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So, indulge me…

belledame

I am working on something(s) of more substance, which I hope to have completed before my stint is up.

But…

well, see, I just finished season three of BSG, and…look, I know y’all have done this to death and it’s so six months ago, but o, you of all people do understand, don’t you? o please say yes. I’m DYING. (not till JANUARY?!?)

–Okay. Well. Look. Just two things.

1) Trying to not give away spoilers here, but um didn’t that last, or rather the second-to-last…revelation sort of freak people out, I don’t just mean in terms of character or plot, I mean, y’know, existentially? Because (no, I have not had any spliff, shut up), if you think about it. Nobody really knows who or what we are, or where we came from, or whether there really is a neon pinkish light that glows at the base of our spine when we’re really excited. Because, even if there is, apparently no one tells us these things.

2) On a more serious note:

Where’s all the booze coming from?

No, seriously. They kind of sort of explained the Incredible Replenishing Food Supply, at least when it wasn’t anymore, and then they all had to harvest a shitload of algae, and now all they’re eating is algae loaf and algae soup and algae in the basket with algae sauce. Okay.

But, they NEVER run out of booze. Apparently.

Where’s it coming from? Are they all just drinking algae beer and algae martinis now? But even -before- that.

Sorry to go all Althousian on y’all, but. I’m asking you, cause you know about these things…

13 thoughts on So, indulge me…

  1. THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS. TURN BACK IF THAT BUGS YOU.

    In the first season, I think, they show the deck crew trying to make a still out of spare parts. Chief catches them, reprimands them, then tells them they’re doing a shitty job, and here’s how you *really* build a still. So. I kind of assume that they get booze from that, and other people’s homemade stills.

    That said, I have NO idea where they’re getting the raw supplies for this stuff, aside from the algae.

    Yeah, the existential implications are a bit scary, but I also think it’s meant to be that way. Like, we dehumanize those people, and look! The people we think are most human are exactly as human as those we dehumanize (did anyone follow that?). So, not only are Sharon, Gina-Six, etc. people with feelings who don’t deserve to be raped “just like us”, the Cylons, in fact, ARE us, at our most human.

    Also, since the Final Five are meant to be special, I’ll buy that no one had glowing red spines to give it away.

  2. THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS. TURN BACK IF THAT BUGS YOU.

    In the first season, I think, they show the deck crew trying to make a still out of spare parts. Chief catches them, reprimands them, then tells them they’re doing a shitty job, and here’s how you *really* build a still. So. I kind of assume that they get booze from that, and other people’s homemade stills.

    That said, I have NO idea where they’re getting the raw supplies for this stuff, aside from the algae.

    Yeah, the existential implications are a bit scary, but I also think it’s meant to be that way. Like, we dehumanize those people, and look! The people we think are most human are exactly as human as those we dehumanize (did anyone follow that?). So, not only are Sharon, Gina-Six, etc. people with feelings who don’t deserve to be raped “just like us”, the Cylons, in fact, ARE us, at our most human.

    Also, since the Final Five are meant to be special, I’ll buy that no one had glowing red spines to give it away.

  4. They were growing fresh fruit and everything on the 2 botanical cruisers they used to have. Then the Six from Pegasus blew up one of them, Cloud Nine, with the nuke.

    That said, I have to leave because I only watched the first 4 episodes so far. ^^

  5. I can accept the booze. It’s an algae by-product, or they’re able to grow some grains somewhere in the fleet, or something. What really bothers me is that they haven’t run out of tobacco yet. That’s a fairly time and resource intensive crop, not to mention the drying/curing process.

  6. POTENTIAL SPOILERS!

    I can accept the booze. It’s an algae by-product, or they’re able to grow some grains somewhere in the fleet, or something. What really bothers me is that they haven’t run out of tobacco yet. That’s a fairly time and resource intensive crop, not to mention the drying/curing process.

    Yeah, this has me scratching my head, too. Even the one excuse I could come up with (huge stash of cigars and cigarettes on board for the ship retirement celebration that wasn’t) doesn’t hold water to me because surely they would have run out by now. UNLESS – they were growing tobacco on New Caprica and someone thought to grab a huge supply during the rescue. The time on New Caprica could also help explain the booze.

  7. To borrow from an old Star Trek joke about food:

    You’re on a starship in the far reaches of space. The ship recycles everything as much as possible.

    How many times have you had that cheeseburger?

    Among the other problems with BSG – food resources have been the biggest bugaboo by far.

    I sort of gave up on the series halfway through S3 when the story lines started to lose coherence. (some of the “flashback episodes” were incomprehensibly wierd)

  8. Yeah, I thought in season one there was even some discussion about how valuable cigarillos were given that there was but a finite supply on-fleet, but all sorts of tobacco seems to be pretty widely available. Having actually built and used a still, I have to say that the output of the one in the Swamp on M*A*S*H is hard enough to swallow given its size and the amount of drinking the characters do. BSG‘s liquor supply is even less believable. The real issue isn’t where the raw materials come from — as others have said, yeasties will ferment anything with any type of sugar content if you deprive them of oxygen, and the distillation will get rid of all the other crap that might ruin the flavor or kill you — it’s where you store all the undistilled “wine” as it’s fermenting. It’s way higher volume than the end product and needs to be sitting around for a while before all the sugar’s been consumed.

    Agree with Michelle, the flashback episodes are generally really tacked-on feeling attempts to add depth to characters who at times can feel a little flimsy. Can’t fault them for trying, I suppose, but it just really detracts from the greater work. The boxing episode, jeez. Not that I won’t be watching when season four starts…

  11. I don’t know if you can smoke algae, but if I were stuck on the last known human fleet in the vast expanse of space, on the run from murderous machines who seem to really enjoy a nice helping of mindfuck along with their genocide, I would certainly try.

    I recently watched this whole series from front to back in about a week (I’m disabled by chronic illness), and damn, I can’t shake this story out of my head. It just keeps running around up there flipping on lights, cranking up the freaky Hendrix, and randomly picking fights with Tigh.

  12. I don’t know if you can smoke algae, but if I were stuck on the last known human fleet in the vast expanse of space, on the run from murderous machines who seem to really enjoy a nice helping of mindfuck along with their genocide, I would certainly try.

    Heh, good point.

    and yeah, it does stick with you, doesn’t it?

    I once did that with the last season of Six Feet Under; now there’s an ending that -really- stays with you.

    I never thought about the smokes. I guess I might’ve figured–well, actually you don’t see all that many characters who -do- smoke, so i could see the supply lasting longer, assuming there -is- a supply somewhere.

    but dude–they all drink like fish! They drink like it’s a 1940’s flick or something.

  13. REALLY OLD SPOILERS BELOW

    Yeah, I knew people who smoked algae in high school. But I never inhaled, promise. I’d not thought about the smokes either, but man. That is a little weird, and is maybe something writers are counting will fall under “suspension of disbelief”.

    The ending of S3 was absolutely amazing, though. It really seemed like the perfect answer to (what seem to be almost universal) concerns about what in the world some of the flashbacky episodes were all about anyway. Maybe something of a mea culpa? In any event, between the plot implications, the existential implications, and the fact that the @%#^ show doesn’t come back til winter, that amounted to one of the best / dirtiest / meanest cliffhangers in TV history — Who Shot JR? has nothing on this.

    And the scene with Tight and his wife… well, I won’t reveal the details, but man, they had a room of geeks crying. That scene still haunts me to this day.

    CAN’T WAIT CAN’T WAIT CAN’T WAIT! 🙂

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