As we know you’re all champing at the bit to have a spoiler-iffic discussion of the season two finale, here’s a place to talk about it freely. The review will be up tomorrow.
As we know you’re all champing at the bit to have a spoiler-iffic discussion of the season two finale, here’s a place to talk about it freely. The review will be up tomorrow.
So I’d like to be the first to say…
Whoa.
When I’ve picked my brain off the floor, and retrieved all the bits of my skull from their places embedded in the walls, and watched the episode again, I shall write the review.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
No kidding. In some ways, while the fundamental basis of the show appeared to be blown away it really hasn’t.
In the long run, we’ve just exchanged a small number of survivors trapped on Caprica for a much larger number of survivors trapped on New Caprica (and that’s completely writing off the women in the Cylon birthing farms). It’s almost like Moore, et al, said, ‘you know, we want to do a lot of "behind enemy lines" stories but the number of humans on Caprica don’t justify the investment of the Fleet’s resources. So let’s put most of humanity into captivity.’
On the other hand, as we’ve been reminded every week, the Cylons had a plan. I think that this was it – they didn’t know where humanity would settle, but once they did I bet every Cylon had a Prime Directive to send up a flare. Now the Cylons have a nice, safely captive breeding population that they can do anything they like with. Their victory is even more complete now than before.
Though the baby hybrid Cylon smells a little bit too much like the half-reptile from V, to be honest.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
I think you’re forgetting the Cylon Heroes and their effect on the Cylon’s ‘Plan’. From the little snippets of dialog from next season’s preview it sounds like instead of exterminating humanity, now the Cylons want to ‘take care’ of humanity.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
<cough>
I, Robot
<cough>
Damien
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
IMHO more like Wimmianson’s "The Humanoids"… you can’t go wrong with the classics in any case :)
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
I think this may be drawing parallels with the current situation in Iraq so the show can continue to comment on real world politics. In Iraq the U.S. is there to "help" and "make things better" in the U.S. view. The locals in Iraq aren’t co-operating and I think from what Starbuck said at the end, she doesn’t plan on co-operating either. The new and improved war hero Cylons might actually improve the physical conditions of New Caprica (and there is lots of room for improvement) by building housing etc. The Cylons were orignially made to build the colonies and they are probably good at it. Meanwhile, Starbuck et al. will be blowing up what the Cylons build to help humanity and probably kill a lot of humans while she is at it.
Having said that, the show was a huge surprise. I was waiting for Baltar to betray humanity in a quick, big flashy way. Maybe we can still say that Baltar did betray humanity but it was through his incompetence as a leader not through joining up with the Cylons and shooting at them. Maybe this is also commentary on current politics also (Hey, Mr. Bush, but then again Baltar is smarter than Bush).
Also, the number of humans dropped from 46,000+ to 39,000+, was this mostly from the nuke on cloud 9? or was it mostly attrition from the year on New Caprica?
Another question, the answer to which may have to wait until October, what happened to the captive Cylons? Were they all executed? Have they been kept alive on the Galactica? I would not trust them not to try to transmit messages to passing Cylons over the course of the year. I would probably have tried to execute them.
One last thing. The New Caprica settlement is on a river delta. The oldest human civilizations, such as Egypt or Sumer were on river deltas. Maybe the Earth Galactica was looking for was a myth and New Caprica becomes the real Earth, the one we are living on now. We are the Cylon/Human hybrids. Nah, that would be too cheesy. The writers are better than that. Anyway, if it was true they would save it for the series finally (hopefully in 10 or 12 years) not a season opener like in October.
The writers really threw a curve ball with this ending.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
That number was, IIRC, for the planet. I assumed the difference was mostly those staying on board the various ships of the fleet.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
You know actually I really really hope it ISN’T designed to be a reflection on current events. I’m really sick of that. Its a TV show telling a story, it is "A work of fiction, any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincedental." Now of course thats not always completely true, but it is the story of survivors from the colonies trying to find Earth, not a pure corallary about what is hapenning on Earth.
Actually my thought is that the Cylons will take the Roman tack of improving the infrastructue and buildings, in exchange for the loyalty of high officials in the human government to the Cylon Empire. See, thats not even a modern connection ;-).
Ron Moore has done an admirable job bringing up points to think on without either pushing one viewpoint over any other, or making one viewpoint "right". I believe its the mark of great writing. And for as much as I was worried about the bombshell in this episode, they really pulled it off, they really did it right.
The show makes you THINK, it doesn’t give you one viewpoint or another. That is a mark of great entertainment.
Now the cylons are espically evil, and have commited a mass genocide against their makers, now they are setting themselves up as the rulers. In the podcast Ron Moore noted the similarities to the cylons marching into New Caprica to the Nazi’s marching into Paris, and that’s a compelling point. Extrapolating Iraq to be a metaphor for Battlestar Galactica is a stretch. Sure, they have to deal with many of the same issues, but hell, they’re at war, those issues have always been there, they’re not new to this show or to our current situation here on the actual Earth.
Also, Baltar couldn’t be more unlike Bush if they tried. Although I did have an interesting thought about Baltar after this episode. I really hate the character, in the sense that he is the villian and I want him to lose. As a character Baltar’s a very full and interesting character, but to my mind, he’s the bad guy. He’s never looked so evil as when confronting Adama after being told of the tabluation error. The podcast mentions the lighting used for Baltar, and they’re right it conveyed the right impact. Everyone putting this show together is working at their best. Back to Baltar, though. I found myself later wondering why I hate Baltar so much, but yet like …. Londo Mollari. Its very thought provoking, although I don’t think the BG writers are intending comparisons to B5. But, I had to wonder, what did Baltar do that makes him so irredeemable in my eyes, but yet why would Londo still be redeemable then. I haven’t figured out a total answer for myself yet, but to put forth ideas like that makes a truly wonderful show. I find myself comparing Battlestar Galactica to the very best (Babylon 5). I think that is the highest praise I could give the show.
Season 3 should be a heck of a ride.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
After the shock wore off — the next day — I listened to the podcast.
I realized that this current incarnation of BSG has, as of the end of season two, now officially moved out of the shadow of the original series, and into uncharted territory. The writers have done a fantastic job so far with the new series. Although I am uncomfortable with some of the possibilities presented to us in this season finale, I am more than comfortable with the idea of the current people who helm the series helping us to make sense of all of the chaos.
In the original series, Baltar was a tragicomic buffoon waited on hand and foot by a cybernetic drag queen. I think this Baltar, especially with his total failure as an elected leader, is much slimier. I also like the deeper levels of peril, the feelings of absolute desperation this series regularly produces. I always knew that the original Starbuck and Apollo would always end up yucking it up over a few glasses of ambrosia as they fondled the latest star-vixen-of-the-week. Hell, in the new series I can never be one hundred percent sure if either Starbuck or Apollo will survive the episode.
Even with this sea-change in tone and setting, the characters are still there, the great struggle still exists, and honestly, I think it’s about time this series moved out of the shadow of its predecessor and finally strode confidently out into its own ground.
:)
As for Londo versus Baltar, Londo had his loyalty to the Centauri Republic. He could be self-serving, but he was also capable of sitting his own interests aside to serve what he felt was the greater good, the survival of his people. Baltar is nothing but self-serving, with no loyalties to anyone except himself, and the only good he is concerned with is "good" as defined by his physical and emotional needs.
Even when Londo was doing the wrong thing, he was usually doing the wrong thing for reasons which, although they may not have always been right, they were usually understandable.
Gaius Baltar just does things because they’re what Gaius Baltar wants to do. :)
October is too damned far away …
-Joe
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
And thank the gods that Kara wasn’t pregnant!
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
I’ll second that. Starbuck is far more interesting in her capacity to inflict mayham.
Speaking of which…Who here thinks it was a little obvious that Leoben killed Anders? Something that will only make her even more cantankerous.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
We don’t know what Leoben did with Anders. On the podcast they mention that Anders will be in the next season.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
I think Leoben probably cured him. He likes Starbuck. :)
-Joe
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
I think the Cylons are going to cure *everyone* and grow them food and build them houses etc. but it is going to be like the looney tunes cartoon with the big doofy guy who likes animals: "I’m going to love him and hold him and squeeze him, George" while half choking Bugs Bunny or Sylvester or whoever. Bugs Bunny isn’t going to like being loved so much.
The humans, led by Starbuck, are going to be killing Cylons regardless of how much good they do.
Baltar, as the Cylons lackey/puppet, will retaliate by imposing martial law and doing reprisal killings: public executions of suspected resistance sympathisers that will "continue until moral improves".
All this will continue until Adama and Son figure out how to run a raid and get all 39,000 people off planet. Too bad they don’t have transporters. How many Basestars jumped into orbit? I could have sworn I counted at least 3 or 4.
Fun, fun, fun.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
Wow. I like your analogy there, and I think you’re right. Your analogy is completly out of left field (Looney Toons?). Very well done ;-)
As for the basestars, I think there may have been as many as six of them. I forsee hit and runs attacks from the Pegasus and Galactica to wittle down the number of Basestars, then I think they will coordinate a plan with Starbuck on the planet to make the escape. I however don’t see any way any type off escape will work without an EMP to take out the mechanical cylons. Althought there is a question of the effect it will have on colonial ships on the ground.
Thats my thought anyway.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
While Galactica, Pegasus and the fleet that escaped are woefully underequiped on a fleet-scale, they still have a fair amount of resources to play with. They probabably have a few thousand people. They have the coordinates for those asteroids with mineralas and tillium, so that won’t be a huge problem. Pegasus can make new Vipers.
Gorilla warfare is almost fun when you have resources to work with. Too bad Starbuck is on the ground and the Blackbird is destroyed… Even if you don’t have any nukes, jumping in lighting off some missiles at point-blank-range and jumping out, lather-rinse-repeat will really get on their nerves… I wonder if the Pegasus could produce Blackbirds….
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
How about Leoben is Daddy to Starbuck’s stolen eggs? How’s that for a little family strife?
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
Although, I still believe there is a tinge of old series here with this finale. In the second episode of the old series, the colonials fall into a cylon trap at Carillon (I think thats the right name). They find a nice world with logdging, casinos, lush amenities, and many want to stay there. We find out its really a cylon trap (along with aliens who want humans for food) and they have to escape. Now on the old series they got "captured" and escaped all in one episode.
Really, now with this I see this series raising the bar on that storyline. It’ll be interesting to see how they get back up in the air. Also, when they do make their escape, you can be sure the colonials will be hellbent on finding Earth now.
As for Londo, you’re right. But that makes me think that maybe I’m giving Londo a pass due to his patriotism, and should I. Also, I also think that G’Kar’s forgiveness of Londo colors the viewers view of him too.
Anyway, Baltar is definately the villan here. He was more dangerous to the humans in this episode then the Cylons were or are.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
Now that you mention it I think I remember seeing that. Very good catch. :)
Agreed, once the Cylons finish with their new 39,000 "pets" I don’t suspect there will be many Cylon sympathizers left. :)
-Joe
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
In that episode Cassiopea was a, ahem, professional party girl. I don’t remember the exact term they used, but it was very clear that she was a prostitute (and it was legal and accepted). She only became a medtech after she became a recurring character.
Hmmm, have we seen any other prostitutes?
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
Sociolator, I believe was the term. :)
-Joe
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
That almost never happens until after season four ;)
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
LOL
And the catsuits, don’t forget the catsuits. :)
-Joe
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
Of course :) – though I wasd thinking more along the lines of the writers though ;)
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
I’m at an average 99.5% sure meself… I have point five per cent of hope that Starbuck will finally bite it, but I’m pretty sure she’s got too much of a fanbase.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
Because Londo was a hedonistic drunk (is that redundant?) who was, for the most part, doing his best to be happy, make others happy (especially Garibaldi), and boost his civilization’s standing in the universe. He made a wrong turn along the way, but he was trying.
Baltar’s a selfish super-genius who doesn’t care about anything but his own good time, consequences be damned.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
Agreed.
Balthar can actually pronounce "nuclear" .
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
Please cut it out with the spoiler-protection. This was marked as a spoiler topic.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
I’m not forgetting it at all – you’re jumping to an unwarranted conclusion. The Cylons never wanted to completely exterminate humanity, as we saw in "The Farm," and I think they couold have wiped out the rag tag fleet a number of times if they had truly wanted to do so. The Cylons needs humans (at least, so far) in order to breed.
The debate among the Cylons is whether attempting to exterminate the *majority* of humanity was a mistake or not – we never heard the "priest" cylon’s complete offer. I don’t think it really affected the Cylon’s master plan one way or the other, it simply changed the face that the Cylons will put on their occupation – they might now set up a suede denim secret police instead of unadulterated jackboots, but their control of the human breeding population will still be absolute in reality if not in name.
Re: So I’d like to be the first to say…
I can’t believe I broke my silence to praise a Dead Kennedys reference. Very cool!
On Topic:
I love this show – but I really felt like the production team were running out of narrative "juice" towards the end of season 2. In Season 1 and the first part of Season 2 we had so many elements to really propel the drama – Helo / Sharon on Caprica, Galactica Sharon discovering her true identity, the splintering of the fleet, and so forth. After "Ressurection Ship, Part 2" though, I really felt the lack of strong story elements was a problem for the show.
So I really thing all of the changes made in this episode were needed to provide a new injection of narrative possibilities to the show – we come back to this show because of it’s great writing and brilliantly drawn characters – but also because there is a sense of real momentum to the story that is lacking in so much episodic TV.
My wife’s thought
My wife doesn’t watch the show, but I occasionally give her story snippets that she might find interesting. I told her the story of this ep and her immediate response was that it was a vision that Baltar was having. Possibly a cheap way of doing it, immediately quiped back that Baltar would then probably waken up and find Adama in the shower (which one, I leave that to your immagination).
Either which way, October is an aweful long way away.
Damien
Re: My wife’s thought
Speaking of wives, supposedly (producer) Ron Moore’s wife wouldn’t talk to him for a whole day after seeing this episode. I wonder just which part, though, led to such a severe reaction. I mean, really, there’s a lot of serious WTF moments in there.
Apropos of nothing, darn you Tyrol for taking my dream girl Cally away from me…
Re: My wife’s thought
On the podcast from last week Ron specifically mentions her being upset at a large gamble they take in this weeks episode. In this weeks podcast he mentions "One year later" is that gamble.
Re: My wife’s thought
The question is whether he took this ‘gamble’ for purely creative reasons (to reinvigorate the show), or if there was an ulterior motive, like trying to tempt NBC into picking it up? It seems to me that a radical change in direction like this makes it much easier to create a starting point for new (broadcast) viewers. With all the major changes, he has an excuse to do lots of exposition without boring the current fans as much. And with the time discontinuity, he has effectively cut off (rather than tying up) some loose ends, killing some relationships and solidifying others that were still in flux before. Seems like the perfect time to jump to a new network…
[/conspiracy_theory]
Re: My wife’s thought
I was really hoping at first that it was just a dream. But it seems that when there is a dream sequence, they only show the people that the dreamer interacts with. Since they showed so many little side stories, I think this is a way to for the writers to wipe the slate clean and get humanity back in a pickle.
October IS a long time to wait.
Jason
Re: My wife’s thought
I really REALLY doubt this is a dream sequence. For one thing, the writers are too damn good to resort to something like that. I think the cut to a sleeping Baltar waking up one year later was just a trick played on by the crew, to make you think it was all a vision. I believe we had the real McCoy, and that New Caprica really was settled, and occupied, and the Adamas are out in space wondering what the hell to do.
Re: My wife’s thought
1. Jump out and regroup the fleet to preset coordinates.
2. Assess the situation.
3. Attack.
It’s what they do.
Last minute spoiler please!
Hey,
My DVR cut out just after the cylon told Baltar that they found them due to the nuke Baltar gave a cylon. Could someone please tell me what happenned in those last few seconds?
Thanks,
Avery
Re: Last minute spoiler please!
Baltar says "I surrender".
Cut to Tryol and Starbuck out in the crowd.
Tyrol: "What do we do now cap’n."
Starbuck: "We do what we always do, fight them until we can’t."
Fadeout….
Civil war?
I can’t shake one simple thought.
Civil war among the Cylons.
Think about it. Occupation stories are simple, the enemy is clear, etc. It can get boring pretty quickly.
But imagine that this was just the opening move and by the third or fourth episode we learn that thousands of Cylons have followed the "heroes" but most haven’t. The rebels want more exposure to humans, the rest think the rebels are defective and should be eliminated. Plus the remaining humans, before they corrupt other cylons.
Suddenly it’s a three-way struggle. The planet-bound humans can’t trust "our" cylons but they don’t have any real choice. The fleet doesn’t know who to trust. "Our" cylons have to worry about infiltrators, like humans had to worry about cylon infiltrators.
Think that could give you any interesting stories?
BTW I don’t know what to think about the ‘flare’ theory. A nuclear flash a light year away isn’t very bright… esp. in the glare of a nearby star. I find it far easier to believe that the cylons deployed sentries with FTL drives and one observed the flash from fairly nearby, but they didn’t act for close to a year for their own reasons.
Re: Civil war?
BTW I don’t know what to think about the ‘flare’ theory. A nuclear flash a light year away isn’t very bright… esp. in the glare of a nearby star. I find it far easier to believe that the cylons deployed sentries with FTL drives and one observed the flash from fairly nearby, but they didn’t act for close to a year for their own reasons.
[/quote]
no no no no, they "detected" the "radiation", (radiation lasts about 30+ years, and last much longer in space, witch is why we don’t dispose of radioactive junk in space) thats why 6 detonated the nuke, so they could trace the radiation and find the humans.
Re: Civil war?
Not to quibble too much, but we don’t send many radioactive payloads up into space because, as we know, things that go up tend to come down, sometimes in spectacularly unplanned fashion. Imagine a nuclear-powered Columbia raining radioactive debris across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
Space is *extremely* radioactive. Even with our atmosphere’s protection, cosmic rays (heavy atomic nuclei speeding through space at near the speed of light) manage to strike each of us every once in a while, causing things like cancer. The sun emits a flood of x-rays, neutrons, neutrinos, uv radiation, microwaves, radio noise, and alpha particles. Gamma ray bursts happen quite frequently.
As far as planets go, Jupiter’s Van Allen belts would kill an unshielded human in minutes.
Radiation is one of our primary concerns about sending a human crew to Mars. Chances are good they would get to Mars OK, but we would like them to come back and live for at least a few years to talk about their experiences. Unless the astronauts are heavily shielded, or their interplanetary craft moves very, very fast, they would be exposed to near-lethal doses of radiation during their trip. They would certainly return to Earth sterile.
I took the radiation detection to be a detection of the nuke’s radiation pulse. The bomb was detonated 380 days previously. The Cylons arrive after detecting the radiation from a light year’s distance. The Cylons have FTL.
I heard the Cylon claim as "we were in the neighborhood and heard a bit of a bang echoing around. We popped over to investigate, and here you were."
-Joe
Re: Civil war?
as an aside on your radition & interplanetary space travel here at home I thought you mind find this movie Voyage to the Planets and Beyond very interesting. They address that rather well in a fictional docudrama of a trip to various planets in our solar systems.
Re: Civil war?
The nuke itself looked awefully tiny. but I can assume that their tech is much more efficient at turning matter into energy. Also, I wonder how much of a secondary explosion from the ship’s engines there was.
Could be that the Cylons detected not so much a big flash, but the spectum emission lines from uranium and plutonium – that would defintely tell you something’s up.
Re: Civil war?
If they were paying attention in the optical spectrum that would definitely get their attention. Depending on where the Colonials and Cylons are located in their galaxy, trans-uranic elements might be scarce to non-existant. Any visible concentration would show up like a signal flare.
The neutron pulse from a nuke in space would be distinctive from the background noise of natural processes that produce neutrons. Most natural neutron sources produce a mix of fast and slow neutrons that vary little over a period of several minutes. A nuclear blast produces an intense pulse of fast neutrons that dissipates quickly. It’s a unique signature.
It would also effectively pierce the clouds of dust that seem to fill the New Caprica system.
I suspect I’m over-complicating something that the writers just spent two minutes on: "what brings the Cylons to new Caprica?", "oh, they saw the nuclear flash." :)
-Joe
Re: Civil war?
I agree it was either a two-minute thought or a more conscious attempt at misdirection.
This physics discussion makes me wish I had left some of my comments in the original post.
Yes, I know that the spectrum could be very revealing. BUT…
* the flash would be akin to the flash of a cigarette lighter. In greater New York City. As seen from the moon. The emission lines of the trans-uranic elements will be swamped by the broad spectrum from the nearby STAR. The particle radiation will be lost in the interstellar noise.
* a sufficiently advanced technology might be be able pick up the emission lines anyway. But that implies they’re monitoring ALL of the stars within a fairly large sphere. That’s a lot of infrastructure for an unlikely event.
* if you’re willing to make the investment, it would be cheaper and faster to drop a dozen sentry cylons in every star system. They watch the system for unusual events and jump to a central location to report. The cylons could have just waited for things to fester to the point where human-form cylons could seem a desirable alternative to Baltar.
Re: Civil war?
Using optical spectra we can detect sodium in the atmospere of a 150 light year distant "hot Jupiter" in a three and a half day orbit of its sun. On the other hand, detecting the explosion of the nuke using an optical flash would be unlikely.
To quote the male Cylon, replying to "how did you find us?":
"we were over a light year away from here when we detected the radiation signature of a nuclear detonation."
To me that would suggest the detection of the neutron pulse, which, as I said, would be very distinctive. Using massive parallel processing, *we* can detected individual particles from two separate sources so distant they’re virtually a point source.
The Cylons, most especially with their super-advanced AI, could no doubt spot in seconds a nuclear blast-originated neutron signature coming from a solar system that’s only a little more than a light year away.
Someone writing or consulting knows enough astrophysics to be dangerous. :)
-Joe
Re: Civil war?
Maybe that would explain why the Cylons were out so far (10+ jumps) from Caprica. If they had given the humans back their "freedom", why else would the Cylons be out there? Either the rebel faction was running on their own or out looking for the humans.
Head for the Hills!
The one thing that kinda bugged me was the lack of reaction other than standing there and staring up at the sky. Why did no one start running for the hills? (so to speak).
A fascinating season finale, it went in directions I didn’t think possible and totally blew my mind. There was one moment of screaming when my DVR ended right before Starbuck’s final words but fortunately I was able to go to live TV to back it up enough to see what she said.
I stand by my earlier NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO about waiting until October. I only hope it means they’re going to invest more in it and it does require a lot of work. I know there was only so many ‘real’ plotlines they can do as they continue the ‘run like hell’ theme and the ‘stuck on a planet’ theme was very interesting. They ‘aged’ the characters rather well and the 15 or so min we got with them was enough to have me ready for more.
I’m downloading the podcast now to listen. For those of you who don’t visit the site regularly they’ve gotten rid of the god-awful beep that had me stop listening to it because it hurt my ears while commuting. The new subscribe feed is [url=http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/podcast_enhanced.xml]here (xml file for podcatcher)[/url] for those that want chapter stops vs. super loud beeps :)
Still annoyed i gotta wait until October.
Re: Head for the Hills!
Those people had just witnessed hundreds of Cylon fighters and troop carriers passing overhead. At that point, running would be a fairly pointless idea given the terrain (not a whole lot of cover, shelter, etc).
Re: Head for the Hills!
Agreed. I took the reaction to be one of intense shock and disbelief. Did the fleet even have time to notify the ground? It looked to me like phoning "up/down" is a relatively time-intensive process, powering up a raptor, or fellating Baltar to gain the favor of His Prezishness to use Colonial One’s communications systems.
Plus, like you said, where is there to run?
-Joe
seeds to the wind……
Like many of you .. October.. Too.. far.. away….
I need the 2.5 release of BSG DVD to carry me through.
ok.. Back to topic.
Wow. Sums up the episode. And the season.
ok.. Spoilerific time.
I can’t help but think that Sharron (BSG verison) set the one raptor to jump to this New Caprica, and the cylons knew all along where the fleet was. The chances of a raptor jumping to a place that was so well suited is minimal. The producers and writers have not treated us like children in 2 seasons of shows. Why start now?
If you watch very closely you can’t see if Kara is indeed pregnant or not. The green coat she wears covers her pretty well. It’s not out of the question and it makes us wonder what they did to her at the farm so long ago.
My biggest problem with the ending of the show is why are these poor folks living in the squalor they are when there are several ships in orbit. I mean take the sick into orbot to heal in cleaner environs. Have the union workers on the surface built the needed infrastructure while people live on the ships as needed. Pioneering teams could be investigating the planet with all of the ships/shuttles they had in space. No need for people to live for a year in the mud.
Let’s hope we don’t see a diluted version of this great show on NBC any time soon. Maybe NBC could show the cut versions as new for a few years and the real fans can continue to see this show on SciFi.
Magy
Re: seeds to the wind……
I agree. They can land a mining ship on an asteroid to mine materials, but couldn’t land it on the planet as well. Also, food production, and even medicine production would have been better done on the planet than in space. Even though the weather on the planet wasn’t ideal, that didn’t mean they couldn’t mine materials and build buildings to live in instead of tents.
There is however, one option I would give them for having things not progress fast enough, and that would be the fact that Baltar is an extrordiarinally bad leader.
Re: seeds to the wind……
In addition to Baltar signing ‘executive orders’ that colonization will begin, there are some additional factors. One, it was clear that people were desperate to get out of the ships, and once down on the planet it might be difficult to move populations back up to the ships. ‘landing’ a mining vessel on an airless asteroid is not the same at all as landing it on a planet; in fact, it does appear that the majority of the fleet *can’t* land. Colonial One is a passenger liner, and an exception, and to remain habitable on the surface they appear to have had to make major hack-ish additions to it. In order to use the facilities aboard the remaining ships (which would be their high-tech facilities) those ships might have to remain in orbit anyway. So given Baltar’s insistence on quick colonization, it makes sense that there is a large population with not enough resources/infrastructure on the planet to properly house/support it, and a fleet in orbit with not enough people to run it. Shuttles are still running, apparently, but large-scale movement isn’t really feasible (the Raptors, after all, hold around 6-8 people in a pinch, and those appear to be the shuttles of choice).
I’m just shocked Starbuck is on the surface. I can’t help wondering if that is so Anders can end up Guerrilla again, because damn, she’s a fighter pilot. I wonder if that’s what really caused the break between her and Lee – "I’m gonna go be tent-housewife." "You’re a VIPER PILOT!" "No, I"m Anders’ tentwife."
The Chief I can see – if you’re building anything like an infrastructure, you’re gonna need him. Gaeta I was surprised at, but I could see Baltar just ordering him down there.
re: the captured Cylons, I would bet that Boomer/2 is still aboard Galactica – Helo’s still up there, so that’s almost a no-brainer, and I can’t see Adama letting her roam around. We don’t know, but I bet they actually did space the Stockwellbots. Which sucks, because they were *awesome*.
I ditto the notion that whatsisface didn’t harm Anders, he was just looking for Starbuck. I don’t know why, but I don’t think it was for revenge. I think they bonded. At the end, she objected to his being spaced, after all. Also, he more than anyone would know she was a danger to leave running around. I take his presence to mean that he did, in fact, manage to rez. :-)
Re: seeds to the wind……
It kind of makes sense when you think about it. Gaeta was Baltar’s assistant during the whole Cylon-detector scam. Gaeta was who discovered the ballot fraud. Gaeta is also one of Adama’s inner echelon people. I think he’d be Baltar’s first choice. On the other hand, how Gaeta could stomach working so closely with Baltar once he had shown his true colors …
<shudder>
-Joe
Re: seeds to the wind……
Am I alone in thinking Gaeta is a Cylon? I’ve rewatched the episode to make sure – he has a definite smirk leaving the room after explaining the ballot "mishap." I don’t think there was anything wrong with the ballots.
If it was meant to be obvious then please ignore me :P
Re: seeds to the wind……
I fully expected him to walk over to the other side at the end of the episode. There are just too many coincedences where Gaeta might be helping the cylons.
Maybe the writers thought showing him as a cylon would be one thing too much for this episode.
Re: seeds to the wind……
I didn’t notice that!!! Gotta rewatch the ep …
:)
-Joe
Re: seeds to the wind……
I just can’t imagine that a colonial asteroid mining ship wouldn’t have capabilites to transfer ore to a planet’s surface since that would probably be its primary role before the atttack. Unless it was just used to build orbital platforms, but I doubt that. I know I’m overthinking it.
Basically I think it comes down to set design. The only good set they could construct was basically a tent city. Otherwise would have required a real city, and an actual Earth city would have been too developed for a location for the settlement on New Caprica. So really production wise it was the only way they could go (outside of showing tents with a matte painting of real buildings behind it, but that would have been hard too).
As for Starbuck, I agree. She’s a fighter pilot, and I believe that that’s really the only job she’s really suited for. Oh, she will be a pretty good guerilla fighter, but she’s still a better fighter pilot.
Re: seeds to the wind……
Yes, you are overthinking it. All that a colonial ore miner would have to do ,before the Cylons destroyed their infrastructure, is provide life support and recreation for the miners, some machine shops to keep the drills/ore grinders running and maybe some basic smelters, which honestly could be done with a solar collecter. When they collected enough ore it could either be picked up by freighter, which I’m sure the Colonies had, or even simpler, melt it into a large ingot, give it a locator beacon and an automatic propulsion system then send it off to orbit around one of the Colonies for either further space based processing or dump it into an ocean like a large meteor for planet based processing.
There’s no real reason for the mining ship to actually land on a planet. Much cheaper, quicker, simpler to just shoot the refined ore back towards the Colony on a preset pathway.
As for the set design, I think everyone is forgetting the basic capabilites of the fleet. These are people who jumped on the nearest ship during a major emergency, some with their most precious possessions but most probably barely had time to grab extra clothes. They were barely prepared to survive a long space journey and I don’t think colonizing a new planet was in their long term planning.
I’m sure Galactica or Pegasus had the tents in stores for military maneuvers, but otherwise until they can set up kilns for brick, a concrete plant and retool some manufacturing machinery to produce fasteners and lots of hammers/shovels/etc., then they’re not likely to have any permanent housing yet. Speaking of raw materials as well, I don’t really recall seeing a lot of timber around their settlement. Does this planet even have trees, or is it all bushes and grasses? Is there limestone for concrete?
Re: seeds to the wind……
Theres lots of trees around Vancouver. But thats and interesting point. Why weren’t there more wooden structures? But again, I think thats set design.
Re: seeds to the wind……
Starbuck is also a crack shot, and trouble on a stick. So unless she is a very happy lady, I want to be in a different zip code.
Re: seeds to the wind……
I think that’s the more likely scenario, especially given Baltar’s "solution" for the unionists’ demands: inter their leaders until the union concedes defeat … I suspect there have been quite a few interments. I’m actually surprised that Roslyn isn’t in the slammer, except at that point in time I suspect Adama would give Kara another "unpleasant task" (that she would probably relish), and "President" Baltar would find himself the victim of an accidental yet precise bullet wound in the vicinity of his aorta. :)
-Joe
P.S. After this episode, I really, really do hate Baltar. What an excellent job Mr. Callas does. :)
Am I the only one rooting for Baltar?
I don’t know why but in contrast to most other people I always find myself cheering for Baltar. Most people seem to hate Baltar because he’s so insanely selfish, however I think this has to do with the fact that because of his intelligence and personality he is completely unable to connect with normal people. As a result he can’t empathise with them and as a result never found any value in being anything but selfish.
However, with Cylons, or with Six to be more specific, he has someone who he can actually communicate with at his level. As a result over the course of the series I think he’s started to learn to be more selfless wrt the well being of Six. Look at the extent he went to in order to save Pegasus Six, how much he tried to protect the Cylon baby, and how he has formed his only real emotional attachment with the Six.
I think Baltar’s redeeming quality is that he alone, of all the humans, is the only one who is able to really sympathize with the Cylons and treat them as living beings. Helo and Chief (at least in the past) are sympathetic to Boomer but I don’t this extends to any other Cylons, also, in their case, I think they love Boomer only as a human and view her Cylon nature as an unavoidable flaw. Baltar on the other hand, fully accepts that Six is a Cylon yet it doesn’t make him love her any less. For all his flaws Baltar ends up being most open minded and least prejudiced of all humans and I feel he and Six will be largely responsible if humans and Cylons ever find real peace.
Re: Am I the only one rooting for Baltar?
I don’t agree, that quality is what makes him a traitor. Also, I’m not sure he sympathizes with any cylon except six, which makes him no different from the Chief and Helo.
Re: Am I the only one rooting for Baltar?
I’m not actually sure Baltar is a true traitor since he was never actually loyal to humanity, just himself. I think of him more as a covert agent.
Also while he hasn’t really had a chance to interact much with other Cylons besides Six when he has interacted with Boomer he’s the only one other than Chief and Helo who really treated her as if she was a living being with real emotions (which he than manipulated mercilessly).
Re: Am I the only one rooting for Baltar?
I’m not sure he’s human. I think he’s the master cylon, though ep2.20 shaked that faith a bit…