In the second part of “Daybreak,” the impossible battle against the Colony begins. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Battlestar Galactica.
If you were to ask me what the finest hour of Battlestar Galactica was, given that I’ve now seen every aired episode, I wouldn’t think twice to say that the Battle of the Colony, the second hour of the series finale, would be that hour. Here, we see so many things that this show does right all at once: Bear McCreary’s hypnotic music; the superb cast of actors and actresses this show hosts; the ability of the writers to convey adventurous intensity alongside emotional growth; and having a wonderful sense of humor about all of this. I know that the second part of “Daybreak” is just that: it’s part of a whole, so it might not be fair to choose only a piece as the best out of everything. But I can’t deny feeling not just immensely satisfied, but emotionally stimulated. This shit was so fucking exciting.
Part two opens with flashbacks, and in a weird way, it was like another reminder that these characters’ stories were coming to an end. It’s not like this whole goddamn episode didn’t do that, but I realized that this would probably be the last time I’d see Adama and Tigh drunk together. (Side note: Tigh drunk screaming will never not be the most hilarious thing this show has ever produced ever. Which is perfectly fine, by the way, because I love the inclusion of humor that we see here. MORE ON THAT IN A SECOND.) This was the last time I’d see Starbuck and Lee make poor choices in a relationship and awkwardly flirt with one another. This was the last time I’d see Roslin diving headlong into an uncomfortable situation just for the hell of it. This was the last time I’d see Adama in the gutter, looking up at the stars. (OH GOD AN OSCAR WILDE REFERENCE, holy fuck I love this show.)
And then the stars cut to the system where the fleet floats quietly in space, and we see Gaius Baltar, alone. There’s something unsettling and saddening about the image of the charismatic leader in that vacant space, his followers gone. It’s one of many images on Galactica that are surreal, bizarre, and depressing. For Baltar, his journey as the leader of a cult has come to an end, even though he won’t make his decision until later in the episode. Head Six appears, and tells him to trust in God’s plan, and I start to get an idea of where this is heading. Why was Head Six there in the first place, and why was she always trying to get Baltar to do these things? When Baltar finally seemed to believe in God, she disappeared; when things took a dive, she reappeared to nudge him in the right way. At that point, I knew that it was entirely impossible that he was imagining her. It made no sense, and it made no sense that she was tied to some Cylon sense of projection. She had to be something else, I surmised, because she had too strong of a sense of purpose to be some imagined entity in Baltar’s head.
The rest of Galactica isn’t anywhere near as vacant as the home of Baltar’s followers. I really adore the way the camera jumps from room to room, showing us how the various groups are preparing for Galactica‘s final mission. I love that Roslin literally makes the normally-talkative Dr. Cottle speechless, the first of many moments that sprung tears to my eyes. I love that despite Helo telling the pilots how horrifically poor the odds are, every Raptor volunteers to go to the Colony. I love the weirdness of this all, of a hybrid (Anders) being brought right into the CIC. So much of what season four has done incredibly well is show us how Cylon and human culture begin to integrate themselves into one another, weaving an intricate and delicate pattern that becomes more complicated by the day. As I’ve said before, if you’d told me that there would be five humanoid Cylons helping the humans destroy another Cylon base in this method, I would have laughed you off this planet. It makes no sense without context, but now I see just how brilliantly the ending of this entire show was hinted all along in season four. Human and Cylon, side-by-side, fighting for a unified purpose.
And in a wholly hilarious and smile-inducing move, Hoshi is made Admiral, a fantastic callback to the previous part of “Daybreak.” Hoshi!!!! Oh god, then for a moment I got sad that Gaeta wouldn’t get to see this. But before I could get any sadder, the episode cuts to Lee making Romo Lampkin THE FUCKING PRESIDENT. I’m sorry, this is SO GODDAMN FUNNY TO ME. I mean, what could be more irritating for the man than having to be President? Lee, you are a genius and I love you for it forever.
But the best twist of this all, despite being pretty obvious, was Baltar abandoning his followers to stay with the Galactica. It’s clear later that he doesn’t even know why he’s doing it, and I actually think that’s an important detail. If he had some way to exploit this for himself, he could have at least thought of that. But the whole thing feels like the right decision for absolutely no reason at all. It’s a feeling he has, and he makes a leap of faith, choosing to fight one last time, even if he dies.
Like the scene earlier in this part of the story, we get another “montage” of sorts as the camera skips between the various parts of the ships, showing us the preparation that’s been taken for the Battle of the Colony. While I was excited to see how this turned out, one specific scene filled me with dread: Ishay shows Roslin how to mark those who “can’t be saved” with a black permanent marker and put them aside so they can treat those who can be saved. Even if they did make it out of that battle with Hera, I knew that this was a nod by the writers to remind us that there would be heavy, gut-wrenching losses experienced. They wouldn’t include this detail unless that was the case. As we see the Vipers in the launch tubes and the Raptors in the Galactica Museum (!!!!!!1 OMG BEST SHOT EVER !!!!!!), my heart rate started to pump faster. Lee is suited up with Starbuck and the other marines, alongside Centurions with large red sashes painted on them to identify them from the Centurions from the Cylon force of the Colony. Gaius Baltar, the millionaire genius scientist from Caprica City, is no longer cruising around town in a limousine. He’s wearing a soldier’s uniform, and none of it looks quite right on him, as if he’s a wearing his father’s clothes before finger painting in the first grade, but he’s there. And I don’t care about anything else: Baltar is there. He is in the hallways of Galactica, a gun in his hand, and he could very well die protecting the ship. (Actually, the odds are much higher for this than anything else, given that the man is pretty shitty with a gun.) He’s made a decision that doesn’t benefit, and though he won’t realize it until much later, he took Lee’s ultimatum and made it a reality.
This is most likely a one-way street, and Adama’s final speech to the Galactica is just the call to arms that suggests a horrible finality. It gives hope, yes, but it was right then that the sheer weight of impossibility and futility washed over me. If anyone could pull this off, it was this crew and these people and that Admiral. But this was nothing short of suicide, and I think everyone on that ship knew it. This was probably going to be the last thing they ever did.
And then the Battlestar Galactica jumps just feet from the Colony. And all hell breaks loose.
I have said many times that the special effects on this show are a cut above most things I’ve seen, even better than movies that have monumentally larger budgets. Watching the Battle of the Colony was like watching a bunch of kids in a candy store. I don’t know how much it cost to make this episode, but it looked like it cost a couple billion dollars. Never did I feel like I lost the narrative focus of the story; never did I feel like the visuals were a soupy, complicated mess. The color schemes were appropriately dark, but accented by the brightly colored beauty of the singularity that the Colony sat above. But it’s the sheer size of the whole thing that blew me away; the scope of the battle and the ambition that’s clearly on every frame of this whole thing is unlike anything I’ve ever seen for a television show.
The Raptors jump out of the museum. The Galactica RAMS INTO THE COLONY. If Adama hadn’t jumped into the atmosphere on the surface of New Caprica, I’d easily claim these two moments as the best battle techniques of the whole series. I wondered how on earth they expected to board the Colony, and when the plan was revealed and executed, I just stared at the screen, gaping. They smashed a hole in it. THEY SMASHED A HOLE INTO IT. Oh god, everything could have gone so terribly wrong and I love these characters for doing it anyway.
And then I’m reminded that this is a disaster of an idea when Racetrack and Skulls are killed mid-conversation by flying debris. It’s on, I realized, and this is the end. The Battle of the Colony is not going to end pretty, and it’s a stark and horrifying sign that this is serious. People are going to die.
But it’s not all one-sided. As a group of Raptors make their way inside the Colony, the camera cuts to Simon working on Hera. WHILE A HUGE BATTLE IS GOING ON. Jesus, these Cylons sure are dedicated. Taking cues from when we last saw her in “Islanded in a Stream of Stars,” Boomer’s own disgust over kidnapping her gets the better of her, and the first real Cylon death happens onscreen when she snaps Simon’s neck and grabs Hera.
It’s hard to organize everything at this point, though, to comment on it in any sort of chronological nature. More so than any other action scene in the show’s history, the second part of “Daybreak” is ridiculously chaotic. I think that for a good half hour, there’s not a single break in the action. One thing follows another, many things are happening at the same time, and we are given no time to reaction to any of these events. I found myself laughing at the sight of older Centurions fighting with the newer ones, as it’s something I would have never guessed I’d be a witness to. (Again, the well-placed humor is a huge reason why I love part two so much.) Yet just a minute or two later, I’m shocked into complete silence when Baltar and Caprica Six are suddenly able to see each other’s respective Head Baltar and Head Six. SOMEONE ELSE CAN SEE THEM JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!! But then we get absolutely no time to contemplate that when a group of Centurions lead by Cavil, a Five, and Simon burst onto the Galactica as the hull is breached. THIS IS ALL SO VERY MUCH TO DEAL WITH AT ONCE.
There’s a brief moment of quiet tension mixed in with all the chaos, and it’s when Boomer runs into the Agathons and Starbuck–and she’s carrying Hera. As she handed over Hera back to her parents, I knew that there was no other way for her story to end. As she says, she made a choice, and this is where she ended up. She asks Athena to tell Adama that she owed him one. I was thankful for Starbuck’s retort about not telling Boomer “the plan” because it broke the painful awkwardness at just the right moment. For just a second, I thought Boomer would turn around and walk away, but Athena opens from on her, killing her.
Boomer’s dead. Jesus fuck.
After stopping “for coffee,” Starbuck’s team meets up with Lee’s, and I was left wondering how on earth they’d get off the Colony. We see images of the bloodbath in the sickbay, both Ishay and Roslin overwhelmed by the destruction of the crew and civilians who stayed behind to help out. The Galactica is just as damaged as they are, probably more so, suffering from the persistent damage being dealt by the Raiders. With a limited amount of time available, I really only had one question left that I needed to be answered: How the fuck was Galactica going to survive this?
It was nice to see that Baltar’s crowning moment of violence was shooting a Centurion that was already down on the ground and nearly shooting Lee, too. I think that’s about as appropriate as it should be, don’t you? It’s not like he’s the greatest sharpshooter on the planet. But with Lee, Starbuck, Helo, Athena, and Hera safe, I got too comfortable. I felt too safe. I thought that this was a sign of victory, and I let my guard down. When Roslin sits down, in shock from all the violence she’d seen, and she experiences the Opera House vision once again, I panicked. Something was wrong. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t finished.
A Five appears. A shot is fired and Helo is down, and suddenly I’m worried that he’s going to die, and the Hera is gone, and it’s the Opera House vision all over again. It was only a matter of minutes before we’d see it enacted in the halls of Galactica, wasn’t it? As the characters fell into place, exactly as they were positioned in that vision we’d seen for so long, I was completely and utterly transfixed by “Daybreak.” I am not even sure I commented once during this entire sequence. My attention was devoted to what was happening, watching Hera run through the halls of that ship, losing my shit when Roslin and Athena realized they were always supposed to follow Hera into the Opera House, that it wasn’t about stopping her from being “taken.” They were supposed to follow her.
It seems fitting that the key to humanity and to the future and to all the talk of destiny over four years takes place inside the CIC of Galactica. That was always the heart of this show, wasn’t it? As everyone converges in that room, and Cavil manages to grab Hera during an explosion, the final standoff materializes right before us. This is where the future will be decided, and I could feel how important it was. This scene would be the key to the whole show.
I will admit to not entirely understanding what was at work here, and it took the third part of “Daybreak” to shed light on the revelation we’re given. What I did understand is that Baltar once more proved to Lee that he could do something without benefitting from it personally. There’s nothing in what Baltar says to Cavil that is disingenuous, and you can see how much he believes in every word that comes out of his mouth. Hera is important to humanity’s survival and that there’s a reason they all ended up in that CIC room at that moment in that order: some higher force orchestrated the whole thing. Here, Baltar uses the word “God” to describe this higher force; I don’t think this is at all what we associate with the meaning of that word. I’ll get more into this for my review of part three, but I don’t actually view this as the show saying that it’s impossible to be an atheist, that the God we all know and believe is the same thing for what it is to Baltar. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some sort of power in this show’s mythology, and I think it’s pretty clear there is; however, it’s not at all what we might think it is.
Just on a visceral level, the scene is about Baltar’s attempt at redemption, at saving this whole fucking mess that he technically started years ago on New Caprica. He pleads with Cavil to accept that there must be something else going on here, and executing Hera would solve nothing at all.
I was shocked (just as much as everyone else) that Tigh then made the deal even better: he offered resurrection to Cavil. That’s all Cavil really wanted, wasn’t it? The chance to continue the Cylon species in some way, and by getting resurrection, Hera becomes unnecessary to him. In a spectacular end to the second part of “Daybreak,” this actually works. Cavil orders the Cylons on the Colony to stand down. Adama orders his own crew to stand down. As weapons are lowered and Raiders fall back, it seems that Baltar found a way to negotiate a permanent peace with the Cylons.
Holy shit.
To be continued in my final review tomorrow! WHICH I GUARANTEE WILL BE EVEN LONGER THAN THIS ONE.
PRESIDENT ROMO LAMPKIN. I LOVE THIS MOTHERFRAKKING SHOW.
I'd comment on more, but… Dear Gods this show is so perfect and I don't know where to start.
Also, I'd like to see Daybreak cut together with any/all deleted scenes, shown in a movie theater. Maybe in IMAX. It looks good enough for it!
Oh.My.Gods. I never even thought about this being released in IMAX.
That idea is positively nerdgasm at is finest. Please sign me up.
Oh. GODS
The extended version would be a good fit for a movie theatre!
The only deleted scenes not included in the Extended are a couple with Boomer on a plane or space transport hearing about the mining accident on Troy, one with Cavil planting unconscious Tory on a plane or space transport, and one with Tyrol telling Boomer and Helo that the flight crew is bringing in some "new equipment" to make their landings smoother – their Raptor is then pelted with pillows.
I remember watching this with my little brother, and when the Opera House sequence began, we kept punching each other in the arm and yelling "HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT!" over and over again.
Good times.
I didn't have anyone to punch in the arm, but I'm right there with ya on the "HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT."
THIS IS A GOOD REACTION.
YOU SHOULD FEEL GOOD.
I kept yelling at the TV, "Holy Shit!" and What.The.Fucking.Fuck for like the next 60 minutes…
For most of Parts 2 and 3, I was like this
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xgLGA4AKRnw/ScQt0Pq8lCI/AAAAAAAADCM/QVlMr5Zb9G0/s320/chal4.jpg">
So worried that I stopped blinking until my contacts dried up and got blurry, forcing me to close my eyes for a bit.
God, I love ALL the scenes with Gaius and Caprica in this whole finale.
fuck yes, I'd always shipped them kind of passively in the back of my mind but in the finale it was like an explosion went off in my brain. Knowing this was coming, now when rewatching the last episodes I get *hearts in eyes* about them running into each other again in the cult headquarters and Baltar getting teary eyed over her and failing to say the right things, and then him trying to catch her eye at the funeral & but just disappointing her again. SHE JUST WANTS TO BE PROUD OF YOU, GAIUS. THAT WAS ALL THAT WAS MISSING.
Speaking of humor (I'd have to say that numbers 4 & 5 are my favorite):
[youtube 9xw72OhqZ_A&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xw72OhqZ_A&feature=related youtube]
ROFL love 3 & 7
There's something about the sorta-sassy way Grace Park walks off from 7 that is delightful.
Thank you! I'd forgotten about that! Though I do now remember watching it when it aired…or maybe the day after.
And the day after that…and the day after that.
I watched it all before and I will watch it all again.
Also, has anyone ever calculated how many characters, ah, tasted Baltar's honey roasted space nuts?
1/2 the fleet and maybe Gaeta? Oh I would have watched that …..oh man…
#1: Adama: "Watch me lead us into war against the cylons without an exit strategy"
Ohwaitthefinaledoeswhat?
That made me laugh. But Tigh's was the best
I love how Letterman obviously has no idea who these people are or why this is supposed to be funny.
If you enjoy Letterman acting like that, watch his show! He's like that for about 80% of his guests!
(Seriously, how does he still have a show when Craig Ferguson is hitting it out of the park every night in the timeslot behind him?)
Probably because Fergy is an acquired taste, which I have wholly acquired. He does some totally goofy things that don't fly with the mainstream. Plus well, Dave is his boss so there's that 🙂
This seems like a good spot for an awkward pause. Fancy a subtext?
Will I get my own silver or gold mouth organ?
You only get the Golden Mouth Organ if you can actually play it. Them's the rules.
But you can win $50 in singles (good at any local strip club) if you go for the Big Cash Prize.
I can, in fact, play the mouth organ!
I've been meaning to learn – is it more or less difficult than your average instrument?
More or less 🙂
[youtube _kbLh6xAlDc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kbLh6xAlDc youtube]
I've always liked the "smell my finger" awkward pause. And whenever someone wins the golden mouth organ, it's great.
It is the most difficult of the awkward pauses.
Acquired taste, really? I acquired it the first time I saw a clip of him!
Oh, Letterman. And Leno. I mean, when Letterman is the edgier comic, you know something's gone horribly, horribly wrong.
It's so weird seeing everyone in costume… but with perfectly coiffed hair and makeup… even Tricia Helfer's hair is more done-up than it is as Head Six and she's imaginary then o_o
Visual disconnect.
Oh god, one of my favorite things ever. #5 is my favorite, I gotta say.
And I love when Jamie Bamber's technobabbling away and transitions into his actual accent for the "I don't know what the hell I'm talking about."
And props to Letterman's band for playing them on with Watchtower.
Holy shit, "New FTL drives" ACTUALLY WAS A PLOT POINT. WAY TO GO, LETTERMAN'S WRITERS!
Can I just say, Hera is the most adorable child ever (her curls! So cute!) and she just did not give a shit. I love that they didn’t have her screaming and crying, which probably would have been a more natural reaction for a kid her age, but it would have been too distracting. Also, she’s the Mitochondrial Eve, she can do whatever she wants.
She is soooo cute. My obsession with characters' hair on this show continues (but, I mean, they stopped focusing on arms lately, what else am I going to do?) – I want my hair to do that. But I just kept thinking, "Hera, you are beyond adorable, but STOP RUNNING AWAY! People are shooting things! Stay with Roslin where it's safe, stop running to the guns!"
The lack of arms is very sad 🙁 Although Lee's terrible hair kind of distracted me from that
Yeah, all of the Heras have been cute and cherubic, which is fitting, because her parents are perfect. Was she maybe projecting the Opera House during the fire fight, so the scary stuff wasn't real to her? But yeah, whatever, she can do what she wants.
Huh, I had never considered that idea about her projecting. I'm going to add that to my head!canon now.
Heh. Head!canon…flove
OOOOOOO I like that idea! Of course Hera is all sophisticated and goes with an Opera House
Unpopular opinion: Hera bugged the crap out of me. Sorry, but she did.
The curls were just too Shirley Temple for me…
/ducks
haha, I have major curl envy- natural or Shirley Temple’d- since my hair flat out refuses to hold any curl unless it’s unwanted and guaranteed to make me look disheveled.
(But MTE isn't even importaannnnnnt it's just a title for a random individual who happens to be our most recent matrilineal ancestor, and for that matter if the right set of people die, there would be a new Mitochondrial Eve representing a more recent ancestor than the old MTE who we all trace our mitochondria to. It's a title that is specific to one person at a time but isn't necessarily specific to a single individual throughout (past and future) history.)
(The finale gives me bad-science woes.)
(A small part of me has been waiting for your biology/science knowledge to come out for the finale)
AND SHE'S NOT THE MOST RECENT COMMON ANCESTOR FFFUUUUU SHOW WITH YOUR REMARKABLY WRONG FAKE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
MST3K Mantra.
( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MST3KM… )
(Thanks for the link cause I needed it.)
I know this can wait for tomorrow, but it's also the fact that the show basically posits a creationist/ID explanation for our existence, what with the miraculously lucky fact that the fleet can mate with aliens (us) and oh wait, god's interfering in everything so the explanation is honestly that god did it. It's a fucking science fiction show and they're promoting an intelligent design explanation for life on Earth! The evolution thing is the punch in the face; the MTE as MRCA thing is like spitting on my face just for good measure.
Hmm… I never really looked at it as ID/creationist…
Also, sorry for linking to TVTropes. I hope you don't get trapped there.
Did not get trapped, as you can tell!
So one of my biggest pet peeves in scifi is aliens mating with other species. Like, I only forgive it with Spock cause he's Spock and cause Vulcans have advanced technology and scientific understanding. And I hate when aliens have DNA. There's no real reason to imagine aliens having DNA as their genetic material besides lack of imagination and oh-so-convenient genetic exchange.
So aliens on another planet who just so happen to be entirely compatible and look just like them/us is bad scifi in my opinion because it's not only a huge stretch of disbelief, it's also generally downright unimaginative and is executed in lazy ways like aliens having DNA.
When makes BSG unique is it actually invokes a god figure to explain events. So yeah, fuck the finale's science.
Part of the reason that I hate the MTE bit (aside from the bad-science woes) (I'm not even a sciency person and I knew it was wrong) is the fact that it probably was part of the justification for the fleet showing up at that point in 'our' past. I know one of the original ideas floating around was for the fleet to end up somewhere around Ancient Greece and basically found the Greek pantheon (and the subsequent mythology). Instead it feels like they shoehorned in the concept of Hera = MTE…and more on that tomorrow. (I can forgive quite a bit because of the gift of The Fightin' Agathons making it all the way to the end, but there are limits.) Coulda woulda shoulda…
The idea that the entire thing about Earth not being their past was so they could make Hera MTE just makes me sad cause…who cares if she's MTE? Being a common ancestor really isn't that interesting or important. I mean, maybe if there was something thrown out about mitochondria holding our hidden cylon selves, so the fact that she's MTE is actually relevant. But there's nothing to that effect on the show, so it's just a poetic title that doesn't really add anything.
Never heard about the Ancient Greece thing. Huh…
I thought the point of her being MTE was to show that the Cylons and Humans finally integrated and that discrimination between them finally ceased (and whole new ones took there place – see human history).
However I do agree that the whole "God did it" explanation starting from the moment that Racetrack's dead hand hits the launch button jarred awfully with the rest of the show, as did finding biologically compatible aliens and everyone agreeing to throw away their medication, technology and culture in to the sun to roll around in dirt.
But my point is that is there something special about mitrochondria or Hera's female lineage in specific to Hera's role in the story? Not really. I'm pretty sure the only appeal to making her MTE was because of the "Eve" part of the title. She could be any common ancestor and still represent the final union between cylon and human. But instead they specifically call her MTE and then define MTE wrongly on the show.
I've been enjoying the discussion about this, because I also got icky ID implications from the finale, and I screwed up my face at MTE=MRCA, not specifically the matrilineal one (I've also seen people use mitochondrial Eve as evidence of a biblical Eve, and conflating the two is a good way to make me rage. While the finale doesn't do that explicitly, to me it's implied, but I might be overly sensitive about that.) I have other frustrations with them landing in our past, and that God (or whatever it is) willed it to be so.
I think the only reason to have her be mitochondrial Eve is that she inherited her mitochondrial DNA from Athena, and it's a way to present that there's a Cylon origin to a tiny bit of the genome of any living human. I don't know what that does to the endosymbiotic theory of the origin of mitochondrial DNA (aside from ignore it?). It's easier for me to deal with if I look at it as a way of saying that they were us all along, rather than thinking that the writers are saying HERA IS THE DIVINELY-DIRECTED MOTHER OF HUMANITY. BOW DOWN.
I like the idea that Hera inherited cylon DNA from her mother and so her mitochondria are essentially cylon mitochondria, except the show for whatever reason seemed to have avoided having cylon DNA be different from human DNA. I suppose they didn't want Cottle coming up with a genetic test for cylons, but by not having that and by Baltar's test running off of ~tests for synthetic molecules~ I honestly don't think cylons are supposed to have unique DNA. That's how it always came across to me, anyway. (Where the hell Hera's super special antigens or lack of them or whatever it is comes into this I do not know.)
Wow I did not know people conflated MTE and biblical Eve. That's a big facepalm.
Ha, I'm still bitter about the synthetic molecules. I think you're right that they're not supposed to have unique genomes, that their DNA comes from humans, and humanity comes from a mix of humans and cylons (the whole "all this has happened before, and all this will happen again" cycle gives me a headache when I try to think about their origins. Was there one original Earth with no alien interference, so that humans still evolved as we understand them to have done? Do the remains of human and cylon civilization always end up on a planet stocked with evolved humans? Are there a chain of do-over Earths scattered around the galaxy, started-up at different times, so that there's always a place for people to crash after they fuck everything up? This is getting away from me.) It's just that humans are from a union of the two, and having Hera be MTE is the easiest was to establish universal cylon-human hybrid descent.
Creationists, yo. It's not just that Mitochondrial Eve is biblical Eve, but also that MTE makes the biblical Eve possible, or that MTE is descended from their Eve. And if you're a young Earth creationist, scientists are of course fudging the timeline a bit because they make wrong assumptions about mutation rates. Creationists twist scientific findings so that they fit into with their worldview. Bleah.
For the cycle, I've relied on this flowchart to help me understand all the stuff that gets revealed in S4. (EDIT: linking it would help, wouldn't it.)
I'm pretty sure the cycle is simply that if you create centurions, they will kill you – but not all of you as some will escape and create new centurions, who will kill you. And so on.
So I'm going with the idea that humans only evolved twice – once on Kobol and once on our Earth. At least, I believe that's what the show depicts and I'd rather not complicate it more in my mind.
Man, creationists, yo.
My brain can't even handle that right now. Thanks for the link!
(shhhhhhhhhhhhh don't think about it)
ETA: but really, the ending doesn't make much sense at all. It didn't really bother me that much, though, which is weird because I was all up in arms over S6 of Doctor Who which was overall less of a cop out than BSG's finale. Maybe it's because I'm in a honeymoon stage with BSG and one day I'll wake up and realize my god, the ending sucked 🙁
Kara holding the bottle and shot glasses up to her face in the Caprica flashback may be the cutest thing she's fone so far. Even though I'm sitting here knowing that it's a terrible idea for them to get drunk, that one shot is so utterly charming that I do go along with it for a moment. Zak being an affectionate drunk and repeatedly telling Kara and Lee that he loves them is even cuter.
I'm not sure there's anything else I can add that hasn't been said in Mark's review or the liveblog but Cottle's scene with Laura…just…<3 best character ever.
As much as I adore what we get next, there is a tiny part of me that wishes we could have seen Admiral Hoshi, President Lampkin and First Pet Jake taking care of the fleet for those twelve hours. It would be so much fun!
This battle, oh god do I love this battle. I love that it's possibly the biggest action sequence so far but it still has a lot of really important character moments woven through it. If I do have ONE nitpick, it's a shame we don't get to see Starbuck in a Viper one last time, I do love that she's right there with Helo and Athena though (BFFS!)
While technically she doesn't do all that much, the small details about Hera's behaviour in this episode: the hands over her ears and running away when things get loud and scary, all stand out to me because they feel so REAL. That's exactly what a three year old would be doing in this situation. The way the camera drops down to her level for the shots of her running around by herself just emphasise how scary this environment must be for her.
Hera, dude, can you please stay in one place for longer than .543 seconds? Thanks.
LOL
Even though Roslin will always be the president of my heart, I would quite happily live in a world in which Romo Lampkin was president.
Somehow, I did not notice the red Xs on the Centurions and kept wondering how everyone was telling them apart. While staring at, you know, the red Xs. How I did not get that is beyond me, but there you go. I'm going to claim being distracted by OMG EVERYTHING IS AWESOME AND WONDERFUL AND PERFECT AND YET ALSO HORRIBLE AND GUT-WRENCHING AND SAD.
I loved watching Baltar and Boomer redeem themselves, maybe a little late for her, but she still did what was right in the end (RIP.) I love watching Baltar and Caprica together, and seeing each other's versions of themselves was wonderful. I imagine them chatting in oblivion, maybe a little snarkily, when they aren't needed elsewhere (by God. Or whatever.)
I was also transfixed by the Opera House sequence, but I then realized that a lot of anguish could have been avoided if Roslin had ordered the Galactica crafts club to knit one of those kiddie leashes as soon as she, Six, and Athena started having the weird dream.
Those kiddie leashes are fucked up, though – Hera deserves better.
I once saw a mom dragging her child through a mall on one of those leashes. Like, kid was flat-out splayed on the floor and being used like a mop. It was weird.
I stand by my statement. Kiddie leashes are fucked up!
Though not as fucked up as any parent who uses them.
<img src="http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/71/mop2g.jpg" alt="kid sprawled on the ground wearing clothes that have mop-like tassles off it, the idea being the crawling kid will mop the floor">
I was one of those toddlers that ran away as soon as I was released from my stroller or put down, so I understand Hera’s pain. Maybe the arts and crafts club can build her a stroller or a papoose since those kiddie leashes are beyond weird. I’d love to see the Battle of the Colony with Helo pushing a stroller in front of him
YES. BRILLIANT IDEA. WHY IS THERE NO ARMORED BATTLE STROLLER? HERA DESERVES ONLY THE BEST.
Oh, BSG finale. You were so awesome until you stopped being awesome (see: tomorrow).
So true. When I was rewatching I was thinking 'this is awesome, why didn't I like it again?' Then I got to part three.
In other words, 100% awesome!
I say it stayed awesome, if not awesomer, tomorrow.
But there are still some GREAT parts in Daybreak 3 that I would not give up for the world.
Admittedly, crap parts too, and that's the reason why people have written some fantastic 30,000-60,000 words long alternate endings for the series…
that's the reason why people have written some fantastic 30,000-60,000 words long alternate endings for the series…
Where? Where!? You can't say things like that and not link.
Please?
<img src="http://i42.tinypic.com/1pxrwh.gif" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">
I am defenseless in the face of Sam puppy dog eyes. I'll share some links in the Daybreak II post. 🙂
<img src="http://i44.tinypic.com/k32kao.gif" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">
I would agree but I cannot, because the mostly awesome outweighs the less awesome leaving me with the completely awesome rating.
Unpopular opinion time: There is nothing in this finale that seriously upset me. There may be some things that I would prefer to have happened differently, but I'm satisfied with the ending.
I really can't imagine a different one (that would fit).
Same here. I don't like Lee's ending, implication that Hera died young and that robots thing was a bit too much (although it reminded me of Blink ending), but I adored the ending. I rarely cry when watching something, but since that flamingos scene I was in tears until the very end. It was the good tears, not like the bitter ones I spilled because of Lost's last season, but that's another matter.
Same.
I just finished the series, and had managed to avoid most major spoilers, but I did know that a lot of people hate(d) the finale, so I was watching with trepidation and then went…wait, that's all?
It's not perfect, and the more I reflect on it the more I would have liked it to end with "I know about farming!" (and also have something in there that made "Oh cool we're just going to disperse become nomads, why would we want to live together? And oh, let's teach these poor primitives language but NOTHING ELSE OK TECHNOLOGY BAD" make SOME sort of sense) but on the whole, the totally awesome character stuff outweighed the WTF for me.
If you ask me, the finale-hate is a repeated meme.
Echo chambers on the internet? Never!
Not to denigrate people's legit criticisms (I share many of them, myself), but right after the finale, I saw a lot of peer pressure and bandwagonning. As usual, heh.
On my first watching, I was disappointed, mostly by Kara's lack of ending. But on this watch, mostly I really liked it. I'm over the Kara thing, and I actually like the stuff at the end in our world, even with its bad science.
I feel like any ending they gave Kara would have been even more divisive and rage-inducing. I like that they made it so people can basically decide what they want.
Yeah, exactly. And artistic license with science is a given in even the best shows. Like Babylon 5. The story is more important.
ME TOO.
Pigeon made me laugh so hard though.
Y'ALL WILL HAVE TO WAIT TILL TOMORROW FOR MORE. But I was very satisfied with the ending.
Late but this is where I'm at.
I mean I do think the end especially with present day earth and the dancing robots was really silly, but it doesn't really rate compared to the things that annoyed me about seasons 2 and 3.
And yeah there are some things that did not completely make sense but damn people have you not seen the logic on which most TV operates?
There were definitely things that I didn't like but overall I was impressed that they were able to tie up as many loose ends as they did in the amount of time they had.
That said, the fact that I'd heard way, WAY before I'd even started watching the show that the finale was the worst thing ever probably influenced me some. But really I have seen SO much worse in terms of tv shows final seasons and finales.
I had totally forgotten most of this stuff was in the finale, I thought it all happened earlier. The last part was so bad my brain blocked out the idea that the rest was any good.
Not as bad as my husband though – when I bring up BSG, he's like "oh, that show sucked. It made no sense." And I have to remind him that that was only the last half of the finale, and the rest of the show (other than the Lee/hooker episode) was amazing. I mean, he doesn't really wtch tv, no way would he have stuck with it for four seasons worth if he didn't like it, but all he remembers now is Starbuck is an angel and we have to give up all technology for no apparent reason.
Not us. The idea is that we're more mature than the Colonials.
Off-topic but:
"SOMEONE ELSE CAN SEE THEM JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!"
"Boomer’s dead. Jesus fuck."
Is something that Christians would find rather offensive from anyone, let alone an atheist. In a place concerned and accepting enough that words like "lame" and "crazy" are seen as offensive, it seems out of place.
It happens a lot, but combining it with a discussion about fitting atheism into the show makes it stick out a bit more this time.
The difference is that Christians aren't a marginalised group and so saying something like 'Jesus fucking Christ' isn't the same as using a slur against a minority group.
Words like "lame" and "crazy" are oppressive language that's used to hurt and marginalize those with disabilities. There's a big difference between that and words that some people might find offensive. Moreover, Christians are not a persecuted minority in most areas of the world. Oppressive language is offensive, but not all offensive language is oppressive. Remember that.
Except for the many, many Christians who routinely use "Jesus" as a swear word themselves. You can't say categorically that it's offensive to Christians.
what is with people doing this
if you have a problem with me saying these things, bring that up. I don't mind accommodating people, but please please please please stop comparing it to oppressive slurs.
Quite. A Christian might find it offensive, but I doubt very much they're going to feel marginalized like a crippled person who hears "that's so lame".
Not that I don't want Mark to have more hits on his site but if you find his writing and review style offensive why read it? Is it just to complain about it?
He's not calling Christians any sort of derogatory term so I think you're comparison is not apt.
*your…I do know the difference between you're and your….sorry typo
To be fair, what LarrikJ mentioned wasn't Mark's writing and review style, though they did make a comparison that was not apt.
I guess my point is that since I've been reading Mark's reviews, he uses that phrasing quite often so why be offended by it in this instance and why complain about it now?
Just my opinion it seems slightly trollish but I could be wrong…
Oh. How long has he been reading?
I have no idea. I'm saying I've been reading Mark's reviews for several months now. The commenter's post indicates he has read Mark's reviews before.
Let's not start accusing someone of being a troll based on one enquiry, especially when it seems genuine and they haven't even replied back to anyone yet.
Like I said, just my opinion…I'll withdraw from the conversation.
It'a not just your opinion. It's why I stopped posting here.Starbuck can say "bitch," but we can't. Gaeta can talk about Baltat being off his meds, and Billy even called him "cuckoo," but saying "crazy" gets you called publicly down in most condescending fashion. Mark swears most offensively, while the mildest of words may be off-limits for everyone else.
Words have meaning and power. Limiting words is about limiting people's ability to express themselves.
Political correctness is always biased, always hypocritical, always offensive, and always about suppressing other people's views. Political correctness leads to group-think, and stunts people's ability to deal with different views of the world. In a word, it sucks.
If you need to "express yourself," write your own blog. This is not a free speech zone, this is Mark's space and he has the power to limit it as he sees fit.
Someone reported this for a derail and the part about fictional characters calling each other harmful things definitely applies. If you feel so offended by Mark's blog and its rules, go somewhere else.
I'm going to spell this out for you because you willfully refuse to understand this.
Words have meaning and power. If the words you use to "express" yourself do so in a way that actively harms another person, that discourages them from posting here. If you and other people think I restrict these words because I'm being "politically correct" or to get off from being a control freak, please immediately leave this community and never come back.
Again, I am asking the people who post here not to use slurs. Those are not just any ol' word. They are words that are worse than swearing because their entire point is to use a marginalized group as fodder for whatever foolish point you're trying to make. I am not saying you can't say them elsewhere, that there's no context in which you can use them that doesn't hurt people, and I am certainly not making value judgments on people who use them. There is not a person on the Internet who doesn't do fucked up, problematic shit. It's an impossibility.
All I am asking is that on one tiny site on the Internet, we all take the time to be respectful of the varied and diverse people who come here; that means collectively doing our best to think about the things we say so that all people who want to discuss these shows can do so without feeling like the very essence of who they might be is not welcome at all.
I am not limiting words. You have a couple trillion sites on the Internet with which you can use them. You can use them on your blog. You can use them with your friends and family. I genuinely don't care, and I don't even think negatively or poorly about you for using them. But I am running a community site with hundreds of thousands of visitors per month, and I'm trying (as my mods are, too) to foster a community that makes it feel as if it does not matter who you are: you are accepted and welcomed here.
And furthermore, allow me to gracefully place this insult in your direction: If you genuinely believe that not being able to call a person "crazy" or a "bitch" or a "whore" or any number or slurs is limiting your ability to express yourself, then you are pretty fucking terrible at expressing yourself. There are hundreds of words you can use to express yourself that describe things in a much better way than these historically painful and weighted words that have been used continually to hurt and deride people.
And I'll let someone else handle you equating fictional characters using shitty words with us using shitty words. Here's a tip, free of charge: THEY ARE NOT REAL PEOPLE.
For everyone else: I know word usage is a rough thing to hash out. I fuck it up constantly, especially speaking out loud. You are not an awful person for not knowing these words have a loaded history, and you are not awful for feeling like it's really damn hard to phase them out of your public vocabulary here. (And please note that context: your comments here are public, and that's really the main thing I want people to think about. Would you feel great if your words made someone with clinical depression or bipolar disorder feel like they couldn't comment here?) Even further, I'm personally more interested in rooting out the problematic concepts behind these words, and I think the social justice community can be bizarrely prescriptive about acceptable language.
But even then, I know that there are some things I will never get, and there are some words that will never hurt me like they do other people. So what I am trying to do here is just keep everyone on the same page: we all agree not to say these words so that we can focus on the awesome commentary this community provides, and then we don't have to focus any time on calling people out or feeling awful or feeling marginalized or feeling left out. That's what is important to me.
god it is so late I HAVE TO GET UP IN SIX HOURS internet what are you doing
Dear Sir or Madam,
Please read this thread, as it contains argument after well-reasoned argument about this very topic. If you have something more to add after all that, we will be delighted to hear it.
Sincerely,
A ghostly fucking cow
I am cracking up while looking at that old review, because of the random spammers that have shown up in the interim and left comments about Courtney Cox and David Arquette!
231 comments!!!!!
Oh god that thread was the best thing ever.
It was incredible. I spent an entire day of work obsessively refreshing the thread instead of doing my job. Though…that happens every day at 8 and 3 CST no matter what. It's like "oh, new review? BYE RESPONSIBILITY. TIME FOR MARK."
Urgh spammers; just cleaned it up.
There's a few of them on the Doctor Who posts as well (which I'm currently reading) right at the end of all the comments. Just in case you wanted to know.
There's some on just about every old post. Someone reports a batch of new spam on the Suggestions page every couple days.
It's just new spammers that Akismet hasn't dealt with before. Deleting them triggers the software to look out for them in the future.
STILL COME ON SPAMMERS. Y'ALL ARE AWFUL.
Ooh good to know about the trigger thing.
I think it's funny that there's a constant onslaught on the Mark Reads Suggestions, and almost never Mark Watches. I cleaned up the old Mark Reads posts a while ago. One day I'll get really bored and do Mark Watches.
Now I have "Jesus take the wheel" stuck in my head…
All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.
Edit: So spectralbovine beat me to it (damn that ghostly fucking cow) but I'll keep my comment for the BSG quote.
I approve.
Hi all. I’m actually the original poster, but when I got home I had no Internet, so now I am on my phone. I figured I’d reply all in one place.
I didn’t see that earlier thread before, but I’m also of the opinion that the song lyric is on a different level than my complaint.
I like Mark Watches, which is the only reason I would bring it up. I believe that being selective about who it’s okay to potentially offend is dangerous ground, is all. I am not personally offended, believe it or not.
I spend much of my time online and offline with computer people, who are very often atheists. So to say that atheists are the minority just doesn’t coincide with my actual experience, which probably does color my sensitivities.
So, I’m not a troll. This wasn’t my first post. I’m a fan. I just disagree with this one thing, and find it to be in contrast from the usual vibe of the site.
Frankly, if you were to answer with something like “yeah, I know. I just get excited and I’m not going to worry about it.” I would completely agree.
I just thought it needed to be said, not necessarily that it needed to be changed.
I feel like I may be dragging on here, though.
Jumping in, and then back out because I saw how the last thread went, etc.
"I believe that being selective about who it's okay to potentially offend is dangerous ground, is all."
It's not about offense, though. It's about oppression. Being offensive – saying fuck a lot, possible blaspheming – isn't against the rules, but use of oppressive language/ideas is. Oppression is pretty offensive, but general offensiveness isn't oppressive. So while the way Mark uses the phrases might offend someone, somewhere, it's not oppressing them and it's not in the same vein as the slurs that are against the rules. Does that make sense?
You know what? It does make sense, and it's a distinction I missed while I was reading the other thread on my phone with no regular internet. I will concede that they are not the same thing.
Swear words in general offend some people. But I feel safe in saying that Mark is never ever going to make a general ban on cursing on his sites.
As people have already told you, and as that ATLA thread reiterates over and over, the point is about the oppressive nature of certain words, rather than the offense it causes. Swearing will continue to be allowed on these sites, even if it offends some people (and I do remember at least once a comment getting reported for swear words, so it is an issue for some people).
So let's clarify: you said, "I believe that being selective about who it's okay to potentially offend is dangerous ground, is all."
Well, the selection is already in effect – swear words are allowed (and dare I say encouraged). And things like "Jesus fucking Christ" and "Jesus take the wheel" are also allowed. We already know there's some selection in effect about which offensive things are allowed and which aren't. The dividing line is that we do not allow speech that reinforces oppressive norms. In the background that Mark, most if not all the mods, and most of the commenters are coming from, Christians are not a marginalized group whose rights and very lives are at risk from the majority. That's the line, and that's why while we know some people may still get offended by the content of this site, the rules focus on not marginalizing already oppressed groups, rather than simply avoiding causing offense.
Hopefully that clarifies the vibe of this site, as you put it.
I wanted to reply to you since you replied to me, and your comments are usually one of the few I tend to look for and read when I'm just skimming the comments.
I did miss the point of that thread when I first read it, and I understand now the distinction that was being made. I don't have to agree or disagree with it, I was just looking for the underlying consistency behind it all, and I see that now.
I'm probably oversensitive to such things, for reasons I just won't get into (and probably not anything like what you may be thinking).
I believe that being selective about who it's okay to potentially offend is dangerous ground, is all.
I agree. No matter what you say, someone SOMEWHERE might be offended by it. Which is why "possible offense" is a meaningless distinction to make. Everything is potentially offensive.
Others have already said this, but I will reiterate that it's not about offense, it's about harm. The words that we don't use here cause actual harm to marginalized groups of people, through perpetuating harmful stereotypes or making it seem like it's okay to view those groups as less than human or less than deserving of respect.
Using swears like "Jesus fuck" is not the same thing because it does not do this. Nowhere does it insult, demean, or dehumanize Christians. In fact, I'd argue that the reason people use "Jesus" and "Christ" and "God" in swearing is because those concepts are considered sacred by many, and that's what gives those swears their power. But that's a conversation for a different thread, I think.
I just want to focus in on one part, and explain why I think differently.
"Nowhere does it insult, demean, or dehumanize Christians."
Christians have a commandment that you are not supposed to take the Lord's name in vain, which in modern English means to use "Lord" or "Jesus" or whatever as a swear word. So, it's against their religion, but they do it anyway, and modern Christianity just isn't that strict with a lot of commandments as it is.
However, contrast that with the Islam commandment not to depict Mohammad and other figures in drawing or other visual art. At it's root, it's about making sure the ideas and depiction of important religious remains respected, very similar to the Christian commandment. Yet, not so long ago there were a number of incidents of Western newspapers publishing drawings of Mohammad specifically to flout this commandment. In the end, much of the Muslim world felt offended, insulted, and demeaned.
Obviously the scale is different, as are the political circumstances, but hand-waving away the idea that it can be insulting or demeaning is something I personally don't agree with you on.
I think that the Mohammad point is interesting, but I don't know enough about Islam to really talk about it. But in general, I don't think that not following a commandment of a religion you're not a part of is disrespectful to followers of that religion. If I refuse to honor my father and mother, or keep the Sabbath holy, is that disrespectful to Christians? I don't think so, because I am not a Christian so I am not bound by the Christian commandments. I also don't fast at Ramadan or atone on Yom Kippur. I don't think these things are insulting, because I'm not a part of those religions either. I simply don't understand why Mark or anyone else should stop swearing just because one religion doesn't approve of it.
I want to be very clear that I have no problem with regular swearing. At all.
The problem I was pointing it is using a religious symbol to swear. Here we're invoking the Christian deity AS a swear word, but yet you don't think that religion's morals are relevant at that point?
To pull this out of religious context: most countries have specific rules (sometimes laws) about the proper treatment of their flag. I don't know the rules for other countries, but I do know that if you someone in another country was to have an American flag, and publicly mistreat it (flying upside down, throwing it in the garbage, etc.), it would insult and offend those Americans who care enough to notice (I mean, you know dumb we can be about foreign events, so let's skip over that bit). This is more like that, in my opinion.
This one is more subtle because everyone does it, but there are lots of things that "everyone says" that are right, of course.
(I didn't want to reignite this point, I just think there is a distinction to be made for this particular line of thought.)
Here we're invoking the Christian deity AS a swear word, but yet you don't think that religion's morals are relevant at that point?
No… not really? I mean, I'm not a Christian, so why should it matter what I say about Jesus? I know it might offend some people, but I don't think it harms them in any way. They can go on believing what they believe and I can go on not believing it. I think also there's a distinction to be made that Christianity is the dominant religion in the US to the point that some people want to enshrine it in our constitution, so I really could not care less whether I'm being disrespectful to them. They have the majority and the power on their side.
In addition, the fact that Christianity is so dominant here means that the Christian deity and other symbols have become part of our swearing lexicon. If people started swearing using another religion's symbols, it would stand out, because other religions are not dominant here. It goes back to Christians not being a marginalized group, which is why I don't think you can really compare it with other religions in this case.
Anti-American sentiment doesn't bother me either, because frankly, the US is a bully with a huge ego.
I largely agree with all this and would add that I think the problem with making analogies about this is that you lose the context that not only are Christians in the majority in the background most of us are coming from, but Christians and Christian groups are a main force in oppressing marginalized groups, and will reaffirm the oppression of others while claiming they're the ones being persecuted. (Oblig disclaimer that I'm not saying all Christians and Christian groups do this, just some of them.)
We're really getting even further off topic here, but I'd like to make the claim that nearly groups who get put in a position of power wind up oppressing others. It's not a Christian problem, it's a human one.
The danger is that if you think Christianity, or some other feature of the power group, is actually the root cause of it, then you don't think that you can also be/become that way. But you can. Anyone and everyone can.
"nearly groups" should be "nearly any"
I need to actually sign up for intensedebate so I can edit.
YES. AND POST AWAY. You should join! I am enjoying this conversation.
And yes, it is a part of human nature to bring about these sort of power differentials, but let's also not ignore the theological influence Christianity has in bringing about marginalization either. The system could not oppress without the rationale, and that comes from the Bible itself a lot of the time.
Does that make sense?
And look, same thing I said back in that ATLA: if you are generally hurt or offended to the point of distraction by me saying things, just tell me! I am not so attached to phrases that I am unwilling to stop using them. (You can't stop me from saying "FUCK" or "JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL" though. Just an FYI.)
Just….slurs are not the same as potentially offensive things.
I don't want you to stop, because your emotionally charged writing is obviously one of the main points (and draws) of this project of yours, and I don't want you to feel censored on your own site. Really, I don't.
My main intention was to just put it out there as something to think about it. Sorry it kept you up late.
Apart from the other cogent replies here, you may not intend it to but this :"offensive from anyone, let alone an atheist" strongly implies that atheists should watch our mouths more than other people, which is gross.
I actually wrote an initial version of that post that was better at not implying that, but I lost it when I logged into Twitter to post, and the version you see now was written more hastily.
So my post wasn't supposed to be anti-atheist, and I accept that the fact that it can be read that way is a mistake on my part. On the other hand, I DID mean to imply that it is more offensive from non-Christians than from Christians.
Additionally, I'm not trying to say nobody should be allowed to say those sorts, and I would never want to imply that. I'm trying to say it can be more hurtful or distracting than probably intended.
Here's the deal:
Blasphemy is not oppression.
Christians don't like it. It doesn't insult or demean Christians.
I'll weigh in here, briefly (since I'm like, way way late).
Is rethinking how we use words a difficult thing to do? Shit yes. I slipped and wrote what I found seeming innocuous during the liveblog. I was pissed for a second, then stopped, refocused my thinking, and went "yes. fair point. apologies." And then I moved on. This site is supposed to be a place where marginalized groups are not oppressed, even via language. Again, same point everyone else has made: Slurs =/= oppressive language.
Second point. For lack of a better term, this is Mark's house. Mark can run his house how he wants. If your friend asks you to cease a certain behavior in her house because she finds it oppressive, limiting, offensive, or hell, even aggravating, then you generally abide by the rules and don't question her. For example, If you don't like coasters and your friend asks you to use a coaster, you better use some damn coasters in her house.
I know that comparing coasters with oppressive language is a simplistic and slightly reductionist analogy, but the point remains. This site has certain rules that members should follow. And I admire Mark's (and of course, his moderators') dedication to educating people regarding marginalization.
I'm glad you did weigh in.
I think your coaster example is great, but in the wrong direction. I think what this thread was meant to be about (at least by me) is more like me saying to Mark, as a guest in Mark's house, "You know, you have beautiful furniture. Maybe you should use coasters."
Since, clearly Mark isn't asking me to cease anything (so far), nor am I actually asking him to stop either, which I tried to reiterate in other comments.
I was hoping for a regular discussion, but it's clearly just me vs. everyone else here, which wasn't my intention.
I understand that you feel a bit pounced upon, but continuing with my coaster analogy, if you came into my house and told me that I should start using coasters, I'd be put out too. You don't go to a dinner party and tell someone she should clean up more without expecting a strong reaction.
I understand your intention, I really do. I just hope you also understand the overall point of everyone else here regarding oppressive language.
The scene with Tigh and Adama and Ellen drunk is my favorite scene. I wish I could watch it in an endless loop (before the vomiting of course) and ignore all the wonderfully gut-wrenching things
[youtube yuXd5Qooubk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuXd5Qooubk youtube]
Just wondering if you caught the extended "Islanded in a Steam of Stars" and are going to catch up on the extended "A Disquiet Follows My Soul".
I'm buying the complete series on Blu-Ray tomorrow and WILL BE WATCHING THESE. Which other ones did I miss?
The episodes (and 1 movie) with extended versions are "Pegasus", "Unfinished Business", "Razor", "A Disquiet Follows My Soul", "Islanded in a Stream of Stars" and "Daybreak".
"The Plan" technically has two versions, the full one that came out on DVD/Blu-Ray and the cut-down one that aired on Syfy (three months after the DVD/Blu-Ray release). I think the DVD/Blu-Ray version is more likely to be the one on Netflix, but that shouldn't be an issue if you're seeing it on Blu-Ray anyway.
I know you saw the extended "Pegasus" and you said you would see the extended "Daybreak". It's likely (though I'm not 100%) that the version of "Razor" you saw on Netflix was the extended, since that's the version on iTunes.
Did you see the extended "Daybreak"? The difference is 12-15 more minutes, better camera work in some scenes, and movie-style end credits.
While we're on the subject, you should know for when you start Caprica that there are two versions of the Pilot. The better one is the one that aired, even though the other is the "extended, unrated". All that was cut was some dodgy stuff; there are better shots and revised dialogue.
And while I remember to ask, could you please add Babylon 5 to your list of confirmed shows on the Suggestions page?
I did see the Extended version of "Daybreak"! IT WAS LOVELY. I'll watch the aired version of the Caprica pilot when I get there, and I'll do an update to the Suggestions page this weekend!
<3
Great! Hope you enjoy going back to those other episodes for the extended versions! Maybe tell us after you've seen them?
Okay?
Did my reply get to you?
BALTAR! I love how dorky and out of place he looks in that uniform and that he finally learned selflessness.
The red-sashed Centurians were EVERYTHING I ALWAYS WANTED THANK U SHOW.
Skull & Racetrack's end was very fitting for their characters. I'm happy that their storylines didn't end with the mutiny.
I was glad to see Boomer get redemption – and that she got some good flashback time. (I think us extended episode viewers got a bit more for her?)
I absolutely agree that the "God" Baltar and the Head!People speak of does not necessarily have to be the "God" we think of with that name. Clearly there is some entity out there that knows more than Cylons or humans do and has chosen to orchestrate events. This greater power can be any kind of alien presence. (I personally like to think it's the ultimate evolution of the released cylon centurians but this is Do It Yourself Messiah — pick what works best for you, I think the writers leave it open.)
Head Baltar's last line strongly implies it. A bit creepy, actually.
Is it weird that almost all of my favourite scenes are with Centurions? I loved that one it reminds me a bit of YbgE naq Hehx-unv orvat znexrq gb qvfgvathvfu gurz sebz bgure Bexf , I loved Baltar preaching to the Centurion so much, I adored Centurion helping Ellen out of the hub.
But my favourite is in the next part, when they're running ship by themselves, like Ackattack once said, they look like puppies. Is there a gif somewhere with them poking that gooish stuff btw? I looked everywhere and couldn't find one.
This is not weird and you should FEEL GOOD about your priorities. *g*
Funny confession time…
This was the first episode of Battlestar Galactica I ever watched… Yeah, I had no idea wo anyone was, I just heard the show was good so i tuned in to the next episode on the schedule.
Then i decided to binge on all previous episode in the next three weeks…
You must have been one frakkin' confused puppy.
I thought Boomer was Starbuck for one…
Lol. Grace Park did try out for the part originally.
I cannot fathom anyone other than Katie Sackhoff as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace nor anyone other than Grace Park as Boomer/Eight/Athena Agathon
I, for one, love the idea that in all of us there's a bit of Helo and a bit of Athena.
…I'd take a little bit of Helo in me any day.
(I'M SO SORRY. IT WAS RIGHT THERE!)
I would have been disappointed if you didn't go for it, Ma'am. *salute*
So happy I'm not the only one 🙂 I also wouldn't mind his arms around me.
rimshot
Never apologize for that.
Hey-o.
If she is Mitochondrial Eve, she had at least two daughters.
Why two? Is this something about the actual Mitochondrial Eve people have determined? Or is there some conceptual reason for it I'm missing.
The latter. If she had only one, that daughter would be Mitochondrial Eve. The most recent matrilineal ancestor of everyone alive.
I've been stewing on this for a while, and I think what I decided is that she had to have at least two daughters whose lineages still exist. I was stuck on the idea of why having more than one daughter would logically rule out any of those daughters as being the common matrilineal ancestor, and I figure the only way it works is if she has at least two daughters who continue to have their own female lineage existing to today. What I mean is, if MTE had two daughters, and daughter A's lineage died out, then that would make daughter B MTE, wouldn't it?
So you have to specify that that MTE had at least two daughters who still have existing lineages today. Meaning you're right about the two daughters thing, but there's more to it than that because simply having two daughters does not itself rule out the possibility of either of those daughters becoming the most recent common matrilinear ancestor. That's where I got confused, and that's where I decided to modify a diagram I found to argue my case: (If viewing on the site, you'll have to scroll the image to the right to see the rest)
<img src="http://i42.tinypic.com/2e5oaiu.png">
(hah I erased three people from existence entirely; could have spared the leftmost guy, but I think keeping him would have been confusing.)
Fun thought experiment for me! I'm glad I asked and you answered, and I'm satisfied with your answer and my expansion of it. You may have already known all this and I'm boring and possibly irritating you, but I feel all accomplished and shit for figuring this out so I shall share! (Just let me show my diagram, okay?)
Wait, where is they Centurion in all this?
Um, yes. I was just assuming their lineages (specifically the direct mother-daughter ones) still existed. In any case, Hera had multiple kids and we can safely imagine they were a happy family.
CIC being the opera house was pretty darn awesome, but even at the time I couldn't help but feel a bit let down that the whole vision of everyone running around the opera house, which if you were watching in real time had been building for more than two years by this point, turned out to just be carrying Hera a few feet she could have easily walked herself.
NGL, I thought it was very satisfying to see Jake promoted to First Dog status. He's a freaking war hero for godsake, he deserves it. I am sure he performed his duties with honor and valor.
According to Mark Sheppard, he's the ancestor of all modern dogs.
does that make him Mitochondrial Jake?
Daybreak, Part 2: or, "How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Gaius Baltar"
As I said in response to Part 1 yesterday, it is no secret that I hated Baltar with a passion throughout the entire series. I thought him arrogant and self-centered, and I could find no redeeming qualities to him.
This finale changed all of that. I think, what it comes down to, is what Lee tells him in Part 1 and what he systematically counters through the rest of the show: he stops caring only about Gaius Baltar. You see it in the scenes with his father, where it's clear that he cares about his father even as he causes him so much grief, and GODS, do you see it all through "Daybreak, Part 2."
I never thought Baltar would be a redeemable character for me. Thank you, writers, for proving me completely wrong.
In other news, I TOTALLY LOST MY SHIT when Helo got shot. I must have blocked that part from my mind when watching this the first time two years ago, because when it happened during the liveblog I was taken COMPLETELY BY SURPRISE and started screaming at the computer. This show…
I must say that I have always, in a way, really loved Cavil as a character. He's so delightfully non-human, but in a way that is so obviously a reaction to how he feels about humans. It didn't occur seperately on his own — he is how he is because of his specific distaste for mortal limitations. And you have to admit, it is kind of cruel that he's eternally aged — it's like an extra kick, that not only is he stuck in a limited body, but he's never had a chance at youth, and it was all by DESIGN and intention from someone else. And his sardonic sense of humor just reflects my own a little, heh.
Roslin and Doc Cottle. <3 I love him literally being at a loss for words, and “Just go off and grumble.”
ADMIRAL HOSHI. HELL. YES.
Much as I love Lampkin, is he really the best choice for President?
One last space battle, and my gods. The special effects people must have wanted to go out with a bang.
Oh, Baltar, you’re amazing in this hour. I spent most of it afraid you were going to die, and catching up on Caprica/Baltar shipping. FINALLY doing something selfless, of his own free will, not because Head Six pushed him into it.
“I will?” “You see them?!?” The moment I’ve been waiting for since Downloaded. And it didn’t disappoint. (Also shipping Head!Six/Head!Baltar, btw.)
I wonder if anyone did tell Adama about Boomer’s “last decision” before he flew off? 🙁
When Helo got shot, I just gave up hope for him. I was sure he was going to die, becuase the rescue of Hera had have a heavy price, right? The fact that we didn’t see him for much of the third hour seemed to confirm that.
NGL, I flipped the fuck out when I realized the Opera House scenes began. I love how it’s been built up as being this mystery location, when in reality, it’s the CIC- the room we see all the time. Also, when they got to the part with the Final Five in the glowy white robes up on the balcony, I thought, “Well, that can’t work anymore. For one thing, Anders is…" and then I realized that at that moment, he was up in the balcony of the CIC along with the rest of the Final Five! Even more flipping out.