Battlestar Galactica: Season Last

Two weeks!

i'd care if last season made any sense

(but of course i'll watch it)

Sci-Fi Channel was running promos for this during every single break during the Twilight Zone marathon.

Not that they had much else to do, since the only other adverts they had were either for other shows or life insurance or odd exercise equipment.

What about those crazy towels that guy is always yelling about?

sham-wow?

> What about those crazy towels that guy is always yelling about?

Worst final cylon possibility ever.

More Grace Park storylines, please

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2009/01/12/bsg_propaganda_3_3.jpg

Anybody watch Face of the Enemy? I thought it was actually pretty good, though splitting it into 10 parts made it way more confusing that it needed to be. Also it nicely patches in a dangling plot thread from Season 3. Gaeta and Eight do a really good job.

god what a tragedy this show is

having re-watched the entire run recently I kinda have to agree with s1ocki - not about the specific shark-jumping point (I think the slow reveal of the cylon culture/in-fighting has been great, fwiw) - but about how there's a lot of squandered promise here after the first season and a half or so. This last season was a lot of time-wasting (especially whenever the stories focused on Bambi Jamber or Starbuck) and they've now convuluted everything so unnecessarily I'll be really surprised if there's any truly satisfying way to pull it all together.

Although the Planet of the Apes cliffhanger was pretty great.

it is true that a lot of tension evaporated when it became clear that the cylons DON'T actually have a plan

also plz no more of that lawyer guy, terrible character

I'm looking forward to:

1. The clip show

2. The Wizard of Oz tribute episode (acceptable alternates: A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life.)

3. The introduction of a new, adorable child character.

4. The crossover with a popular cop or medical drama.

pretty great show all the way through save a lot of the lee adama stuff

fat lee was great though

4. The crossover with a popular cop or medical drama.

Was brilliant when it was Homicide/Law & Order crossover.

i don't even care who the 5th is anymore

okay that's a lie

god what a tragedy this show is

Why yes. Yes it is!

Hahah! Well put.

so i really want some kfc now

haha. We saw this at the Bagdad in Portland. 500-600 geeks in attendence. I kept yelling out "FRIIIIEEEED CHICKEN" during each advert break. What a weird cross-promotion.

Also, suffice it to say, the more mystical stuff, the better, just as long as it gets explained 'fore season's end.

if tigh's wife is the 5th, then wtf is kara thrace? i wish this show even tried to make sense

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/01/final-fifth-cylon-ellen-tigh-battlestar-galactica-dualla-dee-.html

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/01/battlestar_galactica_ron_moore.html

A lot of times in the podcast, you'll say things like, "I know people are interested in this, but that's really not where the story's going." You didn't really deal with the toasters becoming sentient again, that sort of thing. After I watched "Revelations," I thought it was a great ending, but I jotted down a list of things that still had to be dealt with. I'm wondering, without you giving it away, whether these things are going to be addressed or whether these are things that we're thinking a lot more about than you were.

Do you have a list?

Yeah.

Okay.

Obviously, the identity of the final Cylon, we will find this out?

Yeah.

The origin and nature of the Final Four and how they different from the rest of them?

Yes.

The origin of the rest of the skinjobs?

Yes.

What happened to Earth and what happened to the 13th Colony?

Yes.

Who, if anyone, is orchestrating all of this?

Basically, yeah. I don't know if it's going to be wrapped up in a neat bow. The show has an answer for it, whether it's a satisfying answer, I don't know.

Will "All this has happened before and it will happen again" be explained in some way?

Yes.

The opera house?

Yes.

What happened to Kara when she went through the Malestrom?

Pretty much.

Identity and nature of the "head" characters?

Yes.

Tigh and Six's baby, and whether that means Cylons can breed?

Yes. That's not a "yes" to whether they can breed -- the question will be answered.

The fate of Boomer and whether there are other 1's, 4's and 5's floating out there?

Yes.

Roslin's health?

Yes.

i read a theory that starbuck is the child of ellen and tigh and so she is the first hybrid.

Is this a no spoiler thread or can we talk about specific stuff that happened?

once a show has aired, it's all fair game

ie, it's no longer a spoiler. someone who hasn't seen the episode has no business clicking on the thread.

Okay, cool. Thanks.

I really liked the episode. I was not very excited about the 5th being Ellen (I wanted it to be Gaeta), but Ron Moore is pretty good at making things fit eventually so I will not be too Angry Fangirl about it and just see what happens. I do like how out of all the possible epic love stories, Saul and Ellen Tigh are the couple with the love that will echo through the ages.

My favorite part of the show was Leoben's reaction when Kara told him that the hybrid told her she was the harbinger of death and would lead them all to the end. It's like he suddenly realized that Oh wow, she is a whole lot crazier than even I thought...

And I totally cried when Dee shot herself, even though I was never a big fan of her character. I wasn't expecting that! I was actually sure we were about to find out she was the 5th. I even said, "Damn, she is the final Cylon" and then BLAM.

Also, when they blew the resurrection hub, one of the Cylons said that now there was no difference between humans and Cylons, but I think last night when Leoben and D'Anna both realized that they actually had no fucking clue what to do next, and when it became clear that the Cylons do not actually have a direct line to God or any kind of a plan or even superior understanding of how things work - that's when the human/Cylon differences really fell away.

someone who hasn't seen the episode has no business clicking on the thread

i forgot to check US tx date so am now spoilered. oh well.

blame yourself

Loved the drunk Adama/Tigh yelling session. and Adama with Duala's body in the morgue. Olmos is incredible. I'm glad they spared us the flashback of Anders playing 'All Along the Watchtower'...the guitar fretboard stuck in the sand felt pretty lame to me. I was watching it going "please don't flashback, please don't flashback'.

I always thought Ellen was a Cylon, which makes it feel too obvious to actually be true.

What a downer of an episode! The only thing that has me worried is that the preview for next week looked like filler.

I love this show.

Crazy ep, I loved it too.

Remember when they first introduced Ellen, and they thought she had died in the initial attacks, so there was Cylon suspicion? Then again in the first season I think almost every character was suspected to be a Cylon at some point.

The Dee thing was incredibly depressing, she was probably the sweetest character on the show. They were totally playing her up to be the Fifth Cylon in that scene though, they way she was humming that tune so oddly, I thought they were calling back to the 3rd season finale. Which made the BLAM all the more shocking.

I wonder why we didn't get Tory's flashback - I bet that'll be a deleted scene.

latebloomer those links were GREAT, btw

this was some bullshit

Kara as harbinger of doom now seems to mean simply that she led the whole fleet back to Earth, which had been destroyed. Or is that too simple?

I still effing hate Ellen as a character. They'll have to work hard to get me to like her given that she's taking screen time away from more interesting people.

isn't she, like, dead though? how's that gonna work out, i'm wondering.

My theory at the end of the episode last night was that Ellen was a red herring and that each of the other four would have visions of people they knew as cylons in their previous lives (Tyrol seeing Callie, etc.) and, well, god knows where that would have gone. But Ellen just seemed so deeply unsatisfying as the final cylon. And she's dead!

one more article for those interested:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-cylon-2009jan17,0,6147971.story?track=rss

Oh man, I feel bad for poor, inevitable putz who hasn't seen this episode but checks out the Battlestar Wiki entry on the Thirteenth Tribe, which starts, The Thirteenth Tribe, a group of early generation Cylons...

But Ellen just seemed so deeply unsatisfying as the final cylon. And she's dead!

Well, there's something about Earth that enables reincarnation somehow -- the Four, plus Kara -- so as far as we know right now, her death may only be a temporary setback.

not to mention the fact that the actress who played Ellen said she was in nine episodes this season (interview linked somewhere)

right, I'm really just talking about my initial reaction.

but she's not dead

I think my thinking at the time was something along the lines of well, last we saw her she was dead and we've not seen any of the final five able to download/resurrect. And if she'd downloaded into one of the cylon's ships you'd think one of them might have noticed.

it would be like if george lucas announced a show set behind the scenes in the galactic trade federation where the lead character was a gungan midichlorian researcher of the same

sorrry, of the same species as jar jar binks

I'm with Milton, pretty much, having just watched the premiere. A lot of clunky stuff, and the kids often annoyed the hell out of me, but I think there could be something built here. I did like Stoltz, Malcolmson and Morales' performances, though this is a pretty far cry from 33/Water.

i watched the first ep on dvd a while back. i thought it was a'ight. it's not really trying to be bsg, which is good.

Yeah, just watched Caprica and at first was a little bored (the multiple scenes in the club especially), but ultimately was more into it than I thought I would be. Like Milton P. says, there's a couple good / interesting ideas in there and it looks like those ideas may be the focus of the series. 1. The idea of immortality and what that would mean and 2. an underground, religious uprising that will lead to the creation of the cylon army and the first cylon war. Kind of surprised how they managed to find a different slant into the BSG world and actually make it kind of fit (though I'm not sure it how / if it's going to fit up with the idea of the seven). The music is good too.

But I'm not convinced it's going to work episodically - they couldn't keep the filler out of BSG and if it creeps into this one it'll be even worse. If they can keep it tight and actually find a way to progress towards some kind of conclusion, it could work out. I feel like there's some potential. Also cylons are still scary as fuck!

As much as I swore I wouldn't get suckered into another Ronald D. Moore show, this pilot was pretty good.

Pretty good, until you start actually thinking about this shit and it's so full of fucking plot-holes and dumbness that you realise it exemplifies of the kind of shitty TV sci-fi that you avoided for years, ever since you were a teenager, until Battlestar came along and for two seasons made you think it was possible to do a sci-fi show that was actually clever and proficient.

Battlestar came along and for two seasons made you think it was possible to do a sci-fi show that was actually clever and proficient.

I'm hoping its legacy will inspire a consistently great SF show in the future.

I'm hoping its legacy will inspire a new generation of over-critical SF fans

until you start actually thinking about this shit and it's so full of fucking plot-holes and dumbness

haha yeah, I am beyond confused about the whole cylon creation mythology at this point, and there's no fucking way I am re-watching the last two seasons of BSG to connect the dots.

One of the tough sells with Caprica, thinking back, is that there just doesn't seem to be any likable or interesting characters so far.

you could not pay me...

Started watching BSG from the start again, and it's different knowing who the Cylons are from the start and see the first bubbles of class conflict w/ Tyrol getting mad that his guys got flushed into space to put out the fires, etc.. Remembering how much life in the fleet, conflict between the military and civilians and the class system, etc. stuff they missed the boat on dealing with.

Jeff: I was just making that point to a friend of mine who started watching, too. It's like... do I have to choose between religious zealots, some Bill Gates/Frankenstein dude, and a one-dimensional noble (Tauron)?

One of the tough sells with Caprica, thinking back, is that there just doesn't seem to be any likable or interesting characters so far.

― Jeff LeVine, Monday, January 25, 2010 4:11 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

jesus christ what are you people thinking

you could not pay me...

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Monday, January 25, 2010 4:31 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

or.... this.

fine. don't watch it, let us schmucks waste our time how we please.

^
butthurt galactica

ha haaha haha - i'm trying to help you guys!
LOOK AWAY!

it's too late. i've been sucked in by VIRTUAL REALITY

Earnest nerd rant here: yeah the last couple seasons of BSG screwed the pooch pretty badly but dammit I mostly enjoyed myself even as it disappointed me. That's the risk/fun for me of these kinds of shows. For me watching episodic TV is not like watching a movie. It's more akin to following a sports team. You have a season of ups and downs, sometimes your team has a winning streak and sometimes they're losing more often than not. And yeah, sometimes you get sick of it and walk away. And that's fine!

With that said, I liked the Caprica pilot, it had some neat stuff in it and some cheesy stuff, but it intrigued me enough to see where it goes. There's no way it could get me invested like BSG did, but whatevuh.

finished watching tonight. so great. what a scary show. always scaring me. last episode wasn't as sad as i thought it would be though. the whole thing was really memorable though. i'll always remember it! okay, on to caprica now. Scar was my all-time fave episode. talk about scary! that one made me weepy and sad.

so did the galactica people all decide not to invent the wheel or something on new earth? wonder how that worked. did they not talk in front of the natives? cuz i think we all would have been driving hover cars a lot sooner if they had been our ancestors. i would totally watch a Galactica: New Earth series just to see how that worked. did the cylons invent the pyramids? and what happened to adama's spaceship? he drove it to his mountain cabin spot.

wouldn't they all run out of spaceship fuel eventually?

maybe they got into a war with the golgafrinchams...

I'm sure Baltar would go down t'pit again.

Scott, did you hate the ending? I didn't – I thought it was appropriate, given the series' emphasis on humanity/stewardship, but I've got the feeling I'm in a distinct minority.

Series should have ended on Planet of the Apes ending IMO.

i didn't hate the ending. it was pretty mellow though. thought there would be more drawn out tears and hugs and heartache and there wasn't. so i guess that's good? i dunno. i was ready to cry like a baby. but the ending was really quiet.

so i burned through the whole series over the summer, and by the end i was pretty much watching out of desire to just get it over with. the writing was often bad, the acting was often bad, but there were some great moments - the whole new caprica blip, esp tigh killing his wife, was particularly affecting, as were the mutiny episodes. and i thought starbuck was a great character, and was really hugely dissatisfied with how her arc ended. and i thought baltar was annoying throughout.

Also, this show's greatest crime was, I think, its inconsistency. From episode to episode, characters would routinely behave in uncharacteristic ways, to serve the plot - Roslyn and Adama in particular.

also the all along the watchtower stuff was the most heinous thing i've ever seen on tv, and i remember the post-richie episodes of Happy Days

the teeth brushing

the paint and the crying

just finished watching this last night, and sean's post from five years ago very much otm:

this was SO TERRIBLE.

"all that mysterious shit? it was uh vaguely uh god? and angels? represented by a douchebag in a scarlet shirt and shades?"

breakdancing robots, constant vapid strip-club flashbacks, "what better way to see some deer 'up close' but in a spaceship?", ron moore, mitochondrial eve, the "opera house" reveal ["Oh, all that prophecy shit over hours and hours? It just meant that after Hera ran away from her parents for 2 secs, you would find her and bring her 2 doorways down to the CIC"], lampkin as president?!, hoshi as admiral?!, Lee going with the ship and not to "serve humanity", 100 other unbelievable character choices, and MAN I AM GLAD THEY RESCUED HERA BECAUSE IT HAD A HUGE IMPACT ON THE REST OF THE EPISODE. ugh, a million times ugh. i am sorry i ever recommended this show to anyone.

― sean gramophone, Tuesday, March 24, 2009 11:40 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Would only add how unsatisfying everything turned out w the merging of human/cylon theme that took such a central role in S4. Although thought it was handled clumsily throughout, it was still some of the most novel/interesting territory of S4...and then we end with all the cylons dying except 3 of the five and a handful of v.2 skinjobs. Really uninspiring payoff.

And I think the Hera storyline would make more sense if they'd stayed committed to this theme. Hera = the hope/possibility/practicability of an intertwined future! By going for broke saving her, they were symbolically (and with some quick sci-fi mumbo-jumbo, actually) keeping afloat the only hope for continued humanoid existence as they knew it! Instead, no, she simply remained important by inertia with all of the air sucked out of everything except SPACE BATTLES and TYING UP PERSONAL DRAMA and GOD.

If they'd stopped at the end of the first half of S4 would have been much happier.

Which reminds me, wth ever happened to D'Anna/#3, who just disappeared after Earth 1 iirc? Was that explained in a webisode, or did I miss some quick wrap-up of her existence?

did you goofs keep watching caprica

yes ;_;

what happened

Shit happened

This person's consciousness:

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTAzOTc4NTQ5MjNeQTJeQWpwZ15BbWU3MDUxOTM3MTM@._V1_SY317_CR12,0,214,317_AL_.jpg

Got put into this:

http://thetvwatchtower.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/cpa-21.jpg

Also, Eric Stoltz, space Gypsies, religious cults, gay Sasha Roiz and virtual reality.

I liked Caprica!

You forgot to mention space Mafia

I was totally down with the Caprica, always meant to go back and finish it up

Oh and suicide bombing.

I think the last couple seasons are so generally lame (with briefs moments of greatness somehow in there) that it's easy to forget how amazing it once was. also I thought all the dark turns it took felt so forced and "important" as opposed to the effortless A+ space opera stuff at the beginning. I think I gave it more bennies of the doubt but in retrospect its pretty difficult to remember a better show that ended so poorly.

also this show was probably the worst at shoehorning Relevant "war on terror" tropes into its narrative. so bad.

the season when the "humans" were living under cylon rule and it all felt french resistance-y was amazing.

as soon as the watchtower got involved it turned to shit.

Which reminds me, wth ever happened to D'Anna/#3, who just disappeared after Earth 1 iirc? Was that explained in a webisode, or did I miss some quick wrap-up of her existence?

Didn't she say she wanted to stay on Earth #1 while everyone else left? The implication was that she was so disappointed with Earth being in ruins that she just wanted to die.

the season when the "humans" were living under cylon rule and it all felt french resistance-y was amazing.

Probably the peak of SF television storytelling to date, that arc. The decline in quality after it ended was sudden and sad.

BSG the boardgame is a lot of fun, BTW.

it is!