benteen June 15, 2017 Share June 15, 2017 (edited) Quote 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. Agreed. Watching the show, I felt that if there were 10 bad things that could happen to a person in their life, the BSG characters all had at least 7 of them happen to them. Don't even get me started with Lee's unanimous decision to condemn the survivors to the Stone Age, which EVERYONE seemed to agree on. I find it very hard to believe that such a group of grizzled survivors, who fought over everything, would all agree to give up technology. Lee wants to "climb mountains and swim in the oceans" great....go tell a 75-year-old with a bad hip who has spent five years on a cramped ship that he has to spend the remainder of his life sleeping in the dirt because Lee Adama wants to commune with nature. It was lazy writing by Ron Moore, not even attempting to sell the decision to the audience and to show why survivors might choose this path. Now given the population and the resources left available, it's very like the survivors will devolve eventually. Skills become lost and resources disappear. One episode of BSG had a guy who was said to be the last brain surgeon left in the Twelve Colonies. Stuff like that would go away pretty quickly. Maybe the survivors won't completely devolve but their children and grandchildren likely will. But there's no reason to speed up that process and yeah, the survivors are going to need guns to deal with the massive amounts of wildlife. I can definitely see quite a few people who would want to rough it with nature. That appeals to a lot of people. Adama building a cabin and living on his own....yeah, that definitely works. But I would have rather have seen most of humanity split off from Lee's stupid hippie shit and start their own society, attempting to rebuild with what they had left to them. I actually would have loved to have seen them become the lost city of Atlantis. I definitely understand what you're saying, green. I was a big fan of this show as well and heavily invested too like I was with Lost. But the lack of storyline and plot holes by Ron Moore have really soured me on the series. Like Lost, I have no desire to watch BSG again or to recommend it to anyone. Edited June 15, 2017 by benteen 5 Link to comment
woodstock September 10, 2017 Share September 10, 2017 Battlestar Galactica Marathon to celebrate SyFy's 25th anniversary Link to comment
justmehere September 11, 2017 Share September 11, 2017 Thanks for the heads-up, @woodstock. 1 Link to comment
catrox14 September 24, 2017 Share September 24, 2017 Just watching 33 on the SyFy marathon. What a great episode. Poor Olympic Carrier. What a show! Link to comment
HunterHunted October 13, 2017 Share October 13, 2017 I'm going to be the weird one here and say Leoben was my favorite. The only cylons that I ever really thought believed in God were some of the Sixes and Leoben. Leoben seemed to be interested in the nature of humans and God. I always looked at him as a mystic. I loved the work Tricia Helfer did with the Sixes. Except for Natalie and Head Six (who isn't really a Six), I'd always felt that the Sixes had this core of bitterness and cynicism that they could not shake. They weren't as bad as Cavil who was a completely broken nihilist. I thought Grace did good work with Boomer and Athena. And I also wish we had seen more of Ricky Worthy's Simon. Link to comment
slf October 14, 2017 Share October 14, 2017 Probably my most unpopular opinion about BSG is this: I think the reveal that Adama had taken a battlestar across the armistice line three years prior to the assault on the colonies made perfect sense and was the right way to go in terms of how the conflict got started. The whole "we have to slaughter humanity to come into our own" thing was, imo, idiotic. The humans sabotaging their own peace felt realistic and made sense given their history. 1 Link to comment
BlackberryJam October 15, 2017 Share October 15, 2017 I loved the Eights and thought Grace did great work, and I loved Helo and Athena, but Leoben was also my favorite. 1 Link to comment
stillshimpy October 15, 2017 Share October 15, 2017 (edited) On 6/15/2017 at 6:30 AM, benteen said: Like Lost, I have no desire to watch BSG again or to recommend it to anyone. For a long time, I would try to recommend it with the provisos that "Okay, seriously, trust me...after season two, only watch the first two episodes of season three and then get the hell out of Dodge, permanently. It will be a great series, you'll be satisfied. Sure, you'll have questions and speculate but that's the fun of a well-told story, it leaves you wanting more." No one will listen because the story is still good at that point and they don't understand that it's basically a wild ride down a terrible plot hill from there. I have had zero success with the "Just.Stop.There." And then afterward, people say, "I should have stopped there." Also, Syfy's drive to monetize absolutely every last thing that they could from it led to those terrible movies. I mean, for the love of mercy, a lot of The Plan was constructed of old footage from things from the series. Sorry, I got a notification about this thread and ended up reading some of it again. Poor BSG. I still love it in that "I remember how much I loved it...even as I watched it slide over a cliff of quality..." way. It will always be one of the most fun viewing experiences of my life. We had such a good time on TWoP talking about it, there's a bunch of behind the scenes stuff that also went into it. It's actually a little weird. Half the time I like a show and that means it is moved directly to the top of the "Almost certainly going to be canceled, try not to get attached" list of the TV Fates. This is the one show that I can spot precisely where it's just a damned shame it didn't get the hook while it was still really a tight show with only a couple of stumbles. Also, for sheer "What the...what? Wait, what the hell was that?" it's hard to beat Hero for catastrophic story failure. It wildly fucked with known canon, it had a bizarre resolution that was never mentioned again. The dog from New Caprica got more follow up than the main character from Hero. There were worse episodes (The Woman King is still the biggest howler I've ever seen) but for sheer, "What the fuck do you even think you're doing with this plot?" Hero takes it for me in the "Yup, would have been better if the poor show had just been canceled at the end of season two. Maybe fan outcry or Syfy's greed leads to a resolution miniseries, maybe not, either way, the dramatic stylings of Dean Stockwell and EJO would not have been so grossly overindulged. Could have been good." I never rewatch this show but I have such fond memories of watching this show, if that makes sense. There is one moment from the finale that is just dark comedy gold though: Katee Sackhoff as Kara Thrace giving the sky a look that said, "seriously, now? Now is when you're going to choose to yank me back to the great, obviously insanely weird, beyond? For an omnipotent being, you have really poor planning on timing and pacing!" right before Lee turns to find the void where Kara was. I crack up just thinking about it. I think that is part of why I have such enduring love for the memory of watching this show. Wow, did the cast ever gamely try to roll with some of the weirder shit that was thrown in their direction and pretty much no one more so than Sackhoff. I think Longmire ran -- possibly still runs -- for kind of a while, so she ended up with a steady gig and although it might not have contained many acting challenges, at least she didn't need to be resurrected, down-to-fuck in a grumpy fashion, Captain Ahab on a ...one of the best "Really? Did you shoot dramatic restraint in the actual face because this is fucking excessive" detail: on a Sewage Ship. For me, at least the memories get actively funny. Edited October 15, 2017 by stillshimpy 3 Link to comment
justmehere October 15, 2017 Share October 15, 2017 I just finished binge watching the whole thing as SyFy had it available On Demand, and I still love it (however, they trimmed episodes - which was frustrating). There were some excesses and bad plot moves in S4 (Tigh and Caprica together stands out for me as well as Cavill and Boomer -- and Cavill in general), but watching it all in a row was fun. I still hated the whole Pegasus crew and was glad when that was over, but it was an interesting contrast to the Galactica and showed that Roslin's influence wasn't just because she was a woman. Adama had his own obvious feminine side and Roslin had an obvious masculine one. I still loved the more "esoteric" elements, and while a lot of people complained about the God factor, they talked about God or gods from day one and had "guidance" throughout, so I didn't find it surprising or troubling that there was something mystical in the resolution. Gaius still broke my heart at the end, talking about farming. (The On Demand version cut Tyrol's resolution, going to Scotland, as I recall, which ticked me off.) Even with a few obvious excesses and missteps (every show has them), I still think it's light years better than the last season and the ending of Lost. 1 Link to comment
John Potts October 21, 2017 Share October 21, 2017 On 15/10/2017 at 6:14 PM, stillshimpy said: For a long time, I would try to recommend it with the provisos that "Okay, seriously, trust me...after season two, only watch the first two episodes of season three and then get the hell out of Dodge, permanently. It will be a great series, you'll be satisfied. Sure, you'll have questions and speculate but that's the fun of a well-told story, it leaves you wanting more." Yeah, it would definitely have been better wrapped up in three Seasons. If they'd known they were going to only get three Seasons, they'd have had to get to Earth (Frakked or not) by the end of the Season and we'd never have had Angel(?) Starbuck, Cult Leader Baltar or baby Hera 's retconned origins. But as it actually was, its downhill after Exodus (it could still throw up the occasional decent episode - I personally liked seeing Cavil "Mwa-ha-ha"-ing it, funny to think he was once the cuddly Al on Quantum Leap). It might also have helped if, like the Cylons, Ron Moore had actually had a plan for where the series was going so it didn't meander quite so much from that point onward. 2 Link to comment
ketose November 5, 2017 Share November 5, 2017 ...and that's why you can find a Starbucks everywhere... Link to comment
IDFfm0870 November 13, 2017 Share November 13, 2017 On 15.10.2017 at 7:57 PM, justmehere said: The On Demand version cut Tyrol's resolution, going to Scotland, as I recall, which ticked me off. Tyrol's resolution is missing on the DVD's (region 2) which ticked me off a bit when I first noticed it. Link to comment
BBHN November 14, 2017 Share November 14, 2017 Quote Even with a few obvious excesses and missteps (every show has them), I still think it's light years better than the last season and the ending of Lost. Amen to that. 1 Link to comment
megsara November 20, 2017 Share November 20, 2017 Just finished my 1st real re-watch of the whole series, and I love season 4. It reminds me a bit of Farscape season 4 - so very serialized, dark, lots of heavy emotions. I found there were certain parts that I wasn't looking forward to watching - the mutiny - but found them very satisfying on re-watch. I guess I never understood why people hated the God angle. I would have if it sprung up at the last minute, but God and angels have been a through-line since the beginning. HeadSix told Baltar in early season 2 that she was an angel of god, and she was a lot of things, but I never thought of her as a liar. I am personally an atheist but find religious and spiritual themes in fiction really fascinating. The whole abandoning of technology angle did bother me, but not quite enough to sour me on the series and season as a whole. And really, I could never hate it if just for the sole reason that the amazing Tigh’s made it to the end! 1 Link to comment
Unusual Suspect December 5, 2017 Share December 5, 2017 Honestly, the finale really only lost me at Apollo's neo-Luddite speech. The hand of the divine, whether from Kara or Head Six wasn't a major issue for me. But I did have major issues with the fleet going all Lemmings and just deciding that camping out and frackin' the non-verbal apes was a good idea. 1 Link to comment
Bastet December 10, 2017 Share December 10, 2017 (edited) Okay, I'm going in. For years, two friends have tried to get me into this show, assuring me it will join The X-Files as the exception to my dislike of sci-fi, that the creators had as one of their primary goals to make a sci-fi series that felt and looked realistic. "It's a psychological/political drama that just happens to be set in space." I like Edward James Olmos and I absolutely fucking love Mary McDonnell, so if nothing else I could just watch for them, but I know how things end, so do I really want to do that to myself? Plus, sci-fi tends to explore religious shit in which I have no interest, and I know this is no different, so do I want to go down that road? Also, such a dark look at humanity at this point in, well, humanity? Alas, the Blu-Ray set was on sale for $40, so I decided to go for it. I watched the miniseries last night and I liked it. It was obvious a lot had been cut, though, so watching/listening to the special features and learning the first edit ran a full hour long was no surprise. Some of the deleted scenes leave gaping holes. I wish they'd included more of them in the special features. I wish I hadn't picked up so much via friends and offhand references on TWoP and here over the years - I already know who the cylons are, and seeing Boomer walk in at the end of the miniseries would probably have been quite a "Holy shit" moment if I was going in unspoiled. But I dig it. Olmos and McDonnell are great as always, and I'm already yearning for more of Laura Roslin. I've never seen Grace Park in anything before, but I'm impressed by her already. The only thing I recognize in Katee Sackhoff's list of credits is an episode of Cold Case I liked, but I can't picture her in it. At any rate, I like Starbuck. I can't decide yet how I feel about Baltar or Six; I don't think I'm as captivated as I'm supposed to be, but Six definitely has potential to be interesting enough to justify the focus on her. And, hey, Lorena Gale! She played several different small roles in The X-Files (most memorably, the "Howard Graves is very dead" doctor), and I'm oddly excited to see her here. Also, I like Callum Keith Rennie, so I'm glad there are more Leobens. Vancouver actors for the win. Edited December 14, 2017 by Bastet 4 Link to comment
Bastet December 13, 2017 Share December 13, 2017 I'm not reading any posts until I finish season one, so I don't spoil myself any more than I already am, but I just have to gush how much I'm loving this so far. I watched the mini-series again, and then last night I stayed up way too late watching the first three episodes (and had to talk myself out of staying in bed this morning to watch some more). It really does do away with most of the things that make me dislike sci-fi, and I am completely drawn in to what these people are going through. The scene of Laura being sworn in has stuck with me ever since I watched it; it pops into my head randomly. The trembling of her hand and voice, and the way she turned her head to take advantage of the placement of her hand to wipe a tear out of the corner of her eye, made me feel, almost physically, the weight of what has been placed on her. Everyone's reactions to this huge, surreal event have been very realistic, which is so much more enjoyable than a bunch of heroes immediately stepping up to the plate and having all the answers. The relationships, both old and new, are all very interesting to me, and that's what I'm here for. If this was just the Roslin/Adama show, I'd watch the hell out of it, but I like so many other relationships, too. I find Laura and Apollo's relationship quite interesting; they went through this together, and the continued connection as a result is nice. Laura and Billy are adorable when she teases him about Dee, and not knowing anything about women; these lovely little moments of normalcy in the midst of strange, horrible circumstances. Adama and Tigh's backstory is something I don't know, but there obviously is one, and the actors perfectly communicate a longstanding relationship. The performances are great overall, which is really impressive with so many rookie actors in the cast. 33 was an incredible episode, largely because the actors did such a fantastic job projecting the characters' utter exhaustion and constant state of anxiety. Great writing, too. When the Olympic Carrier jumped back into the fleet, and I realized it was how the Cylons were tracking them and was thus going to have to be destroyed, I gasped. The scene in the miniseries when they had to leave the sub-light vessels behind was very well shot and acted (my second-favorite scene after the swearing in), and the impact of watching this decision be made and play out wasn't lessened any by having just watched a similar scenario. That's impressive. Methinks poor Laura is going to wind up with a pocket full of little notes. Two questions thus far: How did Adama realize Leoben was a Cylon? Had he already known that they look like humans now, it would have made sense to me for him to channel his "this guy is suspicious" feelings into "this guy's a Cylon," but to him Cylons are walking toasters, so it seemed like either I missed something specific that clued him in, something was revealed in one of the many deleted scenes that weren't included in the extras, or it was a rather illogical conclusion for him to reach. Had they jumped prior to the events in mini-series? Because it sounded like they'd only ever trained for it on paper, that no one had actually done a jump in 20 years because of the danger (I know no one had jumped past the red line, but the 20 years thing is before that, when Adama ordered the jump to Ragnar), but when they were prepping for that jump, Cally said, "I hate this part," meaning she'd been through one before, and she's certainly not old enough to have been in the fleet 20 years ago. So is that a continuity error, or did I misunderstand the initial conversation about jumping to Ragnar? Link to comment
John Potts December 13, 2017 Share December 13, 2017 1 hour ago, Bastet said: Two questions thus far: How did Adama realize Leoben was a Cylon? Had he already known that they look like humans now, it would have made sense to me for him to channel his "this guy is suspicious" feelings into "this guy's a Cylon," but to him Cylons are walking toasters, so it seemed like either I missed something specific that clued him in, something was revealed in one of the many deleted scenes that weren't included in the extras, or it was a rather illogical conclusion for him to reach. Had they jumped prior to the events in mini-series? Because it sounded like they'd only ever trained for it on paper, that no one had actually done a jump in 20 years because of the danger (I know no one had jumped past the red line, but the 20 years thing is before that, when Adama ordered the jump to Ragnar), but when they were prepping for that jump, Cally said, "I hate this part," meaning she'd been through one before, and she's certainly not old enough to have been in the fleet 20 years ago. So is that a continuity error, or did I misunderstand the initial conversation about jumping to Ragnar? 1 I think Adama didn't know Leoben was a cylon, but he suspected it because: a) He was a lone guy hanging out where he shouldn't be. He was also acting kinda squirrelly. b) He knew the cylons, for some reason, were keeping out of the [Technobabble] cloud and suspected it screwed them up somehow. c) Leoben was clearly suffering from something and "allergies" was a pretty unlikely reason in a storage depot (unless he was allergic to crates!) 2 This is speculative, but I thought it might be the case that as part of military training (as a "Just in case" measure) they go through a jump, just as they do evacuation drills but hope they never need to be used. Link to comment
Joe December 13, 2017 Share December 13, 2017 2 hours ago, Bastet said: Had they jumped prior to the events in mini-series? Because it sounded like they'd only ever trained for it on paper, that no one had actually done a jump in 20 years because of the danger (I know no one had jumped past the red line, but the 20 years thing is before that, when Adama ordered the jump to Ragnar), but when they were prepping for that jump, Cally said, "I hate this part," meaning she'd been through one before, and she's certainly not old enough to have been in the fleet 20 years ago. So is that a continuity error, or did I misunderstand the initial conversation about jumping to Ragnar? I think that ships jump around between the colonies as needed, but the Galactica hadn't actually needed to for 20 years. Cally has probably been on other ships before, and not enjoyed the jump experience. Link to comment
Bastet December 13, 2017 Share December 13, 2017 6 minutes ago, John Potts said: He knew the cylons, for some reason, were keeping out of the [Technobabble] cloud That's the thing I was missing. Without that, and given the fact he did not know cylons had evolved to look like humans, it didn't make sense to me for him finding the squirrelly arms dealer suspicious to translate in his mind to "he's a cylon," but with that, the logical leap does make sense. Thanks. 1 minute ago, Joe said: I think that ships jump around between the colonies as needed, but the Galactica hadn't actually needed to for 20 years. Cally has probably been on other ships before, and not enjoyed the jump experience. Oh, okay - if only Galactica hadn't jumped in 20 years (more danger of being off target with something that humongous, maybe?), but other vessels had, then, yeah, she could easily have experienced it elsewhere. Thank you, too. 1 Link to comment
SparedTurkey December 14, 2017 Share December 14, 2017 Quote Oh, okay - if only Galactica hadn't jumped in 20 years (more danger of being off target with something that humongous, maybe?), but other vessels had, then, yeah, she could easily have experienced it elsewhere. Thank you, too. The Galactica had jumped before (I'd assume military practice), but not over the red line. Presumably it was not so hard because it was all fully plotted so they knew what they were jumping to. Outside of the red line they have no solid data so they very much could jump into the middle of a planet or a sun somewhere and so jumping is not as simple as it once was. Bastet - What episode are you up to? Link to comment
Bastet December 14, 2017 Share December 14, 2017 2 minutes ago, SparedTurkey said: Bastet - What episode are you up to? I only got through two more last night, the two-parter with Starbuck having to eject and landing on a moon or something. (Both episodes had commentary, so after I watched them regularly, I watched again with the commentary, and after all that it was very much time to go to sleep.) The first one was a little slow-going for me, but the Kara/Adama stuff about Zack was incredible. And the second part - You Can't Go Home Again - was pretty much a perfect episode: Laura giving Adama every chance to wake up and do his job, then just showing up on Galactica and giving it straight to him and Lee was wonderful, and it was an interesting change to see Tigh confiding in her. Kara's adventures down on the surface were highly entertaining, and the scenes on Caprica finally got interesting to me with this one - the tension knowing the toaster (the actual toaster, not the Cylon) was going to go off any second and give them away was well done. Lee thinking Adama wouldn't have pushed as hard to find his own son as he did his quasi-daughter and Adama saying, "If it had been you down there, we'd have never left" was quite a moment. Lee looking up and seeing "Starbuck" written on the underside of the cylon raider wing and realizing what was going on was wonderful, and I practically started cheering along with everyone in the CIC. And then Kara getting the cigar of forgiveness and love at the end. Link to comment
John Potts December 15, 2017 Share December 15, 2017 3 hours ago, Bastet said: Lee looking up and seeing "Starbuck" written on the underside of the cylon raider wing and realizing what was going on was wonderful, and I practically started cheering along with everyone in the CIC. It was also a call back to the original ('79) series - Apollo & Starbuck have to place a McGuffin on a Cylon base and then return to the Galactica in a cylon raider. They are given a beacon to identify them which prompts Starbuck to comment that "If [they] lose it, [they]'ll just waggle our wings or something". Inevitably, they do lose the beacon and do waggle their wings in approaching the Galactica (which Tigh recognises and allows them to dock). In You Can't Go Home Again, Starbuck also waggles the wings of the raider which similarly tips them off that there's something funny about it (though it's the "Starbuck" on the underside that's the clincher). Link to comment
SparedTurkey December 15, 2017 Share December 15, 2017 Quote I only got through two more last night, the two-parter with Starbuck having to eject and landing on a moon or something. Oh you are way better at pacing yourself than I was! I got in with the first episodes of Season 2 and I mainlined the first season...several times. You have some great ones coming up. And Laura Roslin is my favourite also and she also gets some gold moments. Quote It was also a call back to the original ('79) series Yeah - much like Richard Hatch playing Tom Zarek having been Captain Apollo in the original (Bastet - he was the leader of the convicts Apollo dealt with on the prison ship who tried to stage that rebellion). RIP Richard Hatch. He seems like he was a nice guy. And certainly had a load more class about this BSG than Dirk Benedict ever did). Link to comment
Bastet December 15, 2017 Share December 15, 2017 The original was pretty much the exact opposite of what I like to watch, so I only know about it what I learned from comments in the special features. It amuses me that Richard Hatch was vocally opposed to the "re-imagining" of the show and then wound up appearing (and then some). Even though the "Apollo vs. Apollo" aspect of the Lee/Zarek scenes was lost on me, I liked them. And I loved Lee telling Adama and Laura what he'd agreed to (the election they're obliged by the Articles to hold anyway) -- "He's your son/He's your advisor" was hilarious. But beyond the humor, I appreciate the "If we're not going to follow the law, then you're not this and I'm not that and this is all bullshit" part of it. So many shows would take the stance that the unprecedented circumstances mean none of the usual rules of humanity and society apply, and this one opts to show that they may need to be altered, but they need to be fundamentally respected or there's no damn point to survival. I really like that this isn't a show where the military guys are always right and the government officials are just pesky bureaucrats who don't understand how the real world works because we're at war, dammit, and just keep wanting to talk about pesky things like civil rights. That little wing waggle Apollo and Starbuck shared as they headed in after he knew who she was was adorable to me, again even without knowing it's a nod to the original show. I appreciate the background info, because that wasn't noted in the commentary. Link to comment
SparedTurkey December 15, 2017 Share December 15, 2017 Quote It amuses me that Richard Hatch was vocally opposed to the "re-imagining" of the show and then wound up appearing (and then some). Even though the "Apollo vs. Apollo" aspect of the Lee/Zarek scenes was lost on me, I liked them. And I loved Lee telling Adama and Laura what he'd agreed to (the election they're obliged by the Articles to hold anyway) -- "He's your son/He's your advisor" was hilarious. Yeah no I had a bit more respect for Richard Hatch after changing his mind. Benedict remained a wanker. Not a big loss from what I can tell. 7 minutes ago, Bastet said: But beyond the humor, I appreciate the "If we're not going to follow the law, then you're not this and I'm not that and this is all bullshit" part of it. So many shows would take the stance that the unprecedented circumstances mean none of the usual rules of humanity and society apply, and this one opts to show that they may need to be altered, but they need to be fundamentally respected or there's no damn point to survival. This show is not like the normal sci-fi I suppose. Your thought is interesting and something to remember. And it was good EJO had it put into his contract that if he ever saw a script with an alien in it he planned to faint on camera and never return. Everyone took it more seriously than the usual. Have you found the bloopers at all? Also worth it. Anyway, more than happy to chat with you while you go along if you like? It may give me a good reason for another rewatch Link to comment
Sharpie66 December 15, 2017 Share December 15, 2017 Yay! An unspoiled newbie! Can’t wait to see what you think about future eps. BTW, there’s a great podcast that dives in-depth with two newbies (or nuggets, as they call them), and doesn’t spoil future eps. I highly recommend The Resurrection Cast, especially if you can take 2-3 hours per episode to listen. I am midway through S3, and they are very interesting to listen to. Link to comment
Bastet December 15, 2017 Share December 15, 2017 15 hours ago, SparedTurkey said: Have you found the bloopers at all? Also worth it. Anyway, more than happy to chat with you while you go along if you like? It may give me a good reason for another rewatch I did see a blooper reel on YouTube once; it came up as a recommendation after something else I'd watched, and I started to ignore it since I didn't watch the show, but I like bloopers, so I watched. I haven't looked to see if they are included on the Blu-Rays. And, yes, please - chat away. 15 hours ago, Sharpie66 said: Yay! An unspoiled newbie! Can’t wait to see what you think about future eps. BTW, there’s a great podcast that dives in-depth with two newbies (or nuggets, as they call them), and doesn’t spoil future eps. I highly recommend The Resurrection Cast, especially if you can take 2-3 hours per episode to listen. I am midway through S3, and they are very interesting to listen to. I'm not completely unspoiled; in fact, I know a lot more major plot lines than I would like. I have two friends who are really into this show (and this will be all we talk about next time we get together, but in the meantime I'm babbling at you people) so I've heard them talk about a lot of things over the years. Thanks for the podcast recommendation. I think I'll skip it this time around, if they're that long, so I can get through the episodes at a reasonable speed, but I'll keep it in mind for when I'm done. Last night I watched the next three episodes. I'm exhausted. But I couldn't stop myself until I finally just conked out. I had to stop and look up Jeffrey Vlaming when I saw he was the writer of Litmus; I knew I recognized the name, but couldn't remember from what. He wrote a horribly boring episode of The X-Files (Hell Money; he also wrote 2Shy), so I was a little apprehensive, but he has improved. I like that the public now knows about the human-looking cylons, because the "anyone could be a cylon" paranoia is going to be a great undercurrent. The one with Shelley Godfrey was a lot of religious stuff that doesn't interest me (I know the gods vs. one god thing will be an ongoing blah blah blah for me), but Baltar's increasing desperation was compelling. And the whispered conversation while Gaeta is trying to take a shit was utterly hilarious to me, as were his attempts to kill the computer so no one would see the photo. Baltar borders on cartoonish, so I liked that mixed in with the usual "this guy is funny to watch" aspect was some real depth to him as things devolved for him -- he couldn't find Six to help him out, Laura started doubting him, etc. -- and he wound up fearing execution. And I like the concept that he was complicit in the attacks, but unintentionally, so he's sort of guilty of what he's being accused of, but he's also being framed. The one with the Leoben being interrogated was intense! Ruthlessly pragmatic Laura Roslin having him tossed out an airlock was one hell of a conclusion, that I immediately rewound and watched again, and all the psychological drama going on between him and Starbuck as the interrogation continued was compelling. And the dynamic in the scene between Laura and Adama at the end, when he's having a pleasant chat and she's thinking about Leoben telling her Adama's a cylon, was great. I also liked Laura's dreams, and the corollary with Leoben - he mixes truth with his lies, so what part, if any, of what he's saying to Kara is true, and Laura's hopped up on chamalla, but some of what she dreamed wound up happening, so how much is dream/hallucination and how much is subconscious insight/vision? So the Sharon model that's on Caprica with Helo is starting to have human feelings (and that's why she told Helo they have to run, when she was supposed to find the cabin and suggest they set up there) and the model that's on the Galactica is figuring out that she's a cylon? (Baltar madly clicking at his computer to turn red to green was a hoot.) That's interesting to watch; Grace Park is really impressing me. I came into this expecting Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos to be fantastic, and they are, but I'm very pleasantly surprised by how good the cast as a whole is, when they're mostly a bunch of people I don't know (and many of whom were, at the time, unknown in general). 1 Link to comment
SparedTurkey December 15, 2017 Share December 15, 2017 3 hours ago, Bastet said: The one with Shelley Godfrey was a lot of religious stuff that doesn't interest me (I know the gods vs. one god thing will be an ongoing blah blah blah for me Religion does feature really heavily. It isn't always about the gods vs. god, although Six is always on a religious bent to some degree. The religion thing does get somewhat interesting - and I think probably influenced by the early 2000s and the Bush administration. 3 hours ago, Bastet said: The one with the Leoben being interrogated was intense! Ruthlessly pragmatic Laura Roslin having him tossed out an airlock was one hell of a conclusion, that I immediately rewound and watched again, and all the psychological drama going on between him and Starbuck as the interrogation continued was compelling. I think this may have been the start of Madam Airlock if I recall correctly. And the first time I thought this show was really different. Not everyday you have a hero waterboarding a prisoner. 3 hours ago, Bastet said: Grace Park is really impressing me. I gotta say, the Cylons were impressive, particularly the Sixes and the Eights. Shelley Godfrey is nothing like Head!Six. Those two actresses really do some good work. Are you now up to Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down? That one is one of my favourites of the whole show... Link to comment
Bastet December 16, 2017 Share December 16, 2017 19 hours ago, SparedTurkey said: Religion does feature really heavily. Boy howdy; now Baltar, a fucking scientist, is saying the "most logical" explanation for something is divine intervention, and thinks he's an instrument of God. Although, that last part makes sense in its own way, given his raging narcissism. And Laura's hallucinations are maybe not because she's taking chamalla, but some sort of divine visions, because she's the dying leader foretold by an oracle three thousand years ago. I ... yeah. This is not my bag. Thus far, the acting is saving it for me, as is the fact I don't have a whole lot of other fake stuff to accept, since they've kept things pretty reality-based for a sci-fi show. But it's early, so we'll see. 19 hours ago, SparedTurkey said: And the first time I thought this show was really different. Not everyday you have a hero waterboarding a prisoner. Starbuck starts off right where Laura wound up, which is that since this is a machine, not a human, you don't give it rights and due process when it threatens you, you destroy it. But over the course of her eight hours with Leoben, all the ways in which he behaves like a human got her all turned around. Which is how I felt, since I'm watching someone who looks human be tortured. Very well done. And LOL at Madame Airlock - so she consigns others to the same fate as the show goes on? I look oddly forward to that; it seems such a handy thing to have at one's disposal. I also liked the symmetry between the way Kara signaled for the guards to shove Leoben's head in a bucket and the way Laura signaled for them to hit the airlock switch. 19 hours ago, SparedTurkey said: Are you now up to Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down? That one is one of my favourites of the whole show... I watched it last night, and, holy crap, that was fantastic! The humorous episodes of The X-Files are my favorites, but it's so much easier to plop a funny one into that universe than this one, so I wasn't expecting to spend so much time laughing! The "If you're a cylon, I'd like to know"/"If I'm a cylon, you're really screwed" banter - and Laura's giggle! - clued me in right away this was going to be something different, and boy howdy. I didn't think it could get funnier than the dinner party, but then came the straight-up farce in Baltar's lab - with him as the voice of reason ("that is a thermo-nuclear device over there, for frak's sake" as everyone is shouting). And there are so many lesser moments of humor throughout. I love Baltar musing on suicide as he calculates how long it will take him to test everyone in the fleet. But when he tested Boomer in the previous episode, it didn't seem to take as long. I had to look up how many things EJO had directed at this point (a handful of things), because the episode had so many hallmarks of an actor getting to direct -- cool shots, but shots that stand out as "hey, look at this artsy technique" rather than seamlessly creating an overall vibe. But the distraction was mild, and I loved the episode. It was interesting to learn (there was commentary by Ron Moore) that it was originally a completely different script - a riff on Crimson Tide, with Adama and Tigh each increasingly suspecting the other of being cylons, rising tensions, divided loyalties, and ultimately the two pointing guns at each other. But the script wasn't working, and they'd just gone through quite a battle with the studio and network regarding the incredibly dark places Flesh and Bone went to, so it was decided to change course and try some humor. I have a truly irrational dislike for Kate Vernon owing to her role on Who's the Boss? (yes, that is something I would only admit via screen name), so I'm not sure how much Ellen Tigh I can take going forward, but she's hilariously awful in this episode. Her first act upon returning from the presumed dead is to get her alcoholic husband drunk. I loved the meeting with Baltar, because those are two peas in a pod. Moore said his script notes were something like, "It's not clear who's enjoying this more - the cad or the trollop." The Hand of God is, I learned via Moore's commentary, referred to among the team as the "Big Mac" episode, because it's the fast food of the season - just a straightforward shoot 'em up space combat episode, and on paper it would not at all be my thing. It's basically a short-form WWII movie (complete with the big board and models pushed around by stick), and I hate WWII movies. And if they did this every week, it would not be my show. But as an occasional thing, I found myself uncharacteristically along for the ride, even the stereotypical post-victory jubilation scene where everyone back on the ship cheers and congratulates each other (which Moore hates and fears, so him only liking them under limited circumstances probably helps; he's a gatekeeper that lets only the good ones through). I thought the hug between Laura and Kara was especially great. Kara seems to have had shit for parents, but she has a quasi-father figure in Adama, and here she gets a motherly hug from Laura. I like the humor of Kara getting caught up in the moment and forcefully hugging Laura, then apologizing to the president, but the shift to Laura crediting her with saving the day and instigating a soft, warm hug is even better. Link to comment
SparedTurkey December 16, 2017 Share December 16, 2017 2 hours ago, Bastet said: Boy howdy; now Baltar, a fucking scientist, is saying the "most logical" explanation for something is divine intervention, and thinks he's an instrument of God. Although, that last part makes sense in its own way, given his raging narcissism. The other thing with Baltar is that he is the smartest guy in the ship, one of the smartest guys on Caprica and owing to his narcassism got massively played by Six, unintentionally contributing to the attack wiping out everyone save the 50 000 people on the fleet. I always thought a lot of his engagment with the Six and the god stuff is partially (or mostly?) due to some feelings of guilt. Maybe also severe embarrassment. People will do out of character things because of guilt. Plus I always thought him picking the right target was luck. Much like Apollo taking a shot of flying though the tunnel. 2 hours ago, Bastet said: And LOL at Madame Airlock - so she consigns others to the same fate as the show goes on? Haha It was a nickname given by the fandom. I'm pretty sure the cast got told of it at a con back in the day and loved it. She gets one truly awesome line in about the airlock later on - something to look forward to. 2 hours ago, Bastet said: I watched it last night, and, holy crap, that was fantastic! I love it also! The dinner scene alone is gold and topped off by the Baltar's lab scene. Brilliant. I never saw Family Ties and i ended up with a soft spot for Ellen. And she is very different to all the heroes we are supposed to root for. And she is awful - even Adama thinks so! Yeah I liked the Laura/Kara scenes also - I'm pretty sure hearing at a con that the actresses were banned later on from having scenes together because at some point they started laughing and couldnt stop themselves. Link to comment
Bastet December 17, 2017 Share December 17, 2017 23 hours ago, SparedTurkey said: Yeah I liked the Laura/Kara scenes also - I'm pretty sure hearing at a con that the actresses were banned later on from having scenes together because at some point they started laughing and couldnt stop themselves. I've read/heard Mary McDonnell tell that story (in the context of how much she likes working with other women, which brought up how Laura didn't interact much with the other female characters on this show) - that it went on for hours that they'd start laughing every time they went to do their scene. Everyone was pissed off, and they were so embarrassed, but they just couldn't stop. So now every time there's a Laura/Kara scene, I'm wondering if it's going to be the last. I finished season one last night, and this was one of the strongest first seasons I've ever seen. I could tell it took Moore a while to figure out where he wanted to go with the storyline on cylon-occupied Caprica, and that they keep running so long they have to cut multiple scenes from many episodes makes noticeable gaps a recurring problem, but there was a lot less awkwardness in this than most first seasons. While watching Colonial Day, I kept thinking it was like an episode of The West Wing, so I got a good laugh out of Moore's commentary for it opening with, "So this is our West Wing episode." I was glad for that one, because it addressed some things I'd been wondering about. I know not a lot of time had passed since the holocaust, and they had quite a lot going on, but I'd been wondering about selecting a vice president and establishing any sort of congress. The civilian government/military conflict and balance is very interesting to me, so I was glad to get the government part fleshed out. And Laura is certainly getting the hang of this ruthless pragmatism thing; at least Wallace Grey (who, as an X-Files fan, caused me to sit up and say "Modell!" when I saw him) just got screwed over by a friend rather than tossed out an airlock, but damn. The woman who hated politics nevertheless learned the game well. It was nice to give everyone a chance to celebrate, too. Starbuck in a dress and Adama's "And I can dance" invitation to Laura were highlights. And very much the calm before the storm, because, damn, a lot happened in the two-part finale. The president's in the brig, the commander is bleeding all over CIC, Boomer is an activated cylon, Sharon is pregnant with a cylon-human hybrid, and Starbuck has stolen a raider to go grab the map to Earth. That's quite a finale. Interestingly, Laura's gods talk doesn't bug me as much as Six's god talk does. Probably because, especially after watching the deleted scenes, it's clear she's not normally like this, and she's not coming at this from an entirely religious bent; it's also more of her pragmatism, where all these things predicted in the ancient texts is happening, and they don't know where the hell they're going anyway, so why not follow along with the story and hope for the best. But Billy's "Seriously, we are following old stories and drug-induced hallucinations as our government policy?" reaction is very much appreciated. Adama responding to Laura's over-stepping her authority under their "she's in charge of the fleet, but military decisions are his to make" agreement by completely abusing his was quite an amping up of the government/military tension. Lee disobeying his orders because he couldn't be part of destroying their democracy just because the president makes a bad call was intense enough, and then he pulled the gun on Tigh. That was a great scene, with it prompting Laura to order everyone to put their guns down and submit to her arrest. Then the change from Boomer the Colonial Fleet member who takes out the basestar to Boomer the activated cylon whose mission is to kill its commander upped the ante even more. I'm excited to start in on season two. 1 Link to comment
SparedTurkey December 18, 2017 Share December 18, 2017 8 hours ago, Bastet said: I finished season one last night, and this was one of the strongest first seasons I've ever seen. I could tell it took Moore a while to figure out where he wanted to go with the storyline on cylon-occupied Caprica, and that they keep running so long they have to cut multiple scenes from many episodes makes noticeable gaps a recurring problem, but there was a lot less awkwardness in this than most first seasons. It does hold up well, I agree. Probably helps that there are no aliens so the show can't be dated by CGI like other shows have been. I mean there is some CGI but it wasn't a show that relied heavily on CGI. Although I never really understood where they kept getting paper from but that is neither here nor there. I like Colonial Day also - pretty much any episode where Roslin is featured heavily works for me. The finale was great. I started with the second season but Adama getting shot remained a holy shit moment. 8 hours ago, Bastet said: Interestingly, Laura's gods talk doesn't bug me as much as Six's god talk does. I guess her religious bent is slightly different and not reminiscent of any of our god dogma that helps. And I like Greek mythology so that helps. I know she has the breast cancer and the whole dying factor is the big draw but I do wonder if she would have gone that religious that fast if there was no dying leader but, I don't know a reference to a leader with red hair or something. I absolutely love Billy. Billy is just, well, Billy. Do you have a favourite? or MVP? Link to comment
Bastet December 18, 2017 Share December 18, 2017 (edited) 12 hours ago, SparedTurkey said: Do you have a favourite? or MVP? Laura is my favorite, and I also really like Starbuck. But I like almost everyone except Ellen Tigh, heh. I mean, I don't like Baltar, but he's definitely an interesting character so I like that he exists. For me the weak link is Cally. In the miniseries and as the show got started, I found her annoyingly mousy or something, but then she bit that guy's ear off during the prison riot and I thought there was hope, but she faded again for me after that. Laura is my favorite for a lot of reasons. She was pretty much destined to be; not by the Lords of Kobol, but by the fact I love Mary McDonnell in everything she does, and by the fact Laura is the head of the government in the midst of a bunch of military folks in a time of war. Let us just say that 99 times out of a hundred, I am not going to be on the military side of things. So she needs to be there, and she needs to be good, in order for me to get sucked in to this. And she is. They're only alive because of her; if she hadn't talked sense to Adama about "we need to get the hell out of here and start having babies," he'd have gotten the little that remained of the human race killed via his "go down swinging" approach. She's the one who made him accept that the war was over, they lost, and they need to protect - and further - what remains of their people. My favorite thing throughout season one is the continued exploration of a society clinging to the values on which it was founded, even in the face of almost total annihilation. You don't throw out the Articles in a time of war; in fact, that's when you hold tightest to them. This is right up my alley (I'm a civil rights lawyer.) Yet, I'm well aware it's also the time in which holding fast to them even when you know the inevitable result is not what you want is at its messiest, the temptation to justify "well, this one time, we can ignore it" at its strongest. So it's a constant struggle, and I love that. Which is why I rather resent the "she's the leader because the gods decreed it" angle. She's the leader because the 42 people ahead of her got killed. She never wanted this power, had no interest in being anything other than who she was. She's not prepared for it. She is flat-out unqualified for the job. But she's the most-qualified person there, and it's hers now. And she is completely dedicated to upholding the oath of office now that it has fallen on her shoulders. That is fascinating to watch in anyone, and especially in a female character. I don't need the religious claptrap. 12 hours ago, SparedTurkey said: I absolutely love Billy. Billy is just, well, Billy. Yes. He's adorable, because he looks twelve, but he's growing into the role into which he was thrust right alongside Laura. And their bond is one of my favorites, especially since, per a deleted scene, they literally met on the plane on the way to Galactica. She teases him, she trusts him, he is loyal to her, and he always gives it to her straight. Edited December 18, 2017 by Bastet 2 Link to comment
Bastet December 19, 2017 Share December 19, 2017 I watched the first two episodes of the season, then learned via the commentary that the first seven all go together to wrap up season one, so I decided to wait until I can watch the rest in one go. Because, knowing that, if I watch two more on a night when that's all I can watch, I'm going to say screw it to needing to sleep and be coherent the next day, and just stay up watching all five. I may have to wait until the weekend, but what a treat it will be. Thus far, though - holy crap, Tigh could teach graduate level courses in making a bad situation worse. 4 Link to comment
Bastet December 31, 2017 Share December 31, 2017 Well, the hustle and bustle of the week before the holiday break left me too tired to watch, Major Crimes decided to break my heart and I haven't yet fully comes to terms with it, and then there was Christmas and recovering from Christmas, so it took me awhile to watch the seven-episode arc that wraps up the season one mythology. It was a lot of religion. I can handle the colonials' polytheistic belief system much better than the cylons' monotheistic one, because the latter sounds like listening to certain modern day followers, something I don't enjoy doing, while the former is more like just enjoying mythology as a story. I also like that Laura's pragmatism is very much a part of her quest - she flat-out says she's going to play the religion card, and is then uncomfortable when it works so well and people start looking to her as a prophet. And, sweet lords of Kobol, I will take Laura under the influence of chamalla and the scrolls of Pythia over Tigh under the influence of hooch and Ellen any day of the week. I cheered when Tigh's plan to discredit Laura by allowing the quorum and press to see her when she's out of her mind (because they denied her medication, which, hello, is not how we treat prisoners on Galactica) backfired. Take that, Ellen. I like that when Zarek claims Adama was intending to declare martial law and impose a military dictatorship by arresting the president, that's not true; as bad as Adama's little coup was, he does believe in democracy and actually abhors martial law. But with Adama incapacitated, an increasingly-unraveling Tigh goes right ahead and does it, making Zarek's false accusation look true. The episode where the centurions have boarded Galactica was really well done; I much prefer character drama over action sequences, but that was a gripping action episode. And it contains one of my many favorite scenes of Laura, when they hear gunshots and Billy says they can't stay there in the brig. She starts by asking the guard very nicely to open the cell door, but when that doesn't work, she says, "I have no intention of being locked up in here and shot like a rat in a cage, so OPEN THE DOOR!" He does, she steps out, and perfectly delivers a frustrated, "Thank you." I also love Laura's later escape from the brig; I like seeing who's in on it, I like the "I need you to do something, but it's dangerous, illegal, and against your oath/You're a lousy salesman" bit with Cottle, and I love Laura calmly pushing the gun aside once the soldier calls her Madame President. It didn't make sense to me that Billy wasn't going with Laura (I know they wrote in his explanation, but I just didn't buy it), so when I learned they had to do that because the actor wasn't available, I wasn't surprised. It did make for a lovely reunion on Kobol, though. I'm glad the stuff on Caprica is over (for now; I assume Kara will go back, with or without permission, at some point), as that was always my least-favorite thread of the first season, but I enjoyed the quiet stuff in Kara's old apartment with Helo, and I liked Kara on "the Farm" - I like that she was scared. She does come up with an escape plan, but not instantly; in the moment when she realizes what is going on, she's utterly overwhelmed and panicky, and I continue to appreciate the realism in how characters react to events. (And, bye, Sue-Shaun; it was nice having another black woman on this show for five minutes. At least there's still Elosha. Oh, wait.) I am in love with the evolving relationship between Laura and Adama. He abused his authority and threw her in the brig, but when she learns he's been shot she's instantly and genuinely concerned - for the fleet, but also for him. And she's relieved when he's okay. And then their conversation down on Kobol seals the deal for me; I am so hooked on them being in this together. The actors have terrific chemistry, and the characters really ground things for me; I could watch whole episodes of just them. Forget Sharon; I think Helo, with his blind loyalty to her, is a bigger danger to the fleet than she is. I like everyone else's conflicting emotions about her, and I'm curious to see if she remains trustworthy. The scene where she hands the gun over and says she's not oblivious, with a switch inside her waiting to be flicked some day - she knows exactly who/what she is and makes her own choices - was great. But there's still a hint of "but she's a machine!" danger lurking, and I like that. Cally has always been the weak link for me, and that was on full display when she was supposed to be all big and bad threatening Baltar and otherwise making an ass out of herself over Tyrol being questioned about his knowledge of Boomer being a cylon. The actor just cannot pull it off. They turned the Six in Baltar's head into a "Wake up and smell the psychosis," sweats and hoodie-wearing version of herself just in time, because I was SO sick of the sexpot. Yes, I get that it's how he imagines her, so of course she'd deliver every single word dripping with sex, but it got old. I liked the little glimpses of the Six on Caprica more, and really liked this version of her more. Link to comment
Bastet December 31, 2017 Share December 31, 2017 (edited) I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Final Cut. I like that what was essentially the conclusion of season one (Ron Moore said using the first seven episodes of season two to wrap up most of the storylines from season one was like having a full first season) is followed up by a stand-alone, rather than jumping into whatever lies ahead as the next big storyline(s). And up to the point when they pause the documentary, I like the film, and I like that Adama loves it (while Tigh is appalled, and Laura is just smiling in the background, knowing what Adama is going to say) because it does just what they asked D'Anna to do - show the crew of Galactica as the real people, good and bad, they are. But the ending of the film is just too on the nose, complete with the heroic music. I'd rather liked D'Anna as a journalist until then (I loved her "I am so tired of people like you questioning my patriotism; we all want this fleet to survive" line), but that veers into the propaganda territory she was so adamantly opposed to doing. And, of course, because I liked her, she's a cylon. Dammit. Flight of the Phoenix, I unequivocally love, however. I think it does an even better job than Final Cut of showing how demoralized people are, how hard it is to deal with the fact their post-holocaust reality is, in fact, their reality for who knows how long. I like Tyrol's little stealth plane project, as more and more people come aboard. And I absolutely love them naming it Laura. (Which has nothing on how I adored her pretending she was going to smash the bottle.) And, jeez, Mary McDonnell just slays me in this one (as she's so good at doing) -- the shaking hand as Laura goes through her test results, the way she has to duck behind the curtain and have a moment to cry (that is so beautifully shot, in silhouette) when Cottle tells her she has a month at best, before coming back out and asking if she can continue to work, and, holy crap, when she gives Adama his book back. They speak pages of dialogue to each other with a single glance. This episode marks the first time I feel sorry for this copy of Sharon, the one who's always known who she is. (I always felt sorry for Boomer, who didn't know, who struggled when she started to suspect, and who was so disoriented and upset when her programming kicked in and she shot Adama.) Up until now, I've been rather "What the hell do you expect?" when she and Helo were on about people not trusting her. But she really established something down on Kobol with the "I make my own choices" scene, and here she helps them evade annihilation via computer virus (and sends a virus right back to the cylons), and immediately afterward it's still "Take this thing back to its cell." Yes, it is as Adama said when talking to Laura afterward - meeting on common ground, in that Galactica being taken over by the virus would mean Sharon and her fetus were destroyed alongside the humans, so it's not a selfless act. But she keeps proving herself - helping on Caprica, helping on Kobol, helping on Galactica - and for the first time I really felt for her that the only quarter given is not tossing her out an airlock. (Speaking of which, yes, by now I quite understand the "Madame Airlock" moniker bestowed on Laura by the fandom - and I frakkin' love Laura going Madame Airlock in this show as much as I love Sharon going Darth Raydor in Major Crimes.) One thing I'm not clear on: if the virus had worked, and Galactica had been used to destroy the fleet and itself, including the pregnant Sharon, when Sharon downloaded into a new copy, would that copy have been pregnant? I'd think not, since the fetus is half human and thus whatever rebirth voodoo the cylons have going on wouldn't work on it. Sharon said, when Helo questioned that the cylons were going to destroy Galactica despite her being on it, that she was a traitor and expendable, and I get that, but it's not just the Six in Baltar's head that's obsessed with the hybrid fetus being born; in Final Cut, the cylons are all excited to see that the pregnant version of Sharon is still alive, and didn't miscarry, talking about the importance of having the baby. If that baby is going to be the wave of the future, or whatever, and the only cylon/human hybrid they've been able to produce (because their "farm" efforts failed), why were they willing to kill it? Or were they not - was the fetus going to be able to download with her, and thus the cylons would have control of it? Edited December 31, 2017 by Bastet Link to comment
SmithW6079 January 1, 2018 Share January 1, 2018 Re: Roslin as Madam Airlock. Isn't it after this episode that "airlock" became a verb? For years I thought Roslin said, "Throw it out the airlock," because Leoben was a Cylon, but I had to look it up recently, and she said, "him." Link to comment
Bastet January 1, 2018 Share January 1, 2018 Yikes, the Admiral Cain arc is disturbing. I know, this show is often disturbing, but add in what happened to the Six on Pegasus and what happens to Sharon and, yikes. And it's so very typical of the tone/events of this show that when the Pegasus shows up, everyone is cheering, and by the end of the first episode, the two ships are launching vipers at each other; they didn't waste any time lulling us into a false sense of security, did they? I like that even back when it seems like a good thing, Laura is disconcerted to realize Admiral Cain, not Adama, will be the one making military decisions now. That "You look like I just shot your dog/It's just the commander and I have been through a lot together" conversation is great. As is the one where Laura asks Adama how he's doing with all this, telling him that if President Adar had stepped off that raptor, she'd have been "elated, grateful to have someone take over, and yet ..." It's interesting to watch him go from "I don't want to go to the 'and yet' part; I've been taking orders my entire career, and this is no different" to launching vipers at his commanding officer. And, despite my joking about the 180-degree change from the beginning of Pegasus to the end, it played out at an interesting pace. The obvious atrocities are against cylons, with the fact Cain isn't too concerned with people, either, just being hinted at. On paper, Galactica doesn't look too good, as Adama admits, so even her reassigning people gives you a little "okay, well maybe ..." hesitation in writing her off as a danger. But then she's a one-woman kangaroo court, getting ready to execute Helo and Tyrol. Laura's reaction to Adama huffing like a petulant schoolboy when she says if Galactica and Pegasus decide to do battle, Pegasus will win, is fantastic, like, "I am trying to help you here, so will you please grow up," and I like watching the realization of just how much of a "in war, the rules don't apply" person Cain is play out on Laura's face. But I still wasn't prepared for, "You've gotta kill her." Wow. It's such a fascinating thing playing out, that Laura knows she'll be dead within weeks and cannot bear the thought of the civilian fleet not having her or Adama to protect them; left to the mercies of Cain, that will be it for them. So her pragmatism is stripped so much down to its essence that she's suggesting the extrajudicial execution of a human being; one of our heroes is telling the other one to assassinate someone. Holy crap. The scene between Tigh and the Pegasus XO, when we find out what Cain did to the civilian fleet that had been with the Pegasus, is truly chilling. And the "Don't worry, I'm not dying today" scene when Adama tells Laura what Tigh learned, that she was right about who Cain is, got me so much I watched it three times. He came to see her, and she didn't get dressed, or even get up and sit in her office; she's sick, she's worn out, and she's okay being that way in front of him. That scene really shows how much of the Laura/Bill connection that formed on Kobol is now woven in with their collaboration as president/commander. The way he verifies he'll see her tomorrow and she assures him he will, and then he has to wipe away a tear before he can turn back around when she shares her parting warning. Great stuff. As is Laura's answer to him asking what he can get her. "A new body, perhaps one of those young cylon models on the resurrection ship." It's an interesting twist that Starbuck likes/respects Cain, and I love the scene where Cain is unknowingly telling Starbuck to go ahead and kill her. It's also a great scene when Cain giving the XO her assassination order is juxtaposed with Adama giving Starbuck his - one of those times when the show makes us ask ourselves if something not okay in others is okay when our heroes justify it. And it's rather a convenient out that, after they both decide not to go through with it (in another wonderfully tense scene of juxtaposition), the Six takes Cain out. Because if Cain had survived, she still is who she is, and the next time she thought killing Adama was necessary to her mission, she'd do it then. Laura promoting Adama to admiral is another scene I immediately rewound and rewatched. She's so relieved to be able to do this, so she can die knowing whatever happens with the civilian government after she's gone, he has command of the military, and she's even a little giddy to be able to give it to him. It's a lovely scene. Baltar with the Six in the Pegasus cell is the most interesting he's been in a while. For him to see a new actual version of the woman who's been in his head all these months, and then to have her be so broken she wants to die - permanently, so she gives up the info about the resurrection ship - brings out something we've never seen in him. And what a tantalizing prospect successfully destroying the resurrection ship raises - will the cylons indeed stop chasing them now, leaving them free to look for Earth, or at least someplace to live, without being under constant threat of attack? If so, what threat will take their place? I'm eager to find out. 2 Link to comment
John Potts January 2, 2018 Share January 2, 2018 On 31/12/2017 at 3:41 AM, Bastet said: The episode where the centurions have boarded Galactica was really well done; I much prefer character drama over action sequences, but that was a gripping action episode. I love the fact that having shown Tigh to be a complete disaster as a leader - we actually get an episode showing why the military kept him around (despite the fact he's a complete screw up), and also perhaps some reason why he's such a screw up. But give him a situation he understands (and keep him off the booze) and he's the right person to be giving the orders. Like venting the atmosphere (and killing a few dozen) in the Pilot to save the ship, he isn't afraid to make the hard calls even when everyone is questioning his authority. Of course, that's also why he's a disaster as a politician, because he has absolutely no tolerance for people questioning his orders, which is something you get all the time in politics. 21 hours ago, Bastet said: It's an interesting twist that Starbuck likes/respects Cain, and I love the scene where Cain is unknowingly telling Starbuck to go ahead and kill her. I assumed she did think Starbuck was there to kill her (bear in mind, she had sent her own hit squad to take out Adama) and was absolving Kara of blame. She was very much a "Live by the sword, Die by the sword" type person (and I get the feeling she has come to hate herself for what she's done) - but she can recognise the need for ruthless pragmatism and believes there can be only one person in charge. Obviously, she believes that should be her, but if Adama "wins", then he really needs to eliminate any rival sources of authority. Spoiler And doesn't Adama just wish he'd taken her example and bumped off Baltar! Link to comment
Bastet January 3, 2018 Share January 3, 2018 (edited) On 1/2/2018 at 9:19 AM, John Potts said: I love the fact that having shown Tigh to be a complete disaster as a leader - we actually get an episode showing why the military kept him around (despite the fact he's a complete screw up), and also perhaps some reason why he's such a screw up. I enjoyed getting so much information about the Adama/Tigh backstory via the many deleted scenes of the flashbacks we just saw bits of in the episode, but I am also glad they deleted them. They dragged on, and, holy crap, the efforts at aging the actors down were so ineffective it was distracting. I watched two more last night: Epiphanies - Yay, a Laura episode (from which they cut three Laura scenes, but with how much they cut from pretty much every episode, I should stop grumbling about this and just be happy the scenes are available). It was nice to get a glimpse of who she'd been as a politician before, so we can truly see how much having the very survival of the human race on her shoulders has changed her. I love how what they set up in season one affects Laura remembering seeing Baltar with Six on Caprica -- once Shelley Godfrey's photo was shown to be altered, Baltar was inoculated from charges of treason, even though he actually did help the cylons (he just didn't know he was doing so at the time). Laura has no proof other than a memory that came to her while she was dying, so now she knows this horrible thing about him, but can't go anywhere with it. Laura's reaction when she wakes up and sees Baltar is perfectly played. I love her president-to-president letter to him, and oh how very Baltar that, in a fit of pique upon having his ego wounded by it, he decides, oh, I'll go ahead and give a nuclear warhead to a cylon. Speaking of the latest version of Six, I was glad to hear Ron Moore admit in the commentary that writing her as if she could just pull her hair back and put on some glasses and not be recognized on Cloud Nine is a total "what the hell was I thinking?" thing, because I cannot get over this latest version of Clark Kent's glasses. And this is what happens when you have a bunch of men writing female characters: Your actor has to tell you that her character who's just escaped from a situation in which she spent however long being gang raped is not going to be particularly eager to jump into bed with Baltar. I don't care that the science of Laura's cure is rather thin. As Moore said in his commentary, he had two ways to handle her illness - it either progresses over the course of the whole series, which he didn't want to do because it inevitably means she's increasingly sidelined as she gets weaker, and ultimately becomes a hospital character, or there's some sort of reprieve that keeps her around in full form for however long he wants. I'll take door number two. Black Market - This one doesn't work for me, and per the commentary, it doesn't work for Moore, either. I like Lee, and I wanted to see his, "That's just it - I didn't want to make it back alive" attitude explored, but not via this prostitute/dead girlfriend storyline, and the black market stuff. It feels like another show, a much less interesting and much more formulaic one. And, good gods, we finally get another black man on the show, and the character is such a collection of stereotypes he may as well be a cartoon? Isn't the only other black male character we've seen (other than in the background) the corrupt Astral Queen prison guard? Nice track record, show. The only thing I like in this one is Laura trying to get Baltar to resign, and that making him, for the first time, actually want to hold onto the job. He's obviously going to be a recurring problem for her. Also the scene where Lee comes back from the Prometheus reporting that he's decided to let the black market continue, just with certain prohibitions and some oversight - it reminds me of the "He's your son/He's your advisor" scene when he comes back and reports he agreed to holding elections. I love Laura's pissed-off dismissal of both him and Adama. Dee is going to break poor Billy's heart, isn't she? Edited January 3, 2018 by Bastet Link to comment
Bastet January 4, 2018 Share January 4, 2018 (edited) Well, frak. Couldn't it have been Ellen who got killed instead of Billy? Poor Billy. Poor Laura. Stupid Ellen. Billy was great when he found Dee and Lee together (a couple that is registering a big fat zero on my chemistry meter), telling her that, yeah, giving her the ring was stupid, and, no, maybe this relationship between them wasn't going to last, but, hello, she should have been honest with him. More effective to just lay it out like that than to get upset with her. And then he still saves her in the end. Laura in the morgue with Billy made me tear up. It's one of those scenes where Mary McDonnell is perfect in every single beat. I love the quick glance over at the body when she walks in, the way she reaches out to steady herself as she starts to cry when she sits down and takes a good look at him, and then fixing his hair. "That's better." And then "He was so young" as she gets up and leaves. I also like the dynamic between her and Adama in that scene; he doesn't try to comfort her, despite the personal bond they're developing, because he knows after he "It wasn't worth it," she would not be open to it, but he doesn't leave the room. It was such a good scene in CIC, too, with Laura, Adama, and Tigh all having someone they love at risk as they have the "we can't negotiate with terrorists" conversation. Tigh gets Ellen back, Adama gets Lee back, but poor Laura loses Billy. My other favorite scene was when Kara had to tell Adama she may have cost him another son. Scar showed an interesting dynamic, with Starbuck having to deal with this little snot she trained now being the hotshot pilot Starbuck used to be. The Kat/Kara confrontations played like Kara/Tigh, with Kara now in the Tigh role. Edited January 4, 2018 by Bastet Link to comment
Bastet January 6, 2018 Share January 6, 2018 Well, Laura has been a busy bee in the next two episodes - banning abortion and stealing a baby. It certainly does make for interesting TV, to have those be the actions of the presidential candidate I'm rooting for. I'd pay good money to have been a fly on the wall during the conversations Mary McDonnell and Ronald Moore had about Laura banning abortion. Laura playing the religion card bit her in the ass, as I think Zarek even said it was going to do at the time, which is realistic, and it's frustratingly familiar to see the first rights traded away be women's. But that was hard to watch. I like how hard it was for her to announce, and I like Adama's reaction as he listens to it, knowing how conflicted she feels and knowing his talk with her is part of the reason she made the choice. (Also, great acting in that scene where they talk, because just the body language shows how their relationship continues to evolve; they are easy and comfortable with each other.) The scene with Laura dismissing the Gemenon delegate, telling her to take her pound of flesh and go, and then feeling again the weight of what she's done is good, too. And then Baltar announces his candidacy. Wow, that was quite a scene. Baltar earned that slow clap Six gave him, because that was seriously well played. Unfortunately, because it's him. But well played. As far as stealing Hera, they deleted all the scenes about the plan between Baltar, the stowed-away Six (who is called Gina by Moore in the commentary, but I don't ever remember hearing it on the show), and D'Anna to kidnap her. That storyline showed everyone was right about what the baby existing would mean, and thus Laura had only two choices, this one being the most humane (the other being chuck her out an airlock, and, holy crap, "I don't make suggestions, Mr. Baltar, if I want to toss a baby out an airlock, I'd say so," was a great line). But there being no realistic other choice came through even without that storyline. I do wish they'd left in the scene where Laura goes to see Hera in sick bay and says, "Thank you for saving my life," though. Downloaded was an interesting episode all around, more than I'd have thought of an episode focused on the cylons. But Caprica Six is great, and her having Baltar in her head as her conscience, just as Baltar has her in his head as his conscience, is a terrific touch. It's a nice contrast that Baltar uses her to assuage his guilt - envisions her telling him the things he's done are okay, because he's the key figure in the cylon god's great plan - but she envisions him more as a traditional conscience, the voice in her head calling her out for her bad deeds. I thus really enjoyed watching Caprica Six change as the episode went on, becoming a little less manipulative and a little more human, and ultimately aligning with Boomer against the D'Anna. (And "Humans don't respect life the way we do," from the D'Anna as she's getting ready to kill Anders was hilarious.) The Boomer Sharon has always been a sympathetic figure to me, because she didn't know what she was, so seeing her still regard herself as human, and thus be so angry at that life being a lie was moving. Link to comment
Bastet January 8, 2018 Share January 8, 2018 Wow. I'm very curious what reaction at the time was to the "One year later" ending of season two. The only thing that bothered me about it was how hamfisted they were in making everyone look noticeably different. Like we couldn't understand the passage of time unless Adama had a mustache, Lee was fat, Kara had long hair, etc. (Laura's untamed hair is gorgeous, though, so I'll take that.) But not actually seeing the process of the settlement being formed, the battlestars turning into ghost ships, Baltar collapsing under the weight of the presidency, etc. over that year didn't bother me; I think we got an adequate sense of what's good and bad about life on New Caprica, so joining it as the Cylons find them and come marching in like the Nazis into Paris works for me. Plus, this show loves to start with an event, then switch to "[X time] earlier," so I'm sure that even having skipped forward a year, season three will bring us at least one back-in-time episode to cover some of that year. I did not think I could love anything more than Laura standing barefoot in Adama's cabin, tearing up note cards and breaking pencils (and him being completely non-nonplussed about it). And then she got the giggles. Oh my. That was pure delight, and I am going to put that scene on my computer so I can watch it any time I need a quick pick-me-up. I also like Tory's "Great" in the hallway, when Adama starts laughing with her. I'm happy Moore went to the mat with Eick, who wanted to cut the whole thing. And "I'm not sure if you're aware, Tom, but the mob isn't usually in the habit of electing ungodly apostates who denigrate people of faith" made me laugh all over again. Normally, that's exactly who I'd vote for. Watching a woman who's dedicated herself to public service and gave voters the truth lose to a man who doesn't even really want the damn job and just sold them a pipe dream was unpleasant, certainly, but the way things changed over the course of the episodes was very well done. The change in tone from Laura's meeting with Tory after the first debate, when she's smiling and snacking as they talk, to that of their conversation about how Baltar telling people want they want to hear is resonating was perfect. As was Laura's face when she realized she'd lost the second debate, that Baltar was indeed "there he goes again" (nice twist on "there you go again," even though I can always do without being reminded of Reagan) distorting the issues, but he was doing it perfectly. Zarek's political acumen is undeniable, and Baltar may be a puppet but he's also brilliant, so this was all some sort of inevitable train wreck that they'd play the game and people would fall for it -- even if it was untenable as a permanent situation, the lure of ground under their feet and sky over the head after nine months in metal boxes would be too great. I love when Laura is pacing the cabin, wondering if people are really going to be that stupid and short-sighted to vote for the wishful thinking he calls policy. "That's all anybody wants to talk about is the frakking planet." When she meets with Baltar in Adama's quarters, that scene kicks ass. Her stepping out of the shadows. Baltar having to lose his cocky pose for just a moment to agree that the question of permanent settlement on the new planet is the single-most important issue that has faced them since the initial attack. Laura trying to get him to agree to table the issue until after the election and then, no matter who wins, take the time to truly study its feasibility; she doesn't just want to win, she's desperate to avoid jumping into something that could very well be disastrous. And then Laura asking him whether he was with the cylon on Caprica just prior to the attacks; now he knows she knows. The tension in that whole scene is fantastic. The question of whether it's justified to steal a democratic election because of the danger the people's choice poses to civilization is the kind of thing this show does so well, and I like that for all the times it has shown that good people often behave badly in urgent situations, this is a line Adama and Laura cannot cross. (And I love how sure Baltar is she would never do it, so that he totally dismisses Zarek's accurate reading of the situation.) She knows settling on New Caprica will be nothing short of disaster for humanity, and she won't say otherwise just to win an election. But she will give Tory permission to fix the vote if it comes to that, heh, because she believes Baltar is working with the cylons. Her sense of the danger a Baltar presidency poses to the survival of humanity couldn't be higher; if there is ever going to be a reason to steal an election, surely this is it. But when it comes down to it, and following that fantastic conversation with Adama, she can't go through with it. The way she just wilts when she realizes she has to let the people live with their choice - oh my. And then all her fears come to pass. I wonder if she regrets her decision (because as much as I agree with it, and love that she looked sick in the midst of everyone celebrating her win, I have to admit that when Gaeta was getting ready to spill the beans, a big part of me was groaning, wanting her to get away with it). At least she got to toss one more cylon out the airlock before having to leave office. (And Brother Cavil is interesting in his own right - great performance by Dean Stockwell - but also for returning a sense of suspicion to Sharon; she has helped in so many ways, but she won't reveal who the other models are, and now that she believes Adama and Laura killed Hera, what else will she do or not do?) Holy crap, I cannot believe Mary McDonnell didn't even get nominated for an Emmy for the finale! (Bias against a sci-fi show on basic cable?) That was an incredible performance. I love that things go to hell for Baltar about five minutes after he takes office, with Gina using the nuclear device he gave her to blow up Cloud 9. And he's devastated by it, but he's Baltar; he can't ever actually deal with the consequences of his actions, so he just orders settlement on New Caprica, puts a huge portrait of himself on the office wall, and spends a year whoring around while Gaeta unsuccessfully tries to get him to do his job. Then the cylons come - having found them from the trace of Gina's nuclear detonation, so the hits just keep coming - and he surrenders. I'm glad I don't have to wait a summer to find out what happens next. Something that niggled at me at the time, and does so more now that I've seen more of the cylons: How does the Sharon whose mission was to get with Helo have the memories of the sleeper agent Sharon (Boomer) - she remembers being with Tyrol, being in the fleet, etc. even though it was the other Sharon who did all that and those two Sharons existed at the same time. We've seen no other evidence of two contemporaneous copies of a model knowing each other's experiences, and in fact several examples of that not being the case. Every other time there's a copy who has the memories of another copy, it's where the first copy died, then downloaded into the new copy. Again, not the case here, since both Sharon copies existed simultaneously; Helo's Sharon existed before the Boomer Sharon died and downloaded into New Boomer. Also, how is it okay for Lee and Dee to be together when he seems to now be her direct supervisor on Pegasus? Cally and Tyrol are another situation like that, but I assume because they're down on the settlement rather than part of the skeleton crew on the battleships, that means they're no longer in the fleet and thus not subject to its rules? Boomer and Tyrol was prohibited, and she wasn't even his boss, just a superior officer. So how can the commander be banging someone on his ship, let alone someone positioned at his side? Also, one other thing I've been periodically wondering since the beginning: What the hell is that ship that looks like a spinning wheel? Link to comment
SparedTurkey January 9, 2018 Share January 9, 2018 On 02/01/2018 at 6:36 AM, Bastet said: Yikes, the Admiral Cain arc is disturbing. I know, this show is often disturbing, but add in what happened to the Six on Pegasus and what happens to Sharon and, yikes. And it's so very typical of the tone/events of this show that when the Pegasus shows up, everyone is cheering, and by the end of the first episode, the two ships are launching vipers at each other; they didn't waste any time lulling us into a false sense of security, did they? I loved the Pegasus/Resurrection Arc. I also loved the Home arcs and all that came before (Especially the blackbird being dedicated to Laura). But when Cain showed up it felt like things were back to the brutal 33-esque show. And obviously we were supposed to think that Cain's way of life would have happened with Adama if not for Laura demanding the fleet be protected (Nice touch having Tigh be appalled after his foray into military rule) - but a lesser show would have made that explicit (and probably said by Apollo!). And then spinning it around so killing Cain is Laura's idea. And she talks the military man into it. And clearly Billy is not involved in that! This arc also cemented Tricia Helfer as awesome - no way you'd ever confuse Caprica!Six, Head!Six or Gina. Hard to watch but she was great in it. Also Sharon. I just love love love all three of those episodes. I think after the Cain arc, the network demanded more standalones (I may have got that off the commentary). And I resented it. Although season 2 had double the episodes so who knows if the creators would have sped things up if not or what would have happened. I also loved Epiphanies - I love Roslin though, so not a surprise. Especially seeing her pre-attack. I think MM broke a rib while dying so more power to her. I knew the cure was a Duex Ex Machina but it kept Roslin so I didn't care that much.... I hated that Billy died - I wanted him and Tory to be Roslin's voices of conscience (I mean, Adama has Apollo and Starbuck, so I felt it appropriate Laura also bring two kids to the relationship!). On 07/01/2018 at 5:44 AM, Bastet said: Well, Laura has been a busy bee in the next two episodes - banning abortion and stealing a baby. It certainly does make for interesting TV, to have those be the actions of the presidential candidate I'm rooting for. I both loved and hated this. But, this show sucks in that you fully understand why Roslin bans abortion, that Baltar makes a good point in opposition. Only by seeing Roslin hate it makes me still like her, even if I get that pragmatism wins out. I probably side with Baltar on this issue. But still. And also the baby out the airlock line is pretty gold. I liked Downloaded - less for the Anders and more for Caprica, Eight and Three. But I do love Lucy Flawless, so there is bias there. 9 hours ago, Bastet said: Wow. I'm very curious what reaction at the time was to the "One year later" ending of season two. I think mine was something like "The f*ck waiting a year for season 3" (I am in Australia and it takes a million years for anything to happen. Also, I was in uni, so I don't recall being particularly eloquent). I don't think there were any spoilers, and it was before twitter so the conspiracy theories abounded. I hated that Roslin lost, that she lost to Baltar, that she tried to steal it. Thought Adama was a bit OTT with the whole "cancer will spread to the heart" thing but I got it. 9 hours ago, Bastet said: Holy crap, I cannot believe Mary McDonnell didn't even get nominated for an Emmy for the finale! (Bias against a sci-fi show on basic cable?) That was an incredible performance. No one did - I think it is bias but also I don't think any actor actively campaigned for it (Don't know if MM campaigned for an emmy for The Closer but she did get a nom there I think?) 9 hours ago, Bastet said: How does the Sharon whose mission was to get with Helo have the memories of the sleeper agent Sharon (Boomer) - she remembers being with Tyrol, being in the fleet, etc. even though it was the other Sharon who did all that and those two Sharons existed at the same time. From what I understand - Boomer died and her memories were uploaded (or downloaded) to the rest of the Eights, including Athena (who may or may not be connected constantly, but who may have been with the whole virus thing). It's how I figure Caprica didn't have memories of Gina in Downloaded - Gina didn't die - and Boomer/the rest of the eights don't know Sharon is pregnant onboard Galactica/that Hera "died". 9 hours ago, Bastet said: Also, how is it okay for Lee and Dee to be together when he seems to now be her direct supervisor on Pegasus? Cally and Tyrol are another situation like that, but I assume because they're down on the settlement rather than part of the skeleton crew on the battleships, that means they're no longer in the fleet and thus not subject to its rules? I think mainly that....not that many people are around anymore and who would judge? Adama? He'd never take Lee to task for that. 9 hours ago, Bastet said: What the hell is that ship that looks like a spinning wheel? I think you might mean the Zephyr? Bastet - Do you have the movies Razor and The Plan as well as the series? (Also, sorry this was so longwinded - only just now getting back from the holiday holiday-ness) Link to comment
Bastet January 9, 2018 Share January 9, 2018 (edited) 38 minutes ago, SparedTurkey said: From what I understand - Boomer died and her memories were uploaded (or downloaded) to the rest of the Eights, including Athena (who may or may not be connected constantly, but who may have been with the whole virus thing). But Athena (assuming that's the Sharon who fulfilled her mission by getting pregnant by Helo but then sided with the humans against the cylons) already exists by the time Boomer dies and downloads. What matters to my confusion is that her memories of Boomer's experiences in the fleet, with Tyrol, etc. pre-date Boomer being killed by Cally, right? I'll have to study the Caprica/Kobol events again to confirm. Because, if so, that's the one time a model shared memories of one copy prior to that copy dying and downloading, which is what I don't get. But if Athena doesn't have Boomer's memories until Boomer downloads, then it's not a problem - we can say not only the specific new copy of Boomer (the one with whom Caprica Six aligns with to combat the D'Anna model [I don't know her number] who's trying to "box" them both) - gets that Eight's memories upon download/resurrection, but all Eights do. 38 minutes ago, SparedTurkey said: No one did - I think it is bias but also I don't think any actor actively campaigned for it (Don't know if MM campaigned for an emmy for The Closer but she did get a nom there I think?) Yes, McDonnell was nominated for her guest turn on The Closer. And the production company/network submitted her for Best Actress consideration this second season of Battlestar, with Lay Down Your Burdens Part 2 as the "For Your Consideration" episode. In which she is astounding, even considering her norm, and for which she was not even nominated, while network dross like Mariska Hargitay was. It's a disgrace. 38 minutes ago, SparedTurkey said: I think mainly that....not that many people are around anymore and who would judge? Adama? He'd never take Lee to task for that. Well, shouldn't he? Isn't this just more of the "the rules don't disappear in times of crisis, in fact they're more important" thing? We don't hear her role on Pegasus, but she's standing there like Tigh to Adama. There is no way that kind of close reporting relationship should be okay between Commander Lee and Whatever Dee, no matter how skeleton the crew, when the rules have always been that even just being a superior officer makes a lower-ranked fleet member off limits. I know they need to start having babies, but even under the new world order there's a major difference between Random Fleet Member on Pegasus and Random Fleet Member on Galactica hooking up and the frakking commander of Pegasus and someone directly under his command doing so. She should have been kept on Galactica. 38 minutes ago, SparedTurkey said: I think you might mean the Zephyr? No clue, as we've only ever seen it in wide shots of the fleet, never been on it. It looks like a wheel with spokes and something pointing out the center, all of which spins, but I'm hard pressed to see where people would live on it now or what the hell it purpose as a pre-Holocaust ship would have been. 38 minutes ago, SparedTurkey said: Bastet - Do you have the movies Razor and The Plan as well as the series? Pardon while I look at Blu-Ray set ... Okay, it's "The Complete Series," four seasons. There's a broadcast edition and an unrated extended edition of Razor on the first disc of season four, but I don't see anything called The Plan. Edited January 9, 2018 by Bastet Link to comment
Joe January 9, 2018 Share January 9, 2018 I remember the ep where Roslin was at death's door. And I remember what Jacob, the recapper, said. He was totally fine with whatever the writers came up with to save her. A magic bullet that shoots her in the cancer. I laughed when I read that, because I'd seen the next ep by then. It did feel a little bullshit, but at least she lived. Link to comment
SparedTurkey January 9, 2018 Share January 9, 2018 3 hours ago, Bastet said: But Athena (assuming that's the Sharon who fulfilled her mission by getting pregnant by Helo but then sided with the humans against the cylons) already exists by the time Boomer dies and downloads. Yep - but Boomer is dead by the time anyone asks Athena if she has her memories. So I think Athena having her memories is a combination of Boomer transmitting memories while she is a sleeper, which no other cylon has been and so may not have had a reason to transmit anything, like the Leoban and D'Anna and then her memories as a bulk download when she dies - that do go to all the Eights. I think given the Cylon bend towards unity, they don't have individuality or individual memories while they are all connected. So what happens to one model, happens to all of that model. I think the Gina!Six was different because she couldnt download and so the rest of the Sixes don't know - like a computer file lost forever. 3 hours ago, Bastet said: And the production company/network submitted her for Best Actress consideration this second season of Battlestar, with Lay Down Your Burdens Part 2 as the "For Your Consideration" episode. In which she is astounding, even considering her norm, and for which she was not even nominated, while network dross like Mariska Hargitay was. It's a disgrace. Ahh right. Well, the network should have stopped meddling. But I think, from vague memories of cons, that the actors were well aware of the bias toward sci-fi and never really bothered to go for it hammer and tong - like the big networks did. 3 hours ago, Bastet said: Well, shouldn't he? Should he though? Was there a rule against it before the attacks? It isn't mentioned on the show from what I can tell. Doesn't seem to be a rule against two pilots going at it - and they get to arm themselves with planes. And as much as holding onto the old way of life is realistic, there would naturally be some bending after 2-ish years. I know that Tigh came down on Tyrol and Boomer in season 1, but that seemed more about her being an officer (and bad pilot, and sketchy) and he being enlisted - but there is no mention as to whether two officers or two enlisted are against any rules. Hell, Helo knocks up a cylon - if that isn't grounds for treason or consorting with an enemy I don't see them getting bent out of shape by a commander and an XO. Or it could be like Major Crimes - as long as it is disclosed, no problemo. But also - I do love Adama so I say this with love - there would be no way he'd come down on Lee even if it were against the rules. Considering what he lets both Lee and Starbuck pull, Adama would probably just be happy Lee is only shagging his XO. Adama has giant blind spots and this would probably come down in that. I think it is the Zephyr. Not sure if the interior is ever seen though. Razor is more about the Cain of it all. The Plan is more cylon-focused. Not sure when that aired. Neither is really required viewing for the series as a whole IMO. Link to comment
Bastet January 9, 2018 Share January 9, 2018 8 hours ago, SparedTurkey said: Should he though? Was there a rule against it before the attacks? It isn't mentioned on the show from what I can tell. Yes, before and after. It's why Tigh told Boomer and Tyrol to knock it off once the attacks happened; they'd been looking the other way when the ship was about to be decomissioned, making it a moot point, but now that they were going to continue serving together, it had to end. And he didn't even report to her, it was simply that she was a superior officer. I can see letting that type of thing slide at the end of the worlds, but I can't imagine it ever being appropriate for the commander to date anyone on his ship given the rules in place, so Dee popping up on Pegasus is jarring to me. 10 hours ago, Joe said: I remember the ep where Roslin was at death's door. And I remember what Jacob, the recapper, said. He was totally fine with whatever the writers came up with to save her. A magic bullet that shoots her in the cancer. I laughed when I read that, because I'd seen the next ep by then. It did feel a little bullshit, but at least she lived. Yep, I didn't care how convenient it was or how thin the science behind it was, it kept Laura alive and thus it was A-okay with me. And, hee, a magic bullet that shoots her in the cancer. When I re-watch Epiphanies, that's what I'm going to think of. 8 hours ago, SparedTurkey said: Yep - but Boomer is dead by the time anyone asks Athena if she has her memories. Ah, okay. I know Boomer was dead by the time the other Sharon talks about having memories of her life, on Kobol, but I thought there was something on occupied Caprica, when Boomer was still alive, that the other Sharon said or did that indicated she already had access to Boomer's experiences. But, even if she did, maybe it's as you said - Boomer being a sleeper agent meant the other cylons had access to her mind in a different way. Link to comment
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