Gaius Baltar

Even though Baltar plays a significant role in the Miniseries, I postponed discussing him until "33." Part of the problem is that I just wanted to move past the miniseries and I think "33" is a reasonable place to start a discussion on Baltar, since he more or less comes into his own in this episode. I also kept getting stuck writing about him because I was caught up on the sleeze / coward factor, and so I was running out of things to say.

Although a large part of Baltar's character is defined by deceit and rampant egotism, focus on this makes him pretty one-dimensional. Baltar is actually a pretty complicated guy, and his belief system changes radically over the course of the series.

So let's focus on the nasty bits first, because that is where the fun lies.

In the Miniseries Baltar immediately comes across as untrustworthy when he flirts with the news anchor interviewing him. (To quote from My Fair Lady, "Oozing charm from ev'ry pore, he oiled his way across the floor.") Baltar is a womanizer (I realize some male readers of this blog might not consider that a bad thing). A large part of his womanizing is characterized by "do anything, say anything." (I suppose, actually, that is a defining feature of womanizing.) This explains, of course, why he inadvertently participates in the death of billions by giving away the defense mainframe codes to some babe so that she would sleep with him.

He is, however, capable of great charm, which is not always obvious in the series, but certainly explains his success with women. His flirtation with Starbuck over a card game ("Water") is fun to watch, and he is one of the few people who actually beats her at cards. There is a strong air of sexual frisson throughout, and she is very provocative when she blows cigar smoke in his face. Of course Starbuck is a strong personality and can pretty much give as good as she gets from Baltar, which I assume increases their mutual attraction.

As we all know, Baltar's personality is dominated by self-interest. (At the end of the Miniseries he says, "I am not on anyone's side.") He is cowardly and he lies constantly, although he is caught often enough to make me wonder why he continues to do it. I wonder if he is modeled on Zachary Taylor from "Lost in Space," but I haven't seen the original Battlestar Galactica, so I have no idea how closely he resembles the original Baltar. Two or three times each season, though, he shows great compassion or says something that demonstrates genuine concern for others. (For example, his conversation with Boomer during "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1.") It is something of a surprise when this happens, but it saves Baltar from being a complete caricature.

In the Miniseries, as Baltar escapes Caprica, the Six that only he sees makes her first appearance. (BTW, for the purposes of this blog I will simply refer to her as "Six," since all the other Sixes have names. This Six is called "Sarah" by Baltar, but only once ("Home, Part 2"), and I didn't even catch that until something like the 400th viewing of the episode in question.

Six is very beautiful, very sexy, walks like a model, and usually wears amazing dresses. With her white-blond hair she is radiant in contrast to Galactica's grubby surroundings. This is beautifully shown in "33" when she is setting next to Baltar on Colonial One, looking at the couple opposite. Baltar is rumpled, sweaty and a total mess. She is serene, beautiful, and relaxed, as if this was an ordinary flight.

The Baltar-Six interactions also create a lot of comic relief as Baltar often carries on two simultaneous conversations and then has to try to integrate seemingly odd behavior and statements into the "real" conversation. (As Roslin says in "33," "He's a strange one.")

The billion-dollar question, of course, is who, or what, is this manifestation? Baltar himself doesn't know, although he sometimes seems to believe that she is "an expression of my subconscious mind working itself out in a waking state." (Miniseries) Season 3 also implies a psychological origin, since there are references to Baltar taking meds ("Collaborators" and "Torn"). The settings for Baltar's conversations with Six also veer back and forth between Baltar's physical location and other, more pleasant, virtual locations that exist, presumably, in Baltar's imagination.

Galactica, in general, is wildly inconsistent about Six. It doesn't make sense for her to be an illusion cooked up by Baltar's psyche because she knows a lot more about Cylon strategy than Baltar can possibly know. She is clearly tied to actual events, and often seems to control the outcome (Miniseries and "33" to name but a few examples), but later in the series it is clear that the "real" Cylons aren't aware of her either. She also has moments when she is unseen but physically present. For example, in "Epiphanies" she pulls up Baltar's tie, and in "Escape Velocity" she literally props him up.

A large part of the tension in "33" hinges on whether there is a Cylon agent in the fleet who is responsible for the repeated attacks. Six alerts Baltar to this possibility. Baltar's life also hangs in the balance since a witness to this involvement in the Cylon attack is on the same ship as the Cylon agent. Whether this threat to Baltar is removed is dependent on his response to Six's questions about his relationship with god (sort of like having a Jehovah's Witness on your doorstep). When Baltar finally states that he accepts the Cylon god, Roslin decides to shoot down the ship, eliminating the Cylon agent, and also killing the only person who could tie Baltar to the Cylon attack.

This sequence of events raises some pretty tough questions. First, there is a strong sense that everyone is playing out roles that have been predetermined ("all this has happened before and all this will happen again"). Does this mean that Roslin's agonizing over her decision is pointless because she is meant to order Galactica to shoot down a civilian ship? If Baltar had not made his admission, would Roslin have made a different decision?

This scene plays itself out again in "Six Degrees of Separation" - Baltar repents and 2 seconds later the incriminating evidence is shown to be false and his accuser disappears.

Foxhole prayers are notoriously unreliable, is the Cylon god really so naive as to take them seriously? They are a recurring theme in Galactica, and they do seem to lead Baltar to a stronger commitment to the Cylon belief-system, but assertions of faith made under duress seem pretty untrustworthy to me.

Baltar also keeps making lucky guesses, which again, seem tied to his relationship with Six's god. He fingers Doral as a Cylon in the miniseries based only on speculation about how Doral is perceived by the rest of the crew. He is correct, although he doesn't find out until later. This happens again in "The Hand of God" when he randomly chooses a site on a surveillance photo as the correct target for blowing up the Cylon's trilium refinery. Both events raise questions about free will. What guides Baltar to make random choices that turn out to be critical to the survival of the fleet, given his ambivalence about his place in the human-Cylon war?

Despite the fact that Baltar is on a non-stop emotional rollercoaster, his world-outlook at the beginning of the saga is based on the scientific method. There is no place for constructs such as faith, or belief in an intangible higher power. As the series progresses, Baltar's intellectual foundation crumbles and is rebuilt with a fundamentally anti-intellectual outlook based on conversion to the Cylon god. It's hard to pinpoint a defining moment where he crosses the line. I think finding Hera on New Caprica is a significant point, as well as his experience in the Temple of Jupiter. By season 4.0 he has actually managed to convert some humans, and is worshipped by them as god's mouthpiece. His sermons are mixed with beautiful imagery ("Faith") and completely self-serving statements ("God loves us as we are because we are perfect."). This understanding of god's will also absolves him of any responsibility for the nuclear holocaust on the twelve colonies ("Hub").

As of this writing, the second episode of Season 4.5, Baltar is disillusioned and angry at his god. In "The Disquiet that Follows My Soul" he is preaching while drunk, and sits back drinking and smoking, while ignoring a fistfight. To my mind, Baltar's behavior is reverting back to his old persona from before he became a religious prophet.

James Callis is just a terrific actor. Baltar is such a mess of contradictions, but Callis manages to make him coherent. In spite of the many facets of Baltar's personality, Callis creates a sense of consistency about his character. In each manifestation Baltar is completely recognizable as Baltar (I'm not sure if that makes sense).

My prediction about Baltar's fate, btw, is that he is going to die before the end of season 4.5. It's kind of weird to think about that becaue he is a lot like Rasputin - people keep trying to kill him, and he always manages to survive. 

Miniseries - Roslin and Adama and the path to leadership

Roslin and Adama are on parallel paths that converge at the end of the miniseries. Both are minor players in their respective spheres and both are at critical turning points in their lives. Roslin has just learned that she has terminal breast cancer and Adama is on Galactica, preparing to retire and give up the command of a ship so obsolete that it is being turned into a museum.

Their first meeting on Galactica, before the attack, is not a success.

They are on different ships when they receive news of the Cylon attack, and they each take on responsibilities that expand rapidly as the news deteriorates and the existing leadership structures disappear.

On what is supposed to be his last night as commander, Adama is sitting in his quarters reading when he gets a call from the CIC which has just received word of the Cylon attack. He responds in a matter of fact voice, "I'll be right up," and sits for a moment without moving. From that point on, as the situation becomes more desperate he remains calm and even taciturn.

In Roslin's part of the story, she learns of the attack after breaking down in private as news of her prognosis finally comes home. She immediately goes to the cockpit to find out what is going on, and reaches out and holds the pilot's shaking hand while she reads the news transmittal. This single gesture immediately establishes her as the leader, ready to take command when others are  overwhelmed. In the midst of panic and uncertainty she sets a goal (to find everyone trapped in ships above the planets and lead them to safety) and gives instructions necessary realize it.

Both Roslin and Adama make painful decisions with terrible consequences.

Tigh, Adama's surrogate, makes the most painful decision on Galactica when he vents 85 deckhands into space in order to put out fires that threaten the ship. Afterward Adama makes it clear that he would make the same decision himself, and I never doubt that is the case.

I think this scene is also interesting because Tigh, thrust into the middle of the crisis and forced to quickly make a critical decision, hesitates for a few seconds and looks off at Adama, as if for guidance. Once he makes his decision Tigh is clear and resolute, he doesn't look back. This type of moment happens elsewhere in the series (in "Scattered" Tigh must make several decisions immediately after Adama is shot. Once again he takes several seconds to decide and proceeds only after recalling advice from Adama from an earlier time).

I also like these scenes because the perspective moves to a view of Galactica from space and you can actually see the fires and bodies thrown out into space. In other words, the human costs of this decision are immediately made tangible. This happens at other points in the miniseries when ships explode - it's not unusual to see the pilot's body thrown out of the cockpit. (Aside from all the people thrown out of airlocks, take a look at "Epiphanies." It wasn't until the second time I watched this epdisode that I saw bodies thrown into space.) I always contrast this with "Star Wars" where we see ships blow up, but no person in them seems to get hurt, so the special effects of the explosion give a vicarious thrill detached from pain and death.

In Roslin's subplot the human costs are even higher. Roslin's mission is to find as many survivors as possible, and she manages to put together a fleet of ships holding 60,000 people. Roslin visits one of these ships, a cruise ship filled with families with young children. She promises the captain that she will take care of them, and chats with a little girl. Soon after she makes the decision to abandon this and other ships containing 10,000 people to the Cylons because the ships cannot travel fast enough. Roslin decides to break her promise and in the process condemns the little girl (and thousands of others) to death in the interest of saving the other 50,000 survivors. She sits in the cabin of Colonial One listening to the transmissions of people screaming and begging for help as the Cylons appear, attack, and quickly destroy the ships left behind.

Roslin and Adama also learn almost simultaneously that they are the most senior people left alive after the attack.

Mary McDonnell's body language and posture are very effective at conveying Roslin's state of mind at this moment. When she is sitting talking to Lee about her position (43rd)  in succession, we see her from the side. She is sitting with both feet flat on the floor, wearing black pumps and a business skirt. Instead of wearing her suit jacket she has a blanket draped around her shoulders. Her appearance expresses total exhaustion. At this point she learns that all 42 people ahead of her are dead and she must now be sworn in as president. She sniffles quietly, puts on her suit jacket and calmly says, "We need a priest."

An aside about the swearing-in ceremony - it is deliberately reminiscent of Johnson taking the oath of office on Air Force One after President Kennedy's assassination. This is not the only reference to the Kennedy assassination (at least to my eyes). When Callie shoots Boomer ("Resistance") it is strikingly similar to the news clips of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. Johnson, btw, did not need to be sworn in, the line of succession meant that he became president as soon as Kennedy died. Johnson arranged for the swearing-in ceremony as a symbolic gesture.

Immediately after Roslin becomes president, Adama learns that the rest of the fleet has been destroyed and he is the senior military officer left alive. This is the last of a series of disastrous military reports conveying news of the annihilation of the Colonial military forces at the hands of the Cylons. Olmos continues to underplay Adama's reactions. Dualla is holding back tears as she gives the last transmission to Adama. He reads it, conveys the news to the crew, announces that he is now in command of Colonial forces, and then carries on with little discernable change in manner. Adama's voice is not quite, but almost a monotone, and it works to great effect in this scene.

Adama and Roslin, formerly low on the totem pole, are now in charge.

Each pursues their own priorities until their ships converge at Ragnar Anchorage, where they meet again, and come into conflict over the next move. Adama, a military man, wants to stand and fight, and Roslin, as a civic leader, wants to secure the lives of the remaining citizens.

The meeting is fascinating. It is noteworthy for its banality in the middle of Armaggedon. Roslin sits at a desk on Galactica listening to a report from Billy on problems in the fleet. Adama steps in, Billy stands up to leave, and Roslin tells him to sit down and asks Adama to wait (a nice little power play). Adama sits down quietly, crosses his legs, folds his hands in his lap, and acts as if this is a normal business meeting. In his turn, he calls her "Ms. Roslin" and not "Madame President," (a small subversive action, although expressed civilly). Even the following conversation, although heated, is well within the norms of polite behavior. In fact, the entire scene is prosaic despite the enormous stakes and the passion behind each character's words.

Roslin's statements are powerful ("The war is over, we lost." And "If we are going to survive as a race we'd better start having babies."), and the audience is on her side. The tension is whether, when and how Adama's priority of continuing to fight the Cylons will switch to Roslin's goal of running with the survivors under Galactica's protection.

In the end, Roslin wins out when Adama looks across the CIC to see two young people flirting and echoes her line: "They'd better start having babies." In one of the great comebacks in television history Tigh asks, "Is that an order?"At that point, Roslin's and Adama's separate paths meet and they start to move forward with one goal in mind - to save the remaining population and find a new home.

Miniseries - Opening Scene

I realized that if I was going to do a single post for the entire miniseries it would be the equivalent of 10 pages long (single space). I am already in version 10 of my post and I am not even close to being complete. To make this all manageable, I am just going to put together a post for every "theme" I want to discuss. All the posts for the miniseries will be prefixed "Miniseries - " (duh). I mean, the miniseries is 3 hours long and covers a lot of territory so I feel that this is NOT going to be typical of future posts where I just review one episode. Also, not all episodes deserve the same consideration (Have I mentioned recently how much I hate "Sine Qua Non"?). 

OK, although I don't want this to be a recitation of events in chronological order, I do want to write first about the opening scene on the armistice station, because it sets the tone for everything that follows.

The first thing that struck me is that in the middle of this bleak, soulless room, empty except for a desk and a chair, the courier pulls out pictures of his wife and child and places them on the table. Both are smiling and look relaxed and happy. Both photos seem to be taken outdoors, in a natural setting. From the beginning the series creates an atmosphere of menace and immediately juxtaposes that menace with images of people who are unaware of pending disaster.

The courier, with nothing to do but wait until the time is up (because no one ever comes), falls asleep at his desk, literally showing that the military's guard is down. Suddenly the doors open and in step huge metal robots, each with a single red light moving back and forth across a slit where we would expect to see eyes, and capable of turning their "hands" into rapid-fire guns. They step aside to allow a beautiful blond, who is dwarfed by the metal soldiers, enter the room and walk straight to the desk.

She is wearing high-heeled boots, a tight red outfit with a high collar that is buttoned at the neck. She walks like a model, and looks like a Nazi picture of the perfect (albeit alluring) Aryan woman.

She asks the courier, "Are you alive?" He says, "Yes" and she bends down and starts kissing him passionately. There's an explosion, the ship docked to the station is destroyed, she says, "It has begun" and continues to kiss him. The courier's eyes widen in terror and the papers on the desk float to the floor. In space a gigantic ship comes to view looming over the station, and the station is destroyed.

We view everything between this scene and the Cylon attacks on the Twelve Colonies with the knowledge that a catastrophe is about to take place that will destroy these world(s) and their inhabitants.

The most disturbing intimation of disaster is the scene where Six meets a young mother and her newborn baby while walking in a marketplace. We know instantly the baby, the mother, and everyone else, for that matter, will soon be dead. As Six holds the baby and says, "Don't worry, you won't have to cry much longer" we know that she is talking about the baby's impending death in the coming Cylon attack, and not comforting the child as it may appear to the mother. Six murders the child by snapping its neck when the mother's attention is distracted. Perhaps it is an act of mercy, although Six appears conflicted when she hears the mother's screams as she walks away. Galactica doesn't gloss things over - the coming attack will kill everyone, including the most vulnerable and helpless victims.

One of the more subtle features of Galactica is placing people in the background to give texture to a scene. In this scene I always notice the young man with dreadlocks and a Hawaiian shirt smiling and ambling along in our direction, completely unaware that he will soon be dead. 

This foreknowledge also lends an air of irony to Laura Roslin's meeting with her doctor. The doctor tells her that she has cancer and leaves no doubt that the prognosis is death. Of course, in a few hours the doctor will die in the nuclear holocaust, and Roslin will be alive and leading the government. 

A good friend of mine told me that there are certain things you don't get to choose, and when and how you die is one of them. This is certainly the case for this doctor, who is so certain of Roslin's fate and so oblivious of his own.

Admiral Adama

I found it very difficult to write about Adama in part, I think, because so much of his emotional life is below the surface. He appears to be a tough, dedicated military man, and a great leader. In a lot of ways he is the father to his crew (and they show their respect by calling him "The Old Man"). At the same time he is very complicated and difficult to understand because he so seldom expresses his feelings and is terse when he does so. It is really important to pay attention to what he does, since small gestures will betray more of what he is thinking or feeling than anything he actually says. 

I really like Adama a lot, but it is not always obvious to me why.

His speech is even and concise. Although he may raise his voice he seldom yells or emotes (unlike, say, William Shatner on the original Star Trek, who is sort of famous for that). Adama is in control of his feelings most of the time, the episodes where he does lose control are more significant because they are so rare. (I would also add that I think some of these scenes are a mistake, but more on that when I do my evaluation of each episode.)

In one of the podcasts Ronald Moore says that Edward James Olmos incorporated into Adama a practice of not making eye contact. I was kind of surprised because failure to make eye contact is often a sign of deficit in social behavior (autism mom speaking here). In any event, I started looking for this trait when I was watching, and sure enough, he doesn't make eye contact. In Adama's case it is not a failure in social skills, but a deliberate decision not to provide facial clues while he is taking in what others say and making decisions.

I really noticed this in the CIC where they are always standing around the greenish light board in the middle of the room. Adama is usually looking down and his glasses reflect the light and obscure his eyes more, making him something of a cipher. When he is reviewing photos of the resurrection ship on Pegasus, he talks to Admiral Caine but doesn't look at her until she tells him that she is reassigning his crew to her ship. He looks up rapidly at this piece of news, immediately betraying his disquiet.  His response is clipped and even-toned, although it is apparent that he is angry.

Adama's glasses are also a clue to his state of mind. He usually appears relaxed when he is not wearing them, and he seldom smiles unless they are off. His smiles are warm and genuine, and more significant because they are rare. When he is about to announce a difficult or unpopular order or to disagree with someone he often takes them off and looks directly at the person he is speaking to.

For all his reserve, Adama is not afraid to be honest about his feelings. When Roslin tells Adama and Lee that they haven't gotten over Zak's death ("You Can't Go Home Again"), Lee says, "I think she's wrong, we have." Adama looks right at him and says, "I haven't." He says it clearly and succinctly without a lot of drama, while still conveying the depth of his feeling.

A large part of the miniseries and the first season is about Adama's transition from military officer to a much broader role as leader and protector of the community. After the Cylon attack Roslin immediately grasps the implications for the human race and understands what she must do. I think this is in part because Roslin's background is in the political arena. In any event, Roslin understands her place in the new scheme of things, while Adama must learn his.

The first step in the transition takes place in the miniseries. Adama prepares to take on a hopeless military confrontation with the Cylons (who have already destroyed all other military defenses). I suppose you can say that he is acting in accordance with his programming as a military officer, which is to fight the enemy. Roslin, who has spent the time immediately after the attack rounding up survivors, repeatedly points out the futility of fighting. ("How many times do I have to say this? The war is over. We lost.") Adama finally understands when he sees Billy flirting with Dee and repeats Roslin's statement "We gotta start making babies." From that point forward he is committed to the fleet of survivors. 

Later on in the first season Adama removes the civilian government and imprisons Roslin, the acts of a military man used to giving orders and seeing them obeyed. The last episode of Season 1 ("Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 2") and most of season 2.0 are about the frailty of the alliance between the military and the civilian government. The government is disproportionately dependent on the military to keep the civilian fleet safe, compared to the pre-war state of affairs, and Adama has yet to understand his obligations to the civilian government.

There are several themes at work in the episodes, but a critical part is the role played by Adama's expanding insight into his place in the new order of things. His return to Kobol to find the rest of the fleet ("Home, Part 2") is important because it is the second time that Adama has changed his mind and abandoned one course of action to pursue another one. In this case it means swallowing his pride and setting aside the sense that he has been wronged. When he officially welcomes Roslin back into the leadership of the government, he leads the clapping and cedes his position on the podium to her, literally demonstrating the need to have a civilian government with authority over the military ("Home, Part 2"). It doesn't hurt, of course, that Roslin turned out to be right about finding a clue to the location of Earth in the Temple of Athena on Kobol.

From this point on, the military, under Adama, allows the direction to be set by the civilian government (at least as it is embodied by Roslin). This is why he moves to protect the civilian fleet from Admiral Caine, and is also why he is the first to clap when Roslin announces a general amnesty for everyone who has returned from New Caprica ("Collaborators").

When Pegasus shows up, he is unable to go back to the pre-war status quo of limited autonomy and following orders given by his military superiors (of course it doesn't help that Admiral Caine has strong dictatorial tendencies, a contempt for civilian government, and, on top of all that, is a total bitch). Moreover, his first concern is to protect the remaining human population, while Admiral Caine is indifferent to their well-being and ruthless in pursuit of military goals ("Pegasus" - I much prefer the expanded version, and "Resurrection Ship" Parts 1 and 2).

In one of the videoblogs, Edward James Olmos says that after Adama is shot by Boomer he becomes more emotionally vulnerable ("Scattered"). It is hard for me to put my finger on any one event that makes this obvious. I do think that Adama's increasing respect and growing emotional attachment to Roslin is part of this process. I like this relationship a lot - it is a relationship between adults who treat each other politely (old-fashioned, right), and work collaboratively. 

I am really interested in seeing where Adama goes in the last season. What will be his new role after Roslin dies? How will this affect him emotionally? (We already have an idea when Roslin has a vision of her own death in "The Hub.") What will his relationship with the new president?  (The new president will presumably be his own son, but more about THAT later, when I discuss "Sine Qua Non" - the only absolutely horrible episode of Galactica) How will he behave now that some of the action will move from Galactica (a well-defined physical space that he rules) to Earth, where the boundaries will presumably be more amorphous. My only certain knowledge is that he will be up to these new challenges.