Daily Pilots Post: Lay Down My What?

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

It has been a fabulous week, everyone.  Thank you so much for coming along for the ride.

We've got the re-watch coming up tonight, so I'm taking the episode we're watching as my theme.  Lay Down Your Burdens.

I get it.  I really do.  But they laid down the WRONG BURDENS!  They collectively put down a lot of responsibilities and cares and concerns.  But they kept ANGST!  And GUILT!  And SELF-RIGHTEOUS IRE!  And GAIUS FRAKKING BALTAR!  And....  **ahem**  Okay, you get my point.

So!  For today, I'm asking all you lovely shippers to help me work out how this episode should have gone.

Key points to remember:

1) Welcome to Chief's PTSD.  Have sympathy for him or not.  Also, meet the most completely insane "religious councilor" in the entire history of ever.
2) Lee & Kara's "I hope you find him..." (but not really, but I can't say that, because then I'd be letting go of my EPIC ANGST), "Thanks..." (did you really say that?  I didn't actually want you to say that, I just can't tell you because then I'd be letting go of my EPIC ANGST).
3) Zarek iz twixy.  I'm thinking not so much with the whole entrusting the future of humanity to him thing.
4) ZOMG!  Tory named the episode!  Foreshadowing of the supreme importance of minor and unmemorable background characters!  Do Not Forget!
5) This could go any way you all want it to -- angsty, fluffy, whatever.  All I ask is that you have fun.

So, I'll start it off with a couple questions:
Which burdens do you all think *should* have been laid down?
What would it have taken to keep Baltar and Zarek's slimy hands off the Exec


Comments

[muddlingalong.livejournal.com]

This one is hard.

Maybe I'm an awful person for suggesting this (and I'm not entirely clear on exactly what happens in which episode, so please excuse me) but things would have been so much simpler if Sam had died on Caprica. Or in the process of getting the resistance off the planet.

Think about it. Kara could have felt guilty and mourned him and NOT MARRIED HIM! She and Lee could have gone on much the same way for a while, but Kara wouldn't have moved to NC without Sam. I think you get the idea. Even if nothing else changed, Sam not getting in the middle has the potential to make K/L alot more satisfying.

If I was going to be really optimistic, the burden laid down could have been Kara's guilt about Zak and her corresponding messed up beliefs about how she effects the people around her. Maybe Sam not making it off Caprica would have been the catalyst for Lee to yell at her enough to get it through her thick skull, in typical pilot fashion.

Sigh. I think the thing about K/L that's so tragic is they had so many missed opportunities. When you remember that its a TV show, I think those missed opportunities extend to the writers as well as the characters.

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

You bring up an interesting question. If there were no Sam, what would Kara have done the morning after in UB? If she couldn't push Lee completely away, would she have tried to push him away at all?

Unfortunately, the realist in me is convinced there would have been no UB episode without Sam. Not to say they wouldn't have hooked up during the NC arc, but without Sam, she's got nowhere to hide for a year. There'd be no epic estrangement and fight to bring it all back.

Without Sam, I think Kara stays a pilot, on Galactica (although there would be a lot of good episodes if she became Lee's CAG on Pegasus). I also think fat!Lee would never exist (and don't get me started on THAT) without Kara marrying Sam.

But I'll be honest. There was a lot of the Sam character I liked. Lee had someone to help him run the Starbuck fan club. They had some nice mourning moments together

The solution? Kara gets back to Caprica and Sam is alive, but married to another resistance fighter.

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

I agree that Sam was a very interesting character in a lot of ways. He was kind of one-dimensional until the end, but the groundwork was there for something much deeper and more complete. And I think he (and Dee) got shafted when the writers decided to throw up more road-blocks for L/K.

Having him married to someone else would have been convenient, but it kind of grates to think that Kara was incapable of choosing to be with Lee if Sam was an option. :-/

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I'm always kind of amused when people say Sam became less one-dimensional at the end because of his cylonhood.

I really disagree. His one dimension simply changed. He no longer had hardly any interaction with Kara really (consciously), he just became Expositional!Cylon.

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

I don't know. He was a plot device, so he didn't get to express his complexity, but I don't think Expositional!Cylon invalidated the rest of what we knew about him. I guess I'm responding to the potential when I say he became less one-dimensional. Because you're right. We never saw different aspects of his character at work at the same time.

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

His one dimension simply changed.

Completely agree. I mean, I didn't see much character development due to his cylonhood. He just became another plot device --this time, for all the Final Five storyline.

I think Sam could have been a character with a lot of possibilities, but the writers did a very poor job with him (especially in regards to his relationship with Kara).

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

I also think fat!Lee would never exist
Yeah, but without Fat!Lee, we'd never get
<-- this cap, either. Every thorn has it's rose... ;)

[stripes13.livejournal.com]

Well, damn....hadn't thought of that one (stupid brain)

[muddlingalong.livejournal.com]

There was so much running through my head, and my comment was already way long, but I wasn't advocating just getting rid of Sam. I think a really good death could have just about given us more character development anyway. Not just, Kara gets back to Caprica and Sam's not there, or someone tells her he's been killed, but dying in her arms, or Kara having to order the raptors to take off because he can't make it or him making it but dying on the trip back, or something that isn't a cliche.

In my head, its still plenty messy and no matter how he died, Kara would feel sooooo guilty (that she hadn't gone back sooner, that she hadn't saved him, that she hadn't died instead of him) which would manifest itself in her usual dysfunctional ways, and eventually Lee would get fed up and yell at her and get her to actually yell back at him and talk about it, even just a little bit.

I suppose I thought it wouldn't so much change the evolution of K/L that we saw, as speed it up. Skip the married to other people bit (but probably not the estrangement all together, I can't imagine Kara being comfortable around him for a while after actually talking about real things) and go straight to the 'pick me' bit (sorry, I've been watching Grey's Anatomy lately). I'm not saying that shrinking Sam's role would solve everything in their relationship, but I always felt that Sam showing up froze them in time, stopped their relationship from maturing and evolving like it could have, even if it still wasn't heading for a happy ending.

I don't want to flog a dead horse, but based on other people's comments I thought I hadn't expressed what I actually wanted to say. I agree that it would be more satisfying if Kara could have had that choice between Lee and Sam and chosen Lee. But then they wouldn't be the infuriating, messed up pilots we love.

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

If I was going to be really optimistic, the burden laid down could have been Kara's guilt about Zak and her corresponding messed up beliefs about how she effects the people around her.

That would have been a fabulous burden for her to put down, wouldn't it? **sigh** And yes, I agree. K/L were plenty interesting and satisfying without Sam in the middle.

[baciami2.livejournal.com]

For me, this ep was always about the contradiction of no one laying down their burdens. Everyone took their burdens with them. The one exception might have been Saul & Ellen who seemed happier on NC. The NC experiment failed before the cylons showed up. There was the tempting illusion of being able to release your problems and start over (the illusion of the clear slate, Romo?), but it never really happened. The problems morphed rather than disappeared.

Excellent Q, Ms Jen, bravo!

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

(the illusion of the clear slate, Romo?)

Right?

I think Roslin did end up trying to lay down her burdens, to some degree, and live a simpler life during the year we don't see between her loss of the election and the beginning of the Cylon Occupation.

I think a lot of the soldiers in the fleet put away their worries and concerns over protecting the fleet -- which is why the battlestars were both so under-staffed and had to high-tail it out.

But they were holding on to a fantasy during the space of a long, deep breath. Never anything more than that.

[baciami2.livejournal.com]

Roslin seemed to be doing pennance for kidnapping Hera/ Isis. The soldiers that went down seemed to have taken their problems with them - those that joined the Union were in an uproar over working conditions. Gaeta made that point to a drugged out/ post-orgy Baltar in his office. And who can forget Cally - looking 9 mos along - screaming at everyone to shut the frak up at Tyrol's organization mtg. Adama and Lee may have let their warrior skills diminish, but their personal burdens (hello! Bill! cabin in the woods) wear them down or their waistlines out.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Hello! I must admit that it's been quite some time since I watched this episode, but I'll float a few suggestions about interesting ways they might have switched the story around:

1) For the election, Roslin should totally have tagged Lee for her running mate. Seriously, did she even have a Vice Presidential candidate? I don't remember. But I think she could have talked Lee into it, given the desperate importance of defeating Baltar at the polls. I think Lee had a good chance of swinging the vote in her direction; for a lot of people elections are popularity contests, and clearly Lee was an attractive personality (not to mention attractive, period), a proven leader, and a symbol that the divisions which had led to the splintering of the fleet not so long ago had been healed and the union of civil and military powers would continue to give them all the best chance for survival.

2) This move could have brought up all kinds of interesting personal angles to play. Would his leaving Pegasus cause a rift with the Admiral? I think almost certainly it would, especially if he had to make the decision quickly and didn't let his father's disapproval stop him. Would the election still have been close enough that Roslin would OK the plan to steal it? I think that would be fun to explore. You can bet that Lee would never have gone along with that, and it might have been an excellent and realistic way to break up his relationship with Dee (he'd be horrified at her complicity in that scheme, I think. In canon I'm sure he never found out about it - if he had, he might not have been so shocked that she would end their marriage over his legal defense of Baltar rather than over his infidelity.) Her belief that "the system elected that man, and that's not a system that deserves to be respected" has so much personal baggage attached, and I think allowing those two characters to genuinely fight over that meaty ethical question would have served them both better, and allowed them to end the least functional side of the doomed quadrangle without dragging out their - and our - misery for another season.

3) I wouldn't want to kill Sam for the sake of my ship; he's a nice guy, and he deserved better. I'm not opposed to a brief interlude of Kara/Sam while Lee figures out his place outside the military and slowly gains the confidence to seek what he wants in life before it's too late. If Roslin and Lee won the election (honestly), then there would be no New Caprica. How long would Kara and Sam have lasted without that? If Roslin and Lee lost, Lee could go down to New Caprica too, again putting himself in a better position to make Kara see sense.

Anyhow, those are my random thoughts :)

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

Would it have, though? Because Lee sided with Roslin when the fleet split before.

That said, I think Lee and Laura were ill-served by their reduced interactions post Kobol. Their mutual challenge of each other was good for them. Your scenario could have been made to work, and enhanced a lot of the story lines, I agree.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

You make a good point about Lee's role in the previous split - he would only work as a symbol of unity if his father publicly expressed approval of his candidacy (though the Admiral might well express very different sentiments in private). I think Bill might be willing to go that far, given the Baltar/Zarek alternative. Plus, I think there are a lot of people in the fleet who would see him as an Adama, first and foremost, and assume that he'd be tying the military and the civilian government closer together. But still, your point stands. Maybe he'd come across better playing the young rebel :)

[nazkey.livejournal.com]

This is a great scenario! Esp. when later on, RDM actually admitted that the writers finally figured out what to do with Lee's character as soon as he was out of uniform, i.e. getting him out of the military shaped his character. This would've been a perfect solution. The only catch would then be: what about Baltar? Would he have forever walked the hallways of Galactica mumbling to himself?

Here's what I think (here starteth the rant):

I think RDM and DE really didn't plan ahead for K/L. They were basically writing the series season to season without any real goals and that's why some plot lines just disappeared in to the ether and some newer, pointless ones were started. When they decided that Starbuck would be a girl, I bet the idea of having a romantic tie-in with Apollo was a given, but what's fun about a happy, healthy relationship on a TV show? So, they decide to turn it angsty. But the problem is then how do you write yourself OUT of the corner of angst and UST? Standard formula: bring in a third wheel, in this case, poor Sam. But in this case, I think by extending Sam's relationship with Kara and dragging Dee in to it, they just wedged themselves further in to the corner. Even Michael Trucco said at some interview that he wasn't supposed to return, but the writers decided to bring him back. So they bring him back and strip away all his "character" and he turns in to a goofy guy who is basically Kara's bitch. All the leadership, bravado, etc. are gone. He's a pale shadow of Lee (and oh, hey ... guess what? He kinda looks like Lee too. Groan).

As much as I don't like the idea of Lee & Dee together, I think the writers really mutilated their relationship too. Dee turned from being a caring, gentle person, in to someone with predatory motives (an Adama vs. a Keikeya) which I think was really OOC for how they had established her.

I have to say that from my perspective, by the time Kara "died," this entire story line had completely gotten out of hand. Even after the dance, when they had a chance to fix it, the writers chose not to. It's almost as if they had it in for poor Lee. One of the biggest problems I have with the series in general is that Lee, the ultimate "hero" of the tale is left abandoned by everyone while even the slimy Baltar gets a bright shiny future. Yes, yes, I get that the show is all about shades of gray and messy resolutions, but it would've been nice to give Lee something.

Any way ... long way to answer your fabulous "what if" scenario above. I think your way would've been much better and would've created a much better overall story arc.

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

from my perspective, by the time Kara "died," this entire story line had completely gotten out of hand.

I think the entire story had gotten out of hand. This episode, Lay Down Your Burdens, and the New Caprica story arc were the beginning of the long spiral downward. This is when the story telling started to fall apart and get lazy. And yes, by Maelstrom, they'd reached the point of no return.