warning: contains crazy spoilers.
Generally, I tend not to post my responses to television unless they engage the material from the perspective of a "cultural critic," examining cultural products as texts where various social hierarchies are either challenged or reaffirmed, and/or where categories of identity are produced and managed. But after the controversy that has erupted following Sunday night's killing of Kara "Starbuck" Thrace on Battlestar Gallactica, I've decided to change my tune. What follows is written more as a fan than as an intellectual activist. ...or at least it's as non-intellectual as I'm currently capable of being.
I've avoided polluting my experience of Battlestar Gallactica with involvement in fan communities. I find this series to be so shockingly fantastic that I can't bear to interact with "fans" who do not understand the depth and integrity of what they are watching. I know this sounds pretentious as all frack. I'm ordinarily very pro-fandom as a healthy manifestation of agency, a way of "talking back" to mass culture. But where Battlestar is concerned, this ceases to work for me. My stomach literally churns when I hear this series referred to as entertainment. I believe Battlestar Gallactica to be a work of art that is mythological, biblical and Shakespearian in scope, while simultaneously grounded in the visceral, the human and the everyday. It's expanded my understanding of what the format of television is capable of producing.
The other night, distraught by the death of Starbuck, I broke my own rule and sought solace from the internet fan-base. What I encountered disturbed me more than I ever could've expected. Fans' responses to the third season in general and to this episode specifically are truly disheartening. It seems as though many experience this series solely as an action/adventure epic about kicking bad-guy ass, and do not know what to make of the increasingly blurred boundary between humans and Cylons, a progression that I believe to be one of the series' central themes. They are bored by "overly dark" episodes about the subtle tensions, differences and inequalities that divide humanity from within. Perhaps they should re-evaluate their fandom. Episodes like "The Woman King" and "Dirty Hands" are what Battlestar is all about. In a recent TV Guide interview, Mary McDonnell characterized the series' mission more effectively than in anything else I've ever read:
"We keep having to return to our main thrust, which is the survival of the fleet and the definition of the enemy. I think that's where the core of the show lies, is continuing to push, push, push at how we perceive the enemy, and what is the root of our perception and how in the world can we redefine what that means, so that we could respond differently? And I think that's what the Cylons represent. They represent the enemy as ourselves. But when are we going to evolve on the planet to the point where we see that we have to bridge the gap between ourselves and our perceived enemies, rather than go to war with them and continue to destroy? I think that's what the show is really about. What does it mean to survive? What if we didn't? A lot of the reason that people really enjoy watching the show is because it's not just dealing with terrorism and war and the idea of being an occupied nation and insurgency, but it constantly elevates those ideas and says, "What if there was another dimension at which we were beginning to perceive it?"
I believe this "elevation" to "another dimension" is only going to become more prominent in the episodes to come. The question of the meaning and value of "survival" is central. If viewers can't appreciate this complexity, perhaps it's actually good that they jump ship.
And with regard to Sunday night--
In all of the hullabaloo over Starbuck's death, no one seems to be acknowledging that "Maelstrom" was an absolutely fantastic episode. The exploration of Starbuck's relationship with her mother was wrenching; whoever penned the drecktastic ep several weeks ago about Adama's ex-wife should take lessons from "Maelstrom's" writer on how to "show not tell" when establishing a character's backstory. The transition from Leoben-the-creepfest to not-Leoben-the-spiritual-guide was fascinating and in keeping with that "character's" mystical and cosmologically-inclined backbone. Adama's destruction of his model ship was one of the strongest moments Edward James Olmos has given us all season. The episode's lack of resolution is intentional. It's called storytelling.
Perhaps Starbuck's "destiny" still waits to be unfurled. Perhaps she pulled the ejection lever and went through "the eye of Jupiter," or perhaps she is one of "the final five." Personally, I suspect there is something far more mystical and radical coming down the pipeline, something having to do with this "space between life and death," something that will more fundamentally question "human" and "Cylon" as separate and oppositional categories. ...Or perhaps Starbuck's obsession with her destiny was a manifestation of her inner turmoil. Perhaps her final act was indeed fueled by desperation. Perhaps she committed what amounts to suicide. Perhaps some of us remain permanently thwarted and haunted, our redemption withheld; perhaps we erupt in balls of flame without meaning or purpose. I believe this is a very intentional move on the part of Ronald Moore and David Eick to force us to sit with this possibility before revealing their "master plan." If viewers cannot handle this ambiguity, if they cannot face this darkness, if they require neat-and-tidy narratives where all lives have a purpose that is predictably and reassuringly revealed in the denouement, then they do not deserve to be watching this series.
As I believe Katee Sackhoff was herself quoted as saying on some message board (this was reiterated elsewhere, so I have no confirmation)... Let them finish the fracking story.
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