Diasfora
General Category => TV / Movies => Topic started by: 8ullfrog on January 12, 2019, 05:18:39 PM
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Feel free to move all the battlestar stuff here.
God, tracking down the miniseries was stupid hard. The horrible ads on streaming sites keep getting worse.
Anyway, without watching the miniseries, the first season of Battlestar Galactica will be very confusing. Swatchseries, a particular streaming site, lists the miniseries as episode 0.
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I'll watch the miniseries. It's not clear why the ship that was a cylon had to have ganglia and organic goop. If they can have human form metallic robots running around shooting people on Caprica, why do they have organic flying ships? Why deal with the mess of organic controls. Certainly there's less perishable AI structures that they could have installed.
I'm also mystified by all the goofy religious references by the blonde cylon. And the relationship between Gaius and the cylons is also strange. Is there one living in his head somehow or invisible to everyone but him? I don't get it. She sure is annoying. I mean I know guys like sex, but this is a bit much. I'd have told her to get lost a long time ago.
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Think of robots. Think of fighter aircraft. Now think of Cavalry. Now think of Horses.
Yes, they made robot horses. In the first Cylon/Colonial war, the cylons did things old school. Two robots flying around in a fighter. Those are your frisbee shaped colonial raiders from either old BSG, or the first war.
Now strip that down. You've got scarce resources out in the ass end of nowhere space. You're playing unit 731 on the captured human forces, and in fact, have freaked out over it so bad, you've abandoned the genocide of Humanity, that was going pretty well so far.
So you cut back. The fighters get turned into horses, so to speak. They get their own brains, to go up against the human fighter pilots. And like other cylon units, when destroyed, their consciousness is downloaded into a new model.
This essentially breeds a fighter pilot that cannot die. Now imagine how PISSED that Cylon raider is that Starbuck is flying around in his/her/it's lobotomized corpse. Enough to start a grudge, eh?
BSG doesn't go meaty too often, but when it does, yeah, nightmares.
Fun fact I don't think gets mentioned in series, human form cylons have haptic interfaces in their hands. So they dip their hands into interface pools on Cylon Basestars. They also have a neat VR world that won't be shown for a long time, but was super cool. Imagine if your daydreams could be overlaid on reality. Like instead of sitting in a DMV, you're in a beautiful forest. I envy the Cylons sometimes.
Colonial Religion is mostly Greek Polytheist. Being a Monotheist is not only illegal, but your neighbor might jam a bbq fork in your neck if they find out you don't follow the pantheon. It gets rough.
One of the few GOOD uses of religion in BSG is in the miniseries, when Starbuck the bottom drunk, pulls out her icons and prays for the friends she has lost that day. Like that's a hell of a scene. Rarely topped, and it's a tiny moment.
Head Six believes in God. The Cylons believe in God. Baltar is an Athiest. Head six can slam his head into the mirror in the mens bathroom. Imagine how well their relationship functions.
Now, neither Gaius nor Six ever mention this, but when she was pretending to be a defense lobbyist with coding skills, He did not bother remembering her name. Like at all.
The Miniseries sets up head six a bit better, but yes. He sees her. No one else does. Yes it will be explained, but not for a long ass time.
As to WHY the religious stuff? RDM was a star trek fan. He submitted a script to paramount back when that was allowed. They were so impressed, they brought him aboard as a lead writer.
And he wrote the finest cliffhanger TNG ever had, Best of Both Worlds, Pt. 1.
Then he basically ran DS9. Which is funny, because if you watch BSG, and then DS9, DS9 looks like a comedy with brightly painted clowns.
Then Voyager happened. Voyager was supposed to be RDM's baby, he was supposed to have carte blanche. Then Berman bent it all up.
I mean the voyager he pitched sounded fun as hell, and it's obviously BSG. But it didn't happen. He quit and walked away.
Why? He didn't want resets. Things don't get cleaned up between episodes. Col. Tigh explains after the miniseries how their ship has no business flying lead, and needs six months in drydock, minimum.
(pssst, they never get that drydock time)
Rick Berman, in case you didn't know, Was Gene Roddenberry's lawyer, and is a vampire, IRL. He ruled over Star Trek with an Iron Fist until CBS took it away and gave it to JJ. Now that's dead.
As to Star Trek Discovery? Gross. Just gross. There was a joke in the 1970's about Ensign Mary Sue, who was 16, and saved the day. On STD? She's back! But this time she's named Tilly! And she's the first person to say golly on star trek!
Yes they made that a plot point in modern star trek. Enjoy Galactica, while you can. They just rebooted buffy, and have been threatening to reboot BSG AGAIN since it's been off air.
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The miniseries was helpful and I did not know about that site, so thank you for that. It helps explain why some people are where they are, but not why blondie is still annoying the Gaius character. He's a smarmy piece of work. And is that a fake British accent? It sure sounds like one.
What's up with that little "are you alive? prove it" business with the diplomatic meeting at the beginning. That goes nowhere with zero further explanation. Are we supposed to get something out of that? The man is sitting at a table, presumably, with photos of his wife and kids yet he lets this nasty piece of work make out with him. I notice that he is there without armed guards while she is. That's hardly diplomatic.
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That dude is a burn out officer who has stood a post that no one gave a poo about for 40 years. He might as well be part of the furniture. I mean from a writers prospective. From a viewers perspective, yeah, it's REAL WEIRD. Poor sucker doesn't even get a name, he's "Armistace Officer". Not even his creator gave enough of a poo about him to name him.
Six's primary missions are seduction and subversion. She was just making a game of it. Essentially, she's blowing the whistle before kickoff of the game.
I don't think he really had time to figure out why the hell this blonde lady just showed up with cylons and is molesting his face before the station goes boom.
I do agree that's a really frakking stupid waste of assets. The cylons never gave a poo about the armistice station, but they're wasting at least three cylons and moving an entire Basestar into enemy territory BEFORE hostilities to fire one torpedo on the reactor... for shits and giggles?
Oh, and his son is in the miniseries too, but I don't think they bothered explaining it in the plot. The kid just mentions his dad is in the colonial fleet.
I think it's meant to come off as mysterious or spiritual, but instead, you're right. The scene is dumb. The shuttle docking was pretty cool though. RCS thrusters going pif-pif are always fun.
I think the torpedo to the fusion reactor of the station was a bit more undiplomatic than the bodyguards.
The basestars are freaking beautiful though. I got to sit on one at comicon, they had it set up like a giant bench.
As to James Callis, he likes to pretend he is an American doing a fake british accent, but he is from Ol' Blighty. He went to school on the mean streets of London.
As to Gaius particular affectation, good catch. He speaks that way to make himself seem more sophisticated. Like that's an INSANELY good catch you made. I never noticed it until it became a plot point extremely later on. If you get that far, I think it may actually be your favorite scene.
On a lighter note, Tony Scott once wrote the navy a $25,000 check to keep an aircraft carrier on a course that kept the sunset on the fighter jets so they would look cooler.
As to nastiest bottom cylon, I'd probably say... crap, spoilers. But it's pretty horrific when you get there.
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8ully, I hope you will take these remarks with a grain of salt/humor, as there is nothing personal about you implied in any criticism. I watch these very late at night with half a brain awake, usually while playing Tetris, so if I'm missing something, please let me know.
So, I'm in Episode 11 of Season 1 and they are having this political intrigue with ex-terrorist prisoner Zarick out and at some luxury ship heavily lobbying for position of vice president of the whatever this governmental body is called, and I'm like, wtf? Weren't they trying to get to earth or somewhere where they would have food, water and a cylon free environment? Last couple episodes they were desperate for water and fuel, but now they get all dressed up like we're on an episode of B version of a hybridization of The Office and West Wing.
Evil robots blow up most of humanity and the few who do barely escape to these antiquated ships with the clothes on their backs, but somehow they magically are able to get this luxury star ship set up like a vacation spa/conference center and people are able to dress like they're on their lunch hour at an office park? Huh? Where did they get all those clothes? And who wears high heels on a battleship? This is way stupid and barely believable.
And Gaius. Whoa. If that's what passes for "brilliant scientist" in the future, no wonder they're all in trouble. I have a toaster that's smarter than that guy, and it doesn't even work all that well.
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Not offended in the slightest, a lot of the stuff IS stupid.
But I'll jump right in here.
As things are, they essentially took whatever planes were in the air. That's how the secretary of Education became the President. For instance, in the miniseries the pilot squawks "Colonial 798 Heavy" - his call sign, then says "Scratch that, this is Colonial One".
The one unifying factor in the fleet ships is that they have the FTL jump drive. They actually left half of the survivors behind to die in the miniseries, there wasn't even time to move the survivors to other ships. The botanical ship in particular, is used to illustrate how dark the show is. Even worse? There's another ship that is the same model... but it has an FTL drive. Dark.
Hell, as they're spooling up the FTL drives, you can hear the frantic radio calls from ships begging them to come back for them after the danger passes. It won't, and they know it, but they are begging. The very last radio call is an angry lady saying she hopes the fleet that is jumping away will rot in hell.
Galactica was being decommissioned, so they turned off Windows Military Update. So they were immune from the remote shutdown command the cylons used. It's not a Virus, they used a backdoor admin account.
Civilian ships don't get Windows Military update, so anything in the skies was still in the skies.
Politics are a huge part of the Colonial Identity, second only to Religion. It's so important, Roslin won that argument in the miniseries with Adama about how he'll make the military decisions, and she'll make the civilian ones. This is actually a departure from the President being the commander in chief of the military, and it goes to show that Adama can bend. I believe in a later episode, he mentions that using the military as police officers is an extremely dangerous act. Here's the quote:
Zarek is a cockroach, and will exploit anything that gains him more power. He's already got his goon squad of Prisoners, who must have all sorts of criminal education, and have the additional benefit of being completely disposable. When his extremely loyal people get shot, he shrugs and moves on. Hell, the sniper in this episode was thrown away to add Sizzle to the election! Zarek didn't even want Roslin dead, he just wanted everyone to freak out right at vote time.
He's riding a MASSIVE wave of popularity. He's just expended a crapload of workers to deliver Water back to the fleet. Ice mining, we are told, is extremely dangerous in space. We may have lost the Colonial version of Harry Stamper! Plus he's washing their criminal history with that points system. Suggested by the way, by Apollo.
Plus they don't want to pay taxes, ever. Meh, I made that last one up, but it's funny.
His next play is noticing that people are still living like the old days, Rich people move to the more luxurious ships, poor people get sent to the Demetrius, the poop processing ship. Or the cigarette factory ship. Galactica is an Antique, but Cloud 9 is the height of luxury. Apollo even gets to go swimming! I think. Maybe he just wanted to? He talked to starbuck about it anyway.
But Zarek sees opportunity for political strife. You paid that bartender $3 for that smoking martini? What's that money worth without a central bank backing it? Why is the bartender still wearing his uniform and showing up to work when he isn't getting paid? Zarek doesn't have ANSWERS to these questions, but he'll sure as poo use them for political capitol. We learn time and again, Zarek has absolutely no plans for the future, but he really, really wants more power.
Earth is at this point, a pipe dream that both Adama and Roslin are using to keep people moving so they don't just give up. Adama doesn't even believe it exists! Roslin KNOWS earth doesn't exist, and uses it to bargain with Adama. She does hope it exists though, since that whole dying leader bringing the people to earth prophecy from their bible sure does fit nicely with her terminal cancer diagnosis. And the drugs she's smoking to get visions. Yeah... maybe elections ARE a good idea.
So they're stocked up on water, food supplies exist... that's a long term problem they face. In one episode, when walking through a meat locker, the chief points out that they may be walking through the last steaks, ever.
As to all getting dressed up, I'm pretty sure Billy explained they bought luggage in lots, so Roslin goes from having One suit to Three. She's actually pretty jazzed about it.
As to weird ships, a fan favorite is the Zephyr, that spinny wheel ship. I don't think anyone ever goes over there, but it's pretty and memorable.
https://galactica.fandom.com/wiki/Zephyr
Huh, the Zephyr was a cruise liner. I did not know that. Plus Apollo could go swimming on it.
Other notable ships that show up include Serenity from Firefly in a blink or you'll miss it cameo in the Pilot (When Roslin learns she has terminal cancer) The friggin Kirk Enterprise (Can be seen in the credits) And the Planet express from Futurama (Miniseries at Ragnar Anchorage, Zarek steals it later on. There are actually three ships of this class)
Holy poo, I just NOW, all these years later realized the Astral Queen is literally Con Air. Does that make Tom Zarek John Malkovich?
Gaius is a legitimate genius, but they try to toss him at every science problem. What the hell does a Cyberneticist and Computer Networking expert know about Genetic Screening?
And his stupid frakkin backpack nuclear powered Cylon detector WORKS. But it is the idiot ball to end all idiot balls. On Midway, the nukes were guarded by a freakin' pillbox in front of the hatch. Cylon detector just chills in a science lab.
The reason Baltar stumbles and bumbles is because James Callis noticed how everyone walked around in a stiff military professional gait, and decided not to do that.
Plus he's a domestic abuse victim... by a ghost. Like he'll be trying to hold a discussion on fleet resource management, and she'll shove her hand down his pants, or he'll scoff at her religion and get his face bashed into a mirror. (I believe that happened in the episode you just watched).
Hell, during the hands down pants incident, he screams "NO!" and Billy makes a joke about him looking a little flushed. And she will do way worse as time goes on. I agree with you, Six is a nasty person.
There is an episode later on about how a black market springs up so that people can continue to dress like they're on their lunch hour at an office park. Hint: Not everyone gives up those clothes willingly. Sizing, obviously would be an issue.
A somewhat more amusing one is that people on vacation are stuck in vacation clothes. Imagine you get assigned to the poop ship, and you're wearing a hawaiian shirt, bathing suit, and flip flops. That would SUCK!
As to the military, if you ever get a chance to visit the Midway in San Diego, do it. They make clothes aboard ship, have a whole department for it. Right next to the Dentist's office.
As for the heels, well, it was a decommissioning ceremony. Everyone was spiffed up. Totally agree it would suck to walk on grating in heels. Holy crap would that suck.
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Thanks for the explanation. I was confused as to how the various ships got set up. Initially I figured that Galactica was the only substantial ship that didn't have the networking capacity that enabled the large problem caused by the cylon hacking.
That there were civilian ships not affected makes more sense. It explains the oddity of a luxury liner floating in the sky. One little oddity that sort of raised my attention was the annoying drunken wife of the second in command (the old bald guy who is a long standing friend of Adama) who may/may not be a cylon, is quite keen on a getaway vacation with her dull bald husband. I suspect she's probably a cylon who has a swap/substitution plot dreamed up in which she gets a cylon lookalike to replace #2 guy. Why Gaius won't spill the beans about who is/isn't a cylon is another odd aspect of his character. If blondie is a figment of his imagination then he's a sick deluded and dangerous guy. I've yet to see any evidence of his genius. He's sort of tired and predictable. The kind of good looking guy just on the cusp of going to seed. He's supposed to be very handsome. I just see "twit." Maybe they should come up with some special glasses for viewing to eliminate the heavy twit factor in the series. That would help a good deal.
I find many of the characters annoying. Make that most of them. The one conflicted cylon who just shot Adama and whose counterpart is pregnant (?) on Caprica is sort of interesting. (My memory has gone to hell due to sleep deprivation). The President is such a twit that she begs to be hit in the face with a cream pie every 30 seconds. And the oddball pagan religion, hail Artemis or whatever, that sends Starbuck to nice radioactive Caprica (great place to be pregnant, too, now that I think of it--how are the humanoid cylons immune to ionizing radiation? eh?) to pluck Apollo's arrow from his hand so they can find earth (how? is it magnetic and automatically points to it like a celestial compass?) while getting into a fist fight with blondie #6 (a good deal tougher than she looks, really). That whole train of thought suggests that the President in addition to being utterly annoyingly self righteous, is a complete moron. Wasn't she in Dances with Wolves (I didn't see that, but I think she's somehow in there with Kevin Costner)? There's nothing quite like sending the best fighter pilot in the fleet on a futile mission that will help leave the lot of them nearly defenseless. And after blondie gets shot what's with the cylons stealing their ship back? If there's cylons around why aren't they busy just trying to kill the humans rather than riding off in the ship? Around here they have electric scooters that you rent in 15 minute intervals and you leave them at your destination. They have internal GPS tracking so the company can cue potential customers into the location of nearby scooters. Maybe the ship was like that? Cylon comes along, needs a ride, sees the ship, gets in and takes off. Sorry, Starbuck.
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so so much to unpack here.
Ellen Tigh is not a very likable person, she's an officer's wife, which is totally a real thing, where they think their husband's job entitles THEM to respect and honors.
She also drives Saul Tigh into his worst behaviors. He wasn't always a bitter old drunk, he was one of the finest officers the colonial fleet ever had... and then he met Ellen.
In a deleted scene, he's kicked out of the fleet, douses himself in kerosene, and holds his lighter in his hand. Then the Shore Patrol show up, and reinstate him into the colonial fleet. Courtesy of Commander Adama. That's how healthy Saul's relationship with Ellen is. He burns out her eye in a photograph in the miniseries.
Gaius doesn't know much about the cylons. When he accused the Public affairs guy, Aaron Doral of planting the cylon router in galactica's CIC, he was lying. He was right, but was lying. I was super amused that the cylon router looked a lot like the contemporary Airport Extreme router from Apple. Nowadays they look like power bricks.
So he possibly marooned an innocent guy to save his own ass. I never said Gaius was a good person, but he is an interesting character. He does NOT know who is/isn't a cylon, which is funny as poo, because he built the cylon detector, and it works. He tells Sharon Valeri she's human because he realizes she can reach across the desk and snap his neck like a freakin twig.
So he can't out them. Well he could out the sixes, but then the fleet would REALLY like to know how he knows what a cylon looks like.
The fleet now knows 4 models. Sharon Valeri, Model #8. Shelly Godfrey (or caprica six, or natasi ((novelization)) ) #6, and Aaron Doral, Model #5
Oh, and the one Adama identified and killed with a friggin flashlight, #2, Leoben Connoy. Another Leoben was found in episode 8, and accused Bill Adama of being a cylon. Which would also make Lee Adama, his son a Cylon.
as to Sharon she got cylon updated to shoot him in the gut after shaking his hand. Really tragic? She loved the old man and would never have chosen to do that. He made her a division officer even though she wasn't a very good pilot. She was as shocked as everyone else after she pulled that trigger.
So, 4/12.
Was Leoben telling the truth? Adama did make a pretty damning speech against humanity in the miniseries, when he said that you can't wash your hands of the things you have done, and asked if Humanity deserved to survive, after what they've done. Lee hasn't engaged in any particularly calculator like activity, and in fact has been a pretty good officer. He even opposed the Coup against the President!
Head six, I really don't want to ruin it for you, but Gaius schedules weekly cat scans, and Galactica's CMO keeps canceling them, telling him he's a frakkin' bottom hypochondriac. He also chain smokes like a lunatic. Doc Cottle was always awesome, and apparently is a hell of a doctor.
Gaius is also a twit. One of Starbuck's greatest regrets is that she slept with him. Further puncturing his ego, she called out Lee's name.
So you like Sharon. That's cool, she's an awesome and tragic Character! Boomer was the one on the old rust bucket, so I'll just refer to her as Boomer in future.
Sharon was assigned to seduce and sleep with Karl Agathon (Helo) She did very well at both, but peskily fell in love with him. Boomer on the other hand, is used like a cheap watch. One of the other cylons makes her dance around like a ballerina later. To amuse himself.
I went from liking Laura Roslin (Madam President) very much at the beginning, to slowly outright hating the crazy madam.
As to the path to earth, Arrow of apollo, It's legit. Not saying "The gods did it" but they are walking down a set path. The greek pantheon thing is the dominating religion of the 12 colonies, the Cylons are Monotheist.
The rationalle for the Military Mutiny against the President is that she broke the deal in the miniseries, exactly how you described. She suborned an EXTREMELY important officer (Kara trains the new pilots, Lee is more the boss for the already trained) Extremely important military equipment (The captured Cylon Raider) and sent her off on a mission that could kill everyone - (Go back to Cylon Occupied Caprica, break into museum, bring back cultural artifact with no apparent signifigance)
I believe the actual scripture is that the arrow of apollo will lead the way to earth. Season 2 will explain that fairly quickly, We got to wait a year between seasons. Six must be a shitty fighter, because cylons are significantly stronger than humans. That being said, Yeah, that fight scene was AMAZING, and someone finally kicked Starbuck's ass!
As to Sharon stealing the raider? Well like you said, an irradiated planet is nowhere you want to gestate, let alone deliver a baby, and she's switched sides. I guess you didn't pick up on the fact it was her? As for the tracking, the raider has been lobotomized by Kara.
My favorite lines in that episode are when Sharon tries to bring up memories of flight school and being hold hair back buddies with starbuck about puking up seafood, and Kara shuts her down flat. Sharon isn't Boomer, even with the memories. They're not friends, at all.
So to get back at her, Sharon steals the Raider and flies off to who knows where?
Then Kara says "madam stole my ride".
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This helps to clarify many things. I forget names so easily when I'm watching at night. Yes. I was referring to Saul Tigh's awful drunken wife. He pours out the last of his booze, sobers up, gets straight and then Adam-a shows up with the wife who was believed dead but mysteriously shows up on another ship. How? The whole thing's suspicious. She flirts with everybody, cuckolding her husband, cozies up to the Zarick character who is attempting to become Vice President, etc. and then makes suspicious suggestions that her hubby and she take a break, with expectations that with Adama out of the way, Saul will become big and important, further increasing her own status. She's an awful piece of work. Parasitic, manipulative. Compared to Six, she's really just an amateur, though.
Sharon/Boomer is written as sympathetic. I was sort of perplexed by the attempted assassination of Adama who was nothing but kind and supportive of her. Cylons would explain that. Where is Sharon going with the ship? There's already a model of her running about on Galactica, so that's going to be a logistical problem, particularly if she shows up preggers, given there's supposed to be no such dalliances among the crew, right? The odd Gaius visions of his and six's progeny in a white crib were just bizarre. So one final point to be discussed later is why would humanoid robots want to attempt to breed with the humans they feel they're superior to and have recently tried to exterminate?
I'll just wait and see on Gaius. Six's religiosity is annoying. She should be banging on doors and handing out pamphlets like the Jehovah's witnesses. And the President did start out being reasonable and a model of good governance but now she's just irritating and overreaching in her destructive decisions. I guess the anti cancer drugs she's taking have addled her brain. She's got 6 months so, what, another season of her new age nonsense? Hard to say.
I've never been to San Diego and there is so much good architecture there. It would be a great place to spend a week. I'm just getting ready for another grueling semester so I won't be going any where fun for a while.
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I don't think the series ever hides the fact that the cylons flat out delivered Ellen to the fleet. Seriously, even the episode supported that assumption. So even the cylons hate Ellen Tigh.
As to Sharon, well, she doesn't know boomer is the most infamous pilot in the fleet. As far as she knows, boomer is just a shitty pilot she needs to kill and drop down an elevator shaft. As to Helo, well she loves him, but he shot her.
Fun or not so fun fact, this is what fans think happened to boxey, that kid from the pilot. Boomer dropped him down an elevator shaft when he saw something that he shouldn't have.
In reality, a subplot with Chief, Boomer, and Boxey were supposed to form a family. Oh, and boxey was gonna be a sneak thief. Instead, he never shows up again, despite being on the last shuttle off Caprica. They had to tighten things up, and he ended up on the cutting room floor.
Now, more importantly, Colonial Harry Stamper and his Rock Hounds! (This never happened on the show)
Tylium mining is even more dangerous than the events of Armageddon, and I could totally see one of the crew (it would be AJ) frakking up a drill, causing a shipping emergency in the space lanes. Boom, everyone is in prison, Harry can't even visit his daughter. The hard part here is writing her survival in.
So Harry has to make a deal with the devil - Tom Zarek, to ever see his daughter again. Does he want to wipe Tom Zarek's smug face down a boring drill? Sure. Will he have the opportunity? I'm not that good a writer!
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Why wouldn't the cylons simply kill Ellen rather than deliver her to a ship?
The whole problem of AI and how it would develop desires, opinions, and aims that are different than those of the creators of the robots is a broad open question that is never adequately explained. The second season intro says, "They were created, evolved (what's up with that?), and then decided to rebel." I know this is a frequent trope in sci-fi, but really, it's about time somebody devoted some serious thought to the problem in fiction.
And the background music? It varies from syrupy Zamfir pan flute stuff to bongos on a caffeine high. Heavy handed does not even begin to describe it.
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Japanese taiko drums. That's an actual orchestra you hear, they even toured during and after the show. There are some repetitive themes, I can't honestly tell the difference between "The shape of things to come" and "passacaglia". The composer WAS told to stop aping star trek at the end of the first season.
As to evolution The Cylons went from looking like chrome plate armor to the tall, as you called em "gun hand" ones. And of course, the human form ones. The cylons were never meant to be AI, and weren't supposed to think for themselves. The guy who built the first cylon unit couldn't get the brain to work, so he used a scan of his dead teenage daughters brain. So it's all his fault.
I'm not 100% clear on how much they've discussed resurrection at this point, and don't want to spoil it.
Colonel Tigh is absolutely poo at diplomacy, but he's an extremely competent tactician in war. Ellen makes him a drunk moron, softening the fleet right before the KO when they shot Adama.
Tigh is now in command of the military side of the fleet and is about to launch a coup against the civilian government. He was drying up, like you said, but Ellen has him crawling back into the bottle, prompting future exploitable mistakes.
Plus, they've killed like 50 billion humans so far, they can afford to play sadistic games at this point. That's one of the weaknesses of the cylons, their absolutely nasty temperament.
Which they of course inherited from their parents.
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- - As to BATTLESTARMAGEDDON, I can't find anything that explains the heinous poo that one guy did. The ex wife tells him he can't be around the kid and he hands her a space shuttle, but they never tell us! Baltar is becoming very sinister in the outline, he mocks buscemi's rubiks cube solving as a parlour trick, and they have no business (INSERT WHY THEY'RE OUT OF PRISON HERE)
There is no outright armageddon wiki, like there is for BSG, so I don't really know where to go from here, and I don't own a copy of the movie. I did have the soundtrack, but it was stolen by my cousin, who steals small things because she's a madam.
I did figure out how to save Grace. She's on that last shuttle from Caprica. She was out camping when the bombs dropped, blah blah.
Oh, there IS a wiki about everyone who dies in the movie. WEIRD poo YO.
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In the last episode, Adama wakes up and sits with Tigh who has screwed things up royally. The President was jailed for good reason, but she has not gotten over her annoying self righteous indignation. She needs somebody to hit her in the face with a pie every minute she's still alive. Why Adama's son is such a supporter is god's own mystery.
They kill the female cyclon who shot Adama. Sharon? I need a scorecard to keep these guys straight. Gaius' behavior continues to puzzle me. He weasels out of her that there are 8 other cylons, on the ship? where? by threatening to kill the guy she has feelings for. Why does he not admit that he can detect cylons?
Another thing that I find odd is the disorganized mess of Caprica. Starbuck and what's his name are hanging in her artist pad, get in her car and then encounter a troop of human marines who after a brief period of distrust take them back to camp and treat them to a basketball game. I don't know a great deal about ionizing radiation, but if you explode bombs that are enough to exterminate most humans on a planet, the residual radiation that would remain, based on the half life of that toxic radioactive residue isn't, to my understanding, something you can will away with the occasional injected drug. It's a question of cellular damage due to the decaying unstable radiation that causes cancers, nausea, and other nasty effects. I'm thinking of Chernobyl and the surrounding areas that may have wildlife and plants, but the humans who lived there were forced to abandon their homes, permanently. And that was just from the fallout from an accidental release of radioactivity in a controlled situation (a powerplant).
But, hell no, not here. The humans are able to play basketball, smoke cigars and listen to music with hostile evil robots wandering about, looking for more humans to exterminate. Logic is clearly not a strong point among the screen writers on this show.
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eh, it's kind of like how in star trek, the doctor always has the exact right medicine and dosage in his hypo-spray.
As to Tigh's screwup, it was essentially the Boston Massacre. No one knows who fired the first shot, but the outcome is bad either way. Lee Backed Roslin because he's big on rule of law. Roslin is the President, He's been her Military Liason since the miniseries. He's essentially the friggin Joint Chiefs of staff AND Galactica CAG. When does he sleep?
You may notice that Bill Adama was nastiest to Lee whenever talking about the president. And Lee didn't like his father too much to begin with. He (Lee) was actually going to resign his commission after Galactica was decommissioned. This cut scene actually got restored in the RAZOR film. (It was cut for time in the miniseries)
Roslin never gets over herself. She gets worse.
Sharon "Boomer" Valeri is the programmed identity of the Eight originally stationed on Galactica. She was Frakkin' the Chief but made occasional googoo eyes at her ECO officer, Helo.
The Eight on Caprica assumed the same identity, but at this point, she's just Sharon. She's Frakkin' Helo, but he shot her recently, so she's off reassessing her priorities. Stole Starbuck's ride.
Baltar previously convinced Boomer to kill herself, but her programming turned the gun, and she just blew her cheek out. That's why she's got that patch on her face. Under interrogation, she revealed that there are eight more human model cylons IN THE FLEET. Not Galactica, that would be stretching things. I think at this point there are 130 ships. Guess how willing ANY of those captains are to have armed marines rousting everyone aboard? A Cylon blood detector isn't much use when you can't find the frakkers for the blood test!
Cally is a deck hand on galactica, she's mad the Chief is Frakkin' Boomer, and not her. So it's Jack Ruby time! Cally is horrible.
Back on Caprica, Starbuck and Helo go to her apartment for supplies, and her ride. They encounter a SPORTS TEAM that has been scavenging for supplies among the wreckage. The SPORTS TEAM is alive because they were doing high altitude sports ball training for a game on another colony (planet)
This is a real thing, teams from low altitudes undergo adjustment training before playing places like Denver. They got guns from dead people, or maybe they were gun nuts before the apocalypse. It's startlingly easy to get your hands on even a sub-machinegun in the colonies, gun control must not be important to them. Or maybe they raided that farm from Hot Fuzz!
One of the reasons they're still on planet is that the Delphi airstrip is fully occupied by cylons, so they won't be getting their hands on an FTL capable ship. Once again, great job Starbuck.
The stupid sports team and stupid starbuck bond over their shared love of the stupid sport. She was going to go into sports, but her mom made her join the military instead. (Her mom is pretty dang horrible, it's gone into in a much later episode)
One thing I found alarming is that the latest cache of anti-radiation magic meds were scavved from a HIGH SCHOOL. So Nuclear war was EXPECTED in the colonies.
As to Starbuck picking up her Walkman with the tape of music her dad left her... Well poo, if you lost everything, then had a chance to snatch a bit of it back, wouldn't you?
SPORTS TEAM expect to die, and just want to blow up as many robots as possible before they go. Starbuck is totally down with this. Even though she's supposed to bring that arrow back... about a week ago now.
Helo wants to find Sharon, and get the hell out of the irradiated wasteland these lunatics want to play in. He is so over this poo.
One thing I read, no clue if it's true or not, but Bottled beer would still be safe to drink after the bomb. Not even skunked.
But yes, the SPORTS TEAM are morons. They and Starbuck deserve each other.
I'm not sure how many rads colonial nukes put out. The cylons move back into the cities, and the buildings look pretty freakin' intact. Maybe they were Neutron bombs? ( I know actual neutron bombs don't work like they are popularly percieved, but Delphi was surprisingly intact for a city that got nuked)
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It wasn't clear if they were a sports team or marines. They determined that they weren't cylons by asking them about how a game was scored and what plays won it for them. Then they go on to the court.
It just seemed like a group of script writers who didn't know what to do next. Sports are popular. Let's work in some sports. Everybody likes sports. And I'm thinking there are murderous robots running around and radiation, so why aren't clumps of their hair falling out and why are they making so much noise? I'd be more paranoid and more careful in their place as well as plotting how the hell to get out of there asap. But that's just me.
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Yeah, turns out Six actually liked going to sports games, so that was dumb. I feel bad for Michael Trucco, he shows up here as a foil between a possible relationship between Lee and Starbuck. Then on Castle, they brought him in as a foil between a possible relationship between Beckett and Castle.
Castle, that was a creepy damn' premise, but Nathan Fillion is so charming. They really should have made him a serial killer like on buffy, or Angela Lansbury on Murder She Wrote.
Sports team aren't planning to get off planet, they plan to take as many cylons with them as possible. They're super dumb.
Funny thing is, I really like the next arc. I still hate the sports team. Nothing on Cylon occupied Caprica was worth the trip. Except Helo.
Funny thing, he wasn't meant to be revisited. The last time we were supposed to see him was when Boomer lifted off. That was really supposed to be the end for Caprica.
An NBC Universal exec tracked down RDM (Show boss of BSG) and asked what was goin' on. When RDM told him Helo was dead, he strongly implied the budget for the show was dependent on Helo not being dead.
So it's entirely possible everything you hate right now was because of that nameless suit.
Besides, Bill Adama preferred a different team.
I know the nuke thing is bothering you, but seriously, it's magic meds. Plenty of shows pull that poo.
As to them making enough noise to bring the heat down on them... well...
[Reply happened while posting]
Well yeah, the fleshy cylons WERE designed for infiltration and sex, hence human form. ONE we haven't met yet bitches about it constantly. Like in a teenage "I didn't ask to be born!" kind of way.
If it makes you feel better, there were cylon tanks that just had that red visor thing to distinguish them from contemporary tanks. Oh, and the Nanny bots absolutely shredded children in blenders and crap. Dunno if the blenders were cylons, that's kinda inching towards Michael bay Transformer insanity, what with the mountain dew vending machine decepticon, or the Xbox 360 decepticon.
I'm surprised neither of you complained about the glowy spine sex, that was a huge complaint during the series, to the point the producers ass pulled an "It was meant to be illustrative, not literal" explanation.
I just realized another reason Starbuck is a selfish madam. The Cylon FTL's are supposedly better than the colonial ones, they could just use it to plot the jumps and punch it into the shitty colonial FTL manually, drastically extending their range. This is never done in the series.
It's kinda like how Tony Stark is horribly wasted flying around in stupid armor punching things with the Avengers, when his greatest weapon is clearly his mind.
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Magic radiation medicine is a trope that reappears in other apocalyptic series, most recently, The 100, where young people on a ship are sent to Earth which is supposed to be highly radioactive, although somehow they manage to deal with it, except for weird acid rain storms. They have evolved beyond the effects of ionizing radiation. How? Your guess is as good as mine. That doesn't mean it's excused as a physical impossibility. The FTL drives? I have no idea what they are. They seem to take the leap into hyperspace like the Millenial Falcon or something. FTL is a nice acronym that nobody bothers to explain. Like of course we all know what that stands for, so we won't bother to tell you. It's kind of like California street signs. You're driving and get lost and there's only the names of streets that you are crossing, never the one you're on, so you can drive for miles saying, "where the hell am I?"
Red radiating spines during sex seem sort of odd in that they ignore where blood really does concentrate during sex. The spine ain't it although I guess it was easy for the special effects guys to layer on red over the naked spine of the actress for emphasis. Like hot robot sex. Funny, chrisT's observations about the lack of necessity to design anthropomorphic robots are spot on, but I guess realistic asymmetrical robots that are well designed for function don't make such good tv.
I took a philosophy of mind course one summer and most of the other students were computer science people. The question of where consciousness arises and how was central to the course. I had another professor in a phenomenology course who insisted that the integral relationship between body and mind rendered the prospect of realistic AI well nigh impossible. Unless you come up with computers that are so close to synthetic humans to make the jump. I guess that's what Philip K. D ick and other writers who deal with the subject in stories like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep were getting at. But the replicants were essentially organic, with body parts grown in vats, giving rise to creatures that mimicked humans both in terms of memory and emotion. I suspect that's what happens with the more sympathetic characters among the cylon AI number series.
I just finished the episode where Adama decides to go bring his people together by going to help out the President find the tomb of Athena (Artemis?). Gak. I forgot to lay by a store of ipecac for the episode.
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Aw, I liked the tension in the episode, and the debt of blood being proven true again. The fact that a Cylon understands their scripture better than they do is an interesting point.
I also like the mystery of the planetarium.
Specifically, their scripture says anyone who lands on kobol has to pay a debt of blood. When the raptor went down... well you remember. Then when everyone joined the scavenger hunt, one stepped on a mine, fulfilling the prophecy. I mean yeah, in both cases more people died, and it had more to do with screaming instead of talking things out, but zareks goons are more plentiful than redshirts on star trek.
They really should have accidentally'd Zarek for that crap.
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That episode had a good deal of potential that remained unrealized, but I agree with you that it was interesting that Sharon knew much more about their scripture than they did. The planetarium consisted of the zodiac being somehow the origin or expression of the 12 clans or whatever they're called. I assume there were 12 ships or planets they occupied, with the Capricorns on Caprica, or what have you.
Also, Sharon recognized their dark nature and its fallibilities. Whatever you might say about this crew and the civilians, they're far from heroic in the classical sense. She offs the evils and hands the gun over to Adama. The whole lot of them seem kind of lame. I did like the arrow fitting in the bow of the archer in the temple. So many of the sets for that were kind of meh, but I'm a fan of ancient architecture so it didn't do much for me.
But everyone's a critic. And I guess if I wanted to do a show like that, it's hard to say what I could have come up with.
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I know you mentioned not being a fan of the music, but you've just watched the episode with one of my favorite songs ever.
There are about four songs from BSG that are important. One is a stunt piece, but this one was just general ambiance when Sharon was talking.
As to what she said to Adama "And you ask why" actually answers him twice. Once, in the decommissioning speech, he asked why humanity deserved to live.
The second time, he asked Boomer's corpse "why" as in, why did things have to be this way. Galactica was kind of the garbage posting for officers. The cast offs and misfits. Boomer wasn't a great pilot, and she broke regs frakkin' the chief, but Adama saw a lot of potential there.
A big part of BSG is not being star trek. RDM was promised he could do voyager his way. When he found out that wasn't true, he walked. There are a lot of notes that voyager hinted at that BSG sold.
also keep in mind, they were constantly fighting the SciFi channel at the time about tone, budget, and anything else you care to imagine.
One line they fought for in this episode that got cut, was that Chief can't read maps worth poo. In a throwaway line, Aaron Douglass said that "Topography is for pussies". Obviously, this didn't fly with Standards and Practices.
I kinda dug the steep hills and vivid greenery, but holy poo do they overdo the frakkin' opera house. That thing shows up right til the end.
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Nah, hyper sleep is when you don't have Faster than Light.
Actually, I believe the jump drive got a bit of a shout in the miniseries. Galactica herself hasn't done a jump in 10 years, and it's not exactly common for commuter traffic.
Apparently the military does train their forces for the transit discomfort (Cally bitches "I hate this part")
Things stretch out, as scifi tends to do with incomprehensible science, and then they all get smushed through the hole that just got punched in space, Harry Potter style.
To elaborate, teleportation in Harry Potter is called Apparition, and involves a feeling of being passed through one's own belly-button, or Navel, as the brits term it.
So those jackasses live a life in Victorian conditions when they can bless'ed teleport. Morans!
There could be any number of fully cromulent reasons for not using FTL. Maybe the envelope your ship is protected by during this reality hole punching is extremely flammable when they meet element of the week? Then you can't fly through there, can you? You've got to reroute, and that's gonna cost you!
Maybe previous use of the area has damaged space in such a way, FTL just doesn't work? Star trek pulled this one, but they got around it eventually. Or ignored it. They probably ignored it. Warp 6 speed limit it was. Wouldn't be surprised if they did it to stop baby writers from always pushing the Enterprise-D to MAXIMUM WARP!
As to gender politics, I've not seen Passengers, but I hear Mr. Pratt comes off very Jack Torrence in that one, and it probably won't lead to another minifig. (He's one of the most prevailant lego figures, because of all the franchises he's in now)
There's also using cryo-sleep because observing FTL travel drives the users insane, as seen in Stephen King story - "The Jaunt". Quite the mini-mind golly that one was.
Anyway, the colonials haven't bothered updating the tech, so they're flying around with 8-trac FTL drives.
Cylons of course, have i-Pods, and listen to cool stuff, like The Killers. also, they can go back to Caprica whenever they want, so NYEH!
I poo you not, that's why Starbuck was able to go back so quickly, Cylons have better jump drives.
Aww crap, I forgot to mention Screamers. Screamer has your battle-bot nightmare snake buzz saw robots. And humanoid robots! Which are gendered as Androids or Gynoids!
Eh, I don't have to tell you but stargate used creepy spider robots.
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It's interesting to hear about the background context of writers vs studios and network suits struggling for control over the series and its impact on the end product. I haven't heard of Passengers (at first I thought of Travelers, but that's not a question of space, but time). I'll have to look into that one. I don't think it aired in the U.S.
Thanks, also for the FTL info. I hadn't a clue, but it makes much more sense now.
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I'm pretty sure they did an exposition scene where Adama says "Pull out the jump charts" and Tigh goes bug-eyed and says the ship hasn't jumped in ten years. Then Gaeta exposition explains the jumps, and how they're going past the red line, whatever the frak that means.
Point of fact, I don't think anyone really uses FTL all that much. From what I remember the colonies are in one solar system with two stars.
I don't know what the civilian purpose of having your ship rigged for FTL, but maybe I'm completely wrong, I never watched the CAPRICA TV series since I heard they dropped the plot and straight up made it a soap.
Huh I was wrong, Galactica hadn't jumped for 22 years.
Tigh: Because any sane man wouldn't. It's been, what, twenty, twenty-two years?
Adama: We trained for this.
Tigh: Training is one thing, but - if we're off in our calculations by even a few degrees, we could end up in the middle of the sun.
Adama: No choice. Colonel Tigh, please plot a hyperlight jump from our position to the orbit of Ragnar.
Passengers is a film. It's got Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence.
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When the series first started they were all staying awake for many many hours and jumping every 33 minutes to stay ahead of the cylons.
I looked up Passengers in Wikipedia and found a BBC show by the same name -- not the same thing at all. I tried to watch the film version that you are referring to (I'd forgotten about it) a while back and had to stop after about 15 minutes. Not my cup of tea.
Gaius makes little sense in his wavering between justice for cylons and not wanting to end the human race. For a genius, he sure is stupid. It was refreshing to see the cylon 6 character shoot the woman admiral in the head, given the latter's inexplicable and irrational cruelty. That actress gets a lot of work. She's been on Homicide, Star Trek series, in some BBC detective series as the main character's wife, etc. Nice voice. She does seem to have one speed though. Not much range.
p.s. I'm wondering where the endless supply of food and particularly, of alcoholic beverages comes from. Those "nuggets" qua pilots sure do put it away. Do they have some kind of advanced synthesis equipment on board?
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Lot of delivery trucks in the fleet. Chief also has a still. Space probably means not having to spend much on refrigeration. As to the beer, they probably recycle the bottles, like craft brewers. Probably a crap load of stills in the fleet.
Dang, you've really jumped ahead here, from sports team stupidity on Caprica all the way through the whole PEGASUS showdown.
PEGASUS was a damn pirate ship, but the poo she called them on was mostly accurate, aside from demoting Lee. He was a Captain before the bombs fell, and it wasn't by nepotism. Bill Adama was not well liked in the fleet, but Lee was a quiet, competent officer.
The rape gang thing is nuts though. Holy poo was that bad. Gaius doesn't need to be a cylon sympathizer to think what went down there was pure evil.
And Cain was going to have the same thing done to Sharon. She earned that execution. Funny thing, she removed the chairs in her CIC to make her officers stay alert. A richard move borrowed from the Then US UN Ambassador, and pedophile mustache enthusiast - John Bolton.
Michelle Forbes was supposed to be the Lead actress on DS9, but backed out, the role was reduced and recast with Nana Visitor.
At one point Tigh goes to shut chief's still down, Chief defends it as a solvent for machine parts. A similar excuse was used on MASH.
Tigh walks away with two bottles of solvent.
Most people in the fleet probably aren't kicking back cocktails like the viper pilots, but those poor kids work a hell of a job, and have the life expectancy of a gnat. Less when Starbuck is CAG.
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To run a still, you have to have something to distill, a source. I'm wondering where their food and drink comes from. There's no reference to it on there. It's not like they dip down to Caprica on occasion for some delicious radiated beets and grain to keep up their beer supply and to have some tasty root vegetables.
The writers take pains to discuss issues with minerals, fuels and water supplies via mining operations and that sort of thing but I have no clue where the 48k population gets food. It's simply not addressed. One thing I like about the Expanse is the discussion of the various new fungi dishes they come up with in space, and then there's the coffee thing, but at least they have colonies with greenhouses and that sort of thing that clearly functions to supply nourishments. BSG, not so much.
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It's poop. They refine the poop into nasty algae puffs. Well they do later.
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Sounds like a Till Eulenspiegel story.
I took a break last night after watching several episodes yesterday. That followed a night of 1/2 hour of sleep so BSG was all I was good for. I'm more rested today. School starts this week, so I suspect my viewing will slack off for a while.
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I'm probably remembering things wrong. Maybe they used the poop as fertilizer to grow the algae?
Nobody likes the algae food at all. But they had a massive amount of booze. My guess is everyone in the colonies were alcoholics because of the rampant Cancer, so there were a lot of delivery trucks flying that day.
Or maybe it's like those shitty food delivery services? Where you get to pay 6X what the food is worth to have it delivered by a random person?
Or delivery is a decent job on the colonies? So you order some Tauron Beef steaks, they pop a quick FTL flight, and it's fresh off the bison, within the hour?
They kinda have the opposite of the automation rush that's screwing everyone here right now, they had to un-automate everything.
I really don't get how you're watching all this so quickly without burning out, only show I managed that with was Thrones. I burnt out on Gotham hard.
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I don't really know how delivery services and supply chains are even the issue if all habitable places were bombed with nukes and therefore not able to be used to produce food because they are radioactive. They are on this New Caprica planet and it seems too grim to produce food, but they have a city that looks like it was built under New Brutalist architecture, kind of like extensive London County Council housing. There's no plants. No animals. (Except the dog. Where did the dog come from? Didn't see any pets on the ships. But, whatever...)
Why everyone was running around on Caprica without radiation poisoning, including the "skin" cylons, is god's own mystery.
Now I'm on Season 3 and the whole thing is so drearily predictable.
I'm sort of amused that Kara gets to kill the patient cylon every day and he gets downloaded into a new body. He's got the faith that she'll love him eventually as long as he tries hard enough. It's like a K-mart version of Almodovar's "Tie me up tie me down."
Gotta say, that cylon is more interesting than most of the men she's been with. And she's cut way down on her drinking.
Back on the ship, we can tell the passage of time by Olmos' moustache. If I were them, I'd just start reproducing like rabbits. There's a few women on board, so you'd expect them to get busy. There's no guarantee they'll be able to free the humans on the planet from the cylons. Besides, given they don't communicate, how do they even know there's anyone alive to be rescued? Gotta save the species. Should be easy, given the mysteriously endless supply of food and booze. Correction: they just communicated with the ground, so, there you have it. Only a year later.
The music is hard to listen to. I mute the screen a lot. The Japanese drumming is so annoying. That and the whiny Celtic woman poo we have to listen to. It's either whiny droning on or bang bang bang. Two speeds with nothing in between.
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Armenian.
A distant sadness is one of my favorite songs. I get it, you hate it, but it moves me.
That being said, screw the soundtrack version. They jammed in some of that watchtower mix, and I could do without it.
But the scene in occupation in which it shows up, that was a hell of a thing.
Tigh me up, Tigh me down is an episode you've already seen.
Jake is essentially the last dog. His food bowl is used to pass information from the Baltar administration (Mostly the cylons) to the resistance.
The stupid planet people are on an escalator down to not existing.
Fat Lee, Commander PEGASUS, says exactly what you did. There is not a chance in hell they can rescue the people on the planet, it's fully blockaded against the battlestars.
Admiral Adama, Galactica, says they wait.
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OK. Sorry about the negative comments. I think that if I listened to the song without having it used to manipulate my reception of a tv show, I might like it better.
Thanks for the info about the dog. Why did the son get so fat? He comments about working out on the treadmill near the end of the episode when they're all back seem comical. Did the actor have health issues?
I thought it interesting that the cylon who had basically enslaved Kara used some other person's child to try to get her to stay with him. The cylons seem to be just as screwed up as the humans they tell themselves they wish to replace with their better selves.
Gaius seems pretty screwed at this point with blondie dumping him & only a cylon robot for company. There's something essentially creepy about the red laser scanning back and forth in the robotic visor and I'm trying to remember why and what it reminds me of. I'm plowing through season 3 and find the writing around Hera, the hybrid child, seems pretty well done because it leaves open lots of room for speculation.
The cylons have her so what effect will that have on the child and what will Sharon do when she realizes that the President had the baby taken away and farmed out to a human to raise. I expect she'll be mighty pissed and possibly out for vengeance. Lots of threads that could lead some interesting places. The issue of hybridity is curious and a number of sci fi films/shows deal with it. But the oddity here is that the child exists at all. I am deeply curious about the cylon biology. How do they manage to develop fertile women robots? This is not addressed, but it's worth explaining, even if speculatively.
I think that most of the androids in the Philip K D ick books are grown in vats. There's no explanation of how these cylon creatures come to exist. The intro/title sequence just says they were created by man, but then, they "evolved." That's like tossing a scientific theoretical bomb into your living room with the hope that you won't notice it. I hear that and say "come again?" are you talking about natural selection in devices that do not reproduce except in baths of flavorless gelatin?
Oh well. I guess I shouldn't hold a tv show to such rigorous standards. It's fiction after all, but if it aspires to these concepts they should at least deal with them in a reasonable or serious way.
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This vehicle was designed by Michael Sheffe, a toymaker for Mattel. Sheffe and his crew were given only two weeks to design and build K.I.T.T. before shooting began. It was barely completed in time before shooting because Scheffe and his team had no time to order custom parts. They had to purchase materials locally or fabricate items themselves with equipment and materials on hand.
The pulsating red lights on the front end of K.I.T.T. were taken directly from the Cylons of classic Battlestar Galactica. They modulated according to eight different pre-programmed patterns that could be varied with whatever mood directors wanted K.I.T.T. to express.
emphasis mine.
https://www.neatorama.com/2011/06/03/15-facts-you-might-not-know-about-knight-rider/
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Maybe Gort. That robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still?
Never much of a Knight Rider viewer. Although I've been told that Germans love David Hasslehoff.
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interestingly enough, NBC tried to revive Knight Rider because of the success of nBSG.
It didn't go well.
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Since there's plenty of discussion of the potential extinction of mankind, may I assume that humans left Earth for some reason? The 13 colonies of Kobol presumably were colonized by earthlings but there's not much explanation for why there are no people on Earth if that is the case. Also, if there was a good reason to leave Earth, why is it now so desirable to go back there? The series does not seem to offer much of a background on that.
I've been flying through the episodes, kind of like the Steely Dan song, "Reelin in the Years." Maybe there will be an explanation eventually. What was the deal with the 5 cylons in the temple in Algae land? What was the mysterious communication with future cold storage cylon girl? And did Galactica get enough algae to nuke the place? First one problem arises, the solution comes, and then another problem comes that brings a solution seemingly destined to recreate problem #1. Nuke the place and where do you get the next batch of food from, or is that magical algae? Eat it once and you'll never be hungry again, like mannah from heaven. Or am I just being too critical?
Here's a corrective. Soon to be featured on dontdatehimgirl.com
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Okay, this once again is a lot to unpack.
Algae planet finally answers your "Where da food" question. They needed the horrible algae paste because the prior food supply was contaminated somehow. It is not in fact, poop.
New Caprica DID produce food, and had what stargate likes to call "Space deer". Which are regular deer, but we're on another planet. Hence, Space deer.
New Caprica was mostly a very cold inhospitable place, but it had a temperate zone near the equator, which is where they colonized. We know that farming was fairly easy in this zone, as explained when Admiral Adama and Former President Roslin smoked a doob. The network got super pissed about that scene. I don't see why, it's not like they're smoking anything illegal, after all, it's an Alien Planet, and they're not American.
A lot of the farming equipment was left behind on New Caprica, so they're in bad shape wherever they end up. They were on New Caprica for one year and six months.
The eye of Jupiter is, I guess, the last rest stop? Remember how the chief talked about the religious significance, and that scripture said it was going to be destroyed, and then it blew up?
The final five cylons do not in fact, know that they are cylons. Cavil wiped all memory of them after he killed off one of the models. They are in fact, the first cylons.
The future cold storage cylon is not any of those things. She's "The hybrid" essentially, every cylon basestar has one. She's like the central computer. You may notice her ramblings resemble maintenance schedules.
So the food supply is now finite. The algae planet was destined to blow up. We now know that the supposed scripture is in fact, a script. The colonials are being led down a path. This is not necessarily a good path. Their gods are huge assholes.
That's actually something they already knew, but chose to ignore.
According to their scripture, the 12 colonies of Kobol were colonized after the gods did something so bless'ed terrible, they doomed themselves, and sent off the colonials in 13 ships. One vanished, creating the myth of the 13th tribe, also called "Earth".
Their home was known as Kobol, but they were NEVER supposed to return, under a threat of a blood price. Which in the show was literal. Every ship that landed lost at least one person.
So now they're looking for earth to make it their new home.
I do find it interesting, and a bit of a cop-out that RDM never explained what it was that the gods did that was so terrible.
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Thanks, 8ully. That explains a lot. But the woman I'm talking about that got boxed at the end of the episode when the sun supernovas on Algae planet is not to be confused with the woman lying in the bathtub babbling who is running the ship and connected to whatever by a series of flexible pipes. I'm talking about the competitor for Caprica 6 with Baltar who is also a toothsome blonde but more evil and conniving. She ends up getting boxed for having messianic delusions that threatened the communal mindset and overall cooperative governance of the cylons.
As for the gods doing something terrible, that's a new wrinkle on things. Why they worship the ancient Greek pantheon is also curious, but it beats the Sunday morning evangelical nonsense that the cylons spout. So "Earth" in this case is not what we know as the home planet but some kind of mythical place where the 13th tribe (who left the temple on algae planet as a way station with traffic directions) rested?
BTW, I've just finished reading the two Homeric epics and am on the Aeneid, now, so the intervention of the gods as people try to make their way home, or in the case of Aeneas, to a new homeland when their original home (Troy/Illium) was destroyed, has considerable resonance for me. The gods are fickle and constantly screwing with humans, so it's sort of engaging that the writers of BSG pick up the mantle of the ancient poets in this series.
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D'anna Biers is model #3. She first showed up as a reporter for colonial fleet news service, and prior to the nukes, was friendly with Laura Roslin. She often cracks inappropriate jokes, but Lucy Lawless said she always wanted there to be an undercurrent of cold creepiness.
She's had some fairly MASSIVE plot points so far. Most importantly, she recovered the game ball (Hera) from New Caprica, and has recently begun a hobby of recreational suicide that seriously creeps out the other cylons. She also enjoys long walks on the beach and torturing Baltar with an electric toothbrush. Then she decided to have sex with him and go even crazier.
Also, she broke concensus. Technically, Sharon (finally got her own last name) Agathon had already broken concensus because she really enjoyed sex with Helo, and decided to do it for free, instead of just doing it for work.
Plus Six loves Baltar, and whoops that wasn't supposed to happen!
As to the religion, The colonials actually know their gods are real, because the gods lived alongside them before the horrible oopsie, and sent them out on colonial ships.
Not sure if this comes from fanfic, but those ships did not have FTL. That trip probably sucked.
One of the lines of scripture they curbed from JM Barrie is "All Of This Has Happened Before And Will Happen Again"
Dunno if they stole the idea from Babylon 5, or if it's meant to be original, but it kind of brings a hamster wheel to mind.
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Wow I thought that #3 looked familiar, didn't realize she was Lucy Lawless, or Xena, Warrior Princess. She gets a lot of work.
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What do you think of her twisted take on faith? She was killing herself to see her creator. Turns out, she actually was!
As to Hera, it was implied that Baltar will be the one stuck raising her, all the way back on kobol during season 2. What does this mean for the Agathons? (Sharon and Helo)
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The request to Centurions to shoot her in the head and then wipe their memories of it was certainly strange. The continual rebirth and whacky utterances upon revival were also odd, and clearly unnerving to the other cylons. What ever the apology and references to beauty in the Temple on Algae planet prior to the place being destroyed flew right over my head. She's on the floor along with Baltar and the Galactica guys retrieve Baltar but leave Xena. I guess they had more of a beef with Baltar that needed settling?
I just saw the episode where Kara encounters creepy male cylon and her dead mother in some kind of regression therapy that cured her fears enough for her to meet her destiny by what appears to have been a massively self destructive trip into a planet's atmosphere that offered to crush her like a bug. The only virtue being that she was "no longer afraid." Of what is anybody's guess. Her mural? The creepy cylon? Death? Mommy? Go figure.
I suspect this is yet another device where she's going to show up again like a circus trick in a later episode with an epiphany, but who knows? For now, I'm waiting for the younger Adama to get all lawyer like and defend Baltar so that he gets off scot free. Why not? Hence the joke, "what do you call 5000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?" A: "A good start."
I did like the Algae Meat Loaf that Chief and Spouse had for dinner in a recent episode. Not much else on the food chain problems, lately. Maybe more on that later?
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They actually didn't write Baltar's return to the fleet, and in fact, were super pissed that the crew came up with it, but it was slick as hell using the bodybag. NBC (Who paid for quite a bit) asked who came up with that, and RDM took full credit, while secretly being pissed that he didn't come up with it.
No need for some bombastic "Turn him over, because we say so" "Well, he has been an excellent house guest, didn't even madam about the torturing, but he is super self absorbed"
So Baltar is in the hoosegow.
My guess is D'Anna got degaussed by those revelations. I used to love hitting that button on the CRT. Was probably bless'ed it up, but it was a fun button to hit. She's dead as hell from that, btw.
So you watched Starbuck commit suicide. She actually warned everyone in the S3 blooper reel:
I particularly like Aaron Douglas, who poured his heart and soul into the show. Like on another level. Wil Wheaton talked about visiting the TNG experience in Vegas, sitting at the helm, and palming it like he was actually driving somewhere, and I think Aaron douglas had that connection to BSG.
So when he says "Yeah, we'll get on it tomorrow Commander, Admiral, whatever the golly you are" That is just the perfect line. Wish he'd said Frak, then they could have put it in the show.
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That was pretty funny, and it is cheering to see how the actors recognize how melodramatic the show is.
At the end of Season 3, Kara pops up like a circus trick and says, "relax, everything is going to be fine." She knows where earth is. That's useful. I'll probably move onto season 4 tonight.
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Kara is dead as hell.
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So the Kara in Season 4 is some kind of cylon apparition meant to lead the humans away from earth?
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The cylon plan was "use backdoor admin account to shut off the military". Plan worked, 50 billion killstreak.
Beyond that, how the golly would they have plotted this all out? They've been in the weeds since PEGASUS blew up one of their resurrection Hubs.
This Kara intends to lead Humanity to Earth, continuing the "Gods" cycle. Is she a savior or pied piper?
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I've only seen a couple ep.s of Season 4, but the odd reunion with pervy cylon man and her abusive dead mother prior to deciding to go get crushed like a bug wherever she was supposed to be going, chasing some cylon raider? Cylon man (whose name eludes me) who was in the Tie me up tie me down section tells her he's there to help prepare her for her destiny or whatever. It was vague enough that I was like, "say what?"
The Adamas tend to give her slack because of their abiding affection for her, but nobody else takes her seriously. She's like the Cassandra of BSG. She can only speak the truth and nobody believes her.
But if she's not Kara, who or what is she? And who is unknown cylon #5? Stay tuned. To be honest, this series is a lot better than I thought it would be even if there are several episodes with a lot of padding and less than stellar writing. It's basically interesting and I am looking forward to its eventual resolution if there is one.
Is there any significance to the fact that there are 12 colonies (derived from astrological signs) and 12 cylon models?
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Probably, but they never referenced the colonies as to the models. They never explain why there are 12 models, or why it's mostly a sausage fest where the women have to do most of the work, a lot of it very degrading. poo, I had to get the model numbers from the internet, and even that is iffy.
1) bottom priest 2)leoben Connoy -psycho douche- 3) D'anna 4/5) get juggled, wikipedia says rape doctor Simon is #4 right now, but my old list says 5. 5 or 4 is that absolute shitbag Mc temper Aaron doral. 6) is of course, six.
7) is tardy. 8 ) is boomer/sharon. 9) er, let's stop here for now.
The raider Starbuck followed to death was a white rabbit. Cylon raiders show up on DRADIS. The gods made Kara kill herself. They're just great people.
Kind of poo writing, but most people love Starbuck because the script says so. She's actually not that great a pilot, but she has plot armor. Lee is constantly told how much better Starbuck is, even though he flew the highest technical mission in the frickin series!
Back in S1, in the prison standoff, she's toted as the best sniper. I'm sure the Marines loved that.
In s2, she blew the hostage situation horribly and shot Lee. Arglebargle!
He did give her a great "are you bless'ed kidding me" look when she did it.
This show seriously squandered it's potential. It really was the best show on television, but I think RDM let that get to his head.
He wrote what is considered one of the finest TNG episodes ever, ended it on a TBC... and didn't have the Second half. I think that's why "the plan" and "they evolved" are never properly adressed. They thought they would pencil it in later, but never did.
He made my dad stand up from his chair, as if he were on the bridge of a starship. He paced a bit and said "holy poo" with his mind blown.
I had a few of those with BSG, but I tended to get tanked while watching it. Don't do a bsg drinking game. They're drinking green poweraid, and you will die.
Eh, even replacement Kara screams out "what am I" but doesn't really get an answer. I think Chief does a diagnostic on the viper and explains it's too perfect a forgery. It's brand new, and the original was decidedly not. Remember from the miniseries? They found it rusted out in a scrap yard and restored it for the decomissioning. It's older than Lee!
And Kara died in the original.
As to the final five, it's five people, not a missing individual. I think there was a tense scene about this, where spoiler says he's been the man he is this long, and that's the man he wants to be. Hell of a line. And they're in storage locker 1701-D, the registry number for Picard's enterprise.
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There are only 4 cylons who hear weird radio music and end up in that locker. They stand at the 4 corners of a square in that locker (thanks for the reference to StarTrek as I'd have never picked up on that--but, to clarify, are you suggesting that BSG is a spinoff from TNG?). The dark haired asst to the President (who throws Chief's wife into space--nice), Chief, one eyed Asst Capn, and the guy who was married to Kara, right? So that leaves one unidentified cylon. There are 7 id'ed models and then 4 more. We're missing one, unless my math ain't right. Can you help with this?
And what of the two hybrid babies. Do they just get left hanging? We have one running around in some imaginary Opera House (sadly void of singing) and the other one just seems to cry a lot. So much for that plot line.
The bathtub chick said something about Kara leading everyone to their deaths in the last episode I watched. That was also bizarre. I thought they were going for answers, but instead, they assume the control of this big ol' cylon ship (where did the cylons get the ships? and how did this happen without humans noticing?) Sharon radios back and says "Mission Accomplished" Again, WTF? I thought they were trying to find earth, not capture cylon ships complete with their crews.
I'd have thought that constructing a large battle ready space ship capable of carrying many passengers is an industrial undertaking that would require a structure to house its production that a vigilant populace might notice? No explanation for that, either. Cylons rebelled and apparently became excellent producers of starships in record time.
Also, the Leoden (sp?) cylon who has the hots for Kara keeps saying he wants her to realize her "destiny" If she's dead, that's going to take some doing, since her destiny would have already happened. These scriptwriters need a house logician to keep them in line because so much of the writing makes little sense and the actions are incoherent. The President is getting religion or all new age-y which makes me want to hurl.
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I think the fifth one is currently dead, but you will see them soon.
RDM had a huge hand in TNG, and later trek series. I also believe he was the one who killed off Kirk.
Cylons had an armistace line for 40 years, and the robot ones don't need to breathe. You can build a lot of poo in 40 years if no one ever argues, even more.
I don't know if you've watched RAZOR, but this is not the first time someone has suggested that Kara is leading the colonials to their end.
I don't remember the name of cally's kid, but Tory foster just stole the poo out of him. Hera is fingerpainting? I think?
I believe the mission was self appointed, and Sharon is stealing her kid back.
Leoben is a creepy joker.
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Leoben is good at being creepy. It must be his face or something. There are some actors who make a career out of playing evil or menacing bad guys.
So Kara is dead, doesn't realize it, and everybody else is suspicious, but she's out there trying to find earth anyway.
I have not seen Razor. I assume this is some kind of movie adjunct to the series? Does it fit in chronologically after the series, during, or before?
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Somewhere in Season 2. Cain is still alive. Plus you get to see the beginning of what the Cylons were up to during the armistice.
When looking up stuff the other day, I came across a baltar comic. the caption was
"Wants to prevent state demanded abortion. Cures Cancer." in another it's just him ruminating "So if it's all in my head, I just jacked off in the CIC... Frak."
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I'll probably look up Razor when I'm done. I have about 5 more episodes to go.
Nice to see the VP and the guy with one leg (I'm atrocious at remembering their names) get the well deserved firing squad. Shooting the entire government was a bit of a stretch, but for outrage, it worked well.
Starbuck's husband's bullet to the head thing was entertaining as he seemed transformed into another bathtub girl until his surgery. Will he pull through and finish the communication? Stay tuned.
ps. For a dead girl, Kara sure is lively.
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They're not the entire government? Like the entire government used to meet on Cloud 9, but that's not an option anymore, so they're down to just the 12 delegate reps, one per colony. Gaeta, god damn did they make us hate him fairly quickly. He was so close to being the friggin Data of the show. Read screen, spew tech data, go forward. Any time he went out of that box, he found nothing but pain. And this Dipshit had delusions of command? Zarek thought he had finally won, and when he didn't, he went back to what he'd always done, TERRORISM. Some people you just can't reach.
The brain surgeon is played by John Hodgeman. He was super happy to get that role.
Yeah, Kara is still around, and that's not necessarily a good thing. You don't really NEED to watch Razor, but it answers some of your questions better than I can. Like I said, I've never watched "The Plan", but it's post series.
I was going to say the only person happy right now is Baltar, but HOLY poo did I remember that wrong, he's basically getting the biblical treatment for daring to set himself up like L.Ron.
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Re: Kara being around. When Leoben sees her yank her dog tags from her corpse on earth and hears her relate the "you'll lead your people to death" remarks of bathtub girl, even he gets the willies. Like that's a bit much even for a creep like that.
So, lord only knows what she is or why she's there. Maybe she took up with Cthulhu while she was MIA and will feast on the souls of dying humans at the end of the series. I have no clue.
I agree with you about Gaeta. How he went from crack navigator to Hitler wannabe in 2 short episodes is god's own mystery. But he sure did get nasty fast. Good job of acting though, as he really did seem to lose any moral compass really quickly. The nasty exchange with Kara was also kind of odd. It seemed to have come out of nowhere.
I guess we're supposed to not hate Baltar so much after his latest self examination. I'd not hesitate to toss him in the Gulf of Mexico with some concrete overshoes. He's a bore. I don't particularly blame the actor, who has a respectable body of work outside of this show, but maybe it's the writers' conception of his character that makes me want to pummel him to a jelly.
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eh, Gaeta's lament is a longterm thing, he got up to some nasty poo on New Caprica, like Baltar is a saint in comparison. And Gaeta didn't even know he was complicit until later. There are two webseries I didn't push on you, because I've got no way of linking to them. Also a song! Gaeta's lament.
The first is during New Caprica, and shows you who the human resistance was, why they were doing what they were doing, and why duck and jammer ended up on opposite sides, despite being best friends.
Duck blew himself up at the gestapo induction ceremony, jammer got airlocked for being a shitheel.
Second webseries was a raptor that loses engine power. Gaeta's hanging with a bunch of people and an eight. Turns out they dated on new caprica. Turned out he gave her names of people to smuggle out of confinement. Turns out she executed them personally. Turns out she's doing the same thing on the raptor, so he kills her. This was one of the most bent things galactica did, and I'm still sad it was relegated to the internet to fade into nothing. Tears in the wind. But it was a nasty little piece.
Back on the big G. They hit nuked out earth. That was NYC by the way, Nuked Out New York. Dee sees. Dee comes home. Dee has dinner with the Ex-Husband. Dee has a second date with a service pistol. Gaeta is RIGHT THERE. Funny thing, SciFi Channel had a commercial for campbells soup RIGHT AFTER the shot, where red soup is flying through the air. poo was nuts.
Gaeta is assigned to Adama's daughter cowpoo mission. Anders blows his damn' leg off. Anders is married to Starbuck.
Additionally, he was Baltar's Billy/ Tory Foster. He was there for everything but the very heavy death orders, where we don't know if he signed it. Even Baltar says he signed it, but well...
I also think there was an unrequited thing between Gaeta and Baltar. So Gaeta tries to neck stab Baltar, and is relentlessly mocked IN COURT by baltar. That kinda came back to bite Gaius in the ass...
Seriously, as to the female cast, I think it's Roslin and Ellen Tigh who Baltar didn't frak. And thinking about New Caprica, Roslin wouldn't touch him, but Ellen?
You'd be wrong about Baltar, btw. He's about the most bent over person on the series, not that he doesn't deserve it most of the time. Dunno if you'd agree. Even James Callis thought he deserved to die. But of EVERYONE IN THE CAST, including Very Speshul Starbuck, Baltar got the most attention from the angels/demons.
Funny enough, my best friend's dad agreed with you. HATED baltar from the miniseries.
Baltar never really examines himself. He at one point says that guilt is something lesser people feel when they've run out of excuses for what they've done. Which makes him far more honest than most of the cast.
Dang, you got me typing quite a bit here. What's next? Supernatural? Deep Space Nine? I'd say Voyager, but that would probably be painful for both of us.
I mean from what I've seen you post, you prefer drama, but that was the section I always skipped in blockbuster. Action and Horror for me, mostly.
Plus, watching DS9 after BSG is... really weird. You see tonal notes executed in, I would say a brighter way? Like an opera with smilies? RDM wrote Worf like CRAZY tho...
last thing, nothing to do with BSG, but the NBC breaking news when McCain died, they cut back to America's got talent, where some shirtless fatguy was making his gut do armpit farts, reminded me of the suicide/soup convergence of BSG.
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I finished the series this morning. It was entertaining, and the ending was appropriate. Neatly tied up in a bow. So was Starbuck an angel? She accomplishes mission, says goodbye and vanishes. No girls for you Adama boys. Suck it up. Go fishing. Probably less stressful, anyway.
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I like how Baltar found his own personal hell. And hate how absolutely everyone was pants shittingly retarded. Lampkin is right, they're walking hand in hand into extinction, to borrow a line from Rust Cohle. Kara certainly got a raw deal, but she was on a path to self destruction anyway. Maybe if she hadn't had that bent up destiny she would have been a better person. Then again, maybe she would have been back on the colonies when the bombs dropped, Galactica was a ship for burnouts and screw ups.
I do like how Roslin bent her own salvation up. Baltar cured her cancer, but the truth was the cancer defined her. When she went back to screwing with Hera, she got it back. I don't know if that was another part of the guiding hand striking back at her to make her walk the path laid out for her, or just how they wrote it.
I also like how they say golly it, this unnamed Planet is Earth now, even though we found bombed out super disappointing Earth.
There's a lot of good stuff in the ending, but I remember at the time it was deeply unsatisfying, kind of like how you've described most of the series. Even die-hard fans disliked it.
I knew it would never happen, but I thought it would have been fantastic if they'd been intercepted by the space ships from stargate, and be told Earth has a no vacancy sign up, and is already occupied.
Olmos wanted them to come to modern day earth in peace, and have Bush golly it up and fire nukes at the ships, triggering another turn in the cycle.
Another not very smart series I might recommend is Burn Notice, but I've never finished that.
guest stars include Tricia Helfer and Lucy Lawless, but they're not cylons. OR ARE THEY?
Michael Shanks, who played the calm collected Doctor Jackson on Stargate SG-1 plays a particularly fun unhinged Guest character, and Frasiers Dad shows up. (He is not Frasier's dad in this one. OR IS HE?)
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I'll try some of the others. Don't think I'm much interested in any of the Star Trek vehicles. Kind of bored with them. I'm sort of sad about the end of BSG but then again they had to do something as the principals were getting on in years. 4 years with terminal breast cancer is pushing it and the Admiral was no spring chicken.
Kara seemed sort of screwed by life. The idea of "angels" coming in to further the plot development and then leaving, "poof", when no longer needed seems to fall in the Deus Ex Machina category. The odd tension between her and Lee Adama was never really resolved, just sadly dismissed when she left. I don't see humans facing extinction at the end, rather, they'll be ok because they are around for another 150k years. But there are suggestions of the cycle repeating self with the robot toys, appliance commercials at the end. And as for cylon dna, that is something I have trouble wrapping my head around. There's no explanation for the development of the "skin" cylons, nor do we really get the leap between the mechanomorphic cylons and the "skins". How do we go from one to the other. The one scene where a cylon skin was advised to ask nicely of one of the centurions (or whatever the machiney bots are called) suggests that they have feelings that can be hurt, disrespected, etc. There's a great deal of padding in the writing for this show and there was plenty of air time to address these issues, but the writers, for whatever reason, chose not to.
I kind of prefer the Expanse for that reason. They do get into some of those things in greater depth. Expanse is not back yet. I have a couple episodes of Counterpart to catch up on, so I'll get back to that.
Thanks, though, 8ully, for walking me through BSG. It was really helpful and I enjoyed the series more than if I would have watched it without having someone to air these questions with.
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Weird, you missed a shitload of stuff that was explicitly stated. The Final Five were from (an) earth. They invented resurrection. We don't know poo about their mechanical cylons, or why their world ended in nuclear fire. Just that it did, and they bailed.
They met up with the Robot form cylons in space, and created the skinjobs. The robots had been experimenting with this, but mostly just shredded their colonial captives while trying. The five bartered resurrection and meat bodies to end the war. Hence, armistice.
Cavil was the first, and like any bitchy teenager, he resented his parents. Unlike most bitchy teenagers, he managed to murder the poo out of all five parents, reformat their minds, and plant them in the colonies. Somehow, perhaps intentionally, he did NOT know how to do resurrection, but didn't give a poo, as there were MILLIONS of copies with the skinjobs. Those resurrection hubs were PACKED.
Ironically enough, the skinjobs started treating the robot form cylons like poo, while plotting how to murder off those pesky 50 billion humans.
Later on in the series, Cavil actually fitted both the raiders and centurions with encilaphic inhibitors. No clue how that is actually spelled. The Sixes were especially appalled by this, calling it lobotomy.
Cavil also began doing something with the eights, resulting in boomer as his Manchurian candidate. In one particularly gross scene, he makes her dance around like a ballerina.
We know that the centurions are indeed programmed to hate, but maybe they have other feelings. At the end of the series, they were allowed to take a base star of their own and leave all these bent up people behind.
I honestly think you might enjoy DS9, but my mom absolutely despises Avery Brooks as Commander, and later Captain Sisko. (see what they did thar?)
In DS9, a man is deeply scarred when his entire life is blown the golly up by the borg, and asks for a terminal assignment. He is sent to the ass end of nowhere. Like 9 months at maximum warp far away. He brings with him his young son.
When he arrives, the space pope declares him Jesus. Well... the emissary, but it's held in about the same esteem. Which is both helpful, as the locals do NOT like Starfleet, and have a reason to be indignant. Their planet, Bajor was essentially a giant concentration camp for 60 flippin' years. So the respect is nice, but it is his duty as a Starfleet officer NOT to pervert native cultures by indulging this fantasy. The space pope tells him "Nah, this is totally legit, let me conference call the gods." and does.
So we meet the Prophets, or as they are disrespectfully referred to by Starfleet officers "The wormhole aliens". Nice respecting the native beliefs there, assholes.
These guys are really neat. They don't give much of a poo about corporeal beings, but kind of have a soft spot for those bajorans. They also do not live in a linear fashion, so they're kind of confused as hell to interact in such a manner. They refer to Commander Sisko as "The Sisko".
Also, they use your memory to represent themselves, so they appear as people you know, which is another level of mind fuckery. They also don't understand the concept of grief, and think Sisko is stuck at the moment of his wife's death.
Oh, and that's just the first half of the episode.
Voyager on the other hand, is "Let's do BSG, but no risks" You can see the hands of Ron Moore in the pilot, but beyond that the first season is horrible. There are some serious gems in this festering turd, such as terrorists being forced to conform to Starfleet regulations (They never really sell WHY Starfleet wins that coin toss, but whatevs, it's star trek) A redemption story for a convict (The helmsman), and the Holographic Doctor is so fantastic, they stole him for a scene in the TNG movie "First Contact". (Robert Picardo)
I think one of the reasons I don't like the expanse is that it rings hollow to me. Like I said, I watched it up until they "found" the rich girl, and it just seemed like a diet, shasta version of a better story.
I felt similarly with the last Stargate series, Universe. It seems like someone watched BSG, and took the worst elements of it, and stapled it to their show. There IS a brilliant mockery of this in a CSI episode, where at a star trek convention, a gritty reboot is announced. A bloody, dimly lit, overly dramatic showdown follows, then they cut to the audience, where Ron Moore and Grace Park (Boomer/Sharon Agathon/Athena) watches in horror. It's a mockery of when she shot Adama and it is fantastic. Shame it's CBS, so it's been scrubbed from youtube. Also, Ron Moore yells "YOU SUCK" at the guy who is a thinly veiled version of him.
On that note, CBS has a new, horrible star trek. I watched two episodes and was done with it.
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There are negotiations re restoring the Resurrection technology for Cavil and his guys & the Five get together to mind meld or whatever, since none of them has the full info on how to restore it. But then Cap'n figures out that the dark haired woman spaced his wife and all bets are off. They pull out and the whole deal goes south.
There's also references to Tigh having millions of sons, but I didn't get what that was about. There is a good deal of this that sails over my head. To be fair, I read all the Expanse books, so my appreciation of the show may be enhanced because of it. Finding Julia Mao is what the private eye guy --Joe Miller got paid to do. She's infected with the protomolecule, either accidentally or intentionally by her father. I suspect it's the former. She happens on the crew with the spores floating around in their ship on some asteroid. She flees to one of Neptune's moons (I may be mistaken on some of the details) where there is a colony of miners. She succumbs to the infection. Miller finds her. The Mao people deliberately infect the moon/asteroid and Miller later goes back, finds her, and embraces her, willingly infecting himself. The many people infected on this settlement eventually begin radio broadcasts that sound like a combo of scrambled voices and music. It's pretty weird. Miller weaves in and out of the rest of the books where he functions as an investigator who probes how the civilization that invented all these odd technologies got exterminated. The whole business has the odd arc of a whodunnit while the future of humanity lies in the balance.
It's more like Dr. Pepper to me, fruity and full of fizz.
School has started back up and I'm now having to deal with figuring out windows and whether my partitioned hard drive is big enough to allow for the related programs for a software course I'm taking. I'm pretty much of a windows moron, so it's slow going for me. The other two courses are a piece of cake by comparison. The upshot is that I probably won't have as much time to watch series at night. I think I blasted through 5 episodes of BSG last night so I'm sort of tired today, but need to do more homework. I like my classes, but getting started with that software class is taking a little doing. Still, I'm taking it because I need to learn it. Oh well.
Thanks for the CSI link, I'll watch that later tonight. Razor is next on the list.
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No, chrisT, I haven't read any Dan Simmons. But after Hitler's Willing Executioners, which was drearily depressing as well as academically suspect, I'm ready for some lighter reading. The next installment of the Expanse will be out in March, supposedly.
I watched Razor tonight, which only does a small bit to fill in some of the back story. It plays like a couple of outtakes. I wonder about the guy in the bathtub at the end. The bathtub guys have it in for Starbuck. Maybe they got a bad cup of coffee once and want to badmouth her. It's like they shoehorn some moral philosophy into the plot at the end. War makes us all do bad things and nobody comes out with clean hands. Ta da!
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Razor IS a bunch of outtakes, like the scene when Lee is waiting at a transfer station and decides being in the military is cowpoo. I liked that one.
Ironically, the Military was sending him from being CAG on the Columbia to the decommissioning of Galactica. Then on Galactica he's forced to pose for a photo-op with his father, who he has a deep seething hatred for. Another fun current through the series is that the commander really loves his son, but any time they're alone they instantly descend to petty bickering at each other. They even take away his really cool Viper MK VII and make him fly a piece of poo MKII. This, once again saves his life, but reads as petty cowpoo en scene.
c, I think you'd actually like Baltar, he mocks the poo out of the typical stiff military walk so common in SciFi. Ironically, he joins the military for the very last battle, handles it pretty well, then almost kills the poo out of the relief squad because yeah, he's a civilian with a gun and no training. Kinda cowpoo on their part to just run around a corner without checking in though. They knew Baltar was holding that choke point. It's also a great "Inside the tin can" moment, as a giant explodey space battle is going on outside, and he almost gets shishkebobed on a beam when a part of the support frame collapses.
They do have him hold the idiot ball in what I think was the worst decision made in the entire series. (Most people think the return of Kara Thrace was the dumbest moment)
The guy in the bathtub is the first hybrid, and he's been freebasing god. He sees the entire path, beginning to end, and says that Starbuck will lead them to their end. He's also a really weird convergence point. Adama saw him in that butcher shop the cylons were using in an attempt to take human form, AND he's the first hybrid. Does that mean that all the hybrids in the base stars were the failed attempt to take human form, and that the "Five" are the worst criminals in the entire series?
Shaw interprets this "end" as "Death", but doesn't get to radio it in. It's a really ominous moment that is rushed through because we need to move along here.
What did you think of Shaw?
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Shaw seemed privileged, intelligent and ambitious as well as conflicted about the amorality she was increasingly pressured to adopt via Rear Admiral's pragmatism. The neck stabbing with whatever was in that hypodermic struck me as particularly odd. She and Kara bonded over substance abuse, it seems. She went out in a blaze of glory. Of course Lee Adama didn't think much of the suggestion that she get some kind of posthumous commendation given she had shot a bunch of innocent civilians. She's the kind of soldier that would have done well in the 3rd Reich.
Bathtub man also works a great deal as a voice over actor. I found him so wrinkly that he could have easily stood in for one of the California Raisins. Good voice, that. The booming prophecy struck me as ... a bit too much like something out of a post apocalyptic novel to take seriously. Why should Kara lead humanity to their death? why is she so special? you'd a thunk there would be some basis for such an extreme position, but we don't get it.
Like Baltar, Kara is her own worst enemy. It's hard to say if they are put in there to serve a didactic function/cautionary tale, like some kind of morality play. Our lesson? "Don't be like Kara." She's unhappy, drinks too much and is unbalanced, can't manage to settle with a man, so she must be unfulfilled. She's living with Lee's brother, engaged to marry him, right? And her fiancé goes to sleep early and she stays up late drinking shots with Lee, nearly ending up in bed with him. What's that all about? I'm sure some radical feminists could have had a field day with her tragicomic aspects as limned by the male writers of this show. The gendered aspects of discipline, strength, virtue, etc. as writ large by the more heroic figures in this series could keep a couple grad students busy in a women's studies program.
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She was Zak's Flight Training Officer. She shouldn't have been at his apartment EVER.
Zak was a poor pilot. He failed basic flight. Kara passed him. He died. Horribly.
Lee knew Kara was a flight officer, but not that she fraudulently passed Zak. She admits this sin in the miniseries, shortly before saying "It's the end of the world" in that same flippant tone people use when they say "Not like it's the end of the world."
Lee on the other hand, is an amazing pilot, but is always told he's less than Starbuck. So he's off on one of the finest ships in the fleet, and makes it to Commander Air Group. Not a minor posting, at all.
Starbuck meanwhile, is NOT Galactica cag. She's spiraling. That poker game in the miniseries would have been the end of her career.
One time, one time ever, Bill Adama admits he loves lee more than kara. When she's on that planet, digging out the brain of the raider like a jack-o-lantern, Lee thinks the Commander would have already moved on if it was him.
The commander replies "If it was you, we'd never leave".
And yup, Shaw was pumped up on some junk, and Admiral Cain probably would have gladly marched lock step with the third. Some fanfics play with this, having the colony flag for Tauron, where Cain is from, be the ol Red and white with desecrated svasti.
This obviously, does not endear the pirate admiral to the 13th.
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I'd forgotten about Kara being Zak's flight training officer. That's near the beginning of the series, and now that you mention it, it does seem entirely inappropriate that she should have had a relationship with him outside of work. Passing him was idiotic, and intended to pump up his ego, but ultimately at the cost of his life.
Why does Adama have such an affection for Kara? I thought she was engaged to Zak or something so he expected her to marry his son, hence the perception of her as a surrogate daughter. Did I miss something there?
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Yeah, Commander Adama doesn't know Zak failed basic flight.
He gets pretty nasty when he finds out. Essentially, Adama knows and ignores the fact that Zak got into a relationship with Kara in flight school. He looks the other way for a lot of people.
So he goes to the Funeral. Ex wife... yeuch. Lee hates him... yikes... Crying pretty blonde LT. Bingo. Oh, she's a viper pilot? He was a viper pilot too! Psuedo daughter.
In the miniseries, when Lee finally loses his professional calm and decides to tear into the old man, he relates a mantra Bill Adama drilled into his sons. Pointing at the stupid plaque which shows "Husker" Adama and his two sons, "A man isn't a man... until he wears the wings of a viper pilot."
Once again, I can't find the frakkin' clip on youtube, but it's page 68 and 69 of the novelization.