All things Battlestar Galactica

[bosk1]

Oh, yeah.  Those episodes DID do a lot.  But one thing they didn't do was resolve some big, unanswered questions.  That's all I was saying.  It seemed like they would.  But they basically just teased those questions even further. 


One other thing I noted:  Gallactica appears to have taken further damage.  I know there will be a big space fight at some point in time.  There just has to be.  But the odds of success on the part of the humans are becoming astronomically slim.  Can't wait to see how this is resolved.

[yorost]

Like I said, I don't think they get as much credit as they deserve.

[ReaPsTA]

Except that (c) we've seen nukes launched plenty of times throughout the series, and it has never taken that much logistical hoop-jumping.  Seems like a continuity error to me.

Mmm.  I can't remember another moment in the series where a Battlestar fired nukes except for an episode you haven't seen yet, and I remember some of the procedural stuff being there.

[bosk1]

Maybe I'm confused and they didn't use nukes, but I thought they did in some of the other battles with basestars.

[yorost]

They did, but they weren't fired from Galactica.  It was landed on the basestar with a raptor.

[bosk1]

No, that wasn't what I was thinking of.  Oh well, doesn't matter much anyhow.

[bosk1]

Oh, I guess I should also say that Eye of Jupiter/Rapture outed another of the Five.  I mean, not explicitly, but if you were paying attention, there is no other explanation for certain things happening other than one character being a Cylon.

[yorost]

Tell us the one you got, and if you want us to confirm it.

[ReaPsTA]

Oh, I guess I should also say that Eye of Jupiter/Rapture outed another of the Five.  I mean, not explicitly, but if you were paying attention, there is no other explanation for certain things happening other than one character being a Cylon.

Hahaha.  I would literally bet my life on what character you're going to say.

[yorost]

Oh, I guess I should also say that Eye of Jupiter/Rapture outed another of the Five.  I mean, not explicitly, but if you were paying attention, there is no other explanation for certain things happening other than one character being a Cylon.

Hahaha.  I would literally bet my life on what character you're going to say.

SPOILERS
One of two, anyways.  Likely the one outed from Eye of the Jupiter.  Could be he deduced the only obvious answer from Three's apology.

[bosk1]

*SPOILERS*

Tyrol.  There's no other explanation for him being drawn to the temple as he was.

[yorost]

Would you like us to confirm/deny it?

What did you make of Three's comments after she saw the five?

[bosk1]

Would you like us to confirm/deny it?

Either way.

What did you make of Three's comments after she saw the five?

Hmmm, that's interesting.  Not sure what that referred to.  I'm trying to think of who in the series something has been done to that would make her apologize.  I guess there's a certain character who has something in common with the title of this episode and who was also...intimate with the other of the Five that I already know.  That's the only thing I can think of.  That would make sense.  Unless something happened to some other character we aren't aware of yet, or that I am forgetting.  But I think the one I just referred to makes the most sense.

[yorost]

Yes, Tyrol is one of them, this episode outed him.  He was already high on people's lists for being a cylon, this just solidified it.  Most of the arguments against him were just that he was too human.  Some people thought they were laying ground for him since season 1, though I don't see it.  A decent chance, although not clear, that they were thinking him at the end of season 2.  Cavil's conversations with him were really interesting, telling Tyrol he feared he was a cylon.  A lot of people like to forget that these two episodes made certain characters clearly final five.

Not spoilers, but some discussion on who Three might have been referring to...  No names, but it may help you in deducing who one of the other final five is... This is a mix of stuff discussed at the time and some information you spoiled yourself to...
In the context of the show, Three could have been outing one of two of the final five.  One is Ellen, but since it was a purposeful hint and they still hadn't finalized the decision on her it doesn't make sense for it to be her.  Her argument is nice, though.  "You were right" to Baltar is that he knew Ellen was a cylon because he lied on her test to make it green.  Baltar told her about this at some point and Three is sorry she is dead (assuming they somehow knows she is dead, that's a stretch).  She was killed quietly, I don't think either her or Baltar could know that.  The other possibility requires tracking which model three this is and some deductions.  That's the one I buy, it points right at someone, it just doesn't answer what Baltar was right about.  Maybe it was outing both of them.

[bosk1]

Okay, well let me just put this out there:

SPOILERS--IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE SHOW AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW, JUST STAY OUT OF THE THREAD, OKAY?!

Alrighty then...

So, Tyrol.  Yeah, the conversations with Cavil are interesting.  Does he realize Tyrol is a Cylon?  The seven numbered models, from what I understand, do NOT know.  Is Cavil somehow the exception?  Being the #1 model and, presumably, the earliest, that could be.  Not sure. 

But Tyrol being outed has some other interesting implications.  Assuming I understand the "rules" correctly, by process of elimination, Callie is NOT a Cylon because Cylons cannot have children together.  And that also means Hera is not the only human/Cylon in existence.  But the Cylons likely have no idea of this. 

Is Tyrol more affirmatively outed at any point in time?  I mean, I know it should be obvious after this episode, but his there anything more conclusive done down the road?  I don't want to know what it is, just a yes or no.


Regarding Three, I thought she might be referring to Saul Tigh.  The apology and "what have we done?" attitude makes it clear that she feels the Cylons wronged whoever of the Five she was talking to, and Saul with his missing eye seemed the likeliest candidate. 

But also interesting about the "you were right" comment.  It's hard for me to imagine what she meant.  But here's just an abstract thought:  One thing Baltar has said recently that seems of some significance was his comment about the Hybrids, that nothing they say is just gibberish.  I wonder if Three may have been acknowledging his opinion of the Hybrids, which would then make some clue that the Hybrid dropped become important.  Hmm...

[yorost]

SPOILERS--IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE SHOW AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW, JUST STAY OUT OF THE THREAD, OKAY?!

So, Tyrol.  Yeah, the conversations with Cavil are interesting.  Does he realize Tyrol is a Cylon?  The seven numbered models, from what I understand, do NOT know.  Is Cavil somehow the exception?  Being the #1 model and, presumably, the earliest, that could be.  Not sure. 

But Tyrol being outed has some other interesting implications.  Assuming I understand the "rules" correctly, by process of elimination, Callie is NOT a Cylon because Cylons cannot have children together.  And that also means Hera is not the only human/Cylon in existence.  But the Cylons likely have no idea of this. 

All will be addressed in one form or another!

SPOILERS--IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE SHOW AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW, JUST STAY OUT OF THE THREAD, OKAY?!

Is Tyrol more affirmatively outed at any point in time?  I mean, I know it should be obvious after this episode, but his there anything more conclusive done down the road?  I don't want to know what it is, just a yes or no.

Yes.

SPOILERS--IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE SHOW AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW, JUST STAY OUT OF THE THREAD, OKAY?!

Regarding Three, I thought she might be referring to Saul Tigh.  The apology and "what have we done?" attitude makes it clear that she feels the Cylons wronged whoever of the Five she was talking to, and Saul with his missing eye seemed the likeliest candidate. 

Three has no known connection to Tigh in the series, though.  It was considered a possibility, some people argued it, but there's no screen time evidence to back the conclusion up.  Remember she was obsessed with Hera, it's not even clear she had more than a passing interest to the Resistance, as far as I recall.

SPOILERS--IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE SHOW AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW, JUST STAY OUT OF THE THREAD, OKAY?!

But also interesting about the "you were right" comment.  It's hard for me to imagine what she meant.  But here's just an abstract thought:  One thing Baltar has said recently that seems of some significance was his comment about the Hybrids, that nothing they say is just gibberish.  I wonder if Three may have been acknowledging his opinion of the Hybrids, which would then make some clue that the Hybrid dropped become important.  Hmm...

Tough call, not sure this was ever clearly supposed to point backwards in the show or forwards.  If you skipped my hidden paragraph above it's possible this pointed to Ellen, confirming that he faked the test and then told Three.  I don't buy it, though, Ellen was a leading candidate for being a final five but they had not decided on it fully, yet. ...that's not good enough for a direct hint.  Also, there's no reason to suspect they knew she was dead, so she probably wasn't remorseful regarding Ellen.

[bosk1]

Yeah, it doesn't seem to refer to Ellen either.  Going back to Saul, I know she personally doesn't have any connection to him, at least, nothing that has been revealed so far.  But I took her apology as, not necessarily "I'm sorry for what *I* did to you," but more of "I'm so sorry for what *we* did to you."  I mean, think about it.  Assuming she learned that Tigh was a Cylon, he was tortured and maimed.  Even if she personally didn't do that, it is highly likely that she would have felt guilt over it once faced with him like that.  I'm not saying this has to be the only explanation, but it is one that makes sense to me.  And given that I am reading from your posts that there is never anything conclusive presented later in the show that would tell you specifically what she was referring to, I suspect I will grow more and more attached to this position as time goes on.

[bosk1]

SPOILERS--IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE SHOW AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW, JUST STAY OUT OF THE THREAD, OKAY?!

So, Tyrol.  Yeah, the conversations with Cavil are interesting.  Does he realize Tyrol is a Cylon?  The seven numbered models, from what I understand, do NOT know.  Is Cavil somehow the exception?  Being the #1 model and, presumably, the earliest, that could be.  Not sure. 

But Tyrol being outed has some other interesting implications.  Assuming I understand the "rules" correctly, by process of elimination, Callie is NOT a Cylon because Cylons cannot have children together.  And that also means Hera is not the only human/Cylon in existence.  But the Cylons likely have no idea of this. 

All will be addressed in one form or another!

Just realized something else about this.  So far, as far as human/Cylon offspring, as far as I know, we only have two.  And those two are a boy and a girl.  I wonder if there is any significance to that.

[yorost]

I do think she referred to someone conclusively.  Ellen was one of the best two targets, but she doesn't work with the remorse issue.  She still might have been hinted at with the "you were right," though.  Anyone without a direct on screen connection to Three just doesn't work as well as someone we were directly shown to have interaction with her.

[GuineaPig]

SPOILERS--IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE SHOW AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW, JUST STAY OUT OF THE THREAD, OKAY?!

So, Tyrol.  Yeah, the conversations with Cavil are interesting.  Does he realize Tyrol is a Cylon?  The seven numbered models, from what I understand, do NOT know.  Is Cavil somehow the exception?  Being the #1 model and, presumably, the earliest, that could be.  Not sure. 

But Tyrol being outed has some other interesting implications.  Assuming I understand the "rules" correctly, by process of elimination, Callie is NOT a Cylon because Cylons cannot have children together.  And that also means Hera is not the only human/Cylon in existence.  But the Cylons likely have no idea of this. 

All will be addressed in one form or another!

Just realized something else about this.  So far, as far as human/Cylon offspring, as far as I know, we only have two.  And those two are a boy and a girl.  I wonder if there is any significance to that.

Congratulations.  You have now officially thought more about the Final Five than the writers did when coming up with them.

[yorost]

...and you're too harsh of a critic towards the show regarding the final five.  They did think out the answers to these whether you liked how or when they did it.  There was no reason they had to have plotted out what they would do with Tyrol's baby early on, just because questions existed doesn't mean they had to be answered.  His first question, I'm pretty sure that was answered in their minds by the time they settled on most of the final five.

[bosk1]

Yeah, I mean, whether we as the audience might like it or not, writers for a show usually don't have an entire four seasons (or even one full season, for that matter) completely written out or thought out in advance.  Sometimes, you just don't work out the details until later.  Sometimes, you start shooting and realize something needs to be changed to work onscreen.  Other times, you make changes or fill in gaps as you go for other reasons.  It might be nice ideally to assume they would sit down and write all the details in advance, but that's just not realistic and is usually not how it works.  What really matters is whether or not the show is enjoyable.  It is.  That pretty much ends the issue as far as I'm concerned.  I don't care that it may be flawed.  It's a frakking TV show, not life or death.

[yorost]

Master plans run a huge risk of going astray with audiences, too.  Leave too many allusions early on and you might find yourself forced into something audiences aren't responding to.  You also have to accept that as late as the second half of season 2 they were trying to decide if they were a serial or episodic show.  They did what they did, left themselves options and went with the flow.

[Perpetual Change]

^Excellent post. In a way, the latter half of Battlestar is a pretty cool microcosm of the show from the Cylon point of view. That is, you can try and plan everything out, but there's always some unknown factor or some surprise that might come up, and even the best and most diligently laid out plans can wind up not working out. 

I started watching the show again over the hurricane. Got through the miniseries and the first episode. Watching it again, I've picked up on a lot of things I missed before. I always felt like the series had completely changed course by the ending into something different that was still awesome. But now I feel like many of the things that happened in the end are in perfect thematic harmony with the beginning of the show.

[bosk1]

...as late as the second half of season 2 they were trying to decide if they were a serial or episodic show. 

Interesting comment.  From looking at the short episode descriptions on the DVD boxes, it looks like a lot of the episodes I have coming up may focus a lot on more "episodic" tangents and less on big picture issues.  But then again, TSCC season 2 did a lot of that as well, and most of those episodes appeared to be somewhat tangential to the big plot, and then the finale somehow managed to reach back through the season and tie up all of those loose ends and make all of those prior episodes fit together rather than being the nonsequiturs I initially thought they were.

[yorost]

The show isn't episodic at this point, but they did try to make most episodes something of their own.  There were almost always serial plot lines running through each episode, though, viewers jumping in and out could easily be confused by the changing situations of characters.  Ron Moore was closely tied to Deep Space Nine.  I think of Deep Space Nine as an episodic show with strong serial elements.  I think of Battlestar Galactica as a serial show with strong episodic elements.  This was sort of an evolution of what he was producing in the final two seasons of DS9.

[ReaPsTA]

Episodic episodes and serial shows are different kinds of storytelling.  Serial shows let you hit upon bigger arcs and bigger themes and bigger emotions with more developed tension and more sophisticated plotting.  Episodic shows let you really explore individual ideas and nuances that are a distraction in a serialized arc.

The thing is, BSG by design handles the serialized stuff better.  As much as the show wanted to be about the little details, its biggest strengths from the beginning were the bigger things.  The attention to detail and nuance always worked best in service of the bigger emotions.  When the show went episodic, it often had a problem with the smaller conceptual ideas feeling overstuffed with inappropriately big emotion.

Black Market is a perfect example of this.  Simple concept about there being a Black Market in the fleet that Lee has to deal with.  The moral ambiguity of the situation forces him to confront his own dark side.  Perfect.  But then they throw in Lee having a serious girlfriend before the end of the world.  And he's seeing a prostitute with a kid who reminds him of her.  And on and on and on and on and on.  It was too much, and it actually undermined the message of the episode.  The fact Lee was trying to save a child from being sold into prostitution was more meaningful than his own emotional complexity.

The episodic BSG shows worked best when they handled major character arcs.  Scar dealt with a lot of major Starbuck demons.  Unfinished Business hit on some of the most fundamental character arcs of the series.  Downloaded handled Boomer and Caprica Six's character development over one episode.  It focused on the bigger things simply being handled in a shorter amount of time.

[GuineaPig]

...and you're too harsh of a critic towards the show regarding the final five.  They did think out the answers to these whether you liked how or when they did it.  There was no reason they had to have plotted out what they would do with Tyrol's baby early on, just because questions existed doesn't mean they had to be answered.  His first question, I'm pretty sure that was answered in their minds by the time they settled on most of the final five.

IIRC, the commentary for the episode in question (the one that resolves the specific continuity error we're talking about) more or less confirms that Moore completely didn't think about that particular problem with the Chief.  And the decision about who the Final Five was, I think, more or less made on the spot when they got to writing the finale.

The show isn't episodic at this point, but they did try to make most episodes something of their own.  There were almost always serial plot lines running through each episode, though, viewers jumping in and out could easily be confused by the changing situations of characters.  Ron Moore was closely tied to Deep Space Nine.  I think of Deep Space Nine as an episodic show with strong serial elements.  I think of Battlestar Galactica as a serial show with strong episodic elements.  This was sort of an evolution of what he was producing in the final two seasons of DS9.

The show became a lot more episodic during season 3 because of network pressure, and budget restraints. 

[yorost]

IIRC, the commentary for the episode in question (the one that resolves the specific continuity error we're talking about) more or less confirms that Moore completely didn't think about that particular problem with the Chief. 

So?  You don't like when they thought about it, but they did think about it.  It's not something they had to answer right away whether they trapped themselves with it or not.

And the decision about who the Final Five was, I think, more or less made on the spot when they got to writing the finale.

We've been discussing this for the last week or two, it's getting tiring.  The decision came during season 3, but that doesn't mean nobody was thinking about them earlier.  Ellen (bosk1 knows about her and Tyrol, no others) is the perfect example.  Some interviews they talk about how they left the decision until the very end, but they have also confirmed they were considering making her a cylon since she was first introduced.  'Hints' to the final five are very scarce, most come in season 3 outside of Ellen.  I've never seen the show runners confirm or deny them, for the most part it hasn't been asked or they avoid answering the one time I recall.  They're open to many possibilities, red herrings forgotten about, accidents that ended up leading them to picking the final five, purposeful since someone wanted to make them a cylon, etc. Back to Ellen, they drop some ambiguous hints and sat on it for many seasons.  They didn't have to, but they did eventually play the card.  Midway through season 3 their are about 3 characters with bullseyes on their backs, and since they all turned out to be cylons...

The show became a lot more episodic during season 3 because of network pressure, and budget restraints. 

Middle/end of season 2 was the most episodic the show got, the channel was already putting pressure on them.  Budget constraints hinder being pure serial, possibly, but as has been pointed by a few the show maintained an episodic structure while being pretty serial.  Viewers skipping an episode or two could get lost easily enough concerning the situations characters were in.  Episodes tended to push the show forward instead of end with reset buttons, a la The Next Generation.

[GuineaPig]

IIRC, the commentary for the episode in question (the one that resolves the specific continuity error we're talking about) more or less confirms that Moore completely didn't think about that particular problem with the Chief. 

So?  You don't like when they thought about it, but they did think about it.  It's not something they had to answer right away whether they trapped themselves with it or not.

Uh, the when is kind of important.  Thinking about the implications of characters being suddenly revealed as Cylons after you've already broadcast it to the world is probably the wrong time to do it.

I'm not averse to shows making things up as they go along; there are some great examples of it working (including, I'd argue, the beginning of seasons 2 and 3 of BSG) and with the right sort of plot or atmosphere the feeling of the writers struggling to deal with things can manifest itself brilliantly in the actions of the characters.  But when we're talking about things that are hugely important structurally, fundamentally, thematically, to the show's past and future, I think it behooves any writing staff to think a little about what they're doing beforehand.

[yorost]

I guess we'll disagree on Tyrol's baby.  It generated so much discussion among fans I always thought it worked out well, and they had multiple routes to go with it.

[Dimitrius]

I guess we'll disagree on Tyrol's baby.

I, for one, hated that.

[yorost]

We're not talking about opinions on how the story went, just whether it mattered they didn't have answers or didn't realize the question when they decided on Tyrol as a cylon.

I thought they did some things great and some things terrible regarding the baby situation.

[Dimitrius]

We're not talking about opinions on how the story went, just whether it mattered they didn't have answers or didn't realize the question when they decided on Tyrol as a cylon.

I thought they did some things great and some things terrible regarding the baby situation.

I just didn't like how they resolved that.

[ReaPsTA]

Hey, can we please stop having discussions that hint at the future of the show since arguably the main poster in this thread hasn't finished it?