DPP: Question Day!

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

Hello, Shipper Nation!

Here on the final day of my reign of terror, I'm opening up the floor for questions.  Anything to do with pilots, LJ, fandom-- whatever.  Newbies and old folk, bring whatever you've to the table (no matter how silly it sounds.  Chances are, someone probably has the exact same thing rattling around in their brain.) 

So bring forth the questions and our panel of experts shall respond forthwith!**


** Isn't "forthwith" a great word?  I think it's like in my top ten right now.  Right along side "methinks."  And "quash."  Excellent word, quash.

Comments

Favorites?

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone. This is such a broad question that it may not be that interesting, but I am just feeling curious about what people would choose as their favorite Kara episode, their favorite Lee episode, and/or their favorite K/L episode? If you've all had this discussion a million times, I apologize, maybe someone could just point me in the direction of past discussions. Also, this might fall under the same criteria, but if you look at KS and JB as actors, is there a particular scene for each of them in which you think they hit the apex of their talent, they just knocked it out of the park into a whole new stratosphere of awesome?

For me, I would answer as follows:

Favorite Kara episode: Maelstrom
Favorite Lee episode: Crossroads II
Favorite K/L episode: The Captain's Hand

Favorite KS scene as an actress: confrontation with EJO in Act of Contrition

Favorite JB scene as an actor: under the viper wing in Maelstrom and, oddly enough, telling Kara about Dee's suicide in SaGN. He kills me in both scenes.

Best wishes to everyone!

PS - And one technical question: How much older than Kara is Lee supposed to be? How much younger than Kara and Lee was Zak? Thanks!

Re: Favorites?

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

Excellent questions!

Favorite Kara episode: You Can't Go Home Again
Favorite Lee episode: Bastille Day
Favorite K/L episode: Colonial Day

Favorite KS scene as an actress: All of Kara's scenes with Leoben in the NC arc. Just really brilliant stuff. Esp. when she kills him then goes back to eating dinner. That scene is just so horribly wonderfully creepy and insane-- yet civilized. I adore the contradiction.

Favorite JB scene as an actor: For some reason, his performance in Revelations really stuck with me. It's as if the character turned a big page at that moment.

The age issue--

I don't think this was ever clearly sorted out. I think it's always been accepted that Lee was either slightly older than Kara of they were about the same age, and also accpeted that Kara was somewhat older than Zak. I always figured Kara was 3 years old than Zak, and Lee was probably 2-4 years older than Kara.

Re: Favorites?

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Great choices! And thanks for the age estimate, that makes a lot of sense to me. Especially since it gives me a better perspective on the Adama family dynamics. I don't know how old Lee was when his parents divorced, but if he was 5-7 years older than Zak, the likelihood is that Zak was too young to remember the divorce itself or the deteriorating conditions which led to it, while Lee presumably got a front-row seat and remembers a whole lot of bitterness that passed over tiny!Zak's head. I'm a sucker for the protective older brother idea of their childhoods ~ I like the thought that, for all practical purposes, Lee had to act as the only adult in the house from a very early age.

Re: Favorites?

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

I subscribe to the same Lee-as-protective-older-brother/substitute parent theory. I think you'd need about a 5-7 age difference if you were going to be responsible for taking care of a younger sibling.

Of course, I don't know if we ever got any hard evidence about their ages-- this is what always made the most sense in my mind. : )

Re: Favorites?

[stripes13.livejournal.com]

Definitely agree about the Lee=father figure. It doesn't work if there's only a 3 year age gap, so yeah, 5 years minimum

Re: Favorites?

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

Although I agree this age difference would fit better with the idea of Lee as a protector/father figure , I don't think it fits what we saw on the show. From the the very beggining (the mini) we were presented with a picture of the admiral and his sons as kids. No way, the age difference between them would have been 5-7 years.

Re: Favorites?

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

That is such a great point! I never thought to connect that photo with my Lee-as-father-figure speculations, but you're right that it would be hard to argue more than about a two year difference, given the kids in the photo. But I will cling to my Lee-as-protector backstory, with now the added irony that the "baby brother" he was shielding was actually only a couple years younger than himself. That almost seems more typical of him, doesn't it, to take charge even though he's really almost as much of a kid as Zak is when the worst of the trouble goes down? So says my new backstory, anyhow :)

Thanks for your observation! And I must admit I love that photo, if only because it tacitly admits that Lee (and Jamie Bamber) started out with much lighter hair! It always does look dyed to me, especially in the early part of the series. Of course that was part of their ongoing, if questionable, effort to make it seem remotely plausible for JB to be EJO's son. I think they should have just given up and gone with the "he takes after his mother" explanation from the get-go.

Hmm. Does the fact that the actress in the photos and the actress who later played his mom are clearly different people make the photos uncanonical? :)

Re: Favorites?

[(Anonymous)]

Is that really jamie in that photo? that never occurred to me!

I think the protector thing works with siblings that are closer together too, actually. I've seen numerous times, he'd just have to mature way faster than normal children, but that happens...

Re: Favorites?

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to say that it was really Jamie in the photo, just that the photo makes it clear that Lee started out with lighter hair. I assume they made that choice because Jamie Bamber's hair was naturally much lighter, too.

Re: Favorites?

[eugis.livejournal.com]

I think Kara was definitely older than Zak, probably 3 years or so.

Lee and Kara were probably about the same age, maybe Lee was a year or two older than Kara.

Re: Favorites?

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Favorite Kara: Act of Contrition
Favorite Starbuck: The Oath (Yeah, I think they're different.)

Favorite Lee: Revelations
Favorite Apollo: Scar

Favorite K/L episode: Unfinished Business

Favorite KS as actress: Tough, tough call. Probably even though I hate it, the New Caprica arc and its aftermath from Occupation to Torn.

Favorite JB as actor: Islanded or Revelations.

Not clear on the ages. I tend to think about the same as Bee does for the differences.

Re: Favorites?

[eugis.livejournal.com]

Okay, favourites:

Favorite Kara episode: Act of Contrition
Favorite Lee episode: Bastille Day
Favorite K/L episode: The Captain's Hand

Favorite KS scene as an actress: I agree with you, Kara's confrontation with Adama in AoC.

Favourite JB scene as an actor: Lee's speech at Baltar's trial. He deserves a slow clap. ;p

Re: Favorites?

[(Anonymous)]

Totally agree with you on JB in SaGN, he kills me with his teary eyes in that scene and the way he can't quite say it out loud. It was just amazing acting and made me think he's quite underrated as an actor. That episode almost restored my hope for the last season (which proved to be misplaced in the end).

As for KS probably when she killed Leoben and continued eating her steak in the NC arc.

I'm curious, why did you choose Crossroads for Lee?

Re: Favorites?

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Hi ~ great to hear from you! I chose Crossroads II for Lee because, for me, his defining characteristic is his independence of mind and his determination to form his own conclusions in controversial situations and then stand by them regardless of the personal fallout. We see this in so many great Lee moments (the end of Bastille Day, the mutiny in KLG II, the end of 33 when he tells his father that pulling the trigger is something he has to take personal responsibility for regardless of who was giving him the order, the truce he brokers with the Cylons in Revelations, etc). But I think Crossroads II shows most fully the way he balances idealism and pragmatism, independence and loyalty. He advises a mistrial as a calculated strategy, but refuses to testify against his father despite the bad blood between them. He acknowledges that their society is now a gang, but urges that gang to cling to mercy precisely because it's the only thing that can save them from the *common* guilt shared by those who have had to make impossible decisions time and again. He finds the strength to make a new life for himself after losing everyone he loves, and yet goes straight back into the military when the chips are down and battle breaks out. I just love Lee so much in this episode; he makes me proud basically every minute he's onscreen. A wise author once wrote that people are defined by their choices far more than by their abilities, and this episode defines Lee by some pretty wonderful choices.

Re: Favorites?

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

Ok, my favourites…

Favorite Kara episode: Maelstrom
Favorite Lee episode: Bastille Day
Favorite K/L episode: Unfinished Business (this is my BSG favorite episode, really).

Favorite KS scene as an actress: Kara's confrontation with Adama in AoC. But I do agree that her scenes with Leoben in the NuCap arc were fantastic -–those two had a great chemistry.

Favourite JB scene as an actor: Lee's speech in Crossroads II and also his performance in Revelations.

As for the ages… Well, it’s not clear, but I always thought that Lee was two years or so older than Kara and four years older than Zak.

Re: Favorites?

[da-angel729.livejournal.com]

Favorite Kara episode: Act of Contrition
Favorite Lee episode: Bastille Day or The Son Also Rises
Favorite K/L episode: Final Cut-they're such parents to the other pilots and I love it.

Favorite KS scene as an actress: I really like the scene in "Torn" where she cuts off her hair. She just says so much with little words. It's amazing.

Favorite JB scene as an actor: Hmm..this one's a bit harder for me, because JB is probably my favorite actor on the show, but I think SaGN is just a great episode for JB and the scene in TSAR when Bill's talking about his grief about Kara to Lee just kills me. Actually, his entire performance in this episode is awesome, IMO.

AGES: In order for Kara to be teaching Zak, she has to be a few years older. I've always thought three, with Lee being older than Kara by about the same margin, leaving Zak and Lee about 6 years apart. And I think it's because I subscribe to the Lee as Zak's father figure theory of their childhood, what with the alcoholic mother and Adama probably always being gone on his ships, and any smaller difference isn't far enough for that to happen.

Re: Favorites?

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Favorite Kara episode: Maelstrom
Favorite Lee episode: Son Also Rises
Favorite K/L episode: Scar

Favorite KS scene as an actress: Maelstrom
Favorite JB scene as an actor: Revelations