When last we left the intrepid crew of Galactica, a few months back, Adama and Cain were at each other’s throats. Have things improved? Well, probably not.
This is a (slightly late, sorry) discussion piece, a more detailed review will be forthcoming in a couple days.
Anti-Climatic
I was expecting some sort of climax from the last episode at the beginning of this episode. It was kind of a let down that nothing really happened with the fighters and the battlestars.
Re: Anti-Climatic
I, too, was hoping Adama would break his foot off in Caine’s arse (militarily
speaking). But as Ronald Moore pointed out in the podcast for this episode,
if the two crews were to open fire on each other, there’s no way you’d be able
to show them working together in future episodes and not lose credibility.
I thought the episode was really solid, and I’m just fine waiting until next
week to see Caine get hers.
Re: Anti-Climatic
They wrote themselves into a corner with that one, so the only way out was with a convenient plot device. Made for an exciting cliffhanger, and a very poor wrapup to it. Fortunately the rest of the episode picked up right after.
small nit-pick
So… why didn’t the president just issue an order that the admiral is relieved of duty? Or in this governmental system is the president not the commander-in-chief like in ours?
Wouldn’t have made as good of a “showdown story” but… :P
Re: small nit-pick
Do you think Cain would have quietly stepped down!? There’s no way she would have. She hardly acknowledged the president anyway. She only played along because she needs galactica to take on the cylons. And she’s really obsessed with killing cylons.
Plus I loved the whole black ops flavor of the end of the episode. High point: I want you to shoot admiral Cain in the head.... Awesome line.
Re: small nit-pick
I don’t think she would have… however, I do think it would have given her second-in-command the nudge he needs to relieve her of duty when she disobeyed.
I do love the final commands from the admiral and Adama… but I know full well that there is no way either command is gonna get executed.
Re: small nit-pick
I think it’s been very clear for a while that the president is not commander-
in-chief of the military under the BSG government. Now it may be that she is,
but refuses to pull out that trump card, but there have been several situations
where it would have resolved things. Has there been any discussion of that in
the podcasts?
Re: small nit-pick
I was hoping Roslin would pull the rank card and throw it in Cain’s face while Cain was arguing a strict letter-of-the-law approach to the executions. If Cain can’t follow her legal commander, then she has no right to “legally” execute Helo and the Chief.
Is it next Friday yet?!
Wow, that was worth the wait. Hopefully I’ll say that next week, too (:
I too would’ve liked this episode to have opened with Galactica miraculously winning a battle against the Pegasus, but oh well. BTW, anyone else have a problem listening to Mr. Moore’s podcast? Can the guy PLEASE not keep dropping spoilers? “Oh yeah, so we moved that to the next episode. Oh yeah, this’ll be important later in the season. Oh yeah, de decided that in about 5 episodes form now…” I pretty much stopped listening after about 10 minutes.
My high-point is when Roslin said “You’re going to have to kill her.” I was not expecting that from her. The dual-assasination-plot at the end was also really really good, but not as “Whoa” as the first thing.
I have a bit of a hard time with Adama ordering Starbuck to shoot Admiral what’s her name... I mean… damn. Not so much a Starbuck thing, it’s just a pretty half-assed plan!
Re: Is it next Friday yet?!
The way I see it, there are only two people he could ask in the first place; Starbuck or Apollo, and you need someone who can be in a certain location, at a certain time. It would be normal procedure for Admiral Cain’s CAG to report to her on the bridge right after an engagement, making that the more plausible option. Plus, if we assume that Adama has guessed that Cain will try and terminate his command then there is simply no way that he could expect Apollo would even get close to Cain post-mission, effectively ruling out that option.
Fun.
Couple of comments, I’m just gonna spoiler it all.
On the Opening Sequence:
You knew they couldn’t open fire. Otherwise, the people who were ‘the bad buys’ from the Pegasus would have to die. It would leave no room for camradirie of friendships later. Or maybe, that was the point. There’d always be some clicks within it.
On the closing sequence:
More and more I’m enjoying the overall filmmaking and the way they tell the story. The tandem ‘kill the commander’ order and the way they played it out onscreen was wild. Normally I find cut scenes or multi-screens very freaking annoying, but this one had the right amount of tension and pacing that it was just great
Overall Comments:
Interesting wrinkle with the ressurection ship. They actually bring in the supply issues of a prolonged chase. In the original series there was a never ending supply of Cylons, now, we have real solid concerns. It was also nicely played on how Baltar ‘got info’ from the trapped six. They certainly do a great job of making her look totally defeated/destroyed.
I am having an issue that the president hasn’t stepped in and stripped Admiral Cain of her command. I mean if it was discovered that a ranking member of the military found civillians, stripped them of their means of escape, killed people because they wouldn’t come, and all sorts of evil things how can a President let her, or people who followed the order stay in command?
Parallels
Was anybody else struck by the parallel between Adama’s plan for Starbuck,
and
the way in which Sharon (Mark 1) tried to assassinate Adama at the end of
season 1?
I was also surprised that the President didn’t at least try to say something
like, “good gods, people. You’ve got the survival of the whole human race in
your hands, you’re going to have to learn to work together or the species is
toast.” Her much more hard headed reaction makes sense in retrospect, but
I’d still expect someone somewhere to point out the stakes involved.
(Can we do away with the excessive spoiler protection for things that happen
in the
episode? If you don’t want to be spoiled, you shouldn’t be reading discussion
of
the episode.)
Re: Parallels
I think some of her hard-mindedness stems from the fact that she’s dying. She knows that she won’t be around to mediate any future disagreements or to protect the civilians if Cain goes whacko again. And she certainly can’t trust her VP/successor (Baltar!) to do the job. She trusts Adama at this point, and she sees this as the only way to be sure that someone reasonable (or even sane) is in command when she’s gone.
Re: Parallels
What makes you say she doesn’t trust him? I get the feeling that he’s still implicitly trusted by everyone and only he and us know he’s going nutso.
Maybe he doesn’t even get it.
Re: Parallels
People on the show (maybe even Roslyn herself?) have commented on him being a bit nutty. Of course they don’t know just how nutty he is; those “in the know” seem to regard him as an eccentric genius. But eccentric geniuses don’t make good leaders very often. I certainly don’t think Roslyn trusts him to be a competent leader, especially going up against a serious hardcase like Caine.
Re: Parallels
I noticed some parallelism there, too. I also found it darkly humorous that
Adama was quite particular about shooting Caine in the head. As
one who’s survived being gut-shot, he’s certainly not taking any chances with
the details.
Re: Parallels
I loved that bit. Obviously Adama has identified the problem with Sharon’s attack and FIXED it. I think he’s very aware about how similar his plan is to Sharon’s attack. He also knows from experience that its a good plan. Although, there is that whole issue with the fact that Starbuck and Appolo would more than likely not survive the attack. Something different will DEFINATELY happen. But of course, that’s come to be expected.
Another thing I really liked was the shot of the vipers turning to come at the blackbird. In that one shot they went seemlessly from two opposing forces to one combined attack force. A great special effects shot.
idle speculation
This wouldn’t make logistical sense, but wouldn’t it be funny if Caine turned out to be a Cylon?
Re: idle speculation
I was thinking that would be really cool if she were a sleeper agent. I mean she’s doing a great job at killing human civilians and causing problems for Adama and the President. The thing is it would be great to see her die and then show up on the ressurection ship. BUT that either one of two things would have to happen. 1) She dies before the resurrection ship is completely destroyed, or 2) The resurrection ship doesn’t get destroyed, but she dies anyway. Both of these things preclude Starbuck killing her, but of course I didn’t think Starbuck will get the chance so.…
But it is an interesting idea.
About Episode
Well a couple things about the episode
Since they are in a wartime state, It could be that Cain has ultimate decision making, since she is leader of the military.
Think about the time last year Adama and roslin little get tgether.
The double assaination attempt is going to be great, btu i dont think it will happen. I think since he knows now that survivors were left behind from the scrapped ships, he is going to get her court martialled. What would be the point in bringing it up if it is not for use later in the story..
How long do you think this tv will still go on. We here have a betting pool going about how many seasons until they cut it. With the way so many shows are being cut way to early, i hope not anytime soon
Re: About Episode
Well it still points to a difference from our system. The US President is always Commander-in-Chief, especially in times of war.
Good point, although I think Galactica’s ratings have been very high(?). They cancelled Farscape after four seasons; I think we can hope for at least that much out of this one.
Re: About Episode
Who the heck is going to enforce that? For all the good people on her crew, not everyone is gonna roll over, and we’re back to where we started: an armed standoff. We’re effectively talking about a power struggle between the three most powerful people left in the human race; I don’t think an administrative solution is going to hack it.
My prediction for next week: Since the preview didn’t show who was actually pointing the gun at Cain, I think Starbuck will find her loyalties just divided enough that she can’t do it (especially after the scene where Cain told her she wanted to go back and reclaim the colonies). But in last week’s half-hour recap/preview special, Jamie Barber suggested that Apollo was going to be in a very bad emotional place very soon. My money is on Apollo killing Admiral Cain. That (which would effectively be cold-blooded murder) plus the incident where he had to destroy the civilian ship in season 1 could add up to some serious guilt and emotional distress.
Re: About Episode
The preview of next week’s episode provided some clues as to who might end
up busting a cap in Cain’s ass. Refering to the snippet where Cain has a gun
pointed at her and spits out “Frack you!”
* The would-be shooter is holding the weapon in their right hand. Katee
Sackhoff (the actress) and Starbuck (the character) are left-handed.
* The hand appears to belong to a female.
* There appears to be a manacle on would-be shooter’s wrist.
Now, they could have pulled a “Who Shot JR” and shot that scene with various
cast members to throw us off the scent, but I would be genuinely surprised if
it’s not Gina________ who ends up with a
gun
to Cain’s head
Re: About Episode
If you read the BSG Season 2 Spoilers posted a while back you’ll note your inviso text is mentioned as a possibility.
judging now by the hand shake mentioned I’d bet you are close, if nothing else it may be the release asked for post battle.
I have a hard time avoiding those, but the ‘synopsis’ of the first episode did it absolutely no justice so I’m sure I’m going to enjoy it. Just avoid hitting page down too much.
Re: About Episode
How many seasons of Stargate have there been, and it’s crap, as near as I can tell… It even got a spin-off!
“Successful” on non-network TV is a relative term. BSG is Sci-Fi’s highest rated, and most critically acclaimed program. When mainstream TV critics are calling it one of the best shows on TV (A Sci-Fi Show!), all of the old rules can be tossed out the window. This show will air for as long as they can keep the cast and crew together…
Re: About Episode
Though I haven’t watched Atlantis (not on in Canada yet), I do occasionally watch SG-1 and I’ve been staying ‘current’ on it since it became Fargate (what can I say? I like Ben Browder and Claudia Black). Although it still has its moments of cheese, I’m enjoying the direction they’re taking it in, which is more than I can say for some series.
Plus, due to the construction of the episodes (everything wraps up in the last 10 minutes) it’s nice to have on in the background since you don’t really have to pay much attention to it.
Re: About Episode
From the makers of Findependence Day?
Re: About Episode
I wouldn’t call it crap. It’s more of a light-weight humorous adventure. BSG is the serious stuff, Stargate is fun.
The ship?
In one shot of the ship they were able to zoom in and see Number 6 cylons waiting to be resurrected. Why can’t they just look through the other pictures, attempt to gain good enough shots of them to identify the specific models, and arrest the people they find who match the model pictures? Seems obvious to me.
Damien
Re: The ship?
Did you miss all the episodes last year dedicated to DECIMATING the cylon detector? The writers will not give up their crutch of “anyone can be a cylon” any time soon. BTW: that’s the only real issue I have with the show. Everything else is excellent, I just have to give them a pass on every instance where it would be logically easy to figure out what more of the cylons look like.
Re: The ship?
I’m going with the assumption that they only got photos of models that the
Colonials know about. Starbuck would only have been able to see sections
facing her along that one slice she flew next to, the others could have been
on
the interior or the other side.
There could even be a handwaving logic to this – if some humanform Cylons
are considered to be “deeper cover” than the others, you’d naturally have
them hidden in the interior. (Don’t ask why they needed to make the outside
of their ship transparent in the first place.)
Re: The ship?
I doubt the writers will let them discover more than one new model. That would give them a suitable payoff without mucking up too much.
And to be honest, the humans have discovered so many now, surely the Cylons are working on new ones. Just because there were twelve at the start of the series doesn’t mean there aren’t fourteen now, even if the last two are still in beta testing.
Remember the incision on Starbuck at the end of "The Farm"
:)
Starbuck has become more and more important to the fleet all the time, hence more and more important to the Cylons. What about a Cylon plot to replace, or discredit Starbuck? Who else have they managed to sample? In the upcoming episodes, perhaps Roslyn? Adama? They DO have at least one known (to us) undercover operative in the fleet, Lucy Lawless’ character, and pregnant Sharon seems nice enough, but who knows what she’s really up to? Hair samples, or skin samples, sequenced and sent off to the Cylon fleet …
Wouldn’t look-alikes frak up the humans? :P
-Joe