Battlestar Galactica Review: He That Believeth In Me

The fourth season kicks off with several bangs and some shouting.

Cast

James Callis as Dr. Gaius Baltar
Edward James Olmos as Admiral Adama
Mary McDonnell as Laura Roslin
Jamie Bamber as Lee “Apollo” Adama
Michael Hogan as Col. Tigh
Tricia Helfer as Number 6
Grace Park as Sharon “Athena” Agathon/Boomer
Tahmoh Penikett as Helo
Aaron Douglas as Galen Tyrol
Kandyse McClure as Anastasia “Dee” Dualla
Alessandro Juliani as Felix Gaeta
Rekha Sharma as Tory Foster
Michael Trucco as Samuel T. Anders

Synopsis

The four newly-revealed Cylons try to cope with their newfound identities while still being true to who they want to be. Starbuck’s return raises more questions than it answers as she insists they’re on the wrong path if they want to go to Earth. As if that wasn’t enough to worry about, Gaius Baltar is rescued by a cult of the ‘one true God’ who treat him as a prophet, a role embraced by the Six in his head.

High Points

  • Baltar’s prayer for Derek and his subsequent acceptance of what it meant
  • “I don’t know why I’m here… yes I do.”

Low Points

  • Baltar’s rescued by a cult of beautiful women. Right.
  • Roslin’s interview with Six was too short. What did she say after Six’s little revelation?

The Scores

Originality: Some parts of this story are feeling familiar. I know the setup for Baltar being treated like Jesus Christ has been there for a long time, but I’m sure they can do better than a death, resurrection and bodily ascent into Heaven. Please. Four out of six.

Effects: Seeing jumps from Starbuck’s perspective is interesting and also an effective tool given this episode’s events, but the real effects wizardry this week is at the start with a space battle at least as lavish and beautifully rendered as the one which led to the destruction of the Pegasus. This episode must have been very expensive. Six out of six.

Story: Picking up exactly where the previous episode left off, this one resolutely refuses to resolve any questions other than ‘how are they going to survive more than five minutes?’, which was the immediately pressing question at the end of the previous season. Instead it shows us what’s turning into a conflict of prophets — Roslin, Starbuck and Baltar. An uneven conflict, since Baltar doesn’t know what he wants, but that could change. There are a lot of questions being raised, a lot of story still to tell. Five out of six.

Acting: Particular kudos to Katee Sackhoff this week for taking Starbuck’s confusion and displacement and giving it palpable life on the screen. She was, fortunately, backed up by the rest of a superb cast. Six out of six.

Production: It’s Battlestar Galactica in every detail. The only thing I felt jarred a little was the hideout where Baltar was taken. It seems a bit too lavish given the conditions in the fleet — and aren’t candles a bad idea on a spaceship, or does the Galactica have really stupendous carbon dioxide recycling? Who’d be making candles under those conditions anyway? Four out of six.

Emotional response: There’s a moment I thought my heart was going to stop. Fortunately the rest of the episode didn’t maintain that intensity, otherwise Galactica could become a leading cause of emergency hospital admissions. Even after the long season break, I still care about these characters. Six out of six.

Overall: A tremendous episode. How they’re going to work this all out in one season I do not know. Six out of six.

He That Believeth In Me kicks off the final season of Battlestar Galactica and wow. There’s a lot still to be done, but the ride’s going to be great. Thirty-seven out of forty-two.

40 replies on “Battlestar Galactica Review: He That Believeth In Me”

  1. Pretty Good
    (Note: No spoiler tags used. I assume everyone’s seen all the episodes that lead up to this one…)

    All in all I was pretty impressed with this episode. The space battle was VERY good. Was it just me or was there a lot less camera movement in this space battle?

    I really like how they played up the suspicion of Starbuck being a cylon by everyone. It would make making her a real cylon anticlimactic by the writers, and I like that.

    I think the president’s distrust of Starbuck is a little forced, though. She went back to get the arrow for her didn’t she?? Everything Starbuck’s done for her doesn’t garner Starbuck any trust?

    Surprisingly, they are dealing with the destruction of 3 major charcter arches well (the president’s assistant is a minor character). Remember, everything Tigh, Anders and the Chief has done in the past is cast in another light. Did anyone watch the lead in playback of the episodes and see any key scenes with them and just go "meh", because you know it doesn’t really matter? But they are handling their identity crisis well. Tigh’s fear played out at the beginning of the episode is done really well too. How long before a copy Ander’s radio chatter from the battle is handed to Starbuck? That will get interesting, especially considering the "If you were a cylon" line from her.

    • Re: Pretty Good
      It seems likely that even if Kara is a Cylon, she doesn’t know it. However, Kara as the twelfth Cylon seems to obvious, so I doubt they’ll go there.

      The Church of Baltar reminded me a little of the Manson Family. Nice observation about the undetected available space, though. In anything other than a ship with stretched resources, sure, but here it seems a stretch.

      One of the popular theories around the Web is that the twelve Cylons will timeloop back and become the twelve Lords of Kobol. Truly, then, all this will have happened before and will happen again. Anyone buying into that one?

      • Re: Pretty Good

        It seems likely that even if Kara is a Cylon, she doesn’t know it. However, Kara as the twelfth Cylon seems to obvious, so I doubt they’ll go there.

        "Too obvious." Dang.

      • Re: Pretty Good

        The Church of Baltar reminded me a little of the Manson Family. Nice observation about the undetected available space, though. In anything other than a ship with stretched resources, sure, but here it seems a stretch.

        Actually, I thought that at first, then I remembered that the entire starboard landing pod is unused because it had been made into a gift shop/museum. I’m sure there’s plenty of areas on that pod that they can use.

        • Re: Pretty Good

          The Church of Baltar reminded me a little of the Manson Family. Nice observation about the undetected available space, though. In anything other than a ship with stretched resources, sure, but here it seems a stretch.

          Actually, I thought that at first, then I remembered that the entire starboard landing pod is unused because it had been made into a gift shop/museum. I’m sure there’s plenty of areas on that pod that they can use.

          It was a gift shop back when the Galactica was on display for twelve functional colonies. Now that the remnants of humanity are escaping destruction while fighting a war, it seems unlikely it wouldn’t be converted for some purpose. It’s a nit, but I think it’s a valid one.

          I’m willing to overlook it if this season lives up to the previous ones.

          • Re: Pretty Good
            I seem to vaguely remember a throw away line about ‘get that crap cleared out’ very quickly in the miniseries. Don’t have it in front of me to check, but I think they tried to address that with a throwaay line.

      • Re: Pretty Good

        One of the popular theories around the Web is that the twelve Cylons will timeloop back and become the twelve Lords of Kobol. Truly, then, all this will have happened before and will happen again. Anyone buying into that one?

        I can’t see them using any kind of time contrivance. It would be something entirely missing from previous episodes. For me that obvious of a use of deus ex machina would spoil most of what we’ve already seen. This may be Bionic Galactica, or Battlestar Woman, or the ship that wasn’t Serenity, but at least it’s not a knock-off of Trek.

        From my observations the writers haven’t chickened out so far. Now would be a horrible time to start.

        -Joe

        • Re: Pretty Good

          One of the popular theories around the Web is that the twelve Cylons will timeloop back and become the twelve Lords of Kobol. Truly, then, all this will have happened before and will happen again. Anyone buying into that one?

          I can’t see them using any kind of time contrivance. It would be something entirely missing from previous episodes. For me that obvious of a use of deus ex machina would spoil most of what we’ve already seen. This may be Bionic Galactica, or Battlestar Woman, or the ship that wasn’t Serenity, but at least it’s not a knock-off of Trek.

          From my observations the writers haven’t chickened out so far. Now would be a horrible time to start.

          -Joe

          I’m not so sure. The first thing I thought about Starbuck’s incredible trip to Earth was "wormhole". And considering Moore’s past with respect to DS9, I see it as a real possibility.

          • Re: Pretty Good

            I’m not so sure. The first thing I thought about Starbuck’s incredible trip to Earth was "wormhole".

            I’m thinking "trippy vision confused with reality by Cylon mindfuck".

            • Re: Pretty Good

              I’m not so sure. The first thing I thought about Starbuck’s incredible trip to Earth was "wormhole".

              I’m thinking "trippy vision confused with reality by Cylon mindfuck".

              That’s mindfrack.

              Hey, weren’t the Vipers changed in the original series by the encounter with the Ship of Lights?

              (And wouldn’t that be a shark-jump of a twist?)

              • Re: Pretty Good

                I’m not so sure. The first thing I thought about Starbuck’s incredible trip to Earth was "wormhole".

                I’m thinking "trippy vision confused with reality by Cylon mindfuck".

                That’s mindfrack.

                Hey, weren’t the Vipers changed in the original series by the encounter with the Ship of Lights?

                (And wouldn’t that be a shark-jump of a twist?)

                That’s mindfrak. Frak is a four letter word. Thats the intention.

                And yes they were changed by the ship of light. And I wouldn’t be too averse to the ship of light, it Starbuck being a cylon that will make me stop watching.

                • Re: Pretty Good
                  Starbuck’s reappearance absolutely _screamed_ "Ship of Light" to me. That has to be the direction they’re going. Even if they never actually show the "light" beings or their ship, they can play it the same way they’ve been playing the Six in Baltar’s head.

          • Re: Pretty Good

            The first thing I thought about Starbuck’s incredible trip to Earth was "wormhole".

            I had the same feeling, especially given the storm’s vortex appearance. Of course, that still doesn’t explain the new Viper or the previous one’s apparent destruction.

            • Re: Pretty Good

              The first thing I thought about Starbuck’s incredible trip to Earth was "wormhole".

              I had the same feeling, especially given the storm’s vortex appearance. Of course, that still doesn’t explain the new Viper or the previous one’s apparent destruction.

              She was in a Viper, with her hand on the ejector lever and a hole in the cockpit that had equalized the air pressure to the atmo. When the plane hit a lower layer of greater density, it broke appart and just as it did, she pulled the ejector lever.

              The Cylon transport she was following picked her up, patched her up, drugged her up, got her to describe her prophetic vision to earth in great detail (probably by bringing her to the musical nebulae ahead of the colonials), and knowing that she could feel her way to earth but she would never willingly cooperate with Cylons (a long string of dead Leobens can attest to that), they made nondescript CGI video files of her vision, loaded those on a viper, painted it to her number, programmed the flight nav computer to record nothing until the next launch, and gave released her back to her natural habitat so she can go hahead and they can follow them on the way to Earth (that herald of the apocalypse, her!).

              So, in short: Cylons captured and mind fraked Starbuck, gave her back so they could follow her until the next point where they’ll be ahead of the fleet because they know more than they do.

      • Re: Pretty Good

        In anything other than a ship with stretched resources, sure, but here it seems a stretch.

        The thing they’re most stretched on is personnel. It’s quite possible that there are unused crew quarters.

    • Kara Thrace is the herald of the apocalypse

      the president’s assistant is a minor character

      She might be a Cylon, and Anders too. But the others have a past, they have a childhood and a history that predates the hybrids.

      They messed with their minds when they had them in captivity, and used the sounds resonating in the nebulae that only a few people can hear as a trigger to awaken their implanted paranoia.

      Kara would never help them willingly, so they had her give them the information they could by making her hallucinate with that vision-giving root that the persident was using in season one.
      They can project mental images, remember? They were doing tai chi naked on their ships? Good times…
      Anyway, now that they have better descriptions of the star system than what she can remember post-drugs, they want to follow the fleet as she guides them in the right direction towards Earth, as per her destiny.

    • Re: Pretty Good

      Remember, everything Tigh, Anders and the Chief has done in the past is cast in another light. Did anyone watch the lead in playback of the episodes and see any key scenes with them and just go "meh", because you know it doesn’t really matter?

      I don’t know that their actions don’t matter. What if the Cylons were betrayed by their sleepers? There’s a reason the first seven don’t know about the final five, talk about deep cover, but I won’t automatically assume that these four, or five, will do harm.

      I think a question that we’re hearing asked is do Cylons have free will? The humans are already counting heavily on Athena. Based on Tigh’s experience in this episode with projected reality, and Anders with his malfunction, I’d bet we’re going to find out. Can these Cylons overcome their nature? Has Athena truly overcome hers?

      What gives me hope for the humans, at the end of this episode Roslin is talking to Caprica Six about her programming. Six says she is programmed to not think about the five. Roslin makes the point that Six is already defying her programming by considering Roslin’s question. I think something is being demonstrated for us about Cylons.

      -Joe

      • Re: Pretty Good

        What gives me hope for the humans, at the end of this episode Roslin is talking to Caprica Six about her programming. Six says she is programmed to not think about the five. Roslin makes the point that Six is already defying her programming by considering Roslin’s question. I think something is being demonstrated for us about Cylons.

        I thought that was such a great dialogue. To think about not thinking about them, you are thinking about them.

        • Re: Pretty Good
          Yeah, and my head was screaming "THE GAME" at that point. Dammit.

  2. This episode was decent.
    To me it felt a bit anticlimactic, especially after such a long wait, and the acting felt a bit flat, but I attributed that to actors returning to characters after a long hiaitus. I know, I know, we have Battlestar here before us now. Stop complaining. :)

    By your command. :)

    That having been said, the episode did not really disappoint, and the continuity was handled well. I’m right on with the review, especially the space battle at the beginning and its heart-stopping moment. The Secret Cylon Support Society meetings could get interesting. We’ll see who else might show up.

    It’s looking like the fireworks will continue. Interviews with the Moore and Eick indicate there’s no fluff in this season.

    Baltar’s Amazons could be fun. :)

    -Joe

    • Re: This episode was decent.

      To me it felt a bit anticlimactic, especially after such a long wait, and the acting felt a bit flat, but I attributed that to actors returning to characters after a long hiaitus. I know, I know, we have Battlestar here before us now. Stop complaining. :)

      By your command. :)

      That having been said, the episode did not really disappoint, and the continuity was handled well. I’m right on with the review, especially the space battle at the beginning and its heart-stopping moment. The Secret Cylon Support Society meetings could get interesting. We’ll see who else might show up.

      It’s looking like the fireworks will continue. Interviews with the Moore and Eick indicate there’s no fluff in this season.

      Baltar’s Amazons could be fun. :)

      -Joe

      I agree that it was a little anti-climactic. Actually it seemed to really fall off pace from the beginning to the end. Baltar and Starbucks storylines really didn’t seem to mesh together well.

    • Re: This episode was decent.
      When this review first posted I had an obscenity laden bitchfest tirade about it being so long from the last episode that there was no way it could live up to my expectations and it didn’t.

      I never hit the post button because I felt it was too open of a wound and I was just picking on it. Having been a few days I don’t know if I agree with all the stellar reviews that have appeared out here in nerd-dom or not. I was interested in how they handled Anders in the ship, and starbucks ship being obviously different was a nice touch of drama but the damn cliffhanger stop even with a week to go just hacked me off.

      Knowing I’m going to wait almost a year 9 weeks from now to finish this story really frustrates me as well, and colored my objectivity as well.

      Still an hour of TV I won’t want to miss next week, just get kinda frustrated at the build up with no payoff for weeks at a time. It makes you want to wait until the end when it’s on DVD and just mainline it all then and enjoy the story without all the frustration.

      To me, that’s the mark of a great show, with a great group of writers. It’s just frakin annoying at first.

      • Re: This episode was decent.

        When this review first posted I had an obscenity laden bitchfest tirade about it being so long from the last episode that there was no way it could live up to my expectations and it didn’t.

        I never hit the post button because I felt it was too open of a wound and I was just picking on it. Having been a few days I don’t know if I agree with all the stellar reviews that have appeared out here in nerd-dom or not. I was interested in how they handled Anders in the ship, and starbucks ship being obviously different was a nice touch of drama but the damn cliffhanger stop even with a week to go just hacked me off.

        Knowing I’m going to wait almost a year 9 weeks from now to finish this story really frustrates me as well, and colored my objectivity as well.

        Still an hour of TV I won’t want to miss next week, just get kinda frustrated at the build up with no payoff for weeks at a time. It makes you want to wait until the end when it’s on DVD and just mainline it all then and enjoy the story without all the frustration.

        To me, that’s the mark of a great show, with a great group of writers. It’s just frakin annoying at first.

        Actually its 9 weeks to get through the first _half_ of season four, and then more than likely a long wait to get to the last half, arrrgggghh.

  3. Something I Just Don’t Get
    I think the season kick-off was great and I’m looking forward to the final leg of the journey. But the resolution of the final five Cylons is to me fraught with the peril of losing the willing suspension of disbelief that is so critical to Galactica.

    Specifically, I have some real trouble buying Anders and Tigh as sleeper Cylons, much moreso than the other two.

    Tigh fought alongside Adama in the first Cylon war over 40 years ago – so just when was he created and inserted into human society? The Razor flashback showed the young Adama discovering what where the apparent initial Cylon experiments into biological models; Tigh was created before these??? Just doesn’t add up to me.

    Anders is almost as bad from a plotting / story standpoint – he was a famous celeb athelete that Kara recognized on sight when she first saw him, as I recall…not the kind of background you’d want to create for yourself if there were many copies of you floating around. Plus, he was a rebel fighter in the mountains of a nuked planet; the odds of him making it from there to go join the Galactica refugees already light years away and moving out for Earth were nil to zero. This backstory just isn’t conducive to making me believe there was "A Plan" for the final five. More like a billion-to-one shot.

    With the Chief, I can buy him as a "young" sleeper agent inserted into the Colonial fleet operations for future use after turn on…but still. He’s the one who found the Eye of Jupiter, and said he was able to do so based on books in his religious father’s study – um, OK, but how do fake implanted memories end up making possible a key discovery on the road to Earth?

    The scene with Anders getting the eye scan during battle and inadvertently saving Galactica from complete distruction was COOL COOL COOL. This would mean that Kara (or Lee or any other pilot who has routinely been in a position to be similarly scanned) is NOT a Cylon. My bet on the last Cylon is….

    • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

      Anders is almost as bad from a plotting / story standpoint – he was a famous celeb athelete that Kara recognized on sight when she first saw him, as I recall…not the kind of background you’d want to create for yourself if there were many copies of you floating around.

      That’s assuming there are many copies of the final five and they’re not special one-offs. I am afraid the final five may be highly powerful targetted weapons.

      My bet on the last Cylon is….


      Laura

      -Joe

      • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

        Anders is almost as bad from a plotting / story standpoint – he was a famous celeb athelete that Kara recognized on sight when she first saw him, as I recall…not the kind of background you’d want to create for yourself if there were many copies of you floating around.

        That’s assuming there are many copies of the final five and they’re not special one-offs. I am afraid the final five may be highly powerful targetted weapons.

        My bet on the last Cylon is….


        Laura

        -Joe

        That’s my vote too!!! ;)

        K

      • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

        My bet on the last Cylon is….


        Laura

        -Joe

        Nah, It’s Galactica

        :)

      • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

        My bet on the last Cylon is….


        Laura

        -Joe

        [/quote]

        Yep. Me too.

        • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

          My bet on the last Cylon is….


          Laura

          -Joe

          Yeah that makes so much sense since, CYLON BLOOD CURED HER CANCER!! But of course that doesn’t mean they won’t do it. As stated above the backstories for TWO of the sleeper cylons makes no sense whatsoever.

          Yep. Me too.

          [/quote]

          • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

            the backstories for TWO of the sleeper cylons makes no sense whatsoever.

            Therefore they only think they’re Cylons.

    • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

      I think the season kick-off was great and I’m looking forward to the final leg of the journey. But the resolution of the final five Cylons is to me fraught with the peril of losing the willing suspension of disbelief that is so critical to Galactica.

      Specifically, I have some real trouble buying Anders and Tigh as sleeper Cylons, much moreso than the other two.

      Tigh fought alongside Adama in the first Cylon war over 40 years ago – so just when was he created and inserted into human society? The Razor flashback showed the young Adama discovering what where the apparent initial Cylon experiments into biological models; Tigh was created before these??? Just doesn’t add up to me.

      Anders is almost as bad from a plotting / story standpoint – he was a famous celeb athelete that Kara recognized on sight when she first saw him, as I recall…not the kind of background you’d want to create for yourself if there were many copies of you floating around. Plus, he was a rebel fighter in the mountains of a nuked planet; the odds of him making it from there to go join the Galactica refugees already light years away and moving out for Earth were nil to zero. This backstory just isn’t conducive to making me believe there was "A Plan" for the final five. More like a billion-to-one shot.

      With the Chief, I can buy him as a "young" sleeper agent inserted into the Colonial fleet operations for future use after turn on…but still. He’s the one who found the Eye of Jupiter, and said he was able to do so based on books in his religious father’s study – um, OK, but how do fake implanted memories end up making possible a key discovery on the road to Earth?

      The scene with Anders getting the eye scan during battle and inadvertently saving Galactica from complete distruction was COOL COOL COOL. This would mean that Kara (or Lee or any other pilot who has routinely been in a position to be similarly scanned) is NOT a Cylon. My bet on the last Cylon is….

      I agree. I even said it when the big reveal was made.

      Showing 4 of the final 5 cylons was very cool and shocking, but they essentially DESTROYED every one of their backstories. Now they have to dig themselves out of that very large hole.

      Personally, I don’t think they’ll ever explain how Tigh became a cylon because, there just isn’t a plausible explaination that exists.

      • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

        Personally, I don’t think they’ll ever explain how Tigh became a cylon because, there just isn’t a plausible explanation that exists.

        all anyone knows is: there is _something_ different about these four people. they only ASSUME is means they are cylons. It might mean something else. Now we know the female-human-style cylon’s can give birth to children. Imagine the cylons isolated from their technology base, on a planet. How cyclonic would they be after say, a thousand generations? What is their life span? If they’re indistinguishable from humans, they must age like humans right? "Our" four may well be just the most true-bred ‘human’ descendants of the last cycle’s cylons, allowing them to partially tap into a long range cylon communications transmission?

      • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

        I think the season kick-off was great and I’m looking forward to the final leg of the journey. But the resolution of the final five Cylons is to me fraught with the peril of losing the willing suspension of disbelief that is so critical to Galactica.

        Specifically, I have some real trouble buying Anders and Tigh as sleeper Cylons, much moreso than the other two.

        Tigh fought alongside Adama in the first Cylon war over 40 years ago – so just when was he created and inserted into human society? The Razor flashback showed the young Adama discovering what where the apparent initial Cylon experiments into biological models; Tigh was created before these??? Just doesn’t add up to me.

        Anders is almost as bad from a plotting / story standpoint – he was a famous celeb athelete that Kara recognized on sight when she first saw him, as I recall…not the kind of background you’d want to create for yourself if there were many copies of you floating around. Plus, he was a rebel fighter in the mountains of a nuked planet; the odds of him making it from there to go join the Galactica refugees already light years away and moving out for Earth were nil to zero. This backstory just isn’t conducive to making me believe there was "A Plan" for the final five. More like a billion-to-one shot.

        With the Chief, I can buy him as a "young" sleeper agent inserted into the Colonial fleet operations for future use after turn on…but still. He’s the one who found the Eye of Jupiter, and said he was able to do so based on books in his religious father’s study – um, OK, but how do fake implanted memories end up making possible a key discovery on the road to Earth?

        The scene with Anders getting the eye scan during battle and inadvertently saving Galactica from complete distruction was COOL COOL COOL. This would mean that Kara (or Lee or any other pilot who has routinely been in a position to be similarly scanned) is NOT a Cylon. My bet on the last Cylon is….

        I agree. I even said it when the big reveal was made.

        Showing 4 of the final 5 cylons was very cool and shocking, but they essentially DESTROYED every one of their backstories. Now they have to dig themselves out of that very large hole.

        Personally, I don’t think they’ll ever explain how Tigh became a cylon because, there just isn’t a plausible explaination that exists.

        I’m going with, the Final 5 are more like the first five. They were the original prototypes, and they built the other 7, turned them on, and left. They are the only ones of their kind, but the wanted to fully experience humanity, so they wiped their own minds but left behind clues that could help them.

        • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

          Yeah, yeah. Tigh can’t be a Cylon. They’re making it up as they go along. I hate/like the Ship of Lights/Babylon time-warp/Statue of Liberty ending….

          Here’s some of the cast posing for a photo shoot as 60s Space Babes.

      • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

        Personally, I don’t think they’ll ever explain how Tigh became a cylon because, there just isn’t a plausible explaination that exists.

        There isn’t one that fits with what we know so far about the Cylons.

        But if we don’t come to learn a bunch more about the Cylons by the end of the series – what the "plan" was, what was the deal with the "Final Five", why there’s a Six in Baltar’s head and a Baltar in a Six’s head, and so on – a bunch of us are going to hunt down and kill Ron Moore.

        And if we learn a whole bunch more and there’s not some explanation of Tigh’s story in there, then we won’t kill him but merely inflict extreme pain.

        But I trust it won’t come to that. :-)

    • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

      My bet on the last Cylon is….


      Bill Adama.

      You have to admit the serious irony involved in his assassination attempt. But I think it’s clear that the final 5 are disconnected from each other as well as the other cylons. Laura is almost the obvious choice, and this series has been anything but obvious from the start.

      Good comments above though on the incongruity of Tigh both fighting in the first Cylon war and being a later-developed Cylon. The most likely explanation (barring a time-travel twist — which would disappoint me) is that while developing the 12, the Cylons needed bodies for prototypes, and probably took those from people they captured in the war. Tigh and Adama could have been replaced then, or at a later point, as there were clearly Cylons on Caprica by the time the second war broke out.

      This probably also means that the "final 5" were the first 5 developed, not the last 5, and there is likely only one of each.

      Just one more idea…perhaps the Cylons want to find Earth too, but can’t, for whatever reason. So they set up the humans to do it for them. Adama leads the charge, but doesn’t know any details on how to get there. For that he needs the humans, Starbuck and Laura, among others. It might even be a rouse to destroy all humans — the Cylons want to wipe out humanity but if they had destroyed all of them, the ones on Earth would still be out of reach. Galactica is leading them to their final battle.

    • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

      Specifically, I have some real trouble buying Anders and Tigh as sleeper Cylons, much moreso than the other two.

      Tigh fought alongside Adama in the first Cylon war over 40 years ago – so just when was he created and inserted into human society? The Razor flashback showed the young Adama discovering what where the apparent initial Cylon experiments into biological models; Tigh was created before these??? Just doesn’t add up to me.

      Anders is almost as bad from a plotting / story standpoint – he was a famous celeb athelete that Kara recognized on sight when she first saw him, as I recall…not the kind of background you’d want to create for yourself if there were many copies of you floating around. Plus, he was a rebel fighter in the mountains of a nuked planet; the odds of him making it from there to go join the Galactica refugees already light years away and moving out for Earth were nil to zero. This backstory just isn’t conducive to making me believe there was "A Plan" for the final five. More like a billion-to-one shot.

      With the Chief, I can buy him as a "young" sleeper agent inserted into the Colonial fleet operations for future use after turn on…but still. He’s the one who found the Eye of Jupiter, and said he was able to do so based on books in his religious father’s study – um, OK, but how do fake implanted memories end up making possible a key discovery on the road to Earth?

      The scene with Anders getting the eye scan during battle and inadvertently saving Galactica from complete distruction was COOL COOL COOL. This would mean that Kara (or Lee or any other pilot who has routinely been in a position to be similarly scanned) is NOT a Cylon. My bet on the last Cylon is….

      Perhaps these final 5 replaced the original humans….. at some point..

      k

      • Re: Something I Just Don’t Get

        Perhaps these final 5 replaced the original humans….. at some point..

        k

        This is highly likely IMHO. In fact, I think the reason for the young Bill Adama flashback in Razor was setup for this angle. I would be VERY interested in whether or not they filmed additional scenes with that actor during Razor for future flashbacks this season…

        The whole Cylon "Plan" is still so vague that I will be really surprised it "All Is Revealed". I agree that the Five were made before the Seven, but who MADE them? Toasters? A Vat Cyborg? Lots of questions and a lot of exposition remain…

        Sigh. Just pop the pocorn and watch the flickering screen…

Comments are closed.