Galactica Sunday (On Monday)
Kevin D.
One more time...
(show)
A pretty good way to end the season, I think. I wasn’t expecting Starbuck at the end and, I’ll admit, I was grinning like a girl when I finally saw her. I kept squinting my eyes to catch glimpses of what I thought was a Viper dancing around Lee. In fact, I loved the whole end sequence. Tigh and Roslin’s aid pledging their service to their respective leader; Tyrol and Anders jumping back into their duties (well, the latter not so much with the bum leg and all).
And how about that, huh? We got to see four of the Final Five. And interesting writing decision. We didn’t get to see the fifth but I can’t help but feel that it’s Starbuck.
Also, was it me or was there a sixth white tapestry in the opera house when we saw Baltar and Six holding Hera, with the Final Five looking down on them from the balcony?
I knew Baltar was going to get off. I knew it. I’m smart like that. And now his cult owns him. I liked Lee’s speech. It hit all the points I’ve said and written about the trial myself. It’s almost like I wrote the thing!
I thought the rock song at the end was an interesting choice. I thought it worked well and gave that sequence a different feel than we’re used to. Indeed the music for the entire episode was pretty interesting. I typically don’t care for Middle Eastern musical flavors but it added something otherworldly to the finished product. I suspect that was the point.
So, now it is we come to the end, for the time being. Season 4 begins in 2008. But, don’t forget we’ve got a direct-to-DVD movie coming out this summer and a two-hour Battlestar Pegasus special fourth quarter 2007.
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Helluva cliffhanger tho.
Tune in next year for the exciting conclusion!
They sure do know how to write a cliffhanger.
All Along the Watchtower is my favorite song. Does anyone know who did the performance on that version?
When you start "killing" people and bringing them back, you've jumped the shark. Everyone knew Starbuck wasn't gone for good. It was cheap.
And the new cylons. How convenient that they all hold such important roles. 2nd in command to the Admiral. Presidential aide. Are you kidding me? Let's just pick the wildest possibility and make it a reality.
BSG used to be a lot more "real" despite the science fiction aspect of the show. I was extremely disappointed with this season that seemed to do absolutely nothing. And now they throw this crazy scenario at the very end... new Cylons... Starbuck's back and she knows the way to Earth... the Cylon fleet is about to destroy them...
Bah. They've jumped the shark. The show will never be the same again. This season sucked and a crazy cliffhanger ain't enough to save it.
Do you realize that the song Tigh, Tyrol, Anders, and what's-her-face were hearing was "All Along the Watchtower" (originally) by Bob Dylan?
I only ask because you didn't mention that very strange item in your post!
There must be some way out of here / Said the joker to the thief.
Very cool but very weird. Ultimately whether I like it will depend very much on how it is played out.
At least we answered one question: BSG takes place in the future.
You are out of your mind. You have no idea what's going on with that. You're not even going to wait until the next season to let it play out? You've already judged them?
Katee is not back. Her name is not in the opening credits. The actress is auditioning for another series. Starbuck is dead.
That doesn't mean Lee can't now have the same thing Baltar and Caprica Six have in common.
Jesse,
I didn't know, no. Before my time and not really the kind of music I'm in to. Still, I thought it worked well for the episode.
True, but he picked her up on Dradis... Could still be a hallucination I guess.
I didn't know, no. Before my time and not really the kind of music I'm in to. Still, I thought it worked well for the episode.
Before my time, too (I'm 23). What I meant though was that the secret music only the four of them were hearing was a Bob Dylan song.
That is Gods damn weird.
My guess would be that they were somehow picking up a radio transmission from Earth... but that doesn't make much sense, either. The Ionian Nebula is at least a couple hundred light-years from the solar system and so any terrestrial-based transmission would be far too weak to pick up.
Noticed that too did ya?
I think one of the more interesting features of last night's episode is that the numerical zymology finally switched from Five to Six, something I had been expecting for awhile. But then it shifted again from Six to Four, as in on the square with the Chief, Anders, the Presidential Assistant and the Colonel.
I have long suspected that Tight was not as he appeared and my suspicions were confirmed when he was blinded in one eye. Lately I had suspected Anders and since he could hear the music I also suspected the chief.
The girl was a surprise to me because I had been expecting the President, but she seems caught up in the Six (Aphrodite), Athena trinity (with the President being Demeter?), so that seems a separate sub-plot.
If you count Hera again that makes Four goddesses, and with Baltar that takes the number back to Five. I'd like to count Baltar a goddess but sometimes he acts far more like a queen.
I'm still kinda stunned no-one in the Fleet foresaw what would happen at the Nebula. Nobody. If you think a moment about what a Nebula is, what composes it, how large it would be, the time frame of it's creation in relation to the original search for Earth, what it emits, the past relationship that cylons have displayed regarding Nebulae, and what it implied about what they were searching for it only made sense to me that someone would at least intuit what it might mean. And of course because of that it only makes sense that the covert operatives I had already suspected were operating would be activated (although that's not all that happened as shown by the power down and then reboot of the Fleet) by approach to the Nebula. Even the name of the Nebula itself was a clue as to what would happen and how many there would be: the four children of Ion - craftsman, farmer, priest, and soldier. It was obvious they were being herded towards the Nebula, and for more than one reason, and by more than one operative force, but I thought the choice of the four who showed on the square to be interesting, if not somewhat misleading. I have to hand it to the writers, they mix Judeo-Christian and Pagan myth extremely well, and cleverly.
But this assumes of course that the Four on the Square are actually Cylon (if they are, then the Fleet and the Galactica itself has already absorbed Seven if not up to Ten or Eleven, depending on how one classifies Hera, of the Cylon models as functioning humans - meaning the Galactica is now the True Ark of both Man and Cylon, as I thought would happen), and not human sleeper agents under either Cylon or Alien influence. And of course it assumes that the final Cylon models are also the Final Glowing Five, and I'm still not convinced that they are, they may be parallel beings.
One thing I thought was also really interesting was the fact that Anders and the President's Assistant were sleeping together whereas all previous attempts by cylons at both sexual relations and reproduction have been targeted basically at humans. Which makes me wonder about the implications regarding these four. I'm not sure yet what this means but it could be no accidental mis-write in the plot-line. this means either cylons are becoming more and more human or humans are becoming more and more cylon, or both.
Anyway I expect that the numerical and alphanumerical zymology will continue to fluctuate between 6, 5, and 4 until those numbers can be better aligned with each other and overlap because of other events.
I really enjoyed the trial, and thought Apollo (Ion, by the way, is the unknown child of Apollo) had an excellent argument on the stand. I thought he spoke well and true. And I knew Adama would acquit once he asked to hear Lee's testimony, because he wanted his son to correct his own doubts about himself, which he did.
I also liked the use of the song All Along the Watchtower, but they employed it like a child's nursery rhyme. I cannot but help be reminded of the line, "The Mother of Us all."
And it was the Galactica singing the lullaby.
Speaking of which, this means the activation of the Sleeper agents was old trigger indeed. Since apparently each sleeper Agent was completely unaware of their identity until activated by proximity to the Nebula and the resonance aboard the Galactica this means that all of the agents must have learned the schematics previously and somehow had encoded the exact meeting location. Either that or it was transmitted in the broadcast.
But that seems unlikely because of the use of code phrases as bio-psychological trigger mechanisms. It seems more likely that the Cylons have had agents, of various kinds, aboard the Galactica for a very long time, possibly after the last war, meaning the Cyborgins (bio-humanoid cyborgs) had infiltrated human populations and the human military services for at least 50 years prior to the assault. Which just adds evidence in my opinion that it was never the intention of the Cylons to destroy Galactica, that indeed Galactica is and was central to their machinations all along. The Galactica was always meant to be the primary Resurrection Ark and the Reunion/Reassimilation Ark. the chief seed ship. Galactica is leading both the humans and the cylons.
Again it could be that the single in the music directed the Four to their rendezvous and pre-arranged dead drop, but that is taking a big chance by the transmission of an analogical signal. I suspect the Galactica is teeming with agents, or double agents, and has been before.
There is one other possibility of course. There are no Cylons. And the reverse of that may be true as well.
In any case I think the writers kind of showed something of what they are up to with the closing graphic display eliding up to the showing of Earth. As they say in Show Business, "Timing is everything, and if you arrive too late then everybody is already gone home, and if you get there too early, then you're the real show."
Again, the nebula should tell. If they would only think about it for a minute or two.
I hope they don't lose audience with such an extended time of signal kill though til next season. But we'll see.
As for me I think the show did quite well last night. I liked it.
Mind expanding on that, Jack? I looked quite hard at Earth for any telling signs, but could not find any.
For the record, I don't think Anders, Tigh, Tyrol, or the President's Asst. are Cylons. Don't know why, exactly, but it doesn't seem to fit.
I think you're overreacting. Characters who are "killed" and return have been an integral part of BSG's plot for quite a while now, like since the third episode. Whether Starbuck somehow avoided death when her ship was destroyed, turns out to be a Cylon, or is really just an hallucination remains to be seen.
As for 2008, I think we're going to discover that there's a whole 'nother Cylon fleet out there, populated with members of the the Final Five, other models that have been "boxed" over the years, and stray souls captured by their own resurrection ships. I'd guess that their goals and attitudes toward humanity are quite different. The existence and agenda of this alternate Cylon culture may be the secret, glimpsed between life and death, that they've desperately firewalled off from most of the remaining models.
Having watched so much of season 3 last night, I have to say that it was fairly obvious that Starbuck wasn't gone-gone. "The special destiny of Kara Thrace" hadn't been fulfilled-- or even really started down. And since they were making such a huge deal of it even in her "final" moments...
Starbuck was coming back. Starbuck was always coming back. They planned it that way from the beginning of season 3...
If I'd been Adama I would probably have had Baltar quietly executed soon after his capture and interrogation. I think they know (or strongly suspect) enough about his actions prior to the occupation to justify that military solution in time of war. But once the President decided to boost morale by putting him on trial they were bound to make a legal case based on Baltar's documented actions on New Caprica, and they failed.
My next thought was... 2008?!?! How can I wait that long??
You know, I was aganst Baltar before. But they did have a gun to his head when he signed that order. And his real crime was having them stop on that planet, which was just a failure of judgement. (Of course, he did help sabotage the Colonial defense grid too, but he was tricked into that).
I'm trying to remember if he ever intentionally committed any actual capital crimes. Maybe I'm just not recalling them.
Didn't Six die and come back 20 minutes into the first episode?
Hmmm... I don't think so. He's certainly a bit of a weasel. The only real crime I can think of was letting Six into the Colonial mainframe. That was a stupid idea, but he obviously had no idea what would come of it. The difference between the Baltar of season 1 and of season 3 is pretty amazing.
I wonder if I would have signed that death warrant if they were going to shoot me.
I would like to think that I wouldn't... but I probably would have.
I don't either. It's just a gut reaction, but I at least don't think they all are Cylons, if any are.
There may in fact be no Cylons yet. They may yet to be born.
The fact though that there were no telling signs on Earth is a telling sign on Earth, especially if you think about the Nebula and the supposed first expedition to Earth. And who the Cylons might possibly be or who created them at least. The New Cylons I mean.
But if you look at this show it is highly symbolic and filled with symbological and cryptographic clues throughout, from numerical, to alphanumerical, to navigational, to spatial, to temporal, to graphic, to linguistic and even musical clues. This is nowhere more apparent than in the symbology of names and nomenclature.
The Galactica is more than the name of the ship, it implies other things. It implies position, habitation, movement, time, and space. Watch the full, yet quick graphic run through right before the shot centers on Earth and you'll see a number of stellar and spatial images as well as representations of time and space as related to the Fleet and Cylons. It is a sort of literary mythology in visual form.
It's a God's eye view of men and gods in migration. But what are we seeing, - time as it moves for us... as we read the myth. But we read from past to future.
I suspect the myth really reads from present to past.
All along the Watchtower is I suspect another clue. Meaning possibly, if the song is truly germane, that the events we are seeing are really moving in reverse. The reverse of the future written from the end.
They are not moving towards the end of their migration, but the beginning. They are not moving towards Earth to escape form where they have been before. "This has all happened before and it will all happen again." So, "there must be some kinda way outta here."
Think about it. They are the Twelve Colonies. Colonies of what, and from where? Were the colonists in search of Earth in search of their beginnings, of their original home, or was Earth the end of their future on the way to their past? In either case a colony is not a point of origination, it is a point of settlement. There was a place where it all started, where gods and men lived as one. But apparently for whatever reasons neither the gods nor man ever tried to reclaim that world or that existence. Never even occurred to them. It never occurred to them I think because it hasn't happened yet.
You return to your Genesis when you've lost your future. When your future is dead then your past really starts. Having been expelled from the Garden you try to return to the Garden because it is the one clue you remember about the past when the future seems most unlikely to hold promise.
Hence the Adama. Adama is the Hebrew word from which we derive Adam, it is also the Hebrew word (with slight variations) for blood, and "the Man." the Original Man. And Adamah is the Hebrew word for soil, ground, and Earth, and is directly related both to how Cain slew Abel and how he attempted to dispose of the body of Abel (hence, his blood [Adam] cries out to me from the Earth [Adamah]). That's a different story but BSG has allegorical elements of the Cain and Abel murder in it, including what I think Cain was really trying to do before he realized he could not- he was trying to kill and then bring back to life his brother to show God that he too could breathe life into inanimate matter, and hence deserved to be readmitted to Paradise. He was trying to return to the beginning by killing the present and remaking it like the past. Only this time he tried to play God. He failed of course but that's another story too. So instead of returning to the beginning, he once again relived the Exile of His Father. Adam bore the Mark of the Earth in his blood, and Cain bore the Mark of God so that no-one could shed his blood and therefore he could not return to it. Cain was expelled from the Earth for attempting to recreate Paradise, and Life, and Adam was expelled from Paradise into the Earth to prevent him becoming like God by consuming the Tree of Life..
In any case BSG is sort of like that in that Man tried to recreate life, the Cylons, and that sets in motion an entire chain of events which leads to an attempt to re-enter Paradise from the reverse end of the equation.
Perhaps, like with Cain, a backwards attempt, where a fascination with death leads to a self-created attempt to move backwards in time to when death had not yet occurred. Rather than overcoming death, it is an attempt to move backwards to a time before death has occurred, and therefore to seek an escape at the beginning of things. As for some of the Cylons, well, I suspect they suspect the same thing. But no-one seems to be able to really deduce what is occurring because everyone keeps looking to the past to try and decipher the way that things were in the beginning. But the beginning hasn't occurred yet, so they're not seeing what is directly in front of them. And that is where I think Kara is, or was, at the time before the end of the beginning of things.
I do find it interesting that the farther they move backwards in time, and that is what they are doing every they jump closer to Earth, the more closely they arrive at the future. Just like, in a certain way, the Bible reads backwards from end to beginning.
This show is sorta like that. Wherever you are, that's where you've already been. And when you finally get there at last you find you're the first one to arrive. Or depart, depending on your point of view.
It kinda makes me laugh.
You'd think wouldn't ya?
But no one knows he did that but Roslin, who can't possibly prove it or even be sure she's right.
That said, I'm not sure I'll be around for season 4. Probably, just due to inertia.
Yes, but is it still treason if he didn't know what he was doing?
Dean, if this show didn't get your blood pumping and renew your interest then I would say you should let it go. Obviously the show has lost you along the way. That's fine, but I fear if you keep watching it you will come to actively hate it.
He's personally responsible for all of it.
As for coming to actively hate it: No, that won't happen. I'm a bit old for that sort of emotionalism. It's just a goddamned TV show, and it's still got some good acting and some good writing sometimes. Besides, it's not like I watch all that many TV shows as it is.
Amen.
And yet even a lump of coal may burn hot in a fire. That is to say, Art will never be anything nearly so grand as Life, but sometimes it may imitate life in such a way that we forget it is just Art.
Jesus, Dean. Where are you getting that from? Baltar had help from a talented programmer. She happened to be gorgeous, so he included her in his personal as well as professional life.
Six didn't need to sleep with him in order to infiltrate the defense systems.
Not to mention which -assuming Colonial processes are analagous to ours- Six must have held adequate clearance in order to work on the defense system. Ergo Baltar had no reason to suspect her.
Admit it, Dean. Moore came up with a mind-blowing end to Season 3 (what?? wait until NEXT YEAR for new episodes!? I don't fracking THINK so!!! arrrgh.) and now you're interested again.
Thing is, Dean never likes to admit when he's wrong. In this case, he's been dumping all over BSG ever since the "Cylon baby blood" episode, and now that Moore had come out of left field in all three dimensions, he can't bring himself to say that, just maybe, Moore was on top of things all along.
Jack G, btw, has posted some fascinating possible internal linkages. If Moore came up with even half that stuff on purpose, it's quite possible we've all been caught flat-footed.
By odd coincidence on Sunday night at work (didn't download the last episode until early Monday) I got into a mild disagreement with the bartender. He figured Starbuck was dead and gone, and I kept saying her "destiny" had yet to be fulfilled. We even discussed whether they would be allowed to find Earth in the series, which lead me to wonder whether Moore has some sort of 5-year story arc in mind in the same manner as B5.
Which reminds me, Kevin: Sackoff isn't in this season's end credits, no. Recall the new episodes won't show up until next year. (what?? wait until NEXT YEAR for new episodes!? I don't fracking THINK so!!! arrrgh.) Whoops. Sorry. Repeating myself. ;)
Anyway, They probably won't start shooting until around September or October, so Katee will have plenty of time for outside work.
It occurs to me that this last development should stimulate interest in the direct-to-DVD movie... Heh.
It might have been the music, too. What a surreal episode.
1) Six needed Baltar to get what she wanted. He gave it to her because she was hot, and he's known all along that it's his fault the defense systems went down. He's guilty, guilty, guilty. It was treason up front. His only real defense would be that he "didn't know" and didn't take security seriously. Neither is good enough.
2) I haven't even seen the last episode yet, sport. I'm too bored with the show. I'll get to it some time in the next few days, when I've got nothing better to do. I just don't care about spoilers anymore.
I'll post my thoughts when I get around to seeing it.
However he did commit one genuine act of treason. He gave the nuke to Gina.
Good point, Aziz. For some reason I had forgotten about that.
The writers are clearly having a lot of fun with moral ambiguity here.
If you commit treason and people die as a result, it's because you broke your promises and committed treason. It doesn't matter if you say, "well I didn't really mean it, I didn't realize it was serious!"
You have ultimate top-secret clearance. Someone diddles your privates in a particularly nice way and you arrogantly give them full access to society's most important defense secrets because you didn't think that was truly a serious matter. Billions died as a result.
Seriously, he's the slime of the universe. Mary Madigan said it very well. The colonials should find some particularly disgusting form of mold or fungus and call it "gaiusbaltar" just so his name can be remembered properly for eternity.
The perversity of the show being, no one but Baltar and Roslin know it. And Roslin cannot be trusted.
I fear that some day, you're going to have cause to repeat that statement regarding leaks reported in the New York Times...
"I didn't mean it, I was just..."
Baltar only knew about her status and motives after the fact. This is something you insist on ignoring.
Say I'm a baker. I buy lots of flour and sugar. Also assume someone comes in and asks to buy a five-pound bag of sugar. Finally assume that a cocaine shipment was smuggled in through my latest bulk purchase.
Am I guilty of narcotics trafficking if I sell someone what I thought was sugar, and had no reason to suspect otherwise? By your logic the answer is yet.
Something else you continue to ignore is the fact that anyone who had that kind of access to such an important government-run operation had to have had a clearance. ...Ooops, you did address it, by claiming Baltar gave Six illegal access. Can you support that inference?
There's also the little issue that no one at the time had any idea there were any humanoid Cylons (shiny toasters, remember?), nor had anyone seen a Cylon for forty years. So why should Baltar suspect anyone of being a Cylon agent? By all appearances the toasters had packed up &left.
I'll grant you he was thinking (if that's the word {g}) of getting his freak on first, and considered her computer talents a pleasant bonus.
But -at the end of the day- it's a basic legal principle that one's awareness of committing a crime is fundamental to establishing guilt. The flip side to my above example would be an undercover cop selling fake cocaine. In this case the buyer is paying for sugar, but believes it to be coke instead. They're still guilty of trafficking.
Baltar didn't know who Six was really working for, nor did he have any reason to suspect; and if you can't show me (via dialog, etc.) that she definitely didn't have a clearance, then one must reasonably conclude she did, thereby giving the good doctor even less of a reason to suspect her. To put it another way, Gaius Baltar never knowingly provided aid and comfort to the enemy.
Now, if you want to talk massive incompetance or negligence, I'm right with you. :)
A final note for Jack G, something I missed earlier. Jack: the term cyborg is an abbreviation for cybernetic organism. That is to say, a being having both organic and mechanical components. Saying Cylons are "bio-humanoid cyborgs" is redundant. You are inventing a word which already exists!
The first 45 minutes were boring, and contrived.
Last 15 minutes were superb.
I knew Baltar wasn't going to get convicted. It was the only thing that made sense from a plot-line standpoint. (I'd have totally thrown him out an airlock and I'm pretty much a pacifist)
Here's this week's thoughts:
These four being 4 of the 5? How? And they all (3/4s) ended up on Galactica?
The second in command of the Military and the President's aide? Preposterous, what are the odds? None of the other sleepers worked up that high.
The sports star (Anders) and there is only one of him(?) He'd certainly be recognized by any fan if there were dups. Not likely a choice, but possible, Lucy Lawless's character as the reporter was one that could be recognized, but I don't know if she was a reporter before the attack.
Didn't Lucy Lawless see some faces before she died? (Other than TIgh, she probably wouldn't have recognized them.)
The chief, whom we've suspected (he's even suspected) would mean another 1/2 human/cylon baby. Not likely, too much surrounding magic/voodo around the other 1/2-ling.
Tigh who's way too old be be a new cylon. He's from the original cylon war with Adama. They'd have had to swap him out somehow and transfer his memory (or maybe the extra alcohol is intended to make him think he forgot stuff). If they have someway to do that, it's a whole new ball game. Obviously, if they swapped him it was while he was under interrogation on New Caprica.
If they have a swapping mechanism, it'll be detectable by 2/3 into next season. They know when to stop dragging stuff out (generally).
End of season. The problem is, BG has sometimes jumped time when they've felt like it. A year in the last 5 minutes of season 2. Then another year before season 3 starts. And some other jumps but it's not unlike them to be "3 months later". These are not the days of easy answers on television, it'll be a while before they reveal all.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.