Battlestar Galactica [2004] - General Discussion

Bastet · January 9, 2018

I watched through the two-part Exodus last night, and so much happened over those four hours it's hard to remember what to comment on.

I like the pace at which it all played out; we join them four months into the occupation that started at the end of season two, get the info we need on what's been happening in that time, and get right to exploring the resistance movement and then the escape plan. It was the perfect amount of time to spend on New Caprica, I think.

Tigh is not someone I want in command of a ship, but he's pretty much the perfect person to lead an insurgent resistance movement against occupation. I like that there is truth to what both sides - in the argument over using suicide bombers - are saying. Tigh saying sending someone in a uniform out in a viper to what is a certain death is no different is not a point easily dismissed. But nor is the "collateral damage" aspect of such attacks.

The amount of acting going on with just one eye by Michael Hogan when Tigh realizes what Ellen did was amazing. And then when he has to kill her? He's not coming back mentally from that any time soon. Adama catching sight of him as he got off the raptor was an incredible moment. I am officially registering my complaint at the lack of a reunion between Laura and Bill, but his reunion with Saul was perfect.

I've said before I have a low tolerance for action sequences, and thus far the times they've done what amounts to action/adventure episodes I have enjoyed them. Galactica falling through the atmosphere to launch its vipers before jumping away feet from the ground and Pegasus going out in a blaze of glory was no exception.

In the season two thread, the version of Sharon who's on Galactica was called Athena, so now that she's a member of the fleet (wow!), I assume that becomes her call sign. Good, it will give me an easy way to refer to her as distinct from the other Eights. The Hera storyline is obviously going to continue; right now, Athena doesn't believe Hera is alive ("Adama wouldn't lie to me" - well, no, because Laura took care of it herself), but the cylons have the baby, so something is going to happen there.

I hadn't thought to wonder where Zarek was, but it's interesting that he was in detention the whole time because he defied Baltar immediately after the occupation, objecting to cooperating with the cylons. He's such a complex character. I really liked the light little moments between him and Laura, especially when he asks if she tried to steal the election. "Yes I did/I wish you'd gone through with it/Me too" was great.

I love that Laura's ride home is Colonial One, and that she just sits down at her old desk, takes a minute, and says, "I'm ready to go now."

Baltar confronted with the death warrants was an interesting scene; like Zarek, he is a complicated villain. I like that he initially refuses to sign, even with a gun to his head, but I especially like that once he retreats into his psyche and imagines Six telling him sometimes you have to do something awful to live to fight another day, he has no conscious memory of signing; he just looks down and his signature is there. His mind is quite a place to visit.

I cannot decide which cylon model I find the most evil. The Cavils and Dorals are definitely contenders, and I just love them sitting there getting their righteous indignation on that the resistance left a Cavil to suffer and die. Yeah, after you were injured in the course of attempting to execute over a hundred people, people who don't have the option of opening their own carotid arteries secure in the knowledge they'll come back almost as good as new. And what the Leobens did to Kara over those four months? Holy shit.

I'm glad everyone (well, almost everyone, and I certainly don't miss Ellen Tigh, but I'm sorry for Tigh) is back home. And I like that the Pegasus is gone, even though I know they were better off with two battlestars, and that Pegasus was more advanced. I can't help it; I like everyone being on Galactica. I didn't get enough sleep last night, but I couldn't quit until they got home!

Edited January 10, 2018 by Bastet

Bastet · January 10, 2018

I only watched one episode last night, as I was a bit emotionally wiped out from Major Crimes ending, and it turned out to be an incredibly dark exploration of the line between vengeance and justice. Oops.

Collaborators was well done, in that The Circle was clearly not the way to go about things, but it wasn't some one-note vigilante storyline; The Circle exists via executive order*, and they take their responsibility to consider the evidence seriously -- they're not just rubber stamping executions based solely on allegations.

*I did not understand how Zarek, who spent the occupation in detention, had so much information so as to produce the list of the "worst of the worst" collaborators, but in the commentary Moore revealed that there was scene cut for time that revealed Tory had taken Laura's journal and given the information to Zarek.

It was incredibly dark, of course - I mean, damn, it opened with Jammer's execution - but a good examination of the issue. I liked the conversations The Circle had, about whether Jammer saving Cally would negate his culpability for the 20+ people who did get killed, whether Gaeta qualifies for treason based simply on his position in the Baltar administration, or whether there needs to be evidence of his, not Baltar's, specific actions.

I thought it was interesting that in the original script it was Zarek who issued the general amnesty, as his final act as president, in a spiteful move - in that version, Laura and Adama had basically wrestled power away from him, so his final executive act was to leave them unable to deal with the collaborators. But then Moore decided it was more interesting this way, for Zarek to think it was better for the fleet if the crimes were legitimately examined by a jury, but this secret one that acts swiftly, rather than bogging them down in trials and accusations for years, and for Laura to take his point about what life as a series of accusations, investigations, and trials would be like for the people, but use that not to say, yep, forget about the accused's right to lawyers and a jury of their peers, but to say, okay, we document our stories, but then we move forward together.

And, given how she felt about the collaborators while she was a civilian living under the occupation, I agree it is interesting to see the decision she makes now that she's president again.

But I want to see what she and Adama think about whether this amnesty applies to Baltar if he turns up again, heh.

Speaking of Baltar, his dream cracked me up. I knew it was a dream right away because Laura and Tigh were in their New Caprica clothes, not what they'd be wearing as president and colonel, and I got a kick out of the "no harm done" conversation in the beginning, laughed when Adama said of Six, "You wouldn't like her when she's angry," and guffawed when Laura said, "I've always wanted you," and Baltar replied, "Oh, no - I'm dreaming, aren't I?" Having his actions excused by those three? Adama hearing the Six that exists only in his head? Nope, these are not the things that make him realize he's dreaming. It's Laura Roslin telling him she's always wanted him (it works even better with the deleted scene from one of the very first episodes of the series, when we learn from the Six in his head that in the midst of all the shit going on, he's wondering what it would be like to have sex with Laura). It was scripted that Laura pulled a gun on him (getting shot in the head was what made him jolt awake), but Mary, James, and the director came up with it being the kiss instead, and good for on-set changes, because that was funny.

Sharpie66 · January 10, 2018

Collaborators is one of my favorite eps of the entire series. But then, I am a huuuge Gaeta fangirl, so my reaction was probably a given.

Bastet · January 10, 2018

1 minute ago, Sharpie66 said:

Collaborators is one of my favorite eps of the entire series. But then, I am a huuuge Gaeta fangirl, so my reaction was probably a given.

I like him, and I like that he was honestly sucked into things. He genuinely believed in the dream of New Caprica Baltar - whom he'd so long admired - sold him, and then when he realized Baltar only believed in "the dream of Gaius Baltar," he tried to use his position and access to work from within to make things better. Then he was a bit between a rock and a hard place during the occupation, and did what he could to help the resistance movement. And he was about to kill Baltar (which, by that point, Baltar welcomed); he only spared him so he could go stop D'Anna from nuking the place. So watching The Circle deliberate his case, even based on the limited information they had, was interesting enough, but especially knowing all we knew.

Bastet · January 11, 2018

I have a problem with Helo not suffering any consequences for sabotaging the mission to infect the cylon fleet with the virus. As always on this show, the debate over what was justified was well done, with great points on both sides and no clear answer as to what was the right decision, but a decision was made, and he was obliged to abide by it. In a deleted scene, he asks to be relieved of duty during the mission, and Adama freely grants him that. So he wasn't even forced to be part of it. I said last season that he was going to be more dangerous to the fleet than Athena, and yeah -- she upholds her oath to the point of actually participating in the mission, even though it's going to make her the last cylon standing, but he doesn't. (And I find it interesting that, for all the hand-wringing about what engaging in genocide, even against a mechanical race, could do to people's souls, everyone else is totally into it, even those who are going to go execute the prisoners.)

There's something about Helo's righteousness that bugs me in a way it doesn't when other characters take principled stands, and I'm not sure why. The actor, maybe - maybe I just don't like him when he's playing righteous the same way I can't stand the actor playing Cally when she's playing (or attempting to play) tough. Whatever the cause, Helo bugged the shit out of me in the two episodes about the virus. He's lucky Laura didn't airlock him when he said the cylons tried to co-exist with them on New Caprica. She handled it perfectly, which is why it's good she's president and not me.

I like the way they explored the natural division between those who experienced the occupation and those who didn't, and also the way Starbuck and Tigh were exploiting it to the point it was causing a serious problem among the crew and that could not be allowed to stand. (And, man, did I love those two adversaries sharing that look and raising their glasses to each other when they bonded over telling Helo and Kat to get stuffed with their "we all sacrificed" false equivalencies.) This show does a good job showing the repercussions of things.

I'm kind of ready to get off the cylon base star already. I think it's because that set is so typical sci-fi, and I much prefer the familiar, reality-based world of Galactica, because I have a hard time getting emotionally invested in something so far removed from reality; it's why I generally avoid sci-fi. But Baltar fearing he's one of the five unidentified cylons was good, and I'm glad the humans now know he's alive, and helping the cylons find Earth; now they know it's a race.

I continue to love the relationship between Adama and Laura. They're always so intimate and comfortable with each other when it's just the two of them wrestling with an ethical dilemma (consistently my favorite scenes of the series), and I'm really glad they have each other. I'm also impressed at how well they handle disagreeing.

CigarDoug · January 12, 2018

On 1/9/2018 at 6:14 AM, SparedTurkey said:

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.

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.

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.

I disagree, at least about The Plan. It reveals a lot of the story from the Cylon point of view, and explains their motivations, why the Final Five are so important and why Cavil kept them a secret from the other models. If you don't want spoilers, watch it after episode 4.15, because every single one of the Final Five are revealed in The Plan. If you love Dean Stockwell as One (Cavil) and want more Final Five as themselves, watch The Plan.

Johnny Walker has a great blog detailing the ideal viewing order to avoid spoilers: http://thunderpeel2001.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/battlestar-galactica-viewing-order.html

I just had a random thought as I am typing this: If they had produced an entire season recapping the entire story from the Cylon point of view, including the time leading up to the attack on the Colonies, I would have loved it. But I can appreciate how hard it is to accurately write about a mythical race of robots, to truly capture how they think and act and how their society is structured, how truly different they are from us, without punting and just writing them as humans who happen to have metal bodies. I give props to Moore and the BSG writers for making an honest stab at it.

Bastet · January 12, 2018

7 hours ago, CigarDoug said:

Johnny Walker has a great blog detailing the ideal viewing order to avoid spoilers: http://thunderpeel2001.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/battlestar-galactica-viewing-order.html

Thanks. I'm already halfway into season three, and that article recommends watching Razor between Captain's Hand and Downloaded in this season, rather than between seasons three and four (it's the first thing on the first season four disc), so I'm going to stick with the original airing order on that rather than going back now. It sounds like the main reason for recommending it be watched earlier is that it deals with details of the Pegasus story, which viewers had largely forgotten by the time it aired, but since I'm binge-watching rather than watching it in real time, that won't be an issue for me.

I should have watched The Resistance, the season three webisodes, prior to starting season three, I agree (had I only seen this sooner!), or maybe immediately after Occupation; they're on the second disc of season three, as an extra, and I always watch the extras after watching the episodes on any given disc, in case something in an extra would spoil me, so I didn't even know they existed until I'd seen through episode seven.

The Plan isn't included on the Blu-Ray set, so I'll have to see how much it is separately to decide if I want to spring for it. I don't think I'll buy the prequels (Caprica or Blood and Chrome), but now I know they exist.

Thanks very much for the info!

Bastet · January 14, 2018

Hero was good - I'm in favor of anything that puts Carl Lumbly on my screen, and Saul starting to come back to himself was nice - but I kind of wish they'd found a way to work it in earlier in the series, when they first got the idea; this was a long time for Adama have been thinking his actions sparked the attacks, without there having been any hint of that in his behavior. (I know it was Bulldog's return that made him confront those memories, but I find it impossible to believe he hadn't thought of them.) At least it happened when Laura is close enough to him to say, look, knucklehead, no one thing spurred the cylons to act, and just get out there so I can pin a frakking medal on you.

I'd have liked someone - by which I mean a character; Moore said it in his commentary - to point out the timing clearly reveals the cylons had their plan in motion well before the black ops mission to poke their noses over the armistice line. I guess the fact we the audience know the specifics of Caprica Six using Baltar to get access to the defense mainframe, but the characters merely know that cylons were able to infiltrate it, and Laura knows she saw Baltar with a Six the day of the attacks, means there isn't anyone who'd say it that clearly.

Laura wryly suggesting they hang the portrait of Baltar over the toilet cracked me up. (If I may also get completely shallow for a moment, she looked fantastic in that casual shirt and clipped back hair in that cleaning out the office scene.)

So, Unfinished Business. Love it. The Bill and Laura scenes in the extended cut are my new favorite thing in the world. (Moore said in his commentary he could watch just their scenes and love the episode, and I agree; in fact, I promptly went back and watched it just that way). And not just once they get stoned; the "it's good to see you" scene when he's playing in the alluvial deposits is just as great as the star-gazing conversation and the morning after. The interaction between them at the "dance" was great, too; I love the way he looks at her so full of affection after remembering that day on New Caprica, and the way she gives him boxing tips when he's losing to Tyrol. And then there's the reversion to "Madame President/Admiral" when she helps him down after his speech. Moore said a novel could be made out of what happened between them during the missing year, and the editor who was joining him on the commentary said it could be a spin-off, and now I'm sad that doesn't exist.

The commentary was illustrative of why network execs and their notes have such a bad reputation - SciFi objected to Bill and Laura being stoned. Okay, but people are passed out drunk all over the place, and that doesn't bother them. They also objected to the final stargazing scene with them, because it felt "too post-coital." Two people fully dressed is bothersome, because it feels sexually intimate, but Kara actually frakking Sam, and then Lee, no problem. (To be clear, I don't think they should have been bothered by the drinking or the frakking, just that it's particularly ridiculous they were bothered by the other things in light of not objecting to those counterparts.)

Anyway, it was nice to go back and see what things were like in the beginning of settlement, when people thought maybe they could make a life for themselves there. And it's good for the Kara/Lee tension to have come to head; there are so many layers to their relationship - they put their lives on the line next to each other for a living, but have such different styles as members of the fleet, they have a bit of sibling vibe to their relationship owing to Zach, and to Bill regarding her as a daughter, and then there's the sexual/romantic attraction. It's a complicated love, and while I'm not as invested in how it will wind up as I think the show wants me to be, I do like peeling back those layers.

The way Tigh laughed when Kara tells him she slept with Lee was my favorite thing other than Bill/Laura.

The Passage was a good hour of tension, although not a masterpiece like 33. This one felt a little rushed by joining the crisis in progress, rather than having had the contamination of the food supply play out in front of us, but they did a good job making me feel the hunger and desperation. It was a solid, I know they'll make it but how much will they lose along the way? struggle. I liked Tigh and Adama's punch-drunk laughter over people not being able to eat paper, because there's a paper shortage, too. I'm bummed they killed Kat, because the tension between her and Kara was interesting to me. I like that their final moment together was true to their characters and relationship, rather than going overly soft. And I love Adama making sure she dies as CAG, and stopping her from telling him about herself (and that she tries to do so, including telling him Starbuck knows), by asking her if what she has to tell him changes anything about what made her a good CAG. And then he just sits there with her. Nice.

The Hybrid on the cylon basestar continues to be ever too weird for me, and I can't fully get into what the D'Anna who's involved with Baltar and Caprica Six is trying to accomplish by dying over and over again and then trying to remember the experience between one body and the next, but it's okay, and Baltar kind of fearing he's a cylon and kind of hoping he is because then instead of being a traitor to one group of people he'd be a hero to another is interesting.

Edited January 14, 2018 by Bastet

John Potts · January 15, 2018

On ‎04‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 6:11 PM, Bastet said:

Well, frak. Couldn't it have been Ellen who got killed instead of Billy? Poor Billy. Poor Laura. Stupid Ellen.

Paul Campbell (Billy) wanted to go onto bigger things and so took a part in Knight Rider (2008) - perhaps not the greatest move, career wise.

Pretty sure that the Dee/Lee pairing is completely against the regs... but they're already operating skeleton crews for the two battlestars and can't afford to lose anyone. In a way, it's the flip side of the Boomer/Tyrol situation in the Pilot, where it was tolerated because what was happening onboard ship didn't matter - now it desperately matters that they hang onto enough people to crew the vessels, no matter what they're doing. At least that's how I saw it.

CigarDoug · January 16, 2018

On 1/12/2018 at 3:12 PM, Bastet said:

Thanks. I'm already halfway into season three, and that article recommends watching Razor between Captain's Hand and Downloaded in this season, rather than between seasons three and four (it's the first thing on the first season four disc), so I'm going to stick with the original airing order on that rather than going back now. It sounds like the main reason for recommending it be watched earlier is that it deals with details of the Pegasus story, which viewers had largely forgotten by the time it aired, but since I'm binge-watching rather than watching it in real time, that won't be an issue for me.

I should have watched The Resistance, the season three webisodes, prior to starting season three, I agree (had I only seen this sooner!), or maybe immediately after Occupation; they're on the second disc of season three, as an extra, and I always watch the extras after watching the episodes on any given disc, in case something in an extra would spoil me, so I didn't even know they existed until I'd seen through episode seven.

The Plan isn't included on the Blu-Ray set, so I'll have to see how much it is separately to decide if I want to spring for it. I don't think I'll buy the prequels (Caprica or Blood and Chrome), but now I know they exist.

Thanks very much for the info!

The main reason for following that viewing order is avoid spoilers, as I see it. The Plan, for example, involves all of the Final Five, so if you don't know who all of them are (the last one is revealed almost a year after the others) then it's a big spoiler. Nothing in the Resistance was spoiler material, IIRC. But you bring up a good point, to watch them in chronological order while the episodes are fresh in your mind.

By the way, Netflix offers BSG as DVD rentals. They did have them streaming for a time, but stopped. Most series, no matter how much I like them, are not worth buying on DVD. But they are definitely worth a Netflix subscription, especially if you want to binge.

You know, I am re-reading this forum for new comments after rewatching the series with my son a couple of years ago, it's nice to see someone in real time commenting on it. I came to this site after IMDb shuttered their comments section, which I still haven't gotten over. IMDb had a lot to offer, in one place you could read all the facts about a TV show OR a movie, and then delve into the comments section. But this site definitely has promise. It is my go-to for TV shows, while https://moviechat.org is my go-to for movies. But that still means two different sites, where IMDb had it all in one place. I still go there for the actors, the quotes, etc. No one is catching up to them on raw data anytime soon.

CigarDoug · January 16, 2018

On 1/14/2018 at 4:25 PM, Bastet said:

The Hybrid on the cylon basestar continues to be ever too weird for me, and I can't fully get into what the D'Anna who's involved with Baltar and Caprica Six is trying to accomplish by dying over and over again and then trying to remember the experience between one body and the next, but it's okay, and Baltar kind of fearing he's a cylon and kind of hoping he is because then instead of being a traitor to one group of people he'd be a hero to another is interesting.

D'Anna has discovered that when she dies, her consciousness is spending a brief period of time (before resurrecting) in the Opera House, where the final five appear as tall, glowing figures. Baltar saw them briefly in a vision, but couldn't make out their features. D'Anna remembers this period, and it either becomes a longer period of time, or it continues from the previous experience. Either way, she spends enough time in this pocket of space/time to see the faces of the Final Five and interact with them. Remember, One has forbidden all knowledge of the Final Five for the rest of the Cylon models. D'Anna's curiosity about them, knowing they are currently alive and in the human fleet, drives her to risk everything to find out. Personally, I thought it was one of the better elements of the show. From the beginning, we are led to believe that the Cylons, being machines, are all of one accord, share all information, and have a plan; they are an unbeatable enemy. This is just more evidence that the Cylons are more like us than not, and individual Cylons can have their own agendas and even be disobedient. Plus, this whole side-effect of resurrection and different shades of consciousness the show explores is really, really cool for a science-fiction show. I love it when the writers get to delve deeper into a technology, race, culture, whatever that they completely invented. "Sure, the Cylons can die and get reloaded into a new body, but what happens to their consciousness during the process?"

I really wish the show had expanded more on what the Opera House really was. It is a pivotal place for so many characters, seen in visions. I don't want to say too much or it would be a spoiler for you. It just wasn't fully resolved, IMO.

Bastet · January 16, 2018

5 hours ago, CigarDoug said:

By the way, Netflix offers BSG as DVD rentals.

I'll see if I can rent The Plan on its own when the time comes, then, as I have a DVD rental subscription with Netflix. Thanks.

Bastet · January 16, 2018

I just watched the two episodes that constituted the mid-season finale, and they were good (and further fleshed out D'Anna's quest in returning over and over to the space between death and resurrection, plus more about how the cylons function as a group). I'm so curious who D'Anna saw as one of the final five cylon models, the one to whom she said, "Forgive me, I didn't know." It has to be someone with whom she has interacted, and badly. Unless rather than the apology being about a specific direct interaction it's about what the cylons in general did to this person on New Caprica. I have to ponder this.

It was really a group decision to box D'Anna's model, right, and not just Cavil keeping her from revealing the final five*? Because they (the Sharons, Cavils, Leobens, and Sixes) were already talking about possibly needing to do something when two different copies of her model defied the group in the decision about calling the raiders back once Galactica prepared to fire its nukes, Caprica Six knew D'Anna thought she (and Baltar) had a different destiny than the rest, no one is supposed to inquire about the final five, etc. So her having pulled away from the group so much was what led them to eliminate the model.

*Cavil being the guardian of that information is only something I know from a post in the season two thread, and then again here; otherwise, I wouldn't have thought of it at all until Rapture, and even then I think I'd have just been wondering about it, thinking he seemed to have ulterior motives, rather than picking up that's what was going on. And, by Moore's brief comment about a "notion" that Cavil is the "keeper of the secrets in some ways," I think it is just supposed to be a hint at this point.

And how did the Cavil on the algae planet (who was going to shoot the D'Anna in the temple, only to get shot by Baltar) get down there, when the D'Anna and Baltar were the only two on that one raider that kept going when the others turned back? He just grabbed his own ride at some point after that and jetted down there to stop her from doing her thing, and Galactica didn't care when that showed up on Dradis, because it was just a single ship, even though that meant there were now two on the planet?

I also wondered how Athena and Caprica Six managed to just grab the raptor and take off with Hera without any of the other cylons noticing, and then listened to the commentary, in which Moore admitted, yeah, that's one of those things you just have to ask the audience to go with.

It's interesting how much has changed in Boomer since she first resurrected; from so upset about being a cylon and refusing to let go of her human identity then to now fully in as a cylon. On the flip side, Athena - who, unlike Boomer, always knew she was a cylon - is fully entrenched as the human she was programmed to pretend to be. And so now Athena, not Boomer, is the one Caprica Six is aligned with. Good stuff.

So they'll have Baltar and Caprica Six in the brig on Galactica. Plus they have Hera on board (and, wow, with Helo having to kill Sharon so she can access the basestar; he knows she's going to download, yeah, but to put a bullet through your wife's chest - that was a great scene). That should all be quite interesting knowledge as it spreads through the fleet.

And Baltar still doesn't know whether he's a cylon; I love him stepping over D'Anna's body to place himself on the circle and try to see what she saw so he can know before he dies, only to be foiled by Tyrol putting a gun to his head and capturing him.

Did Adama really think Hera just conveniently died? When they (Laura, Adama, Tigh, and Baltar) were discussing what to do with her if she lived, Adama was the most vocal about the dangers that would be created by her existence, and by the fleet finding out about her. So he knew that if she lived, there was realistically only one thing Laura could do with her (unless she wanted to toss a baby out an airlock, that is). So when Laura didn't tell him what she did, I wonder if he believed Hera's death was real, or if he just very carefully avoid thinking about it.

Dee having to rescue Starbuck certainly made for an interesting dynamic. I love Dee getting to slap her. And I have to laugh at Starbuck's moral code that forbids divorce but allows cheating. And then Lee's is the opposite, so they're at an impasse.

Kara thinks maybe the reason she's been drawing the Eye of Jupiter symbol her whole life is because, as Leoben said, she has a destiny. But she's religious. Tyrol was raised religious (and, by the way, him running around the prayer room naked holding porn magazines as an act of defiance is my favorite thing about the algae planet episodes) and when he got in the temple he recognized stuff from drawings in the books his parents had. So Starbuck could have seen that symbol in a religious text, too, and that's why she started drawing it as a kid.

But I really like the scene between her and Helo about it; I always like him best when seeing his friendship with her.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Bastet

Sharpie66 · January 16, 2018

Helo killing Sharon is just heartbreaking. He and Gaeta are my favorite male characters. And Bill Adama. Okay, Baltar is pretty fascinating, too. Damnit, I love them all! And don’t get me started on the women on this show...

CigarDoug · January 18, 2018

On 1/16/2018 at 3:17 PM, Bastet said:

It was really a group decision to box D'Anna's model, right, and not just Cavil keeping her from revealing the final five*? Because they (the Sharons, Cavils, Leobens, and Sixes) were already talking about possibly needing to do something when two different copies of her model defied the group in the decision about calling the raiders back once Galactica prepared to fire its nukes, Caprica Six knew D'Anna thought she (and Baltar) had a different destiny than the rest, no one is supposed to inquire about the final five, etc. So her having pulled away from the group so much was what led them to eliminate the model.

No, it was Cavil alone (D'Anna being boxed was a spoiler, confirming who was responsible is a mild one, at best). To me, he is the most interesting Cylon of all. If you are keeping track of your Ones, there are only two instances of that model who are relevant. Cavil the priest was on Galactica, he counseled the Chief, he boxes D'Anna, he wants humanity cut down to a smaller number (say, a thousand). Basically, every time you see Cavil, it's this one. Cavil on Caprica is the one who shows up out of nowhere when the rescue party notices the Cylons have retreated. He is the one that they bring back from Caprica, who then exposes the first Cavil. So, other than those few scenes, it's almost always the first Cavil you see. The Plan reveals a lot more about these two, of course.

Bastet · January 18, 2018

6 hours ago, CigarDoug said:

No, it was Cavil alone

That doesn't really fit with what Moore said in his commentary for the episode. Moore's comments are reminiscent of the things discussed by the cylons in the "we're going to have to do something about this, perhaps sooner than later" part of the episode, and center on how the D'Anna model was pulling away from the group and their way of doing things and thus constituted a threat to the cylons' cohesive system. And if he did it alone, rather than with the consent of the group, wouldn't he then be punished? I mean, they're going to notice that all copies of that model are gone, and if it was a big problem for the Threes to defy the group's decision about the raiders, it would have to be a really big problem for Cavil to decide to eliminate an entire line without putting it up for a vote.

I watched Taking a Break From All Your Worries, and when I watched it with the commentary, I was stunned to learn it was written as a light, comedic episode, and in the directing, performances, and editing, it turned into a dark take. How was that ever going to be a light episode? I can see how Lee and Tyrol's repeated trips to the new bar to escape their home lives could be played as humor ("To marriage - why we build bars"), and some of the stuff between Lee and Dee at home could easily play that way as well. But the bulk of the stuff about Lee, Dee, Kara, and Sam, if I just listen to the dialogue and try to picture it performed humorously, I can't.

And Baltar's interrogations? The beginning of Laura's, yes, that could have been funny (there's a hint of it in the "everybody has to eat" line), but after that? It does not surprise me in the least that once EJO got ahold of the script, he directed it as a meditation on the reliability and morality of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and on Baltar's degree of culpability instead; what stuns me is that it was written to be something else.

I really enjoyed the scene at the end, with Laura lying on his bed and him sitting on the edge of it, as they talk about what to do with Baltar now. The two of them, alone, hashing out the right way of dealing with a problem is always my favorite, and this one is particularly good. I like her reflecting on what she wanted to get out of the interrogation - not intel, but a genuine admission of guilt - and him saying someone like Baltar will never give that, because he truly sees himself as a victim rather than a criminal. And then he says it's not too late for Baltar to just disappear, and she simply touches his arm and reminds him they can't do that; Baltar is one of them, so "we give him his trial."

Obviously, Baltar's trial is going to be the big story for this final part of the season, and I'm looking forward to that. Moore revealed in his commentary that whatever was being hinted at by the conversation between Gaeta and Baltar in this episode is a storyline that was planned to figure prominently in the trial, but wound up being completely dropped from the subsequent episodes; something about how the Saggitarians were treated on New Caprica, including a murder, which was one of the few things they had direct evidence on; there was a witness to Baltar killing someone. So, only time will tell what I think of the trial not including that, but right now it feels weird that, just by looking at the show, I wouldn't ever know why whatever Baltar said caused Gaeta to stab him in the neck (it was scripted as Baltar threatening to blame Gaeta for the Saggitarian thing, but once they dropped the storyline from later episodes they had to go back and excise it from this one, yet the stabbing is still there).

Bastet · January 20, 2018

The Woman King and A Day in the Life were both kind of duds (something Moore freely admitted in his commentary), but I'm glad I continued on and watched Dirty Hands rather than going to sleep, because I loved that one. I like that this show normally asks questions without giving a clear answer, but I also loved this unapologetic celebration of unions.

I really enjoy any time we get a sense of what life is like for the civilian fleet, but I know budget constraints dictate we see very few ships other than Galactica. So this was refreshing, both for getting to see life on the tyllium refinery ship, and for that being the natural opening to conversation about what life is like on some of the other ships as well.

This was just a great exploration of class and labor, and I also liked the scene between Adama and Tyrol, exploring the ways in which the military is justified in having a separate set of rules. There was also nice commentary on drafting people into service.

I was fired up and wide awake, but Moore said at the end of his commentary that Maelstrom starts a rocket ride to the end of the season, so I decided that made for a natural break and finally went to sleep.

I know

Spoiler

Laura's cancer comes back

at some point in the series, but don't know when, so it may not even be this season, but there have been some things in these past few episodes that have made me think that's happening. I'm curious to see if I'm right, but also not ready!

Edited January 20, 2018 by Bastet

CigarDoug · January 22, 2018

On 1/18/2018 at 3:49 PM, Bastet said:

That doesn't really fit with what Moore said in his commentary for the episode. Moore's comments are reminiscent of the things discussed by the cylons in the "we're going to have to do something about this, perhaps sooner than later" part of the episode, and center on how the D'Anna model was pulling away from the group and their way of doing things and thus constituted a threat to the cylons' cohesive system. And if he did it alone, rather than with the consent of the group, wouldn't he then be punished? I mean, they're going to notice that all copies of that model are gone, and if it was a big problem for the Threes to defy the group's decision about the raiders, it would have to be a really big problem for Cavil to decide to eliminate an entire line without putting it up for a vote.

I may be wrong about Cavil doing it without a vote (it has been over a year since I rewatched it last). My impression was that Cavil LIED about voting to do it. But it is hard to imagine he could do something that drastic on his own (well, his model on their own) without some blowback. Cavil is one of the few Cylons who seems to think independently of his model. I know it's only a TV show, unlike a novel where the writer can expand in great detail. But this show's writers manage to express pretty well the concept of thousands of Cylons models sharing one consciousness, in effect, but then somehow individual units can be, well, individuals as well. I got the impression that until the destruction of the colonies, when the Cylons voted, there were seven votes, one for each model, and each model was monolithic. You may or may not be at the point where one individual Cylon votes against their entire model (that's a really, really minor spoiler, if at all). That never happened before in the past forty-five years of the skinjobs.

If you step back and look at how well this show managed to capture a completely alien culture from our own, and not have more inconsistencies, it is pretty impressive. Just imagine you having to sit down, and create an entire culture from scratch, that may look human, but evolved completely different from how Earth humans evolved. They may be similar, but they would have some elements that are completely different. I don't think it would be a easy thing to accomplish, without taking shortcuts and simply applying human reactions, or human morality, to this alien race. Deep Space Nine was pretty good at it as well, expanding these alien races we already knew (Ferengi, Bajoran, Cardassian, Klingon) and brand new ones (Vorta, Founders, Jem'Hadar) and fleshing them out, making them more than expanded-brow-ridge-of-the-week aliens. They each have their own culture and motivations, that could be quite different from humans, and were logically consistent in and of themselves.

Bastet · January 22, 2018

Oh my gods, they killed Starbuck!

Spoiler

Now, I'm both thoroughly confused and less upset than I'd otherwise be, because I know that she comes back. I don't know how, since we saw her viper explode into tiny pieces - thus the confusion - or when, but I know she's there in the end - thus the not being as "OMG, what do you mean no more Starbuck?!" than I would be if I wasn't semi-spoiled.

I was just plugging along, enjoying getting more of Kara's backstory, and loving the scene where she, knocked out in the cockpit, was remembering the last conversation she had with her mom, and then - boom. Wow. That's going to be a big hole in the show. I guess only Laura and Adama are the characters I truly cannot imagine the show going on without, but to lose Starbuck is only one level down from that. I'd rather lose Lee than her, and I like Lee.

Per Moore's commentary, that's not how it was scripted; the idea of paying off what they'd set up with Leoben, the symbol she'd always been drawing, etc. in terms of showing what this destiny that's been alluded to is, and how she winds up embracing it, was always the concept. But the destiny was for her to, in the end, resist the siren call of death that she was being led to, and in doing that, she discovered something that gave them new information about their path to Earth. But the end just wasn't coming together in a way that packed the punch they were looking for, and Moore said - in the writers' room - that what they should really do is kill her. And, of course, everyone initially brushed that off, but then they really started getting into discussion of how that would play. So the next thing they knew, Moore and Eick were on the phone with Katee Sackhoff, telling her they were going to kill off Kara in the next script.

What he doesn't explain to my satisfaction/understanding, is what her destiny instead being to die in this moment means. Okay, so she embraces her death. That seems like a rather shitty destiny to me; she's gone, and it's not as if in dying she accomplished something that will save or even help those left behind. Now, these commentaries are simply podcasts that he did at the time the show was airing (which is why I'm listening to them as I go along rather than waiting until the end; it's his thoughts at the time, rather than post-series reflection [which generally includes some revisionist history]). So maybe, especially because changing the script to kill her in the end was something of a last-minute decision, he hadn't fully worked that through yet, and it will be fleshed out in future episodes as the characters deal with the aftermath.

He revealed that, once they decided to kill her, it was written that what wound up being the final conversation between Adama and Starbuck was a vicious confrontation. There was a strategy meeting with Laura, Adama, Starbuck, Tigh, and Lee, and Kara was amusing herself watching the interaction between Adama and Laura, ultimately saying out loud, "Why don't you two get a room?" Everyone was uncomfortable and just moved on, but afterward, Adama cornered her alone and lit into her like crazy for saying something like that in that setting. The director opted not to shoot it, because he thought it was piling on; after three years, the emotion of Adama losing his surrogate daughter stands on its own, and it's unnecessary to add on him living with the guilt of his final words to her having been ugly. I find myself agreeing -- yet wishing it had been filmed and then cut (and included as a deleted scene), because now I really want to see Kara entertain herself watching the Bill and Laura show and tell them to get a room. Because someone who calls them The Old Man and Madame Prez just as often as she addresses them properly would totally do that.

The commentary ended on a funny note that gave me nice relief from the emotion of watching it again, because the final moment where Adama destroys his model ship was not scripted; they were going to fade to black on him crying after attaching the piece she'd given him. But the actors were all upset that Katee had been written out, so as EJO was playing the emotion of that scene, he was particularly in touch with Adama's anger/frustration, and improvised destroying the ship. Well, turns out, that wasn't a prop they'd made for the show, it was a museum-quality piece they were renting, and he just destroyed something worth a couple hundred thousand dollars. Oops!

Anyway, going back to the wow, they seriously just killed Starbuck reaction - I am now extra curious to see the final episodes of the season, because Moore said part of the "should we really do it?" discussion of killing off Starbuck was how it could help them get where they knew they wanted to end up in the season finale. I won't be able to get started on those until tomorrow night, dammit.

Bastet · January 29, 2018

"What the actual fuck just happened?"

That was me to my cat last night upon completing season three.

It went from Law & Order set in space to ... I don't even know what that was, with four of the final five cylons being summoned by All Along the Watchtower and Starbuck returning from the dead, by way of Earth.

At first I thought she was the fifth cylon, because how the hell else is she alive after being blown to bits, but then I dismissed that because her attitude is so different from the others. So I don't know. I'm glad she's back, but this is some weird shit, so I'm curious to see how it's explained.

Sam sure didn't take a lot of time between drinking himself silly over Kara's death to flirting with Seelix and frakking Tory, did he?

Back when I was pondering who among the final five D'Anna was talking to when she apologized, I thought of Tigh, because of what the cylons did to him on New Caprica, and because of the specific interaction she had with him on Galactica while making the documentary, but then I laughed at myself for thinking Saul Tigh could be a cylon. Of course, according to Moore's commentary, they didn't decide until writing this episode - and late in that process - who the final four were, and were going back and forth right up until shooting as to whether they should really make Tigh a cylon, so back when D'Anna saw the final five, the writers didn't even know who she was looking at.

The commentaries have been a bit frightening in how much of the second half of this season was decided or altered at the last minute; I appreciate leaving room for things to evolve differently than how you'd originally seen them, but a showrunner not having a road map for the major plot points generally does not end well. Between that and the "off the rails" in the thread title for season four, I'm nervous.

Getting back to the trial part, the trial was a zoo and I had to keep reminding myself it looks like the American judicial system, but it isn't, so all the "You can't do that!" reactions I was having needed to stop, and just accept that in the Galactica world, they can. It was interesting to know Baltar is guilty, including of things the characters don't know about, but to know he has to be acquitted because the things they are charging him with they cannot prove. And for Adama, who never even wanted to give Baltar a trial to begin with, to be swayed by Lee's closing argument testimony and vote to acquit.

The scene when Lee outed Laura about the chamalla, and then she outed herself about the cancer, was incredible, especially the reminder of the relationship they used to have when he was "Captain Apollo," and it turns out that part was all Mary McDonnell - brilliant. I also love, love, love the "Get your fat, lazy ass out of that rack, Roslin" phone call. And "How long do you have to live, Karen?" when the reporter asks Laura how long she has to live.

Moore said in his commentary the connection between Caprica Six, Athena, and Laura will continue to be explored next season, and I'm excited for that.

I think I should re-watch the final three episodes before moving on, though, because that was a whole lot to take in.

Bastet · February 1, 2018

I watched the unrated extended version of this, the version that was released on DVD, rather than the version that aired on the network. I assume “c*********” was not included in the broadcast version, and I like that they didn’t get crazy with the unrated version. Moore and the writer said in the commentary that initially they had the typical, “sex and violence, yeah!” reaction to being able to do an unrated special, but then it just felt gratuitous and they wound up not doing much of that.

I found the special a little odd, but I suppose inevitably so – the home video division of the studio asks for a stand-alone movie or sorts that will air before season four starts, but season three ended on a cliffhanger and season four is going to start where it left off, so the only thing to do is tell a story set back in time. But centering it around a character the audience has never so much as heard of before just furthered the different feeling. And they don't just go back in time, they go back to three times - the "present day" search and rescue mission, the day of the cylon attack on the twelve colonies and the weeks after that, and the last day of the original cylon war - and weave in and out of them a bit. Plus, these are rather significant events to have happened – finding out the hybrid Bill encountered during the first cylon war still exists and those old-school centurions continue the experimentation program on that ship, plus Lee choosing to sacrifice Kara (I think he’d have ordered Mathias instead to stay behind and detonate the nuke) -- and there to have been no indication (obviously, because this backstory didn't exist at the time season three aired) the characters went through these things.

I had to watch twice, as I didn’t fully understand the “present day” stuff the first time. But, by the end of that, I liked it. On one hand, it was an action/adventure with lots of CGI, and that’s not my thing - plus, it had minimal Laura, and that's not my thing, either - but it was still the character study the show does so well: making you examine the similarities between Cain’s actions and those Laura, Adama, and Lee have taken. They’re all varying degrees of the brutal fact sometimes you have to sacrifice a few to save the rest; where is the line drawn?

There’s an extent to which Cain is what Adama would have been had he not had Laura in his face, and it’s not insignificant that, for a while after the attack, Cain believed there were no other survivors than the people on that battleship, while Adama was very quickly confronted with a civilian fleet in the tens of thousands. But Cain’s mindset does not change a bit once she learns there are civilian survivors. Would Adama have stripped the ships and left the people behind, let alone executed the families of people who’d refuse to be drafted into service? When he wanted to leave the civilian fleet behind at Ragnar Anchorage and, loaded up with weapons, get back in the fight, he thought they would be safe from the cylons hiding in that cloud or whatever it was.

Would he have shot Tigh in the head for saying he couldn’t, in good conscience, follow a bad order? I think the answer to that one is no, too – the brig, sure, but dead? (And while not the decades-long relationship Adama and Tigh have, Cain was close enough with her XO that he invited her to spend shore leave with him and his family, who wanted to see her again.)

Anyway, it was an interesting morality study and I enjoyed it on that level. I even enjoyed some of the action/adventure stuff, but young Adama and the centurion shooting at each other as they freefall towards a planet had me rolling my eyes. I understand from the commentary that, by going back to the original cylon war, they were able to incorporate a number of shout-outs to the original series, and even though those are lost on me, I think it’s cool that they were there. Apparently, they tracked down the vocoder used to create the centurions’ voices in the original, so that when the “by your command” line came, it sounded as it had back then.

I also think it’s interesting that some big things happen that only the audience knows – the surviving characters don’t learn what Shaw did, or what the Hybrid said about Kara. It reminds me of the Baltar trial a bit, in that there are things we know he did that the characters don't know he did.

And the stuff at the end certainly makes heading into season four interesting! The hybrid says a lot of things we can verify as true, so is everything he says true? If so, he’s told us that the six models will implode, the four who’ve just realized their identities will emerge, and humans and cylons will work together to find Earth. And then the final one “still in shadow, will claw toward the light, hungering for redemption that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering.” Pretty big plot points, if true. And then there’s him saying following Kara will lead to the destruction of the human race. I don’t even understand how she’s alive, so I assume when she gets back to Galactica as season four opens, they’re going to think she’s a cylon, and certainly not be inclined to go where she says they should go; that pretty much has to be a big plot point. So it’s funny that this was a stand-alone set in the past – but the final ten minutes give all sorts of information about what’s going to happen in the final season.

There were a few little things I really liked:

- I am irrationally pleased that when Shaw gives Gina her access code, that code is indeed what Tricia Helfer types rather than randomly punching letters/numbers on the keypad.

- It’s interesting, given Kara’s feelings about her mother and the fact she respected Cain in a way no one else on Galactica did, that she thinks Cain and her mom would have been two peas in a pod.

- Young Adama beating the centurion to death was like Old Adama doing the same to Leoben in the miniseries, which is a strangely nice touch.

Joe · February 1, 2018

I like Razor for an odd reason. Stephany Jacobsen uses her proper Aussie accent. You might not be aware of how often Aussies play either British or American, but it's more than it should be. In fact, accent-wise, Kendra Shaw might be the first Australian in space. (The Aussies in the Star Wars prequels were using fake accents and never left their planets.)

Edit: I forgot about Farscape. Great one, Joe.

Edited February 1, 2018 by Joe

Bastet · February 1, 2018

Moore said in the commentary that Jacobsen asked him if she could use her native accent or if she had to do an American one, and he told her to speak the way she normally does - he doesn't want actors to have to concentrate on an accent rather than just perform organically (Jamie Bamber they made do an American accent only because Lee is Bill's son, and they didn't want to do a "well, the kids grew up elsewhere" storyline to explain them speaking completely differently - it was already enough of a stretch they'd cast a non-Hispanic actor). He expected the network to complain, because network execs always worry viewers won't understand accents or don't like listening to "foreign" accents, but not a peep. Maybe they'd already gotten over themselves when viewers didn't have any problem with Lucy Lawless's New Zealand accent.

Joe · February 1, 2018

3 hours ago, Bastet said:

Moore said in the commentary that Jacobsen asked him if she could use her native accent or if she had to do an American one, and he told her to speak the way she normally does - he doesn't want actors to have to concentrate on an accent rather than just perform organically (Jamie Bamber they made do an American accent only because Lee is Bill's son, and they didn't want to do a "well, the kids grew up elsewhere" storyline to explain them speaking completely differently - it was already enough of a stretch they'd cast a non-Hispanic actor). He expected the network to complain, because network execs always worry viewers won't understand accents or don't like listening to "foreign" accents, but not a peep. Maybe they'd already gotten over themselves when viewers didn't have any problem with Lucy Lawless's New Zealand accent.

That's a really refreshing attitude. I hope more people follow his attitude.

Bastet · February 2, 2018

I like the symmetry in the storyline of the first two episodes, where the divide between the decision makers on Galactica is mirrored in the emerging divide between the final four, and what winds up being a bloody civil war between the six remaining models on the basestar. That last part is now another part of what the hybrid in Razor said coming true, so what does that mean for the fact he said following Kara would lead to humanity's destruction? Interesting.

Setting the hybrid's warning aside, since the characters don't know about it, I really like the muddy waters that on one hand Laura is the only one thinking clearly, because Bill and Lee are incapable of doing so when it comes to Kara – Kara is dead, yet she’s standing there on the ship; what can that be other than a cylon trick to lure them into an ambush if they follow her supposed path to Earth? But, on the other hand, what is the path they’re on based on? The idea it’s revealed to Laura by the gods through ancient texts and visions. So, really, there’s no science on either side; whose "miracle" do we indulge?

There was a terrific deleted scene in He That Believeth in Me, in which Starbuck goes to talk with Athena, saying she now understands what it's like to have everyone stare at you with fear and suspicion, thinking of you as a thing rather than a person, and expecting to bond over that only to have Athena tell her she’ll be watching her closest of all, because she knows how the cylons operate; Helo wants to believe the best of everyone, but she thinks the president is right, and if it was up to Athena, she’d have tossed her out an airlock the moment she landed.

It was a great scene on its own, and to give additional weight to the later scene with Sam, where Kara wonders if the cylons made her one of them when they had her on Caprica; the Starbuck/Athena scene was a nice bridge between her previous defiance to the very idea of being anything other than herself and this worry that she’s a cylon. But, even without that backdrop, the Kara/Sam scene is great, when he assures her that if she’s a cylon, she’s been one all along, it doesn’t change who she really is, and he’d love her no matter what – and she says if she found out he was a cylon, she’d put a bullet in his head. Hold that thought, Kara.

Laura, who previously wouldn’t touch a gun, shooting at Kara was a great scene; of course if Madame Airlock believes her to be a cylon, and thus a threat to the human race’s survival, she’s going to pull the trigger. Did she miss because, as she said, doloxan fraks with your aim, or because, as Adama said, she had doubts? According to Moore, it's fate - Kara's destiny means Laura had to miss. Pah; I like the doloxan theory ... although, yeah, that was really close range.

The conversation between Laura and Bill after that was incredible. Just sit back and watch two pros show you how it's done. The characters know each other so well, and are almost totally unguarded with each other by this point, so it’s this beautifully intimate thing as they start to talk, but it also means that when it gets ugly, it gets Ugly; they both quietly went for the jugular, and didn’t miss. Because of both the beautiful and the ugly, they felt married in that scene. And then when Laura is playing with her hair to soothe herself as she tries to get back to work, it starts falling out, and she finally gives into the tears? Heartbreaking.

Lee moving from the military to the government is an interesting choice. There was a very obvious cut in his farewell on the hangar deck, something between him and Laura, so I was hoping for that to be included in the deleted scenes, but we just got Moore talking about it in the commentary – it dealt with the fact she hasn’t forgiven him for the stuff at Baltar’s trial, and Moore wanted the mood of the scene to be entirely celebratory, but it would have been dishonest for Laura to just be patting him on the back like everyone else, so they just skipped over any interaction between the two of them. With Lee going to be on the Quorum, I hope we’ll see that dynamic explored somewhere down the line, because how far their relationship has fallen since the Captain Apollo days is very interesting - and sad - to me.

Baltar’s changing reaction to his acolytes and their lair was hilarious – from having no desire to be king of the fools, preferring being hated by everyone to being loved by that lot, to embracing his cult leader role as the latest extension of his child of god fantasy (with a stop off at once again asking someone to kill him and put him out of his misery, and it not happening). Other than the amusement, though, thus far I could do without that storyline, including another version of himself in his head and his thing with Tory, but we’ll see where it goes.

Oh, and commentary revealed what that ship I asked about last season, the one with spokes and a ring that turns, is simply called the Big Ring ship by Moore, so I guess it does't have a real name. He always wanted to set a story inside it, so we could see what it's like to be in that spinning ring, but they could never afford it, so then every time he saw it in establishing shots he wanted to blow it up. But when they did the battle sequence in the season premiere and it got hit, he decided it should just be damaged, not destroyed; he couldn't let it go in the end.

Edited February 6, 2018 by Bastet

John Potts · February 4, 2018

On ‎29‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 6:38 PM, Bastet said:

The commentaries have been a bit frightening in how much of the second half of this season was decided or altered at the last minute; I appreciate leaving room for things to evolve differently than how you'd originally seen them, but a showrunner not having a road map for the major plot points generally does not end well. Between that and the "off the rails" in the thread title for season four, I'm nervous.

Yeah, it always worries me when I hear TPTB proudly declaring that "We don't have a plan!*" I mean, it's fine when you're watching stand up, but if you're watching a supposedly cohesive years long story, you can get wild character and/or plot swings (like, say, The Woman King or Black Market) that seem not to fit with everything else. As for Off the Rails... well, no Spoilers here, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

* So they've been lying THE WHOLE TIME!

Bastet · February 6, 2018

I liked the first two episodes, but now I hope I'm just in a lull, because if the rest of the season is like The Ties That Bind through The Road Less Traveled, I'm going to want to just fast-forward through all but the Laura and Bill scenes.

The Ties That Bind was one where Moore said in the commentary it didn't come together right, but he was pleased with the next two, and I wasn't. I did start getting interested with the mutiny on Demetrius as The Road Less Traveled ended, so hopefully when I get to Faith things will pick up (it's on the next disc, and I was too lazy to get up, even though that meant leaving off on a "to be continued," something that would have been unheard of previously).

Everyone is just falling apart at the seams, and after four years of living like this it's no wonder, but for some reason I'm not invested in that as I have been previous emotions; almost overnight, I'm either annoyed by or - worse - uninterested in so many characters I'd previously been engaged with. Lee is bugging me despite being right, Kara is just frustrating me when I should be highly intrigued by what's real and what's not about her visions/destiny, Tory practically disgusts me, and I don't care anywhere near as much I should - and want to - about Tigh or Tyrol as they struggle through their identity crises. (I learned via video blogs that both those actors were upset their characters were made cylons and thought it was a mistake, but ultimately decided to trust Moore and the writers based on three seasons of history, so maybe their discomfort in the early days is coming through to me in these episodes?)

Baltar's cult led to a truly hilarious description of his harem by Laura, and I'm mildly interested in the "freedom of assembly applies to everyone except those we don't want to assemble?" struggle, but otherwise I don't care about this damn holy war. It was funny to hear Moore say the Manson acolytes were one of the groups they based the followers on, when that's who so many of them had been reminding me of.

Zarek remains a layered villain, like when he's manipulating Lee to use against Laura yet seems genuine when he dismisses the idea of her as a "benevolent tyrant," since a tyrant seeks power for its own sake and Laura seeks it to save them all, but they're not fully developing the quorum stuff, so that I find myself backing Laura even when she's wrong.

Caprica Six morphing into Ellen and back and forth was creepy good, but the overall thing between her and Tigh got old fast. Tigh in these three episodes is probably the storyline where I am most left thinking, "I should be into this, but I'm just not."

The Laura and Bill show remains worth the price of admission, though. Him reading to her as she lies there trying not to puke during doloxan treatments? Hell, I could watch an hour of that. Especially since once she's back on her feet, she's right back to giving him what-for when he deserves it. The balance between personal and professional is interesting. Including the way they talk about Lee. It's such a refreshingly mature relationship.

And, as I said, after disliking the Demetrius scenes (and I do hope Adama calling it "a sewage processing ship" instead of "the sewage processing ship" when he gave it to Kara indeed means the fleet has others, because they've been gone two months now), I started getting into it as the mutiny began. Starbuck's friendship with Helo has long been when I've liked him best, and their history made it interesting for him to be the one to rise up against her after he'd spent the whole mission admonishing everyone else to shut up and fall in line, but I think I'd have liked even more the original plan. He wasn't written to be part of that mission, so Gaeta was the XO. And I like Gaeta better, but that's not what appeals to me -- it's that Athena was the one who called for defying the order, and the crew sided with her. After all this time of being the cylon outsider, people trusted her more, because at least she's been consistently loyal and they don't know what the hell Starbuck is now and she's acting crazy. That sounded even more interesting.

(The reason everything was re-written to put him over there is that the network notes on the first scripts complained that Helo wasn't being adequately used. The hell? All the times Laura gets shortchanged, and they're worried about Helo? Sounds like a total demo/genre thing to me.)

Fingers crossed for the continuation, because I'm cranky.

Edited February 8, 2018 by Bastet

Sharpie66 · February 6, 2018

It has been a while since I’ve watched the series, but what I really liked about Baltar’s cult was the very gnostic message the writers put into the theology. I am a bit of a geek for early Christian history for all that I am an agnostic, so this pleased me immensely.

Bastet · February 8, 2018

After the run of three episodes I didn't much care for other than Laura's scenes, I thoroughly enjoyed Faith and Guess What's Coming to Dinner.

I feel like the basic storyline between Laura and Emily has been done on every single show in which a main character is battling a serious illness -- our character meets someone we've never seen before and never will again, who is very near death from the same disease; our character is afraid and/or angry about dying, but new character is at peace and optimistic about what it will be like -- but it was still well written, and incredibly acted. Laura's memories of her mom were especially touching, although I felt bad for Mary McDonnell, who lost her own mom to breast cancer, having to revisit that so explicitly. Per the commentary, MM was responsible for a lot of changes, and all for the better -- she's the reason it was just a straightforward conversation between those two women, rather than constantly inter-cut with metaphysical stuff, and she's the reason Laura went to talk to Bill at the end.

“I have good moments and bad.”
“And that was which?”

Ha - that was such a great moment of levity.

I liked the stuff on Demetrius and the cylon basestar, too. It seems incredibly wrong to me that there are seemingly no consequences to Sam shooting Gaeta, but, as Lee pointed out during Baltar's trial, all sorts of stuff has been forgiven. And I'm annoyed that it took that disaster for Starbuck to admit she was wrong and, duh, decide just to take a small crew to the basestar, but I'm over it because things were interesting once they got there.

That the cylons truly believe themselves to have been the good guys on New Caprica is kind of mind-boggling, but definitely interesting -- I like that these rebel cylons aren't suddenly perfect.

Athena piloting the base ship was a kick-ass final moment. And the final five knowing the way to Earth, and thus needing to unbox D’Anna so she can reveal who they are is an exciting story development.

I was jazzed for the next episode, and it didn't disappoint. That the rebel cylons will let the humans destroy the hub, thus making all cylons mortal, is a huge game-changer!

It’s fascinating how the lines are so blurred by this point; it has built up gradually over the series in a great way, but it's crazy noticeable now:

- There’s a Six, pleading the rebel cylons’ case – help us find the five, and they’ll help you get to Earth - to Laura and Adama, who are accompanied by Tory and Tigh, who are themselves cylons, but only they know that

- There’s a cylon standing next to the president, addressing the Quorum

- There’s a big ol’ basestar as part of the fleet now

- When Laura, Adama, Tigh, and Helo are discussing whether to help the rebels unbox D’Anna, it’s the secret cylon who advocates for just obliterating the hub and following Laura’s visions. She’s the one who says no, let’s discover the five and see if they can point the way to earth (but we’re keeping them until they do, not giving them over to the rebels). This, of course, would mean Saul and the other three will be revealed. (I love when Tyrol says if they unbox D’Anna, hey, at least they’ll find out who the fifth one is, and Tigh says all that will do is crowd the airlock.)

It's all so layered. I like the symmetry that as Laura, Adama, etc. are planning to double-cross the rebels, the rebels are having the same conversation about the humans.

Saul having no explanation for knowing to call weapons hold when the basestar jumped in – having just learned the five are among the fleet, is Bill at all suspicious or is the thought of Saul Tigh being a cylon so unfathomable to him that he accepts Saul’s non-answer? It seems to have played like the latter, but I'm curious.

The Laura and Lee dynamic being revisited is fantastic in this one, where previously I'd been frustrated by the anemic way it was being explored. They're starting to understand the position the other is in, and listen to each other. I am a bit nervous the writing is going to prop up Lee's new identity as a politician at Laura's expense, but for now I'm going with it.

I love Laura telling Kara she has to hand it to her – if she is a cylon, this road to earth/final five plan was the perfect one to come up with, too much possibility for even her to pass up. And then Laura asking her for help, after Kara tells her what the hybrid said about the dying leader and the opera house? That's a big moment.

Laura revealing she knows Tory is frakking Baltar is a glorious moment – “charter member of his nymph squad.” And later informing Baltar he'll be accompanying her to the basestar, because those shared visions he saw fit to inform the entire fleet she's having include him, was great, too. My favorite was once they were on the basestar, and getting ready to plug in the hybrid:

“Let God’s will be done.”
“Shut up.”

Athena waking up from one of her shared dreams to find Hera standing by the bed saying, “Bye bye” was creepy as all hell. Then finding all the drawings of Six? Holy crap. Let's see if they continue the "sure, go ahead and shoot with impunity" cycle, or if Athena winds up in the brig for killing Natalie. (Yeah, she's a cylon, but she's supposed to be an ally, and killing her based only on a dream and, in so doing, jeopardizing this fragile alliance?)

Gaeta singing as the soundtrack for the basestar jumping away with the president on it was a great ending. If it hadn't been so late, I'd have kept going.

People are dropping like flies this season – it seems like every episode, someone dies. At this rate, when they find Earth there will just be a handful of people to inhabit it.

Edited February 8, 2018 by Bastet

Sharpie66 · February 8, 2018

Oh, Gaeta’s singing!! A punch to the heart. AJ has a gorgeous voice.

Bastet · February 8, 2018

9 minutes ago, Sharpie66 said:

Oh, Gaeta’s singing!! A punch to the heart. AJ has a gorgeous voice.

And, per the commentary, that little story - that he sings as a way to cope when he feels his phantom limb twinges - was written specifically to give AJ a chance to sing; someone had heard him singing, and then mentioned to Moore, "Hey, did you know he has a great voice?" and an idea was born.

It was such a great thread throughout the episode, like when Lee tracks down Laura in sick bay and glances over at Gaeta singing and she says it's a hell of a way to discover a great voice, and then for it to provide the soundtrack for the suspenseful ending - really nice idea.

Bastet · February 10, 2018

Wow. Yay, they finally found Earth! Oh, but look – it’s a nuked wasteland. That is so typical of this show. I knew the final stretch of the series couldn't just be about learning to co-exist on Earth with the cylons, so I knew some sort of twist was coming when they found it, but I didn't know what. That's a twist, alright.

Backing up, Sine Qua Non is a seriously weird episode. I mean, first of all, Lampkin is carrying a dead cat around, and by the time it’s all over Saul has knocked up Caprica Six (eww), the cylons’ resurrection hub is destroyed, Lee is president (is it me, or did they wait about five minutes after the basestar jumped to move Zarek into the presidency, and about five minutes after that to form a search committee for a new president?), Tigh is in charge (I love “you can’t be crazy enough to leave me in charge”), and Adama has relinquished command to float in a raptor because he can’t live without Laura.

It’s such a nice thread of consistency for Adama to temporarily lose his mind, and unnecessarily risk Galactica, and the fleet at large, though – for all the ways in which he’s a typical military leader, he has also always lost sight of his duties when someone he loves is at stake – Kara, Lee, and now Laura. This one is particularly interesting, since she’s the one who normally calls him on it.

Random thought: Adama in the flight suit made me laugh, thinking of the deleted scene from when Starbuck came back; after finding out her viper was magically restored to pristine condition, Adama wanted to fly it to check it out, and told Tyrol, “I don’t care if you have to sew two flight suits together.”

The Hub is incredible, though – by far my favorite episode of the season thus far. I didn’t like Jane Espenson’s last episode, but she’s back to form with this one. It’s great to see Elosha again, and “If you’re my subconscious, I’ve got to say, you’re a little full of myself” is fabulous.

Laura and Baltar’s squabbling antics trying to communicate with the hybrid are hilarious. As is “That morpha worked fast” when he tells her she’s very pretty. And, holy crap, when he confesses his role in the initial cylon attack, going on about being forgiven by God, and she’s just shaking with the shock and rage of it all, then very calmly removes the bandage to let him bleed out?! And then changes her mind following Elosha's admonition during that incredible vision of Bill at her death, does what she can to save him, and just curls up on the next bench. That was all fantastic.

I like that D’Anna comes back as nasty as ever, rather than being softened by her experience (per the commentary, that was Lucy Lawless’s requirement for reprising the role). I like when she kills Cavil upon finding out death will be permanent, and I love when she fraks with Laura, telling her she’s one of the final five.

I love Baltar talking to the centurion about hierarchy and slavery. And Laura telling Helo, in explaining they can’t afford to be sentimental, “You’re not married to the entire production line.”

They did a nice job of including bits that explain things we saw in Sine Qua Non – how the book wound up in the raptor, how dead Pike’s raptor showed up, why a basestar was found among the hub ruins, etc.

Bill’s “About time” when Laura tells him she loves him is great. Their relationship is beautiful, and they've both pulled back from it at times; I can see saying "I love you" being the final vulnerability that she wasn't yet ready for, while he'd already said it.

Revelations is exciting, and has a whopper of an ending, but there's one thing about it that bothers me: Laura is sidelined as a hostage on the basestar while Lee and Baltar save the day dealing with D’Anna. And Bill is the one who tells the people of the fleet they’ve arrived at Earth, when that should be the president, not the admiral. She’s the one strategizing as the episode opens, she’s the one who says to blow the basestar to hell if that’s what it takes, and she’s the one who snaps Bill out of his funk, so she has great quiet little moments and I appreciate those as part of her strength and leadership, but the big, heroic speeches all go to the men in this one and it’s vexing.

Adama just falling apart upon finding out about Tigh is incredible. I love how he’s initially in denial, saying cylons don’t age, then saying they did something to Saul on New Caprica to make him think he’s a cylon and they should go see Cottle, before he finally has to accept it’s true. And then he’s just down for the count – can’t get off the floor, can’t be the one to airlock Saul, can’t even care about getting to Earth until Laura snaps him out of it.

Tyrol’s reaction when he and Sam are taken into custody is great, that little chuckle. He’s been waiting for this shoe to drop for so long, he’s almost relieved it has.

Oh, the heartbreak of the ending. The hope of Earth is what has kept these people going all these years, so now what? The despondency and in-fighting that has been a recurring problem is going to be amped up by a hundred. I predict Laura's reaction to this will make Adama's reaction to finding out Tigh is a cylon look calm by comparison; she felt her death was going to be worthwhile, because she'd have led humanity to its rightful home, she believed and she got others to believe, and now they can't live there and have no idea where to go. Getting up off the mat after that is not going to be easy.

John Potts · February 11, 2018

On ‎06‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 9:48 PM, Bastet said:

I do hope Adama calling it "a sewage processing ship" instead of "the sewage processing ship" when he gave it to Kara indeed means the fleet has others, because they've been gone two months now

The twelve year old in me couldn't help giggling at the thought of thousands of backed up toilets across the fleet!

But the only episodes I actually liked in S4 were the 2 parter, The Oath and Blood on the Tiles, which did seem to fit with the rest of the series.

Bastet · February 11, 2018

Sometimes a Great Notion is a relentlessly bleak episode that left me emotionally exhausted. It’s terrific, one of the best of the season, but it’s brutal to watch. This final stretch is going to be a doozy; it’s like a race to see if they can find someplace to live before everyone just falls apart and kills themselves and each other.

The scene on the hangar deck when the raptor returns from Earth is very well done. The looks of expectation on everyone’s face, and then Laura – who has weathered everything being thrust into the presidency required of her and, especially, who can always come up with something to say – cannot speak a word, and their expressions all change.

Laura curled up on the floor is heartbreaking, but just what I expected – and that’s before I found out the thirteenth tribe were cylons. Skipping her treatment? Burning the book of Pythian prophecies and telling Bill he never should have listened to her, no one should have listened to her, because they followed her and now they’re dead? I just want to hug her, but she wouldn’t want me touching her any more than she does Bill.

And poor Bill, because Laura is completely shut down and Tigh is a cylon; he’s going through this alone. The scene between Adama and Tigh is so ugly it’s uncomfortable to watch at times (I actually find it overdone in sections). I like that it ultimately helps, and Adama addresses the fleet, but also that it’s not his best speech – he’s trying, but that’s as good as it gets, and there’s no “so say we all” in response; people are still shell-shocked.

As soon as Dee voiced the “Previously, on Battlestar Galactica,” which she’d never done before, and was featured in the recap, I figured she was a goner since they’ve been killing people off right and left this season. But then as the episode progressed, I briefly thought, no, maybe this is all just about her and Lee reconnecting. But as she stood there at the mirror, it suddenly came to me that she was going to kill herself, wanting her last hours to be ones in which she felt really good.

Kara finding her body and building her own funeral pyre is a pretty incredible thing to behold. So what is she? Because if Ellen is the final cylon (the frak?!), not Kara, Kara being resurrected isn’t because of cylon technology. But if she’s not cylon OR human, then what is she? Her asking Leoben precisely that, “What am I?” was chilling, and I’m curious to see how that winds up being explained.

A Disquiet Follows My Soul was another good one, especially Laura’s story. Watching her decide to stop taking her meds was bittersweet, but moving. I like that she has her wig on and is in the middle of getting dressed in professional clothes; she was going to get back in the game, and then decided “frak it.” Which isn’t fair to Lee, no, but I love her finally being selfish after four years of sacrificing nearly everything. Her conversation with Bill about having earned the right to live a little before she dies (“I’ve played my role in this farce – the dying leader will guide the people to blah blah frakking blah. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and now what? Is there another role I have to play for the rest of my life?”) was so powerful. I love them curled up together at the end, not caring about the tyllium ship. I laughed at the commentary, because Moore said the actors think they’ve been sleeping together off and on since New Caprica (which is what I assumed), but when he wrote it, he was picturing it as their first time – his wife was with him for that podcast, and when he shared his interpretation, she basically laughed at him and asked, “Really?”

That ending put me in a good mood that was a nice palate cleanser after the heavy, depressed mood I was in after Notion, so I decided to stop there for the night and digest things.

Alliance with the cylons seems like the best option at this point, but I’m glad there’s a lot of resistance to that; it would be ridiculous if the fleet just readily accepted that and moved on. I love how messy it is, from little things like Tyrol getting all tangled up with the pronouns to big things like Gaeta saying he almost got thrown out an airlock for collaborating with the enemy in a time of war, and now collaborating with that enemy is supposed to be official policy? When Adama sent Athena to arrest Zarek, I thought Gaeta was going to secretly call and warn him, so I wasn’t surprised to see him in Zarek’s cell later, but I was yelling at the TV, “No, Gaeta, don’t do it!” Teaming up with Zarek cannot possibly end well, and I like Gaeta.

I love Adama bluffing with a folder full of laundry reports to get Zarek to turn over the location of the tyllium ship.

Ishay’s reaction when Caprica Six talked about being pregnant with the first cylon baby made me think she was going to do something to make her miscarry.

The reveal that Nicky is actually Hot Dog’s kid, not Tyrol’s, was a big ball of soap opera style WTFuckery to get them out of the corner they wrote themselves into by making Tyrol a cylon when Hera was supposed to be the only human/cylon child. I do like finding out Cottle is finding ways around the abortion ban, though.

I don’t understand how cylons existed 2000 years ago and no one knew about them, or where the final five have been in the interim, where Ellen is/went when she died, but I’m along for the ride. But I'm almost watching through my fingers, wondering how it's going to end.

John Potts · February 12, 2018

21 hours ago, Bastet said:

I don’t understand how cylons existed 2000 years ago and no one knew about them, or where the final five have been in the interim, where Ellen is/went when she died, but I’m along for the ride. But I'm almost watching through my fingers, wondering how it's going to end.

The only way I can make sense of it is that they jump back in time at some point (I have a point in mind, but I don't think you've got there yet) and land on ancient Earth, inspiring the legends of Zeus, Apollo et al. Eventually, the spread out to the stars, settle Kobol and its twelve colonies and the cycle repeats. All this has happened before and will happen again. It would also give an explanation for the cylon "God" - it's a survivor of the last cycle and so knows what will happen because it saw it last time. It kinda works (though presupposes a VERY deterministic Universe rather than a chaotic one), though it's not a very satisfying one (as it means humanity will never learn from its mistakes).

Bastet · February 12, 2018

The two mutiny episodes were gripping. Gaeta and Zarek being executed is certainly another entry in the "wow" ending contest.

Part of me wondered how they got that many people to go along with the mutiny, but then I thought about four years spent running for your lives because the cylons nuked your entire universe and continue to hunt you down through space, making all kinds of sacrifices along the way, with your leaders telling you "I know it's hard, but in the end we'll get to Earth and have the home we're meant to have," only to get to Earth and find it annihilated and then have those leaders tell you the solution is cooperating with the cylons, to the point of letting them control the technology of every vessel in the fleet, and that question went away.

Tigh’s reaction to Laura and Bill being completely open and nonchalant about their relationship all of a sudden, and her reaction to his reaction, is everything. (And I like that they're doing so, sticking with the "we've earned the right to live a little before we die" mantra.) That, along with Laura and Bill mocking their own domesticity with him going off to work and her not, and Laura not being able to stop giving political advice, provided a nice bit of humor before we headed down the mutiny path.

And what a path that was. I loved watching Tigh and Adama get the best of the marines escorting them to the brig, Starbuck (who finally feels like herself again) and Apollo working together again (complete with bickering over Lee's grenade fake-out), and Laura instantly snapping back into presidential mode when faced with the magnitude of the crisis. It's not quite as instant in the original version of that scene; when Lee tells her she needs to address the fleet, they'll listen to her, she says she's not sure she has anything to offer them anymore, Kara tells her "You followed prophecies. I followed visions. We were both wrong," and Laura says, "Yes, we were." Kara says she doesn't know what she can do anyway with the wireless down, and that's when Laura says she'll do whatever it takes, and has an idea about the wireless (heading for Baltar's lair).

I also like that Lee is all in for the Adama/Roslin side of this attempt, but says Zarek is right. And Baltar trying to use his complex history with Gaeta to get him to do the right thing, and their final interaction (little architect Felix designing restaurants shaped like food!). The Laura/Baltar interaction is great as always, as is Lee and Kara's reaction to Bill and Laura's "don't worry about me" kiss good-bye at the raptor -- they look like siblings watching Mom and Dad.

Laura convincing the rebel cylons to move into the middle of the fleet and give Adama time to regain the ship, and then convincing them to stay there, provided great moments on the basestar. The cylons want to be considered citizens, part of the fleet, so her "No one believed we’d survive any the 50,000 crises we’ve faced, but we’ve made a veritable habit out of defying the odds. He will take command of the fleet again and he’ll know who stuck with him and who ran; who do you want to be?" is the perfect way to sway them.

Bringing in Lampkin for Adama’s “trial” also made for good scenes, and I liked all the time we spent watching Tyrol crawling through the ship, without knowing until the end that he was heading for the FTL to disable it.

The Quorum finally drawing a line with Zarek, and him having them executed? Wow.

When Laura is giving her speech to the cylons, I love the way her voice cracks when she insists Adama is alive. And then, look out, when Zarek tells her that Adama was executed -- her “I’m coming for all of you!” threat is my new favorite thing. “I will use every canon, every bomb, every bullet, every weapon I have down to my own eye teeth to end you.” She'd take out the whole ship rather than let them get away with this. Damn that's good.

So, a triumphant ending, with Adama and crew storming back into CIC just in time, but this eruption of the divisions and other tensions that have always been there and only get worse with each new catastrophe isn't going to just flame out. And Tyrol noticing that tear in Galactica – now the ship has joined its inhabitants in coming apart at the seams? What the hell else can these people be put through? I know, I shouldn't ask.

@John Potts, that's an interesting theory on one of my as-yet-unanswered questions, and I'm going to come back to it once I've reached the end and seen how the show did - or did not - answer them.

Part of me is anxious to get to the end, and part of me is sad it's almost over and wants to take my time getting there. We'll see which part wins.

Sharpie66 · February 12, 2018

Ah, Felix Gaeta. I have stated in previous posts how much I like him, and now that you have seen his full story, I can tell why. IMO, he might have one of the most interesting character arcs in tv history, at least in the shows I have seen. They utterly broke him, to the point where I understood why he threw in with Zarek. Felix’s path got so murky, especially once he got involved with Gaius, and he became more and more fascinating to me. His storyline throughout S4 is one of the many reasons I really like this season, which is an unpopular opinion in fandom, I guess.

Bastet · February 13, 2018

On 2/12/2018 at 2:05 PM, Sharpie66 said:

They utterly broke him, to the point where I understood why he threw in with Zarek. Felix’s path got so murky, especially once he got involved with Gaius, and he became more and more fascinating to me.

Yeah, even as I was yelling, "No, Felix, don't do it!" at the screen, I understood why he was doing it. They set that up really well. This show has always been good at that - blurring the lines between right and wrong, and giving depth and context to the "bad" side of a situation. Hell, if they can do it with the cylons, they better do it with Gaeta, and they did. Because if you'd told me in, say, season two, Oh, as the series draws to a close, Gaeta teams up with Tom Zarek to stage a mutiny and tries to execute Adama, I'd have started screaming character assassination. But, as it played out, it wasn't.

Just one episode last night, as I had to watch the damn thing twice and listen to the commentary to feel secure I caught everything; watching No Exit is like having the cylon mythology projectile vomited at me.

I didn’t see any glaring contradictions*, retroactive inconsistencies created by these revelations, but it just feels like the Boomer Eight having found much of this out a year ago must create some, or at least make her actions/statements in the scenes when the cylons are debating what to do about D’Anna not play right, but I’ll find out when I re-watch. Even though I just watched it recently, I can’t remember where Boomer was when the resurrection hub was destroyed (she disappeared at some point), to see if her actions in those episodes are consistent with what this episode tells us she knew then.

*Initially, I thought there was a huge one: Saul was in the first cylon war, but Sam says Cavil started introducing the final five into the world with Saul, “right after the war.” (And indeed it would have to be after the war, because Cavil and the other skinjobs were created in exchange for the centurions ending the war.) But then I realized Tigh’s memories of the war were just part of the false identity Cavil gave him. Tigh and Adama didn’t meet until after the war, so that works.

Cavil knowing, at the time he was banging Ellen on New Caprica, that the real her a) thought of him as her child and b) had named him after and created him in the image of her father, is fucking sick, but I wouldn’t call it a retroactive inconsistency, because Cavil is just fucking sick in general.

Okay, if I have this straight: Back in the day, the humans on Kobol created cylons, so there were thirteen tribes – twelve of humans and one of cylons. Three thousand years ago, everyone went their separate ways; the twelve human tribes stuck together, but on twelve different planets (Caprica, Gemenon, Aerilon, etc.), and the cylon tribe went to Earth (they stopped and prayed in that temple on the algae planet for guidance, and their god showed them the way). Living on Earth, they started to procreate, so downloading/resurrection fell out of use, but the ones we now know as the final five – who worked together at a research facility – dedicated themselves to rebuilding it and Ellen came up with some big idea that brought the system back online. When the nukes hit, the five downloaded and resurrected on a ship that they placed in orbit around the planet. (I guess that’s why, even though there were other cylons living on Earth – it wasn’t just the centurions and the five [who didn’t come in copies] – only the five remained after the planet was destroyed [which is something I’d been wondering about ever since the “the thirteenth tribe were cylons” revelation], because they were the only ones who had the resurrection technology.)

Knowing the twelve other tribes would continue to create artificial life, the resurrected five headed for the 12 colonies to warn them not to treat those machines like slaves or they’d rebel and kill them, but they didn’t have jump technology, so it took them nearly 2000 years to get there; by the time they did, 40-some years ago, it was too late, the cylon war had already started – it had happened again. The centurions’ experiments in making flesh bodies had resulted in the hybrids, like we saw in Adama’s flashback to the last day of the war, but nothing that lived on its own. So the final five made the centurions a deal – in exchange for stopping the war, they developed the eight skinjob models and gave them the resurrection technology. They thought they were doing the right thing in developing more cylons, despite what had happened before, because Ellen said the centurions having a single, loving god changed everything (can I take a moment to say how ever-loving sick I am of this theme?) – if the cylons embraced love and mercy, the cycle of violence would end.

They made Cavil first, and he was treasured by the five, and helped them make the others. But he got jealous that the Seven, Daniel, was Ellen's favorite, and permanently destroyed it before it really ever got going. And, lo and behold, he rejected the whole love and mercy thing altogether – he wanted justice for his centurion ancestors having been enslaved – and turned on the five, suffocating them to death. When they downloaded, he blocked their access to their memories and implanted them with false ones. They were boxed for a while, and then he started introducing them among the humans; he wanted them tortured/tormented, not killed, so that when they did download, the suffering they’d endured with the humans would cause them to say they were wrong and give him the stamp of approval he’d always wanted.

When Saul killed Ellen on New Caprica, she downloaded to the basestar controlled by Cavil (and where Boomer wound up). When the joint operation between the rebel cylons and the humans blew up the resurrection hub, Cavil went to Ellen and asked for her help – the resurrection equipment still exists (on “the colony,” which must be somewhere other than Earth, because it would have been destroyed?), so he wants her to get it up and running again. But she said she only knows part of the system, it would take all five to rebuild resurrection capabilities. So he planned to have the Simons open up her brain so he can mess around in its circuitry and get the information out of her that way. But, at the last minute, Boomer took her out of there in a raptor and jumped away – presumably towards Galactica. I can’t wait to see what she thinks of the fact Saul is now shacked up with a Six he impregnated.

The last thing Sam is able to say is that the “miracle,” a “gift from the angels” is starting to happen and tells Tigh to stay with the fleet. I wonder if that’s the Tigh/Six baby, the first time since the Earth Cylons that cylons have been able to reproduce.

Whew. That was A LOT of information to throw at viewers in one episode. I’m all for being challenged by this show, but come on.

At least now I know why the number seven was seemingly skipped, because that was bugging me. And all that “here’s the story” exposition does create some nice food for thought. As Tory, Tigh, and Tyrol hashed out, on one hand, the destruction of the colonies is on the final five – they made the skinjobs (and did so despite knowing what had happened before). But doing so stopped the first cylon war, buying the humans those 40 years of peace. And the humans on Kobol made the five in the first place. But, like Tigh said, you go back far enough and two bacteria take the blame – the responsibility has to be shared.

And Kara authorizing the surgery against Sam’s wishes (she shouldn’t have been allowed to; despite his “word salad,” his mental function was such that he was well capable of informed consent) in order to get the bullet out and repair the bleed before he strokes out and dies, but then delaying it just long enough for her to find out if she was the Seven (“I need to be something”) was all interesting character study, for her identity crisis and for their relationship.

My favorite part was Cavil’s rant about how making him this humanoid version of a cylon limits him; he’s a machine, and if he’d been allowed to have all the capabilities of a machine rather than just the human senses and spoken language, he could be properly experiencing x-rays, supernovas, gamma rays, dark matter, etc. Ellen’s response is that he’s better off with free will and the capacity for human emotion, and he should learn to accept himself as he is rather than fixating on not being the machine he wants to be. Cavil is a petty sadist, but he’s also quite interesting to ponder.

The humans' lot in life continued to get more and more depressing in this one -- Laura has to groom Lee to take over, because she’s dying, and Adama has to allow his ship to essentially become cylon because it’s doing the ship equivalent of dying – ouch.

There was one nice moment of levity when Laura told Lee his only problem is his fixation on doing the right thing sometimes prevents him from doing the smart thing, and he says he’ll get smarter – and wronger. (I wish they’d kept in the end of that scene, in which she says he should start shadowing her on presidential duties, but she’s not stepping aside just yet; he takes it to mean she thinks he isn’t ready and she says, “No, you’re ready. But I’m not.”)

And I loved everyone’s reactions to Sam revealing Tyrol and Tory used to live together. I wonder if anyone is ever going to find out she killed Cally. I know from the commentary during her funeral episode that they ditched a whole story about Tyrol investigating her death, but I wonder if it's ever revisited, especially now that Tyrol and Tory apparently have this many-lives-long connection. So, okay, maybe Tory wasn't just being a total skank when she was coming onto Tyrol, she was just responding to the vibe her newly-awakened identity was giving her about them, but macking on a married man and tossing his wife out an airlock are two different things.

katie9918 · February 14, 2018

I still hate that they couldn’t stop with giving Cally a horrible death, they just had to trash her after she was already dead because they decided on a whim that Tyrol was a Cylon and couldn’t think of another way to extricate themselves from the corner they’d put themselves into.

I think Dee’s suicide and the posthumous trashing of Cally was when I started watching simply because I’d watched from the beginning and wanted to see the whole damn thing through.

I’m glad I did, only for Bill and Laura, but I felt incredibly unsettled during the lead-up to the mutiny and during the mutiny itself when I realized that I believed that Zarek and Gaeta were in the right and that those in the wrong actually won. I mean, I was rooting for Bill to take back his ship, but the only real satisfaction I got out of it was that Tigh’s side won, because Tigh was the only character I still really liked by that time. And I started out liking watching what a hot mess he was, only to end up thinking he was the most together character by the end.

Bastet · February 14, 2018

On 2/13/2018 at 6:16 PM, katie9918 said:

I still hate that they couldn’t stop with giving Cally a horrible death, they just had to trash her after she was already dead because they decided on a whim that Tyrol was a Cylon and couldn’t think of another way to extricate themselves from the corner they’d put themselves into.

Cally was the weakest character for me, and I always thought their relationship was odd -- Hey, you just broke my jaw, wanna get married and have a kid? Cool -- so I kind of liked when Tyrol said they all just got stuck with the best of their available options, but I also kind of thought that and the paternity revelation were rather callously shitting on her grave (you know, if she had one).

I watched the next three episodes last night, so have only the three-part finale left to go. I’m not ready for it to end!

I thought all three suffered from Ron Moore being too tied up writing the finale to have his usual oversight/involvement with the scripts; they build on each other to introduce (and, in several cases, reintroduce) the stories that will presumably be dealt with in the end, but as individual episodes they’re all a little clunkier than normal -- it's like I can see the foundation being obviously and awkwardly plopped down in my face, rather than just watching episodes that flow naturally and when I watch the finale I'll look back and realize how much was set up.

Deadlock:

So, as soon as Ellen returns, Tyrol and Tory want to ditch this whole alliance thing and jump away to form a pure cylon colony somewhere. Typical Tory, but I was surprised Tyrol voted that way immediately.

Ellen’s accusations aside, I think the fact she couldn’t get pregnant and Caprica could disproves the “all you need is love” theory the Sixes love to tout – whether Saul loves Caprica is debatable (I think certainly not when she got pregnant, as he was seeing Ellen when he frakked her), but he unequivocally loves Ellen. As much as Ellen bugs me, I find the Saul/Caprica relationship rather icky, and hope Ellen being back and the fetus being miscarried means it will end.

I laughed out loud – something not happening much in season 4.5! – when Baltar was fumbling with his gun. Boy, Baltar’s cult as a militia in charge of civilian security. Better than the centurions, but talk about the lesser of two evils.

Someone to Watch Over Me:

Damn, Boomer is cold. Athena being gagged and half-conscious while Boomer bangs an unsuspecting Helo was a brutal scene, and then as soon as Boomer gave Hera a bottle and told her to drink up, I knew she was drugging her, so when Boomer and Tyrol were lugging that box, I let out a really dark laugh – the kid is in the box. Of course she is; this is Battlestar Galactica. Tyrol’s reaction when he realizes Boomer played him is wonderful.

I figured out early on the piano player was Kara’s dad. I thought that plot meandered a bit at times, but Katee Sackhoff’s performance made it watchable.

Islanded in a Stream of Stars:

I wouldn’t have thought I’d cry over a ship, but when Tigh and Adama toasted to Galactica after finally accepting they need to abandon ship, I immediately teared up. Watching the ship deteriorate has been hard; I didn’t realize until now that it’s a character in its own right. I can’t wait to see how they “send her off in style.” Watching Laura deteriorate has been even harder; I appreciate all the little touches they’ve employed to show how she's growing weaker (the increasing shakiness, the breathlessness of her voice, that she’s always sitting, that she's cold when no one else is, etc.), and I knew what I was getting into when I decided to watch, but I went ahead and got thoroughly attached anyway. Poor Bill; like she said, he’s losing both his women at once.

And I love - especially contrasted with how the returned Ellen is still seething with jealousy over Tigh’s attachment to Bill and Galactica – that Laura is not at all bothered that he loves the ship as much as he loves her (in fact, though he says otherwise, she thinks he maybe even loves it more than her, and she’s fine with that). She’s been trying for several episodes to get him to accept he’s going to lose the ship, with no more success than she’s had getting him to admit she’s dying, and I like that her telling him she’s never felt more at home than on Galactica with him these past months is one of the things that finally forces him to take the blinders off. And I love the call back to Unfinished Business, with them toking on the joint she saved and reminiscing. Laura’s quiet acceptance that she’s never going to get that cabin by a stream makes my heart clench.

Kara and Baltar talking while he’s shaving and she’s sitting on the toilet is oddly great. I guess it makes sense for him to be the one she tells about being dead, since she’s just rather over everything and wants him, the scientist, to figure out what she is, but Cottle could do a DNA test – and wouldn’t announce the results to the masses.

It’s a nice moment between her and Lee afterward, though, and then putting her picture back up on the memorial wall.

Ugh; I'm not ready to say good-bye to Laura, or the show, yet I'm simultaneously ready to explode with anticipation of seeing how it wraps up (or doesn't). I hope something good happens to at least someone in the end, because, jeez, this has been quite an onslaught of blows.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Bastet

Bastet · February 15, 2018

So, if Lee Adama hadn't decided 150,000 years ago that we should abandon all our technology, we earthlings (who are all part cylon) would be that much further along in our advancement? Gotcha.

I sat up in bed when it was modern day and Head Six and Head Baltar - who are apparently some sort of guardian angels through time - were reading over Ron Moore's shoulder about Mitochondrial Eve, AKA Hera. And then the dancing robots, as All Along the Watchtower played in its current form? I laughed out loud, in a combination of delight and WTF. All of this has happened before. Will it happen again?

That was kind of great. Weird as fuck, but kind of great. I mean, it seems a rather stupid thing to do, giving up everything -- what of humanity if Hera had been eaten by wildebeests or died of pneumonia -- and I could do without "God did it" as an ending, but it made for an interesting story.

I watched the extended version, basically a movie made for the DVD, so I'll have to go back and watch the three episodes to see how it aired. I'll comment on the specifics then, because right now my mind is still blown and I need to get to work. That was not what I was expecting (although, quite honestly, I had no idea what to expect), and I'm not entirely sure what I think yet, but it was certainly memorable.

Sharpie66 · February 15, 2018

There is a lot I love about that finale, including the flashbacks, the kickass action, Tyrol losing it when he finds out just how Cally died. Also, a lot that made me tear up a bit (Gaius knowing about farming) or a lot (Laura! Bill! The cabin!). And then there was the WTF-ery of the ending. It was a nice follow-up to Caprica and Gaius realizing that they could both see the head versions of themselves, and I like the idea that Hera was Mitochondrial Eve, but ending the show on modern-day Times Square was definitely not something I ever predicted.

I really have got to pull out my dvds for a rewatch after the Olympics are over...

green · February 16, 2018

10 hours ago, Bastet said:

So, if Lee Adama hadn't decided 150,000 years ago that we should abandon all our technology, we earthlings (who are all part cylon) would be that much further along in our advancement? Gotcha. ...

Thanks for all your posts. I've been reading along and enjoying your experiences. Yyou are a really good writer.

As for the part of your post I quoted, yeah I had a long post or two about the ending somewhere in this thread and especially focusing on the Apollo's super duper turd of an idea at the end. So have others. Don't think anyone liked it at all. Moore was so into the trees and not looking at the forest anymore he is probably the only one on earth (this earth anyway, heh) that thought it was a cool idea.

Bastet · February 16, 2018

Having re-watched, I like the finale on the whole. I have some quibbles, but I’m pleased.

When I wondered how they were going to send Galactica off in style, I wasn’t expecting it being flown into the sun. That’s pretty great.

I love the flashbacks; I really like that before we find out how everyone wound up, we get our best look yet at who they were before the attacks. (It makes me want to re-watch the miniseries, meeting these characters for the first time again with this additional understanding of them, but I think I want to track down The Plan before I start over.)

I found all the flashbacks well done, and nice insights into the characters. Laura losing all that remained of her family in one fell swoop was tragic! It made the deep connection she formed with Bill all the more moving. It had always struck me how relatively lucky he was – he’d previously lost a son, which is huge, obviously, but unlike most he came through the cylon attack having retained those closest to him. Most people lost everyone or almost everyone, but he had his son, his “daughter,” and his best friend. That was always contrasted with Laura, who emerged from the attack with no one but Billy – who, then, was brand new to her; he only became like family to her post-holocaust – who wound up being killed. And now to know she’d already lost everyone years before the attack is profound. That she ultimately allowed herself to love Bill completely and openly, after a lifetime of losing everyone else she loved, is huge.

The real-time stuff was good, too. Laura using some of her last reserve of energy to walk onto that deck, slow and frail but determined, really got me, and I love Kara reaching over to support her after Bill steadies her in place. That whole sequence, ending with Laura and Kara clasping hands, was when I knew I was going to spend some time crying.

I love Laura’s good-bye with Cottle. “No, don’t ruin your image; just light a cigarette and go grumble.” I also like that he was among the first to volunteer for the mission, and Bill told him they couldn’t risk losing him; he stays, Ishay can go. Nice send-off for a character that has been a small but important part of the series.

The main action sequence of the mission to rescue Hera went on a bit long for me, because I have a low tolerance for the CGI action/adventure stuff. At first, I wasn’t sure why so many people signed up for a suicide mission (risking a future in which President Lampkin and Admiral Hoshi lead the fleet). The key characters, I all understand why they’re there, but given how many people just recently participated in mutiny over alliance with the cylons, it seemed like, even though more people lined up on the “nope” side, there are still too many people volunteering to likely die by way of fighting alongside centurions, providing cover for rescuing a little half cylon. But really looking at how many people volunteered versus how many didn’t, and thinking about how uncertain their future is anyway, it made sense to me.

Centurions vs centurions was a really cool image. As was seeing Tory get her neck snapped (that’s quite a way to answer my question as to whether it was ever going to be discovered that she’d killed Cally). And Athena killing Boomer was perfectly chilling.

I’m glad we finally saw what the Opera House stuff is about; I wasn’t expecting it to be the CIC, but that wound up working, especially for something they had no idea where it was going to go when they first wrote it. I did want to yell at Hera to just fucking stay put, though – that kid runs off all the time.

Starbuck finally realizing what the song means happened at the same time I did – when Adama told her to jump the ship and she said she didn’t know the rendezvous coordinates, I had an “A-ha!” moment that the purpose of the song was going to turn out to be showing them where they should live. Maybe I should have picked up on it when she said she thought turning the notes into numbers was the key, but I didn’t.

There’s a long time between finding the planet and the end of the show, and I really like that; it’s a proper good-bye to everyone. I like that finding Hera isn’t the end, reaching an agreement with Cavil isn’t the end, finding the planet isn’t the end – there are all these big developments, but the end is about the characters.

Adama flying the last viper off Galactica is great, and I’m glad they went that route rather than having him be the one to fly Galactica into the sun. If he’d done that, Laura would have gone with him, and it wouldn’t have been a bad ending (she’s going to die along the way, but she’ll be alone with him when she does, and he goes down with the ship), but I love her getting to see Earth, when the prophecies had said she wouldn’t. “So much life” is a great last line.

Of course, I cried when she dies and he puts his ring on her just like he’d done in her vision. I’d started tearing up when she and Bill were sitting on the ground talking about this new Earth, those tears fell when she waved goodbye to Lee and Kara, and when she died I was done for. Knowing it was going to happen helped, immensely, in being affected by it, processing it, and moving on, but damn, that hurt for a long moment. Laura was a terrific character, and I’m glad she found peace and happiness in the end, but – even though I don’t actually want this for the show, as it wouldn’t have been true to it – I can’t help but wish that in some alternate universe she was there, not under the pile of rocks, as Bill built the cabin she’d dreamed of.

I also, to my total surprise, teared up at Baltar saying he knows about farming, and even before he started crying. That was a great little moment.

Sam’s story is moving, too. Everyone’s is, really. Kara and Lee’s final conversation is beautiful, and I love that she disappears and he’s off to explore, rather than them walking off into the sunset together. We never get a concrete explanation for what she is, and after much deliberation I’ve decided I like it that way.

Overall, I like that it was a happy ending, but this show’s version of a happy ending. Yeah, I felt beaten upside the head by religion at the end, as I did many points along the way. But when current day Six natters on about God’s plan again, Baltar says, “You know it hates that name,” so that’s a nice out. And, yeah, while I really appreciate – given what an allegory for our times it always was – this turning out to have been not some alternate world in the future, but our world, far in the past, I don’t think the “abandon all technology rather than just learning our lesson in how to use it responsibly” is the best, most-logical, or maybe even a good way to get there.

But, in the grand scheme of things, I can deal with it in order to wind up where we did. I like the reveal that this is our history, and the question of what that means for our current – then, and holy hell, now – increasing reliance on technology, our in-fighting, our worst impulses, etc.

There were some weak episodes, but, on the whole, this series is wonderful, and I am so glad I finally watched it. It really does avoid almost everything I hate about sci-fi, so I was engrossed. It’s a great allegory and tackles a lot of issues in thought-provoking ways. The characters and relationships are really interesting – well written and even better performed. Ron Moore said numerous times in his commentaries, probably as early as season two, that the actors know the characters better than he does, so I think the fact he collaborated with them rather than just dictating to them is a significant factor in the show’s success.

I’m trying to think if anyone is just pure good or pure bad on this show, and not coming up with anyone. All the humans did bad things, and while not all cylons did good things, even Cavil (the worst of the lot) was developed enough that we understood why he did the terrible things he did. The co-existence of good and evil is one of the best things about the show.

The trajectory of Laura and Bill’s relationship is incredible; if told where they’d end up as I watched the miniseries, I’d have never believed it, yet as it played out, it’s perfect. Organic, perfectly paced, beautifully acted, and refreshing on a television landscape that doesn’t often show the development of romantic relationships, let alone sexual ones, between characters their age.

It could have been something like Tyrol said, just choosing the best of your limited options – who else could either of them realistically be with? They’re the two most-powerful people in the fleet, they can’t honorably sleep with anyone else. But they’re not just frakking it out, finding relief and release with the only person realistically available to them, they probably don’t start sleeping together until New Caprica, when she’s no longer president, and then there’s the constant push-pull of their responsibilities versus their feelings. They fall in love in the midst of, and even in spite of, not because of, their situation. Their relationship –from thorns in each other’s side to partnership, then friendship, then love – is my favorite part of the show. It's one of the greatest love stories I've ever seen.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Bastet

Sharpie66 · February 16, 2018

Yay—glad you liked the series, Bastet!!

I don’t know if you read the Mark Does Stuff website, but his unspoiled ep-by-ep BSG reviews are a delight to read. Laura/Bill were one of his first experiences with ‘shipping. Early on in the series when they’re bickering, he posted a funny crude cartoon of someone pushing a couple together and saying, “Now, kiss!”, which fit them so well.

Bastet · February 16, 2018

44 minutes ago, Sharpie66 said:

I don’t know if you read the Mark Does Stuff website, but his unspoiled ep-by-ep BSG reviews are a delight to read. Laura/Bill were one of his first experiences with ‘shipping. Early on in the series when they’re bickering, he posted a funny crude cartoon of someone pushing a couple together and saying, “Now, kiss!”, which fit them so well.

Well, I know what I'm doing next! I just went and tracked those down, randomly selected The Oath as my first sample of his reviews, and found these first words:

Quote

So, I’m watching Adama and Roslin be all cute with their coffee, even if it’s disgusting algae-ground coffee, and I’m thinking…this is pretty much perfect. Don’t you agree? Look how goddamn cute they are. LOOK AT IT. Look at Tigh being all awkward, and look how this moment of beauty is just everything I want from life.

AND THEN FELIX GAETA IS FREEING ZAREK FROM THE BRIG AND EVERYTHING AFTER THIS MOMENT IS A COMPLETE AND UTTER DISASTER. EVEN AFTER EARTH IS FOUND TO BE A WASTELAND, THESE PEOPLE CONTINUE TO DISCOVER NEW WAYS IN WHICH THEY SHOULD TEAR ONE ANOTHER APART. WE FINALLY GOT A HAPPY SCENE AND IT LAST MAYBE THE WHOLE OF FIVE MINUTES BEFORE IT IS RUINED. HOW AM I EXPECTED TO DEAL WITH ALL OF THIS? OH GOD, ROSLIN JUST MADE A JOKE ABOUT HAVING DINNER READY WHEN ADAMA GETS HOME. THIS IS GREAT. GAETA, THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE TAKING AWAY FROM ME. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS?

Later this:

Quote

oh. oh. Roslin’s speech to the fleet. HOLD ME CLOSE YOU TINY DANCERS. oh my god it is the best reminder that roslin has the perfect heart for being a president and she is rational and reasonable and she holds her emotions close and she proves that you can be emotional and a leader at the same fucking time PLEASE CONTINUE BEING THE PRESIDENT OF MY HEART.

And finally this:

Quote

OH MY GOD MOM AND DAD ARE KISSING AND IT IS SO AWKWARD. I am sorry, that is precisely what Lee and Starbuck are thinking. YOU KNOW THAT I AM RIGHT. I mean it is a beautiful kiss but you can see everyone go JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, WE’RE IN THE MIDST OF A MUTINY, CAN’T YOU MAKE OUT LATER. No, they can’t, because THIS IS PERFECT. DON’T YOU DARE OPPOSE MY OTP I WILL END YOU.

oh my god Adama and Roslin understand each other. She knows if she stays, he won’t do what is necessary because he’s too distracted by keeping her safe. HE AND TIGH STAY BEHIND TO MAKE SURE THE RAPTOR GETS AWAY. this is the greatest love story of the modern age IT POOPS ALL OVER SOMETHING SHAKESPEARE WROTE. OR SOMETHING. OKAY I am being ridiculous, I know that, BUT THIS IS MY FIRST SHIPPER EXPERIENCE EVER. Though lately I have been watching old episodes of The X-Files and during a particular episode in season two, I actually screamed “AND NOW KISS” and then I felt weird inside. WHAT HAS THIS SHOW DONE TO ME.

So, yeah - I will be reading every single one, because that is me. The next day, when I'm thinking (and posting here), I'm rational and reflective about the episode as a whole. But at night, lying in bed watching Laura, and Bill and Laura, that is the sort of thing that is going on in my head; she's now one of my all-time favorite characters, and I don't think I have ever loved a love story more. Romantic relationships are consistently my least-favorite part of shows, but this is one whopper of an exception.

Thank you for the recommendation.

Affogato · February 18, 2018

On 1/9/2018 at 2:15 AM, Bastet said:

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.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_wheel_space_station

The zephyr is mentioned in the article under examples in fiction

for some reason binged the first season and first seven eps of second season this week. Was there a rewatch? I’m sorry I missed it, if so. I think I watched the dvds as they came out. I’m going to rummage around and retrieve some thoughts.

Edited February 18, 2018 by Affogato

Beej · February 20, 2018

The one central question the series doesn't answer is why the cylons chose to try to exterminate humanity in the second war after having achieved freedom in their war of independence. Also, having wiped out billions, it was certainly within their ability to finish off one surviving battlestar, instead of toying with it like a cat with a mouse. If not for procreation (they still had resurrection), then either kill them or let them go.

On the other hand, why does humanity take life so easily, tolerate genocide, and contemplate extinction over loss in a potential nuclear war. I get all that. Just seems vexing we're never told the rationale. Clearly, they were searching for meaning in their existence, and for some of the models, humanity was a big piece in that... be it in exterminating us or living with us. Even if it were as simple as the hardline faction arguing that a child can't become an adult until its parents have died and winning out in a debate. I'd have taken that.

As far as the ending, I really can't argue too much. I'm fine with Kara being an angel. I might have cleaned that up a bit so her destiny was to lead her people "to their end" at one earth-like planet (not two) and have let the fleet find the irradiated earth via more secular or prophetic methods.

Overall, I like that some things are unexplainable. There is a god, and it's not us or the cylons.

Minutia with the habitation of Earth II... sure, I'd not have spelled out a zero technology, hunter-gatherer dogma being imposed on the survivors. They were out of resources to maintain an interstellar fleet. There were zero volunteers to live indefinitely in orbit to keep them operable, and, given their extremely limited military capability, having them in orbit and risking detection was much too great a risk.

I'd have them either bring down whatever tools and tech they felt were essential and just have it be lost to time, or I'd have had a brief explanation that the industrial facilities, networks, and metropolitan way of life necessary to live with and maintain that level of technological advancement was just incompatible with co-habitating with early man. The options would be to either share the technology and all but assure a repeat of technology outstripping humanity, or to withhold it and live in modern cities with a permanent underclass wandering the countryside as breeding stock.

The solution would be to live out their lives at roughly an 18th century tech level.... steam, sail, domestication of animals, etc.

Last quibble is with the timeline. With tens of thousands of colonists dispersed around the globe, all possessed of language, higher math, basic science, agriculture, etc... 150,000 years seems like a long time to achieve our present level of advancement. In a tenth that timeframe, we've come from ancient Egypt to here. Also, how is Hera the missing link and mitochondrial mom? I'm fine if she is, but it deserves an explanation. What about all of the other colonial proginy and the likely interbreeding with the native population? Was their some calamitous event that killed off all purely biological humans and only descendants of hers were able to survive?

Some of these are really questions more than objections, but with all that went along with the Hera story, I'd like to have been told why she was the key to humanity's survival, when in the end, they effectively settled for a class-M planet with no guarantee of safety from the cylons. Of course, I suppose she was the key to the cylons' survival as well, just probably not as they would have hoped.

Sharpie66 · February 20, 2018

Evolutionary science takes as a given that there were occasional bottleneck events that wiped out big chunks of the Homo sapiens population while still in Africa, thus reducing the size of the gene pool. So having Hera’s be the only surviving trace of BSG’s journey to Earth makes sense there.

John Potts · February 21, 2018

Mitochondrial Eve isn't (necessarily) the first ancestor: it's the oldest mother to whom everyone alive can trace their ancestry to. This individual can change over time: it's even possible for it to become an older individual over time with either interbreeding (so populations gain a bigger pool of possible candidates for Eve) or elimination of isolated communities (who would tend to have distinct genetic lines). The latest estimates consider the (current) Mitochondrial Eve to have lived around 140,000 years after her counterpart the Y-Chromosome Adam, for example - not because Adam came first* but because other patrilineal ancestors have died (or been wiped) out. Use of Biblical names rather confuses the issue.

So in BSG terms, any offspring that weren't descended from Hera had died out by the "present", though there were women before her.

* ...and because I can't resist making the joke, "And don't men always?"

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