Battlestar Galactica, Season 3 [Archive]

Sedai

12-26-06, 05:55 PM

Just finished watching Exodus Pt 2. WOW is right. And, of course, now I know why it's not a problem that they may have fudged on baby-age for Casey. Plus, I'd forgotten to add the four months on since the cylon occupation. Doesn't matter, does it? I'm betting she partly fell for it because she did have that second incision she didn't know how to explain, and he so casually explained it. Plus, of course, that's the sort of thing cylons would do: artificially inseminate other people for their own devices.

So much changes in these two Exodus episodes. Kind of amazing, really. And the tail end, where they raise Adama on their shoulders and Tigh and Starbuck are looking so forlorn and lost is just incredible. Tigh's become the old man of the sea so far this season: the white beard, the hat, the coat, the accent, the eye patch. I kept expecting to see him whittling a sailboat or something. :D

And poor Adama: Every time he tries to retire quietly and grow a decent pimp-sized mustache, something happens and he has to go back on active duty and shave it off. ;)

Now I'm waiting to see how long it takes Lee to lose all that fake weight he gained. (They made his jawline a bit too weird and it's driving me nuts. Get rid of it already!)

I'm off to go watch the next episode on DVR! To hell with work today. ;)

Oh man... Let that Exodus stuff sink in a bit before moving on... Exodus part II is just the BOMB as far as I am concerned. The scene you mention at the end with Tigh sort of shleping off into a corner and Starbuck suddenly realizing how trashed she is is, indeed, incredible. My heart gets pulled in so many directions everythime I see that episode, which is about 10 times at this point. Love every SECOND of Ex part II. Tigh and his wife at the beginning, just totally floored me. How about the Galactica falling down through the atmosphere and then jumping away at the last second... only to be followed my a sever pummeling by four base stars that had me out of my seat, thinking the ship was going to get destroyed...The score, the camera work...just incredible, film level production. I just can't get tired of watching that episode. The conversation between Tigh and Adama as Tigh comes back on board is SO well done, and Michael Hogan stood toe to toe with Olmos, and and NAILEd that scene. I FEET for that poor, broken man....

I must say, as I watched the end credits of that episode the first time I saw it, I figured that staff of the show had reached the pinnacle of creation, and the show could only go downhill from there. Silly me.

Austruck

12-26-06, 07:18 PM

Now I'm confused again. The list of episodes on SciFi's web site has "Torn" as one episode and then "A Measure of Salvation" as the next episode. iTunes lists it the same way. But my DVR recorded it as "Torn, Pt 1 of 2." And it *did* say "to be continued" at the end of the episode.

SO ... is "A Measure of Salvation" the next episode, or am I (and iTunes) missing something??

Had to laugh when Gaius asked Caprica Six, "Am I a cylon?"

I keep thinking I must be picking up more of this show than I realize, because most of the questions I hurriedly come in here and ask you guys end up getting answered in an upcoming episode anyway. I should just shut up and watch, and when I'm done, THEN come ask the questions that remain. :)

Still not sure about Gaius, though.... :D And I keep waiting for a chorus to launch into "What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?" every time Tigh's on screen. ;)

OG-

12-27-06, 12:07 AM

The episodes for Season 3 go:

1. Occupation
2. Precipice
3. Exodus: Part 1
4. Exodus: Part 2
5. Collaborators
6. Torn
7. A Measure of Salvation
8. Hero
9. Unfinished Business (this is one of the most unique episodes of the series and I loved it)
10. The Passage
11. The Eye of Jupiter

And yeah, now you know why we're so hesitant to respond to your questions. Unlike other serial mysteries/dramas, BSG doesn't leave you hanging very long before answering a question.

:)

Austruck

12-27-06, 12:14 AM

9. Unfinished Business (this is one of the most unique episodes of the series and I loved it)

Amazingly, I was just hovering my mouse over the iTunes icon, to go in and play back the "Unfinished Business" episode I downloaded earlier (one of only several I don't have on DVR from Season 3).

Just before I clicked the icon, my email program alerted me to a new email -- the notification that you'd posted in this thread.

So now I'm off to watch that very episode before going to bed. I'll save the last two for tomorrow....

And then we can talk freely. :)

Austruck

12-27-06, 02:53 AM

I have no will power. I watched 'em all. I'm all caught up.
Discussion time: Fire at will. :D

OG-

12-27-06, 06:09 PM

Tigh makes me weep like a baby.

Austruck

12-27-06, 06:15 PM

I feel so empty today. All caught up. Nothing new to watch. "The Story So Far" arrives tomorrow from Netflix (eehhh, it was in the queue and I left it there). Wal-Mart didn't have *any* BSG DVDs there -- just empty slots where they USED to be. So I'll be ordering them online from Amazon, I think.

So empty. So very empty......

P.S. I almost used "frak" in regular conversation the other day. Scared me to death, to be honest. Oh, and what's the official spelling of that word? I've seen "frak," "frack," and even "frac." My guess is that it's the first one, but I'm not sure.

Austruck

01-15-07, 04:25 PM

Update: New season (well, second half of season 3) starts Sunday! The trailers on SciFi Channel are saying stuff like, "One dies. One finds out they're a cylon. One finds Earth." Meanwhile, of course, they're cycling through shots of each of the characters on the show.

Hmmm ... this is going to be an interesting nine episodes. All three of those statements are interesting all by themselves. To get answers (of some sort!) to all three ought to be intriguing.

So, which one is the cylon? Is Baltar too obvious? I think so. Odd, since I was hawking the idea a month or so ago. But now that I'm all caught up, I think they're making him seem like the too-obvious choice. I think it's someone less obvious. Like, Cally. Or, someone mentioned perhaps a dead character, like Billy. (Wouldn't that be wild?) Or Roslin's new assistant (who messed up and apologized for "losing" the baby on New Caprica.)

What's going to happen with the messed-up psyches of Tigh and Starbuck, both crippled and broken while on New Caprica? And, as I'm rewatching the first half of Season 3 today, I'm wondering why Six kept saying to Gaius, "We don't talk about the other five models. We *never* talk about them."

Were they mistakes? Is there something wrong with them? Or are they models whose faces are too familiar now and the cylons can't use them anywhere out in "public"? Why would the cylons not talk about five whole models, when they only had twelve to begin with? And why DID they have only twelve to begin with? Just too hard to make? Is it like Ford making twelve models of cars and trucks in any given calendar year? :)

And what's up with D'Anna and her search for meaning and a soul? With her constant uploading over and over again (especially when other cylons have said it gets progressively more painful each time)? Will Athena somehow have some sort of preloaded programming kick in eventually, making her turn on everyone, the way Boomer did (and sensed even before it happened)?

So many questions. Six days left to wait. (sigh) This is worse than waiting for "Lost" to return.

OG-

01-16-07, 04:53 PM

Not going to touch on 'em all just know (tired as hell), but I think regarding the 5 unspeakable models. I'm assuming they had an ideological break with the other 7 models. They didn't want to destroy/enslave all human kind, they simply wanted to live on their own in search of the meaning to their own lives.

If that were the case, it would solidify that the religious zealot models, are in fact, the destructive ones. A commentary that wouldn't be too far fetched, considering the show regularly struggles with what degree of faith is acceptable.

Austruck

01-21-07, 03:49 PM

Interesting theory there, OG-. I hadn't thought of some sort of ideological break between them. I kept assuming there was something "wrong" with those models ... or that, as I said earlier, they were modeled after now-recognizable people.

Although, really, we haven't seen that the cylon models were actually ever modeled on real humans, right? That is, anyone who looks like Boomer IS a cylon, right? There isn't/wasn't ever a human Boomer that they modeled that cylon on...?

I am getting tired of the Sci-Fi Channel's commercials for the new season. If I hear that song that doesn't fit with the style of the show AT ALL ("It ends tonight ... it ends tonight ..."), I'm going to SCREAM. The one commercial makes it sound like the series is nothing more than a space soap opera. Yecch.

And I am quite intrigued by the other commercial's voiceover: "One will die. One will discover they're a cylon. And one will find Earth." Wow, all that in nine episodes?

And, who the heck is finding Earth all by his/herself??

Can you tell this is the first time I've had to really WAIT for anything in this series? :D

It's about T-minus seven hours till the first episode tonight. I'll have the house to myself, too, so I can crank up the subwoofer and speakers and really indulge!

Austruck

01-22-07, 06:32 PM

RE: The new Jan. 21 episode:

SPOILERS!! (You shouldn't be here in this thread if you're not caught up yet!)

Well, okay, did they answer any of those questions or not? I mean, does the D'Anna character being put into cold storage count as somebody "dying"? It means Lucy Lawless won't be getting paychecks any more, but what else does it mean?

And if she wasn't the "chosen one" meant to see the last five cylons, then why DID she seem to see the last five cylons? (Gaius's imaginary Six keeps telling him HE is the chosen one, so who knows what to think?) And when D'Anna says, "Oh, forgive me. It's YOU" (or something like that), that means that she recognizes this person and didn't realize he/she was a cylon. And she seems surprised, so I'm doubting that it's Gaius. (That was beginning to seem too obvious anyway.)

FWIW, I HATE Sci-Fi's attempts at previews for the next episode. Hated the commercials they've been playing for months, and I disliked the preview of next week. Made it look like a soap opera with jump drives. Pleh. I'm not a big fan of the Starbuck/Apollo subplot -- but mostly just because they're dragging it out after taking it in weird forced directions in the first place.

Anyone else have comments?

Sleezy

01-22-07, 09:07 PM

Well, okay, did they answer any of those questions or not? I mean, does the D'Anna character being put into cold storage count as somebody "dying"? It means Lucy Lawless won't be getting paychecks any more, but what else does it mean?

Well, there were a few redshirt deaths. Maybe that's what they were talking about. :rolleyes:

And if she wasn't the "chosen one" meant to see the last five cylons, then why DID she seem to see the last five cylons? (Gaius's imaginary Six keeps telling him HE is the chosen one, so who knows what to think?) And when D'Anna says, "Oh, forgive me. It's YOU" (or something like that), that means that she recognizes this person and didn't realize he/she was a cylon. And she seems surprised, so I'm doubting that it's Gaius. (That was beginning to seem too obvious anyway.)

My friends and I are thinking that Anders is a Cylon. We're hoping not, but 1.) she almost killed him back on Caprica, which would explain why she would be apologizing, and 2.) it would alleviate a portion of the love quadrangle between he, Apollo, Starbuck, and Dualla.

We're not convinced the writers would choose now to reveal that a major character (on the level of Adama, Roslin, Baltar, Starbuck, etc.) to be a Cylon, but we're pretty sure at least one of these major players will be revealed as Cylon by the end. Either way, it's a pretty safe bet that all five remaining Cylons are known characters, not new faces.

I guess this plot is alright, but I would have rather they stuck with revealing Cylons as they appear (ie. Leoben, D'Anna, the Dean Stockwell Cylon, etc). That way, the startling realization that any new person who shows up can be a Cylon allows you to relate with the uneasiness of the humans. Now, the POV is somewhat omnipotent, now that you're seeing more from the Cylon perspective. Not that it isn't interesting, and I've been really impressed with the way they've handled the Cylon copies (Caprica Six, imaginary Six, Athena, Boomer, plus all the random copies) so that you're never confused who is who... but yeah, the plot is becoming really convoluted... deviating further from the war aspect, and delving headfirst into the mystical destiny angle.

FWIW, I HATE Sci-Fi's attempts at previews for the next episode. Hated the commercials they've been playing for months, and I disliked the preview of next week. Made it look like a soap opera with jump drives. Pleh. I'm not a big fan of the Starbuck/Apollo subplot -- but mostly just because they're dragging it out after taking it in weird forced directions in the first place.

I agree. I've actually been very interested in the Starbuck/Apollo subplot for a while, especially since it has yielded some great tension in the past (I'm thinking particularly of the episode about Scar, the boxing episode - which was oh so good - and other past episodes). But now that they've taken the "cheating" route, I think it's doing damage to the integrity of the characters. And not the moral integrity, either - it's actually breaking down the character design... I find myself thinking, "These characters wouldn't do this."

And as a general statement about Season 3 altogether, I have to say I was somewhat disappointed that Baltar's presidency and the occupation of New Caprica ended so abruptly. I know it lasted a year and four months, series time; but in real time, it was over in a few episodes (not to mention, they were jumping long periods of time). They made it out to be this big, life-changing experience... but 1.) the writers seemed to be doing a lot of telling, not showing; and 2.) everything went back to normal like *that*.

Although, I will say this: from a production standpoint, "Exodus Part II" is without doubt one of the most phenomenal episodes ever shot for a sci-fi series in particular, and a television series on the whole. The kinds of things they had going on in that episode made me feel like I was watching a film. No surprise that they went way over budget with that one.

Austruck

01-22-07, 09:30 PM

Well, there were a few redshirt deaths. Maybe that's what they were talking about. :rolleyes:

I'd be disappointed if that's all they meant -- the commercials led you to believe it was a major character. (Not that I want to see any of the major characters killed off!)

Do you suppose they could have meant Sharon being shot by Helo? She did, umm, *die* in the sense that cylons die.... I suppose that fits better than the D'Anna "death" in some ways.

My friends and I are thinking that Anders is a Cylon. We're hoping not, but 1.) she almost killed him back on Caprica, which would explain why she would be apologizing, and 2.) it would alleviate a portion of the love quadrangle between he, Apollo, Starbuck, and Dualla.

I'd seen during their marathon last week that a lot of viewers were thinking it might be Anders. Other popular guesses have been Cally, Chief, and Dualla.

We're not convinced the writers would choose now to reveal that a major character (on the level of Adama, Roslin, Baltar, Starbuck, etc.) to be a Cylon, but we're pretty sure at least one of these major players will be revealed as Cylon by the end. Either way, it's a pretty safe bet that all five remaining Cylons are known characters, not new faces.

Perhaps if/when the series ends, one of four or five "biggies" will show him/herself to be a cylon. But I agree -- not now.

I guess this plot is alright, but I would have rather they stuck with revealing Cylons as they appear (ie. Leoben, D'Anna, the Dean Stockwell Cylon, etc). That way, the startling realization that any new person who shows up can be a Cylon allows you to relate with the uneasiness of the humans. Now, the POV is somewhat omnipotent, now that you're seeing more from the Cylon perspective. Not that it isn't interesting, and I've been really impressed with the way they've handled the Cylon copies (Caprica Six, imaginary Six, Athena, Boomer, plus all the random copies) so that you're never confused who is who... but yeah, the plot is becoming really convoluted... deviating further from the war aspect, and delving headfirst into the mystical destiny angle.

I agree 100% with all this. I really loved the way they were revealing the first cylons. You got a good sense of the paranoia of the humans on board Galactica (and in other parts of the fleet) once they knew cylons could look human. Tension like that would never grow old as long as there were undiscovered models out there. And then at some point, each model would slip up somehow and someone would find out he/she is a cylon. Loved that way of discovering who's who.

The whole D'Anna destiny thing is starting to annoy me too. Glad she was put into cold storage. I think some of that will fade now that Gaius is in the brig!

I've actually been very interested in the Starbuck/Apollo subplot for a while, especially since it has yielded some great tension in the past (I'm thinking particularly of the episode about Scar, the boxing episode - which was oh so good - and other past episodes). But now that they've taken the "cheating" route, I think it's doing damage to the integrity of the characters. And not the moral integrity, either - it's actually breaking down the character design... I find myself thinking, "These characters wouldn't do this."

I guess that's what bothers me/feels forced: I wouldn't have thought Lee would EVER cheat on anyone he'd MARRY. Just doesn't jive with his code of ethics in general. Starbuck? Ehh, maybe. I don't see her giving up on the Anders thing as fast as she did. They'd been through so much...

And yes, the episode "Unfinished Business" (the boxing episode) was fantastic for what it tied together.

And as a general statement about Season 3 altogether, I have to say I was somewhat disappointed that Baltar's presidency and the occupation of New Caprica ended so abruptly. I know it lasted a year and four months, series time; but in real time, it was over in a few episodes (not to mention, they were jumping long periods of time). They made it out to be this big, life-changing experience... but 1.) the writers seemed to be doing a lot of telling, not showing; and 2.) everything went back to normal like *that*.

YES! That whole subplot of settling on a whole new freakin' planet should DEFINITELY have been an entire full season or more. What a huge step that was, and to end one episode with the "One Year Later" thing was just wrong. I would have liked to see how the heck you go about settling a whole new planet like that. I realize they wanted to get to the point where the cylons came back, but giving us a little peek at how "regular life" was for them on this new planet wouldn't have killed them, would it?

And then, once the cylons were occupying the spot, it was way too abrupt. It had such a great "gulag" feel to it at that point -- they could easily have stretched that out. The first season was what? a few months? Then the nearly 1.5 years on New Caprica is just a few episodes. Felt rushed.

Sleezy

01-22-07, 10:18 PM

Do you suppose they could have meant Sharon being shot by Helo? She did, umm, *die* in the sense that cylons die.... I suppose that fits better than the D'Anna "death" in some ways.

Ah, yeah. That's probably what they meant. I thought for sure it was going to be either Anders or Dualla. Their days are numbered. :D

I'd seen during their marathon last week that a lot of viewers were thinking it might be Anders. Other popular guesses have been Cally, Chief, and Dualla.

No, not Chief Tyrol! That guy has so much potential, and every time they've mined him, they've turned out gold. What a character. And I'm loving this whole "my father was religious, and I was all around it as a kid, but I'm disenchanted." Seems like he's got the potential to undergo a major self-change. The guy's been through hell since Season 1. He deserves to take his life into his own hands, and you know he's got the stuff to do it (referring of course to his building of the stealth Viper, and his leadership over the worker's Union on New Caprica... this character should be top priority).

Perhaps if/when the series ends, one of four or five "biggies" will show him/herself to be a cylon. But I agree -- not now.

These writers are fearless, and for the most part, extremely competent. I wouldn't put it past them to write Adama or Roslin as a Cylon, or any of the other biggies. Like I said, I'm almost certain they could never pass up the opportunity to drop a bomb like that. I just hope they do it for the right reasons (meaning, the story will benefit from the explosion). But I've got a lot of emotion invested in Adama, Roslin, Apollo, Starbuck, and others; and the writers have treated those characters with so much sincerity and grace that it would seem a travesty to say one of them was a Cylon the whole time.

I agree 100% with all this. I really loved the way they were revealing the first cylons. You got a good sense of the paranoia of the humans on board Galactica (and in other parts of the fleet) once they knew cylons could look human. Tension like that would never grow old as long as there were undiscovered models out there. And then at some point, each model would slip up somehow and someone would find out he/she is a cylon. Loved that way of discovering who's who.

My only complaint with that, though, was the deviation from realism when you consider why all these Cylon models - who were self-aware and in key positions to subvert the Colonial survivors - didn't do it all at once. Of course, the answer is, the show wouldn't have lasted very long (which is why this plot crack is understandable). But yeah, after awhile, the formula becomes:

"On the next Battlestar Galactica, those pesky Cylons once again try to spell doom for our fearless Colonial heroes!"

The whole D'Anna destiny thing is starting to annoy me too. Glad she was put into cold storage. I think some of that will fade now that Gaius is in the brig!

Yeah, I don't know where the writers thought they were going with that one. If they had just left the Cylons out of the destiny crap, everything would be okay. Seems like they just recently realized that, too. ;)

I'm still trying to understand these Cylons, man. One is passionately religious, one says it's all a sham, one is a philosophical loon, one has a serious identity crisis, and one is... well, completely power hungry. How on Earth did these guys ever orchestrate the destruction of the human race?

I guess that's what bothers me/feels forced: I wouldn't have thought Lee would EVER cheat on anyone he'd MARRY. Just doesn't jive with his code of ethics in general. Starbuck? Ehh, maybe. I don't see her giving up on the Anders thing as fast as she did. They'd been through so much...

Agreed completely. I hate when writers back out on emotional investments they set up in previous episodes (like Anders and Starbuck).

And yes, the episode "Unfinished Business" (the boxing episode) was fantastic for what it tied together.

I just liked the way the flashbacks operated in relation to what was going on in the present. Nicey nice at times, plain brutal frankness at others. And I was glad to see that they gave the mysterious "thing" between Apollo and Starbuck its own episode to unravel and explain itself. The end was so emotionally amazing.

YES! That whole subplot of settling on a whole new freakin' planet should DEFINITELY have been an entire full season or more.

Yes, exactly. A full season.

What a huge step that was, and to end one episode with the "One Year Later" thing was just wrong. I would have liked to see how the heck you go about settling a whole new planet like that.

Actually, I rather liked how jarring it was to confront the reality that the show had flopped end for end, and now the characters you know and love are changed by one year (which in some cases, were drastic). It had a very post-Apocalyptic feel, and I was stoked at the prospect of having the whole status quo of the series change. The formula of "run from the Cylons, find Earth" goal was getting a little stale, and what a fresh start the occupation was... now, a new injustice appears under which our beloved characters must suffer until it was time to deliver them. Think about how effective it would have been if "Exodus" had been a season finale, and how much more crap these characters would have had to go through? I shudder to think of the goodness... :D

I realize they wanted to get to the point where the cylons came back, but giving us a little peek at how "regular life" was for them on this new planet wouldn't have killed them, would it?

I agree, but I like that they revisited that in "Unfinished Business." You got to see what the transition was like, and how it was actually pleasant (or not so pleasant) for these people.

And then, once the cylons were occupying the spot, it was way too abrupt. It had such a great "gulag" feel to it at that point -- they could easily have stretched that out. The first season was what? a few months? Then the nearly 1.5 years on New Caprica is just a few episodes. Felt rushed.

Agreed. Very rushed. I wonder if the studio strong-armed the writers into doing that. Who knows. Either way, the occupation could have been interesting, if they had continued to focus on the power struggle between the Colonial Resistance and the Cylons, as well as the power struggle between Caprica 6/Boomer and the other Cylon models. I liked when the Dean Stockwell Cylon, after being shot, whined about the brutality of humans to leave him bleeding in the dirt. It showed how ironically naive the Cylons are... given that they annihilated humanity without a thought, but can't bear the idea of violence being done upon them. I liked that. Sorta like a young-but-powerful son who tries to best the father, but who is still fledgling in his ability to comprehend.

Oh, and here's a fun game. My friends and I can't help but notice that some of the actors on BSG bear striking resemblance to more notable film actors. For example...

Anders = poor man's Christian Bale
Doral = poor man's Kevin Spacey
Lee Adama = poor man's Tom Cruise

And there are others for lesser characters, but those are the best. :laugh:

Austruck

01-23-07, 12:39 AM

Oh, a few other thoughts as I rewatch the episode right now:

I thought it was interesting that Hera recognized the right Sharon as her mother. And that Boomer got all pissy about it.

I too think it's pretty neat how I never seem to get the various copies confused, all due to how they place them or dress them, or subtle variations in the acting (although I got the several versions of D'Anna confused). I'm talking more about Six and Boomer copies.

I think the show is back on course with the Sharon and Six cylons coming on board at the end of the episode, and the baby now on board too. Add on Gaius, and there will be plenty of cool hand-wringing among the humans on Galactica about how well to treat each cylon (and the baby).

Oh, and yes, I definitely agree: Tyrol is one of my favorites. There is something about him I have liked from the beginning -- maybe just his blue-collar ways and outlook, and yet his scrappiness in times of urgency too.

His actions on New Caprica SO fit his character. He and Tigh were such a great team of resistance leaders -- I would have liked to see more on the interactions with cylon captors, etc.

Hadn't really thought about the thought that these cylons seem fraught with all the same mental/emotional frailties as humans. How could only twelve psyches (for so each model seems to have its own personality type that changes little from copy to copy) have overtaken the earth like this, in only forty years? There almost has to be some other force/cylon much higher up. Which, of course, sets us back up for one of the major characters being a cylon.

Wow, what a show. :)

Austruck

01-23-07, 12:42 AM

Caprica Six = poor man's Loni Anderson?? Pamela Anderson? Louie Anderson? (oops, sorry -- I was just trying to list all the "Andersons" with big breasts)

LOL...this could be fun.

Austruck

01-23-07, 12:43 AM

P.S. Starbuck just said to Dualla, "Lee won't cheat. He's too honorable."

And yet ... he already has. What's she trying to prove? Don't ever give that woman morphine again.

Oh ... Can Starbuck EVER land a ship on the ground without crashing it?? How many times is that now in this series??

EDIT: As I rewatched D'Anna looking on the five cylons, she definitely says, "Forgive me. I had no idea." I think you're right that this implies she has previously done something to this cylon that she wouldn't have done had she only known. Either tried to kill that person or SOMETHING. Otherwise, no need to ask for forgiveness...

Hmmm... What other "human" characters did she interact with badly?

Sleezy

01-23-07, 10:36 AM

As I rewatched D'Anna looking on the five cylons, she definitely says, "Forgive me. I had no idea." I think you're right that this implies she has previously done something to this cylon that she wouldn't have done had she only known. Either tried to kill that person or SOMETHING. Otherwise, no need to ask for forgiveness...

Hmmm... What other "human" characters did she interact with badly?

From where I'm sitting, I think it can be one of only two people:

1.) Anders, the guy she wanted to kill on New Caprica; and

2.) Admiral Adama, the guy she (or rather they, the Cylons) have been combating since the show began

Those are the only two possibilities, when you take into account who she's encountered. I agree, it won't be Baltar. It could be Roslin for the same reason as Adama, but I don't think so: Adama is the military leader, and the Cylons' top concern has always been Galactica (not the president).

And because I'm doubtful that the writers would reveal Adama to be a Cylon now (if ever), it's got to be Anders. It wouldn't make much sense if it was Anders, but it's got to be him.

Austruck

01-23-07, 11:38 AM

Why wouldn't it make sense if it were Anders? Because he's fought in a resistance movement? Remember that Boomer didn't know she was a cylon for a while. Perhaps he doesn't even know yet.

Oddly, there was a different preview of next week after last night's episode replay. This one wasn't about Starbuck and Apollo but about the rest of the plotlines. The very last seconds of the preview had Baltar rising out of the cylon goo after being reborn. Now, common sense tells me they wouldn't SHOW that outright in a preview unless it were another of Baltar's short hallucinations. So I'm figuring it's not really happening -- it's just a preview ploy to get us to go "Wow."

I could actually see Adama being revealed as a cylon .... but in the last episodes of the final season or something. Wouldn't that be a hoot? And yes, I agree, she'd say "Forgive me" to him too. Nice catch.

Since it sounds like they are going to reveal one this season, I'm betting on Anders at this point.

Sleezy

01-23-07, 12:57 PM

Why wouldn't it make sense if it were Anders? Because he's fought in a resistance movement? Remember that Boomer didn't know she was a cylon for a while. Perhaps he doesn't even know yet.

That's possible, I guess. I just figured since we're talking about "the final five," and they're all standing around hooded like they're special, I would imagine that these final five Cylons know they are Cylons.

There's a correlation as well with the interconnected destinies of Human and Cylon, as in their simulaneous appearance over the planet at the moment the star goes supernova. Also, since the temple was called "The Temple of the Five," but built by colonists from the original 13 colonies, might we be finding out that the final five Cylons are actually descendents of these original colonists... or perhaps even human/Cylon hybrids? (That would explain why the Cylons don't speak of them.)

Whose blood has been tested by Doc Cottle? Or rather, whose blood hasn't been tested? :D

Oddly, there was a different preview of next week after last night's episode replay. This one wasn't about Starbuck and Apollo but about the rest of the plotlines. The very last seconds of the preview had Baltar rising out of the cylon goo after being reborn. Now, common sense tells me they wouldn't SHOW that outright in a preview unless it were another of Baltar's short hallucinations. So I'm figuring it's not really happening -- it's just a preview ploy to get us to go "Wow."

I'm guessing (hoping) that isn't as big a spoiler as I think it is, and that you're right: it's just a tripped out Baltar hallucination.

I could actually see Adama being revealed as a cylon .... but in the last episodes of the final season or something. Wouldn't that be a hoot? And yes, I agree, she'd say "Forgive me" to him too. Nice catch.

The only way they could make that work is if the humans and Cylons, in the end, achieve peace. Adama has been written as much too morally competent and loyal to turn traitor at the end. That would have me rolling my eyes and clicking off the TV faster than anyone could say "motherfracker". :rolleyes:

But it seems they're moving toward this prospect of peace. I mean, on both sides, there's dissention about human/Cylon relations. And with the "changed minds" of Caprica, Boomer, and Athena (to some extent), it shows that Cylons at least have the potential to lay down arms and negotiate for peace.

It's interesting that the word adama in Hebrew means "earth" or "ground." So here's a thought: the prophecy says that a dying leader will deliver everyone to Earth, right? Well, Roslin isn't dying anymore... so she isn't necessarily that leader. Perhaps Adama will bring about the peaceful settlement of both humans and Cylons on Earth?

:D

Austruck

01-25-07, 11:30 AM

Sleezy

01-25-07, 12:15 PM

Hmmm .... one question: Once ONE copy knows he/she is a cylon, do ALL copies then know they're cylons too? I guess I'm asking because might it be possible to have the hooded one know he/she is a cylon without all the copies scattered around everyone knowing anything yet? With Boomer it seemed like she sensed it for a short while (and then tried to kill herself to prevent herself from doing anything bad), and then something in her programming "kicked in" and she shot Adama.

I don't know, to be honest. On the one hand, each copy is an individual "person" capable of making individual choices; but at the same time, they're all consciously linked. Your guess is as good as mine. With regard to Boomer, I think she was becoming increasingly paranoid from missing detonators, and waking up in strange places with no memory of how she got there. In other words, I don't think she was acting because she knew by way of the Cylon collective that she was a Cylon... she was just still terrified to think that she might be. I think her full activation (and link to the Cylon 'hive mind', as it were) came when she saw all the other naked Boomers on the base star.

Was that the first time a Boomer/Sharon model was aware of being a cylon? Or was the Sharon copy on Caprica already aware she was a cylon?

Caprica Sharon already knew. She was never a sleeper agent. Remember, she stood on the building with the other two Cylon models waiting to see if Helo would come to find her.

In that manner, the Anders copy on Galactica could not have had his programming kick in yet.

I was thinking about that. But since the writers have clearly steered away from the paranoia of the war and Cylons among us, I'm not sure we should expect any more "sleeper agents." The only one we ever saw was Boomer... all the others have known they were Cylons.

Also, because there's something special about these final five Cylon models, they might very well be singular models without copies. Just one of each.

I hadn't made the connection with the temple being called the "Temple of the Five." Are the humans making this connection at all?

No, I don't think any of the humans have expressed concern about the final five Cylon models. The only ones wrapped up in that were D'Anna and Baltar.

And, since I'm still not certain D'Anna WAS the "chosen one" to see the final five, perhaps what she SAW wasn't even the final five at all. Perhaps she saw either hallucinations or some sort of supernatural sight of the five [human] ancestors for whom the temple was named. And perhaps one of them actually does look like one of the current humans because there is a direct line of ancestry...? (Okay, that feels like a stretch....)

Actually, that's pretty sensible. But then if that's the case, in what manner will the final five Cylon models appear, I wonder?

That's very interesting about the meaning of "adama." It's gotta mean something.

Maybe. Since it was the same name used in the 1970's television show, it might simply mean "ground" as in "foundation"... as in "leader", which of course, he is). But I wouldn't put it past these writers to milk that meaning for all its worth.

Do we have any indication of how many seasons they're planning for this series? It doesn't feel open-ended, but I also am hoping they stretch it out for a while yet too, of course. I'm torn. I want to know things, but I also worry about what happens once we know the answers to some of these big questions.

Yeah, this show always seems to be resting at the precipice of ending. Very bizarre. But I love how the writers refuse to nest on any kind of status quo. Things are constantly evolving.

Can't wait to see what happens with the baby, BTW.... :D

That was another reason why I was thinking the final five Cylons could be human/Cylon hybrids. Because if you think about it, what does that make this baby - the thirteenth model? I mean, what happens when the models start reproducing? And since she's supposed to be the key to everything...

Austruck

01-25-07, 12:31 PM

As for the singular models with no copies ... then how would D'Anna have recognized one of them? Seems to me she's already seen a copy of that one somewhere before....

Sedai's finally seen the episode, so I'm waiting for him to get in here and play with us. :D

Sedai

01-25-07, 12:55 PM

Crushed here at work, so not much time to type today. This episode was totally insane. Just had to add that. Can't wait to watch it again tonight!

More later!

Responding to Austruck's shout:

RE: Time between episodes to contemplate issues.

Yeah, you know... I was wondering if perhaps you were not getting as much out of the show watching them all in a row on DVD.

I know that with a lot of the episodes, I needed time to absorb and contemplate. This is what eventually got me thinking the show is as deep as it is. I had time to really think about and expand on the issues posed in say...Exodus Part II. Now, if I had immediately started watching the next episode, a lot of the power and subtle vision in the Exodus stuff wouldn't have hit me the way it did, I think.

I know that while I am sitting here at work, thinking about the events of "Rapture", more and more issues keep presenting themselves as the day progresses, and I have only had one day to absorb. I mean, I love sitting down for a nice chunk of episodes on DVD, with better picture and sound, but, there is clearly something to having time between each show as well...

Austruck

01-25-07, 11:22 PM

Well, now that I'm buying them on DVD, I do plan to go back and watch everything again at my own pace (once I start getting them back from Yoda, of course). :)

Okay, here is Linda's Insane Theory Number 27 about "Rapture":

I'm rewatching it now on DVR and I have it paused where that wacko prophet chick cylon in the goo (I think they've called her a "hybrid" and indicated she's crazy) is babbling about stuff. She says (and I'm quoting as I hit pause every few seconds and type this), "The faces of the final five will be revealed only to those who enter the Temple ... only to the Chosen One."

Now, stay with me on this question/theory:

1. Can we assume that the stuff she babbles as a "prophet" is actually true (even if metaphorical)? That is, she's not LYING, right?

2. Can we assume that the Temple she means IS the Temple of the Five/Eye of Jupiter thing?

3. Can we also assume that, although D'Anna think she's the Chosen One, that it's not her? Gaius's invisible Six keeps telling him that he's the Chosen one.

4. IF it's true that Gaius is the Chosen One (whatever that means to the cylons and their prophecies), and IF he was indeed in the right Temple there, then it had to have happened while he was in there ... because the Temple is now toast since the supernova thing happened.

5. Were there five other folks in the Temple with him? Did he INADVERTENTLY see the final five but didn't know it was, say, Tyrol, Callie, etc. etc. -- whoever was in there with him toward the end of the episode?

When I get to that part I'm going to see if I can spot five other people or not.

It's a wild (insane) theory, but I thought I'd toss it out there. Sometimes tossing out a ridiculous theory might spark something rational in another person here, and we can really get rolling on this Chosen One/Final Five thing....

Yes, Sedai, I definitely agree on having a whole week to digest these episodes. I can see I must have missed quite a bit the first time through, hurrying as I did to catch up to everyone else. Can't wait to go back and enjoy them more slowly. I almost feel like I should take notes as I watch these things. :) (Then again, that's what DVR is for.)

Austruck

01-25-07, 11:58 PM

Okay, I'll try not to keep doing this every week, but I keep thinking of things that I'd like to hear other people give their opinions on: No one's mentioned the extreme jealousy that Boomer shows toward the baby once Sharon comes back and the baby recognizes her. I found that particularly human emotion interesting to see in a cylon. Boomer even mentions snapping the baby's neck, mostly out of frustration that the baby didn't respond to her and was crying a lot. Mee-oww. ;)

ALSO (sorry) ... Caprica Six kills Boomer/snaps her neck in order to get her out of the way (literally) so they can escape back to Galactica. It keeps dawning on me how funny it is to watch the cylons kill each other with so little forethought, usually out of a sense of wanting to delay one of them (since it will have to go back for downloading into a new body but won't die).

So, probably none of them see it as murder -- just as a way of sidetracking one another. Why does that strike me as humorous? :) I guess it really hit me during the episode on New Caprica when the one male cylon (can't recall his name!) held Starbuck captive, and she'd stab him every chance she got ... mostly just to piss him off and give herself some time without him there hovering over her.

Pretty funny, really ... and you could tell he found it vexing and annoying. Especially since it apparently "hurts" a little more each time they're downloaded.

So many fascinating concepts with these cylons. I won't even get into how the heck they recreated reproductive organs enough to procreate with humans (since even similar species on earth can't do that with us). And, of course, why the heck did they go to all the trouble of "evolving" themselves into creatures as human as possible, and then start boxing up and flagging the models that act the most human.

Go figure.

Sleezy

01-29-07, 10:48 AM

I know you guys liked lasterday's episode, as per the gushing in the shoutbox, but... I don't know, I wasn't feeling it. I thought Baltar's performance was really engaging, but the rest fell pretty flat for me.

For one, the writers are trying to milk tension from the Apollo/Starbuck angle a little too much now. They're trying to keep a status quo because they (like the viewers) know Lee and Kara are eventually going to get together, and once they do, that angle will be dead. But keeping the status quo isn't this show's style, and rather than drag this out, I'd rather see the writers just put the two together, then explore the problems that'll come inevitably out of that. I don't feel like Starbuck and Anders have much onscreen chemistry anymore, and Apollo and Dee NEVER had chemistry. But Starbuck and Apollo have chemistry for days, and their relationship can be as volatile as it can be pure bliss. That, I think, is what we need to see more of.

And for another, I'm not feeling the tension between Baltar and Gaeda. There has never really been enough character development on Gaeda's part to warrant all this attention... he's just been a solid background staple. Now that he's somehow teetering on the edge of treason... I just don't buy it. I'm like, "This is Gaeda. He's just about as straight-arrow as it gets."

That teaser scene at the end with Roslin and Caprica, though... MAN, did I want to see more! :)

(Speaking of Roslin... holy crap, I'm pleasantly surprised to see her yelling and screaming and being a hostile interrogator. Not only does it fit what her character would be feeling at the moment, but it's also always nice to see the sides of characters you don't always get to see. That always makes them feel more human.)

Sedai

01-29-07, 11:21 AM

Hmmm. I really like Dee, and I think she is a pretty damn good actress. I was actually getting misty when she was leaving Lee. Then again, the issues they were covering are really applicable to my life, at the mo, so I was interested in how it all played out. This episode was no "Rapture", but I thought it was still damn good.

Sedai

01-29-07, 11:47 AM

So, after using my extensive network of corporate spies, network scoundrels, and spending millions in payoffs, I have uncovered the identity of one of the final five. Now I see why D'Anna was so humbled....

http://www.jasonbennion.com/images/fox3.jpg

The real comedy is in the fact that this picture came up on google when I did a search for "Tricia Helfer Playboy Pictures"

Wtf!!

Sleezy

01-29-07, 01:43 PM

Haha, nice. :yup:

Hmmm. I really like Dee, and I think she is a pretty damn good actress. I was actually getting misty when she was leaving Lee.

Oh, I think Dee is a great character, and the actress who plays her is one of the more grounded performers of the show. I just don't feel any chemistry between her and Jamie Bamber (Lee Adama), who I think actually has a tendency to overact every so often... which he did a little in the last episode.

I don't know, maybe it's just that Dee's character has been thrust into a "love interest" role (first with Billy, then with Lee), which is a tough act to carry in a series, particularly when she isn't the female lead. Too much weight but not enough air-time, so to speak.

Sedai

01-29-07, 01:47 PM

Valid point, and, I agree on bamber going over the top from time to time...

I can't wait to see the Starbuck/Chuck Norris/Gary Coleman fight they are planning next week...

Sleezy

01-29-07, 02:58 PM

Fifty bucks on Norris!

Austruck

01-29-07, 05:24 PM

I'm with Sleezy on everything (especially the betting on Norris part). ;)

Actually, I too am not all that excited that they're choosing to drag out the love quadrangle crap with those four. It's entirely artificial, and as much as Lee harps about "you're so good for me" to Dee, frankly, I know how human nature really is. The heart wants what it wants, all too often, and if she was giving him any sort of "out" (and it was clear she was), he would have taken it. Quietly, perhaps, and humbly, but he would have taken it.

Are we otherwise supposed to think he has no qualms about being driven to drink every night at the bar, stumbling around wasted and embarrassing himself THAT way, but he can't bring himself to embarrass himself via a divorce? Please.

What I did like about last night's episode was all Callis, all the time. Man, he is one compelling, torn creature, isn't he? He so desperately wants to be a cylon -- and why? So that he can live with himself and what he did, because then he wouldn't be a treasonous traitor to his people if his "people" were actually the cylons and not the humans.

It's a fascinating angle, and entirely plausible and workable, and it makes us almost able to feel real pity for Baltar and his predicament. He's so set on screaming that he wasn't colluding (and I guess he wasn't), but he can't live with even his naive part in the downfall of mankind. Frankly, which of us could?

Callis is a joy to watch, and seeing his tortured visage going from one end of the spectrum to the other was worth sitting through the soap opera that the Lee/Starbuck situation has become. (My gosh, those scenes moved glacially slow last night.)

My one question: How much time has passed since they got off the algae planet and back onto Galactica? I ask this because it probably isn't THAT long -- they're questioning Baltar, which would probably have happened quite soon after getting back on board. And yet, ummm ... Starbuck's hands seem back to normal already. Or did I miss bandages on those drink-toting hands (because I didn't see any)....? My hubby burned his hands last summer, only slightly compared to her burns. and his hands looked and felt gawd-awful for weeks. Just an observation....

Also, in the very very beginning, when a male/female are singing a lullaby about a baby sleeping, and they're panning past various sleeping people, I was sure we were going to see Helo and Sharon rocking baby Hera to sleep. I was sure that was them singing. To have them entirely missing from this episode was a bit disappointing. I realize they were focusing entirely on two subplots, but I am very curious about that storyline.

Also also, what's with having the Chief drinking up a storm and griping about his marriage? Before now I had thought he and Callie were doing all right. Doesn't seem like him to go off drinking and leave her with the baby like that. I realize we needed another married man for Lee to bounce conversation off of, but that felt forced to me.

And Gaeta? Not sure how I feel about him. We did see him on Caprica working in Baltar's office, although feeling conflicted about his part in things -- even if he was working "undercover" so to speak. So, I didn't find Baltar's overblown speech confusing or wrong. Baltar was exaggerating one side of Gaeta's involvement in order to make himself look better on the camera/monitor (once he knew it was there). And Gaeta reacted in a way most folks would react once they are being falsely accused of something and yet they know what's being said has just a pinch of truth as its starting point and could be misconstrued by the wrong people.

Not the greatest episode, but what I liked was how it is setting up so much more to come. The feeling of anticipation by the end was fascinating, and yes, the extra scene with Six and Roslin was great but too short. Am wondering what Roslin was *really* thinking because we've seen her NEVER like cylons. She's even chided Adama for trusting Sharon too much (in "Rapture"). So, I am assuming she was smiling falsely at Six. Oooh, that Roslin is a sneaky, strong one, isn't she? :D

OG-

01-30-07, 10:21 PM

Been a while since I've spewed out some BSG praise (spent the past week or so shitting a brick over anticipation of going to Jordan in march).

Aus, while I'm not confirming that its true, I do really dig your theory about the final five in the temple. It seems untrue, especially given the characters, but I like the thought process. As far as I'm concerned, Baltar is the chosen one - so at some point, they will loop back to that event and he'll realize who he saw. I'm banking on that one.

And yeah, they need to give the whole Starbuck/Anders/Lee/D a rest. It is far too contrived, out of place and unsurprising. Except in "Unfinished Business". That episode works the geometry perfectly.

Austruck

01-30-07, 10:37 PM

Will be praying for your peace and safety as you go to Jordan, OG-....

Well, I keep morphing my theory about the final five in the temple and Gaius. If the Chosen One thing is still true of him, I'm now wondering if it's not the "good" thing you'd instinctively think when you first hear the term. "Chosen One" could be a really sucky job. ;)

I like your slight modification -- that Gaius will somehow clue in on something he probably only knows subconsciously now. I could see some triggering event helping him along on that one. (He seems to have a lot of triggering events, poor guy.)

One last question that may mean nothing: In "Rapture," D'Anna "sees" the final five (or so she thinks, anyway), and says that "Forgive me" thing to one of them. When she was looking that cylon right in the eye, she was exactly as tall as that one. So, whoever it is, assuming the same body size as whichever character we currently think is human, one of the remaining cylons is as tall as D'Anna is.

Unless Lucy Lawless is unusually tall (is she?), that's making me think perhaps it is a female character. And, after thinking more about Roslin's constant loathing and hatred of all things cylon, I keep thinking it would be interesting to find out she is a cylon.

But then again (sigh, sorry!), I don't see them revealing that big a character as a cylon in THIS season. The commercials insisted that one of them would find out he/she was a cylon. So, although I think Roslin could be one, I don't think she's the one the commercials are referring to.

Still could be Dee or Anders, especially since they're letting Lee and Starbuck cling to those ridiculous marriages for a little while longer.

And yes, the triangle/quadrangle thing worked well in "Unfinished Business." But honestly, they can finish the business now. ;)

OG-

01-31-07, 10:49 AM

Oh, and here is something interesting. I never picked up on this myself, even though it has been going on since season 1.

Humans always refer to "The Gods" in the plural, Cylons always a singular God. Gaius, in the latest episode but also as far back as "The Hand of God" has always referred to God in the singular.

Could be a very minor detail reflecting his own ego (if someone like Gaius were to have faith, it would be in only one higher power, for to believe in more would be to acknowledge that even more "people",so to speak, have control over him) or it could just be a very clever hint that sat under the noses of everyone.

Sleezy

02-19-07, 12:26 AM

It's really funny, my friends and I get together and watch this show every Sunday night, and we're always joking about Roslin wanting to put people out airlocks. Tonight, when Tyrol and Callie were in the airlock, we joked that Roslin would say, "Just put them out the airlock, and you can catch them with a big net."

And then it really happened. They put them out the airlock, and caught them... by hand.

By hand.

If I was Chief Tyrol, I'd be walking around that ship like I was made of frackin' Chevy trucks.

"Hey, did you hear? I was in space. Yeah, that's right. Me. In space."

Austruck

02-19-07, 11:12 AM

You are so lucky to be watching this with other people! I usually end up watching it alone (the only person in the house who watches the show), and it'd be a real treat to watch it with other people.

HAD to laugh at your Roslin comments re. the airlock. That's so true! Actually, though, Adama looked pretty danged insistent on tossing 'em out the airlock. In fact, it was the first idea he came up with: Hey, let's just toss 'em out the airlock!

Tigh: I dunno. They'll die of exposure and space-air-contamination-sickness thing, won't they?

Adama: Hell no! Toss 'em, I say! Plus, hey, it'll impress the hell outta Roslin. That saucy wench. I wanna rip her glasses off every time she mentions giving Baltar his "trial." Out the airlock, all of 'em!

It was, though, a good episode. Loved the directing on this one -- subtle interplays between Adama's memories and current time -- a hand movement that takes us from the present to the past, or an object in the room segues us from the past back to the present. Nice touches.

Sleezy

02-19-07, 11:40 PM

What's funny is, two of us can't stand watching that little snippet of scenes that always flashes before the episode you're about to watch, so we look away. But this other friend of mine watches that part, and it never fails... he's always like, "Agh, why did I just watch that? Now I know what's going to happen."

Austruck

02-19-07, 11:48 PM

Yeah, I'm torn on that too. I have a love-hate relationships with all trailers and previews. The fast-little snippets just before an episode of BSG are often too fast for me to make much sense of them, but sometimes they do give away too much!

And I've also learned NOT to read the on-screen TV guide for an episode before I watch it too. This week's said something like, "Two crew members are caught in an airlock losing air," etc. etc. Well, gee. If I had read that before watching, I would have known in the first two minutes who it was.

I will say this: I found the whole thing disturbing ... mostly because I still am waiting for one character to die (and one to find out they're a cylon and one to find the path to earth). So, since they were juxtaposing the Tyrol/Callie marriage stuff with Adama's memories of his bad marriage, I was sure Callie was toast. Which upset me so much (in terms of the horror of the situation and the baby losing both parents, and nobody OVERacted so it was all so subtle), that I tried not to pay close attention to the episode the first time through. Oh dear.

Sleezy

02-19-07, 11:52 PM

I will say this: I found the whole thing disturbing ... mostly because I still am waiting for one character to die (and one to find out they're a cylon and one to find the path to earth). So, since they were juxtaposing the Tyrol/Callie marriage stuff with Adama's memories of his bad marriage, I was sure Callie was toast. Which upset me so much (in terms of the horror of the situation and the baby losing both parents, and nobody OVERacted so it was all so subtle), that I tried not to pay close attention to the episode the first time through. Oh dear.

Yeah, we were all pretty convinced that Callie was getting it.

Although, when that Private brought Adama his coffee, my friend said: "Uh oh, this guy has a name. He's a goner."

Seems like every episode, we spend a lot of time trying to spot redshirts. Which is kinda fun... :D

Austruck

02-19-07, 11:58 PM

Yeah, the redshirt thing is fun. I hadn't considered the coffee guy a redshirt, though. I mean, how bad would that coffee have to be for him to DIE over it? Is Adama that much of a coffee freak?

Oh, and of course I waited for the head count in the opening credits and I think it was down the right amount for those Sagitarrons who died due to bad ol' doctor Willard. :) I love cool details like that. I live for that number to go up and down. :D

Sleezy

02-20-07, 12:07 AM

Oh, and of course I waited for the head count in the opening credits and I think it was down the right amount for those Sagitarrons who died due to bad ol' doctor Willard. :) I love cool details like that. I live for that number to go up and down. :D

That episode was bizarre; I still don't know if I liked it or not. The whole Sagitarron philosophy and position on medicine was a lot of smoke and mirrors, I think, and I'm less and less impressed with Tahmoh Penniket's (Helo) acting these days.

Plus, I'm starting to dislike filler episodes. They're not that bad when you've got the next episode to watch on DVD right after it, but waiting all week for just a filler episode for three or four weeks straight is getting old. I want stuff to start happening again.

And I want Season 3.0 on DVD so I can watch "Exodus" right proper. :yup:

Austruck

02-20-07, 12:18 AM

I thought I was the only one who didn't like the "episodic" nature of some episodes. In this series, I don't care as much for ones that could be plopped into any point of the season -- or even in a different season entirely! -- because there isn't much advancing the general ongoing plotlines.

I liked the Sagitarron philosophy of no medicines/interventions in some form (reminds me of Jehovah's Witnesses and/or Scientology?) ... but just tossing it all into one episode that wasn't really *about* that interesting concept felt forced to me. And entirely too predictable: Yeah, he's killing them. Yeah, he's a racist. Yeah, Helo's whining is being ignored. Blah blah blah.... tell me something I DON'T know -- like who's a cylon or something! ;)

I didn't mind Helo's acting so much -- heck, he didn't have much to work with in that episode -- but Bruce What's His Name's acting is so ... 1970s bad TV drama....

Sleezy

02-20-07, 12:27 AM

I liked the Sagitarron philosophy of no medicines/interventions in some form (reminds me of Jehovah's Witnesses and/or Scientology?) ... but just tossing it all into one episode that wasn't really *about* that interesting concept felt forced to me. And entirely too predictable: Yeah, he's killing them. Yeah, he's a racist. Yeah, Helo's whining is being ignored. Blah blah blah.... tell me something I DON'T know -- like who's a cylon or something! ;)

Agreed. Yeah, you're right - if they hadn't forced the concept (or had just introduced it before now, maybe), then it would have made the whole situation more accessible. So instead, they had to resort to "suffering" imagery, and it just felt fake.

I didn't mind Helo's acting so much -- heck, he didn't have much to work with in that episode -- but Bruce What's His Name's acting is so ... 1970s bad TV drama....

Yeah, when I saw that guy, I was like, "Oh no..." And he was bad.

OG-

02-20-07, 11:02 PM

I thought I was the only one who didn't like the "episodic" nature of some episodes. In this series, I don't care as much for ones that could be plopped into any point of the season -- or even in a different season entirely! -- because there isn't much advancing the general ongoing plotlines.

And such is the burn of watching them as they air. The time in between casts a far more penetrating light on episode flaws than marathon sessions.

Season 3 has, save for the initial 5, been primarily filler episodes. Which is a shame. It hasn't taken a dive yet and I genuinely don't see it doing so in the near future, but the coals aren't nearly as scathing as they can be.

Funny enough, this is the same thing going on with Veronica Mars in its current (and also third) season. Oh well, still great shows.

I prefer that the mystery go into hibernation rather than constantly unfolding on itself until the structure of everything just buckles. Cough. Obvious other serial mystery show. Cough.

OG-

02-26-07, 09:27 PM

Gotta say that I loved this last episode. One of the most fascinating of the series, I think.

I love it when a show actually investigates the cause and effect of things unrelated to the core plot. To me, that is a true sign of great quality.

Austruck

02-26-07, 10:16 PM

It's probably good to label our posts per episode so that when others come here later, they'll know which episode we're discussing. :)

What I liked about the episode:

-- It tied in a few previous things, such as Tyrol's union work on New Caprica.

-- It showed us more of that gritty underbelly of how a ship and fleet work--which you just KNOW has to be there, but that you never see. The kind of stuff you never see in Star Trek or Star Wars, which are too antiseptic and shallow.

-- It communicated well the despair these people must feel, and it's realistic in how a race battling for survival (aboard starships, with no solid ground beneath them!) would weary of the task of merely keeping the race alive. It was so sad it was almost suffocating to watch.

-- I really did believe Adama when he went on his monologue about mutineers being shot. I believed he would really do it if he had to. The only thing that gave it away was when he said he wanted Callie shot first. I'm sorry, but he'd start with Chief, if only to retain a modicum of chivalry and decency among the rest of the crew. It was, though, a truly tense moment in the episode.

What I didn't like about the episode:

-- It still felt episodic. Amazingly, one day before this episode aired, I sat and wondered when they would have to deal with the issue of fuel. I was thinking back on the episode where they were dealing with a food shortage ("Are they eating paper?" "No, there's a paper shortage." [laughter]), and I just knew they'd eventually do a similar episode regarding fuel. And, the similarities were there, not always in a good way.

-- It was fairly predictable (plotwise). You knew Tyrol would side with the workers, and you knew it would come when someone was injured due to long hours and poor working conditions. Yada yada yada.

I did like the topsy-turvy nature of Baltar and his writings. As usual, he's all over the map with his ideas -- being expedient to save his own skin -- and yet he knows a trial is coming up. A media-circus trial. If he has the common man on his side, it might go better with whatever jury he gets. The man is the most pragmatic, skin-saving character I've ever seen. And it's easy to go along with him, too. Nice.

-----

I am really ready for some ongoing basic plotlines to come back. Trailers for next week ("Maelstrom") look like they might be heading back that way.... Yay!

Sleezy

02-27-07, 10:52 AM

Although I agree that it was about as predictable as the sun coming up, I still think this episode is the best they've put out in the past few weeks. The tension was believable this time, and it dealt with issues that are most definitely important (more so than the issue of having a bunch of sick Sagittarons and a racist doctor on your hands, which I though was a forced suggestion of importance).

What I loved about this episode, though, was the brief segment with Baltar. This character has always been great, but now he's really turning into something devilish and (most importantly) ideologically cogent. When he posed the question to Tyrol about anyone ever commanding the fleet without the last name of Adama.... that sent chills down my spine. Because he's right. And that whole arena of thought is bursting with potential. I think the coming episodes are going to be really something...

That, and Baltar's been MIA for the past few episodes, relatively. I guess I've just got a soft spot for the old boy. :)

Austruck

02-27-07, 01:54 PM

Oh, I agree! I adore Baltar. He's my favorite character and always delivers what he promises. LOVE watching him on screen any time he's on. It doesn't matter if you agree with his current waffling or not -- he's always believable and you always end up sympathizing with him in spite of yourself. He's THAT good.

So yes, this was definitely an upswing episode after "The Woman King" and "Taking a Break." The Baltar segments especially felt like forward motion, and the tie-ins with Baltar's "communistic" writings and Tyrol's union work for the common man were quite good. Ingenious, really. It tied in old stuff from New Caprica with current stuff about everyone crammed back on fewer ships in lousy conditions, and then tossed in the promise of future dilemmas with Baltar stirring up trouble and capitalizing on the disgruntled nature of the common people.

Do we know for sure if his rant about living on a farm was in fact true? It *sounded* true, but Baltar's a consummate liar, so I wasn't entirely sure.

One last (old) comment/question, re. the episode "Rapture":

When Athena decides to have Helo shoot her so she can go download back onto the base ship and retrieve Hera, how did she know there was a resurrection ship "nearby"? They've only ever said one has to be "nearby" but I don't think they've ever defined what "nearby" means. If it's that "nearby," then shouldn't the Galactica be concerned with having cylons that close?

Or did I miss something? Seems like either a mistake or some fact about the proximity of resurrection ships that I missed.

OG-

02-28-07, 04:33 PM

When Athena decides to have Helo shoot her so she can go download back onto the base ship and retrieve Hera, how did she know there was a resurrection ship "nearby"? They've only ever said one has to be "nearby" but I don't think they've ever defined what "nearby" means. If it's that "nearby," then shouldn't the Galactica be concerned with having cylons that close?

Or did I miss something? Seems like either a mistake or some fact about the proximity of resurrection ships that I missed.

They were sitting right next to multiple base stars as well as a resurrection ship. All of that happened while they were orbiting the planet, during the direct standoff with the Cylons. Maybe not in that episode, but when they arrive you definitely see a resurrection ship jump in as well.

Aside from that, I think the proximity is pretty broad. You could chalk it up to the fact that it may not have even been a concept yet, but the resurrection ship itself wasn't revealed until season 2. Presumably its absence in the first season could be accounted by a lack of need for absolute closeness, which is why Galactica never saw one until Pegasus knew where to look for it.

Austruck

02-28-07, 04:37 PM

Gotcha. Well, since this was the beginning of season 3, that's all moot. We did know about them by then. I guess I'd started this new half-season having not paid enough attention to exactly where they were and who was nearby.

My guess is that they won't have to explain just how close they have to be -- it's fine that it's rather broadly explained. As long as they don't misuse the concept at some point. ;)

Pyro Tramp

03-03-07, 08:17 PM

I've finally caught up to Season 3 and even watching downloads the filler episodes are getting tired, not to say it's not great stuff mind. Definitely want to see more of Baltar and despite how i used to like the character, think Chief has too many storylines, he seems to go through a lot more than anyone else. In regards to the other 5 remaining cylons, considering their seeming mythical nature to the other 7 i hope they're not revealed to be anyone on Galactica, or some new face, the only person i did expect to be a cylon was Billy. Very curious where they'll take the other 5.

Sleezy

03-03-07, 08:27 PM

despite how i used to like the character, think Chief has too many storylines, he seems to go through a lot more than anyone else.

Actually, I think I'm starting to agree with this. He's a fantastic character (and the guy playing him is an excellent actor), but too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

For me, I don't think it has gotten any better than when he built the Blackbird, which was just an incredible addition to his character. Leading the worker's union on New Caprica was great as well, and I like how they're bringing that back out. But yeah, nowadays the Chief is an integral part of every episode, it seems like; and I'm really missing Baltar, Starbuck, Tigh, Sharon, and Six. I can't remember the last time I've seen combat readiness in the CIC. I mean, c'mon...

Sleezy

03-05-07, 12:07 AM

Well, that was interesting.

Austruck

03-05-07, 12:09 AM

Errr, ummmm, did they really just DO that? What are ya thinking, Sleezy? Gotta be more than just that! I know I'm thinking more!

Sleezy

03-05-07, 12:13 AM

Either she's a Cylon or she's off the show. I can't really see any other angles.

I knew she was a goner, though. I knew it. The whole discussion between her and Lee in the memorial hallway... that was about as obvious as you could get. I'm guessing we'll see Apollo tack her picture up like he said he would.

If she's a Cylon, that's one more step in the direction of my theory that when this is all said and done, human and Cylon are going to be buddy-buddy. She's going to wake up in a tub of jello and start a revolution. Or at least, that's what I'm hoping.

And if she is a Cylon, that would certainly explain why she's so damned good at what she does.

Sleezy

03-05-07, 12:15 AM

And I'm guessing if she does wake up in a tub of jello, it's going to be several episodes down the road. We're going to forget that she might be a Cylon, perhaps come to terms with her death... and then WHAM!

Austruck

03-05-07, 12:33 AM

Those were my two theories too. I just don't see 'em tossing her from the show, though, so unless they're going to have her in a bunch of stupid flashbacks in future episodes, cylon seems the only other option right now. And yes, not next week. Or possibly the week after.

Because, the previews for the season said one would find out they're a cylon, and one would die. Well, here we are thinking, "Gee, she's the one who dies." And once we get used to that thought, she'll wake up in the goo-bath.

Her being a cylon would explain why that one cylon (can't think of his name) was guiding her through this whole episode. Why he knew what her destiny was.

Oh, and about that: I have a hard time thinking her special destiny was just to die in a fiery crash. It had to mean more than that.

I could tell she was doomed in SOME way from the beginning of the episode too. The whole "flashbacks" thing seemed too much like they were focusing on her because it was her last big hurrah.

We'll see where this ends up ... but not soon. :)

Austruck

03-05-07, 12:34 AM

Not quite sure how it explains her MOTHER, though (the fact that she seems to have had a mother). Will have to rewatch the episode to pay closer attention to that.

Austruck

03-05-07, 01:01 AM

I'm rewatching the episode a little bit now. Another thing that will have to be explained if she's a cylon is why her mom has a scrapbook filled with actual photos of a child Kara. As far as we know, the cylons create adult skinjobs, not children who grow up, right? Isn't that part of why Hera is so special? She's the first baby/child? (I assumed that was a small part of why the cylons had no clue how to care for her when she was aboard their ship -- they had no real experience with infants.)

Just thinking out loud here....

Sleezy

03-05-07, 01:27 PM

I have a hard time thinking her special destiny was just to die in a fiery crash. It had to mean more than that.

Agreed. If she really is done, then bad form on the part of the writers. Starbuck deserved a better sendoff than that.

But we'll be seeing her again.

(We better be, anyway...)

Not quite sure how it explains her MOTHER, though (the fact that she seems to have had a mother).

Remember, Sharon had complete memories of her family and childhood (which was all a lie), and struggled with them in "Downloaded"... so much so that she tried to behave as Sharon even after waking up in a goo pit. And I think I recall Six telling her to "let it go." Perhaps Starbuck never had a mother... just artificial memories of one.

Another thing that will have to be explained if she's a cylon is why her mom has a scrapbook filled with actual photos of a child Kara.

That whole scene never actually happened. It was entirely cerebral. Now, here are the only two possible reasons for this: (a) Starbuck was human, and had never returned to see her mother before the Cylon attack; and (b) Starbuck is a Cylon, which means she never had a mother in the first place, but rather just artificial memories.

Consider this: when did Adama and Lee meet Kara Thrace? We know Adama met her after Zack died, because we saw that meeting in "Act of Contrition." We can assume Lee met her before that, but most likely NOT before she made officer in the Colonial Fleet. So if she is a Cylon, she could have been activated and inserted into society at the time she made officer, complete with memories of her mother... and no one else would be the wiser.

But if this is true, then the real question is.... why program her with such horrible memories of child abuse?

Sleezy

03-05-07, 01:30 PM

I'm starting to think that her hallucinating the Cylon raider is symbolic of her waking up to her Cylon origins, a sort of "chasing the truth" concept, if you will.

If she's a Cylon. ;)

Austruck

03-05-07, 01:50 PM

See, this is where you scout out the E! Insider stuff to find out if contract negotiations with Katee Sackhoof. ;)

Starbuck being a cylon makes more sense today than it made last night. And what you've said all sounds right on the money. So, we haven't seen ANY of those kid-photos of Kara in "real life" in the show? They weren't among her photos of her apartment that Helo looked at a few weeks ago? (Just asking.)

As for her having memories of child abuse, I can think of two reasons:

1. More reality. That is, if you're going to insert her into society and have it seem real, you'd have to make her memories seem realistic too. Some kids *did* have child abuse in their backgrounds. Why not a hidden cylon?

2. Perhaps this was part of her conditioning in order to make her driven, hard-working, and just tough as nails. This knowledge could have kept her strong and fighting (a nagging mother who constantly told her she was a quitter), moreso (and in tougher ways) than if her mother had been encouraging.

A few weeks ago I would have found the idea of Starbuck being a cylon stupid. But I must admit: If she's a cylon, that episode worked in bringing me around.

If she's not a cylon, and she's just, well, dead, then boo-hiss to the writers. Stupid way to send her out. Trite if that's all there is.

Now, where is that gossip about Sackhoff's contract renewals...??

Austruck

03-05-07, 01:51 PM

The only thing that sticks in my craw about what's been done to/with her is this: Why take her through the stuff at the baby farm if she's a cylon? What am I missing about that? It seems to make very little sense for the cylons to have done that with her, unless some of them don't know she's one of the final five.

Unless that was all part of that one cylon's leading her along through making her think Casey was her child and now leading her still further into her cylon awakenings.

??

Sleezy

03-05-07, 02:14 PM

Okay, wow. All good points.

So, we haven't seen ANY of those kid-photos of Kara in "real life" in the show? They weren't among her photos of her apartment that Helo looked at a few weeks ago? (Just asking.)

Actually, you're right. That's a questionable bit of evidence. Although, didn't Sharon have photos of her family in her apartment that Six remarked about? Or was that just a picture of the Galactica crew? I can't remember.

As for her having memories of child abuse, I can think of two reasons:

1. More reality. That is, if you're going to insert her into society and have it seem real, you'd have to make her memories seem realistic too. Some kids *did* have child abuse in their backgrounds. Why not a hidden cylon?

2. Perhaps this was part of her conditioning in order to make her driven, hard-working, and just tough as nails. This knowledge could have kept her strong and fighting (a nagging mother who constantly told her she was a quitter), moreso (and in tougher ways) than if her mother had been encouraging.

I think reason #2 is more likely, because I can't see how the Cylons would program her with something like child abuse (which had such an emotional effect on her, and has made her increasingly self-destructive) simply because they wanted her to have a realistic background. Plus, everything the Cylons do is for a reason beneficial to themselves, which would explain why they wanted her hardy and tough.

Now here's the scary part: if she's a Cylon, then why do they want her back? She's been tearing Cylons apart since the show began. It seems like you wouldn't risk giving your best weapon over to your primary enemy... but if she has become detached from the humans, are we going to see Starbuck on the other side? Are the Cylons going to push her to fight for them? I'm guessing Leoben really isn't interested in seeing her achieve peace of mind.

And what will Kara do?

The only thing that sticks in my craw about what's been done to/with her is this: Why take her through the stuff at the baby farm if she's a cylon? What am I missing about that?

Extremely good point. I had forgotten all about that.

Well, either it's a major plothole, or there's something at work here that we're not yet privy to. I like your theory that those particular Cylons might not know who the final five are. If D'Anna didn't know who the five are, we can assume the other skinjobs are likewise unaware. And like I mentioned a few weeks ago, who's to say that the final five aren't also singular models (meaning there's only one of each)?

See, this is where you scout out the E! Insider stuff to find out if contract negotiations with Katee Sackhoff.

To be honest, I'm afraid to look. Because as much as I can speculate about her being a Cylon, and even see emerging patterns and threads of logic... the episode still kinda felt like a "hurry-up-and-get-her-off-the-show" affair, if she really was leaving the show.

And that would suck. The fact that she's an excellent actress playing an excellent character notwithstanding, when people start leaving a show, the show begins its steady decline.

A news clip from a recent article (http://www.galactica.com/main/content/view/416/1/) on Galactica.com:

Katee Sackhoff is looking for work.

The 26-year-old actress who portrays the fighter pilot Starbuck on the Sci Fi Channel's "Battlestar Galactica" series won't confirm rampant Internet rumors that her character will be killed in tomorrow night's highly anticipated episode "Maelstrom."

But Sackhoff will say that she's currently negotiating to star in an unrelated independent film, that she's not interested in doing new science-fiction projects, and that when she read tonight's script last fall, she was "blown away."

"No one is safe on this show," she said during a recent interview. "I was shocked. This is a direction of the show that is going to cause some ripples."

Austruck

03-05-07, 02:54 PM

Okay, I just spent time I didn't have on SciFi's forums for this show. (Don't go there if you don't have an extra lifetime to read the thread on this episode alone!)

There IS a third option here, and I can't believe I didn't mention it before now. I DID see this in the episode: At one point in the cockpit at the end, her hand does stray across the eject button but we don't see her press it. Also, apparently you can just kinda see that cylon raider through Lee's cockpit/point of view (although small).

SO, she could have ejected from her ship before it blew up and been picked up by the raider. That could leave open the human OR cylon options. She could be off the show for a while and still "show up" later.

ALSO, if you and I are right and she's possibly a cylon (and I found this one interesting), someone else pointed that perhaps she could fulfill all three of the season's trailer predictions: One dies. One finds out they're a cylon. One finds the path to Earth.

We saw her "die." We will eventually see her find out she's a cylon. And perhaps by zipping through that vortex, she has also found the path to earth and "opened it up" or something with her exploding ship.

Anyway, the thread is interesting (when you get to the part where the show has actually AIRED, anyway), and the predictions over there are rampant. And yes, there have apparently been rumors that this is the last we see of Sackhoff THIS SEASON. Whatever that means.

:)

I think I love this show again. :) :)

Sleezy

03-05-07, 04:36 PM

There IS a third option here, and I can't believe I didn't mention it before now. I DID see this in the episode: At one point in the cockpit at the end, her hand does stray across the eject button but we don't see her press it. SO, she could have ejected from her ship before it blew up and been picked up by the raider. That could leave open the human OR cylon options. She could be off the show for a while and still "show up" later.

I thought about that myself, but figured it was just a consideration on her part that she decided not to follow through with. Plus, Apollo was right on her, and would have seen her eject, presumably.

Also, apparently you can just kinda see that cylon raider through Lee's cockpit/point of view (although small).

YES!

This is, like, the most interesting thing about this episode to me. Everyone thinks she's mad, but at the last moment, he sees the Raider too.

*twilight zone music*

And yes, there have apparently been rumors that this is the last we see of Sackhoff THIS SEASON. Whatever that means.

Probably because there are only three more episodes left. If they've got something planned, they're not going to want to break it open until next season.

Which means that something else has to be the season ending kick in the face....

OG-

03-05-07, 10:50 PM

My money says that she will return sporadically, but in all intentions, she is off the show.

I don't blame the writers. If a once permanent character has to exit the show - be it for other acting pastures or for actual script purposes - the unrealistic thing to do is have a nice, tidy send off. Sure that warms the hearts of the viewer, but it goes against the bleak grain that BSG so faithfully embraces.

I hope she is dead. I don't doubt at all that she will reappear briefly, but I hope she is gone. And I hope it throws both Adamas into rapture. My prediction for a season 3 finale, the humans get a drastic jump on the cylons, all brought on by a fire re-lit inside the key crew after Kara's death..

Austruck

03-05-07, 11:31 PM

Oh but, they can't have an UPBEAT season finale, can they? I mean, CAN THEY? No. NO.

Looks like next week they get into Baltar and his trial, so there's that to look forward to. If they did something this big with three episodes left, I'm beginning to wonder if the rest won't be a kind of denouement. Oh, I hope not!

As for Starbuck, honestly, if she's just dead and that's it -- well, that whole "destiny" thing was REALLY overhyped to the point where the writers should be ashamed of themselves. There has to be more to it than that -- if not for Starbuck directly, then as a direct consequence of her death.

If not, tsk tsk, writers!

OG-

03-06-07, 08:18 PM

Her death is clearly not going to be a singular event. The BSG team would never, ever let something like that just slip away into the black after a build like that.

Her death was her destiny. Remember Season 1's prophecy, something along the lines of, "a dying leader will guide the way to earth". Roslin WAS dying, but that was taken care of. Kara was a leader and did just die at what looked a lot like a crucial sign post to earth...

As for a finale where humans have the advantage, that doesn't mean it would be upbeat. This show has a wonderful way of colliding happiness with moral conflict.

Austruck

03-09-07, 09:49 AM

Well, that's what I meant by it not being just her death. If her going into that vortex leads the way to earth, then that's at least SOMETHING.

But just saying "her death was her destiny" makes little sense, because that's everybody's destiny.

If going into that vortex is a path to Earth, then I wonder how/why they'd go in there. If they were searching for Kara, that would make perfect sense (which they were just preparing to do). But Lee called them off by saying he saw no chute.

Well, I'll be rewatching the episode over the next day or so. I'll see if anything else comes to the fore that I missed the first time....

Pyro Tramp

03-09-07, 11:21 AM

I hope she isn't a cylon.

Yoda

03-09-07, 02:48 PM

Whew. I've been meaning to post here all week, I even wrote (and lost, I think) a very large post on the matter. D'oh. Anyway, I'll try to keep it short (yeah, right...).

Starbuck
I agree, I think she's dead. But I also agree that her death cannot possibly be this self-contained. I like Peter's idea that she, and not Roslin, is the "dying leader who will find the path to Earth." I'll give you even money Lee checks out that little cockpit camcorder they're always using, sees the Raider, and goes exploring the storm somehow, and thus finds the path to Earth.

Here's a shot of the Raider, BTW. Thanks to my friend Austin for linking me to it:

http://www.templetons.com/images/leeview2.jpg

She can't be a Cylon, for several reasons:

All the silly baby nonsense on New Caprica.
We've seen her in flashbacks on Caprica. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we've never seen flashbacks of Sharon's manufactured memories, have we? I don't think we'd actually get to "live out" pretend memories. That'd be too deceptive.
As Austruck pointed out, I'm fairly sure we (and Helo) have seen real-life photos of her at a younger age in her apartment.I suppose some kind of explanation could be given for all these, but I can't really think of any, let alone explanations elegant enough to be considered creatively viable for the very capable folks working on this show.

The same friend who linked me to the image above insists that Starbuck ejected and survived, and pointed out that the show's Podcast (http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Podcast:Maelstrom) discusses the original script, which "an interior scene of the Heavy Raider as the first place that Kara would wake up from after she is knocked unconscious. There she would find Leoben using a device that would delve into her memories." Apparently it was scrapped for logistical -- and then budgetary -- reasons.

Personally, I think it'd be pretty flimsy to pull something like this. They'd have to ask us to believe that Lee missed her ejection, for one, and it's not particularly good writing, either; it's just manipulative. They'd have to have something very clever up their sleeves to make a "Starbuck is alive after all!" revelation feel anything other than kind of cheap.

The Final Five
I'm gonna say that there's more than one reason their identities are so closely guarded. Possibly a reason for each, but more than one, regardless. IE: perhaps one is in a very high position in the Colonial hierarchy, while another has simply had some sort of ideological split with the other Cylons (I particularly like that explanation). Dunno. But I don't think they'll be one grand explanation for all them.

Also, slight spoilers ahead (not about identities, but about how soon something will be revealed to us...

Apparently we'll learn the identity of 4 of the final 5 Cylons in the season finale. I'm guessing, then, that these 4 may have one reason for being kept secret, and the 5th, another entirely.
As for who D'Anna saw that she felt the need to apologize to, well...the most obvious choice is Gauis. She tortured him, after all. She did a few others wrong, though most of the people she's harmed she's harmed indirectly, which I don't think is consistent with what she said and how she said it. Whoever she saw, she had hurt directly, I think.

Also, I was talking with my mom (Austruck) a couple weeks ago, and something occurred to me. When Sharon was still in captivity, she told Adama there were 8 Cylons on board Galactica (she might have said "in the fleet," but I believe it was Galactica).

Now, if I'm not mistaken, since she said this D'Anna, Brother Cavil, and the Doctor from New Caprica have all been exposed as Cylons. If this is the case, that means there are five more Cylons aboard Galactica...and since there are five Cylons yet to be revealed, that would mean that every last one of The Final Five must be on board Galactica. I'll have to check the continuity to make sure I have this all right, but I'm pretty sure this is correct.

Gaius
I've been thinking about this lately, and I think Gauis is going to be the show's Gollum. The parallels are already there; manipulative, cunning, should have been killed countless times...never quite seems to go away...kept alive by the enemy because he's useful, and not killed by the good guys because they're too decent to simply execute him.

I think he'll factor in greatly to the series finale, to the point at which it will have been very fortunate for mankind that he'd managed to survive.

End of the Series
I think we can rule out any decisive victory by either side. It just isn't consistent with where the story has been taking us. The miniseries depicted the ruthless Cylons trying to exterminate mankind in an attack that appeared, at least initially, to be largely unprovoked. They were oozing evil; for goodness' sake, Six snapped a baby's neck. The show was entirely black and white.

Everything since -- everything -- has muddied that contrast into a dull gray. They showed us a holocaust and have since spent the better part of three seasons showing us that things aren't as simple as they appeared in the miniseries. They're just piling exception upon exception upon nuance. Cylons are fighting alongside humans. Humans are wondering if they're Cylons, and sometimes even hoping for it. Cylons are making human-like errors in judgement, and depicting very human levels of obsession and emotion.

I think Sleezy's right; I think we're looking at a finale wherein the humans and the Cylons make peace. I started playing the series out in my head in the first season, and thought, even back then, that that was the most likely outcome. When Sharon got pregnant, I became more sure of it. And everything that has happened since makes me surer still.

With all the criss-crossing above, and considering that the human-Cylon baby Hera has crazy healing powers (and everybody's trying to get their hands on her), it almost seems like a foregone conclusion. Throw in the fact that they're now BOTH heading to Earth, and it seems likely that, well, they'll just end up sharing it.

Granted, this is not without its difficulties. Within this possibility, there lies three other possibilities that can make it viable. After all, we're not going to be asked to accept the idea that they'll all just lay down their arms and play nice. Something would have to happen. Here are the most likely possibilities, as far as I can see:

Cylons fracture into two groups; extremists and moderates. The moderates band together with mankind to fight the extremists, thus earning their trust in the Cylon ability to make independent choices. Nothing like fighting a war alongside someone to get over your prejudices towards them.
Cylons and humans strike up some kind of accord on Earth, and hostility remains, but the series is left open-ended in a way that implies that, while it will be difficult, tensions will die down over time. This may upset some people, but if you made a film following the storyline of the American Civil War, it might have been rather hard to swallow the idea that those two sides would eventually get along, too.
Both humans and Cylons arrive at Earth to find the 13th Colony there. This could, potentially, have some sort of 2010-ish "two suns" effect that brings peace about.
This one's my favorite: after all this time in space, they finally run smack into an alien race, and are forced to band together to survive. They unite under a common enemy.The last really tickles my fancy, because aliens are such a foregone conclusion on so many sci-fi shows, yet this one has never employed them. It'd be realistic, interesting, and it'd be the kind of thing you'd be amazed you didn't think of beforehand. #4 could be combined with #3, as well, wherein they arrive at Earth to find the 13th Colony under attack by an alien race.

Again, the friend of mine above who linked me to the screenshot and thinks Starbuck is alive thinks that the show will end with Cylons "replacing" humans. He points to their ongoing quest to become more human, the fact that even Doctors can't tell the difference anymore, and the repeated mantra of "all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." He figures that, if true, this implies that the Cylons will supplant humanity, and eventually duplicate their mistakes.

This seems reasonable, plausible, and consistent, though a little hard to swallow, seeing as how it would appear to necessitate humanity being wiped out. It's one thing to be dark, gritty, and realistic, but it's quite another to end an entire series on a down note. People will accept them from movies, individual episodes, and even entire seasons, but entire series'? Then again, maybe there's a way in which Cylons replacing humans could be seen as "upbeat," but if there is one, it's beyond me at the moment.

I'm at around 1,400 words now, so I'd probably go better do something useful. I'd love to hear what you guys think about all this, though.

Austruck

03-09-07, 04:27 PM

Let me just say that I am SO GLAD you finally caught up and can post here with the rest of us! TOO much to take in here all at once, but I loved your whole post.

(And the sig quote from Donnie Darko. It is from Donnie Darko, isn't it?)

Yoda

03-09-07, 05:42 PM

It is indeed. I finally got around to seeing it earlier this week. I know it's not a comedy, but man, did I laugh.

Austruck

03-09-07, 05:49 PM

Not to change topics, but yeah, there were huge parts of that where I was howling, including that whole miniplot with the Sparkle Motion thing. Reminded me of an elementary school version of the dance group in Napoleon Dynamite. :)

Anyway ... I rewatched "Maelstrom" once but need to get to it one more time before Sunday. I think your distinctions about Sharon not reliving her fake memories is a valid one. And of course, those persisent trailers pre 3.5 kept saying one would find out they're a cylon, one would find the path to Earth, and one would die. Since there are only three episodes left and we hadn't seen any of these three things happen yet, it makes sense then that Starbuck would be the one who dies, and perhaps then Lee would find the path to Earth via her death/destiny. That leaves just the cylon-reveal, and that sort of thing is always a good season-closer. :)

Oh, as for her destiny being just her death: I knew there was another reason that makes just no sense. Not only was she always drawing that vortex/swirl (since childhood), but it's been seen in temples and on walls from ancient times. I have a serious problem thinking all these OTHER people were having visions and drawing symbols pointing ONLY to Kara's death. So there has to be some sort of tie-in there.

Pyro Tramp

03-11-07, 04:01 PM

What if the some of the Final Five are part of Yoda's Alien race?!

I'm not too keen on alien's though, don't think it will fit in with the show's diegesis (think that's the right word). I was thinking earlier i'd like Roslin to be a cylon and somehow her rise to power has been nudged along by the cylons. Whatever happens to Gaius i think he's the shows strongest character and his character path will probably please me regardless. Back to the Final 5, would be interesting if they were replacements, say Adama or Lee were cylons and the real versions were being held prisoner or if this would work for Kara? I'm curious how whatever Sharon model revealed the number of cylons in the fleet knew this, and whether this was different models or quantities.

Austruck

03-11-07, 05:03 PM

I think it was the Athena copy and not the Boomer copy that told Adama that.

I wasn't ever sure if she meant 8 individual cylons (which could be from any number of models) or if she meant there were 8 different models somewhere on the fleet (with the possibility of multiple copies of any one of them). Was Adama's question deliberately ambiguous that way, or was it just me who was confused?

Can't wait for 10 p.m.! (Six more hours here!)

Sleezy

03-11-07, 10:10 PM

Yoda, I like your theories, and I think you might be onto something about the final five. I seem to recall Athena telling Adama that there were eight Cylons in the fleet (which after the detonation on Cloud Nine, and all the stuff on New Caprica, might be considerably less)... but if she did specify Galactica, then there could be something there. Of course, it's just all in how she meant it, as Austruck pointed out.

I agree, I think she's dead. But I also agree that her death cannot possibly be this self-contained. I like Peter's idea that she, and not Roslin, is the "dying leader who will find the path to Earth." I'll give you even money Lee checks out that little cockpit camcorder they're always using, sees the Raider, and goes exploring the storm somehow, and thus finds the path to Earth.

I thought about this myself, and it's possible. But given that all the "prophetic" angles up to this point have been pretty direct and without alternate interpretation, the idea that Starbuck was the "dying leader" seems far too nebulous to me. From a political, spiritual, or military perspective, she wasn't really leading anyone. From her own perspective, she wasn't leading anyone. And although she did have these "visions," it didn't really turn her into anything but a paranoid, suicidal pilot (far from a leader of the human race). Not to mention, she wasn't really "dying" either; she simply committed suicide, and not even for the purpose of finding Earth.

That's not to say that her death couldn't have indirectly fulfilled this prophecy. I just don't think it fits with the rest of the prophetic events which have come true, and I rather think it's too easy an explanation.

She can't be a Cylon, for several reasons:

All the silly baby nonsense on New Caprica.

I don't know what you mean. Help me out.

We've seen her in flashbacks on Caprica. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we've never seen flashbacks of Sharon's manufactured memories, have we? I don't think we'd actually get to "live out" pretend memories. That'd be too deceptive.

The only Starbuck flashbacks I recall, besides the ones last week, were seen during "Act of Contrition" with Commander Adama and Zack, respectively. I agree that showing these memories while not showing Sharon's would be deceptive to the audience, but it's a more complicated issue than this.

The audience (by the end of the miniseries) was supposed to know that Sharon was a Cylon, so there was no room to show memories. Still, we find out later that she DID have memories, which were fabricated. But assuming that Starbuck is a Cylon, the audience would NEED to be deceived, lest they figure it out. And again, the memories we see of her on Caprica most likely DID happen... just only after she was activated and placed in the Colonial Fleet.

As Austruck pointed out, I'm fairly sure we (and Helo) have seen real-life photos of her at a younger age in her apartment.

Possibly... I don't recall. But even if she did have photos, one could argue that if memories can be fabricated by the Cylons, then family photographs should be a piece of cake. Hell, we may not have seen photos of Sharon's family in her apartment, but that's not to say she didn't have any. How could she have operated believing she was human without owning family photos of some kind? (And I'll have to go back to that episode, but I seem to remember that she did have family photos.)

The thing that really sticks in my crawl is that Starbuck has remnants of broken fingers which, although still potentially fabricated by the Cylons, seems to be more substantial evidence of her humanity than a few family photos. Still, I only remember the black Cylon at the baby farm pointing out her broken fingers... did Doc Cottle notice them too?

The same friend who linked me to the image above insists that Starbuck ejected and survived.... Personally, I think it'd be pretty flimsy to pull something like this. They'd have to ask us to believe that Lee missed her ejection, for one, and it's not particularly good writing, either; it's just manipulative. They'd have to have something very clever up their sleeves to make a "Starbuck is alive after all!" revelation feel anything other than kind of cheap.

I agree. She didn't eject. We didn't see it. Apollo didn't see it. There's no way they could pull that off without a collective series of groans from the audience. For me, that's not even a possibility. But I still believe she's a Cylon, and will download into a Cylon hot tub next season.

Here's an interesting bit of information:

During the Galactica 1980 spin-off of the original Battlestar Galactica series, Starbuck's viper is lost during battle. In the final episode of that series, "The Return of Starbuck" (immediately prior to cancellation), Doctor Zee dreams that Starbuck actually survived, crash-landing on a planet and developing a friendship with a Cylon Centurion which he pieced back together and reprogrammed. Of course, this is all a dream, and at the end of the episode, Starbuck's fate remains unknown. But had the series not been cancelled, the next episode, entitled "The Wheel of Fire" (hmm... wonder if that would look kinda like a circle with yellow, red, and blue rings inside it), sees Starbuck rescued from the planet by the Seraphs, a humanoid species who pilot the Ship of Lights... and he joins them.

Now, it's obvious that the writers of the new Battlestar series have drawn from plot angles from episodes in the original series (most notably the appearance of the Battlestar Pegasus, as well as other small connections), but with slight changes. I'm inclined to suggest that the disappearance/reappearance of Starbuck is likely, based on this reason and others. In fact, I'm almost certain she's a Cylon, and Yoda's small spoiler only confirms it for me. We'll be seeing her again. :yup:

Cylons fracture into two groups; extremists and moderates. The moderates band together with mankind to fight the extremists, thus earning their trust in the Cylon ability to make independent choices. Nothing like fighting a war alongside someone to get over your prejudices towards them.

This might happen should they choose to extend the show, but the writers elected NOT to extend the New Caprica arc. I doubt this is likely. From what I've read, the show might be on shaky ground as it is: ratings are falling, and a straight-to-DVD Galactica movie that was in the works might be getting canned.

Cylons and humans strike up some kind of accord on Earth, and hostility remains, but the series is left open-ended in a way that implies that, while it will be difficult, tensions will die down over time. This may upset some people, but if you made a film following the storyline of the American Civil War, it might have been rather hard to swallow the idea that those two sides would eventually get along, too.

This is the ending I'd be most happy with, and I rather think it's the most likely finale. We can probably assume the writers knew the ending they wanted to work toward before the series was even re-launched, and all the plot arcs we've seen (Hera, the 13th colony, the final five Cylons, etc.) support this finale.

Both humans and Cylons arrive at Earth to find the 13th Colony there. This could, potentially, have some sort of 2010-ish "two suns" effect that brings peace about.

I don't know if I'd like to see a colony of people there. I'd rather see a derelict, but a place nonetheless habitable (and in fact designed by prophecy for settlement).

This one's my favorite: after all this time in space, they finally run smack into an alien race, and are forced to band together to survive. They unite under a common enemy.[/LIST]The last really tickles my fancy, because aliens are such a foregone conclusion on so many sci-fi shows, yet this one has never employed them. It'd be realistic, interesting, and it'd be the kind of thing you'd be amazed you didn't think of beforehand. #4 could be combined with #3, as well, wherein they arrive at Earth to find the 13th Colony under attack by an alien race.

Wow. Well, that would certainly bring the show full-circle: from black/white to grey to black/white again. But I don't know...

Again, the friend of mine above who linked me to the screenshot and thinks Starbuck is alive thinks that the show will end with Cylons "replacing" humans. He points to their ongoing quest to become more human, the fact that even Doctors can't tell the difference anymore, and the repeated mantra of "all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." He figures that, if true, this implies that the Cylons will supplant humanity, and eventually duplicate their mistakes.

I'm not sure this is likely, either. It's certainly appropriate, but I think because the writers have already quite evidently shown the Cylons as fallible and somewhat capable of human-like self-evaluation, the point has already been made: should the Cylons replace humanity, they are destined to make the same mistakes (and in some cases, already have). So there would be no reason to end the series on the reiteration of that.

My one concern is that, no matter what seems like "good" writing, the outcomes we're all trying to guess rest alarmingly with a group of writers whose material, I feel, is beginning to run dry. With the exception of "Unfinished Business," I think we've seen the last truly impressive, original, well-developed episodes in "Exodus Parts 1 and 2." Since then, things have felt very forced, and I really feel like the writers are feeling the pressure of sustaining such a complex show. I just don't feel like I'm in such capable hands anymore, and it's got me thinking that the ends I'd like to see (or think would be best) won't happen, and that the show is on its way out. I certainly hope not, and I still have faith in the writers' abilities to turn out engaging material. So I guess we'll see...

Pyro Tramp

03-12-07, 06:15 PM

Weak episode; hardly building to any season climax.

Austruck

03-13-07, 11:09 PM

Loved the post, Sleezy, although how you quoted Starbuck in the middle is amazing. :)

Pyro, I agree, this past episode ("The Son Also Rises") was weak and didn't get us anywhere. Were we supposed to care about this attorney and whether or not he gets assassinated? Because, I didn't. Interesting enough character, but pointless to bring him in at this point in the season, when the writers have GOT to know we're all waiting for other things.

He felt like a distraction. Nothing of substance to advance any of the plotlines here.

Pyro Tramp

03-14-07, 06:19 PM

I just hope he's not going to be one of the Final Five.

Austruck

03-14-07, 07:06 PM

Egads, I hope not. That thought crossed my mind briefly -- introducing him now, a little bit in advance of a reveal like that.

No no no. Bad bad bad. Cheap trick. Fingers crossed on that one. :)

Pyro Tramp

03-14-07, 07:28 PM

It was playing at the back of mind through the episode that that was why the introduced a new character who seems to have links to the Adama's and is quite 'mysterious'. I take it the season finale will be with the trail of Baltar, which doesn't sound as climatic or as interesting as last seasons.

Austruck

03-14-07, 10:18 PM

As much as I adore the Baltar storyline, he's been so close to death so many times now, including since being in custody, that it's really not any kind of cliffhanger to follow his trial.

Don't get me wrong: I want to see that storyline! All of it! Just not as a season-ender, please! They do still have to answer those questions, and we're not sure exactly how many of them they've actually already answered. But we're sure they haven't revealed a cylon yet, so there's that, at least....

I sure hope they're not desperating struggling there in the writers' room. I want to keep adoring this show.

Pyro Tramp

03-14-07, 10:29 PM

I think Baltar may still be a cylon, his trial ending with assassination then waking up in a pool (next to Starbuck? or someone else killed during his assassination).

Austruck

03-14-07, 11:04 PM

Ooh, wouldn't that be okay then? Yeah, that'd be okay with me. I've spent so long assuming he WAS a cylon and now assuming he's NOT, that I wouldn't mind having the question answered for good. Then we could all go on speculating about what the implications are, depending on who knows he's a cylon at that point.

Pyro Tramp

03-14-07, 11:29 PM

I'd like the question answered as well, and if not all 5 are being revealed yet, this would be the only way to know for a while but i can't see where they'd take the story of him with cylons again, it would seem too much of a rehash.

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-16-07, 02:04 AM

Major Spoiler Alert!
I don't know how factual this is but alot of people seem to believe the girl posting this knows her stuff and that she's been right in the past (I guess I'll know for sure by the end of part one if it's all BS or not) but it's definately an interesting way to take the story. Hell of a cliffhanger as well.

Warning:

Proceed with this link at your own risk! (I'm weak...I HAD to read it all)

http://www.buffistas.org/showthread.php?thread_id=118&post_id=1853

Yikes!:eek:

Austruck

03-16-07, 09:59 AM

Oh dear ... to click or not to click. :)
I think I'm going to hold off clicking this until after the next two episodes are over, and then I'll come back here and click, okay?

(Will this link still be good in a few weeks?)

Yoda

03-16-07, 10:57 AM

I've been meaning to reply to some of the posts here, but since I'd have to sit down for a good 30+ minutes to do them justice, I haven't been able to get around to it yet. Hopefully this weekened. In the meantime, though...

Major Spoiler Alert!
I don't know how factual this is but alot of people seem to believe the girl posting this knows her stuff and that she's been right in the past (I guess I'll know for sure by the end of part one if it's all BS or not) but it's definately an interesting way to take the story. Hell of a cliffhanger as well.

Warning:

Proceed with this link at your own risk! (I'm weak...I HAD to read it all)

http://www.buffistas.org/showthread.php?thread_id=118&post_id=1853

Yikes!:eek:
I'm not sure if I'm going to click, but I was browsing around a spoiler area on another forum and heard that...

...Tigh is one of the Final Five. I didn't look around enough to confirm this, and I do not know if this is among the spoilers you're linking to, but that's what I heard. If true, I think it's potentially moronic. I can't even imagine how they're going to explain that one. We should be able to assume that anyone who fought in the First Cylon War predates humanoid Cylons, and that anyone with memories with other major characters that go back 20 years (like his, with Adama) isn't a Cylon, either. Tigh qualifies under both.

The only way this makes any sense at all is if it's accompanied by some sort of revelation that the Final Five are different from the other Cylons in some key way...IE: they've existed longer, or only one of them exists (rather than an entire line of each model), or they've grown up as humans (implanted in the womb or somesuch). Dunno how I feel about all that, but it's the only way I can see them rationalizing a Tigh reveal.

Pyro Tramp

03-16-07, 11:44 AM

Spoilers are such a bastard. I want to look, but want to enjoy the show. I did read Yoda's and i'd agree with his assessment though it seems like a choice that would have a decent level of impact despite being dumb. Also would fit the apology D'anna said to the Final 5.

Austruck

03-16-07, 01:37 PM

Ooh, be careful there, Pyro. I didn't read Yoda's spoilers either and I was worried that reading your post might spoil something.

Don't spoil anything, pleeeease! Only what? Two more episodes to go? I can be strong, really! Then I can come back here and see if Yoda and Sci-Fi-Guy were right! ;)

Pyro Tramp

03-16-07, 01:44 PM

Sorry- was trying to be vague, i only read Yoda's spoiler, gonna wait to see if anything decent happens next episode before reading the other one.

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-16-07, 01:52 PM

Well, without saying what my spoiler post was about, let me say that if it is indeed true it would be one bold move on the part of the writers of the show rating up there with their last 2 season ending cliffhangers.

If part one does indeed turn out to be what was said in the spoiler I'll give an extra warning to definately NOT click and link. If it's totally wrong the original poster should write for the show. If the points she made about Baltar's trial aren't brought up in court Baltar should get a new lawyer.

Also, if it isn't anything like the true story, then I definately look forward to whatever they do have planned for a cliffhanger.
You just know it's gonna be good.

:licklips:

Pyro Tramp

03-16-07, 01:57 PM

Sundays going to be even longer wait.... temptation

Austruck

03-16-07, 02:16 PM

What you wrote was fine -- I was just worried you'd post again and it would be spoileryer. (Spoileryer??)

It's all good. ;)

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-16-07, 10:21 PM

OK...
Someone pointed out to me the same details in the spoiler are on Aint it Cool News so I checked and sure enough...
SPOILER WARNING
Looks to be true. (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31923)

Personally, I think it looks to be the best cliffhanger ending yet and I'm really looking forward to this Sunday and next.:up:

Austruck

03-16-07, 10:41 PM

Must ... not... look ...
Too ... many ... spoilers ...
Sunday ... must ... come ... sooooon.....

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-16-07, 11:04 PM

Must ... not... look ...
Too ... many ... spoilers ...
Sunday ... must ... come ... sooooon.....
Yeah, I'd recommend not looking.:modest:

You'll be on the edge of your seat when this all plays out on TV.
I just wish they made it a 2 hour one instead of part-1 and part-2.

Pyro Tramp

03-17-07, 08:33 AM

I read it. Wasn't impressed, hope it doesn't turn out like that.

I want the Final 5 or at least more than 4 to KNOW they're cylons and be working against the fleet, not 4 more Boomers. Can't see anything different, special or interesting about re-using that twist. Plus a couple i don't know who they actually are :/ not being attention to peoples names clearly

Austruck

03-17-07, 09:17 AM

Darn, I can't even read this thread anymore! :) :) :)

Yoda

03-17-07, 02:20 PM

Heh, isn't it just like me to get kinda/sorta spoiled? Here's what I've heard:

...that Tigh is apparently a Cylon.

...that Roslin's cancer has recurred.

...that Lee gets into an argument with his father and, at least for now, quits the military.

...that some of the 4 Cylons revealed have no idea they're Cylons (per Pyro's last spoilerish paragraph).
I still don't know who they all are or if the first thing above is true, seeing as how I didn't read it at the places being linked to at the moment.

The next couple paragraphs aren't spoilers, but discuss spoilers very vaguely. If you want to be 110% fresh, skip the rest of this post, but this shouldn't give much away. At worst, it'll rule some extremes out...

Anyway, I'm not sure if I regret knowing anything of this yet. Sometimes, when I know what's coming, it doesn't hurt my enjoyment of seeing it unfold at all. I never know until I see it. That said, things #2 and #3 above are the kind of things I would have liked not to have known, I think, if only because I wouldn't have guessed #3, and DID guess #2.

#1 and #4 are probably more important, but less shocking, if only because we've all run through most every such scenario in our head at least once.

So far I like all the twists I've read about except #1. I still can't make sense of that one and will expect a very elegant explanation if it ends up being true. Sadly, if there even is such an explanation, I doubt we'll hear it in the finale. D'oh.

What is there, 9 months until the new season after this? :eek:

Austruck

03-17-07, 02:24 PM

Lalalalalalalalala.... (fingers in my ears)

I'm not liiiiiiistening!

(leaving thread till Sunday night...)

Yoda

03-17-07, 02:27 PM

Gah. Now I know a bit more (I'm weak), and this time, I instantly regret it. I wanted to know a couple mid-level things, but accidently learned about...

...the verdict to Baltar's trial. ACK! That's one of the specific things I wanted to avoid, because I really felt it could have gone either way, though I was leaning towards either a not-guilty, or else some sort of interruption. IE: either way, I didn't think Baltar was going to die. He'll be with us until the end, I expect.

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-17-07, 02:44 PM

What is there, 9 months until the new season after this? :eek:

NINE MONTHS??!! (http://darthno.ytmnd.com/)

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Escape

03-17-07, 03:24 PM

NINE MONTHS??!! (http://darthno.ytmnd.com/)

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
Lmao, that's funny. Darth sounded like a dweeb when he yelled that too. Hated that part heheh.

Pyro Tramp

03-18-07, 04:12 PM

Hmm, the spoilers i read as far as i knew were speculation.....

MyRobotSuit

03-18-07, 08:15 PM

I'm with Austruck, must....not...read....spoilers!

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-18-07, 11:33 PM

Well...

Only halfway through part-one and I'm convinced the spoiler is true.
Despite knowing about it I'm still excited to see it play out.

If anyone hasn't clicked the spoiler link at this point, Don't Do It!! Just wait and watch it all.

Austruck

03-19-07, 12:17 AM

End of part one of the season finale. I haven't looked at the the threads above this one, and I won't.

And since I haven't looked at any of them, I want to just go on record with my own little totally naive predictions about where they're going with this two-part episode. I really DON'T want someone with access to spoilers to confirm OR deny this prediction. I just want it to be here in print with today's date on it, in case I'm right and then look brilliant (okay, that's a stretch):

Seems to me like Roslin's assistant and Anders and Tigh are all hearing things in the radio waves. My total guess is that the three of them will all be revealed as cylons, that the cylons are using radio waves to have their programming kick in.

I don't mind if other nonspoilered people discuss this here, but I'd rather not have you spoileried types leading me around by the nose because you know more than I do. ;)

Still not sure what that has to do with the last part of the three-prong preview of the entire season (one will die, one will find out they're a cylon, and one will find the path to earth) ... who finds the path to earth?

Oh, one more thing that actually contradictions my own prediction: Those earlier previews for this half-season did say ONE will find out they're a cylon. So does that mean EXACTLY one?

Other interesting tidbits from this episode: Roslin's cancer returning. So, this magical cure was really more of a remission. Does only half-cylon blood work, or could they extract blood from either Sharon herself or Six in custody? I guess they need a being with the human connection for it to work, eh...?

Also, Lee doing this attorney stuff just seems entirely forced to me. I just don't buy that he believes in "the system" in a purely hypothetical form enough to act the way he is. I'm sorry, but even people who believe in "the system" don't think it's flawless and know that guilty people go free precisely because that's built right into the mechanics of how things work. Seems a huge stretch to me that he's banking on purely philosophical idealistic thoughts of the justice system.

Yoda

03-19-07, 12:44 AM

Yeah, I'm not nuts about where Lee's going, either. I can buy a lot of things about him, but this is just too sudden. The thing is, he's still mostly right; Adama Sr. was way out of line with those accusations. He has some valid gripes, but he didn't express any of them.

I feel for Lee, because it's hard to imagine him ever being in anyone's good graces again. Whatever happens to him from here on out, it's hard to imagine him meeting with an entirely happy end unless he manages to do something particularly heroic or noble to win everyone over again.

So, yeah...the rest of this post is going to be spoilerish...

So far, all the spoilers I've read appear to have been correct.

I'm rather surprised, though, in that they don't appear to be trying to hide the (apparent) fact that Tigh, Anders and Tory are Cylons. Indeed, they're inviting people to guess that they are before they confirm it. This makes me suspicious; why wouldn't they take the built-in dramatic payoff here? Anders and Tory are not entirely shocking, but Tigh sure is (if only because it seems nonsensical to me at the moment). Why not make a big deal of Tigh being a Cylon? Why give the audience such blatant clues, and then a whole week, to deduce it?

The only reason I can think of -- and this is hopelessly Machiavellian of me, I know -- is that it detracts attention away from the fourth Cylon reveal. After all, we've been told that four of the Final Five Cylons will be revealed in the finale, and with Tigh, Anders and Tory we're still one short. I think they want to punch us right in the face with that fourth one.

Which brings me to a prediction that I'm very tentative about, and very much hope is wrong: Starbuck. This is very much the show's style, I believe. They've given us a couple of weeks (and a ton of dramatic twists and turns already) to get our mind off of her. They love to blindside us, and revealing Starbuck to be one of the Final Five sure seems to fit the bill.

Now, I don't like the idea for several reasons: creatively, personally, and logistically, too. But it certainly "feels" like the kind of thing they love to do.

At this point, then, I'm just hoping and praying that they've got a great explanation lined up for all the seeming contradictions that will fly up if Starbuck and especially Tigh are revealed to be Cylons.

Austruck

03-19-07, 12:52 AM

(sigh) Oh well. I'll get to come back to this thread and read all the spoilers a week from now. ;)

One more thing that I did find interesting: In the scene where Lee quits and hands over his little boy-scout pin (or whatever that pin was), I found it fascinating that both Adamas obviously feel they have integrity -- and yet they define it in entirely polar-opposite ways in this case.

In theory that is an interesting, well, theory. It's fun to sit and wonder about whether integrity in this case means defending a man who doesn't deserve it (in times of war, can't they declare him a combatant and lock him up indefinitely? till after the war?) ... or whether it means standing up for what's left of the human race by making sure someone who's just been at least partially complicit in the deaths of 1/9 of the remainder of the population gets punished.

I love the way they tackle the big issues on this show.

Austruck

03-19-07, 12:53 AM

And I just want to congratulate myself for an entire post in this thread without spoiler tags needed. :)

Austruck

03-19-07, 09:42 AM

I put this in the shoutbox but it should be here too: I got my weekly SciFi.com mass email this morning, and it said: "See the Final 5 Cylons in Battlestar Finale Sunday!"

So apparently we are going to see all five on Sunday. Which helps with my above prediction, of course. That'd be three of five. (And why did I just think "Borg" when I typed that?) ;)

I'm not sure I like that, exciting though it might be for that one episode. Because, frankly, at least some of the story tension for me has come from NOT knowing who some of the cylons are. That was some of the very early appeal of the show for me: The whole "they are among us" mentality. It was creepy and eerie, and realistic.

I can only hope that we the viewers see all five, but that the BSG crew and humans don't find out just yet. That'd be okay. Then we could watch them slowly figure it out one by one, perhaps....

Still not sure how they're going to work in the "path to earth" storyline in one episode.

Austruck

03-19-07, 09:45 AM

OH! BIG QUESTION!

For anyone who has this episode taped or on DVR, go about 15 minutes into the episode. This is when they are just starting to broadcast Baltar's trial over loudspeakers into various parts of the fleet, and they're showing you various people listening while they're working.

WELL, at one point they show a quick shot of the fuel ship (the one with the union workers thing with Chief a few episodes back), and the assembly line. They cut to a few workers standing in a short line, and I SWEAR the last guy in the line (with a funny, Russian-looking hat) looks like Adama! Honestly! Twice I've seen it and had the same reaction.

I immediately thought, Aha! Cylon copy in the fleet!

Can anyone else run that part of their episode and tell me if I'm crazy.... or just hunting snipes? :)

Austruck

03-19-07, 10:15 AM

Yes, another little thing I noticed in last night's episode: I find it interesting that Adama Sr. is ready to give Tigh a pass for his bad behavior ("You never embarrass me, Saul"), but really comes down hard on Lee ("You're a liar and a coward"), more so all the time.

It'd be a good juxtaposition if I felt the whole thing with Lee weren't so forced to begin with just to add that tension.

Sleezy

03-19-07, 10:38 AM

WELL, at one point they show a quick shot of the fuel ship (the one with the union workers thing with Chief a few episodes back), and the assembly line. They cut to a few workers standing in a short line, and I SWEAR the last guy in the line (with a funny, Russian-looking hat) looks like Adama! Honestly! Twice I've seen it and had the same reaction.

No joke. I noticed that, too. I leaned over to my friend and, before I could say anything, he asked, "Was that William Forsythe?!" After a little laughing, I said, "I thought it looked like Olmos dressed like a hobo..."

Austruck

03-19-07, 01:00 PM

That's exactly what I thought. It really threw me off because I wasn't trying to look for anything like that. It just jumped out at me.

I'm tempted to hit some sort of BSG forum or site, but frankly, I'm afraid of spoilers about other things. So, I'll just wait and see.

Glad it wasn't just my eyes that "saw" something there.

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-19-07, 02:52 PM

NO Spoilers Included...
(only commenting on what was aired so far)

:)

The first part of the 3rd season finale was a damn good one.
The Galactican fleet discovers that due to a radiation signature in their ore processing ship the Cylons have been tracking them and following them on their path to Earth.

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/845/bsgcrossroads1yd3.png (http://imageshack.us)http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/5409/bsgcrossroads5ze8.png (http://imageshack.us)

Meanwhile as the Galactica prepares a plan to lead the Cylons away from their true path before masking the detectable radiation signature the Trial of Baltar begins.

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/4663/bsgcrossroads10ar0.png (http://imageshack.us)

With Admiral Adama on the jury, Lee Adama acts against his fathers wishes and resigns his commision and acts as one of Baltar's defence lawyers as his grandfather did before him.

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/7601/bsgcrossroads15sm9.png (http://imageshack.us)

Somehow Baltar, while despised by most of the fleet is idolized by others as a religious icon after writing his memoirs while imprisoned.
Why?

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3996/bsgcrossroads11dl1.png (http://imageshack.us)

I really don't understand what Baltar has done to deserve such recognition.
This exact same thing was done by G'Kar in Babylon-5 years ago but I could actually understand why the Narn would adopt G'Kar as a religious figure. I don't understand why anyone would feel that way about Baltar.

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/1033/bsgcrossroads12fj0.png (http://imageshack.us)

The other thing I didn't understand was how the captured Caprica-Six knew about Colonel Tigh's dirty little secret regarding the death of his wife.
As far as I know, no one saw Tigh kill her after she betrayed the rebellion.

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/7784/bsgcrossroads14hh5.png (http://imageshack.us)http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/6027/bsgcrossroads13lj1.png (http://imageshack.us)

During the entire episode we learn that 3 members of the crew, Tigh, Anders, and Tori are all hearing the same old song.
No one else seems to notice this but Tigh seems to be handling it the worst after breaking down in court and admitting his part in his wife's death.
If this is an Earth song it would at least place the series at out time or in the future and not in the past as some have speculated.

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3231/bsgcrossroads16zu6.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/5336/bsgcrossroads17ys4.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3225/bsgcrossroads18uc1.png (http://imageshack.us)

Now they seem to be hinting that these 3 may be Cylons.
But considering Tigh's age and long history could it be something else connecting these three?

Was hoping for a more dramatic ending to this part-one but from what I read in spoilers, part-two will more than make up for it next week. ;D

ALSO...
I assume this is the shot everyone is referring to?
He does look like a dingy Adama.

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/7585/pdvd000zg4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Austruck

03-19-07, 03:08 PM

Oh, I can't believe it -- all your photos came through but the last one! LOL!

And, so far as I know, it's just me saying those three could be cylons. Haven't done any other reading, just speculating on my own, but if others are saying it elsewhere (not-spoilering, just part of conjecture like I'm doing), then I feel better. ;)

Nice wrapup of the episode!

I kinda agree about Tigh's long history. How long have the cylons had skinjobs operational? Then again, the only other person we ever hear talking about a long history of friendship with Tigh is Adama. And he could be a cylon too, eh? :)

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-19-07, 03:21 PM

And, so far as I know, it's just me saying those three could be cylons. Haven't done any other reading, just speculating on my own, but if others are saying it elsewhere (not-spoilering, just part of conjecture like I'm doing), then I feel better. ;)

Yeah, non-spoiled people on other boards have been concluding the same thing and thinking they might be Cylons.
Personally, I think it may be possible but unless I see other copies of them I won't totally believe it. People have always thought Baltar to be a Cylon even Baltar himself believed it but I could never really believe that one either. He's a better character as a human lead astray than have all his bad decisions be explained away by him being a Cylon.

Whoever is revealed as Cylon in the finale had better have some copies on hand so the writers can't just 'take it back' next season.

:idea:

As for the last pic not working, I'll edit it and reduce it's size.

Austruck

03-19-07, 03:27 PM

Aha, there it is. For those who can't go back and rewatch the epi, it DOES look clearer than that picture, although it's a great start.

Yeah, I kinda agree about the copies thing, which is what I thought that last photo could account for. They could have thrown that in for those quick enough to notice it and make the connection that Adama has a copy.

But again -- how long have the cylons had skinjobs, and how long has Adama been in the fleet? 35 years, right? That seems a bit of a stretch that the cylons have had skinjobs since only 5 years after making the peace pact with humans.

I guess I'd believe they were cylons if they died and woke up in cylon goo -- and if they tried the "it's all a dream" thing like with Baltar, I'd shoot a few writers.

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-19-07, 05:25 PM

Someone on another board now has me wondering if alcohol might have something to do with hearing the radio signal.

Tigh and Anders first heard it in the bar while drinking and later Tori was in the bar when she heard it as well.

Of course the President did mention that Tori had been irratable for weeks and was wondering if something was wrong.

Austruck

03-19-07, 05:33 PM

Yes, Tori said she had been having trouble sleeping (and she looked awful).

I'm guessing they can hear it almost all the time, judging from Tigh thinking he heard it inside the actual ship itself. Something like that (like a cylon tinnitus!) would certainly mess wit' yer sleep.

Pyro Tramp

03-20-07, 05:53 PM

Even though i read the spoilers, i only recognised ones name so basically don't really know any spoilers. I thought Tigh's hearing music, at least more than the other two was alcohol related, though would b suprised if that was it considering being part of the finale, to have false leads would be rubbish. I'm not sure if anyone else saw the 'next week' bit at the end but the narration said something about cylons being revealed then showed faces of characters....

Tigh, Anders, Tory and the other one of them was Chief. Which i really do not like along with Tigh. Having human characters i've placed a lot of empathy in revealed as cylons is irritating, if it were to be a leader lke Adama or Roslin, the narrative impact it would have would make them being cylons work but as the two characters who've probably undergone the most, it doesn't sit well. The other two are good choices, though cant remember Tory from anywhere before. Anders is probably most obvious choice tbh.

^thats not really spoilers, since its my thoughts on the last episode, but done it in case

Austruck

03-20-07, 06:02 PM

Pyro, I want to read what you have tagged, but I'm a little leery. Is it just you doing what I did and discussing your thoughts? (And, are any of your thoughts related to anything you read as a spoiler elsewhere??)

Geez, I'm getting paranoid. And it's only Tuesday. (sigh) :)

Pyro Tramp

03-20-07, 06:15 PM

I'm 95% certain you won't be spoiled, if you don't mind my speculations on the 'next time' bit. I only half read the spoilers/speculations and all i really remember is the outcome of the trail.

Austruck

03-20-07, 06:23 PM

Tory's been around since Billy died, but I haven't noticed her much, except that she's often stilted and brash, cold, aloof. Not much "character" or warmth to her.

I say we don't need spoilers if we're speculating on upcoming events, so I'm not using them. I've read no spoilers so everything I'm thinking is my own. That's part of the fun of a thread like this -- to discuss an episode after it airs (not before!).

Sooooo ... I see your point, Pyro about Adama/Roslin versus those other four.

I keep thinking we are SUPPOSED to think Tigh hears that stuff because of his drinking but that it's really something else. And it's clear that both Tory and Anders were hearing it too (at least out of that same old radio). I'm sticking by my theory that it's radio waves that will kick in their cylon programming.

And oddly, I'm not sure if I'll be happier if I'm right ... or if they totally flummox me with a wholly different plot divergence! Both scenarios would be fun on Sunday!!

P.S. Yoda, hubby won't be leaving for Florida till Sunday morning (no gaming weekend!), but you and the Chick can still come up to watch BSG if you want! It'd be fun to not watch it all alone for a change. (Kinda late, I know, but hey...)

Pyro Tramp

03-20-07, 06:39 PM

I say we don't need spoilers if we're speculating on upcoming events, so I'm not using them. I've read no spoilers so everything I'm thinking is my own. That's part of the fun of a thread like this -- to discuss an episode after it airs (not before!).

I only put it in spoilers because i had read some spoilers and thought better safe than sorry.

Sooooo ... I see your point, Pyro about Adama/Roslin versus those other four.

I keep thinking we are SUPPOSED to think Tigh hears that stuff because of his drinking but that it's really something else. And it's clear that both Tory and Anders were hearing it too (at least out of that same old radio). I'm sticking by my theory that it's radio waves that will kick in their cylon programming.

Considering Tory and Anders were hearing it, Tigh must be hearing it just reacting worse due to alcohol me thinks. I don't buy the radio waves kicking in programming, since i'm thinking it is coming from Earth, though them hearing it is a cylon sign i think. I'm not sure if they even have programming, i'm hoping they'll have something different about them and not be drones following orders. And i'm hoping they give these cylons different roles, though can't work out what they'll be doing. I'd love the season to end with Tigh being a cylon and reminscing with Adama, with us thinking he's fooled the old man then cut to Adama in a cylon prison with a beard. It would make the series more interesting, give Roslin more to do, with having Tory. If Anders is a cylon, i hope Starbuck doesn't come back.

Austruck

03-20-07, 06:57 PM

I'm getting all giddy just thinking about Sunday, now that I read your post. They could really go almost ANYWHERE with what they've given us in Part 1 of this finale.

I do love that about this show. All bets are off, all the time. :)

Austruck

03-21-07, 12:13 AM

Oh, one more very small thing I noticed in this episode: There was no opening theme music. No credits along the bottom while Adama flies face first onto the light board. (The credits were still there, but no music, and just flashing quietly along the bottom of the screen while the episode played at the beginning.)

As I recall (having watched them all so recently), I don't think they've ever done that before.

Odd.

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-26-07, 12:19 AM

Holy Frack, that was good! :eek:

Gonna have to do a slow-mo frame by frame to figure out just how far they were from Earth in that last shot.

At least they're in the right galaxy.:yup:

Uhh...
Eight months until the next episode...?:goof:
THAT IS WAY TOO LONG!!!!!!:furiousdevil:

Edit:
Sorry....9 months....it's not back till January, 2008.
Course there is a direct-to-DVD 2 hour Pegasus movie (http://galacticasitrep.blogspot.com/2007/03/return-of-pegasus.html) coming before that.

Austruck

03-26-07, 01:41 AM

Yeah, I think I saw

... the Pirates in spring training in that last shot of FLORIDA!

:)

CRAZY. Some of it was obvious, given last week's episode, but I did like how they ...

...all decided to just quietly go back and do their jobs.

I had wondered how they'd maintain any sort of internal tension regarding cylons once they started revealing them all. But, having them act like they did is a good way to pull that off. There is still a LOT of obvious tension with them still "lurking" in the fleet, even if they mean to try to be loyal.

Which of them will struggle with that more than others? And when

Chief told Callie "I'll tell ya later," my first thought was, "Will you??" :)

Austruck

03-26-07, 02:04 AM

One more thing I just read elsewhere (and I've just now decided not to use spoiler tags anymore since the episode has aired!):

This means that Hera is only one of TWO half-cylon babies. Tyrol and Callie's baby is also half-cylon.

Wack.

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-26-07, 04:36 AM

This means that Hera is only one of TWO half-cylon babies. Tyrol and Callie's baby is also half-cylon.
But Tyrol's baby would be half Final-Five Cylon whereas Hera is half skinjob Cylon.

I'm getting the feeling the F-5 Cylons are Earth humans and the first Cylons from before the centurion robots on Caprica and the skinjobs that came later.

They may have created the robotic Cylons that revolted by using Earth technology. Maybe they themselves are really clones? A clone is just one step up from a cyborg (skinjob) who is one step up from a robot (centurion) when you think about it.

Course, at this point in the story anything's possible so I could be way off from where they're going with this development.

Sleezy

03-26-07, 11:14 AM

Although last night's episode was decent, I think it was a weak season finale; and ultimately, a letdown. None of the big "reveals" were surprising. All the people I suspected were in that room: the only person I didn't figure being a Cylon was Tyrol, but only because it wasn't even alluded to until last night (when everyone who watches this show was playing 'Spot the Cylon').

I'm not at all surprised at the trial verdict; nor am I surprised that Starbuck has returned so early, given how quickly things have been moving on this show lately. The only thing at which I'm even remotely surprised -- though pleasantly, I might add -- is the trio of shadowy women who threw the red cloak over Baltar and ran off with him. What's up with that? ;)

Now...

Despite the fact that I was expecting a little more of a twist (I like the idea that the show is smarter than me), and that Starbuck is probably a Cylon, given that she showed up the same time they did....

...I can't say for sure... because the show didn't say for sure.

For that matter, how can we trust that Tori, Tyrol, Tigh, and Anders (who were all involved with the New Caprica resistance, I might add) are Cylons? They said it, but their only evidence is that they've been hearing Bob Dylan songs around the ship.

I'm thinking there's a third party here. Perhaps they're Earth Cylons, perhaps they're a telepathic middleman race (a la the Seraphs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seraphs_%28Battlestar_Galactica%29) of the original series)... who knows? But something isn't right. This isn't black-and-white human versus Cylon anymore, and there was no indication in last night's episode that the Cylon fleet which appeared was even hostile. It's been weeks since we saw the Cylons last. And here's an interesting thought: if Laura Roslin is sharing dreams with two Cylons....

Austruck

03-26-07, 12:34 PM

Yoda and I talked for an hour right after the episode aired, and I'll let him post the more detailed rundown of our various theories and deductions. A few things to note, though:

-- I now don't think that the cylons' programming kicked in. I think they can just hear this music (obviously from Earth) *because* they're cylons and that's how they figured it out collectively. No one's heard instructions from the cylons or anything that even smells like programming. They may not know what they're hearing yet, but it's made them realize they're different from the humans around them.

-- The other cylons on Galactica (Sharon, Six) didn't seem to hear the music, but they were having the same dream.

-- The Dean Stockwell cylon (forgot his name, sorry) said earlier that the cylons don't talk about those other five models. So, there is some sort of huge riff/break among the ranks here, and it's something the basic cylon community doesn't discuss. Shame? Intimidation? Bad history? Are the final five really the first five? Were they (as Yoda said to me) beta models that somehow didn't work properly (in terms of perhaps being too human, too empathetic with humans, etc.)?

-- It seems (on the surface) as if there is only one copy of each of these last cylons. Were they born of their human parents? Could this have been how the cylons first tried to replicate their skinjobs but something went wrong with that plan so they moved to the goo-and-copies method?

TOO much to go into now, but I wanted to get the discussion started. After all, we only have nine months to figure everything out! ;)

Yoda

03-26-07, 12:40 PM

Whew. Okay. Thoughts on various subjects, arranged with various headings to organize what will certainly resemble a giant game of free association anyway.

The Final...Four?
Ironic that, nearing the pinnacle of March Madness, BSG fans get their own "Final Four." Except they're not really "final" if there's one left, right? Anyway, I digress...

We've had numerous warnings about Tyrol's character, most notably his dreams of suicide and the latent fear that he might, in fact, be a Cylon. Funny...he said he was afraid of being one, and Brother Cavil said something about how he might be one, too. Turns out, they both were.
All but Tigh have had a relationship with another Cylon; Tyrol with Boomer, and Anders and Tory with each other. And, pending the reveal of the final Cylon, possibly Starbuck, in which case Anders will have gotten with two -- count 'em TWO -- Cylon chicks. Me, I prefer redheads.
Having the four of them go on with their lives (at least for now) is a great move. As I said in an earlier post, revealing all of the Cylons has the potential of robbing the show of the vague tension that permeates every moment, simply because we have no idea who is and is not human. But by revealing them to the audience, and not to the fleet, that tension remains.

As I said to Austruck on the phone, it reminds me of Hitchcock's bomb theory: if you show two men sitting at a table talking, and then show the table explode, you get a split-second of surprise and tension. If you show the audience a bomb under the table, and then show the two men talking, the entire conversation is rife with tension. With Tigh, Anders, Tyrol and Tory, we've seen the bomb. And I imagine we'll be spending the better part of Season Four waiting for it to explode.What Makes Them Different?
This, more than their identities, is what's really important. Clearly, something about them is different. But what? The quality and ingenuity of the answer will largely determine how seriously we take the rest of the show. If the answer is weak, Season Four will be, too. As you might expect, I have some further guesses about what makes them different.

But first, here's what I think we can logically deduce: first, that The Final Five have been part of human society longer; Tigh has shared memories with Adama that go back, what, 40 years? So we have to assume that they were probably the first humanoid Cylons to live on Old Caprica.

Second, that they appear to age to some extent, unlike the other models.

And third, that they do not appear to be under Cylon control. This seems like a stretch, but I see no other explanation. Tigh was in control of the entire fleet following the attempted assassination of Adama, so one imagines that the Cylons cannot simply "activate" the Final Five the way they could with someone like Boomer, or else they would have done so then and wreaked havoc with Tigh at the helm.

The thing that strikes me about all of these things is how human they all are, in a way. They are under no one else's control; they appear to have the same level of free will as any human. They age and grow and change, too. And perhaps most telling of all: they all seem to have exceedingly human problems. Chief has had all sorts of relationship troubles, and is constantly bothered by issues of class and politics. Tigh is an alcoholic who was stuck in a bad marriage. Anders fell in love with the wrong woman and can't get over her. Tory, we don't really know much about, but she's been kind of freaking out lately, too.

In other words, they're not really acting much like machines. For all their human traits, Cylons still appear more efficient and logical, overall, than humans. But the four revealed to us last night are as human as anyone in terms of the pitfalls they've fallen into.

So, based on all this, I think there are a few possibilities:

The Final Five were the earliest humanoid Cylons, but were a "beta test" of sorts, and the Cylons sort of "disowned" them for being too human. One gets the impression that, while they're emulating humans quite a bit now, the Cylons didn't much care for human qualities at first.
Same as above, except The Final Five were not disowned, but simply disregarded. The Cylons made better versions (the other seven models), and stuck with them.
The Final Five were the earliest humanoid Cylons, but something went wrong and the Cylons could not control/activate them.Now that we have some reasoned guesses out of the way, it's time for wild speculation: I have a very strong feeling that The Final Five are either not resurrectible, or else simply have not died yet. I don't think there are a bunch of Tighs running around. The idea that they cannot resurrect fits with the theories above in that it would seem to fit with the idea that they've been around longer, and are therefore older/inferior.

Then again, the other Cylons seem to talk about them in different ways. Content-wise, we always get some variation of "we can't/won't/shouldn't talk about them." But in terms of tone, we get very different responses. Caprica Six seems afraid to talk about them. Brother Cavil seems almost derisive. And D'Anna was positively reverent, though she's the one Cylon who clearly did not know who they were. The first two seem to fit with the theories above, but D'Anna's reverence brings up another theory: that The Final Five are indeed off on their own and indepedent, but are perhaps revered for having never died, or for having infiltrated human society so efficiently with their human qualities...or both.

Are They Really Cylons?
A fine question, no doubt, but there's no way to answer it for sure. I will say this, though: if it's not really them, it's a pretty cheap trick. They'd also have a hard time explaining how they're all picking up on (what is presumably) a radio signal. What, do they all have metal plates in their heads? We have to remain open to the possibility that they're not Cylons, but for all intensive purposes, I'm going to assume they are. I can't account for the possibility that the writers are willing to mess around with us quite so egregiously.

The Final Cylon
There are, of course, plenty of possiblities here, but only two make sense: Starbuck, or Roslin. Both have things that are easily explained if they are, in fact, the final Cylon, and both have things that demand explanation if they are not.

They are, as I see it:

Starbuck: it explains why she's still alive; she died, and was resurrected. It also explains her weird connection with Leoben, and all that. If she's not a Cylon, they need to explain why she's alive. Possibilities include: Lee's just hallucinating (kinda lame), or she ejected and got picked up, and Lee didn't notice (very lame).

Roslin: it explains why she's having simultaneous dreams with Caprica Six, Athena, and Hera, and possibly why the fleet's power went out just as she was getting some kind of headache-thing. If she's not a Cylon, they need to explain how she can have these simultaneous dreams, and the headache thing (which probably isn't a coincidence). Possibilities include: the human/Cylon blood inside her somehow explaining these links.

I'm pretty torn on this. On one hand, Starbuck makes more sense, because reasonable possibilities exist for Roslin still being a human. If Starbuck's still human, though, they've got a lot of tapdancing to do to make it all seem plausible. On the other hand, Roslin makes for better drama, as Ms. Airlock is as anti-Cylon as anyone (even Tigh).

Earth
I think it's pretty obvious that the song they're hearing is a signal from earth. Just some weird fluke wherein they happen to pick up that particular signal. And since they're singing Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower," which is a song from "our" universe, we can conclude that our universe and theirs are one and the same.

Granted, this doesn't tell us much. If they're, say, 1,000 light years away, then they could be picking up a radio signal from the past that's just getting to them, which means the Earth in BSG is actually our future. But if they're closer, it might be the near-future.

Now, this presents the biggest problems of all, because it indicates that the 13th Colony landed on Earth and became, well, you and me. For this to have happened, they need to have landed there -- spaceships and all -- and then have something happen wherein they lose that spaceship technology (and any other advanced technoloy). They then need the whole ordeal to become some sort of myth over many generations, so they can start over, technology-wise, and eventually become the world as we know it today.

Either that, or they could just blow these problems off by pretending that it's not really our universe, and that the 13th Colony just happened to produce "All Along the Watchtower" on their own, by complete coincidence. Which would be, well, pretty weak.

General Thoughts on the Quality of the Finale
Great episode, I thought. What I dug, and what I didn't:

:up: Tyrol being a Cylon. A lot of his problems and pitfalls make a lot of sense this way (though they did with him as a human, too).
:up: Lee's speech. Persuasive, and accurate. He's right: they have been bending the rules. They've had no choice. And he's right in that they're ashamed of having done so, and are taking that out on Gaius. The funny thing is, he is a traitor...just not for the reasons they think (or can prove).
:up: The music. It totally set the mood. I liked the little Arabian guitar riff they had going on, and the "All Along the Watchtower" cover, while kind of jarring, really ramped up the tension for some reason. Hell, it made me fear for Lee's life, because it was playing as he flew around. It was just so jarring and new that I felt like anything was possible.
:up: Adama voting "Not Guilty." He knows Lee's right, and his character has shown a willingness -- nay, even a tendency -- towards changing his mind about things he once felt extremely passionate about (like reuniting with Roslin and the rest of the fleet on Kobol; which was the result of another empassioned speech...that time, it was from Dee). It's his way. It's not that he's easily persuaded, it's that whatever he believes, he believes with great intensity.
:down: Starbuck being thrown in at the end. It was crazy obvious that's where they were going, and while they may have an elegant explanation for what happened to her, for the next nine months it's going to feel like they just threw it in there. We'll have to wait until January before we find out if they pulled it out of their hat, or out of...well, some other place.
:down: Gauis getting all goofy right after being acquitted. I know this is consistent with his character; he's totally shameless and turns on a dime. But sometimes it's a bit too blatant, and borderline unbelievable. This is just a tonal thing with me, really, but I just felt that, given that he actually shed a tear upon hearing the verdict, even Gauis would have to be a bit more solemn in the immediate aftermath. This is, admittedly, more of a preferential thing than the others. The writers might have very good reasons for wanting to fully establish how shameless he is.In a little bit, I'll go back and re-read parts of my last dissertation-length post on the matter (I think I posted it right after "Maelstrom"), and see how some of the predictions/guesses I made then are looking now.

Austruck

03-26-07, 01:26 PM

Good post ... and rather pretty, too. :)

As for Gaius getting "all goofy" ... I had no problems with the way he acted. If it were me, I'd be all giddy after a huge adrenaline burst like that (the tension of wondering if you're going to die and then suddenly NO, you're FREE!). And he had been assuming that the two guys going to bat for him would still treat him the same way they had been (like, umm, talking to him and stuff). :) But no, what Lee had said on the stand was still true: Nobody likes Baltar very much (except me ;) ).

And Lampkin is now the Johnny Cochran of BSG, so yee-haw, off he goes with his shades in place.

It will definitely be fun to see where they end up going with these "stealth cylons" who have all decided to keep their human identities. It seems that they are all doing so out of a sense of semi-denial and loyalty.

Some other interesting points: Tyrol, while talking to Anders about the music they both hear, says it feels like "some memory from childhood." It's an interesting way to put it, given that it is a song from Earth. Are we to make more of this than just the emotion he was trying to evoke? What connection do they already have to Earth?

Starbuck: Ehhh, I am still trying to get the cheesy taste out of my mouth about the way that was handled. She was all smiley and gushy and non-Starbuck-like there, even with a ton of cylons battering down on all their friends. I don't see many ways around the cheese factor with this one, but they may yet surprise me. But, for a sci-fi show that has steered clear of alien life forms and humans with different qualities than actual humans, I'd hate to see us finding out Starbuck has morphed into some sort of superhero human type. There had better be a good explanation for whatever they throw at us.

Also: Assuming the other "regular" cylons can hear the music too, then even repairing the heat signature wasn't enough to get them off the trail. The timing was a wee bit late, because now they just followed that music to the road to Earth all by themselves. Bummer for the humans.

HOWEVER, I'm not convinced the cylons can hear the music -- We never saw Athena or Six reacting to the music, just those dreams. In which case, how did the cylons find the path to Earth as fast as the humans did?

There will be a lot to get into in Season 4: that scrambling race to Earth alongside the cylons; Starbuck's reappearance (just when some of us were coming to terms with her being gone); Roslin's mental connections with the cylons (Kamala-based or cylon-blood-based or total-cylon?); the final four living among the humans anonymously (will another cylon such as Six or Athena be able to tell somehow and rat them out?); Baltar's fanboys and whatever wacko religion they're going to start on the side with him fretting his way back and forth between their adoration and his own battered conscience...

It's endless, really. Love this show.

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-26-07, 01:30 PM

I completely agree with you about Baltar's attitude after the verdict. I pretty much just rolled my eyes and said "Frackin' Baltar, man...he never learns!":rolleyes:

As for the final Cylon, I had always assumed it was Starbuck but Roslin would make a better choice since she's always been so anti-Cylon from the start (Tigh too for that matter so maybe they won't go the same way with her now). During this episode I thought it was because of her blood connection with Hera that she was experiencing the Cylon visions and not that she was actually one of them.
My main Cylon guesses have always been Adama or Billy (if they brought him back) just because it would destroy Roslin, or Tom Zarek just because... well, he's the original Apollo and it would be wicked sweet!
Also, Baltar's lawyer, Lampkin, has become a possibility to me in the Cylon department. He didn't seem to need his cane at the end there either.
If anything, I'm sure we'll see him again.

As for the Earth music, it doesn't have to have necessarily taken all that time to reach the fleet over the light-years making it an Earth of the future.
Remember Starbuck has already been there and back so she could have brought the song with her.

One other thing I noticed at the end and I know I could be grasping at straws here but...

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/5453/bsgcrossroads247jh3.png (http://imageshack.us)

Did anyone else notice a similarity with the 'star' on the lower right to the Seraph's Ship of Lights?
Might be a coincidence but it was the only star that looked like that.
That kinda freaked me out when I first saw it.

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/5145/shiplitehw8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

:eek:

Yoda

03-26-07, 01:41 PM

Austruck's post reminded me of a few other things (some of which she mentioned):

Whether or not the other Cylons can hear the music, too, strikes me as a pretty big deal. But you're right, they don't seem to have heard it, and that doesn't seem like something they'd omit. I imagine it ties into what makes The Final Five different. Certainly fits with the idea of them being inferior models, doesn't it? Picking up radio waves and all that jazz? Almost seems like a flaw. That said, it's almost a pity, because the idea of the Cylons tracking them post-radiation signature by hearing and following the music is a rather cool idea, too.

The women ushering Gauis off to the side. I think you're right; there'll be some weird religious thing and he'll probably embrace it, but not without all sorts of inner dialogue and self-doubt. He rejected it instantly while in prison (which was a bit surprising), but he might be a bit higher on himself now, and he's certainly looking for a way to live/survive now that he's free and everyone hates him, so he might cling to it simply to get by. Here's hoping it doesn't become goofy, though...which it very well might.

Good question about the childhood memory thing. I took it as a metaphor, but it might not be. After all, The Final Five seem to have some sort of connection to the Kobol Opera House, which was built 4,000 years ago. Some characters have pointed this out already, and have wondered how Cylons, which are a (presumably) relatively new invention, could possibly have a connection to something so old. Perhaps The Final Five have been around a lot longer, somehow. Or perhaps my friend's theory about this all being cyclical, and this is part of the Cylons eventually supplanting humans (and duplicating their mistakes someday). That opens the door to a few plausible explanations as to their connection to the Opera House.

Tyrol's baby = Hera, Part Two. Forgot to mention that before. I don't know if this'll become a big deal, necessarily, but it does seem to support the theories about some sort of peace between humans and Cylons. Notice how most of the more ardent Cylon-haters are Cylons themselves (Tigh, possibly Roslin), have Cylon blood in them (Roslin), or have given birth to half-Cylon children (Callie). In other words, those who hate the Cylons the most are being given reasons to second-guess themselves. Probably not a coincidence.Gah, nine months. Flippin' sadists. I guess that makes all of us masochists, then, since we keep watching it.

Yoda

03-26-07, 02:22 PM

Yes, more. Sorry.

Major theory that didn't completely occur to me before: maybe The Final Five are all clones. In other words, maybe they're "different" because they replaced existing humans. Granted, this still leaves a great deal unexplained, but it accounts for the whole memory thing, and the apparent problems with the chronology (IE: Tigh fighting in the first Cylon war).

I don't think this is the case, but hey, gotta get it all out there. It's easier to make sense of what happens, I think, when you've already fleshed these things out. That way, when something happens, you can see which theory it fits best with.
More random bits of information:

Apparently, Executive Producer Ron Moore stated in an interview that the four Cylons allegedly revealed in the finale are, in fact, Cylons. Doesn't make it true, of course, but I'm going to take the man at his word and assume there isn't some crazy trick going on.

Moore also apparently said that Tigh's model is fundamentally different from other models. This may mean that Tigh is different from all 11, but it could just as easily mean that Tigh, like the other Final Five, is different from the other models. It doesn't mean that only Tigh is fundamentally different, in other words; it could mean that he's part of the group of five, which are fundamentally different.

Interesting question from someone on the SciFi.com message boards: since Starbuck's ship showed up as "Unknown" to Lee, she must have found another Viper somewhere...one without a Colonial transponder. So either Leoben/the Cylons gave her one (complete with transponder removed...though why would they do that?), or else they have Vipers on Earth, and she took one, since she says she's been there and all.I'm pretty curious about what Peter thinks about all this, especially because a) he was spoiler-free, and b) he said that Tight was his favorite character.

Austruck

03-26-07, 03:03 PM

Sci-Fi-Guy ... I thought Richard Hatch (Zarek) was the original Starbuck, not Apollo. (??) I didn't watch the original, though, so I could easily be wrong. I do know the original Starbuck was a guy.

Someone on one of the prescreened spoiler blogs also said that apparently, in the fleet shots, they have sneaked in the original USS Enterprise ... which is hilarious to me. What a great Easter egg.

Each of these new cylons is going to have some real trouble coming to terms with his/her new status. Tigh and Tyrol especially will have some real soul-searching to do, so to speak. Tigh killed his wife for aiding the cylons. Tyrol was part of a resistance movement that killed people who aided the cylons. Will they see themselves as hypocrites now, or will they embrace their humanity so completely that they will be able to handle this dual dilemma?

I'd forgotten that yes, Starbuck's Viper came up as unknown on DRADIS. (BTW, can someone tell me what DRADIS stands for? How did I miss that in earlier episodes??) Why couldn't the cylons just, umm, BUILD a Viper?

Another element of ongoing tension with these newly revealed cylons will be that the other CYLONS don't know who they are yet. They are completely hidden from view, known only to each other. Who will "out" them first, humans or cylons? And, depending on what is different about these cylons, this would be an interesting plot development: These new cylons decide to use their differentness and stealth status *against* the other cylons somehow.

Let's face it: Something has to make them different from humans -- something more than just an ability to pick up radio stations. Whatever that ability is could be used against the "bad" cylons in a final showdown.

Well, assuming there IS a final showdown. My guess at this point is that there will be one eventually as the show ends, but that the end-result will be a kind of uneasy truce where they share Earth.

Or, egad, I hope they don't pull a Planet of the Apes on us, where both humans and cylons careen to Earth only to find humans and cylons already living in peace and harmony there. "Damn you all to hellllllllll !!"

Pyro Tramp

03-26-07, 03:25 PM

Damn, am i kicking myself for reading spoilers, even though the Final Five were pretty obvious during the episode. After reading posts, i really think the FF are from Earth, maybe the 13th Colony made their own cylons or they were rejected from Earth, either way i'm sure they have to be of a different origin to make them even worthwhile/different. On another note didn't Roslin see the FF in the Opera House glowing, so she can't be one of them, think her hallucination must be because of the cylon blood, which also might say why the babies are important- telepathic (natural) link between them? And glad someone else wanted Billy to be a cylon but he's too long gone i think. Everyones saying they went back to their jobs but when Tory and Tigh both went to their leaders displaying their loyalty and looked at each other, made me wonder if they really are on their side. Really liked the song at the end, and actually liked Starbucks reappearance, though from other episodes, really woulda thought she'd try to make her ship known on the radar, and something did seem off with her, so guessing she is probably a cylon though not buying into it yet. Chief was the choice i liked least, earlier i commented on how he was in too many plotlines (this inc.) though, can now see how some were quite obvious hints, was the Preacher cylon his father? Wondering if there could be more family orientated connections between the two cylon groups, excluding D'anna.

Sleezy

03-26-07, 03:31 PM

(BTW, can someone tell me what DRADIS stands for? How did I miss that in earlier episodes??)

Direction, RAnge and DIStance

I'm seriously rooting for the Seraph theory. I'm only about 40% confident that we'll see them; but at this point, I'd love to see a third party enter the mix (the "who's a Cylon?" angle has gotten old, methinks). Just the hint at one when the mystery women ushered Baltar off was enough to tingle my spine. :)

Sleezy

03-26-07, 03:56 PM

Oh, and my chief criticism about the "final five" Cylons (if that's what they are), is that from a narrative perspective, they're weak choices:

Tory - She has seemed like filler ever since the writers decided to shock us and kill off Billy. She has developed her own forceful sense of personality, but still... I mean, I couldn't even recall her name until last week! An easy stamp for an unnecessary character.

Anders - His main (and only worthwhile) purpose in the beginning was love interest to Kara, which we all know went bust. Seeing them bickering on New Caprica before the Cylons arrived was interesting, but the whole "bad marriage" angle the writers decided to go with was lame. Now, Anders just feels like dead weight. He hasn't gotten much screen time since Kara died, or even before. I'm thinking they made him a Cylon because they didn't know what to do with him.

Colonel Tigh - I think this was an easy choice for the writers, given that he's high up in the fleet and so anti-Cylon. They must have thought that making him a Cylon would spring him from the corner they've written him into, and still get a decent fan reaction.

Chief Tyrol - Was this supposed to be surprising? They only showed him listening to the music in the final episode, which I felt like was supposed to elicit a "Noooo, not Tyrol!" response from me, given all the character development they've given him this past season. But because of that development, I wasn't buying it, and was instead just rolling my eyes.

Starbuck - Kara is the only one with a potential reason to be a Cylon, which is why I won't be upset if she is. Just as long as they don't about-face her into a bad guy. That would be lame.

***

Having said that, I loved watching Tigh join Adama, and then Tory sidle next to Roslin. I'm not convinced the writers could turn them against the fleet and get away with it believably, but... seeing the tactical positions they were both in gave me chills. For me, that's the only reason those two have any business being Cylons (but isn't it a scary one?).

Austruck

03-26-07, 08:50 PM

Sleezy, have to agree with your very last points. I didn't think Tory and Tigh had any kind of conspiratorial look between them in the CIC there. I just saw it as more of a "Holy Frak! What just happened to us?" kind of thing. I mean, that's what I would do! Give oddly meaningful looks to the others who are also holding tight the secret. It could just have been Tory perhaps looking for unspoken guidance from Tigh, who was the one who launched them all into action in the first place.

While rewatching, I realized that Tyrol does say, when the three of them are all in the room, something like, "What? After all this time, a switch is turned on...?" Something like that. So that makes it seem like they at least THINK the music is some sort of switch or programming. But honestly, did the cylon just somehow download an Earth song over the UniversInternet or something?

Or is Bob Dylan the fifth cylon?? :)

I think it is a testament to how well this last show was made that I already have NO problem with any of the final four cylons they revealed. If you had asked me three weeks ago how I'd feel about either Tigh or Tyrol being a cylon, I would have been upset, betrayed, and crushed.

But now, it just seems brilliant. I'm liking it a little more and more now that I've rewatched the show and given it a little time. Gosh, at this rate, by January I'll be downright giddy. ;)

OG-

03-26-07, 09:02 PM

Well, I don't have nearly enough time to post about everything that just happened. Maybe I'll get a chance to from Jordan later this week, but I just gotta say.

Blown, a-frakin-way.

Good Gods, I love you Ron. D. Moore.

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-27-07, 01:19 AM

Sci-Fi-Guy ... I thought Richard Hatch (Zarek) was the original Starbuck, not Apollo. (??) I didn't watch the original, though, so I could easily be wrong. I do know the original Starbuck was a guy..

No, Richard Hatch (Zarek) was Apollo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Apollo) and Dirk Benedict (Face from A-Team) was Starbuck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant_Starbuck).

Someone on one of the prescreened spoiler blogs also said that apparently, in the fleet shots, they have sneaked in the original USS Enterprise ... which is hilarious to me. What a great Easter egg.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/6054/800pxenterpriseinbsgflepa0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Austruck

03-27-07, 10:54 AM

Thanks for that post, Sci-Fi-Guy! I tried looking for the Enterprise when I rewatched the episode, but the ships go by so fast. I know somebody had to have a screenshot somewhere, though. :)

Oops, yes, I got Benedict and Hatch confused! See? I never watched the original. Can you tell? ;)

OG- ... going to Jordan is no excuse. Stop taking all these vacations and you can keep up with the real world, eh? <ducking>

Sleezy

03-27-07, 11:12 AM

I'm pretty sure that in the Galactica mini-series way back before Season 1, they snuck the Serenity vessel from Firefly into the fleet (given that the same FX team had done computer animation for both Firefly and Serenity).

Yoda

03-27-07, 11:22 AM

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-27-07, 12:53 PM

The Serenity too?
That's awesome.
I didn't know about that one.:)

Austruck

03-27-07, 12:54 PM

That's just hilarious. Very cool. :)

Yoda

03-27-07, 03:18 PM

Another thought about the whole Roslin/Starbuck thing: for the reasons I stated before, Starbuck is the more likely choice, if only because the difficulty in explaining her ordeal any other way is insane. That said, we might be able to go one step further and almost rule Roslin out entirely, as she contracted Cancer, something which (presumably) does not afflict Cylons.

Then again, The Final Five are clearly fundamentally different, and if they can age, perhaps they can catch human diseases, too.

This might be nothing, but I do think it's another slight point in Starbuck's favor.

Pyro Tramp

03-27-07, 08:33 PM

Though, if Starbuck is a cylon, is it assumed she died in the crash and this is a copy?

Yoda

03-27-07, 09:00 PM

Though, if Starbuck is a cylon, is it assumed she died in the crash and this is a copy?
I assume so. We don't know what makes The Final Five different, so there might be an explanation there, but I can't think of anything even remotely plausible, so I'd assume that, if she is a Cylon, she died.

Still doesn't explain the whole "ship bouncing on and off of DRADIS" thing, though.

Pyro Tramp

03-27-07, 09:03 PM

Wonder if she died, copy woke up on Earth, then copy Starbuck came and found the fleet in Earth Raptor. Seems at the moment i've just decided to make wild speculations. Was thinking Baltar might even be the suprise 5th.

Austruck

03-27-07, 09:37 PM

I'm starting to think they've been stringing us along about this fifth (last) cylon. Nearly everyone at one point thought it might be Baltar (at least a full season ago or more), but then that started to get old (once he was actually exploring that option himself). And now they have us thinking it might be either Roslin or Starbuck. So, naturally, it has to be Baltar, right?

;)

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-28-07, 12:08 AM

Also remember Loeben or someone said at the beginning of the series that Adama was a Cylon. Chances are he was just messing with their heads but that could put either the Admiral or Apollo in the running.

Baltar being a Cylon would be a cheap cop-out.
I'd still rather see it being Zarek.

Pyro Tramp

03-28-07, 08:36 AM

Zarek's too much of a background/pop-up character like Tory and Anders were. He don't hold enough weight for a decent impact.

Sedai

03-28-07, 10:58 AM

So...

Thinking over things last night, I started wondering about this random theory:

The Final Five A.K.A The Lords of Kobol -

The original series was heavily influenced by religious concepts. Clearly, this series deals with religious ideals, as well. In the original series, The Lords of Kobol were spoken of and referenced plenty of time, but never shown (unless Ibli was some supposed to be one of the lost lords, as it was implied that he was Lucifer). Is Ron Moore weaving the Lords into the story? I mean, are these five characters drawn up in such a way that they represent some sort of Greek-God style demi-gods, each with their own key trait/attribute? Does Dionysus walk among us?

Starbuck is reborn. Could it be that, like the original series, the ships of light will return, Heavenly entities with the power of TRUE resurrection, showing us that perhaps the cylons resurrection is just another example of an emulation, another reflection in the flawed mirror of humanity that is cylon?

"So tell me Starbuck, do you Worship the gods? Do you worship Artemis and Aphrodite?"

Man, he had a funny look in his eye when he said that... I mean asking Starbuck if she worships Artemis, God of the Hunt... Starbuck, the huntress herself... I mean, it is right up Leoben's alley to ask Starbuck if she worships...herself? I don;t know a ton about mythology, but, did one of the lesser gods lose an eye? I mean, can we analyze these characters paths in the series to perhaps discover they have been walking (a) God's path all along?

Reading through Yoda and Austruck's speculations, I found myself surprised that you both have your feet so firmly on the ground when theorizing. You two are the religious wing of the BSG fan-base on this site... I expected a least a little supernatural speculation from you two! ;) Don't leave it to the agnostic utilitarian!

So...am I out to lunch on all this?

Yoda

03-28-07, 11:47 AM

That's a really good point, Sedai, about the nature of our speculations. You're right, I've sort of informally ruled out any strictly religious/supernatural explanations. That might be a mistake on my part, but it's mostly because I believe that the audience will only take a few things on faith.

I think the nature of the audience's expectation of something depends on how its introduced to them. Roslin's visions are believable because the show is entirely upfront about them; we see what she does, and like her, we have to decide if the visions are real or not.

Other things, like Starbuck being (apparently) alive, are posed more as riddles. Right now, we're supposed to be trying to figure out how she can be alive. Saying that she was simply resurrected because she's a God is going to make more than a few people feel like they've been tricked, I think.

To me, it's like asking the famous riddle of the Sphinx ("What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?") and answering "a shapeshifter." I like BSG for a lot of reasons, but when it comes to twists, I like the ones that outsmart me. And the only way a show can outsmart you is if it gives you everything you need to see the twist coming, and you still don't.

Frankly, I think that's why BSG is playing with fire with this whole Final Five thing; are The Final Five different from other Cylons for a believable reason, or are they different simply because it allows the writers to reveal people as Cylons who the audience had (rightfully) ruled out, given the "rules" of Cylons, as they'd been shown to us?

At this point in a series, I think the audience needs to feel like they have the tools for discerning these things on their own. Too many big questions would remain: for example, why are the Lords of Kobol also Cylons? Or, if they're not, why exactly do the Cylons think they are?

Anyway, I'm pretty unsure of all this. The whole Final Five thing has (mildly) shaken my confidence in things a bit, if only because it might end up being an escape hatch. We thought we had the ground rules for Cylons, and they've been changed on us. Because of this, there really wasn't any way to guess who they'd be. So now I feel like we have to hope that this particular storyline is entertaining in another way, rather than in the "oh wow, why didn't I think of that?" way.

So, I don't know. I do think religion will play some kind of role. My guess, for the most part, has simply been that they'll discover a connection between their two religions, which will aid in their eventual co-existence on Earth. Which, come to think of it, actually sounds a bit like what you're talking about, so, uh, yeah, I should probably think about this some more....

Yoda

03-28-07, 11:48 AM

What'd you think about some of the revelations, by the way, Sedai? Good/bad/undecided? It's a lot to take in, no doubt. Any other favorite theories?

Austruck

03-28-07, 12:30 PM

I agree with Yoda on why I didn't take the religious route in my speculations. I was thinking more in terms of "What are the writers doing here?" and "What ties into the story so far in a believable way?"

As a writer myself, I know not to betray a reader by pulling any sort of deus ex machina just to get out of a tight jam. So, I've been speculating partly on that assumption: What can the writers do about Starbuck (for instance) without it seeming like a cheap back door out of trouble?

I hate to admit it, but I don't think I'm up on the whole Lords of Kobol thing enough to speculate in that direction. I'll admit I've had trouble with the whole polytheistic humans stuff during the entire run of the series (especially since the cylons are monotheistic!), and so I haven't given it as much attention or thought as I probably should have. I think perhaps I watched those earlier seasons a little TOO fast in order to catch up.

I actually intend to spend the nine-month wait rewatching everything up to this point, starting with the miniseries. I have plenty of time, and I am actually looking forward to rewatching those really early episodes now that I know a lot more. And yes, I think I'll also be looking for any kind of plot inconsistencies in regards to these final four cylons. (Probably won't find any, but I'm still curious....)

Yoda and I discussed this too: Does anyone else here think they're going to have trouble going much beyond a Season 4, with the plotline as it is now? Remember, I haven't ever seen the original series, so I don't know how it lines up with how long that series lasted. (And at this point, I'd actually consider that sort of information a spoiler! I'm now waiting till after the series is over to go back and possibly watch the original series.)

Sedai

03-28-07, 01:37 PM

The original is VERY tough to watch these days... You won't get too much out of it, I think...

Sedai

03-28-07, 04:11 PM

Ok...Next random thought...

These four cats aren't cyclons. All four (five if we include Starbuck or Roslin), were on New Caprica, and all of them could have at any point been implanted with something. I remember when I first saw Tigh sort of reacting to hearing something, my first thought was that they had surgically altered him in some way.

THEY certainly seemed convinced that they were cylons...but are they, really? I mean, a subliminal message in a radio wave could certainly convince a body they were, well, not a body, eh?

Austruck

03-28-07, 05:51 PM

Ohhh, I see! So you're saying the cylons put some sort of radio-wave receiver chip in their brains? I guess that's possible, but a few questions come up:

-- How did they do this to those who were never specifically imprisoned (Tyrol, Anders)?

-- WHY? What good is putting in an antenna? Just to confuse them? How would the cylons know what would get picked up by any receiver?

-- How do you explain the fact that they were hearing a human song from our time period? Did the cylons not know this was going to happen? Or is it also some sort of tracking device?

You'll have to 'splain this one a bit further, there, Sedai, before I'll launch onto it. It's not impossible, but I'm just asking for a little more thought-process divulgence, please. :)

Pyro Tramp

03-29-07, 05:50 PM

The fact that those four might not be cylons has always been at the back of my mind but i'd be so disappointed if that were the case, at least at the moment.

Austruck

03-29-07, 05:56 PM

My thinking is that if they weren't cylons, there's no way those four would have come to virtually the same conclusion ... and so easily. If you think about it, three of the four are actively anti-cylon. Tyrol's had issues with this earlier. And what? Suddenly they all admit it's true after five minutes of talking together in a room?

Seems unlikely unless somehow they really DO now know it's true. Tyrol has a kind of resignation in his voice when he admits it that just rings true to me. I really doubt they'll be going that way. For one thing, it'd be HIGHLY disingenuous of the Sci-Fi Channel to send people like me emails saying, "See the Final Five Cylons this Sunday!" and then not show you ANY of them. I'd get more than a little peeved at that.

Sci-Fi-Guy

03-29-07, 11:09 PM

Yoda

03-29-07, 11:12 PM

I thought they may have been assuming the worst as well and there was a chance they weren't really Cylons but Ron Moore has confirmed in an interview (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07085/770732-352.stm) that they are indeed of the Final Five.
Yeah, I read that a couple days ago, and kept meaning to post it, since there's been so much speculation about it. I wouldn't regard it as a spoiler really, either. As much as Moore and Co. might love to mess with us, having them not be Cylons would be beyond the pale.

Austruck

03-29-07, 11:13 PM

Hey, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our hometown newspaper! :)

Austruck

03-29-07, 11:21 PM

The writer mentions the show's low ratings. Are they really that low? How do you gauge the ratings on a non-network show like this? Good interview. Not really spoilery, but still felt like I was thrown a few bones.

Love the idea of "Caprica" prequel and also a straight-to-DVD thing too.

Austruck

03-30-07, 01:51 PM

Okay, something just occurred to me about the finale:

Where do we think these radio signals are coming from? And what ARE they? Because, frankly, as I rewatched the episode, I realized that all four of these guys are hearing the same song playing, in and out, partial or full, loud or soft.

That ain't no radio station transmission. No radio station I know plays the same song over and over again. Watching Tigh at the boombox in the bar (it's not really a boombox but that's what they call it), I noticed that he's kinda finding something *between* the stations -- an "almost there" kind of thing.

So, what is this transmission? It's a 20th century Earth song, but a different rendition and transmitted somehow over and over again -- at least for, what? a day? How long a period of time does that two-part finale cover? I'm starting to think now that it could be some sort of programming kicking in, but perhaps not from the cylons we know and love. Perhaps from elsewhere.

Oh, and I want to say: That Post-Gazette article interview with Moore was great. :)

Austruck

03-30-07, 01:52 PM

One more thing: I'm watching the scene where Tigh is talking about hearing music in the ship with Adama. He's saying there is cylon sabotage aboard the ship, and Adama says he'll look into it.

Oops, now what's Tigh going to say if Adama asks him about it later?

Austruck

03-30-07, 01:54 PM

Best line of the finale: "The whole fleet knows you tried to stab me in the neck ... and you MISSED, Butterfingers!"

Baltar's great. :)

Yoda

04-01-07, 12:51 AM

Ron Moore's posted a thread called "20 Answers" wherein he answers a number -- perhaps you can guess which number -- of questions from fans that I believe had posted them on the SciFi.com forums:

http://forums.scifi.com/index.php?showtopic=2270103&st=0

I'll reproduce the more interesting ones:

Have you worked out how Tigh's status as a cylon will be reconciled with the fact that he served during the first cylon war?

Yes, we have. A lot of time and effort has gone into the rationale behind this revelation as well as the other four. Trust me, it works out in the end.

Ron

Do you already know who the fifth cylon of the final five is? If so, have you already left us some clues?

Yes and yes.

Ron

I would love to ask about your inspiration and motivations, but I just have to know.

Did Michael Hogan (Saul) know he was a cylon since the miniseries? How did you tell him and did his reaction change your interpretation of the character?

He did not know, and frankly, neither did I.

David Eick and I called each of the actors to tell them they were, in fact, Cylons and their reactions were all very similar in that everyone wanted to know what it meant in terms of changing their characters and what our plans were for the future. I told them about the hows and whys of their new-found heritage and a rough outline of where it was going in the future and in the end, they were all pretty enthusiast -- if scared -- about going in this direction. The same could be said for all of us when we first committed to this story, but by the time it was ready for air, we were all pretty gung-ho about what we'd done and felt eager to show the episode to the audience.

Ron

ron,

will the burgeoning Cult of Baltar in the show fulfill an important, positive role in events to come or should i distance myself from said cult before i have to eat my own hat?

Important? Definitely.

Positive? Like everything else in this show, it depends on how you look at it.

Ron
I'm glad things like this get clarified for us from time to time.

Austruck

04-01-07, 01:00 AM

Yes, me too. Doesn't feel spoilerish. It does feel like it helps to tide me over till 2008.

Kinda. Sorta. :) That, and slowly rewatching everything from the beginning. :)

Yoda

05-10-07, 02:18 PM

Ron Moore did an interview with VH1 (http://www.vh1.com/movies/news/articles/1556508/20070405/story.jhtml) about a month ago in which he confirmed that Apollo was not hallucinating when he saw Starbuck at the end of Crossroads, Part II.

So, to summarize the things Moore has confirmed/clarified about the finale:

The four alleged Cylons in the finale are, indeed, Cylons
The Final Five have different "rules" than The Significant Seven.
There is a rationale/reconciliation for Tigh's memories.
Apollo really did see Starbuck at the end; he wasn't imagining it.
The presence of "All Along the Watchtower" is not necessarily an indicator that our universe is theirs. To the contrary, many vague comments on this topic indicate that BSG takes place in another universe. This is apparently tied to the issue of cyclical histories that keeps coming up in the show and (especially) in interviews with those who produce it.I gotta say that, the more I read from Moore, the more I think Sedai's theories on the Lords of Kobol (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=364923) are, if not correct, at least nearer to the mark than I would have guessed. I don't much care for the idea that many things will be explained using pseudo-explanations related to destiny (which I often see as ways to let writers break the rules they've already established for us), but the vibe from these sorts of interviews certainly makes it seem that that's where we're headed.

Yoda

05-10-07, 02:19 PM

Best line of the finale: "The whole fleet knows you tried to stab me in the neck ... and you MISSED, Butterfingers!"

Baltar's great. :)
The "butterfingers!" part was apparently ad-libbed, by the way. Heh.

Sedai

05-10-07, 02:34 PM

Cool stuff, especially the part about me being right. ;)

Really though, I have been watching season 2 again, with a friend who is going through the series for the first time. Great fun watching noobs watch the show, for sure.

I don't know, man. That Sedai guy can't even spell resurrection. I wouldn't trust a damn thing he says....

Austruck

05-10-07, 04:18 PM

I'm not a big fan of the "destiny" copout either. Sedai, I may be part of the "religious base" of MoFo, but I'll admit this: I don't mind things like the supernatural and destiny and predestination in my real life, but I hate 'em in my stories, movies, and TV shows. I haven't a clue why that is, except that I distinctly remember learning about deus ex machina in school as a kid. Bad bad bad.

I would love to find someone who'd like to start the series from scratch, having never seen it before. Unfortunately, when Yoda started watching it, he wasn't watching it here, so we'd end up gabbing on the phone or emailing about it as he moved through the seasons.

We've now heard that Lost is officially ending its storylines in 2010, giving them a framework around which to build what's left of the story. Have we heard anything like this about BSG?

Sci-Fi-Guy

05-12-07, 05:36 PM

We've now heard that Lost is officially ending its storylines in 2010, giving them a framework around which to build what's left of the story. Have we heard anything like this about BSG?

There've been conflicting reports about BSG's demise.

Edward James Olmos says one more season left (http://ifmagazine.com/new.asp?article=4445) while executive producer David Eick says otherwise (http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=1&id=41457).

I've been assuming there might be one to 2 more seasons left but at this point it's anybody's guess it seems.
Maybe it's gonna be depending on the ratings for season 4 to determine it?

If it does end, I really hope they go the way of Babylon-5 and do a few TV/Direct-to DVD movies for the show like the upcoming Pegasus one.
Not necesarily of what comes next on Earth but it could take place anytime.
Origin of the Colonies, Adama's youth, Origin of the Cylons...

Even when the series does end I doubt that will be the last we see of the BSG universe.
It's too good to be gone for good.:)

Austruck

05-12-07, 09:30 PM

Hoo boy, I know they could easily determine a season 5 based on ratings for season 4 ... but what if the ratings for season 4 really do suck? Will they hurriedly rewrite and reshoot things in order to have a series finale worthy of this show? Or will we get stuck like the viewers of Carnivale did, with a cliffhanger ending filmed and aired just before the show got axed, therefore leaving the viewers without ANY ending? (Man, that sucked.)

Sci-Fi-Guy

06-03-07, 06:23 AM

:bawling:

Well...
It's been confirmed:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070601/tv_nm/battlestar_dc_1;_ylt=AuNfQFHPQeVPO_MwcJmEGUsE1vAI

At least we get one DVD movie with the possibilities of more. :modest:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2007/06/battlestar_gala.html

OG-

06-03-07, 10:51 AM

I'm glad the show is ending precisely when the show runners want it to. BSG has never really been dictated by performance, but rather sheer fan embrace. Sci-Fi knows that if they ever canceled it, the backlash would be unbearable. They saw what happened to Farscape, they do not want that to happen again. At the same time, they know they'd never continue the show without the talent it has now, because, again, the backlash would be wild.

There is a huge difference between a story that ends and a story that stops being told. Moore and co. know when to end it and I applaud them for it.

Yoda

06-03-07, 02:48 PM

Yeah, I'm not disappointed by this at all. Frankly, the more I think about the events of Season 3, the more I came to the conclusion that anything more than one more season would be excessive. It would require them to introduce a major twist that would require another entire season to resolve.

I'll miss it when it's gone, but I think this is the right call.

Yoda

12-03-07, 02:59 PM

Gah, we never got Peter's thoughts on the Season 3 finale. And now that he's a globetrotting maniac, we probably never will. Alas.

Monkeypunch

12-03-07, 03:13 PM

when's season 3 on DVD? I don't have cable, but I love the series and I'm getting impatient. :D

Sedai

12-03-07, 03:15 PM

Not for a long time, unfortunately... They won't release it until right before 4 is about to start...

Let's hope it doesn't get delayed further...

Monkeypunch

12-03-07, 04:22 PM

Not for a long time, unfortunately... They won't release it until right before 4 is about to start...

Let's hope it doesn't get delayed further...

Thats certainly irritating.

adidasss

05-07-08, 09:28 PM

Ok, finally got around to seeing season 3. I was hesitant to watch it because of the way it started with the whole new Caprica business. I didn't much care for that last year, but for some reason, after I resumed watching it just days ago, I found those episodes thrilling! Maybe it was the fact that a year has passed and I resumed watching it near the end of that storyline. I don't think it really takes up more than a few episodes right? Well see, I thought that much of the season was going to be set there but thankfully I was wrong. I'm not sure how much more of that bleak landscape I could have taken.

Anyway, I loved the season, I have no idea why it got such low ratings on tv.com (at least a year ago), it's just as good as the previous seasons. Sure, there's some filler episodes, but every season had those. Thankfully, we're still served just the right amount of action to make those episodes painless (well at least when you see them all in a matter of days :D).

There's one thing that sort of bothered me about it thought, and that was the whole Hera business. I thought that storyline was very anticlimactic. After a very significant buildup by faking her death for her protection (because apparently she is the most important person in the fleet), the kid is just left on the planet and no one seems to care much. Roslin practically shrugged it off! Then the cylons get her (she's also an extremely important individual to them) but don't really do anything with her and then lose her in the span of a few episodes? What the frak?

But anyway, the finale was great, I couldn't stop laughing from sheer joy. Only, I thought that the newly discovered cylons were a bit too clueless to provide a proper impact, I think the twist would have been better had the melody not only triggered their self-awareness as cylons, but an actual gameplan so to speak. I'm not sure I'd like it if their future actions were just a product of this new found realization (we're cylons so we must help our own)...I'll see how that pans out in shorty...:D

From what I understand (even though the news story is no longer there), season 4 is the last season? If so, perfectly timed I think. I'm sure everyone would like for the show to go on forever, but we really don't need entire seasons as filler material.

Ok, that's it for now, super psyched for season 4, it's downloading as we speak and I'll finally be able to get involved with the discussion...yay!