I thought the whole head six thing had been put to rest - granted it was in deleted scenes, but come on

  4. Repeated…repeated…scenes of Bill looking at the interior of the ship, loaded and unloaded…

Now, I’m not trying to be a hater, all I’m saying is that we’ve only got a few eps left, Baltar has suddenly been armed, and cans of stinky worms are still being opened!!!

Oh, and we WERE promised Opera House fun in the trailer to Deadlock now weren’t we?!

#15

The endless shots of Adama/Galactica were a bit gratuitous, and yeah, the Cylon drama doesn’t work for me on the same level as the characters I love that have been pushed aside just about since 4.5 began, with the exception of the great mutiny that seemed to put my favorite people back in the saddle.

There were some really powerful moments, but it seems like an awful lot of time spent on one topic only when the remaining time is so limited. I understood sliding Cally and Nicky out of Tyrol’s life, for example, but I hope there’s an actual impact felt from Liam’s death besides what already happened, and it better not be “Okay, Saul and Ellen are back together!”, because it’s so much more INTERESTING this way.

I did love Baltar’s scenes, from his attempt to lead his flock again to his humanity managing to bust through again when he sees a little Gaius (that’s not his son) to HEAD SIX, whcih I will not be letting go until an explanation is reached to the sheer fury to the sons of Aeres (or however BSG spells it) stealing food from innocent people. I’d love to know how he sold Adama on giving civvies high-powered weaponry beyond what was said.

There was a good 15 minutes or so I just lapped up, but bringing Ellen back from beind such an interesting character to petty old Ellen from before… at which point does a FF ACT like a scientist who rediscovered the tecnology to live forever?

#16

The episode would seem to be almost essential in consideration of wrapping things up. A lady who is seemingly barren created the skinjobs. She couldn’t have children with her husband so she built her own. Only with her doing that were the previous hundred or so episodes even possible.

This shows how nature and creation can be corrupted. Ellen loved her children, especially her “first born” John Cavil. Without John Cavil getting jealous, the Final Five not only would not have wound up on the 12 Colonies but the Cylon Holocaust wouldn’t have happened.

While some think the episode was awful, I think it is necessary to tie the whole story together. BSG is a program animated by love in one form or another. Whether it is the marriage that transcended time and space between Saul & Ellen, the strange love between Starbuck and Lee, or Athena & Helo with Hera we see that love has animated several stories throughout the program’s run.

Besides, without action by Ellen and the others of the Five, humanity wouldn’t have necessarily been nuked like we saw in the mini. Ellen meant the best but helped put the wheels in motion for the nuking. The line by Caprica Six in the mini that humanity’s children had come home is shown now to be patently false due to Cavil’s machinations…

#17

I prefer the title “As the Erf Turns”.

#18

I’m more of a “One Life to Live Unless You Can Resurrect” fan.

#19

Ellen is as a god. A Greek one, and persnickety as they. It is just like Hera (the Goddess) to act as she did; Zeus, too–both of them would say “Frak Humanity! You knocked her up?!” The “gods” (Tigh and Ellen, too) have both had sex with their children (Ellen did Cavil) which also fits with the Greek myth. I liked the ep.

#20

Jarathen FTW! :smiley: