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no_takebacksOne of the most common complaints when it came to canon and pilots is that pilots' alternate love interests (aka Dee and Sam) just didn't seem to work as credible obstacles to keep pilots apart, and that they weren't even all that interesting to watch as relationships, which ultimately resulted in the turn for the stupid that was TAB.
Today's question is, what if you could pick new secondary love interests for pilots? Is there anyone in the massive extended cast of BSG who could have actually brought more and better to the Quadrangle of Doom than Sam and Dee? Would the story have been more believable if the "dead guy" Kara was hung up on in Scar was Helo (leave aside the fact that he's back on Galactica by then) or the woman Lee discovered an unexpected attraction to was Athena/Boomer (forcing him to reconsider his hatred of Cylons), or Laura?
Pilots contemplate picking out other people to romance/frak since they can't have each other...not fun but they'll do it.
Is there any way at all to make the Quadrangle of Doom palatable/worth our time, shipper nation?
Today's question is, what if you could pick new secondary love interests for pilots? Is there anyone in the massive extended cast of BSG who could have actually brought more and better to the Quadrangle of Doom than Sam and Dee? Would the story have been more believable if the "dead guy" Kara was hung up on in Scar was Helo (leave aside the fact that he's back on Galactica by then) or the woman Lee discovered an unexpected attraction to was Athena/Boomer (forcing him to reconsider his hatred of Cylons), or Laura?
Pilots contemplate picking out other people to romance/frak since they can't have each other...not fun but they'll do it.
Is there any way at all to make the Quadrangle of Doom palatable/worth our time, shipper nation?
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Date: 2011-10-05 07:41 pm (UTC)How that could have affected the Helo/Sharon/Boomer/Chief dynamic might have been interesting, too.
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Date: 2011-10-05 07:44 pm (UTC)Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that Helo and Kara's friendship is totally platonic - but if anyone in the storyline was to serve as actual competition to Lee for Kara's affections, he would have been a lot more believable than Sam.
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Date: 2011-10-05 07:57 pm (UTC)....and with Kara too. : )
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:03 pm (UTC)Ditto goes for Dee (who I actually loved FAR more than I love Lee in the first season) *ducks again* but who was written into becoming a 'stand by her man' type woman, when I certainly didn't feel she was depicted like that in Season one. In fact, it felt like an affront to all the potential she'd had early on. *end rant*
SO although I realize this ISN'T today's assignment, I'd say that what I needed was some genuine backstory and character building for me to believe that the relationships could have (realistically) been a threat to the Kara / Lee relationship.
Now... if I am forced to answer your question:
Kara jumps back to Caprica and discovers... James "Sawyer" Ford (from Lost, obviously) with ALL the messy backstory that we discover about him along the way. I TOTALLY could have believed that. And actually, I think Katee and Holloway could have had a ROCKING dynamic together.
As for Lee...? He heads over to Cloud 9 to hang with Gianne, but she's busy, so he ends up going to the bar instead where he meets up with a young woman named Buffy Summers. The kickass blonde is CERTAIN there's another reason why cylons keep coming back time and again (almost like they can't be killed) and Lee is intrigued enough to listen to her. (Again, Bamber and SMG. Yes? YES???)
OMG people, fic crossovers are EATING MY BRAIN! GAH!
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 08:07 pm (UTC)But if, from the S2 opener:
a) Helo's relationship with Sharon was more realistic and complex (i.e. he was more conflicted about her as a Cylon and mother of his child, as opposed to "ZOMG I JUST LOVE HER TOTALLY OKZ?!?!") while
b) Lee and Kara did their frakked-up dance of denial, and
c) concurrently, tension ratcheted up between Helo/Kara as those relationships developed
that would be an entirely more satisfying/less frustrating Quadrangle of Doom.
And they wouldn't have had to kill off Billy.
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 08:14 pm (UTC)I think Kara really really really needed Helo as a friend without that extra complication. Although, they are adorable together and would have some hot pilot lovin'.
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:16 pm (UTC)And even then I can understand why she's attracted to him, but Dee on the other hand.....she's better-developed as a character in her own right but her relationship with Lee isn't and you can't really see what's keeping those two together beyond Doormat 101. In a weird way they're like opposites, really. And I LOVED early Dee too, pity they just made her such a martyr later.
AND Katee+Holloway = brain fireworks for me anyway, but OMG, BAMBER AND SMG. THAT SO NEEDS TO HAPPEN, Ioan Gruffudd (Hornblower!) and SMG being married on Ringer brings it thisclose to happening, right? OMG BUFFY THE CYLON SLAYER. And Lee would be so much better of a love interest for her than that broody ponce Angel. *sniff*
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:16 pm (UTC)I'm a multishipping whore, come on, it shouldn't be that hard to get me to like it.And Sawyer/Starbuck? If I had to pick between Sawyer and Lee I wouldn't know what to do! Also, I only got up to S3 of Lost...I need to get back on that.
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 08:18 pm (UTC)I could see Laura and Lee having a short, passionate relationship based on the assumption that Laura's going to die in a few months anyway and (Laura would assume) then Lee would be with Kara, who might be in a better head-space for a relationship by then. And then when Laura doesn't die things could've gotten...complicated. They might have to face that their relationship is going to be different than they thought it was.
And Leoben wouldn't know what the word 'monogamy' means if you made him look it up in a dictionary. If Kara felt like she had to choose, or if Lee wanted her to, I think that would just confuse him. He'd probably be like, oh humans and their strange hangups, I'll just wait for her to get over this one like I waited for her to love me. Patiently or not. :)
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:19 pm (UTC)Congrats on having an awesome brain!
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:22 pm (UTC)Sam annoys me for the sheer fact that he breaks up my OTP, but other than that, I actually like the guy. (He would totally be the most fun to go drinking with.)
Character development was UBER problematic on both counts. Like you said, with Sam, there wuddn't nuthin' thar. And with Dee, it's like they stripped away all her awesomeness in favor of a Tammy Wynnette song. Boo. **throws things**
I guess I just always thought that Kara's DFI (Dead Folks Issues, to the uninitiated) and Lee's omg-she's-my-dead-brother's-ex thing PLUS their respective damaged childhoods were PLENTY reason enough to keep them apart without resorting to sitcom cockblocking antics.
You know?
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:24 pm (UTC)But the complication, if it ever did happen, would still have been way more believable than Sam - the fact that Kara and Helo are friends isn't properly established till the very end of S1/early S2 (there's that bit in miniseries 1 where he holds her back from punching Tigh, but it could have gone either way).
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 08:26 pm (UTC)Can't stop the VM referencing!!!!
Date: 2011-10-05 08:27 pm (UTC)And Duncan is Zak.
... does that make Weevil Baltar? Oh what the hell, why not!
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 08:32 pm (UTC)I mean, in canon Kara/Leoben usually makes me want to RUN AWAY SCREAMING, but I think if they were treated differently they'd make a nice complement to pilots. Ditto Lee/Laura, esp. from the pov of Lee's growing involvement in politics in the final season.
Re: Can't stop the VM referencing!!!!
Date: 2011-10-05 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 08:33 pm (UTC)(but probably not really)
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 08:33 pm (UTC)