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Uncertain Principles

Physics, Politics, Pop Culture

Saturday, August 06, 2005

Surreal Battlestar

When we arrived at Kate's parents' last night (in town for a wedding), her father was watching the Dumbass Horror Movie Channel Sci-Fi Channel, and we left that on more or less by default. Thus, I ended up watching the new Battlestar Galactica for the first time. Of course, it's in the middle of the series, and Kate and her father were catching up, so I missed the occasional bit of dialogue, but I think I basically understood what was going on:

With Admiral Lt. Castillo in a coma, John McCain has taken control and declared martial law. He's had the rightful President, Dr. Melfi, thrown in jail with some guy from a boy band. Egged on by his wife, Lady Macbeth, he makes a number of disastrously stupid decisions, leading to the shooting of several civilians during a riot on the set of Babylon Five.

Elsewhere, the only Asian woman in the cast has turned out to be a robot (Kate mutters darkly about this whenever she notices), and has been thrown in a different part of the jail with a pudgy guy. Olive Oyl is really unhappy about this, and wanders around complaining to various crew members, including the Creepy Long-Haired Scientist. Egged on by his hallucination of Kim Basinger, Creepy Long-haired Scientist goes to the jail, and tortures Asian Robot Woman by poisoning Pudgy Guy and refusing to give him the antidote until she reveals how many other robots are on the ship. After several tense moments, she yells the first number that comes to mind, and he buys it, thus proving himself to be the Doug Feith of the umpty-umpth century.

After this, they decide to transfer Asian Robot Woman and Pudgy Guy to the Dallas police station, and Olive Oyl jumps out of the crowd and shoots Asian Robot Woman. The picture of her shooting him goes on to win a Pulitzer Prize. Or something.

Meanwhile, for reasons that remain unclear to me, Cameron Diaz and a clean-shaven Jayne Cobb are wandering around in the woods, where they get ambushed by Kyan from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the cast of Red Dawn. There are several tense moments in which various members of the Wolverines point guns at Cameron and Jayne, who point their guns at Kyan, and then Cameron Diaz defuses the whole situation with her knowledge of sports trivia. Later, she and Kyan play a spirited game of Calvinball, and then go exfoliate. Or something.

Back on the ship, President Dr. Melfi and the fighter pilot from the Backstreet Boys arrange a daring slow-motion jail break, which appears to consist of waiting until the guards are looking away, and tip-toeing out of the cell block. Dirk Benedict makes a brief appearance as DeForrest Kelly. After a poignant scene in which the White House Chief of Staff from N'SYNC refuses to go with them, President Dr. Melfi and her backstreet fighter pilot board a shuttle to flee the ship.

Supreme Commandante John McCain threatens to shoot them down, but doesn't, presumably because Lady Macbeth isn't allowed on the bridge to hecor him into doing stupid things (Kate mutters darkly about the horrible roles for women when she notices). While she's berating him for his incompetence, later in their apartment, Admiral Jaime Escalante awakens from his coma, and wanders in in a bathrobe to put things right by teaching John McCain calculus. Or something. End of Show.

I think I've got this thing nailed. Did I miss anything?

Posted at 8:17 AM | link | follow-ups |