In the final part of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries, the remaining human survivors attempt to escape the Cylon force and rebuild their lives. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Battlestar Galactica.
PART IV
Well, it was certainly inevitable that President Roslin and Commander Adama would have to confront one another, wasn’t it? It’s not like my prediction about them meeting was all that impressive anyway, as the survivors would have to band together at some point in time. The same conflict arises when they meet: Roslin wants them to flee, Adama wants to stay and fight. As Roslin wears her heart on her sleeve, Adama cannot let go of his pride. I imagine that’s what got him in trouble with his son Lee in the first place. He couldn’t ignore his pride and admit that perhaps he did play a part in Zak’s death. (To be fair, given Starbuck’s revelation in the past part, he may not have been that responsible at all, but Adama’s guilt suggests, at the very least, that he does feel accountable for his son’s death.) Adama’s problem stares him in the face this time: humans have lost the war. You can see so obviously on his face during this scene that he knows Roslin is right, but he refuses to concede to her. It’s not in his nature to concede and give up.
But it becomes obvious to him just moments later that this woman is absolutely correct in her assertion that trying to fight the entire Cylon force with little food, water, supplies, or munitions is foolish. I like that he uses the sight of Billy, Roslin’s aide, and Dualla to come to this conclusion, and makes a statement that is utterly absurd to everyone else standing with him. “We’d better start having babies,” he says, repeating what Roslin had just told him. I don’t know if the sight of the two flirting jarred his brain into realizing the path he was on was going to destroy anything, but he makes an abrupt change. Hell, this might be the quickest character turnaround I’ve ever seen. That took…minutes? But maybe that’s what’s different about these characters and the writing, or maybe it was a desire to keep the miniseries a lot more contained as a work in itself. Whatever the reason might be, I like the result. That’s not to say that plot lines can’t be dragged out too long once I get to the actual television episodes, but this isn’t what I expected from all this.
So now everyone must concern themselves with escape. How are forty-some ships going to get past hundreds of Cylon fighters? And even if they get past them, where can they go to ensure that they’re not followed again? It’s hard to forget that this show has such a military base to it, and it’s great that it never feels confusing to me, but a lot of what happens in this final part of the miniseries is distinctly military in nature. Commander Adama maps out the plan to escape: the Galactica will provide cover, while the other ships jump to some point beyond the “red line.” It’s the first real confirmation for me about where these people are. They are leaving a galaxy entirely, outside the location of the Twelve Colonies. That is exciting! We will get to explore new worlds!
I don’t know that I have anything particularly insightful or meaningful in regards to the battle between the Cylons and the Galactica at Ragnar. That’s perfectly fine. I don’t need to theorize or analyze everything that I watch. Sometimes, it’s perfectly fine to say just this: HOLY SHIT, THAT IS SO AWESOME. On Tuesday’s review, quite a few folks pointed out the fact that the same FX company who worked on Firefly did the CGI and animation for this miniseries. And they certainly do a fantastic job of giving this fight a sense of detail that’s both realistic and over-the-top. The urgency of the fight is tangible, and it’s never overwhelming to the point of being confusing. If anything, I’m impressed mostly by how sharp everything looked. Also: holy shit THIS BATTLE IS SO AWESOME. Maybe it’s because I grew up with Star Wars, but I love a good space fight. And now I’m wondering if there are Battlestar Galactica LEGO sets so I can recreate battles in my apartment. CAN THIS HAPPEN.
I didn’t believe that Starbuck and Lee would die. I mean, that’s just a cardinal rule of serialized television! You can’t kill off two of your main characters in the pilot! Yet, even knowing this, I can’t deny just how stressful the end of this battle is. All of the ships have made the jump to this unnamed point outside the galaxy, and only the Galactica remains. I know that this is designed to make me squirm, but I couldn’t help it! The bay doors were slowly closing! Starbuck had rammed into Lee’s Viper and stuck them together and she’s coming in too hot and WHY DO I FALL FOR THIS STUFF EVERY TIME. I mean, statistically speaking, when main characters are involved in a thrilling escape or chase, when do they ever fail? Like once out of a million times? I suppose that’s a compliment, then, that this show can pull me into its world, immerse me so fully into what is going and who I am watching, that I forget that this very technique ends the same way every single time.
Bravo.
Successfully escaping the Cylon fleet, the remaining survivors of the human race (approximately 50,000, I believe) must concern themselves with survival. First, though, they mourn the dead. I’ve heard that the funeral scene at the end of this miniseries was actually filmed first. Which…holy god, this is what they started with? It’s wonderfully acted by everyone involved and solves to answer a huge question I was waiting to ask: Where is this all going? Knowing that this was going to become a television show, I wondered if they’d introduce some sort of concept to draw the show towards an ending, to give it a reason for lasting. While I don’t want to take away from the emotional power of the speech that Commander Adama gives to his survivors, I was ecstatic to learn the direction of Battlestar Galactica. They are going to try to find the Thirteen Colony: Earth.
;ASKLDFJ;ASLKD A;SDLKFFJK A;SLDKFFJS;ALDKFJA;SDLKFFJ ;ALSKDFJKFAS;LKDFJADS;FLKJA DF;AKSJDF
WHAT!!!! Ok, I don’t know why I assumed Earth was one of the Twelve Colonies, but it puts the whole miniseries into a new light. Clearly, this is far, far into the future, first of all, but it also doesn’t exclude the existence of our world either. What happened to Earth? ARE THERE STILL PEOPLE ON IT?
I’m jumping way ahead of myself, though, because we learn just after this that Adama himself doesn’t actually believe the myth of the Thirteenth Colony. When Roslin confronts him about this, he admits he did what he had to do in order to give the survivors hope. If this is indeed true, that Earth does not exist, then Roslin is probably right, that this will backfire against Commander Adama at some point into the future. But to be honest, I don’t particularly blame Adama for coming up with this. It was a practical decision on his part, necessary to keep the survivors believing in anything but pure nihilism. Roslin–bless her forever–uses this opportunity as a bit of a power grab, splitting things fairly evenly with Adama. She’ll run the civil government that remains, while he controls the military force. Oh, and all of this will be while they float in space. I don’t imagine we’ll see a planet for a long time. I can already see a few things that will cause conflict, such as claustrophobia and exhaustion. Unless they find other planets? Oh god, I literally have no idea where this could go.
I also have a guess (through the process of elimination) for who left the note for Commander Odama about their being twelve models of Cylons. It has to be Baltar, right? He’s the only one who knows. My confusion over what that actually means is actually cleared up by the final scene of the miniseries. Surprisingly, I was completely wrong about Baltar’s actions. Even if he was lying, it turns out that Aaron Doral was a Cylon, and models that resemble Six, Doral, and Conoy all come to rescue this version. So there aren’t twelve Cylons in total. There are twelve humanoid versions that exist, three of them being Doral, Conoy, and Six.
Oh, and the last one who arrives. Boomer.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IS BOOMER A CYLON WHO DOESN’T EVEN KNOW SHE IS A CYLON???? Six had told Baltar that this was possible, so….OH GOD, COULD THIS NOT BE TRUE. I love Boomer. OH MY GOD WHY.
I’ll move right along to the first episode of season one tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll continue to throw my head to the heavens and scream, “WHHHHHYYYYYYYY?” dramatically due to this final revelation. Excuse me.
A Reaction to a Comment from Your First Post
(JUST GONNA SAY IT NOW: MORE BOOMER. NOW AND FOREVER.)
Wish granted! More Boomers! (Of a sort.)
That's true, every cloud has a silver lining – we now have a pretty much inexhaustible supply of Boomers.
Yes, yes! I squeed when Mark requested MORE BOOMER.
This was just proof Mark was NEVER PREPARED!
That had me chuckling for a good couple of minutes… be careful what you wish for and all that jazz.
OH CHRIST.
what have i done
"This is my Cylon. There are many like her, but this one is mine." 🙂
Don't you love it when your show gives you fuel so you don't have to worry about your main character dying? Sure, you do have to worry about your character being evil and betraying all your other main characters against her will, throwing them deeper into a pit of angst, but you need to look on the bright side.
Now now, just because Boomer is part of a race that wiped out nearly all of human civilization doesn't mean she's EVIL. If only she had some sort of Scar of Moral Ambiguity…
…is that a signal for me to re-write the show so Ozai is her father, or for me to just keep watching?
Besides, she has the Sexy Red Spine of Moral Ambiguity, isn't that enough?
Oh, definitely keep watching! Mmm, sexy red spine. It's like a sexy flashlight!
Somebody ask for Boomers?
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Mark, Mark Mark, I did you some fanart while I was waiting for the review!
<img src="http://i52.tinypic.com/256w7tl.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">
I got a little overexcited and couldn't help myself. Yes that is supposed to be you. And yes, that is a toaster you're holding. The reason will eventually become clear. 😛
MADE OF ADORABLENESS.
D'awwwww so cute.
D'aaaaw that's so cute!
That's so cute and awesome!
SO ADORABLE. Love the mini toaster 😛
I love it!
That is so cute!
If you draw it like that the battlestar uniforms sure look a lot like the uniforms in FullMetalAlchemist
This thought has occurred to me, I must say. The FMA uniforms have those cool split-skirt things over the trousers though, plus the collar is folded over. Other than that, they are pretty similar!
I love drawing uniforms. 😛
I have a sort of mental list of uniforms I can draw from memory; FMA and BSG are both in there.
TOASTER. TINY SQUARE GLASSES. I LOVE IT
The glasses should be octagonal. Heh.
0_o
…brb.
I apologise for the glaring error in the previous picture. This has now been rectified.
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The management would like to apologise for any confusion this may have caused.
Yay now it's officially Galactiguised! (I'm not making up words, according to the catalogue for the post-series auction that's what the crew actually called the process of cutting off the corners)
I understand nothing yet since I've only watched as far as Mark reviews (not as far as Mark since I can't know when he watches a chapter, so I synch my time with Mark's reviews, meaning that as of now I only have the miniseries) but this is BRILLIANT!
Please more in future 😀
I LOVE TOAST, BY THE WAY
oh my god this is amazing
Does the toaster make Cylon toast, like Sheldon's toaster does on Big Bang Theory?
that was actually a thing you could buy for a while, although it seems they've stopped selling it.
SOOOOOO ADORABLE!!!!!! <3 <3 <3
It was worth coming in here to see this comment alone! 😉
I’m impressed mostly by how sharp everything looked. Also: holy shit THIS BATTLE IS SO AWESOME.
So you know how in Avatar, every fight is THE COOLEST FIGHT EVER UNTIL THE NEXT FIGHT? BSG is like that with space battles.
I like that the Cylons even dress alike. I'm sure that doesn't get confusing at all. "Hey, model number six?" "Which one, her or her or me?" "No, that one. The other one. NO NOT YOU THE ONE IN THE RED SUIT."
Yeah, a few different haircuts wouldn't go amiss either. I can see the Centurians giving them haircuts, Edward Scissorhands style. Their hands are totally like Swiss army knives, right?
"I said a little off the top, Steve, not take off her whole head." (In my brain, all the Centurions are called very normal names like Steve.)
My family has a long-running inside joke about Ted, the Decepticon lawyer, and Dave, the Decepticon barber, and right now I'm picturing Dave on loan to the Cylons. … Yeah, it's funny in my head.
Hehe, when me and my friends play the board game we always refer to the centurions as Kurt 😛
Okay, proof that I need more BSG and less B5, I totally read that as the Centauri giving them haircuts. Which I suppose would also work, give that the Centauri had very elaborately styled hair.
That would make identifying the Cylons in the fleet very easy though –
"But how did you find out I was a Cylon?"
"Well, the giant sideways mohawk was a clue…"
So, like, throughout the earlier reviews, I kept saying, "OH MARK. OH MARK PREPAREDNESS YOU DOES NOT HAS"
…it's still true.
That sounds a little Yoda to me. 😛
Oh Mark, I have been waiting for you to reach the mindfrak that is the end of the miniseries. Seriously, could they have set themselves up for pick-up as a show any better?
The answer is: No, not at all.
I just have to congratulate Ronald D Moore on such a fabulous reboot of this concept. I found out this weekend that he was assigned the show by Sci-Fi (I always assumed it was his idea a la RTD and Doctor Who), and it's just brilliant. Now on to the show!
Just caught up and watched the Mini-series and all I have to say is WHY HAVEN'T I SEEN THIS SHOW BEFORE!!.
I'm going to try and watch along with you Mark, but with one a day and none on a weekend…I'm making no promises here 😀
I was so looking forward to your reaction here, given your comment about Boomer in part one.
Something to keep in mind: the miniseries was made with no idea if anything else would come of it, and no plans for what would happen if it did. So things like evolving relationships between various characters, the purpose of the Cylon device on the DRADIS console, and most importantly of all the identities of the eight humanoid Cylon models yet to be revealed, all that was completely up in the air. And yet I don't mind this nearly as much as I did on Lost, because Moore and the other people behind the show never pretended to know more than they did. Suck on that, Mr. "Anyone who doesn't love everything about the show isn't a true fan," Damon Lindeloff.
Clarification for someone who reported this comment wondering if it was spoilery:
From Mark: "There are twelve humanoid versions that exist, three of them being Doral, Conoy, and Six. Oh, and the last one who arrives. Boomer."
So we know 4 models out of 12, leaving 8 humanoid versions left unidentified.
Ah, thanks! Sorry I misread that!
To be fair, I think Lindeloff's reaction was understandable, given how virulent and angry people were with him for not meeting their story demands, or for not having it all planned out, or for having some of it planned out. I always felt like Lindeloff could never win with the LOST fandom.
And the count starts, at 50,000. The size of a small city is all that is left of humanity. And their on the run, refugees from the only home they know. And their are members of the enemy among them, totally unaware.
There are a number of differences from the original series, even here. In the original series, the cylons were not only NOT created by man, they did not look at all human.
They looked like- well, here's Cylon and Garfunkel :
<img src="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSOvrPfMWz0NisLBsm1RIP7ZNpn1C4hW0vFCfpM7PDeAIGQk42L&t=1">
That is adorable forever.
CYLON AND GARFUNKEL
I LOVE IT
PERFECTION.
Because of this show I've come to use SO SAY WE ALL at any given time…
"By your command" has nearly replaced "As you wish" in my personal lexicon.
EJO improvised the repetition of "So Say We All" in that scene and thank god he did. It's one of the most powerful scenes in the whole miniseries.
That scene is so awesome. I always love finding out what was improvised as opposed to scripted.
I love that scene because it reminds me of teachers being like "good morning, class!" and they're like "good morning," and teacher is like "I didn't hear you!" and they're like "Good Morning," and teacher's like "I'm sorry, what?" and they're like "GOOD MORNING!" and teacher's like "that's better." I always imagine Adama as a particularly intimidating schoolteacher, especially when he looks around all incredulous that their response was so halfhearted.
It's not spoilery to talk about what happened at the real-life United Nations that one time is it? I mean, it's not something FROM THE SHOW at all, but a real-life event. I'm not sure so I'm not going to say more than that, but if it's not spoilery, someone should tell Mark about it.
OMG THAT WAS SO FREAKING AWESOME I CAN'T EVEN STAND IT.
I wouldn't think so, as it doesn't mention plot points or specific characters, but rather the overarching theme, which I think Mark has picked up on by now.
I want to link it so bad because it's possibly the coolest thing ever!
"SO SAY WE ALL" is the "I am to misbehave" of the BSG fandom
And "frak" is the "shiny"
Just a theory: could the note about the 12 models be from a cylon sleeper agent? I mean, can sleeper agents do something and then go back to "sleep" a la Dollhouse? I mean, I don't know why they'd want that out there, unless they think it would sow confusion and suspicion but I hate to jump to conclusions. And I almost think that Baltar doesn't quite have the balls to leave the note himself–he'd be too afraid of getting caught.
On the upside re: Sharon being a cylon, this means that no matter how many times we may have to watch her die, we are practically guaranteed to keep the magical acting stylings of Grace Park. And if she's uploaded into another body, we sort of get to keep Sharon herself…?
I assumed it was from Baltar – like one final act of defiance, to prove (as he said to Six) that he really isn't on anyone's side.
I though maybe he left the note to try and atone in some small way for what he did. And that's really the only useful thing he can do that doesn't expose him as a traitor.
I assumed as much, but I don't actually know since I'm watching along with Mark. (Or trying to. We'll see how that goes). But I think it'll be like the "three flowers" situation, or maybe Ginny Weasely in the Chamber of Secrets. From an in-universe point of view, no reason to compromise your deep cover, from a writing point of view, MOAR ANGST.
For some reason I convinced myself that the note couldn't possibly be from Baltar (still don't know how I came up with that one), so my theory was that there's someone else on the ship who's more or less in the same position as Baltar, maybe even down to being ~haunted~ by their own possibly imaginary Cylon model.
Ok, prepare for some random thought splurgings.
The scene with Adama and Roslin meeting is my favourite in the miniseries. They’re just both such brilliant actors and there’s a huge amount of subtle subtext to everything they say. Like how Adama calls her ‘Miss Roslin’ instead of ‘Madame President’, tacitly refusing to acknowledge her position of power. And how Roslin makes sure Billy finishes up his report after Adama comes in, not breaking off what she’s doing to speak to him, clearly showing that this meeting is going to be on her terms.
As soon as Billy has gone she just comes out with ‘Are you planning to stage a military coup?’ and it throws him off completely – of course, he wasn’t planning to accept her leadership or orders, but by setting out the complete legality of her Presidency, she forces him into a position where he has to either submit to her authority, or admit that not doing so is illegal. It’s a clever move and immediately puts him on the defensive.
I just love how different their approaches are – Adama goes in there with power and the loyalty of his crew on his side, using sheer force of personality to state his case; he doesn’t even try to argue, he just calmly explains exactly what he’s going to do. On the other hand, Roslin is armed with cold hard facts, telling him what he knows, but doesn’t want to admit – that his plan, quite simply, isn’t going to achieve anything but more death. He’s dismissive and scornful of her, she’s patronising and incredulous of him (“I don’t why I keep having to tell you this”) and I think they both realise they got more than they bargained for.
Contrast that with the last scene with the two of them, reaching a grudging understanding. It’s brilliant to see them both realise that the other has something they need. Neither can really be a successful leader by themselves and, however difficult it might be, they finally admit that they’ll need those two opposing views to get anything done. It’s fitting somehow that they are the only two burdened with the knowledge that Earth is a lie. And, of course, their super-awkward long distance handshake is perfect – they’ll work together, they’ll respect each other, but they don’t have to really like it.
Gosh, that turned into a bit of a lengthy character analysis, didn’t it? Sorry about that! What can I say; I have a very boring job that gives me a lot of time to think about this sort of thing.
Haha, I think the lengthy character analysis is great! I loved the power games in the first conversation, and that Roslin is solidifying her claim as President by standing up for her power and what's best for humanity. And you're right, they need each other to keep their society together, and to balance each other out. I'm glad they realized it by the end of the episode, though it's implied that they'll butt heads in the future.
I love that even though they clearly disagree, they're both reasonable people who can argue and compromise and come to an agreement. We need more people like them in our actual (US) government
So, given their desire to destroy human civilization, would that make Cylons the Tea Party? Reasonable, functional government only exists in sci-fi. Sheesh, I come here not to think these things.
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Great analysis, and a great scene.
I'm not feeling thoughtful, so I'mma just leave this here.
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I think I could stare at this gif all day. Starbuck is just the most awesome ever
UNNNGGHHH THAT SHOT DOES THINGS TO ME.
This is how I want to spend all my Sunday nights. Just chillin' in my bunk, smokin' my cigar, bein' badass…
UNF.
I approve of this GIF.
Do you have anything with the phrase that's been haunting me since I watched the ep?: "Nothing but the rain."
If you do, PLEASE POST.
Hope this suits.
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PERFECT! I'd upvote more if I could.
Tell me, am I right in thinking this phrase was played somewhere else, even on several places, and more than once? It sounds so much like I've heard it before repeatedly.
Uh, all I remember is Starbuck saying it at the beginning of the miniseries in her first scene.
THE OFFICIAL STAR CHART OF THE TWELVE COLONIES.
No spoilers, so far as I can tell.
Total population: 28.55 BILLION PEOPLE. Until last week. ;.;
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v499/emlurker/m…
Oh, that's neat, I never realized there were four suns in that star system.
Cramming twelve habitable worlds into ONE star's orbit just doesn't work.
Yeah, but I always chalked that up to, you know, "science."
Total population: 28.55 BILLION PEOPLE
Oh gods I don't think I'd ever heard that number before…I think I need to go sit in the corner for a moment.
Funny how only four or five are ever mentioned in the show.
Those are probably the only ones that had any refugees that managed to rendezvous with t he Galactica.
Don't forget people travelled freely amongst the colonies. So there should be survivors born on each of the 12 colonies. The only reason not all of them are mentioned is conservation of detail. It's better to mention only a couple and do those justice than mention all and have them be nothing but names.
I've always known the Cylons killed a lot of people, I mean twelve planets were wiped out, but actually seeing the number is completely different.
Well, that number is depressing.
Thanks for posting this.
I was looking at the flags behind the priest during the funerary scene, but I didn't think any of them looked like astrological signs. Here, though, I see a sort of resemblance between the symbols for Aries/Aerilon, Taurus/Tauron, and Gemini/Gemenon. It also looks like Scorpion and Picon and maybe Canceron get their symbols from more generalized depictions of their astrological counterparts. I could also see the symbol for Aquaria being the water jug of Aquarius, rather than Aquarius himself.
For Aquaria, I think I'm seeing a head and arm holding the top of a jug.
I see a microscope. (What?)
Oh hey, there's a Persephone in there.
…well, there was a Persephone.
ALSO, I never realized that Cvpba, Gnheba, naq Trzraba ner gur barf jr urne zbfg nobhg ba Pncevpn (gur fubj) orpnhfr gurl'er beovgvat gur fnzr fgne nf Pncevpn (gur cynarg). *sberurnq fznpx*
Link to spoiler code site, please.
http://www.rot13.com
Thanks for this! I was wondering how everything was situated. So Caprica is Gemenon's twin planet, and Virgon is blue. Cute.
Appropriate enough that Gemenon has a twin planet!
I only just noticed this, but I like how Icarus is too close to [one of] the sun[s].
The bay doors were slowly closing! Starbuck had rammed into Lee’s Viper and stuck them together and she’s coming in too hot and WHY DO I FALL FOR THIS STUFF EVERY TIME.
Ah! Me too! I knew that they'd be okay, but that didn't stop me from sitting on the edge of my seat. God, i had butterflies throughout that entire fight. It was awesome. Starbuck's glee at flying around and blowing shit up is infectious. It's nice to see someone who loves her job hard at work.
Sooo, Baltar was right. But was he bullshitting or did he actually test Doral's hair. He seemed like he was just getting away with a blatant but somehow believable lie! Dammit, he's confusing.
I loved Roslin and Adama's chat at the beginning. I noticed he didn't answer her question about whether he recognized her authority (or whatever) directly, so I was glad that he said he's willing to work with her. It was funny how she got into his head with the babies thing. And yeah, I imagine the fleet's lack of supplies should makes things interesting; they can't just float around in space, and Adama can't lead them towards a planet if he doesn't actually have a destination. I don't know where this is going, but it should be fun!
Babies babies babies.
I always thought there was a moment when she says 'We've got to start having babies' where Adama is totally thinking 'What, us personally?' before he realises what she meant.
And now I can't get it out of my head and it makes watching that scene ten times funnier, because Adama leaves right afterwards like she's made him really uncomfortable.
My brain is weird ok
Don't worry, I thought the same thing. She actually says "WE need to get out of here and WE need to start having babies," which of course means "the human race" but could also be read as her and Adama.
I ship it.
I ship it like mad.
I seem to be replying to your comments a lot recently. Clearly, you a person of good taste. ;P
*thumbs up*
I ship them so hard. Along with Lee/Starbuck.
My OTP for this show (well one of them) let me show you it. In other words, yeah I always go "What you two?" after her babies comment
I ship it too.
Oh man do I ship it. And Lee/Kara. Oh the crack!fic I will be recommending for this show…
Oh my lord, I 'shipped that SO HARD. Actually, it was my first time watching a show and thinking, "Man, those characters have chemistry." My first OTP, I suppose.
99% of the time when I'm watching TV, I don't see what chemistry the writers are telling me is there and I straight-up don't care about the romantic lives of any of the characters, but I started thinking about how nice those two are together at some point in the first season and never looked back. 😛
Pfft, I thought the same thing. He seemed really caught off guard by it! I look forward to more chats between them.
I always figured Baltar just got really, really lucky. All of his "Look! ~Science~ says so" was just a smokescreen.
Agreed. I think Baltar is right like a broken clock is right.
I mean, assuming the broken clock hallucinates hot chicks and sells out all of clock-kind.
Wouldn't a broken clock hallucinate wristwatches?
Maybe a wristwatch with a sexy red strap…
Or one of those Dali melting clocks?
ooooh, kinky.
<img width="600" src="http://www.thechicagoloop.net/tzikeh/ontd/salvadordalek.png">
It's also a T-shirt.
(Which I wore to my last job interview. I got the job.)
I want to apply for jobs at places that would appreciate that t-shirt!
It's a great conversational piece! You feel 1000% times geekier and yet ~classier~ because of the Dali, all at the same time.
Ahahahahahahaha! I love it… I must own the T-shirt, that's the best geeky thing I've ever seen.
lol
Ah, good to hear. It doesn't hurt that he has a Cylon living in his head and giving him nudges, I guess.
Well, that and the reason he fingered Doral as a Cylon in the first place actually made sense. He WAS an outsider who had only come on the ship recently but had been given full access.
That doesn't account for Boomer though, who presumably has been there for a while. (Although doesn't someone call her a rookie in one scene?)
Yeah, the possibility of sleeper agents throws everything off. I guess Baltar only got a little lucky, not really, really luck. The odds were in his favor.
I don't think Boomer's a rookie. She certainly seems like an experienced pilot, with the stunt she pulls to get her and Helo to Caprica back in the beginning of the miniseries. But I guess it wouldn't take as long for a machine to learn. In conclusion, I have no idea.
It was Starbuck calling her a rookie, as a roundabout jab at both her and Helo, but it seemed like she was at least partially joking (or at least, she laughs as Boomer punches her). I also have to wonder how much she meant it as "rookie, in comparison to me."
She also says "if you're going to play with the big dogs," but it's unclear if she's talking to Boomer or Helo, since she could be pointing at either or both of them, and both of them seem to respond.
Yeah, maybe it's something like "you've been here for the shortest amount of time, so you're the 'rookie,' even though you're pretty experienced."
I always thought she said 'Helo, when are you gonna learn? First you're flying with crooks…"and then Boomer punches her.
Did I mishear then?
Actually, I think that makes more sense in the context of the poker game and all. Now I have to watch the miniseries again to check. Darn.
I assumed that Baltar made a very good educated guess. He IS a genius after all, it wouldn't surprise me if he could subconsciously pick out the Cylon agent just based on various suspicious factors.
Oh, Mark, you are such a silly rabbit. There is Not Prepared, then there is Battlestar Galactica Not Prepared…
An Informal Survey
Who is watching BSG for the very first time?
(I am not only curious in general, but, as a mod, it will help me identify when something isn't actually a spoiler because the person just happens to be speculating correctly.)
I second this! I'm both curious and I'm sure it'll be useful in the future because sometimes speculation is right and not identifying it as speculation leads to confusion.
For anyone curious, I myself have seen BSG (and Caprica).
I have also seen BSG and Caprica (well, most of it, I missed the last few episodes). I haven’t seen [BSG special 1] or [special 2], but I read the summaries on the wiki to catch myself up.
Edited your comment. Unless Mark okays it at some point, let's leave out future titles of eps/specials.
AGH, sorry.
I've seen BSG but not Caprica. I've seen [BSG special 1] but not [special 2].
Assuming that "special 1" and "special 2" are what I think they are, Special 1 is really a regular-season episode that should be watched in order that episodes were made and aired. We should probably remind Mark of that when the time comes, because the temptation will be to skip past it, and he shouldn't. (Unlike a co-worker of mine, who still hasn't watched it.) Special 2, on the other hand, is "not mandatory."
Can someone rot13 the names of the specials, so that I can figure out if I've seen them or not? Otherwise, I've seen all of the show except the last half of the final season.
Unless everyone means something else the specials are: Enmbe and gur cyna
Gur fcrpvnyf ner zbivrf. Enmbe naq Gur Cyna.
Thanks! I've seen Enmbe, but not Gur Cyna, because I'm waiting till after I finished the series for that one.
This is the wrong series to be talking Klingon!
Probably talking about 1) Enmbe and 2) Gur Cyna.
I won't skip it. Mods, tell me in the forum what this means without spoiling me when the time comes.
Are you watching them on netflix? If so, the first special is listed at the beginning of one of the seasons (which is when it aired, but not when it takes place). The list I used for my viewing order suggested watching it twice, at two separate times. So. Very. Confusing.
maybe it's that good??? WEIRD. Where is the second special listed? Is it on Netflix?
I think they were telling me to watch it when it happens chronologically and then to watch it again between the episodes it aired. I think the second special came out after the finale of the show and it might be on Netflix, but I'm still watching Season 4, so I haven't sought it out yet. If someone else knows, then we will both have the answers!
Second special is listed on Netflix as DVD-only, no instant watch 🙁
He should also watch the webisodes at some point, right? Ugh, does anyone have a definitive viewing guide?
replying to myself, I googled and there's… sort of a viewing order here (spoilers for episode titles and such), but it's a little confusing since it can't decide whether you should watch things as they were aired, or chronologically by the timeline of the show. I'm assuming Mark wants to watch them as they were aired, in order to stay as
unpreparedunspoiled as possible? Wikipedia has a straight-up list of episodes (spoilers for episode titles and such), but it hasn't integrated the webisodes into the timeline at all. (Ng yrnfg bar jrovfbqr vf RKGERZRYL VZCBEGNAG gb zr, sebz n punenpgre fgnaqcbvag, fb V ernyyl jnag Znex gb jngpu gurz, ohg gurer'f gur ceboyrz gung gurl'er abg nyy ba gur QIQf/Argsyvk. Argsyvk qbrf unir Enmbe, ohg abg gur "rkgraqrq irefvba" jvgu jrovfbqrf vapyhqrq.)I know this won't really be important for a while, but it's frustrating to me when shows are hard to watch. That's why I didn't originally watch the webisodes. I was like "if you want to put it in the show, PUT IT IN THE SHOW."
Edited to rot-13 a couple of sentences for possible expectation spoilers.
The order in the first link looks pretty accurate, I'd vote in favour of watching the specials in the position they aired in (if only because it's more of an ~authentic expericene~ that way).
Is there a place I can watch the webisodes? Are they still online?
Edit: Also, that's the viewing order page I used!
It says at that link that at least one of them is on Hulu, but that only works in the US.
I am in the US! So huzzah!!
The webisodes associated with the first special aren't there, but the other two are on SyFy.com. And they're also on YouTube, for the non-US folk.
uh…I'm new at this…what is rot13? How do you translate it? I have seen the whole series and am as such not afraid of spoilers.
rot-13 is a simple code that can be both encoded and decoded here. Just copy and paste the text and hit "Cypher."
The mods have let him know about the webisodes, and we'll tell him when to watch them. They're worth watching!
They could be fun to liveblog. OR DEPRESSING.
Are you guys going to suggest he watch them in the order listed on the viewing guide notemily posted? I wanted to keep pace with him for once, but I could just watch things that way and hope it aligns with what Mark's watching.
Pretty much. That's how they aired. The webisodes associated with the first special are weird, as that link describes, and since I never watched the extended edition, I don't know how much duplication there is. They seem skippable if Mark watches the DVD version. Whereas the other two webisodes are pretty important.
Okay, then I'll just go by what that explanation says. Thanks!
I've seen all of BSG and most of Caprica (I still haven't watch the last few episodes that were aired together, I really need to go back and watch it from the beginning and work out wtf was happening most of the time).
I've seen all of BSG and BSG special 1 but not special 2. I've also seen a few episodes of Caprica but not the whole series. (keep meaning to watch the whole thing through).
I've watched the entire series 3 or 4 times, and I've watched all of Caprica. I've also been around Mark Watches from the beginning (though I did skip Avatar), and I understand the spoiler rule very well.
Have seen the first season and part of the second.
I've seen all of BSG and Caprica as well as the specials. My lips are freaking glued shut for this show!
I'm watching it for the first time.
I've seen it all many times.
🙂
Me, too. 🙂
I'm watching the show itself for the first time. I had seen the miniseries before but when the show started I had night classes and couldn't catch up because college had no DVR then ;sad face; But now I finally get to see it as a whole.
I've seen all of BSG (not the specials or webisodes, though). I've seen the first two-ish episodes of Caprica.
I've seen all of BSG (but none of Caprica).
I've only watched it through once though, so thsi is an excellent chance to watch it again and see what I've forgotten/never noticed before.
I've seen the miniseries and season 1 only.
First time watcher here, too.
I am! My sister has been bugging me to watch it for a couple months now, so when Mark announced he was going to watch it I thought "Perfect timing!".
Another first-time watcher here!
I am watching for the first time! However, I am currently one episode ahead of Mark, and if things go according to plan, will be ahead of him at the start of the week, as weekends are my only time to watch stuff right now. so yeah, mostly everything I say is based on speculation.
Ha, please excuse my response to your post above then. Forget I said anything! Hee.
I'm watching for the first time.
Seen it all more than once, am actually casually on the lookout for spoilers in every comment thread, in case I need to notify a mod. 😀
I've seen the first season, and possibly the first ep of season two.
I'm watching for the first time! But I'm also many episodes ahead right now as a buffer right now because I'm not going to have time to watch an episode a day. Even though I'm watching for the first time, I know a bunch of plot twists that are coming up, but I know better than to spoil. 🙂 Anything I speculate on would be not even tangentially related to my ~knowledge~.
hayyyyyyy
I've actually seen the 1st half of Caprica episodes, but nothing else.
I AM.
I got the whole series last year for someone who wanted to see it eagerly (threateningly so, let me tell you) but I never got down to watch it. I tried, but at 20 minutes into the miniseries I couldn't keep going, it wasn't hooking me at all, it was (excuses to those who like it, including the person I got the series for) boring me to unconsicousness. So now that Mark is watching it, I'm forcing myself to watch it and I do it at his review rate (as of this moment, I haven't watched chapter 1 yet; depending on how much time I have, I'll watch it within the next couple of hours or tomorrow, as I have to be somewhere else this afternoon later). This is the best way for me to watch something I'm not that interested in.
For the sake of comparison and not to watch ahead in a moment of boredom, I ended up watching the first miniseries(or something) of the original Galactica and now I can see the huge changes that were made in cast and story. Let me tell you I find I like the changes a lot. If I can, I'll do that with the rest of it, I'll watch a chapter of each. But if I don't have time, I'll just watch the new one.
Considering the interest this has arisen in me so far, I can tell you I'm not going to watch ahead of Mark's reviews (just like I did in Firefly but for another reason; I had a copy with the fucked up Fox airing schedule and couldn't know which chapter came when unless I read Mark's review, so I restrained from watching the chapter until after Mark's review came out in order to find the right one to watch). It'll be easier and rather interesting to keep the same level of ignorance as Mark for once. This way, the series will have a pull on me to continue, just to know how like or different from Mark I see things when we both get there.
So count me as a First Timer.
I'm only just catching up, but I'm watching for the first time as well! I might be a little behind for awhile though 🙂
Yay we're finally at the end and we can all stop being confused about what's happening in each part (or maybe that's just me).
Even though I KNOW he's a cylon Doral's screaming as Tigh and the marines close the doors on him is still pretty chilling.
I'm probably going to keep saying this for every single episode but Laura you are awesome, and right, and I love you.
"We're coming in a little hot don't you think?!" "No, not really D8" Kara's face always makes me rofl. She's not entirely sure if it's going to work but she's pulling off that awesome move anyway. Even Tigh recognises how awesome it is, that last conversation between them is such a good look at who both characters are.
I don't think I noticed it until recently but Boxey wearing a borrowed suit for the funeral scene is…actually really distracting because it's so damn big on him.
I don't think I can come up with a better reaction to the final revelation than the last line in my rewatch notes:
SHAROOON!!!111 (yes I actually wrote 111, the internet has eaten my brain)
I love Starbuck's face in that scene!
I felt SO sorry for Doral! And then it was like 'oh, he really is a cylon. huh.'
Crap I mentioned Doral but forgot the point I actually wanted to make. It's interesting to go back through his scenes and look at them again knowing he's a Cylon. He's the one that tries to get Lee to take over from Laura before she's made President and he's the one that tries to convince her to stay with the non-FTL ships when they think the Cylons are coming for them. Trying to make sure they're all still there to be wiped out easily?
Yup. Either he's deliberately sowing discord, or that model of Cylon comes with "asshole personality." 😛
How do you know your visual effects are awesome? When a guy who's never seen the show comments about how great they are 8 years later. Especially when you consider the time and budget constraints of television and how quickly cgi standards change.
Oh man, has it really been 8 years??? It all feels so recent to me, but that's probably because I came in mid-Season 4.
I think the mini-series was from 2003. I could be wrong. So yeah 8 years. In any case the effects are practically ancient.
Yeah, it was 2003. It just seems weird that that was 8 years ago. I still assume that anything that happened in the 2000's is recent…
I know I'm starting to feel old.
Shit, it's eight years old? I thought this was six years old, max.
Quick Wiki check says the Mini-series aired on 8 and 9 december 2003. The actual series started on October 18th 2004.
I love that Commander Adama’s room is just filled with piles of books in the last scene. That’s the moment that he completely won my heart. Anyone who reads that much has to be awesome.
You’re not prepared Mark, not at all. Is it possible to get predictions as part of tomorrow’s review? Since you at least have some idea of what’s going on now?
Oooh, I second the call for predictions! They're always fun. 😛
Thirding (unless I get ninjaed) the prediction request. I'd love to see where Mark thinks the show is going. This is in no way so I can be amused by how unprepared you are. Yes I'm mean like that.
Yes, I want predictions! It is the official start of season one after all.
Hmm…spoiler.
Had to read it a couple times to notice, but I edited it out, right?
Yep, I think that was it. Didn't see it at first either.
Qvq fbzrbar pnyy uvz Nqzveny?
V nppvqragnyyl qvq. V pna arire dhvgr xrrc zvyvgnel enaxvatf fgenvtug naq V jnf gelvat gb qvssreragvngr orgjrra sngure naq fba. V'yy unir gb or zber pnershy va gur shgher
Yep you got it.
Sorry, typo. Completely unintentional. Thanks for catching and fixing it.
There will be predictions.
I wish I could have typed that in the font for There Will Be Blood.
Huzzah!
asdkjfasfdklj!!!! Okay, as I said yesterday, I didn't know where to stop in the Netflix version so I just kept watching to the end of this part and this is why I was so careful: BOOMER. OMG. I have a friend who's seen the entire show and I was going on and on about which characters were my early favorites and I was like, "Oh, and the girl on the ship when it arrives on Caprica and they pick up survivors, she's the pilot…love her." "Boomer?" "YEAH! SHE'S AWESOME!" and then there was this HUGE PAUSE before my friend answered back AND NOW I KNOW WHY. AHHHHH. I AM LOVING THIS TWIST.
Oh! And before I forget, Mark, I know you sometimes like to draw parallels between different things you've read/watched, so am I the only one thinking of District 13 from The Hunger Games here with Earth being the mythical 13th colony? What with most people assuming it doesn't exist? AHHH LOVE THIS ALSO.
I don't remember ever being so immediately into a show before–usually I'm lukewarm until at least midway through the first season, but this miniseries has me HOOKED. Watching it one episode at a time along with Mark is going to be torture!
I am so ready for them to arrive on Earth.
I will happily let Helo and Lee stay over at my place.
(Starbuck can come too)
Boomer? Not so much anymore.
Though her Cylon confused me, as THAT one clearly knew she was a Cylon while the other doesn't. But I thought that they downloaded into copies. So if Boomer dies, will she wake up in a new body not knowing she's a Cylon all over again? Does each seperate clone have it's own personality then- despite looking the same? SO MANY QUESTIONS.
Speaking of which. What makes them think they'll be welcome on Earth? If a big spaceship with humans inside turned up on our doorstep today, religions, governments and entire countries would explode. We're already overpopulated so where would we put them all? Also; they would be much fighting over alien technology. ISSUES.
We're already overpopulated so where would we put them all?
That's basically what I always said about the plan to find Earth: the planet's kinda full, sorry.
They could park around Venus or something, though, and then take little trips to Earth for holidays or long weekends. What's the website that lets you switch homes for vacation? This could be great for the tourism industry…
Well, it is only ~50,000 people, right? I think we could handle it.
Exactly an extra 50.000 people is nothing on the 6 billion already here.
I don't know about you, but there are alot of idiots I know screaming about immigration. If they can't handle someone from another country, I don't think they'll be about to comprehend another planet.
I was wondering this too! When a Cylon dies, does EVERY Cylon version get his/her memories? Or does one specific Cylon's memories get downloaded to a specific other Cylon's head. And so there are several people with very distinctive personalities running around because they've lived and died several times with the same memories?
I think they assume that the 13th colony is just like they are, same technology same myths and everything. They are, after all, descended from the same people. It's a very reasonable expectation to be welcomed with open arms by their cousins.
Oh, and another thing I always forget I love until I see it again: Adama and his noodles. I just love that detail. The man has just had one motherfucker of a day, and damn it, he's going to eat some noodles. It's so NORMAL and mundane and I love that they put it in there instead of having him like…poring over maps or planning strategy or something. Nope, just some ramen, please.
Noodles have been passed down through the generations as the food that makes people awesome. Just ask Naruto.
<img src="http://a4.l3-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/127/9b0e964cb9974c26a0c8c2d896602034/l.jpg" height="90%" width="90%">
Or Iroh. Point proven.
Noodles are such an undignified food as well. It's so hard to look badass while eating noodles.
NOODLES! I totally forgot about that noodle scene, and I love it.
Yes! Forgot about that. A giant mouthful of noodles FTW.
Commander Adama does have his pride. As I see it, Zack wanted to be a Viper pilot, but couldn't cut it. Lee hates being a Viper pilot, but he's pretty good at it. Commander pressured both, but Zack didn't feel the pressure at all, while Lee resented the hell out of. So who lives and who dies? Irony lives, that's who lives. The Universe is a bitch, which kind of sums up this show.
While the Commander does have his pride, he's also capable of making hard decisions without dithering on it. As Roslin does, also. It can be disconcerting to see that happen in real people, but it does, so I don't think the "making babies" decision is out of character at all.
In both the original Galactica and the reboot, the decision to seek out Earth, the 13th colony, was the jumping off point from pilot to series. (Not to say that the reboot mechanically follows all the plot points of the original; it doesn't, thank the gods.) The difference between the two series has been nicely summed up as this: In the original, when Commander Adama promised to lead the fleet to Earth, everyone believed him and trusted him. In the reboot, Commander Adama lied.
Huh, so in TOS Adama knew where Earth was and wasn't lying? Just wondering, since what you outlined as the difference between the two isn't mutually exclusive. I've been curious about TOS, but it gets bad reviews so I don't know whether to watch it or not. (Thoughts?)
Also, please avoid using "bitch" as an insult on this site.
In the original series, no one really questioned whether Adama knew where Earth was, or not. It was Lorne Greene playing Adama, after all, and no one would question the man who'd been Pa Cartwright on Bonanza!
As for the nature of the Universe, that was not intended as an insult. The Universe is hard and cold when it has to be, and you don't get to question her methods or results. She is the source of life, and also its arbiter.
Ah, I figure TOS just deals with less nuance on its mythos then. Which isn't surprising since I know it's short.
In terms of the issue of reclaiming words on this site, unless you clearly provide context that reclaiming is what you're doing when you use such a word on this site, please just avoid using it. I won't automatically know your intentions, and in this instance, the original comment without your reply is the type of thing I feel needs moderating.
Well, TOS was short on nuance on its mythos. Even in a much more innocent era, I thought it was a major flaw at the time. What the Cylons did was genocide, after all. Survivors of genocide don't go off to party planets (as one episode did). The overall tone was way too light.
On the other hand, Lorne Greene's Commander Adama was the father figure to top all father figures. Greene's image was so tied to Ben Cartwright that it was nearly impossible to look at him and forget that. But he made the role his own, as Edward James Olmos does also. They're about as different as any two regenerations of The Doctor.
Fb V whfg unq guvf terng vqrn jurer gurl xrrc erznxvat guvf fubj jvgu qvssrerag npgbef n yn Qbpgbe Jub, orpnhfr "nyy bs guvf unf unccrarq orsber naq nyy bs vg jvyy unccra ntnva"…
*up votes forever*
Thoughts while watching (and afterwards):
"We need to start having babies." Are you trying to hit on Commander Adama, Roslin? Because that's a weird way to go about it.
"Is that an order?" AHAHA OH TIGH I DIDN'T KNOW YOU COULD BE FUNNY.
What always impresses me about the battle scenes is they manage to convey the sheer NUMBER of Cylon fighters streaming out of the Basestars. The Cylon force is so overwhelming that it really creates a sense of "oh crap, how are we going to fight this?"
I commented to my roommate that they'd have to start training new pilots if they kept dying at the same rate as in this battle, but she pointed out that for every pilot who dies, there's a Viper that's destroyed as well, and they won't have any ships for the new pilots to fly. Unless they can somehow get the resources to build new ones.
Starbuck's rescue of Lee is amazing, but what I loved about that battle was the moment when Lee looks up at the missile that's about to hit him, right before Starbuck shoots it out of the sky. You can see his realization that he's about to die, while his face is bathed in light. It's one of my favorite shots of the miniseries.
"I know where it is!" It seemed really obvious to me that Adama was just making shit up here. I mean, I've seen the show before, but still. He knows what he's doing, though. They do need something to look forward to.
That shot of Starbuck lying in her bunk at the end asjkflasfdklafsdkl;sadfkljfasdkjl;jafs;fksafds;kldsfakl;safdkl;adsfjkladfskldfs;lad;sflkkjlfaskjafls;
You know, if Gaius had actually condemned a random innocent man to die alone on a random planet, that would have been awful. But since he's a Cylon, I don't care. Ha.
I wonder if all the Cylons got together to coordinate their outfits for this final scene. Leisure Suit Larry is wearing two different Leisure Suits, but the Sixes and the Leobens are dressed identically to their counterparts. Maybe those outfits were on sale at Cylons R Us.
-SURPRISE BOOMER IS SURPRISING-
Mark, you thought Earth was one of the twelve colonies? I take it you didn't pick up on the naming theme for the planets they settled on?
Oh god, I literally have no idea where this could go. THAT'S WHAT MAKES THIS SHOW SO AWESOME.
CYLON COUNT! (end of Miniseries)
Known Cylons: 4:
– Number Six
– Leoben Conoy
– Aaron Doral
– Sharon "Boomer" Valerii
Mark's unpreparedness level: Astronomical
Starbuck's rescue of Lee is amazing, but what I loved about that battle was the moment when Lee looks up at the missile that's about to hit him, right before Starbuck shoots it out of the sky. You can see his realization that he's about to die, while his face is bathed in light. It's one of my favorite shots of the miniseries.
Just wanted to say OMG YES to this. So gorgeous.
'Maybe those outfits were on sale at Cylons R Us. '
Favourite shop ever!
The turnaround in Adama is interesting. Its pretty understandable, with the speed that this has happened at, that he's still be in fight-back mode. Not long ago (days? hours?) he was facing his retirement. Now someone has attacked him and he's fighting back as always but he's not really had a chance to stand back and look at the big picture. Roslin mentioning babies and food etc brings in the reality of the situation. Things aren't going to go back to the way they were. They aren't going to win this war.
But of course changing his idea of tomorrow from 'will be sitting on the beach relaxing' to 'will be fleeing the Cylons' is pretty hard, and he gives the people hope with the idea of Earth, even if he can't give himself the same hope.
In other news…. BOOMER! Nooooooo. Such a shock when I first saw this. Doral actually being a Cylon… I'm not sure, in some ways I felt it was a cop-out as the idea that Baltar/Tigh/everyone had just left this innocent man to die out of fear was kind of an awesome one… but maybe a bit too obvious? Having him actually be a Cylon was maybe a little more surprising as we were expecting him not to be. Was he a sleeper or just undercover? I wonder how much info he got from staying on both Galactica and Colonial One, interacting with both Adama and Roslin. With this and Six (and Boomer) it seems the Cylons have the humans at an even bigger disadvantage information-wise.
This is so exciting! Especially because, for the first time in the history of Mark Does Stuff, I am as unprepared as Mark! Woo!
That makes you less prepared than Mark, because Mark has had practice in the Art of Being Unprepared. But you are his disciple, and soon you shall rise to the state of the keysmash.
Your ominous tone brought Star Wars and its system of master and apprentice and now I'm picturing Mark as the Emperor….
I am eminently contented to be Mark's Padawan.
Boomer's A Clyon and the crew is going to look for Earth!! Now I'm going to worry about a Cylon invasion.
The pacing of the miniseries was great. I expected them to drag out some of the plot points, like finding out Cylons look like humans and trying to find a way to identify Cylons. I appreciate that they got right on that.
So, Gaius just made a lucky guess that the guy he picked just happened to be a Cylon? Ok, I won't question it, but it begs the question, how are they going to be able to ID a cylon? We saw Six's spine light up while she was having sex with Gaius. And the other Cylon dude started melting in the gas. This can't end well.
Ok, I won't question it, but it begs the question, how are they going to be able to ID a cylon? We saw Six's spine light up while she was having sex with Gaius
Looks like Baltar already has a Cylon detector…
…IN HIS PANTS.
LOL.
I'm trying not to be perverted, but Gaius has got to be self absorbed and lazy in bed.
Ha, I mean, how do you NOT NOTICE, right?
I'm trying very hard not to be amused by this.
*snort*
I imagine Adama and Roslin ordering a Makin' Babies Party where everyone gets down with the sexin'…and then they turn off the lights and see who glows.
EVERYONE MUST MAKE BABIES
(not a spoilery link whatsoever)
OMG THAT IS MY BIRTHDAY.
EVERYONE IS HAVING SEX ON MY BIRTHDAY.
EVERYONE BUT ME.
So… all Baltar has to do to find the machines is…
*sunglasses*
Turn them on.
YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH
Nothing really substantial to say, but I couldn’t help but notice how young people look (to my eyes, anyway). Tyrol and Lee look practically embryonic, and Starbuck is just a little thing! *pinches their cheeks, but not for reals because Starbuck would totally punch me in the face if I really did*
Still, though, they’re so tiny!
Also, this is the first time I’ve rewatched this in a while, and I’m finding myself slightly distracted by Lee’s voice… well, his accent, at any rate. I must have gotten used to his natural accent on Law and Order: UK, which is odd because I initially found his natural accent really weird and disconcerting.
Curse you Britishes and your awesome accent skills!
Speaking as a British person, my American accent is just terrible. 😉
Lee's is incredible though, it came as such a shock when I found out he was a Brit!
Speaking of which, I LOVE this video… ***BIG SPOILER WARNING FOR VIDEO***
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCjCclTsuAE
It's fracking hilarious!
OMG, that's awesome. That was actually an official promo? Love it.
That was all sorts of hilarious. I love it.
BEST PROMO EVER.
Also, possibly NSFW, http://www.scificool.com/images/2009/03/bsg-peta-…
ILU JAMIE
it's giving me a "not permitted" error.
I had no idea for a while that Jamie Bamber was British. His American accent is that good.
‘The war is over’ ‘It hasn’t begun yet’ ‘We need to get the hell out of here and we need to start having babies’ (love you Roslin, forever and ever)
Again we have the whole fight or survive debate but it’s much more important this time because these are the two main leaders and it’s good that they can come to an agreement without too much fuss, both at the beginning and end of the episode, while still clearly being able to debate the issue with each other.
Just because Doral turned out to be a Cylon doesn’t mean I forgive Gaius, as far as he knew Doral was just an innocent person so no clean slate there for me.
BOOMER! Not even possible to be prepared Mark.
‘So say we all.’
This is basically where I stopped watching when this show was new, so I'm very curious to see what happens next (secondhand, because I'm too lazy to actually get the show). I therefore have little to add, but Mark, if you like cool space battles that much you should do Babylon 5! It's awesome and it has awesome space battles!
Oh Babylon 5, the first tv show to really use CGI. Of course it looks really dated now. Hey it was the early 90's. It's been on my to watch list for years but I haven't been able to get to it. Probably catch up with Supernatural first and move my way up to the Sopranos.
The moment that sticks out for me the most from the miniseries, and this is perhaps unfair as I'm obviously coming to this now after seeing the series, is watching Galactica open up for the first time. As a fan of the original there was always a sense of frustration that you never really got to see the ship show off (now, obviously, I know it was for budget reasons but try telling my eight year old self that when my yardstick was Star Wars). Here we do and good god almighty! You do realise just why the Cylons thought a sneak attack was probably a good plan.
Love the character development on Tigh, Roslin and most of all Adama. EJO is just fabulous in the role and Adama is pretty much made of awesome from his first appearance onwards. Was on the fence about Lee and Starbuck, some very good stuff shown (the dialogue rescue in the final battle scene for instance could have come straight from the original, albeit with the ye-ha turned down a little) but a little too much love shown to Starbuck and her abilities over the rest of the pilots.
All in all a great way to kick off the series and really looking forward to Mark's reviews as we go forward.
Thanks! I'm glad you're around for this show, too. 🙂
What the… a nice thing said about me? I'd almost forgotten what that's like this week, cheers man.
While it's been a while since I saw BSG your reviews are always detailed enough to bring an episode back and (tempting fate) avoid spoilers so I'm looking forward to jumping back in to the show.
I'll be heading over to MarkReads too just as soon as you hit the Tolkien stuff. And not because I'm well aware how long chapters are and want to see how you handle *spoiler* *spoiler and entire chapters of *spoilers* possibly while chuckling gently. Nope, not at all.
This is so exciting!
BTW, the red line is the point at which it becomes very difficult to plot an accurate path back to your point of origin, but it doesn't involve leaving the galaxy.
(Now non-spoilery*) Things I was spoiled on just in the week-long period between watching the first and second halves:
The fact that the Kobol people (Kobolites? Kobolians?) have some sort of mythology surrounding the planet Earth. I didn't really consider this as much of a spoiler, because I just assumed it would be something like Firefly, where they drop a reference or two to Earth-that-was and leave it at that.
The fact that Boomer is actually one of the Cylons. Can I just say that I'm relieved that we found out that Boomer's a Cylon today, if only for entirely selfish reasons? I was spoiled on this point about a week ago and so "Boomer=Cylon" has been reeling around in my mind all this time. I hadn't caught her name when it was first mentioned, so I looked it up and boom–Cylon status revealed. I stopped reading there, so I didn't see when/how her status is revealed, and I just assumed that it would happen much, much later and so I'd always have this in the back of my mind when watching up until the moment when it's finally revealed in the show (which I ~naturally~ assumed was going to be the season four finale or something) and of course I wouldn't be able to enjoy the show.
The same thing happened with the person I'd just been calling "orange suit guy" up till that point, though luckily I only found out right before Baltar revealed his "test results," and I hadn’t really thought that it would be kept secret for that long, anyway.
(*I've been spoiled for two other things, but I'm trying to channel Baltar and work some self-deception magic to convince myself they're not reliable.)
So I'd been trying not to get attached to Boomer (Boomer, y u make this so hard???), and stop thinking about it (which it turns out doesn't really work all that well for me**). I thought that knowing that Boomer is a Cylon would make it easier to dislike her, but nope. My reaction after seeing her appear with the other Cylons:
"By your command?" WTF, Boomer is basically a commander of the Cylons? So even when she's supposed to be completely evil she's still awesome.
I like how they talk in terms of needing to do this to prevent humans from dominating them again, because it’s in our nature. You know, from their perspective they kind of have a point about humans.
Though of course, the “if we let them go, they’ll just come back and take revenge” thing is incredibly rich coming from them, so there’s that.
Boomer may have made me switch sides in this thing, at least temporarily.
**Being oh so successful at the whole not-thinking-about-it thing, I realized that Boomer had told Boxey that her parents had died when she was little. And when Doral was trying to prove that he was human, he mentioned places of residence and education–not family connections or anything like that. I started wondering if perhaps all Cylons would be like this, believing they have no living relatives, but then I started to wonder if perhaps the Cylons wouldn't just make some of the models look like relatives, so they could believe that they're families when in sleeper-mode (or whatever state it is our Boomer seems to be in), and then have a built-in cover story/excuse for being around each other for when they become active.
"Though of course, the “if we let them go, they’ll just come back and take revenge” thing is incredibly rich coming from them, so there’s that."
Heh, that made me laugh. The Cylons ARE kind of hypocrites, aren't they?
Gah. I like how I redid the formatting twice and still somehow managed to fail at closing the tags.
Is there an e-card for 'sorry you got spoiled'? I'd give you one.
THERE SHOULD BE.
Here you go:
<img src="http://www.thechicagoloop.net/tzikeh/ontd/spoilersympathy.png">
oh I am so using this.
You want it? You got it:
<img src="http://www.thechicagoloop.net/tzikeh/ontd/spoilersympathy.png">
Oh man, I completely understand your reaction to spoilers and your relief that you are no longer spoiled about Boomer. Also your complete self-deception: the morning after HP6 came out, I was spoiled by some anonymous asshole about, well, you know, and I spent THE ENTIRE BOOK waiting for it to either happen or not happen.
(Yes, I am still bitter about it.)
I was spoiled for the end (death) of book 5, also by some anonymous asshole on the interwebs. What the hell people.
I was spoiled about Boomer, and I didn't know that it was revealed so early on, either. I know what you mean about relief. There's one more thing I already know because of how the show was recommended to me, but it hopefully won't take too long to get to.
Someone recommended the show to you with a spoiler? That's kind of assy.
Mark, your reaction to Boomer being a cylon was almost identical to mine. I was like that Stephen Colbert gif where he's freaking out and clawing at his face (which, sadly, I do not possess). Oh man, I love Boomer so much. I don't want her to be a cylon. Why does she have to be a cylon? 🙁
And the idea that people can be cylons without even knowing it is terrifying. Could you imagine living as a perfectly normal human being all your life, with friends and family, and then one day you realize that you're actually a robot that's meant to destroy everything you thought you loved?
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/p376B.gif" alt="" title="Hosted by imgur.com" />
That one?
So, BBC America started airing BSG a couple of months ago, and they've been keeping a great Casualties & Losses chart going on their site as each episode airs. With each new episode, they create a new chart with updated information. I don't believe anything on the chart from the miniseries constitutes a spoiler – maybe there's information on there you might not have noticed though. Anyways, I'm positing the chart and a link to the BBC America Casualties & Losses for the miniseries in a reply to this one. If it ends up that the mods think the chart may be a spoiler, just delete the reply. Anyone interested can visit the BBC America site and check their BSG show page to see this if the reply gets deleted.
http://blogs.bbcamerica.com/battlestar-galactica/…
(site itself may contain spoilers past the initial chart, browse at your own risk)
That is an awesome infographic, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to delete it because it assigns the Cylons to their model number, and aside from Six, we don't know them yet. I've kept the link, though. Very cool!
Whoa, actually, there's kind of a fairly large spoiler in the Cylon Models section. I'm surprised they did that.
Yeah, there are some pretty big spoilers in there.
Wow, the… uh. Wow. Yeah.
What the hell were they thinking, seriously.
FOR SERIOUS. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE SERIES BEFORE AND CHOOSE TO LOOK AT THAT INFOGRAPHIC, COVER UP THE CYLON MODELS SECTION AND DO NOT LOOK AT IT. SERIOUSLY.
It's a shame because it's a very cool infographic otherwise.
Oh my God.
There is a sentence in this review that made me squirm in my seat and now I have this uncontrollable twitch.
MUST…………… NOT……….*twitch*………. SPOIL…………………. MARK…………….
Anyways, I still remember my jaw dropped to the floor when Boomer was revealed. And then I got sad because I knew this would make things a WHOLE lot more complicated for her and Tyrol. =( Also If I remember correctly, when they made this episode show hadn't been picked up yet for a full blown season. Imagine if it didn't do so well and THAT'S where it ended. I'd riot in the streets, seriously.
Is it possible to talk about "jumping beyond the red line" without getting into spoiler territory?
There's no episode where it's a plot point or they give a more detailed explanation.
So far the only thing that's been said about it is the implication that it might be the border between charted and uncharted space, so…IDK?
In other words, it's completely safe. And I already said it's the point at which it becomes very difficult to trace back to your point of origin accurately, but doesn't involve leaving the galaxy. (The void between even relatively close galaxies is as wide as 100,000 galaxies)
Random interesting fact: Mary McDonnell was unsure about how much she liked Laura Roslin as a character and fell in love with the character only after reading the "we've got to start having babies" line.
Can't remember the source of this- will try and find it and write it in a reply.
Because of this show, I now have this unintentional habit of saying "frak" as my go-to curse word like when I've forgotten something or I've hit my elbow on my work desk. I even felt bad when I said it around some little kids in a bookstore and then remembered it's not a real curse word.
I say 'frell' as a result of Farscape
I love that scene earlier in the miniseries when some of the deckhands in the hall say "frak" in front of the Commander and then they're all like "… pardon me sir." 😛
So the miniseries is over. Hm. Not 100% sure how I feel about it. I like most of the characters well enough, but I don't think I love them enough to stick around for them on their own merits. Lucky for them the writers set up a really intriguing plot. I want to know how this crew is going to get to Earth!
When I started rewatching the show after seeing the whole series, it struck me that though I'd liked it OK the first time, the miniseries…isn't the best? It's not bad at all, IMO, but it…it just gets so much better.
I'd say it's definitely worth sticking around all the same. I love the miniseries, but mainly for its 'everything's kicking off and everyone is meeting for the first time' value. By which I mean, it's fun to watch in hindsight, having seen the show, which is the way I feel about a lot of pilot episodes. Other than that, it's just like a fairly good, veeeeery long episode.
It all gets much crispier, and the holy shit quotient rises significantly once you get into the show proper. And, of course, as you get to know the characters better, you're bound to like them more. Sometimes it just takes time to get attached to people, I find. That's why I like TV shows much more than movies!
I agree, I think a lot of it was that the pacing was definitely feeling weird and not super easy to get into, but I'm expecting that to change once we start watching proper episodes.
That said I appreciated this more on the second watch.
This might sound a bit off-topic here, but I can't wait to hear what you think about the music in the actual series. In my opinion BSG has one of the very best soundtracks in television history ever.
I'm really late but I really like Adama as a character, not just because he is a luddite like me and it actually saved lives (well basically the human race.) It's kind of fascinating watching him interact with his crew and people other than his son, and the way he handles himself. There is something about him that feels like a lot of people I know.
Also I don't really get why we'd assume that the cylons are all totally original designs and can't copy already existing humans when they've been infiltrating our world for a while, or is this one of those tv logic things that we're not supposed to question?
I really hope we won't be spending a lot of time with that blond kid. I got into the second half of this alot more than the first but right now this show fails at making me care about children.
Oh, man, I'd forgotten that Boomer's…uh, status was revealed this early. What fun!
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