I don't understand why it's so awful for Chloe to not be useful, when we've been told repeatedly that's the entire idea. The fact that Chloe understands this as well just makes it more interesting, to me. If the audience is told over and over again that 'these are the wrong people' and then everyone turns out to have a specific use, then the show would be lying to us. The obvious place to take the Chloe character is to give her angst about this, and slowly have her FIND something to contribute.
The problem isn't that she's useless practically, it's that she's useless dramatically, or at least close enough to be seen that way. She doesn't have much in the way of personality or flair. Her entire function at the moment is to be a macguffin. I wouldn't even rank her as high as "foil." She gives Scott something to be all manly and protective of, Young something to be vaguely fatherish and protective of, and everyone else something to keep an eye on, like she was the bosses favorite pen and they didn't want to be the one to lose it. The closest she comes to being an actual character is in her scenes with Eli, and that's mostly on him having the slightest bit of complexity in his relationship with her, in that he likes her but can't show it (and that's only
relatively interesting. Unrequited love is a really basic dynamic, and it's not a good sign that that's the only thing Chole has going for her). Of course, it doesn't really help that the majority of her interactions with the majority of the cast are perfunctory and professional, and her only real interpersonal dynamics are with Scott and Eli, and Eli's the only one she actually talks to. Which is another thing. The show seems to have decided that Scott and Chole actually like each other, which I have difficultly buying because the only interaction it shows up between them is crotch-related. Now, in the earlier episodes, where it looked like they were going to play up that Scott was just chasing some emotionally vulnerable tail, that was fine, but now that they actually want me to believe these kids have something going on, they're going to have to show me they can tolerate each other outside the bedroom.
Honestly, the worst thing that could happen to Chloe, speaking critically, is getting together with Eli. All she has going for her is that she puts him through interesting conflicts (using an extremely generous definition of interesting), and given the way this show is put together, I don't trust the writers to be able to develop her independently of that. If she ended up with Eli, she'd just have the same superficial bullshit she's got with Scott now, not even compelling enough to be called "lovey-dovey," and would lose the one thing that actually justifies her presence in the cast.
Consider that in Firefly, Shepherd Book wasn't a part of the crew, and didn't have any kind of role on the ship, but he was my favorite character, and the one I wanted to know the most about. Or in the first half of the first season of Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Baltar didn't have anything to do except lie about making the Cylon Detector. And then we got a Baltar-focused episode, "Six Degrees of Separation," which was pretty sort of awesome. Can you imagine a Chloe-focused episode? Chloe is framed for murdering Sgt. Whatshisface With The Pills? Does anyone think that would be
good?
Honestly, the interpersonal dynamics of the show are really weak, and are really elevated by the acting. The trouble with that, though, is that it means that characters are only entertaining to watch based on the ratio to which they are pissed off, and also piss off others. Rush is always pissed off, and pisses off everyone else, so he's the most fun. Young is always mildly pissed off, but not as much as Rush, and only pisses off half the ship, so he's a little less fun. IOA woman (you know, I knew everyone's name on Caprica like three episodes in...) isn't pissed off at all, and is just a power-hungry underappreciated butt-hurt asshole, and she only pisses off Young, so she's not any fun at all. Eli is the exception to the rule, because the writers gave him all the likability that they'd normally spread to the whole cast in another Stargate show, and even then, he gets, like, twice as awesome when it looks like he's going to leave Scott to die because he's pissed off at him over Chloe.
So, yes, that's why Chloe is useless. The only thing she does on the ship is give Eli a reason to be irritable with Scott. They could just as easily replace her with the last cupcake and have them fight over that.
saw that on TWOP
