Battlestar Galactica [2004] - General Discussion

[Lisin]

Pick your favorite Cylon! Six? The Raiders? The Old School Toasters? Who's your favorite robot buddy? 

[Zalyn]

The Sharons are my favorites because they have such fascinating character growth journeys throughout the series.  I wrote an essay on BSG where I focused on themes of life and death, and the Sharons fit with a Persephone archetype: she is often abducted, she is the most naive to begin with, she is associated strongly with death, and her different versions all achieve different outcomes related to her archtype: seducer, traitor, lover, wife, mother, queen (to Cavil's Hades). 

The Sharons also tend to be catalysts for Big Events - whether by dying ("Faith"), killing ("Guess What's Coming to Dinner"), attempting to kill ("Kobol's Last Gleaming, Pt. II") or taking down the Hub - so I enjoy their use as dramatic devices as well.

[Danny Franks]

As a model? Six. Tricia Helfer was so good in this role (or these roles, I guess), playing several distinct versions of Six, including Gina, Chip Six and original Six. She showed empathy and pathos right from the start, and she could also turn on the scary, at the drop of a hat.

Standout moment? This:

Cavill: "You can't do anything without a vote!"

Six: "No. We can't do anything with one, so we're finished voting!"

Tricia Helfer was absolutely chilling in that scene. Just brimming with righteous, merciless anger and utter contempt for Cavill and his cronies. I thought the last two seasons focused way too much on the Cylons, but the one bonus of that was shining more of the spotlight on Ms. Helfer.

But as an individual member of a model group, my favourite has to be Athena. I loved her journey, through the series. From fake Boomer to a person in her own right, the first (and only) Cylon member of the armed forces of the Twelve Colonies, a wife and mother. Grace Park took some stick for her portrayal of Boomer in season 1, but I think her performances as Athena, and as Boomer later on, as well as other Eights, showed that she was very capable.

I like the Centurions a lot as well, and not only for that nascent sense of brotherhood they show for the Raiders, after the rebels remove their inhibitors, but because they're pretty damned scary as well. Valley of Darkness is a very effective little piece of suspense/horror television, with the Centurions as the terros in the dark.

[Zalyn]

This thread is for discussions about the arcs in Season 1 as well as writing/stylistic observations.  Feel free to start specific episode threads as well for more in-depth discussion.

As a courtesy to new viewers, let's put spoiler tags on things that happen outside of this season so someone could come here after watching Season 1 to discuss themes. (Assuming that liberal use of spoiler tags is allowed - I have been a "delayed viewer" many times and have appreciated being able to participate without having seen the entire show)

One thing I really enjoyed about this season was how it drew from Moore's "Naturalistic Science Fiction" manifesto and maintained a high-energy, desperate, gritty feel throughout.  I started watching this show a few years after I left the Navy, and I was continually impressed with how real it felt and how well he portrayed nuances of being in a military climate.

Links to the NSF essay:

http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Naturalistic_science_fiction
http://badassdigest.com/2011/01/26/read-ron-moores-original-battlestar-galactica-show-bible/ (PDF)
 

[Zalyn]

This thread is for discussing the larger arcs of Season 4, both in content and in writing/directing.

Some people did not like Season 4 because it departed heavily from Moore's "Naturalistic Science Fiction" mantra and from established plot threads from previous seasions.

However, some (like myself) enjoyed it in its discontinuity because of a strong and intense pathos that it brought out in various characters. It seems that depending on what people value in a show (especially sci-fi), they would have different evaluations of this season.

We're going to have lots of different opinions here, so let's do our best to avoid getting into arguments and keep things at "passionate debate" level. 

[Zalyn]

This thread is for Season 3 arc discussion. 

Please tag spoilers for Season 4 so new viewers can come discuss with us!

Personally, I had the hardest time coming to enjoy this season.  I think it was because it started out so very depressing (and character maiming is something I have a lot of trouble with). But with a few rewatches, I came to enjoy it because it had a great theme of the characters trying to come back together after going separate ways on New Caprica.  And the end of the season was such a rollercoaster of intensity between the trial and the reveals of the finale.

(I shamelessly admit to keeping a clip of the last few minutes of the finale around to rewatch for a burst of "wow."  And McCreary's cover of "Watchtower" is on my frequently used playlist.)

Edited April 1, 2014 by Zalyn

[Zalyn]

I really enjoyed the transformations of the Cylons and their society in S4 because of the brutality and conflict, and Natalie and other Sixes definitely were right in the thick of things.  "Six of One" is one of my favorite episodes.

[Zalyn]

Discuss the arcs of Season 2 here!

Please use spoiler tags for material from Season 3-4 for new viewers. 

[stillshimpy]

In retrospect, it's gotta be Six for all the roles she played, although my personal favorite will always be the Eights with (eventual) Athena being my absolute favorite.  

However, from a performance standpoint? It just doesn't get better than Tricia in this role.  My husband and I still talk about how great she really was in this, whenever we see that she's in something new.  Most recently it was Killer Women a show so bad we bailed fifteen minutes in (right after the Network suits, judging by the uber-swift cancellation).   We ended up talking about how Six (etc) was really a landmark role for Tricia Helfer.  

She will always be cast in roles where how she looks, the fact that she's one of those women who is just astoundingly beautiful, is kind of the point of the character? You know?  It's harder for someone who looks like Tricia Helfer to disappear into a role, but thankfully she has this great body of work that proves that she can do just that.  TH as Natalie? Oh God, heartbreaking on every level.  

Then after Six and Eight, I'd go with Rick Worthy's criminally underused Simon.  I wasn't ever the biggest Leoben fan, he was just to scenery-chewy for me and I honestly think the biggest story mistake the show made was with Dean Stockwell's eventual development as Cavill.  Not in casting Dean Stockwell (although I think they blew too much of their casting budget on him) but in Cavill and that entire drastic mess that was the Final Five.  

[millahnna]

Six and Eight are my favorites (I lean a bit towards Six because of what an epic badass Tricia is), and I agree that Simon (what was his number anyway) was underused.  But I have this weird soft spot for the Leisure Suit Larry one from the pilot miniseries.  He was so convincing in his "I'm not a Cylon" schtick that I was genuinely surprised when it turned out Baltar had fingered the right guy. 

It's funny though; if you'd asked me this question at the end of the miniseries or even just halfway through season 1, I would have said the Sharons were my least favorite by a long shot, though not for lack of character potential.  At the time, I thought Grace Park came off a bit cheesy in her line delivery. I particularly disliked the random Eight they used for the reveal that Boomer was a cylon at the end of the mini.  I don't recall the line anymore but I'd been meh about her throughout the mini and then really disappointed in the line read at the reveal.  It wasn't until Boomer started freaking out and we saw her eventually develop Athena that I appreciated how much of that was a character quirk and not an actress dysfunction.  By halfway through season two, Boomer and Athena were easily two of my favorites on the whole show.

[Aurora Borealis]

milhanna the last line said by an Eight in the miniseries was, "Don't worry, we'll find them."

I agree w/ you on the line reading - not sure what Grace Park was going for.

Edited April 6, 2014 by Lisin
fixed bolding you can just use the button

[Joe]

So there's going to be a new movie, produced by Glen Larson. That would suggest it'll be closer in tone to the original series. Never watched that. However, they have a pic from Razor, of all things. Which is pretty much the opposite tone. Perhaps it was just the first one they could lay their hands on.

Not having watched the original series, I'm rather skeptical about this. Do we really need a fourth BSG? I suppose while someone thinks there's money to be made, then yes.

What do you think about this?

[LJonEarth]

At the risk of sounding like the people who poo poohed the 2004 BSG before it was made, I don't see why this is necessary. It would have to blow the 2014 version away. If it doesn't I feel like it could somehow damage the whole franchise unnecessarily.

As for money to be made, I haven't heard any of my BSG fan friends mention Blood and Chrome and Caprica seems to have been a flop.

[Joe]

I read somewhere that Larson didn't like the RDM version. So it's possible he talked to Universal, convinced them to back this. Me, I'll go and see this, out of curiosity. Unless I hear something to put me off in the meantime. But I'll wear my Not a Robot shirt, and maybe a replica uniform from Anovos. :)

[Zalyn]

I'm highly skeptical, both because it's a movie re(re)make and because Larson is doing it.  I'm frankly nearly done with seeing movies nowadays because they keep rehashing IPs in a degenerative Michael Bay-ification style.  The original Battlestar, while doing some good sci-fi things, was also basically a piece of Mormon propaganda in the style of clumsy "good guy / bad guy" old-school scifi. 

A second/third reboot for TV can work (I feel Nikita was great this latest iteration), but that's with a new creator who will update the concept to fit with the times; it's also on television, that gives time to really flesh out the characters and stories.  I just don't see Larson as being interested in doing that... he's done some classic TV, but Wikipedia mentions a criticism of him as doing "small-screen knockoffs" of feature films.  So how's he going to pull off a big-screen reboot of his TV show? 

[John Potts]

OK, since nobody else is prepared to dive in:

I think the idea that, in the face of the greatest act of genocide in human (Colonial?) history, the survivors might question whether they really should follow the American Constitution - sorry, Articles of Colonisation - or if a fascist, military dominated structure is more appropriate. This wasn't just a 9/11 style act of terrorism, it was Hiroshima, the Holocaust and the Trail of Tears combined. In the face of that, would people really accept a Junior Minister in the Department of Education as their legitimate President (I know Roslin was the Secretary of Education, but she was 37th (IIRC) in succession and Wikipedia only covers the first 20 officers of the US Presidential Succession, so we'd be looking at more junior government members). Was Apollo a fool for insisting that Laura Roslin was really in charge (indeed, was she really in charge? It seems the deal that Roslin and Adama came to was that she'd be in charge until Adama decided he was, which is not exactly a stable form of government). Was she the Commander in Chief? Annoyingly, the show never really answers that - presumably the President of the Colonies was the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces , since that's pretty much the case of every President on Earth today, but Adama certainly doesn't act like she could be giving him orders (at least in the first Season) - now that may just be that it's a crisis situation and she has no experience in the military and he hasn't got time to explain to her what must be done, but it does seem as if she actually had every right to send Starbuck back to fetch the Arrow of Apollo and Adama & Tigh's actions were a military coup, plain and simple.

So what does everyone else think?

[TVSpectator]

So there's going to be a new movie, produced by Glen Larson. That would suggest it'll be closer in tone to the original series. Never watched that. However, they have a pic from Razor, of all things. Which is pretty much the opposite tone. Perhaps it was just the first one they could lay their hands on.

Not having watched the original series, I'm rather skeptical about this. Do we really need a fourth BSG? I suppose while someone thinks there's money to be made, then yes.

What do you think about this?

A while back, I once heard that Bryan Singer  wanted to do another BSG version (since he was a fan of both the Glen Larson version and the RDM version). He believed that he can do a BSG that connected both the original version (1978-1979 version) and the RDM version and just merged the two into one. (here is the link to the io9 article: ) but later I heard that this idea was shelved some time ago.

 

Although, I didn't know that Larson is working on another Battlestar but why  an actual movie? Wouldn't this be more of TV movie than an actual big screen movie?

Edited April 25, 2014 by TVSpectator

[Joe]

As someone else once said, the Bryan Singer version would tie in with the theme of all this has happened before. This new version? It doesn't say it's a TV movie or cinematic movie. So who knows what will happen? I'm interested either way, if less than sure it's a good idea.

[TVSpectator]

As someone else once said, the Bryan Singer version would tie in with the theme of all this has happened before. This new version? It doesn't say it's a TV movie or cinematic movie. So who knows what will happen? I'm interested either way, if less than sure it's a good idea.

Oh, don't get me wrong, merging the two (or is it three since their was the 1980 Battlestar?) could, IMO, always be a possibility, since the RDM version takes place so long ago in our past (150,000 years to be exact). But, IMO, the trick would be trying to explain how a segment of the human Colonial population survived without having the Pegasus and/or the Galactica coming to the rescue  and also be aware of our Earth (assuming that the legendary lost colony would be our Earth and not some other other Earth ;-)  ).

 

As with the Larson project, I don't know if I would be interested. I could see myself watching it if it was a TV movie/miniseries but I probably would end up renting the movie, if it came to the big screen, through Netflix months after it was release.

Edited April 25, 2014 by TVSpectator

[Joe]

 

The trick would be trying to explain how a segment of the human Colonial population survived without having the Pegasus and/or the Galactica coming to the rescue  and also be aware of our Earth (assuming that the legendary lost colony would be our Earth and not some other other Earth ;-)  ).

There are twelve worlds, plus at least in the RDM version a couple of outposts. Troy and such. Plus the assorted ships. Maybe another battlestar was off on a scientific mission and missed the party entirely, then got a message saying to stay away, the Cylons have killed everyone. Maybe some of the survivors of the initial attacks lasted until all the Cylons left and then headed off themselves.

 

IIRC, Earth was a publicly known story. If one group could decide to head there, why not another? The real question is of course, would they find indicators along the way, or would they be guided by God?

 

Yes, I like overthinking these things. :)

[TVSpectator]

There are twelve worlds, plus at least in the RDM version a couple of outposts. Troy and such. Plus the assorted ships. Maybe another battlestar was off on a scientific mission and missed the party entirely, then got a message saying to stay away, the Cylons have killed everyone. Maybe some of the survivors of the initial attacks lasted until all the Cylons left and then headed off themselves.

 

IIRC, Earth was a publicly known story. If one group could decide to head there, why not another? The real question is of course, would they find indicators along the way, or would they be guided by God?

 

Yes, I like overthinking these things. :)

 

 Your version is something what I would imagine would happened. Although, I would just start off in RDM's version (since the big twist was that it all took place 150,000+ years ago) and I could imagine that some other group of colonial human (or groups) survived the nuclear attacks and also running from the Cylons long enough to settle down on some other solar system and rebuild. Then they retold the stories of Kobal, Earth, the 12 Colonial Tribes, and the whole cycle of time just restarts, in our modern times, etc... They then stumble here and find out that a) we are actually part Cylon b) part alien (since it was implied that the colonial humans could breed with the Earth Natives, and they did just that), c) out society is totally different than theirs and we don't worship the Gods of Kobal anymore, d) we don't know anything about Kobal or the other 12 Colonies, and etc....

 

Yeah, IMHO, you are not totally overthinking this at all, but I am.

Edited May 2, 2014 by TVSpectator

[ganesh]

This is the similar problem, to me, as TPTBs from the original SG1 movie wanting to make a direct sequel and ignoring over 10 years of tv canon. 

 

Most BSG fans don't know the 70s show or what it was really about. BSG to them is the RDM version. If Larson makes his "vision" based on the 70s tv show of BSG again, people are going to be like, wtf is this? Simply because the BSG zeitgeist is the RDM version. 

 

I suppose one could make a pre-skin job BSG movie, but you need more than just fans of the show to see the movie for it to make money. Then it's just a movie about killer robots, and most people are going to be like, "wasn't there just a Terminator movie?"

[Joe]

So there's going to be another spinoff game from EVE Online. This one is for the Oculus Rift, called EVE Valkyrie, and focussing on dogfighting. For the lead voice, they've gone with the voice of experience, Katee Sackhoff. There've been a few BSG castmembers in space type games over the last few years.

 

Also, I saw Katee in Riddick. My advice? No one see that movie. It's a lesser retread of Pitch Black. The one noteable moment is when Katee gets topless. However, I'm sure you can find that easily enough elsewhere on the net should you care. Spoiler! Her breasts look much the same as every other pair out there.

 

Where have you seen cast members recently, and what upcoming projects are you interested in?

[Danny Franks]

I've been watching Continuum, and it's been fun to see Tahmoh Penikett turn up occasionally as a shady politician. Actually, that show is good for seeing plenty of genre faces, given that it's shot in Vancouver, like so many other scifi shows have been.

 

Alessandro Juilani turned up in an episode as well.

 

I wish Leah Cairns, who played Racetrack, was in more stuff. I had such a crush on her. And I'm still annoyed that she was one of the few named characters who actually died in the finale.

[Zalyn]

Speaking of Tamoh Penikett:

 

 

I think it's "so bad it's good," but I may have to rewatch a few more times for science.  It's great seeing him doing a completely different role from Helo or Paul Ballard in Dollhouse.  One thing I have admired is his poise and physicality (comes from the Muay Thai, I'm sure), so I hope he can bring that to more roles.

[stillshimpy]

Oh my God, that looks entirely freaking awesome (probably pays to mention that I adored Galaxy Quest , so I dig a good genre parody).  

 

Where the heck will it be on?  

[stillshimpy]

I've recently felt in the mood to do a rewatch and as usual, I get to "33" and then I feel very tired. Possibly because everyone is so tired in that episode

 

I made it all the way through the mini a few weeks back.  I think there's just something about the resolution to this story that makes me think "Wow, I can't really invest here, I know where this all leads and thinking about it makes me tired."  

 

It's funny, I was just talking to my son yesterday about kickass finales.  He has his girlfriend watching Angel and we were talking about how that show had a really gutsy finale.  I don't personally read the graphic novels so how it ended for me was just a bold and fitting move.  Yes, the suggestion is they all freaking died, but there are worse things, and they all went out fighting evil, fighting with their last breath and drop of blood.  

 

Brutal, but it fit the characters, it fit the premise.  

 

The problem I have whenever I try to rewatch BSG is that the characters endings seem so much worse than that to me.   They suffered, died, fought.  Were eventually reduced to eating algae goo as a way of life, had raffles for the last tube of toothpaste and then...then they finally get where they were going and scatter to become nomads, trekking off with what they can carry.  They flew the technology into the sun and then shuffled off to let fate, the elements, disease and infirmity pick them off one by one.  

 

The whole "Oh hey, Hera's bones were discovered and we all sprang from this."  is really the part that just takes the winds out of my rewatch sails, because of the detail "The bones of a young woman."  Great.  

 

So I guess I prefer shows where the characters don't go gently and slowly, willingly and ploddingly into that good night.   Weirdly enough, it's because I loved the characters so much that I can't work up the steam to see them through to that end.  It's like the deer where I live, I don't personally eat meat any longer, but I do support the practice of culling the herds here because -- quite frankly -- starving to death in the freezing winter is not a fate I'd wish on anything or anyone and it's better to let the bow hunters do their thing.  

 

I always loved the line "Do what we always do; fight 'em until we can't."   

 

And then in the end when they quit fighting, they also just sort of marched off to die of any number of horrible things and it's almost worse that I didn't see what gets them all.  What caused Hera to die young because my imagination takes over and I think of them all starving, shivering and suffering.  It's just so...blah.  

 

It would have been better if it had all been happening in a snow-globe.  People in snow-globes don't die agonizing deaths of starvation and exposure.   It was always a dark show, but every time I watch the first season, it just is hard to deal with the fact that this is as good as it will ever be for these characters.  When Cloud Nine existed, and there was occasional music.   When water rationing meant people not being able to shower, or that hilarious dinner party when Ellen shows up and Mary McDonnell made me love her for eternity in the way she played that scene.

 

It's sort of dispiriting to realize that I'm watching the characters be as happy as they will ever be directly after a genocide that wiped out 20 billion people.   I do like dark, but I think the end just got too darned depressing for me to handle.  Blow 'em all up or have them rush towards their deaths in one futile attempt to win, but the nearly apathetic "let's fly our technology into the sun and then plod off to die"  is just draining to even think about.  

 

One thing I always loved was RDM's podcasts and he made me laugh my ass off in the commentary for the mini, about how he assumed everyone knew that the story centered around humanity being nearly wiped out and then the very few survivors trying to haul ass to something resembling safety.  So he wanted to show the world for a bit before blowing it up.  But when he said "Everyone knows...well, I assume everyone knows, either that or they are in for [he laughed] a big fucking shock in about an hour."  That was fun gallows humor to me.  

 

The end of the series?  Oh dear.  Yeah, apparently there's a limit to how dark I will go.  That bastard creation The Road and the end of BSG seem like they have too much in common.  I'd also like to thank the damned The Road for making me wonder when they would all start killing each other for food.  

Edited May 4, 2014 by stillshimpy

[supposebly]

Wow. No, that doesn't bother me. I didn't mind the ending much and I don't think it's what's making me tired. Actually, the only thing that bothered me about the ending was Baltar and Six's solution. I still quite haven't made up my mind about Starbuck, but when I feel less charitable, I think her and their solution felt like they couldn't figure out what to do.

 

Just because Hera died young doesn't mean everyone did, does it? And even so, it still doesn't spell doom and gloom to me. Humanity has lived for a much much longer time frame without technology than it has with it. Lifespans have only recently expanded and there is a lot of doubt about whether that's a good thing in the long run. I don't see why the ending has spelled terrible extinction for them. I might be forgetting something since I haven't rewatched since it ended, but that's not what I took away from it.

 

I'd love to go on this journey again because it's an excellent one but it's not an easy one. It's gut-wrenching, crazy, painful but also very beautiful.

[stillshimpy]

And even so, it still doesn't spell doom and gloom to me. Humanity has lived for a much much longer time frame without technology than it has with it.

 

That's true, but all of those people trooping off to trek across the planet had grown up with technology and been dependent upon it. We went 'round and 'round this back on TWoP, but essentially, these were people who had been on starships for years, not the hale and hearty.  

 

Plus after twenty six years in Colorado and seeing and hearing about the fate of unprepared day hikers , I have much less faith that they all did anything other than perish with a blinding quickness.  

 

Anyway, I'm glad that you enjoyed it more than I did in the final analysis.  

Edited May 4, 2014 by stillshimpy

[green]

I loved the first two seasons.  Kept hope alive through the final five reveal in season 3 thinking it might actually go somewhere that made sense which it never did.  Tried to believe this was still a great series in season 4.  But I just think the more Ronald Moore caught flak for all the "dark" the more he stubbornly dug his heels in and decided to show even more "dark" as a somewhat childish reaction and not part of any rational story arc.  He seemed determine to kill off as many characters in dark ways that made no sense and leave others living in deep despair.  Why?  The darkness hit first.  The world(s) ended.  This should be a story about rediscovering hope.  Not in a simplistic way.  But a hard fought grayish way instead of a pitch black lack thereof.  Dude must have a few personal demons going on.

 

My list of totally gratuitous deaths and/or destructions of character arcs:

 

1.  Gaeta and Tom Zarek (two silly deaths for the price of one):  No logic to their rebellion or them suddenly becoming allies.  The character of Tom had so many possibilities since he seemed half idealist / half demagogue but even when looking after number one he was still speaking many times for all the unseen thousands who had no control over their lives the whole time stuck in dark, dank space-hopping tin cans with no voice at the table.  There was an oligarchy in charge and the non-Colonial military and Roslin's group had the say in everything.  Zarek was the only character in the whole show who spoke up for the concerns of the majority who had to wait in a passive state hoping the next attack didn't get their ship blown up.  Hated they just put in a filler rebellion to off these two.

 

2.  Dualla - yeah commit suicide for no real reason because you are too tired to go on and the actor didn't even have contractual obligations elsewhere like Cylon Xena 2.0.  No plausible story arc leading up to this stupid act.

 

3.  D'Anna - see above.  If you didn't have access to the services of Lucy Lawless post-writers' strike then at least give her a good write out.  She is at the height of her powers as cylon leader and she is just too tired to go on?  And she just kind of added that in passing to Tigh was it?  Couldn't have a dramatic scene with Adama/Roslin at least?

 

4.  Chief and Calley - long story arc of Calley going from our favorite knuckle dragger to being a drag on Chief cause he can't deal with being a dad maybe?  I don't even know why she was seen as negative.  Chief goes from "let's kick some Cylon ass" to I'm going off totally alone on this here non earth new earth and not having anything to do with you guys forever.  I will go off to future Scotland and teach the local cavemen engineering and getting drunk a lot and die all alone of depression.

 

5.  Apollo - added him cause his character never made any sense the whole series.  They never seemed to know what to do with him.  Honestly they should have gone with original series Apollo as the loyal, worshipful son of Adama who then maybe starts to question things and evolves into his own man as the series goes on. 

 

My main complaint here at the end of the show about him was for the ludicrous idea to fly the Galactica into the sun and get rid of all the other ships and technology over night.  Dude, you crossed half a galaxy to survive as a species.  So now you want to set things up so that you all die off in the first year?  You don't know it the locals will turn on you.  You don't know how to hunt and fish and gather especially on an alien planet that might have some nasty critters and germs on it.  You don't know the weather patterns and the ability to grow crops from the get go.

 

It is a BIG learning curve.  You need to naturally "devolve" from the technology over a couple of generations as you "evolve" into suvivorlists.  At least save the ships to fashion some metal weapons and tools from.  Cause metals make the age.  Without the ability to work metals you don't move from copper to iron etc that creates the societies that can support the growing population that gives rise to laws and art and philosophy and religion and civilization.  Having metal to start with allows you to mine metal more easily from the get go.  Helps you farm.  Helps you hunt.  You need all the tools you can get to survive and slowly learn the ways of the new world and how to operate without that technology.  Let nature take it's course, dude.

 

Also getting rid of the entire past means that you disrespect all your loved ones from the 12 Colonies and all the history of their struggles and the whole painful journey you made.  Pissing on their nuked graves and the suffering and deaths of your comrades that died along the way.  Destroying the memory of a great civilization and culture that once lived and grew and hoped and dreamed somewhere far away.  I love and respect history far too much to swallow Apollo's insane path.  I think Moore just gave up on Apollo at the end and said screw it lets make him into a total joke and have him destroy everything we ever saw or experienced in some childish hissy fit then send him off to "explore" all alone and get eaten by saber tooth tigers within a week or two.

 

Semi on the plus side.  I did like that Baltar lived.  Usually the guy that makes the "big mistake" has to die to find redemption so glad he and Six lived.  Don't like it that they seem to be able to live forever though.  That last scene was totally dumb.

 

Don't even know what to say about Starbuck.  If she came back from the dead you could get into a cool storyline maybe about multi-universes and/or mystical stuff that made some sense.  But did she or was she replaced by someone else?  I don't know.   But after all the "special destiny" what was so special that she did that others didn't other then be one great kickass warrior.  I wanted a better payoff for Starbuck.  She deserved it.

 

Hell I wanted a better payoff for the whole series.  There really wasn't any.  At least any that made sense.  I too have a hard time re-watching anything other then the mini-series.  The mini-series left me with hope that we were going to begin a painful but amazing journey.  The end of the worlds and yet it left me with more hope then the rest of the series combined, heh.  But thought of viewing anything after it makes me feel "tired" too.  Interesting that it is this feeling of "tiredness" that seems to be the main one to crop up with others as well.  I thought I was the only one.

 

Well since I get a feeling of tiredness from it now I guess I'll go sit with D'Anna on the scrapheap of real earth but not our earth earth and think of where we could have gone instead.

 

PS:  Wow, sorry.  I didn't know this would turn into such a negative rant.  I guess it is because I invested into this series heavily at the time.  I don't watch that much TV and those things I do watch I watch cause I think they are worth watching.  I was loving this show early on and kept trying to rationalize the irrational as it moved on.  I guess I just hate how something I loved so much at first just played out into nothing great at the end.  The potential was awesome.  They dropped the ball half way through because, unlike the cylons, they had no plan.  Of course it turns out the cylons had none either.  Oh well.

Edited May 5, 2014 by green

[stillshimpy]

Don't even sweat it, green , there's no right or wrong opinion on this, just a personal reaction.  I think the reason it was received with such varying reactions was that it did start out so well and people really cared about the show.  

 

Just a couple of things:  Moore did address the "why the hell would they fly the technology into the sun?? Were they drunk?  Or crazy?  Or both?"  and unfortunately the answer lies in why it was a problem.  They discussed several ways to deal with the "but then wouldn't there be evidence of technology much sooner?"  They even talked about a scene where Archaeologists are essentially X-Raying a burial mound in some far flung country and discover a shuttle in it, unsure what to make of it.  

 

So sadly that story decision was dictated by the need to tie up fan questions with a bow.  I disagree that Ronald D. Moore had a childish reaction to being criticized.  I think he was personally in far too dark a place when he wrote the fourth season, all of it.  I think the looming writer's strike and a variety of other things just put him in  a very fatalistic head-space and this is what he churned out.  

 

But to give the guy his due, part of what made some of it -- again, I'm going to put this kindly, because I did love the series and still do -- of an arguably lesser quality in the last two seasons was that RDM had such love for the story.  He actually started to have trouble pulling the trigger on bigger stories.  He also loved to write in big "This will make them gasp! Don't know what it means, but I'll figure it out later!" moments.  So poor Mary McDonnell had to basically insist that her character be allowed to die onscreen, feeling it was important because when we met her, she was dying.  

 

He also lost his nerve on other issues, like how to deal with the problem of Nicky, the Chief and Callie's son.  By the way, Cally suffered from being a character who developed at the whim of the plot, so mainly it was that she was disjointed to the point of being maddening.  Case in point? RDM became wedded, just intractably wedded, to the desire to have the story end on our Earth in the far, far distant past and he felt the point he had been trying to make throughout the series was tied to Hera being the ancestor of all of us.   So that meant that Hera had to be the only Human-Cylon Kiddie and RDM didn't want to kill Nicky to get there.  

 

So one last time he yanked the plot rug out from underneath Callie's character.  

 

But that is just an example of where RDM started to go so darned wrong. He stopped trusting his audience to just get the darned point and started trying to simplify everything so there was no way to miss what he thought was the all important point.  He'd mentioned growing up Catholic on many occasions and he certainly went old-school Catholic Church with the message for the series.  Making sure we couldn't be distracted by things like, "But what happened to the technology?? That can't be our Earth."  So he removed all shiny objects and started applying a two-by-four to our collective heads on his intended message. "Don't you see?  We are flawed!  We hate each other and kill each other for no reason other than our flaws.  We are ll the same.  We must change!"   and the cycle of apocalyptic destruction stood in for the Catholic Church's threats of eternal damnation as the "So you better straighten up and fly right!"  stick with which to browbeat people into change.  

 

So he removed all perceived obstacles and just go too blunt-force-trauma with the "Do you get it now??"  story preaching.  He turned into a Story Scold, but mostly it was because he just loved the damned thing so much.  

 

Sort of like Ellen as the final Cylon.  To this day I think Ellen was chosen, not because it made a whit of sense, but because RDM is a nice human being and he just felt bad for killing of Kate Vernon's character.  She took it so hard and I think RDM realized she loved the story the way he did.  He liked her and he brought her back.  

 

Then, oh lord, the thing with Zarek.  It's one of the few times I was heartfelt sorry for an actor.  Richard Hatch loved his character and believed in him.  It still makes me wince to remember Richard Hatch popping up in comment sections desperately trying to defend Zarek.   

 

Then another problem with the last seasons is that everyone just loved Edward James Olmos to the point that they lost the ability to even suggest the notion, of a whisper, of a hint of a "no, I don't think that's a good idea" to him.   I love the guy too, but there's a reason he's not a famous director or writer: He is prone to an almost embarrassing level of emotional excess in what he wants to do onscreen.  Now, I only use the word "almost" before "embarrassing" because he is EJO and apparently a lovely human being.  But he has the Emo Dramatic Impulses of an Eighth Grader trying to cope with their very first breakup, of a relationship that consisted of texts and snap chats.  The man needed to dial it down, or have someone dial it down for him.  Egads.  

 

 

 

Don't like it that they seem to be able to live forever though.  That last scene was totally dumb.

 

Those were the Head (or Angel) characters in that final scene, green.  Now that is one area I will absolutely defend Ron Moore on as having been something he completely earned and always knew what he was doing.  Fans might have referred to Chip Six, but on set everyone called them Head characters.  Should have been a clue there.  Particularly when all the way back at the beginning of the show he had Head Six talking about being an Angel of God, there to see humanity through to its end.  I have no idea why, apparently, the only three people who said "Oh, okay.  So they're angels." all lived in my house, but apparently that was the case.  I think it's because of Moore's Trek background, and Roddenberry just had such withering disdain for the whole idea of a gods, or God, etc.  everyone thought that would be Moore's gig too. 

 

But he really didn't cheat there, which fails to make it a good story decision, to my mind, but still.  It was well known that RDM wanted to end the first season by having Baltar walk into the heavenly Opera Theater and for freaking Dirk Benedict step out and introduce himself as God.   RDM didn't cheat on the "In this story, there are gods or a God" aspect, I think he just failed to fully consider how BSG was touted as a post-911 allegory.  The last thing in the damned world I think he should have included was an actual god or gods, but he went there.   

 

So the characters at the end were not Real Baltar and Real Six...they were the Head characters, both of them meant to depict Angels of God.  Hey, I didn't write it, just that's what the dude was going for there.  Same thing with  the Risen Kara.  

Edited May 6, 2014 by stillshimpy

[John Potts]

While I did stick it through to the end, I felt it was all downhill after Exodus ("Dropping the Bucket" was an awesome sequence). It did feel at times as if Ron Moore played the "How can I make it worse now" game (with himself, presumably!) without any idea of how he was going to save humanity (or most of them) at the end of it. "Fracked Earth" was a good example of that - it was a twist I doubt anyone foresaw, but like Raymond Chandler (I think) said of the twist in Murder on the Orient Express - "Of course nobody will see it coming - because it's idiotic!" Hell, Galactica 1980 may have been awful, but at least it provided a solution to what to do once they'd found Earth (drop the kids off, have the Galactica draw the remaining cylons away to keep them safe).

 

green Don't even know what to say about Starbuck.

 

While I agree on her, I don't feel that all the deaths were pointless. While Dualla's death was a real shocker, it was entirely believable that she'd want to give Apollo a day's happiness before she took her own life. Zarek had tried being a democrat (he the was as legitimate a President as Laura Roslin ever was - forced to step aside by Admiral Adama) and it hadn't gotten him anywhere so why play by their rules? And Gaeta was always a follower looking for a cause to believe in (the military, Gaius Baltar, Tom Zarek) so when he'd finally run out of people to follow the pain stopped. Whether they all needed to die is another matter (JMO, of course).

[whiporee]

While I don't believe that it's a consensus that the ending sucked, it seems to be a common opinion. So, now that it's been gone a while, how would you have ended it? 

 

The parameters have to remain the same -- they are on an unspoiled Earth with roaming nomads. There's no tech left. Starbuck goes bye bye. 

 

Here's mine:

 

1) Something in Earth's atmosphere disintegrates the tech useless, making it quickly useless. Cosmic rays, ozone, whatever. The tech can't work, so they can't use it.
2) The epilogue say 250,000 years earlier, and it shows all the primary actors working on AI for a Voyager-like probe. They're watching the original BSG while they work. That way we aren't their ancestors, we're theirs.
3) The primary characters are archetypes remembered by the original programing, so the ideas of all the major characters are part of the collective unconscious of all of these people, not just the ones we've seen them in. Starbuck turns out to be a homing signal, sending everything back to where it all began. But 250,000 years later, Earth has destroyed itself more than a few times, and mankind is restarting again. 

[stillshimpy]

I can't work with any of that, whiporee, although I think you did as well as anyone would be able to. It's not how the ending was handled, it was the actual story elements that I think left people cold.   I think the story made a couple of narrative mistakes that were almost certainly going to doom the longevity of the series, because it got way too finger-wagging and lecturing, in addition to making the nearly fatal mistake of answering all questions so that there's almost nothing left to talk about once it's over.  

 

So the Final Five?  Big mistake.  As near as I can tell, it came about because RDM didn't want to reveal the other Cylon models after New Caprica.  Also, he made the mistake of spending a giant chunk of the casting budget on Dean Stockwell, which precluded a better exploration of the other models.  So that was nearly-fatal-flaw number one.  Plus, it's indicative of where I think Moore went wrong, he got too Spell it Out In Caps! on the "All this has happened before, and will happen again" by going painfully literal on the audience ass with that.  "Oh look.  Literally, all this has happened before...and now we're being shown how it happened before."  

 

The story went from a macro approach "Holy shit! Our world is decimated, what happens to us all now?"  to the micro-emotional level "I love Kara Thrace!"  "Yeah, Lee, but I'm emotionally damaged by my parents, so there's that."  "I'm Dee! *Boom*"  

 

I think the story mistakes were long before the finale, but they really went into "There's no saving this, is there?" overdrive with No Exit (Cavill is Mad at his Mommy! Too.  Also, because apparently all that happened before in season two...and three and again now in....Jesus, enough).  

 

But the biggest problem with the finale is flying the tech into the sun, because these people aren't skilled, they aren't particularly fit, they take a sip from the nearest stream and gods know what the bacterial colony in there is going to do to them...but the likelihood that they'll be fine?  Not high.  Without tech, these people die.  Without shelter.  These people die.  

 

It would have been better to have them get to the planet, tired, beleaguered.  Skip that nonsense with "Hera's Your Own Grandma! Sort of."  Land a shuttle, plans are made, Some people shuffle off because you know what, not everyone is going to want to rebuild.  The will to survive can actually be drained.  So the Chief can still go off to brood on Cairn or whatever he had planned.  Batlar and Six can still talk farming...but you know, with the hope of making a damned plow.  

 

So basically, I don't think the ending can work.

Edited May 6, 2014 by stillshimpy

[millahnna]

I still l think having Kara not be a hybrid like we'd been speculating (because of her father's name was a mistake. Since they already made her so special why not just run with it. Also I'm still sad there was never a farewell between her and Leoben. That jacked up relationship deserved a better good bye than just him freaking out when they found her body.

Edited May 6, 2014 by millahnna

[Joe]

They could have kept the technology if only they'd landed on a large island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, and then maybe a flashfoward of them fleeing the destruction of Atlantis, taking their knowledge, but not their gadgets, to other lands.

[green]

Thanks for replies and reactions.  I did know that Baltar and Six were suppose to be angels or devas (the Hindu equivalent) and have no problem with the idea for Starbuck if they made it clearer why she had a "special destiny."  But Baltar and Six make no sense to me since Six was created by the more primitive cylons or the original 12 (I forget at this point) and Baltar was Baltar.  The poster child of the flawed human with all the weaknesses rolled up into my person.  That's why I can buy his "redemption" as symbolic for the redemption of the Colonies survivors but not that he was some official deva all along.  I have no problem with the mystical elements.  In fact I wish they had gone there more but in a way that made sense to me.

 

I admit I don't get the Catholic stuff being so negative cause Christianity (like most religions) is about redemption and second chances and spiritual growth.  It is the fundamentalist sects in these religions that seem to be all hell fire and damnation.  Not something like the modern Catholic church.  Maybe Moore had some twisted experiences with some religious authority figures early in his life.

 

Also thanks for info on Moore's reason to get rid of the technology.  Shows he has absolutely no idea how things work if he was worried people would question why no one discovered the Colonial ships on modern earth.  There are Roman ruins that are buried several stories underground after 2000 years.  After 150,000 years anything still man-made would be buried so deep no one would ever uncover it.  70% of the world is under water too.  Plus only 1% or less of the earth has ever had archeologists digging there.  So who would ever discover it.  And that is if metal objects stayed intact for 150,000 years which they don't.  Metal decomposes into it's raw material sooner then that.  Especially if he had the ships come down close to an ocean with the salt in the air that can destroy cars bodies in just a few years.

 

But even if it were true that you could find artifacts that remain intact that long and are close enough to the surface to ever be found, I think it would have been a far cooler ending having some small thing unearthed by somebody who wonders what the thing was but not making head nor tail of it.  They lose interest and toss it away as they continue digging their new well or whatever.  That should be dark enough for Moore.

 

Cool to be able to discuss all this.  Especially since Vikings is over for the year.  At least it hasn't disappointed yet though it is only through it's second season.

[whiporee]

I sincerely thought the last of the Final Five was going to be Dee, and that she had known it all along and had orchestrated everything. She was the one who sent Adama to Kobol; she was the one who got lee to turn Pegasus around. The only genius move of it was making Tigh one, but the rest of the FF didn't make a lot of sense. 

[John Potts]

I didn't really get that they'd sufficiently made peace with the cylons to abandon technology. In Season 2, they left the cylons behind and settled down - only for the "Choose Love" (or whatever it was called) faction to lose out and the cylons to decide "Actually, no, maybe genocide was the right idea after all." So you'd want to be really sure before dropping your Battlestar into the sun. OK, they took out "The Hub" but there are probably a lot more cylons out there.

 

I thought they were going to say that Starbuck's "revelation" was seeing how to program the Galactica to jump back in time and that it would all turn out that eventually they would colonise Kobol and the 12 Colonies, build the cylons... and so it all repeats (hell, they kept saying "All this happened before...") I guess that's kind of how the distant finale went to some extent, but it was definitely done in an artsy, "We're not going to spell out what's really going on" way.

[TVSpectator]

I sincerely thought the last of the Final Five was going to be Dee, and that she had known it all along and had orchestrated everything. She was the one who sent Adama to Kobol; she was the one who got lee to turn Pegasus around. The only genius move of it was making Tigh one, but the rest of the FF didn't make a lot of sense. 

 

IMO, that was one of the better possibilities of finding out who was the last Cylon but I do feel that would've made a better choice than Ellen (even having President Roslyn or Adama as the final Cylon would have been a better choice), was Starbuck. Yeah, I know that it's an obvious choice, but, IMO,  by the time that they brought her back from the dead, with a shiny new ship, it seemed to be the only non-ridiculously bad idea that they could have chosen. Instead we got a half-ass explanation from Moore, irl, that by the finale she was an angel. Which, IMO, is just teeth grinding stupid (and, IMO, kind of offensive for people who actually believe in angels). He could've said that she was a ghost that came back to fulfill her duties/fate/destiny, etc.. but really an angel? How does that even fit into the logic of the show? If the angels on the show were working with their people (Baltar and Caprica Six) by being in their head (like Head Baltar and Head Caprica Six) then why would this angel be so real, mess up, and everyone can feel, smell, and touch her (and why would she need a ship to come back to them?)?

 

As with the actual finale, I think by the time it aired there were a whole lot of problems that many fans were complaining about and never really got any resolution/solved/directed towards sating back to mid Season 3. Although, as a finale episode it, IMO, sucked because of many reasons:

 

1. Baltar's grand fate was just to carry a toddler a few feet

2. All Along The Watch Tower was a random throw away song that could've been replaced by any song.

3. Starbuck's fate was to calculate jumping coordinates

4. Cavil just saying "what the fuck" and killing himself

5. The Final Five

6. For me, the Chief killing Tori.

7. Everyone just giving up, btw freely giving up, their technology to live a life of a roaming stone age hunter and living in the mud hole.

8. The hint that Hera died at 25/26 years of age.

9 The idea of Hera having a family at a very young age.

10. People dying from simple cuts and scrapes (and Helo, IMO, was so screwed with that leg wound).

11. Boomer sleeping with Helo

12. The coda

13. The whole idea of getting it on with pre non-verbal natives (and thats not my title but the description, or very close to it, that was used in Daybreak , used by the characters to described the people who were living on our Earth before they arrived). IMO, that idea just didn't sit well with me for some reason.

14. Their is a second Earth (which is our planet) that is exactly like their planet.

15. A lot of people were upset that Helo and Athena were still together (given that Helo technically cheated on her with Boomer, but thats, IMO, another story)

16. Everyone splitting up on an alien planet (including the Cylons), once they arrived on our Earth, and going their separate ways into their certain deaths.

17. The explanation that "God did it" and the whole thing repeating over and over and over.....

 

So, if I got a chance to redo the finale (and if I have to kept every else the same....) I would probably have the humans and Cylons keeping their technology to their best ability (maybe we can have Lee trying to convince everyone to go Luddite but this time no one is listening to him). But over time they start to lose it because everything is rotted away due to rust, etc.... Sure, there would probably be factions of the humans who would refused to live on our Earth and maybe they can abandon everyone on the planet and take the ships away (instead of having Anders flying them into the sun, and that could serve as the explanation as to why there are no spaceships flying around) and go off looking for another home, someplace far away.

 

Plus, I would have more interactions with the Natives, instead of seeing them from far away, I would probably have everyone (including the Natives), at least trying to survive on the alien world, together. Plus, I would rather see Hera growing up to become some kind of major leader and keeping all the factions together, to the best of her abilities.

 

Instead of Cavil shooting himself maybe someone else could, like the Chief and he then could go away and brood on his icy cold island (and he could be haunted by the ghosts of Tori and Cally. You know what, scratch that, Tori isn't dead because this time Chief can actually control his anger. He can still go off to his little icy island but this time realizing that he is one mess up person).

 

I would just forget the whole All Along the Watch Tower part.

 

Anders recovers but still isnet the same person, but tries to live as close to normal as possible.

 

Starbuck isn't an angel and doesn't disappeared into thin air. Instead she is the actual Final Cylon and she has her own head character (which could either be a Head Lee or a Head Zack)  , that Ellen had to kept secret for what ever reasons. She goes on living on the planet with Lee.

 

As with a the coda; I guess their could still be one just a different one.  My coda would have been having a bunch of archaeologist digging in Africa and finding a fossilized body of a woman and the captions that read, "150,000 years later". Head Caprica Six and Head Baltar are above the archaeologists (unbeknownst to the archaeologists) start to talk to themselves, saying that this is the remains of Hera and that she is our Mitochondrial Eve but the archaeologists don't know that it is her, etc...

 

Although, overall I think we would need to go back and redo mid Season 3 and just working from there to get a better finale.

[blackwing]

Never watched this show when it was on but finally finished season 1. I have to say, I almost quit multiple times because of Gaius Baltar. I despise everything about him. Am I supposed to see him as a tragic figure being manipulated by Number 6? Because all I see is a weak and prissy man. And I truly despise his wimpy high pitched voice. Does he get better? I read wiki a little so I know he

ends up being president.

Please tell me he grows stronger.

Edited August 10, 2014 by blackwing

[Danny Franks]

I guess that you could say Baltar is a bit of all those things. He is weak, he is whiny, he is tragic, but he's also a very smart man, and an opportunist who (nearly) always manages to turn situations to his favour. He's also a fool, in as much as anyone in the show is. A source of lightness at times, that comes at the expense of his pomposity and ego. I think the show needed that, amongst all the grimness.

 

I never felt like I was supposed to like him, when I was watching the show. He was always out for himself, and ready to sacrifice people to keep his own arse out of the fire, but I think the writers just found it interesting to explore a character like that, when everyone else was all about sacrificing for the greater good, and protecting humanity. I don't know about him getting better, but I do think his journey is worth watching, even if you don't like the character.

 

I always liked Chip Six more than I liked Baltar himself. I thought Tricia Helfer really shone in those scenes, where she got to play things a little more broadly, and to experiment a little with the character. So his stuff was worth it, to see her developing as a character.

 

Honestly, my favourite characters in the show were Apollo, Helo and Caprica Sharon (as I'll have to call her, here). The first two are comparatively straitlaced, 'good guy' characters who lack a lot of the moral complexity of many of the people on the ship. But again I think they serve as a necessary counterpoint, and their simplicity is what makes them appealing, when you're watching them try to deal with a world that is not simple at all. And Sharon is really interesting as the first Cylon who starts to find herself drawn to humanity, and who starts to build relationships with humans. Plus, I think she was proof that Grace Park could act.

 

Season two is an interesting time for all three of those characters, for different reasons. I wish Apollo had avoided getting caught up in the Starbuck clusterfuck, because I always thought it hurt him as a character, and his whiniest moments were nearly always when he was dealing with her.

[Sharpie66]

Helo is probably my favorite character overall--he is utterly moral, loyal, and has my second-fave relationship, with Sharon (major Bill/Laura shipper here for #1!!).It doesn't hurt that Tahmoh Penikett is stunningly gorgeous, which I will admit was the first thing I noticed.

I first started watching BSG with season 2. The day it returned from the mid-season break, SciFi had an all day marathon of S2 eps, and since it was before I got a dvr, I put an 8 hour tape into my vcr and got most of the episodes while I was at work. I picked up enough to figure out who was who and was ready for the Pegasus arc, and stuck around for the rest of the series with raving fangirlness.

[catrox14]

I also started watching BSG in s2 as well. 

 

Baltar is whiny and he is being manipulated by Head!Six, but he's equally manipulative with others around him. To me, I thought Baltar veered between hapless and opportunistic which is a really delicate balancing act.  But really Baltar's character started to turn for me when he sees Gina during the Pegasus arc, which I LOVED. 

 

FWIW, I never thought we were supposed to "like" Baltar. I loathed him often but in spite of myself, Baltar become my favorite character on the show and one of my all time favorite characters ever of any show. I think that is largely due to James Callis giving him shades beyond the dialogue and plot elements.

Edited August 10, 2014 by catrox14

[blackwing]

Thanks for the comments and responses. I'll stick with it then. Also, I hate his hair.

[Etta Place]

I have been rewatching the series recently, and I'm about in the middle of Season 2 at the moment. I also don't think you're really supposed to like Baltar. By turns, he outsmarts himself and is too dumb for words. He ends up being a fascinating character, in my opinion, precisely because of that. He's a cockroach scuttling along in a destroyed world, doing whatever will preserve his own life. Sometimes he's more resigned to that attitude than others.

 

@Danny Franks, Apollo was always my favorite character, but in the rewatch now I see all the problems with him. I enjoy his scenes with Kara, up to a point. They always had a great combination of sibling rivalry and sexual tension. Which seems weird and ooky but worked most of the time.

[Danny Franks]

 

@Danny Franks, Apollo was always my favorite character, but in the rewatch now I see all the problems with him. I enjoy his scenes with Kara, up to a point. They always had a great combination of sibling rivalry and sexual tension. Which seems weird and ooky but worked most of the time.

 

In the first season, I really enjoyed the tension between Apollo and Kara. It was relatively light and fun (for this show, anyway), and I genuinely believed these were two characters who had strong feelings for one another that they'd never really explored or considered. The sibling/sexual juxtaposition was a bit odd, but I think that combination does work well, because it makes things that much more tantalising and juicy.

 

Then they ruined it by pushing too hard before Kara left on her mission, and even more by the Anders stuff afterwards. It seemed like the writers just got completely stuck on the idea that Kara was a fuckup, and couldn't do anything without hurting herself and others. From her return onwards, I just never felt there was the same sense of fun between them. As for Lee himself, when I rewatch the show, I always feel like he's a character that Eick and Moore didn't really care about, and never really wanted to write for. Which is why he seemed to lurch from one indecisive, half-assed role to another. 

[Etta Place]

Funny, that last part is exactly what I said to my husband as we've been watching. "I never realized how little idea they had about who Apollo really was." I mean, it becomes apparent in the second part of the second season (I once asked Jamie Bamber about his thoughts on "Black Market" ... it was a long answer. :))

[Danny Franks]

Funny, that last part is exactly what I said to my husband as we've been watching. "I never realized how little idea they had about who Apollo really was." I mean, it becomes apparent in the second part of the second season (I once asked Jamie Bamber about his thoughts on "Black Market" ... it was a long answer. :))

 

Oh boy, was Black Market a mess.... I'd love to know what he thought of it.

 

Yeah, that's the sort of thing that really stands out to me, when you just have things develop out of nowhere, and then disappear just as fast. I can only imagine Jamie Bamber sitting there, utterly baffled, as he read the script for that episode.

 

That was after he became very briefly suicidal, but before he started banging someone else's girlfriend (not Kara, funnily enough), right? Then there was the Pegasus stuff after that, and that seemed like a really great extension of the character, and a logical step up for Lee, and for the fleet. Well, we know what happened with that.... But it would probably be best talked about in an Apollo thread.

 

I don't know, I feel like the decisions to bring Helo back (which I was happy about) and Anders (which I was not) really marginalised Lee quite a bit, because those two guys both fit into roles that could have been his, in different ways.

[John Potts]

I agree that Anders represented an idea that was better in theory than execution - that it was unlikely that even multiple nukes would wipe out all humans. Naturally, as soon as Kara landed she was going to meet them (a contrived coincidence obviously, but they have to meet or there's no story), but Kara's adventures on Kobol just wouldn't end and then resolved way too quickly - suddenly Sharon turns up and everyone's OK with that? I'd have preferred some sort of struggle to jerry rig a junked Raptor/Viper they find - even if that would be a rehash of You Can't Go Home Again from S1.

 

OTOH, I did like the Pegasus and election stories, even if they both ultimately ended tragically..