Battlestar Galactica: Season 2 - SciFi US broadcast thread - Page 51

And one did, didn't she?

I guess the thought was that a) Cylons were backing off and b) there was no way to see the planet using Dreidus anyway so it was a safer gamble to have a few among them vs. wandering where they can be found more easily. I think the nebula cloud was the biggest reason to move there and the Cylons saying they were done with humanity probably helped moreso.

Re: shift from looking for Earth.

It was very clear when this all changed and that change was Pegasus. Pegasus arrived and their new admiral took them back into the fight and changed the thinking in the fleet. I think this changed perspectives on things a bit and the final result of this was sending people back to rescue folks on Caprica. They have some ideas on how to get to earth but they haven't had a lot of time with both internal (Zarek, mobsters, black market, terrorists, supplies, etc.) and external (Cylons, Cylons and more Cylons) to worry about charting the star systems for Earth. They will come back to it no doubt but my money isn't until second half of next season.

Unless they figured there would be no way to contact the Cylon fleet through the nebula.

I also didn't see anyone on the planet that had a weapon or looked like an organizing police force. Could a society like that really exist without a peace keeping force? I don't think so. We have constantly been shown how base people can be so I figure they would be needed.

Right now I'm guessing that Baltar may have issued some sort of de-militarizing order to weaken Adama's power base and get more people onto the planet.

Lets hope he didn't issue a ban on firearms or the "resistance" may have to lure toasters into Ewok style traps.

I also wondered why the President didn't bring that up as a counter argument against Baltar's platform of settling on the planet?

I was waiting for her to bring up the point, "But we know that there are cylons among us. We can't take the chance that they would eventually be able to contact the cylon fleet and give away our location." But it never came up. And it at least seems that the cylons among them were not able to give them away (if we assume that the cylons really didn't know about where they were until they detected the nuclear blast).

I suppose that after they were told that the cyclons were going to leave them alone, it may have been enough to get people to not worry about this so much. But I still think it is an issue that should have been brought up.

This should even be an issue for when/if they find Earth. What good would finding Earth be unless they have either defeated or made peace with the cylons. How could they hope to settle on Earth when the cylons could just nuke it if they find it too? They couldn't just assume that the cylons wouldn't find Earth since there are already cylons hidden among them.


As for the size of babies, I really can't see making an issue of something as silly as that. There are average sizes for babies, and there are above and below average sizes as well. You know, 50th percentile, 75th, 25th, etc...? But if that isn't enough to not get you worked up over the size of a baby you see for 2 seconds, then you can imagine that the quality of the nutrition is likely to play a role in babies being a bit smaller.


To speak to another issue that some have had problems with, I really don't see anythng unusual about their living conditions on New Caprica. After all, we are a society capable of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, super-coliders, laser technology, chemical engineering, viral and bacterial manipulation, space flight, nuclear submarines, supercomputers, etc, etc... But take 50 thousand of us "regular people" (some military, some blue collar, some white collar, probably even fewer with strong science skills) and transport us by aircraft carrier and various other ships to some island rock somewhere and drop us all of there at the same time (or over a period of months) with minimal supplies, no infrastructure for building or acquiring building supplies and materials, etc.. and see what we cobble together in a year. I think people would be putting most of their effort into getting food.

But having said that, if the settlers on New Caprica happen to have been able to bring together enough resources to get together some kind of infrastructure for constructing houses and such, then it would still likely take a LONG time given their limitations.

And maybe they even have started construction of "towns". Since they are literally starting form nothing, they would NOT be living in the towns as they are built. They'd likely be living just outside the construction areas in temporary shelters.


As for some people calling this a "reset" (to the beginning of the series I assume they mean), I just don't agree in the slightest. New Caprica isn't being nuked, it is being occupied. The two Battelstars aren't going to just go off now and get back to the routine they were in before Baltar settled them on New Caprica, they are probably going to be trying to figure out a way rescue the settlers. And most importantly, Moore said that the occupation arc should play out over 4-6 episodes (emphasizing probably 4). So we know it is an evolution of the show that will be explored and worked through, and I'd assume that eventually most of the settlers will get away and the fleet will get back to looking for Earth. But at that point relationships are likely to be different, new issue are likely to have been introduced (in the fleet and in the cylon ranks), etc...

I don't think for even a second that there will be some kind of "reset" (in that the year never happened) either. That is just a conventional, tired, predictable crutch that sloppy writers use way too much when they want to play with exciting ideas but don't have the balls to change the status quo. Moore said they were taking a chance with what they did, but they did it. It won't be "un-done".

The more salient point is, why was the year break needed? There are certainly more plausible devices that could have been used for a shakeup of the series, and they would have been far less jarring. The year leaves too many questions, and sees too many changes to characters that we got to know over the course of two years. That's beside the main issue of the sloppiness of such a change of time reference.

Does anyone think that if the series were less popular, they would have gone ahead with this finale? That's my biggest problem with it... the writers are basically saying, "Fuck 'em. They'll come back no matter what we do." Such hubris is dangerous and may serve to alienate the fans.

The "time warp" of the last 30 minutes comes across as a lazy hack job. An unnecessary one, at that.

-Scott

How would you go about putting across the point that they're seriously making an effort to form a new colony of Cobol? If they went down there for a couple episodes, lasting at most a few months, then the Cylons came, well then, they could leave the planet with very little investment on their part. Not to mention it would be a complete reset. However, once the fleet votes to settle on the planet, the only real way to show that they're serious about it is to have them down there for a good long time. No, we don't know every little thing that happened down there, but it's pretty easy to surmise most of it from the half hour that they gave us to get acquainted with the series' new ground situation. If it's an important development, they've got a whole 20 more episodes by contract that they can reveal it in.
Personally, I'm looking forward to next season because it seems likely that we'll find out pretty soon about the true natures of the Six in Baltar's head and vice versa.

"

I disagree, Scott. A lazy hack job would be to use a reset and pretend that this didn't happen. Or to a more typical degree, get them out of Baltar's order to settle at the last minute.

Look, the story took us to a point where there was about to be a major change in the status quo (Baltar deciding to settle on New Caprica. So, with traditional "TV" writing we would expect that this wouldn't actually happen. Something would occur to get them out of this just in time to maintain the status quo of the show. So some last minute series of events unfolds that makes it clear to the fleet and even Baltar that they really shouldn't settle here, and they go back to the "established".

The problem that many had with settling on New Caprica (aside from that it wasn't Earth and it wouldn't be comfortable and would be tough to get things up and established there) was probably more of a concern that the cylons weren't being honest and that they could eventually be found with their guard down. At least, that is the concern that I would think most viewers of the show had. It wasn't a worry that trying to settle would result in immediate disaster. It was more that, after time, after they let their guard down, eventually the cylons would get them.

So we could have been brought to the point where this almost becomes a worry, they almost settle, but then they don't. Or they could actually settle! Break viewers expectations and let it actually happen! Let them settle, let them put their guard down, and let the cylons get them! And I don't think it would have been as interesting if they just started settling (a week or maybe a month) and then the cylons come.

I think it was a bold move by someone who just wants to tell good stories and isn't afraid to just "take a chance and do it". Instead of the expected "set-up potential for big problem that really changes things but get us out of it just in time", they actually went ahead and let "the worst" happen. Now we get the drama of watching our heroes deal with new situations. We know they will (or most of them will) eventually get back to the "fleet on the run and in search of Earth" story style, but they'll probably have new (or at least additional) dynamics between them and new plot threads (or additional threads)to deal with because of what they'll go through with this new situation.

I liked it.

Good post, Sean. Actually, I became convinced that Gina was going to set off the nuke on NC, irradiating the small habitable portion and foiling their chances of settling there. I became even further convinced when she said that there was no way she would be going there. Instead, Moore and Eick took the route that's more interesting, which is always the better choice when writing for any medium.

Agreed. Probably no different from what we'd call a "battlefield commission", she can do the job, more or less proven herself under fire (at least on C-in-C, not literally on the ground/in the field), and even without people leaving to settle on New Caprica there would have been attrition in the ranks anyway, so I don't think it's all that far-fetched. Plus she's the Commander's girlfriend, which can't hurt...

I'd agree with most observations that just because the Colonials have FTL and nice snazzy ships doesn't mean 50K of them (or rather, by now just under 40K) could build a nice shiny new town from scratch, much less be able to set up pharmaceutical factories. However, one disconnect is indeed the fact that a year later, they're still in tents. Given that they apparently were able to fabricate new Vipers, or at least build the Blackbird, it would appear that within the fleet there were foundry ships, and we already know they are able to mine, so surely they could've fabricated the materials to build rudimentary homes, even if they were just basic huts built with metal sheeting? Unless the foundry was destroyed along with Cloud 9, but that gets into another level of exposition.

But if they didn't find the planet by accident in the first place, they wouldn't have had the quandary. That's where they started to go wrong.


Again, this is where it started to go wrong.

There was never enough made of the waning determination of the colonists to find Earth for this whole settlement issue to seem plausible to me. Sure - they've all gotten tired of running and fighting - but when did Baltar suddenly get his gift of persuasion? He was never much liked by anyone (in fact, he's been barely tolerated) - Suddenly the colonists forget about their Gods and the prophecy of Earth and follow Baltar and his harem to a life of poverty and hardship... The episode actually started putting out false notes early in the episode, as Baltar's poll numbers grew so rapidly. It started to smell of an obvious plot device long before the "time warp."

With Adama's near willingness to assassinate a General who he thought was a dangerous maverick not so long ago, how could he allow this to happen? How could he allow the fleet to dissolve and the defenses to fall? The Adama I have come to know wouldn't have. That's just one more of the inconsistent characterizations of the final thirty minutes that didn't ring true. Especially since Roslin planted the seed that Baltar had collaborated with the Cylons before. With Adama's hatred and distrust of the Cylons, he wouldn't have just said "You have no proof...", he would have found proof.

I was hoping to see something made of the Six and Boomer from "Downloaded." That had potential for an interesting prelude to a finale. Such a plot could have riled up hopes over a few episodes, only to have them dashed by a Cylon counterplot... fade to black...

Certainly, I understand the desire to shake things up from time to time. This just felt like a stumble. I've come to expect better writing from Moore et. al.

-Scott

That's my biggest problem with the finale...it's as if the entire first half of the season was entirely moot...all the trouble they faced to get a glimpse of earth (on Kobol) didn't mean squat when they found a planet that would barely support life.

Perhaps the difference is that the Admiral was, like himself, simply a surviving high-ranking military officer, and he could justifiably take the view that he was simply going against the view of one person, albeit one that outranked him, whereas Baltar's election on the settlement platform was the majority will of the people? Whilst he obviously disagreed with that view, he probably felt he could not in good conscience go against it, otherwise he'd be turning his back on democratic principles, and might as well have imposed martial law from day one.

As an aside, I'd observe that whilst the Galactica was in some disrepair (blinking lights which he looked at sadly), it was clearly still well within functional parameters, given that it, and indeed the rest of the still-spaceborne ships, were able to jump away at a moment's notice. So the military, whilst presumably not quite as powerful and effective as it used to be, hasn't completely fallen asleep at the wheel either. I do wonder, though, why they didn't have Raptors flying closer to the edges of the nebula to act as early warning scouts -- being in the middle of the nebula meant they couldn't be detected, but by the same token meant they were blind too, and this could have been counteracted with patrols. An oversight, perhaps? Or just another sign of insufficient numbers of active-duty personnel?

They wanted to feel ground underneath their feet and see sky above their heads. Many who embraced the search for Earth originally believed Earth's existence to be a myth, but embraced the quest nonetheless, because it was all the hope they had. Even if Earth existed, what were the chances they would ever find it? And if they did, would they simply lead the Cylons there so they could lay waste to humankind's final colony?

No, New Caprica was the bird in the hand, and I fully understand how even devout believers in the search for Earth would abandon the search in order to carve out a life on New Caprica, difficult though it may be. Hiding in a nebula, out of Cylon sight, may not have been an absolute sure thing, but it was a lot more within reach than somehow continuing to evade the Cylons indefinitely, somehow finding Earth, and enlisting Earth's help to blast the Cylons to kingdom come.

Land beckons the weary traveler, even when the journey is not yet done.

The people that want to settle are the people who are in the fleet and don't know about the way to Earth. The people who didn't want colonization were Adama, the military, and Roslin. These were the main people in the search for the Tomb of Athena. I think the rest of humanity would prefer the security of a habitable planet, and the nebula shielding it from the Cylons.

it was fracking awesome! =).

i think you're all forgetting that ron moore used to work on star trek series, which has become synonymous with "reset". the reason why ron wanted BSG is to NOT press the reset button. FYI.

Just in case nobody else saw it, this is Sci-Fi's press release, put out Monday regarding the third season:


So, looks like it's staying on Sci-Fi, on Friday night, and Edward James Olmos is most definitely returning. No, it will not be an animated CGI EJO.

Here are a few things to consider: the new Cylon society was chiefly brought about because of two Cylon womens' love for two human men. How do you think Sharon is going to react when she finds out that the man she loved/loves is married to her murderer? And how will Six react when she finds her love a drugged-up womanizer? Well, she knew about the womanizing part, but he'd always been a bit more discrete about it.

Not really--in the miniseries she catches him with a girl. And she doesn't seem all THAT surprised by the concept.

I tried making my way through the Television Without Pity thread for this episode and I gave up around page 22. It's nearly as long as the thread here for the whole season.

One thought that occurred to me last night was this; what if the occupying Cylon force makes things better for the refugees? Will they build them homes, schools, hospitals (including medicines), and basic infrastructure? If so, what will happen?

Will the Colonials accept the occupation? If not, how will the resistance form?

If that happens (the rebuilding of "New Caprica") I see the the Cylons trying to force their way of life on the Colonials. And I see many Colonials not taking to that idea very well.

And that might lead to even more parallels to modern day events.

That's the way I see things going. This is the New Cylon Order under the leadership of Sharon and Six, one of whom may still consider herself to be more human than Cylon. It'll be really interesting to see if they actually have a better standard of living under the (shiny metal) boot of dictatorship than they did in a democracy. It would be hard to sell a resistance movement to people who get to live in (shiny metal) houses instead of canvas tents. All they have to do is give up a few (very basic and fundamental) civil rights and freedoms.

I must admit I wasn't enamored of this episode the first viewing it was so jarring and so much an unexpected twist. I watched most of the 2nd showing Saturday 2am and liked it a lot better. I watched the last 30 minutes 2 more times on TIVO plus last nights showing and the concept becomes more interesting each time.

Last nights 3rd Official broadcast restored the Credits voiceover and it's amazingly bonechilling to hear Six recite those words. The Cylons have indeed taken over.

During the next season, they decide they don't need the Galactica manned anymore. Adama joins the colony and takes up teaching as well. He specializes in teaching the students Calculus.

Apparently flashbacks will be used to help expalin what happened in that missing year. I guess we will (hopefully) have some of our questions answered but I still don't like how the last half hour played out. It was a huge time leap for pure shock affect reasons.

The news that the New Caprica story will only last 4 episodes is kind of sad IMO. He did a rushed huge time leap to tell a 4 episode arc? Then we just pick up on the same journey with characters that we used to know and like but now are a year older with differences we don't know about?

Andrew:

I think what this NEW CAPRICA arc will accomplish, overall, is that Baltar will finally start overtly working with the cylons. Much like the character in the original, Baltar has betrayed the colonists, but in a different way.

Moore and Eick have both been at this long enough, and both are trying to stay as far away from the traditional sf genre , that became muddled in technobabble, comparable and topic to what is going on in current events, or at least trying to parallel some of the aspects.

at the same point i think that if conventional wisdom holds true that a lot of fans, myself included are going to be pleasantly surprised come the start of season three, the statement's of resistance, and occupation, on NC make this even better, out numbered, out gunned, Starbuck saying fight them, till they can't. great statement except from the look of the last few scenes the Toasters out number them drastically, the "settlement all seems to be in one place. Do you really think they are going to just let them keep there sidearms, think that they are not going to disable all of the Raptors??

The Boards over at the official site has questions for Moore, and sometimes he is very good to answer. But honestly i love what they have done, taken everything that you want and throw it out, Read somewhere that they will never find earth, this show will not have a happy ending, and i think that possibly MR. Moore and Eick, sort of use the various boards to go the opposite from what everyone expects or has become standard formula TV to keep the show so good.

This leaves so many things open for possibilities, and i know that some are wanting to see the missing year, but really that is not needed, would be nice, but not necessary to move the story along, unless they Moore and Eick were given 24 episodes to work with instead of 20.

the military that has been the driving factor of the first two seasons, are now not the players, the civilian population on the controlled planet are. Great time for more break outs, the possibilities if seeing different "skin-jobs". had to with Olmos back with the mustache.
like i stated before we have three very different converging story lines, that fact that the Lucy Lawless carter is in a ten story arc , leads me to believe that part of this will be on caprica.
What is going to happen to Chief, when Boomer MK1 comes face to face with him??? Baltar and 6 MK 1 , endless possibilities.
How in the hell do the two battlestars jump back with limited people, and fight for humanity. and as brought up in different questions and answers by Mr. Moore himself, converting more caraters from the original series, Count Iblis, and the Imperious leader???
Damn shame all the transponders that was used when Boomer Mk 1 went to the Basestar, are gone,


true statement, saying that the trains would run on time put Mussolini in power, people tend to shy away from discomfort, and are willing to sacrifice some freedoms for security and comfort, sad fact of life.

The new Caprica holds a very interesting story line in the fact that Tigh is there. Starbuck the hotshot is out of here league now, we have to fall back to what has been discussed in the past from the last cylon war, hand to hand, and that area Tigh is the man.

the question that has not been pondered is, not all the Cylons seem to agree, do we have the hing of a civil war among them?? peaceful that want to coexist, and those that want to eradicate the human race??

or the ultimate mind job, this has all happened before and this will all happen again, that the Colonials are that last Mk and Mod of the last time, this happened and the "skin Jobs are the next evolution of Humankind????.

Why are people being judgemental? Wait until Season 3 has aired and then make your decision whether you feel the path they took was good or not. You can't make the puzzle without all the pieces

That is so true Dave, it was just very strange how season 2 ended. And its going to frackin suck waiting until October to see my favorite show start up again.

I haven't seen a show (especially a cable sci-fi show) generate this much reaction in a long time around the 'net.