Battlestar Galactica Season 3 (Oct 06) (1 Viewer)

[Holadem]

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H

 

[Jim_C]

Damn, what a call by Robert. It's almost as if he saw the finale ahead of time.

 

[Charlie Campisi]

I preferred the show when it wasn't about Earth. Sure it was always a goal to get there, but it wasn't about "let's see how many connections we can draw to Earth and Earth mythology." I bought into the explanation of the conventional Earth clothing and language that Moore didn't want 'felgercarb' and aliens to detract from the substance of the show. The show was trying to be gritty and real. Now? It's lost. I want to find out how it ends, but the Watchtower references and crazy pan out at the end, as well as Starbuck's instant return after a mediocre death leave me unfulfilled and with doubts about where my gritty, dark and wonderfully depressing show about imperfect flawed characters went.

Episode points:

Looking back, Tyrol did have all kinds of weird black out episodes, like beating the snot out of Callie. Not sure how they explain away Tigh's history. Adama knew him as a younger man. Same for Anders. Tough to fake a childhood for someone who is famous. And Callie and Tyrol's baby has obvious implications because of the supposed uniqueness of Hera.

As for the trial. Could have been done much better. Lee testifying was completely unbelievable. What's worse, it was unnecessary to stretch the bounds of credibility. What he said was great, it's just that he shouldn't have been allowed to say it as testimony. It would have been much easier to make up a reason why he rather than the lawyer needed to deliver the closing argument, because that's what it was. The only 'testimony' he gave was what his father said to him and that was fairly minor as the shock value was minimal. We know the Adamas have issues. Because the viewer knew what Bill said to Lee about Baltar not deserving a fair trial, Lee's argument was justified to the viewer. It didn't matter if the rest of the court knew what Bill said and so his testimony was unnecessary.


Agreed. Monster call.

 

[Andrew Beacom]

The show had imperfect flawed humans like Tigh and Starbuck who were still able to do good things for their fellow man. Now that they are Cylons those achievements just become additions to Cylon achievement.

I also want to see where this is going to go next season as I have invested time in the show and its characters. That doesn't mean I have a good feeling about where RM is taking it though.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I'm not willing to say Flawed Storytelling until I see all the pieces, so when the show is over I will look back and make a judgement. Still even then, I might not agree where he is taking his story but it is his story to tell, As long as quality is maintained thru out I can't really fault him for not taking the story where I would like it ot go.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Circles within circles indeed. It will be interesting to see how they close the loop next year.

 

[Scotian.]

So the core of the resistance to Cylons on New Caprica were Cylons... They're turning out to be a much more screwed up race than humans.

 

[Paul_Sjordal]

Adama met Tigh shortly after the First Cylon War, when both were out of work (and Tigh was beginning to become an alcoholic). This means that Tigh's memories and military records from the first war could easily be fabricated, because there is no human in the colonial fleet who can independently verify Tigh's existence prior to meeting Adama between wars.

I think Roslin is sharing visions with Athena and Caprica 6 as a consequence of having Hera's blood in her veins and/or the Chamalla treatments. The visions do not necessarily mean that she is a cylon.

I have said before that if the writers are paying attention to continuity, then the events of the show are thousands of year in our past (we are the descendants of the 13th colony) or thousands of years in our future (we are the ancestors of Kobol)...
...and I think that the Bob Dylan song is confirmation that the events portrayed in the series is the latter and not the former. This means that when they find Earth, they will either find an advanced civilization roughly on par (technologically) with their own, or they will find out the burned-out husk of a civilization that long ago destroyed itself.

Maybe the original inhabitants of Earth (us) left for Kobol because we'd done too much ecological damage to the planet and needed to go elsewhere for a few thousand years to let the ecosystem repair itself. *shrug* Who knows? It should be fun to find out.

Now that I think of it, I'm glad the events of the show are in our distant future rather than our distant past. It would have been too hard for me to accept that we are the descendants of the 13th colony simply because we have too much archaeological and paleological evidence that mankind originated on this planet.

I believe we are going to find that the Final Five has a radically different political agenda from the Significant Seven, which is why they are completely separate from them. It could be that the four basestars closing in on the ragtag fleet are basestars associated with the Final Five, in which case they might not fire on the fleet at all. This may be why Starbuck was sent out ahead to allay Apollo's fears.

I have seen one very interesting theory regarding Starbuck. You may recall a comment by one of the Significant Seven that there are no cylon children. All biocylons are born exactly as they are. Now, it could be that Starbuck is a cylon and her memories of a childhood are false, or it could be that she's completely human, but what if Socrata Thrace was the fifth member of the Final Five? This would make Kara -- not Hera, not Nikky -- the first and oldest hybrid. While this explains the "special destiny" stuff that both Socrata and Leoben carried on about, it does raise big issues with why the cylons would send someone to abuse a child as important as the first hybrid.

PS -- The Lords of Kobol are supposed to have been mortals who ascended to godhood. I strongly suspect that Baltar and Starbuck are two of the twelve Lords of Kobol. Anyone wanna lay odds on whether Baltar becomes the one who rebels against the other gods, forces the humans to flee Kobol, and becomes the cylon god? Heh.

 

[Brian Glaeske]

All we can really do is speculate as to the "5" being Cylons or not. They believe they are Cylons, but all of the evidence we have seen is sort of contrary to that.

- Anders got sick, death bed sick, on New Caprica. Certainly not a very Cylon thing to do.
- Tyrel's been sick and his recovery from the spacing may have been more due to any number of factors (like body mass)
- We must assume that Tigh has been aging. Do Cylons age? Maybe, but one would suspect at a slower pace.
- Whats-her-face, the Prez's aid, is completely out of left field. Guess they needed a new major character to replace someone they killed off.
- Kara? We really don't know that much at all.

Are these 4 (or 5) really Cylon? Do they represent some of "original" DNA used to clone the first Cylons? Is being a Cylon something one "ascends" to? Why do the numbers match between Cylon and human mythology; 12 colonies - 12 models, 5 prophets - 5 missing models?

My biggest problem with this half of the season is that it was just presented all of the sudden. It would've been more effective if:

- We saw a building relationship between Anders and whats-her-face with some "what-the-f___" mysteries
- The song was slowing driving all of them mad over a longer period of time
- The trial had a bit more buildup
- Tigh had a few more "what-the-f___" moments that could eventually be explained by this revelation
- Tyrel's kid turned out to be some other dude's.

Obviously many of these holes can be attributed to the aborted plot line. Oh well, we'll see what we get in 9 months.

Brian G.

 

[Everlasting Gobstopper]

Here's a thought: If Brother Kavel is the keeper of the secrets for the Cylons as has been suggested by the scene in which he boxes all the D'Annas, then it's entirely possible he knew that Tigh was a Cylon. It'd bring a whole new meaning to his interrogation scenes on New Caprica, as Tigh was the only one we saw Kavel interrogate personally...

 

[PeterTHX]

You forget there was a whole Basestar of sick & dying Cylons in one episode.
Sharon/Athena was immune due to carrying (pregnant with) Hera.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Or for that matter, Leoben suffering from radiation poisoning at Ragnar station in the miniseries.

Interesting speculation all around from the good folks of HTF. Dang we have to wait nearly a year...

 

[Robert Anthony]

I so lucked out with that call, too

I mean, I have the advantage because I actually get to TALK to her because of my job, but she didnt' tip me off or anything. And I didn't think she was a cylon when she first showed up, but re-reading--it seems like she would naturally be the fifth, especially since scifi was touting the finale as the reveal of the final five, not the final four. Even though the one thing RDM, Eick and Sackhoff have flat out stated is that she's NOT a Cylon.

 

[JediFonger]

i'm pretty sure laura was hallucinating prior to hera's blood cells, no?

 

[Qui-Gon John]

Well, overall I do like the new BSG, I'm not pining for them to make it nearly identical to the original.

But I gotta say, their whole take on this with the Cylons is starting to get on my nerves.

First, we're supposed to believe that the Cylons can create machines that are so identical to a human, that a doctor can't tell the difference w/o some 'special' test that took a long time to develop.

Now, they've been stretching the limits of "who is a cylon or not" to the extremes. I hope the 4 who think they might be Cylons turn out not to be. Merely brainwashed or hypnotized into thinking this. Otherwise, it make no frackin's sense. Tigh's aging, Sam's being sick, etc.

In these regards, the series has lost it's way. It's no longer humanity vs. the Cylons. Now it's, "Name that Cylon".

I hope it can get back to being more on track.

 

[Dave Mack]

Yeah, my friend who thought it was the greatest show ever is now just really miffed. "Everyone's a damn cylon! What's the point?!?!?"
While I'm not there, I understand.
Also a few days have passed and I'm dealing with "Watchtower" better.
But, it's overused. Been in a zillion things and honestly, while certainly a classic well written song, it is just NOT that profound, IMHO.

 

[Robert Anthony]

Yeah, it seems to be shifting to "What is humanity, period?"

I dunno, I sorta like that shift. I can buy that one. Maybe a little TOO existential for spaceships and asplosions, but they've shown they can make it work in the show previously, so I don't know why it wouldn't work moving forward.

I'm going to waste all the goodwill I got by scoring that prediction a couple weeks ago by giving this prediction now:

I think we'll find out that NOBODY on the show is "Human" human. Everyone is various stage of cylon. Cylon however will be re-defined. I'm thinking AI by Spielberg type stuff.

Present day humanity, at some point, created cylons (hence them knowing Jimi Hendrix songs). Fast forward a couple hundred years, like Spielbergs AI. Except instead of the AI looking like the grey aliens, they've completely replicated humans. Perfectly. Maybe these cylons and humans have been interbreeding for quite awhile, since there's almost zero difference between the robots and the humans. And these robots/humans - due to religious persecution, war, whatever reason - leave earth, land on Kobol, and slowly forget they are robots and start over. Or maybe they choose to just PRETEND they're not robots, and if they pretend hard enough, the human mixed in with them will take over and they'll breed the robot out.

all except the five.

and the robots/humans eventually create their OWN robots, called Cylons. Use the "copy of a copy" theory, or the theory floated by Boomer and Six back on Caprica that they made the mistake of hubris, either way: these copies were different, altered, and not for the better, and the Five had to get out of there, and tried to get back to earth, to fix things, to make them right, to wait for their children, humanity's children, humanity itself, to take refuge there.

And when chief says "We're all cylons and we always have been" maybe he's not just talking about the 4 people in the room. Maybe he's talking about EVERYBODY. I mean, he'd be wrong, essentially, but it'd FEEL right. All of it has happened before, all of it will happen again.

the POV we've been getting info on the cylons from is typically the cylon pov. And we've discovered in season 2 and 3 that the cylons don't really know shit. We've been getting flawed info. The chain of reveals that would lead to the above theory being dropped on our heads would I think be a nice chain of headspinners if that's how it all eventually broke down. But I'm probably wrong (I'm probably wrong about Starbuck, too, I bet she's not even really a cylon, not if we're dealing with Gods in space ,she could be something completely OTHER) and Moore and Eick have their own idea of what these reveals mean and how they'll work towards the end of the series.

 

[Holadem]

Call me simple, but it would be hard to me to stomach things going that way. I have a hard enough time getting over the abject feeling of betrayal Saul as a Cylon provoked in me. What a horrible plot twist.

"After everything we've gone through" indeed. Frankly I would just shoot myself. Yeah, for all the good it did Boomer I know, I would try anyway. It's just horrible to feel thoroughly owned in that fashion. Geez man, it would be like learning tomorrow that I am the biological son of the guy who killed my father or something. (not that anyone did, I am just sayin'!). Ugh.

Why can't Lee be a fracking Cylon? Certainly would explain a lot :rolleyes.

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H

 

[Dave Moritz]

The entire thing about Saul being a cylon makes no sense at all. He goes way back to the first cylon war when there where only the mechanical cylons. While Saul could be a sob and angry drunk sometimes I still do not want to see him as a cylon it makes no sense. If there goal was to create controversy to get people to tune in next year for season 4, I think they did a good job at that.

While the pace of the show has slowed down way to much for my taste. I still very much enjoy the show and the new spin they put on the original. And while the new season should give us the answers that the season 3 ending show created. How are we suposed to believe Starbuck saying everything will be allright? The entire "I've been to earth and I know where it is everything will be allright". It took here about two episodes to get to earth and back, not evey cylon technology is that advanced to my knowledge. And Starbuck is saying this as the cylons are rapidly aproching the fleet. Are we supposed to believe that the cylons are not there to restart hosilities against humanity? Are we supposed to believe that those cylons have seperated themselves from the rest of the cylon race making them allies for some reason? How did Starbuck get to earth and back so fast? Did she find the 13th tribe on earth and saw that they two created a cylon type race but the cylons did not rebel and where not treated like slaves like they where with the 12 colonies? And can they truely afford to let the cylons find earth and risk them wiping out earth as well? Or is there a more advanced race protecting earth? There are plenty of questions and I really hope that season 4 does not end up being really lame! That is one of the big things that killed off the original BSG with BSG 1980.

 

[Paul_Sjordal]

Robert, I've seen variations on that theory on other boards, and I hope it's not true. I prefer my flawed humans to be (1) flawed and (2) human.