It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

Welcome everyone! First of all, thanks very much for joining this comm and the rewatch! Hope you will enjoy the experience and all the piloty goodness ahead of us! Since this is the official launching of the rewatch, today—and exceptionally—we'll post two entries. Mine is a picspammy—and a mishmash of crack and meta—approach to the miniseries, and Bee will be doing one of her gorgeous and patented meta-poetry-fics. So fasten your seatbelts... And enjoy! ;)

Thanks to _snitchbitch  for the beautiful screencaps

 

I definitely remember my first "contact" with BSG and pilots. It was October 2007 and I was looking for some information on-line about a certain sci-fi show with human-looking robots and gorgeous pilots. Sadly, the experience ended up being traumatic, to say the least. Why? They say that an image says more than 1000 words... And if you have any doubts, just take a look at the ugliest and tackiest promo pics I had ever seen...

Awful, aren’t they? Fortunately, I didn’t let that obnoxious spectacle mislead me and, after reading a bunch of enthusiastic reviews, I decided to give the mini a try. Two years later—after tons of squee, anticipation, excitement and tears—those pictures are not so hard on the eye anymore, but hilarious and sort of endearing :)

 

And after this cracky warming up, fellow shippers, let's get serious!

 

We Are All Made of Stars

One of the first things I noticed while watching the mini again was how innocent and clean looks the whole cast. It was so odd to see how young and naîve they all seemed—save Roslin, maybe, who manages to look rather older. It hurts to see characters like Gaeta—it's painfully ironic, but the first scene of Felix shows him telling Adama how he appreciates and respects him—Dee, Billy, Cally, Boomer, and of course, Kara and Lee, back when they were so innocent and hopeful, unaware of the tragedies lying ahead of them.

I couldn’t repress a certain feeling of nostalgia—and a sense of loss—as I realized how much all this characters went through during their four-year journey and how much they suffered and endured… And with that—how little they had after the end of the worlds, how terrifying those first moments were for all of them. How complete the apocalypse.

But that’s why I fell for this show, I guess. Because it was an enthralling tale of human survival that, right from the get-go, put on the table the ultimate question of whether to run or fight when it sinks in that the human race has been reduced to 50,000 people.

Extraordinary Girl

Starbuck. Liutenent Kara Thrace. Even though right now I consider myself first and foremost a Kara/Lee shipper, I must admit that Starbuck was the first character that completely grabbed my interest that first time I watched the mini. And she still does. Every time—needless to say that I have a soft spot for strong, kickass female characters, uh?

I love that first glimpse of Kara, our heroine—or anti-heroine—, an extremely fit girl with very short hair running through the hallways of Galactica. Starbuck is portrayed from the very beginning as a hotshot and cocky fighter viper pilot, gifted with a natural talent for flying for which she is considered the best pilot of the fleet. She is also an avid gambler who enjoys drinking, smoking cigars, and sex. All of them typical “alpha male” traits; paradoxically though, she never was the typical tomboy cliché but an extremely complex, ever-evolving and impossibly human character. It would take us a while to get to know better our heroine and all the cracks hidden underneath that tough surface, but I love that right from the start she is portrayed as a warrior, a good soldier with a natural charisma and with a touch of wilderness and exuberance I had rarely seen before on TV. And these are two of my favorite moments:

a) The triad game

I love the triad scene. I enjoyed seeing how Starbuck owns the game and makes jokes with Helo and Sharon. The animosity floating between Tigh and Kara was also really interesting. And I love Kara’s face when she proclaims she has full colors. So bright and dazzling and joyful .

b) Beyond insane

"You are beyond insane!!", yells Apollo.

She is, indeed. But she is also fearless and daring—and so authentic. A fighter willing to give everything—even her own life—for the ones she cares. She is always going to have his back. She’d go to the hell and back for him. They are Starbuck and Apollo, after all. Right from the start.

The whole scene is priceless—and almost comical. Kara playing the role of the knight in shiny armor who saves the damsel in distress, our pretty boy Apollo. I love how this moment frames Starbuck’s reckless streak, how good pilot she is and how much she cares for Lee.

The Boy With a Thorn in His Side

Pissy Lee—a lovely combination of angst, emoness, daddy issues and undeniable hotness—is utterly adorable and thoroughly enjoyable since the first moment we met him, when he climbs down from his viper—all cockiness and arrogance—and asks Chief why he has to land manually. He is the young romantic lead in terms of conventional television standards, but not the archetypical action hero with the right measure of moral and cerebral thinkiness that is just an excuse for brooding sexily on the screen.



We’ll have to wait until “Bastille Day” to learn a little bit more about Lee and his political conscience, but throughout the mini—especially in all his interactions with Laura Roslin, which I love—we catch glimpses of those traits that make Apollo the non-standard hero, a man defined by his beliefs who is usually placed in the position of having to make hard choices and is constantly shown up on the action hero front by another character. And as far as those issues are concerned, I especially love two moments:

a) Lady is in charge

Roslin: "So we pick up as many people as we can, we try to find a safe haven to put down...Captain? I'd like you to look over the navigational charts for a likely place to hide from the Cylons. That's all"
Apollo: (to Doral) "Lady's in charge"

I love the fact that Lee is the first person in the military who recognizes and supports Roslin’s authority, even before she is officially declared the new President of the Colonies. Doral cannot accept Roslin taking charge of the situation because he believes she is not qualified to be giving orders. On the contrary, Lee immediately understands the value of her leadership. I love that he never challenges Roslin for power, grasping the tactical realities of the situation and supporting Roslin’s calm authority in the crisis. Lee is not interested in power struggles because he shares the same goal with her: protecting the surviving people of the Colonies, gathering the remaining survivors and convincing Adama that the war is over and that the Fleet needs to flee in order to survive. Without Lee and Roslin’s pragmatism, humanity would have been doomed.

b) The ships without FTL drives are left behing

When Colonial One and all the refugee ships are found by Cylon Raiders, Roslin is urged to abandon the ships that have no FTL drives. That implies abandoning thousands of people. That’s when we see Lee and Doral arguing different sides of the argument.

“But we'll be saving tens of thousands. I'm sorry to make it a numbers game, but we're talking about the survival of our race here. We don't have the luxury of taking risks and hoping for the best, because if we lose... we lose everything. And Madame President, this is the kind of decision that needs to be made right now”, Lee points out.

One thing that made BSG a great series is that it didn’t shy away from exploring extremely difficult situations, deliberately making us question what we might do. Lee is often placed in a position of having to argue in favor of painful-yet-necessary choices, proving to be a great asset in a crisis. And here we see again his pragmatic streak, as he suggests the President to abandon the ships without FTL drives for the greater good: the survival of the human race. Roslin ends up following his advice and we are given one of the most creepy, dark and haunting moments of the mini. Raiders appear and launch a battery of missiles against the remaining ships, as the ones with FTL drives jump out.

There is no magic solution, no happy ending. Roslin made her choice. Some people lived, other died. The guilt and responsibility that comes from these impossible decisions—as we'll see more than once throughout the series—is the price to pay in order to maintain a species' existence after the Armageddon.

Can't Get You Out Of My Head

First Kara/Lee scene ever. The brig. Starbuck is doing push-ups. "This looks familiar," Apollo enters the room and finds Kara. Oooooooh, Lee makes it sound sort of dirty! And the scene becomes dirtier when he leans his arms—OMG, those glorious and frankly stunning shoulders and arms—against the iron bars of the cell. Is it just me or all Lee’s extra smugness makes him look hotter? ;). Starbuck jumps up to greet him with a grin, breathing heavily. "Sorry I wasn't there to greet you with the rest of the squadron. Did they kiss your ass to your satisfaction?", she teases with a hint of ferocity. Heh. Very nice.

And here there was. Pilots’ epic banter. A quality I absolutely adore about their relationship—especially in S1 and early S2, when it was at its best.

Apollo: "So, what’s the charge this time?"
Starbuck: Striking a superior asshole.
Apollo: "I bet you’ve been waiting all day to say that one"
Starbuck: "Most of the afternoon, yeah"

So that's pretty cool, I thought the first time I watched this scene. They are friends. Or sort of. And they’ve got the “pretty boy and tomboy girl with more balls than him who—despite the apparent animosity—want to frak each other senseless” kind of interaction. Maybe they are ex of some sort? Because given the way he stares and stares at her invitingly hot, full lips and her breasts… I could swear he has a hard-on. And I’m sure she craves for him too. Mmmm...

Starbuck: "He lost his son, Lee"
Apollo: "And who is responsible for that?"
Starbuck: "Same old Lee. You' haven't changed either"
Apollo: "Zak was my brother"
Starbuck: "What was he to me? Nothing?"
Apollo: "That's not what I meant. And you know that"
Starbuck: "You know, you should go. I'm getting the urge to hit another superio asshole"

Surprise. So Starbuck was not Apollo’s former frakbuddy after all but his younger—and dead—brother‘s fiancée.

Oh, the angst.

LOVE IT.

Because that twist was deliciously angsty and added tons of guilt, pain, anguish and wrongness to Lee and Kara’s relationship—mainly because their dynamic seemed to scream “we have a messy history”, and not of the older-brother-of-the-fiancé variety, by the way. But that is the quality I love most about pilots, I guess; the extremely complicated yet paradoxically simple nature of their relationship. They are almost-siblings, friends, colleagues. But you can’t love your sister. You can’t love your dead fiancé’s brother. You can’t love your superior officer. And you can’t love your pilot. Yet they do. More than anything.

I must sat that the scene which led me slowly but inexorably to my shipper conversion was not the first brig scene though, but the one where Starbuck learns of Lee’s supposed death and secretly prays for his soul. Kara was standing in front of her locker, head bowed, looking broken and vulnerable and beautiful in equal measure, unfolding that picture of her and Zak, and revealing an awkward Lee staring back at her.

"Lord of Kobol hear my prayer,
take the souls of your sons and daughters lost this day,
especially that of Lee Adama
into your hands"

Oh, my gods. She loves him, I thought. And it is wrong, so wrong. But undeniable, too… As if folding that picture and keeping his face hidden, she could be able to deny the only one thought that lingered in her mind since she laid her eyes on him for the first time… and the nauseating crippling guilt that came with that realization.

It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

The worlds have ended but that doesn't seem to matter anymore. Not right now. Not for Lee as he glimpses a flock of untamed and wild blond hair under the viper. Not for Kara as Lee reaches for his hand and smiles. “Hey”, he says softly. He is here, he is alive and Kara finds herself not knowing what to say or do, so she simply takes his hand and let him pull her up. “I thought you were dead”, Kara manages to say. But he is not dead and she wants to laugh and scream and kiss him, even though the worlds have ended in fire and blood and fourteen billion people are dead back in the Colonies.

She smiles and he smiles and their eyes lock for a moment as time freezes, the air suddenly heavy and the silence deafening with all the words they are not saying. So they make stupid jokes instead. And there she is. It is the apocalypse and even though Kara is not sure of anything—not anymore—she looks into his blue eyes and it occurs to her that maybe they are going to make it after all.

Who dares to question that they are not in love? :)

So there is it. How was the experience? Have you enjoyed the mini? Myself, I loved it. I was a little bit afraid that I was losing my connection with the show and pilots since the bitterness of the finale, but truth is that… no frakking way. I can’t find words to describe how much I adore Kara and Lee, more than any other pairing. They are the reason why we are doing this rewatch, to begin with. And they don’t disappoint. Right from the beginning we are caught in the middle of a (love) story beyond any labels, challenging all sort of conventions and worn-out clichés: delicious, gorgeous to behold, dark and ominous, epic, heartbreaking, and absolutely enthralling.

Pilots in a nutshell.

Some questions to ponder
1) Taking into account we already know how this story ends, to what extent has your perception of the show (and pilots) changed?
2) What about the first brig scene? Did it give you a different vibe?
3) What's your own view on Kara/Lee previous backstory right now?
4) When you watched the mini for the first time, which one (K/L) was your favourite? Why? And now?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Congrats, Cos!!!

I love your K/L review. The fic-like part in the end is beautiful, and the title of the song you've chosen fits just like a glove.

Overall, I think that... You nailed it!;)

Lots of kisses <333 and good luck with the comm,

Mr Feraud

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Talk about kicking this off with a bang, girl!! This is freaking fantastic. Geez Louise, I've got a big act to follow now, don't I? ; P

I'm off to get to work on my part, but I'll be back to comment throughout. (And let me just say Roslin = worst hair of the mini award. Papadama? Surprisingly, the best. Wish he'd kept the crew cut.)

Thus endeth the squueeage. (For now.)

[innibis.livejournal.com]

Lovely post, Cosette. I didn't watch. However. . .

I didn't have a favorite in the mini. I liked them both although I thought that, initially, Lee was a more in depth character (before Kara prayed). Kara was presented as the very stereotypical hero. She was not only better then everyone at everything, but knew she was better then everyone at everything. She had the indulgence of the CO, and therefore knew that she would face no real consequences for assaulting the XO. She was serving in a nothing command that was not built for defending the fleet and leaned heavily on personal loyalty and signs of devotion to the CO as opposed to mission readiness and loyalty to country. Really fun and ballsy and just joyfully tough. I was so drawn to her. But still pretty typical. She reminded me of Maverick in Top Gun.

Lee though - he was interesting. He started questioning the way business was done right off the bat with the antiquated landing practices. He wouldn't allow a chief petty officer to suck up to him. He was obviously a rising star of the fleet, but resentfuly so. He was bitter and dissmissive toward his father, and really wanted to talk to Kara but wasn't sure how. He accepted, after verifying that Roslin was competant, civilian authority over the military, saved the entire remaining fleet when Roslin was being stubborn, not with blazing guns or wresting control from the president, but by finding another way, using out of the box quick thinking to make the cylons think they're gone. He articulated to Roslin what no one else dared to - that they had to leave the other people behind. I was fascinated by him - now this I hadn't seen before.

But then Kara prayed. The faith and vulnerability behind the brash swagger, and she unfolded that picture and it was amazing. It hadn't just been Kara and Zak - It has been Kara and Zak and Lee. And of all the people she thought were dead - her squadmates and friends - the whole damn human race - she singled out one person and one person alone to specify - and that was Lee. So significant and so very sad to think that someone that important to her was suddenly gone. In that moment you could see that there were very few people who actually knew Kara Thrace and she believed she had just lost one of them.

The spark that made me think of Kara as being more than the stereotypical action hero was only in two more scenes - when she saw Lee again and when she saved him. It was such a cool thing to see the vulnerability and layers of her, but they only showed when she was with Lee - when he came back from the dead and when she wouldn't lose him again. There was more to Kara Thrace then Maverick. And you saw a softness in Lee when he was with her as well. For better or worse was the phrase that came to mind. These two are stuck with each other for better or worse.

[kategirasole.livejournal.com]

Okay, I will come back and comment on matters of substance later...but I just had to say that I *loved* the Leefaces that you picked in the "boy with the thorn in his side" part of this post. Hee!

[shefcat.livejournal.com]

Great start to the comm, Cosette, really.

And OMGs, I am so happy to find someone who started shipping during the photo scene! Most people say they started during the brig scene, but not me...for me it was the photo scene. That's not to say I didn't like the brig scene (more on that in a bit), but it was only when she pulls that photo from her locker and opens it up to see Lee, it's like she is finally admitting to herself what he meant to her. Because he did mean something to her, even though maybe she didn't know exactly what. But it takes his death for her to finally realize it. Sad and ironic and tragic. Oh pilots, you are complicated, aren't you?

But that's not to say I didn't like the brig scene. The banter, the familiarity, the chemistry. All are there in copious quantities, but as much as Lee's arms are almost too much to bear, it is the conversation they have over Zak that always does me in. My favorite line is when Kara says "What was he to me? Nothing?" I don't know, there is just a way that KS has of delivering her lines...with the intonation. She has incredible range and she delivers it here with a mixture of strength, vulnerability and pissed-off-ness. It reminds me very much of that line in the Pegasus arc where Papadama comes to her to ask her for a favor (to kill Cain) and she says "anything for you, you know that." She's tough and she's brave, but she's vulnerable, too.

And that is why I've been a Kara-girl from the start. She is what dragged me into this show. And I shipped Kara/Lee from the start because, in those scenes (and later ones of course), it is so obvious that Kara is shipping Kara/Lee. Despite all the BS later (QoD, actor commentary), Kara has always shipped Kara/Lee.

On Lee, I was fascinated with his ability to quickly cut through the BS on military and political issues. "Lady's in charge." How great was that? Here's the Secretary of Education making decisions about how to keep the human race alive and it takes Lee about 30 seconds (maybe less) to figure out she was up to the job and to throw his weight, and the weight of the military, behind her...thus legitimizing her government. And, of course, we learn why Doral was so keen to undermine her authority from the get go, but Lee's got his eyes on the ball and he doesn't waver even in the tough situations.

Finally, in reference to your points about how everyone seems so fresh faced and naive. I think you are right, but I am also struck by how fresh faced the Galactica is, as well. So shiny and new. Bright. White. Those pics of the CIC and the hangar bay are what really stand out. Even for a ship that had been around for over 50 years, the ship looks incredibly new. I'm not sure I would make an argument that it is all a metaphor for how innocent and easy things were before the cylon strike, because frankly, I think that would be stretching a bit. But the interior is a stark contrast to where it all eventually ends and it was something that definitely caught my eye on the rewatch.

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

:D :D :D :D

Pretty pictures.

So... um... I had the chance to watch the mini, a few days ago actually, with my friend who is a BSG newbie more or less... she's seen a bit of S1. And she's a bit of a MST3Ker which can be a lot of fun, but anyways it gets to the scene where Kara finds out Lee isn't dead and my friend started yelling "MAKE OUT!!" at the screen. It kind of made my day.

[eugis.livejournal.com]

*SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE*

What a great post, Cosette!! Beautiful way to start this rewatch. ;) This is fantastic. I love all the pics you chose, especially the Leefaces. :P

I think my favourite K/L moment is when Lee comes back from the dead. If I had watched the mini without knowing anything about BSG and K/L's relationship, that moment would have made it for me. I love how relieved they are to see each other, to know they are alive, and the eyefrakking is epic. As the UST. Their chemistry cannot be denied. You know they belong together from day 1.

And let me say that the music geek in me adores the fact you used song titles for each part. :D

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

My only only only single problem with that scene... KARA'S HAIR X.X

[kellychameleon3.livejournal.com]

Okay I have absolutely nothing of substance to add......honestly haven't even re-watched the mini yet. But I just had to tell you how lovely this is, Cosette. Thank you so much for doing it. I haven't even read your commentary yet. Hee. It just looks so pretty!

[bonita-chica71.livejournal.com]

Ay Dios Mio! Those promo photos were horrible, eh? The made Tricia Helfer look 'not her best' and that's hard to do. Eek! :/

Some questions to ponder:
1) Taking into account we already know how this story ends, to what extent has your perception of the show (and pilots) changed?
It shocks me how NOT melancoly it made me feel. It reminds me of the time when there was a Capt. Apollo and Lt. Starbuck who still had not yet found themselves, or each other, completely in the universe. It makes me happy in the knowledge that the best is yet to come. Plus, the fact the everything just looks so new- jamie's hair color, EJO's contacts, the uniforms, dogtags, showers, the Caprica landscape, etc. is awesome. ;) lol

2) What about the first brig scene? Did it give you a different vibe?
Not really; I still LOVE it, mainly because of this- "Maybe they are ex of some sort? Because given the way he stares and stares at her invitingly hot, full lips and her breasts… I could swear he has a hard-on. And I’m sure she craves for him too. Mmmm... " Hot stuff! ;)

3) What's your own view on Kara/Lee previous backstory right now?
I'm at peace with it; I was always saddened, that as someone once said in their own review, "that Zak had to the catalyst of such pain for the two" even from the begining. I <3 you, Zak. ;)

4) When you watched the mini for the first time, which one (K/L) was your favourite? Why? And now?
It was and always will be the brig scene, because it tells you this- "But that is the quality I love most about pilots, I guess; the extremely complicated yet paradoxically simple nature of their relationship. They are almost-siblings, friends, colleagues. But you can’t love your sister. You can’t love your dead fiancé’s brother. You can’t love your superior officer. And you can’t love your pilot. Yet they do. More than anything." Besos! Oh, Pilots! :D

*~*On a side note, upon rewatch, I forgot just how much the jumping away scene owns a little piece of my soul. Aboslutely everything(especially the dialoge) from the camera movement, music, and lighting, to fade out secquence at the end was pitch-perfect. "The guilt and responsibility that comes from these impossible decisions—as we'll see more than once throughout the series—is the price to pay in order to maintain a species' existence after the Armageddon." - So Say We All :D

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I'm phoning this in because I didn't specifically rewatch but I've seen it a bunch of times between actually watching and vidding.

When I watch the mini now, I think it's obvious how much Katee and Jamie really grew in the roles. They were good in the mini, but they were fantastic when it went to series. Their line deliveries got soo much better and more nuanced.

I don't think anyone has any doubt about who my favorite was then and remains now. She is my favorite kind of heroine, a badass and a rebel, yet talented and skilled at her job like nobody's business.

I didn't warm up to Lee for a very long time, as I thought Jamie Bamber was really not a very good actor and thought he was probably too much of a pretty boy for my liking at first. And yet, I enjoyed the pairing because they clearly were setup as conflicted and hot for each other.

One of the non-shipper things I loved about the mini was how they clearly were all a family and fighting together despite any mini personal squabbles. It's so odd and touching to see how much pride Gaeta and Chief (Chief may have even been a favorite before Kara was. I was intrigued by Kara yelling Make a Hole and punching Tigh, but Chief was so instantly lovable.) and everyone had to serve under Adama.

[latteaddict.livejournal.com]

Awww, such a lovely post! I love all your comments and pure love for our pretty pilots :)

The hair was wrong but we also got that hot scene of Kara smoking in her rack. I think it's a fair trade-off. :P

It's funny, I didn't take to Lee straight away and I was a little dubious about the actor (too petite, too pretty, too pissy) but I did have immediate interest in his and Kara's relationship. Lee was obviously Kara's choice and therefore he automatically came under my scrutiny. It's been a love/hate relationship ever since. Kara fascinated me the moment she gave Lee that blinding smile in front of the Viper but it wasn't until Act of Contrition that I fell for her hard (and fell for Katee, too. Her scene with Adama was a powerhouse performance that I'll never forget).

I totally agree that they were both already in love (but in denial) and we walked into the middle of their relationship. I think the show tried to back off a little and then pretend that this (season one) was start of their falling in love. I mean, if we're to take everything shown as canon then Lee's supposedly harbouring tragic guilt and loss of Gianne and unborn child right about now. Yet he clearly isn't. The boy's quite busy checking out Kara's rack and looking deep into her eyes instead.

The funnest (yes, funnest is a word! Don't question me!!) thing about the mini is Kara saving Lee and locking vipers. The blatant sexual metaphors involving these two are quite a riot.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

HA! Finally done with my own pesky meta and now I can get back to the good stuff! Love the questions.

1. I can't help but look at things through the lens of the finale to some extent, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. Like for example, we know a lot more about Laura's backstory and how much she's lost already, and we know that Kara and Lee definitely have some history (even if we don't care for how it was portrayed). It enriches the viewing experience for me (but then again, I also disregard the last hour of the finale for the sake of my sanity. ; P)

2. Not really. It always felt complicated and messy (and compelling as hell.)

3. Eh, I think the DB flashbacks were badly handled, and I still prefer to stick with the premini canon in my head, but if nothing else, I'm kind of glad in a weird way that their backstory was important enough to pay attention to-- even if I ultimately felt that the treatment it got was quite subpar.

4. I loved them both. Truly I did, from that very first moment, although I think as time passed, I grew closer to Lee for some reason. I'm definitely a Lee girl, but I love both my kids-- make no mistake. : )

[rdave1.livejournal.com]

Mr. Feraud commented and he was first. AWESOME!

Tell me, honestly he is a shipper, right?:)

OMG! The pretty pictures! I was reading this and I have all these thoughts running through my head and I feel like I'll miss something.

I agree, the cast looked so young and naive and innocent in the mini. It kind of worked at the end because they were all ragged and worn out from the war, the effects of it showed.

I've told this tale many times but the brig scene was my first introduction to BSG and pilots. You see them and you wonder, who are these people, their is love there but also conflict and hesitancy but why? And then they mention Zak and all the pieces fall into place so quickly. How these two are meant to be together but how can she marry her dead fiance's brother and how can he marry his baby brother's girl? Stuck at the crossroads from the beginning.

Kara has a way of catching your eye. She has that presence about her and I noticed that when I watched the mini. No matter how broken she was, she was always so alive to others. And then our boy Lee, could be play the role a stuck up little rich kid any better. He came off that viper and was already pissed. He didn't want to be there but we didn't know why, even with his father he was cold and then we knew. He blamed his father for Zak's death. So much heartbreak between these two people and the worlds haven't even ended yet.

I always Lee and Roslin's relationship, he advised her and was her confidant but he never went against his beliefs. Lee never changed his beliefs for anyone else, well except Kara but then everything got thrown out the window when it came to her.

My other favorite scene from the mini is when Kara is saving Lee. We learn that no matter what happened or will happen between these people, they will ALWAYS have each other's back. NO MATTER WHAT. Even while facing death, the banter was there.

Is it wrong that the prayer that Kara was saying I know by heart and I've only seen the mini once? During that scene and when Lee comes back, we get to see the depth of their feelings for each other. What shouldn't be, already is but it's wrong so they are stuck at CAG and his best hot shot pilot.

I didn't watch the mini again but I can't see how knowing their backstory it would change my view. That backstory didn't reflect anything those two have done the four years we knew them. The backstory doesn't fit with the rest of their story. The story of four years can't be changed by a backstory of 5 minutes that didn't make sense anyways.

As far as perception, I can't say it changed much as far as the pilots. The finale really did a 180 on the pilots' characters but it changed my perception of Adama and Roslin. Those two were the leader, the two people who had to make the tough decisions and in the end they became whiny and gave up. I hated that something that drastic happened to two people who had managed to over come their own personal differences to protect the fleet. I wouldn't have minded if Lee stayed the Prez and Kara became Admiral. I guess I can dream!

The mini will always be one of favorite BSG episodes ever.

[csm37.livejournal.com]

Cosette, sorry I am late to the party, as Bee mentioned elsewhere I was mountain climbing this weekend and being lazy too. Well done on the site and for co-hosting the re-watch! And how sweet that Señor Feraud made an appearance!

But you posed questions so here are some rambly answers to three of the four:

1) Well for a long time I thought there could be joy at some point for these characters. That when you are the last line of defence, the thing holding what is left of the worlds and society and life as it was known together, that maybe, if you didn't get blown out of the sky during the journey, that just maybe, you would get to lay down your burdens at the end. Be careful what you wish for. Some survived, favourites survived, but for me it wasn't joyful. So knowing the ending just makes me sadder as I watch a group of people still relatively unknown to me at this point in the series, but for whom I will be become more intimate than I ever have with a fictional TV family, fight for what they perceive is a fighting chance to live, when I know there isn't one. Someone christened the last three hours as The Great Betrayal. RDM's narcissistic butchering of 70+ of storytelling. This show was (and still is) a love story and a tragedy and a revelation. For me it was always about the relationships (okay, it was also about the explosions b/c anyone who knows me knows that I love when stuff gets blown up and I am the freak with a list of favourite missile shots), it was about losing everything, about what you do when you are left with nothing. Who do you become? Who do you want to be? What does four years of terror management do to a people/society? Yes, I am a political scientist by training. So I am flummoxed by abandonning family and friends to sit on a mountainside with your dead girlfriend and the last piece of technology which the editors neglected to include in that run for the sun. What was the point then of fleeing and fighting? Everyone loses essentially everything on the day of the apocalypse except for you - you still have your children, your best friend, your home, your toothbrush and at the end, you walk away from it all. I don't understand the message. Because for me it was always about the relationships. At the end, you fight for the relationships. I thought that's what it was all about.

As for pilots ... my perception has not changed. There was a story there. Obvious from the first moment. A complicated, messy, beautiful story and whatever they tried to feed us in flashbacks, it doesn't hold up with the dialogue and the looks and the actions of what was shown to us (of them with each other and with others). So much about the end baffled me but this particular relationship didn't. I still have great clarity about it. See you around Kara Thrace. That was a promise.

Is it time for question #2 yet?

2) Brig scene #1 (so much goodness to be had behind bars, non?) ... so much going on here that we knew nothing about. There was a story there and I wanted to know more about it. I don't recall if I thought it was a romantic story but it certainly had a physical quality that was coming out loud and clear through those brig bars. And I wanted a front row seat. And popcorn.

4) Starbuck. Starbuck. Starbuck. In RL I surround myself with people who possess the skills and characteristics which I feel are lacking in myself. I like to bask in their sunshine. So I adored Lee when he climbed out of his Mark VII all full of vinegar and piss because I recognized him but Kara ... Kara reeled me in with that first punch. She became a catalyst for me. And I am forever different for having known her.

Okay, I just wrote more here than I have in the history of the LJ - Bee will be so proud when she sees it and Tara will just get grumpy that I don't say enough on her posts (but will like that I am an avowed Kara!girl).

[isla-verdad.livejournal.com]

Late to the party but I managed to rewatch the mini last night - I didn't remember that it was three hours long and was up later than I intended...but never even contemplated turning it off once I started. :)

It was the first time that I saw the mini since my first watching, and I was blown away by things I had forgotten. Many of them have already been discussed, like criminally BAD HAIR (oh Lords of Kobol, Kara's hair was as bad in the mini as Lee's was in UB and that's saying something). Also Lee's pissyness...I'm a total Lee!girl and it shocked me to remember what a snippy jerk he was in the beginning. My fond memories of Lee apparently started kicking in during 33 (can't wait to watch that next), when I fell in love with his character head over heels. But the "Lady's in charge" line of the mini was my moment of Zen with him from the beginning.

Not shipper-related, I had also forgotten how violent the hand-to-hand combat scene was between Papadama and Leoben on Ragnar. And I still don't quite know exactly what Leoben was doing there in the first place. Was he there as part of some Cylon master plan to foil the Colonials getting ammunition? If so, what could one Cylon do - why not send in a whole team of them? Or was he there by happenstance and got trapped by the storm? Maybe I'm just dense but it still seems awkward to me and not explained very well.

As far as how the series shaped my view of the pilots goes, I can NOT, not not believe that the brig scene is in any way a continuation of "they never got off the table" retcon of the finale. I rewound it and watched it again to see if it was at all plausible, and the answer is simply no. There's too much love tied up in the twisted baggage for it to have been a simple almost-frak on the table. I'm terrible at meta so I can't wax eloquent about it but dammit, no.

Especially when we see the scene of Kara praying over the picture of her, Zak and Lee. That was a pivotal emotional moment for me in shipping pilots. Kara was so clearly broken up about his "death" - and this is after losing her entire squadron, Helo, and 12 billion other people on the colonies - yet she is thinking of only one man. Her Lee. So clearly there is much, much more behind pilot!love than a stupid table.

I really just loved the mini for setting up our pilots as gender-stereotype-breaking anti heros. We all know what those roles are, Kara as the brash hot shot loud mouthed top pilot and Lee as the emo do-gooder over-thinker committed to his duty. But the mini went out of its way to show us that these aren't caricatures. The photo scene with Kara shows us her vulnerable side, and Lee is the only one in the military to back Roslin and make the tough decision to leave the non-FTL ships behind. Sometimes we get so caught up in the main characteristics of each of our favored pilots we tend to forget that they are more well-rounded than we think. But they are two halves of the same whole, destined to complete the other...it's clear from the beginning. (Although Kara rescuing Lee, the damsel in distress, in her Viper is just so classic role reversal I love it to pieces).

Anyway, it was a great walk down memory lane and it made my heart hurt to see some of the characters we loved so much in the beginning get such a shaft later on. Chief, oh Chief. And is it me or is everyone pronouncing Gaeta different in the mini than later on? I can also hear a bit of Jamie's British accent peeking through that disappears in subsequent episodes. OK, now I'm just rambling but it sure beats working, which is what I should be doing right now. Sigh. Baaaaaby pilots. How I miss you.

[kellychameleon3.livejournal.com]

It hurts to see characters like Gaeta—it's painfully ironic, but the first scene of Felix shows him telling Adama how he appreciates and respects him—

This totes struck me too. Also did you notice Adama and Tigh kept calling him Guyda.

I think I'm going to just end up agreeing with everything you say. ;P. Kara, Kara, Kara......I remember the first time watching and just thinking....who is this chick? I think it was love. ;) In fact I was so infatuated with her that I pretty much missed Apollo. Hee. I mean, I saw him of course but I didn't really give him much thought. He was just another character to me.

1) When I was first settling down to rewatch the mini, I was really afraid that the show would be totally ruined for me thanks to the craptastic finale but I have to say it stood on it's own. Even though I knew the fate of everyone I still went through the emotions right along with them, the fear, excitement, horror..... Every now and then, while I was watching, the finale would pop into my mind and then I would feel sick. But for the most part I was still able to enjoy it.

2)I feel more aware of the brig scene now then the first time I watched it....I mean I know what is up with these two, ya know, so it is juicer for me now then it was when I first saw it. :)

3)Lee and Kara's backstory....well I guess I'm still unsure. They love each other as I think maybe they have since the first time they met. But I think the Daybreak flashbacks are total bullshit. Kara and Lee did not almost frak on the table while Zak was there, they may have wanted to and fantasized about it but they didn't act on it.

4)You know I don't think I became a full fledged shipper until some time around season 2. I mean, I liked them together and there was totally some smoking, hot chemistry going on but I was a bit confused by their dynamic. They seemed to be into each other and then Kara slept with Baltar and then she jumped away and there was Anders...and in all that time Lee never made a move.

I remember that scene of Kara praying in the mini definitely sticking out to me becasue I think that was the first time we were able to see her with her guard down. &hearts.

Also I love the reunion scene between Kara and Lee and the way he blatantly stares at her tits after she calls him a dip stick. Hee.

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

I have a quick question way too far after the fact. Why is there no pictures of the scene where she saves him? HMMMMN? (Because that's totally their Vipers having secks.)

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

Doral cannot accept Roslin taking charge of the situation because he believes she is not qualified to be giving orders

I think it's really more that Doral is trying to sow dissension amidst the surviving humans and one way to do it is to pit the military's representative (Lee) against the leader of the civilians. (Which is actually what ends up happening with Lee's FATHER, but Doral has not reckoned on Lee's actually caring about the fact that there is civilian control of the military in the colonies :P)

This is the moment in which I fell in love with Lee too - the "lady's in charge" without a moment's hesitation.

I think my perception of the show and pilots has changed merely in the sense that I still can't stop feeling sad and disappointed and surprised that the showrunner took all that chemistry and awesomeness and threw it away. As for the backstory, I am still not accepting that table nonsense, SORRY!

When I first watched the mini, Lee was my favorite, and through four seasons, he stayed my favorite, for the reasons that Innibis articulates. Lee was something different from the ordinary run of scifi heroes, and I'm a sucker for a good father-son-angst triangle and that's what sucked me into his story (that and the Roslin stuff.) That's not to say I DIDN'T like Kara at this point, but I always had as well a sneaking sympathy for Tigh, so I was not wholly in her corner from the beginning as I was with Lee. Still I liked Kara a LOT in the miniseries and in season 1. I'm hoping the like will carry over into the rest of the show during the rewatch :P

[aurora-0811.livejournal.com]

wow, WOW! I am so behind on commenting and so many lovely things have been said here so it's really hard to top or add anything new to many of them.

Cosette! This is just such a wonderful start to comm. Your words combined with the caps just brings up such wonderful emotions when I'm thinking about the pilots. There is really only one word to sum up their love story, interactions and that inexplicable pull we saw from the first moment they were in the brig together...EPIC.

We knew from the very first moment that these two were going to be worth watching. They did not fail us. The brig scene is why I came back for more, I needed to know more and I needed to know how they were going to deal with the obvious issues between them. I was hooked by pilots alone but then everything else happened. We got drama, comedy, sadness, action...we got it all and we all knew we would be on one hell of a ride.

[justascrewup2.livejournal.com]

Ok, totally late to the party here, but it was hard trying to find 3 uninterrupted hours in which to re-watch the mini.

Re-watching now that it's all over, I couldn't get over how young everyone looks. They all look like babies in this, except maybe MM, EJO, and MH. It was also like a big reunion, seeing how everyone was at the beginning - innocent and united, before election shenanigans, New Caprica, not!Earth, the mutiny... When survival was more important than politics or whose fault it was that they were spinning away somewhere lost in space.

I was reminded how much I liked Starbuck from the start, probably because of her cockiness, since it was backed with skill in her viper, and how much I disliked Lee. The stick up his ass is particularly evident here, only thawing in his few scenes with Kara, which I don't know that I'd noticed before. Given the backstory that RDM gave us in the finale, their scenes seemed kind of muted here, even the awesome scene when Lee comes back from the dead. But they're pilots and they're awesome and I loved getting to know them again.

[thrace-adama.livejournal.com]

Oh, Cosette, that was a WONDERFUL first post (and the pics are such a great way to illustrate all your points). I loved how you shared your first impressions of each of them and what actually made you start shipping them (I forget sometimes how HUGE it was that Kara had folded Lee out of the picture until she thought he was dead--I mean, yeah, how can you deny she knew she had feelings for him then and felt immense guilt about it?!). It's hard for me to do that because I don't clearly remember all those things, sadly. I mean, I remember wondering why my friend Mike (who convinced me to watch the mini) liked Starbuck so much at first (I was like, "She's so cocky!" She was magnificent to watch, but I think it was only when I saw her vulnerable side that I got how truly awesome Starbuck is), and I remember thinking Lee was kind of a jerk! By the end of the mini I was fascinated by both and later, obviously, fell head over heels for them apart and together, but I'm not sure *exactly* when I made that shift anymore. :)

This was my favorite part (your writing girl--I have to agree with Bee that you'd make an excellent fic writer!):

But that is the quality I love most about pilots, I guess; the extremely complicated yet paradoxically simple nature of their relationship. They are almost-siblings, friends, colleagues. But you can’t love your sister. You can’t love your dead fiancé’s brother. You can’t love your superior officer. And you can’t love your pilot. Yet they do. More than anything.

YES to all of that. I think this perfectly sums up why they are my favorite pairing of all time. Reminds me of one of my favorite moments in the show "Veronica Mars," when Veronica says something like "You really think a relationship should be that hard?" and Logan, her ex-boyfriend who is still in love with her, says, "They don't write songs about the ones that come easy." <333 I feel that way about Lee/Kara. What makes their love so exceptional is that they have gone through and are *willing* to go through so much together just because of their love for each other. And it's as simple as that to them: they know no other way.

In terms of your first discussion questions I have to say that you know, I've seen the mini so many times now (seriously, I have seen all the eps except S4 several times at least--and some more than others!) it's hard for me to answer things like that. I don't even remember for sure which character I liked best at first! 'Cause I think I was primarily a shipper from day 1. But I will say that I was more excited than I thought I would be to watch the mini again. I hadn't watched any BSG since the finale, so I was worried watching it would be kind of upsetting because of how it all ended and how they really never did get the bright, shiny future they fought SO FRAKKING HARD for. But I was pleased to find that I was actually very happy to be going back to the beginning--just blocking out the finale and focusing on the journey again, I guess. And damn was it a helluva journey! So I'm loving the rewatch, as I really do feel I'm reclaiming pilots and my show. Kudos to you and Bee again for organizing all this. <3

I do have a question for you, though. How do *you* feel about the backstory now? I usually love canon like you do, but watching the mini again simply makes me want to reject that Great Betrayal table flashback even more. Because it just does not really fit for me! So I'm curious to see what your thoughts are, and if you can change my mind. ;)

(Wow, that was a long post even for me!)

[reynard-muldrak.livejournal.com]

First thing- why of why did I only find this now, not back in july when every man and his dog were clamouring for me to introduce them to bsg cause they'd heard about it - three years into it.
I swear the only thing thats bigger than my urge to ship is my urge to lurk and only post in long rambling posts (or very small snippets of poetry/quote/lyric inspired almost-drabbles)

I have been a shipper of many pairings in many fandoms, but no other has captured my attention as much as A/S, kara/lee (yeah not even sam/jack, though I draw a few parallels between the two couples)

My first moment wasn't during the miniseries, (which I'd watched many years before in illegal copy) but during 33. A friend had this 'new' show airing over in the states that he'd thought I'd love. Considering I had vague memories of the original during it's re-run era, I gave it a try. In I walk to fast-paced, fighting, no sleep (I was part way through uni, in tests, and in the midst of a sam/jack revival so I fully understood) and what could only be termed as 'eye-frakking' - in the cockpit, outside and def in the briefing-room, under the cover of bordom/tiredness.

Something struck my heart-springs and made me take a leap into the deep end, though having no idea how deep it would get, what a time!


Halfway through season 1, I got a copy of the mini and proceeded to introduce my parents to it. This was when I saw, for what would be the second time (though I didn't realise till part way through) the brig scene, which had me going
"what is up with these two? What is their history cause I can feel the water under the bridge but it's all murky and not flowing so well"


Some questions to ponder
1) Taking into account we already know how this story ends, to what extent has your perception of the show (and pilots) changed?

My perceptions of pilots hasn't really changed much, I just have learnt to classify them in three separate categories - pre clack market, algae and post poof.

Pre black market always seems innocent of the future but with foretellings in snippets. Emo it could be, full of angst it often was but always with the possibility of a happy ever after - in their case, often a hate/love/fight/sex type of relationship that no matter what it looked to the outside it would always strengthen them.

algae is my most disappointing area of classification, for while the actors played their parts brilliantly, the fic authors assured my heart didn't shatter into minuscule pieces, the Characters felt off. There were moments of brilliance but over all the story line between them felt off - instead of angst it was true emo, it seemed as though they had given up entirely, bone, blood and soul. Not just on each other but on everything.

On the poof scene - my LJ post tells my thoughts most eloquently but I do have to say, while it left a lot to be desired from a shipper POV and from a continuity/plothole freaks view, as an ending to a relationship in general it was the best.


3) What's your own view on Kara/Lee previous backstory right now?
I am a huge fan of the Kara and Lee at the academy story line, though I am torn between two schools of thought - the RDM allowed story, where the two only became friends 'after' meeting at Zacs.
and the alternative AU - where they were friends before.