Battlestar Boy: Lee via a Vid Recc (and a bit of Gaius tacked on at the end).

[beccatoria]

Remember way back, kids? When I loved Lee because he was Laura's boy and clearly they were destined to LOVE EACH OTHER even though I never held any illusions that it was destined at all, and that made me a little sad? Maybe I wasn't even really blogging much back then; maybe I'm the only one who remembers those heady days of early season two when I'd started to sour on Adama and jump 'ship.

Whatever, the point is, I loved him once. And if you told me at the start of season two that I'd have an icon with ANDERS but not Lee icon, I would have been mightily confused.

So today I finally watched this Lee vid that I've had for a while and been meaning to watch but never did because I kind of hate the music. THE VID IS SO AWESOME IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT I HATE THE MUSIC.

Signal to Noise

Go watch. Now. (Note: the link is to a post with four vids; Signal to Noise is the second on that page).

The thing I can't stress enough is that this is a Lee vid, even though probably half of it doesn't even have him in it: isn't even about his storylines. And that's maybe the tragedy of Lee's character, but certainly the triumph of the vid.

Lee Adama is the young man, the Romantic Lead in terms of conventional television demographics. The show politely continues to try and treat him that way, and every time it does, it fucks over his character.

They made this wonderfully surprising man; not the angsty action hero with lip service to cerebral, moral thinkiness that's actually just a front for brooding sexily. A man with an actual conscience, and who is constantly shown up on the action hero front by another character. In the first season, again and again, Lee's political conscience is shown as his defining attribute.

But back in the first season there were two shows - the political show and the actiony pilots soap opera show. Lee was always an excellent fit in the first and a mediocre fit in the second. And rather than running with their success and putting Lee firmly into Laura's political arena and playing up the tensions with him and his father - the civilians versus the military, as they did in the mini and throughout the first season - instead they went a more conventional route, and slowly brought Adama and Roslin together while trying to push Lee back into Pilot Soap Opera country.

I have huge amounts of respect for this show, and this season. I know its change in focus has been unpopular among some, but I've loved it, because I love the crazy insane religious Cylon show. But I honestly think that Lee has been the character who's been the most misused. Not underused (that would probably be the various non-imaginary Sixes), but misused.

After he breaks with Roslin in season two, Lee never really finds his feet. He comes close with the Pegasus but that was always going to be temporary. The writers pretty much admitted his weight issues at the start of season three came from not knowing what to do with him, and I know that I personally think that the bizarre love quadrangle of doom that dominated the middle of season three was BSG storytelling at its worst, at it's most unimportant and tiresome.

I'm not being a 'shipper snob. Love stories are big, important and potentially epic affairs. But something about the way BSG is filmed and its story is told...there was no sense of balance here. Too much attention and time devoted to this unmystical, unearth-shattering quagmire of adolescent idiocy for the sake of drawing out the drama, when everything going on around it was so much more important.

I really think that they've started back on the right track with Lee at the end of season three and during season four - putting him back in the political arena, even if he was woefully devoid of material before the very end of 4.0.

But if that's the case, then why does he, like his father, feel so woefully disconnected and unimportant in the scheme of things?

I think it's because Lee's finally been put back onto the political show, except...now he's the only one on it. Because now the political show has morphed into the metaphysical cylon show. EVERYTHING has morphed into the metaphysical cylon show.

Which is great for me, because I love that show! I've wanted more of it since Flesh and Bone; wait, since we first met Six in the mini. But Lee is the character least connected to that show of anyone. Even more so than his father who at least maintains a tie with it through Roslin and his relationship with her and his status as the military leader on this quest for Earth even if he's not the one with visions in his head.

Everyone except Lee has been moving closer and closer to this show. Kara, Baltar, Laura, the various Cylon models and characters revealed to be Cylon have all been getting tangled up in this Opera House clusterfrak of a vision of repeating time.

And Lee's just there...waving his little flag and saying, "Hey guys? Guys? When did everyone convert? Can't we argue about whether it's ethical to force prisoners into hard labour, or summary executions of POWs for a while? No? We have to decode hybridic prophecy again? Damn."

ETA - there's also the fact that with the revelation that Anders is a cylon Lee's place as Kara's special boy has also been undercut, imho, in terms of the fabric of the narrative. I mean, I know there are as many L/K fanpeople out there as there ever were and I also believe that's the show's endgame, but from the perspective of keeping Lee relevant to the ongoing metaplot of the show, they just took the challenger to the male lead and gave him destiny in common with the female lead. Especially against this backdrop of cylons and humans and final five magical cylons falling in LOVE and hybridity and evolution and...yeah. No offence to people whose 'ship this is, but "they're meant to be," has just taken a huge knock in the context of a show where the cycle of time means that there are actual things that are actually meant to be and Lee seems entirely unmentioned in all of them whereas Kara, and now apparently Sam, are starring mythological figures. That's not to say that the show should therefore do that because I'm all for changing destinies. But moving away from your destiny means there has to be a strong thematic destiny component in the first place. /ETA.

They finally put Lee in the right place for him, but they've moved everyone else out of it.

Poor Lee.

But the POINT! The point is the vid.

The vid is genius because it locates Lee in this wider world where prophecy and religion happen. And also where non-mystical violence and death and rebellion that he wasn't a part of happen.

Most character vids try to relate everything to the character in order to explain that characters behaviour or show us something new about them. This vid does the opposite. It shows us everything that's going on, whether about Lee or not, and then puts Lee down and asks - what is it like to live in this world?

Lee - the one guy who isn't going collectively insane with everyone else as they abandon fleets for love and cylonicity and crazed signals straight into their brains - stands in for the everyman here. In some ways for the civilian we never see.

All around the world is turning to noise.

Of course it would be, for him. I should have seen it sooner.

Plus the vid manages a task I previously thought impossible: making Lee's murder of Phelan actually look like an interesting and worthwhile part of the story.

So...yeah. That's that. My Lee-ifesto.

And since we're on the topic of definitive character study vids - here's an amazing Gaius vid:

The Noose.

It has spoilers for season four and I love it because it tackles an issue that I wish the show would be clearer about, head-on. Namely, you feel redeemed, Gaius, and that's wonderful, but do you actually deserve it?

Also since I'm reccing Baltar vids and this one's great, here's nicole_anell's Baltar/Gaeta vid, Another Place to Fall.

/battlestar boys.

Comments

[coffeejunkii.livejournal.com]

"signal to noise" is perhaps my favorite bsg vid ever. interestingly enough, i never think of it as a lee vid, even though it's labelled as such. i really think it's more a vid that's about the interconnections between so many of bsg's themes, like humanity vs technology, faith vs fact, etc.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

I, for one, am glad that they moved Lee into the more political area of the show. I agre with you on him never fitting into the pilot action. I like him best when he's with Laura or playing to his moral conscience. It felt like the show didn't know what to do with him, so his character floundered.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I can see why people wouldn't think of it as a Lee vid because, well, it's about so many other things, but given that the vidder did label it a Lee vid I also think it's interesting to look at it in that light.

I think perhaps it's so refreshing because it puts Lee smack in the middle of a world needing to learn how to deal wth faith vs fact, humanity vs technology, etc., when the show so often fails to locate him in that wider context and insists on putting him in some pilots-related love/military story?

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yes, I totally agree and it's a real shame his character floundered because they kept trying to force him into a role he wasn't a good fit for. I can't help but think it started when they broke away from having Lee as Laura's friend and started building up the Adama/Roslin relationship, as if they couldn't have both characters interacting with her at once. :/

Even now, he's distanced from her because of their past, although the only way I can understand Laura still holding him at a distance when she doesn't do that for Adama who actually voted to pardon Baltar and who does stuff like put Kara on a garbage scow with no explanation and leave her to pick up the pieces, is that she's a lot more personally betrayed by Lee's behaviour because she expects better of him or cares so deeply about him or something? Bah. At this point, I'm not sure anymore.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

His character was never quite suited to the pilot action. It was the more political situations where Lee thrived and came into his own.

I wonder if the runners of the show decided to separate Lee and Laura. It seems like there were opportunities for them to have scenes and interact that were passed over.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Well spoken about Lee being on his own (political) show now. I think my frustration is that, all the fuss over him joining the Quorom now, when there's still a war going on and there's the mission to Earth and kara's back from the dead, is that the quorum was pretty unimportant. He felt he had a destiny...to attend town council meetings? To step in for Roslin only to hand the reins of power back over and become ineffectual again within the space of two episodes? Blegh.

I don't really understand the writers' problem with Lee. Why don't they ever know what to do with him? Is it because they wrote Starbuck as the man of the show and they couldn't figure out how to reassign tasks/emotions to him within the gender-reversed universe?

Anyway, as a K/L shipper, I worry for my ship because of exactly the reasons you mention about Anders. He's too important now, the balance of power is shifting away from Kara/Lee as a pairing (they're on different paths--we know) and to Kara/Sam who both have important destinies. But the recent deleted brig scene practically had neon arrows pointing to K/L as the end game, so I don't know. Of course, maybe that's why it was a deleted scene.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that Lee left for politics because I like the way the show, in the first season and parts of the second season, didn't portray the Fleet as the sort of people who would immediately embrace martial law for the sake of perceived safety. But I also sympathise with the view that Lee had an extremely important and irreplaceable skill set and that resigning his commission was irresponsible.

I'm...not sure I agree simply because I'm reluctant to prioritise the military above the government in terms of importance and I'm not sure how irreplacable Lee really was, skill wise, at this point. But I do agree that the way they filmed it it made it look like he was 'attending town council meetings' for a long time. I think that has more to do with his reduced screen time and odd storylines than much else. After joining the quorum his only storyline was fighting for the right to assembly, which I actually really liked as a junkie for the political issues, but I'm aware not all of the viewership will respond the same way.

I don't understand the writers problem with Lee either actually but yes, I think you might have hit on it, that it's culturally harder for us to accept gender-role reassigned men than women. Girls pushing the boundries of their gender roles has been something that's been an active political agenda for a century in one for or another (well longer than that but I guess I'm thinking back to women's suffrage). And more recently, characters from Buffy to Scully to Aeryn Sun are there creating a new safe network of stereotypes (she says as someone who loves all three) for strong female characters. And BSG is extremely good at using that as a starting point to push things even further. I really think that BSG can be exciting and excellent in its treatment of gender issues re: women.

But not so great re: men. Because pushing the gender boundries of men has only ever meant one thing in our pop-culture. Gay. And not in a positive sense, because the male hegemony is still less threatened by lesbians (who they can turn into a sexual kink for their own gratification) than gay men. So the sensitive male movement leads to a whole slew of angsty morally grey emo boys but nothing that actually challenges gender roles fundamentally.

And Lee does. The core of his character manages to eschew them as readily as Kara's does female stereotypes. Except Kara's not as far removed from the media's beaten track and they can pull her back to it more easily (and at times I think they have done so). Lee is...

They don't know what to do with him, either because they just don't or they're afraid of alienating the audience or...something. I think they were doing fine until season three. That's where he really went pointlessly off the rails in an attempt to make him a Male Lead again instead of just a lead who happened to be male. And I'm glad to see them taking steps to repair that decision even if it's a little hampered by the fact no one else is on his show.

Finally, I'm not a K/L shipper so I interpreted that scene totally differently (though I did love it), but I also think I interpreted it in a different way to the writers' intentions. If it helps, that scene did scream "MEANT TO BE," to me, and my guess is that they will get them back together at the end - even if (and I apologise for saying it knowing your affiliations!) I'd prefer them not to. I both think they will and would marginally prefer they not do it simply because it's expected and there'll be a lot of pressure from fans and the network and perhaps even the writers' own beliefs in the shape of the story to do so.

Though I have no idea how they'll handle Sam. We'll see.

But have heart. It's not a deleted scene. It's an extended scene. And to be honest, that scene was so long that I don't think they ever intended to air it in its entirety. I think they let the actors do their thing, play their beats and cut it into something more usable in the episode. I know it's fun for shippers and has a lot of nice material but in my opinion it's kind of frakked pacing-wise. I think the cuts they made were good.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Very interesting points you raise. (wish I could be more eloquent in response, but mostly I'm just nodding and mmhmming here). I too find the gender politics to be endlessly fascinating. I tend to notice it a lot more easily in the women, esp. Kara and Laura, but a lot of the Galactica men have traditionally female-associated qualities assigned to them: Helo for example is very invested in home/family, so much so that he immediately trusts/believes in Sharon when she tells him she's pregnant despite the fact that the show establishes him as a bit of a tomcatter in the mini. Baltar is another one who is, in his relationship with Six, very much the needier one.

The politics storyline was interesting to me back in season one and two when Roslin was having to make very tough choices indeed about the fleet's future. But in season 4, it got very...uninspiring. It did just look like a lot of pointless meetings/speeches (which, I guess, kudos to them for being true to real life.) I still feel TPTB made a big thing about finally having found the right path for Lee by having him leave the military (which they had been telegraphing early on in the show) but then promptly squandered it by not really letting him be efficient. I am intrigued to find out where it's gonna go in s4.5. How soon is Roslin going to die (if she is) and will LEe be reinstated as Prez? I'm really not in the mood for more quorum meetings though.

No apologies necessary re: ship issues. We all have our own preferences. I'm actually much more a Kara fan than a Lee fan and often times I feel he doesn't deserve her, which probably makes me a bad shipper but whatevs. Ultimately I hope the endgame for her is Kara being happy, but I don't see how, within the context and setup of what we've seen on the show, that can logically mean a future without Lee (UB implied that they'll always come back to each other and they've already done the Anders marriage thing and it didn't work.) I'm very curious what's going to happen to Sam too and I hope they give Trucco more of a chance to shine in 4.5.

I can see this post!

[projectcyborg.livejournal.com]

I'm resisting the urge to point and laugh, because really the least I can do is be nice about your ships. Your analysis is very convincing, and I'm glad SOMEONE cares enough about Lee to think through where he went wrong! The gender perspective in particular is eye-opening.

I think one thing on which we can all agree is that Lee and Sam are perfect for each other.

Your powers of sight amaze me!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

My ships are awesome! Um. They were awesome... *snuffles*

I'm glad you found some of this interesting even though it's not a character you're particularly interested in. :D

I think one thing on which we can all agree is that Lee and Sam are perfect for each other.

Actually, I have real, real trouble seeing Lee in a slashy sense. I KNOW, INSANE, RIGHT?

Sam is slashtacular but Lee, I just...I can see where other people are coming from (Zarek, Romo, Sam, um, anyone he gets all angsty in the face of), but it just does nothing for me.

OTOH, I have completely accidentally started shipping Anders/Chief. :/ Like, I'm kind of serious here. If Kara has to end up with Lee, maybe Sam can get a happy ending with the Chief. He'd be all domestic and wouldn't whine like Cally did.

Cus, you know, if Hera has six mommies, Nicky needs six daddies. And so far he only has like...three or something. CLEARLY NOT ENOUGH.

Re: Your powers of sight amaze me!

[projectcyborg.livejournal.com]

it's just that Lee and Sam are both such giant lesbians! they should stroke each other gently and process their feelings. but if Sam would rather process his feelings with Galen that's OK with me. MOAR DADDIES.

dude, I can't believe it took you until NOW to watch Signal to Noise, which is one of the greats. I thought I held off for a long time, and that's BECAUSE it's ostensibly about Lee!

it's looking like I won't get to your vid beta until tomorrow (although I DO feel like I made some progress catching up today), but as a preview: AWESOME OMGGGGGGGG! it's an AMAZING finale to the series (pls to be making a playlist for the project on imeem, or I'll have to do it). and yet, I see what you mean about the awkwardness of cutting to this song. since this is such a high-concept vid, I wonder if it requires some more high concept editing -- perhaps more use of the static TV effect throughout, like changing channels? more soon!

[asta77.livejournal.com]

But back in the first season there were two shows - the political show and the actiony pilots soap opera show. Lee was always an excellent fit in the first and a mediocre fit in the second. And rather than running with their success and putting Lee firmly into Laura's political arena and playing up the tensions with him and his father.....instead they went a more conventional route, and slowly brought Adama and Roslin together while trying to push Lee back into Pilot Soap Opera country.

I'm rewatching the series now, though am only through the mini, but thinking about the course of the show, Season 3 is where they seemed to really go off the rails with storytelling. Instead of shaking things up, they went a more conventional route. I haven't seen any stories that it was due to network interference so I'm not going to point fingers at SciFi. My gut feeling is that Ron had hoped to broaden appeal of the show and bring in new viewers, but managed to confuse, anger, and alienate the ones he had. Lee and Kara struggling with their feelings during the first two seasons was fine, the Quadrangle of Doom was not. No one found that emotionally satisfying and it only ended up damaging all four characters involved. Instead of allowing the characters to deal with the problems they were already dealing with (Lee's struggles with military might vs civilian rights and long standing issues with his father; Kara with her fears, self-doubt, and self-loathing) they had to create new, soap operatic issues for them.

I think it's because Lee's finally been put back onto the political show, except...now he's the only one on it. Because now the political show has morphed into the metaphysical cylon show. EVERYTHING has morphed into the metaphysical cylon show.

I love that Lee finally walked away from the military and set out on the path that has been laid out for him since the mini-series and he's being his own man rather than being obscured by his father's long shadow, however I must agree with you that it has come at a time when nearly everyone else on the show is involved in a plot based on mystical destinies and religious epiphanies. I don't know a ton of spoilage for season 4.5 (and what I know, you know), but since visions and prophecies and special destinies have lead them to a dead end (literally), I'm hopeful we might have a refocus on civilian life, the role of the government in trying to make life as bearable as possible with no new home in site, and that Lee will play a significant role in that.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

OH AWESOME, REWATCH! I've been toying with that idea myself but also kind of want to wait and rewatch everything after the end of the series. You have to let me know how it goes!

We are completely on the same page about season three. At least the middle section: it started well and ended well (you know, fat suit notwithstanding), but the middle was...eww. Like you say, it was conventional and boring in terms of interpersonal relationships. The giant exploding supernova temple final five plotline was kinda interesting but that was at the start of the sucky bit and after that it was just a snoozefest of getting drunk at bars, losing wedding rings and hallucinating one's screwed up spouse. The attempts to be 'deep' were pretty failtastic including missed opportunities to actually look at racial issues instead of having Helo act righteous at a murderous doctor with nonsensical motivations, or Adama threatening to murder people's wives in an attempt to make him look awesome. ::eyeroll::

Less happened in the "boring" stretch of S2, and there were a few duds (Black Market, Sacrifice) but I felt nowhere near as...let down by the storytelling decisions as I did in S3.

I remember I read somewhere that RDM was asked to make more standalone episodes in order to pull in more viewers and that after it pretty much bombed and wrecked the back half of a season, the network said, "Okay, that doesn't work for your show, just...do whatever you wanna do." I think that actually was season three because I remember being confused because I thought S2 was far more standaloney even than the standalone sections of S3, and that that's why S4 has been far less "episodey" because it's the last season anyway so he's just being allowed to do whatever (so I hope it doesn't suffer from early back-half slump like the previous seasons have). BUT, I have absolutely no idea where I read this, so I could be wrong and it could have been during season two
that this happened...

since visions and prophecies and special destinies have lead them to a dead end (literally), I'm hopeful we might have a refocus on civilian life, the role of the government in trying to make life as bearable as possible with no new home in site, and that Lee will play a significant role in that.

I'm absolutely certain that the destinies will play a role in the finale, but yes, in the shorter term - i.e. the next five episodes or so, I think it's a perfect chance for them to let Lee take a larger role and interact with Laura!

Also I hadn't considered that way of looking at it - that the destinies and epiphanies had literally led them to a dead end, but it's totally true. I hadn't considered that that would mean the people would be looking for more conventional reassurance and it might make gaining support for further destiny-based explorations difficult. I feel like an idiot for not considering that angle, but yeah - totally true.