CRAPRICA - TEEN ANGST BEHIND CYLON GOD

I finally saw Ron Moore's DVD-before-TV Caprica. Glad I didn't rush to see it. Egads, I can hardly watch the original Battlestar mini without thinking of what came later (Season 4 and the finale and now Caprica) to pollute such a great show. All the mystery, all the depth and complexity to the story and the characters of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica reduced to god did it and angels walk among us ... and now, it's all a teenage girl's virtual world. Blechhh

Caprica was pretty to look at - not to the level of Baltar's house in Battlestar - and there was some of the moodiness and alien-ness of Battlestar's Caprica representation but it was told to us more than shown and shown poorly (lame tattoos and ganster patois don't count for much).

So the Cylons were created by man: a sleazy defense contractor/computer genius downloads his dead daughter's self-coded avatar into his prototype combat robot so he won't lose the contract, and this snooty, priveleged little smartypants is associated with a private school that thas faculty and students that have secret monotheistic beliefs.

Moore should rename the show All My Robots and put it on the Soap Opera Channel

TERMINATOR TERRIBLE

The trailers looked pretty good, and the advance artwork looked good, but the film itself Terminator Salvation was simply awful.

And what is it with red-eye robots (Matrix, Battlestar, and Terminator)? All these sequels are beginning to feel like the same story: Matrix morphs into Terminator into Battlestar into HAL 9000. This guy McG is a terrible terrible director, absolutely artless and obviously without an ear for dialog. The script? Full of every action movie cliche and high-school level prose. What garbage. And like the cigarettes and fuel for the jet-skis in Waterworld, where did the human Resistance in T4 get all of their military gear? How is it possible for Hollywood to fuck up these iconic franchises? A retarded squirrel could do better. Sam Worthington ... boring. New Chekov as Kyle Reese ... oh please. The little black girl who knows her way around munitions? How multicultural. The Oracle at least offered Neo a cookie, Jane Alexander only gave the little girl a carrot. And did you see the guy in the distance with the blower making smoke in the LA scene were Kyle Reese and the little girl and the Sam Worthington terminator were the only survivors - who was that guy? On the imagination scale 1-100, McG's T4 gets a 12% for originality.

REVISITING A TERRIBLE ENDING

Now that several weeks have passed since the disastrous Ron Moore-scripted ending to Battlestar Galactica, it has had time to sink in and I've realized it was even worse than I initially thought. Any fan who has taken the time since the show ended to go back and watch the mini or episodes from Seasons 1 and 2 knows just how far afield Moore took the show in Season 4 and especially 4.5 and then simply led it over a cliff in the finale. It is a quintessential example of creative hubris dooming a show. Instead of having so little sleep due to his commitments to several other projects he should have spent the time watching every episode of his Battlestar Galactica creation prior to plotting out the finale eps and writing his finale. What he came up with was nothing short of an abortion.

What made the show interesting and set it apart was Sci-Fi Channel executive Michael Jackson's suggestion that Moore play up the religious conflict and thus we had a human-made robot race that was monotheistic and a human race that was polytheistic. For once a mainstream Western science fiction show didn't have a conventional point-of-view from its characters. The names and traditions and legends of the polytheists had a direct line to our Earth of the Classical Age and a bit earlier in the Bronze Age. The whole point of the show was a people, crushed by war, were on an exodus of survival to a mythic place known as Earth.

And what happened in Moore's finale? God did it. Angels walk among us. Give up your technology (and soap and antibiotics) and live among the dirty early hominids and breed with them.

The Opera House vision - a key thematic throughline of visual interest and surreal religiosity was reduced to the ridiculous - a these-pieces-belong-on-these-squares moment. Hera? Suddenly she's Mitochondreal Eve - a minor character elevated to the fulcrum of the finale - bah! And Kara, our reborn rabble-rouser who hears the "unstruck music?" - oh, she's and angel that goes *poof*

One has to wonder, in hindsight, if Moore and the gang got lucky early on in creating such a compelling and at times profound show only to desecrate it with their terrible ending, or if they simply didn't care - position in the industry and other jobs beckoned. The characters and we the fans deserved much better.

STAR TREK REVIEW

Got a chance to see it at Paramount last night. Liked it a lot, didn't love it. Here is a link to my IMDB review:radii Star Trek review

I'M SO LAZY

Thanks for continuing to visit even though the show's over. I am so lazy. I should be finishing the Battlestar: Variant 1 fan fiction but I'm procrastinating (but wait till you read how I kill Athena) ... I recommend the following as brilliant entertainment now that there is no more Battlestar to watch: Superjail, Xavier: Renegade Angel, Moral Orel and of course Robot Chicken

GO TO SITREP

Hi kids, I've kind of lost interest in this blog now that the show's over ... Caprica looks meh to me. I am still working on the fiction for the Battlestar: Variant 1 site (linked upper right) and will give you that better ending - 0oh, the things I have planned ... but for Battlestar stuff I suggest hanging out at Galactica Sitrep

WELCOME

Now that the show is over most visitors will probably be shiny new visitors who stumbled upon the site or had it referred to them. Galactica Variants chronicled and critiqued the show from early 2007 on ... you'll find reviews, criticism, and theory here ... and some fun images. In the blogosphere I was probably considered one of the show's harshest critics. BSG gave us excellence I grew to expect, but by the midpoint of Season 3 things were going awry and Season 4 wasn't as good as earlier seasons then Season 4.5 was pretty terrible and the two-part finale simply awful. If you're new to the show, you might want to quit watching at the end of Season 3 or the mid Season 4 episode Revelations.

WANT A BETTER ENDING?

[Daybreak, Pt. II Review updated in below post]
There's little point in adding new posts to this site with the show over and all, but I might for a while. I'll add to the Death By Plot-Hole post (next one down) over time as I count the ways of lame. For now my attention is turned to finishing the 'episodes' for my version of the ending: Battlestar: Variant 1 [which you can link upper right]

I've had the story done in my head for many months but I just haven't had the time to type it out and fine-tune it yet. The first two 'eps' are done and part of the third, and the synopses are up for them all. I think you'll find it is much more satisfying than the weak Season 4.5 and the lousy god-did-it and angels-on-my-Battlestar ending we got.

I had originally intended to have all the work done over the interminable 9-month delay between Season 4 and 4.5 that SciFi imposed upon the fans, but I didn't get to it. Now more than ever we need a good version and I'll give it to you*.

Some stories are in script format, others in more of a novel format and some a mixture. This isn't anything I can sell - it is a labor of love since I did so dearly love the show through Season 2 and on-and-off after that. Enjoy.

*[for those of you who think it presumptuous of me to write a "better" version, let me save you time from posting in the comments: "You're a jerk/idiot/a-hole/smug/pretentious/arrogant/full-of-hubris/twat/clown/moron ... etc. etc." There I've done it for you. Now go enjoy it]

DEATH BY PLOT-HOLE

... updated ...
When mystery is replaced by the mundane
[this post will be a work in progress - I'm not sure I really want to compile a list of all the plot-holes and pick them apart individually (I'm sure someone will do that) - maybe I'll just do the most egregious of them]


Battlestar Galactica reimagined hooked us for a few key reasons - aspects of the show which immediately declared it was special, starting with the mini.

The Look: Cinematic, rich, and high-style. Elegant architecture and design, good-looking people, saturated color, high-quality. The Story: A sinister plot, lust, betrayal, war, exodus, survival, technology, mystery, supernatural events. Themes: Loss, flight, fight, survival, aging, rogue technology, maintaining the veneer of civilization. The Tone: Adult, practical, dark, philosophical. The Sophistication of the Subject Matter: High-level, demanding of the audience that they think. The Sexuality: Adult, realistic. The Music: Minimalist, ethereal or militaristic by turns.

It seems to me that the character partisans are quite satisfied with the finale and will never be bothered by the glaring and numerous plot-holes. That's okay - take away from it what you will.

We plot people cannot reconcile the contradictions, omissions, cop-outs, dangling story threads and be satisfied with the Kumbaya ending served to us.

What is frustrating for us is that we were teased with such promise from the beginning and there were outlines of brilliance and hints of something special.

I think I have the perfect example to explain:

We are shown and told that the skinjob Cylons can resurrect and that they can access a reservoir of data that consists of the common memories of their model line.

We see the Hybrids living in their tubs of special goo as the sentient central processing units of the Base Ships. We see the special goo (a bit slimier) in the resurrections tanks. We are told that they can exist iteration after iteration, and we know that the skinjob models have been around at least two to three decades.

So through high style production design and set-dressing, cool lighting effects and some good visual effects, as well as sound effects and music, a mood was created that added to the sense of mystery about all this. We saw them put their hands on the interface panels with the liquid and gain knowledge and communicate through them. The lighted red panels also seem to be Matrix-like data streams, as well as the projected light symbols.

We are shown and told as D'Anna repeats suicides so she can resurrect - and in that space between death and resurrection see more pieces of the puzzle of the mystery of the Final Five and that there are answers to be had. When she finally does see them in the amazing coincidence of a supernova illuminating a crystal in the Temple of Five/Temple of Hopes and sending a beam of light down onto the mandala symbol she dies from the experience as her eyes go grey but she says, high with spiritual feeling, "so beautiful, so beautiful." We as the audience we waiting to see this great beauty, this great truth. And the "truth of the Opera House" turned out to be certain people standing in the right place at the right time so a deal could be struck between Cavil and the rest of them - but the deal went south because Tyrol kills Tory for murdering a human girl he didn't really love.

This is the example: Not long after learning he is a Cylon Anders is part of the boarding party on the damaged rebel Base Ship and longs to put his hand on one of those interface panels. How we as the audience longed for him to do it. What would happen? Would the Base Ship and Hybrid instantly recognize him? Would it change the equation instantly? It was a colossal tease. A tease that was never realized.

There was always something mystical about the goo - in resurrection it played the role of the birth canal and emergence into the light (and in No Exit we finally saw the light [the red tunnel effect] from Ellen's POV as she awoke).

For those of us that like the science and design elements of our science fiction those interface panels, the colors, the lights, how it works, were nagging questions. Sam putting his hand on the damaged Base Ship panel would have answered a lot of those questions.

Instead what we got was a diminished version - the mystery made mundane.

I have noticed that at almost every turn in the show Moore has chosen to diminish that which seemed grand or mysterious. Romo was this great, intriguing character who was potentially completely amoral - or perhaps a Diogenes-like self-styled judge of men and after his appearance as Baltar's lawyer the audience was left sort of breathless, like who was that? ... then they brought him back to satisfy fan demand, I guess, and had his character behave in a way that did not comport with what we'd seen before. He was weaker, unstable, not the confident, controlled man we knew previously. And by the finale, when he was trotted in front of the audience like a popular pole-dancer and we were told he was now "president" the diminishment was complete. His character had been completely emasculated and all mystery about him gone.

The Hybridization of Anders was obvious and was not very satisfying. Did the other Cylons bring some special goo over or could any liquid do? Didn't he start spouting Hybridspeak rather suddenly after being hooked up to Galactica? There was zero transition between his "word salad" from his head injury and Hybridspeak. The Base Ships were themselves Cylon and the Hybrid a part of a living thing. The Galactica was man-made contstruct with various machine parts.

The point? When Sam's tank is brought up to the upper deck of the C&C and is networked to control Galactica and, later, when the other Final Fivers put their hands into the liquid goo to download resurrection technology to Cavil as part of their deal which Hera's Opera House journey to C&C somehow facilitated we have no more understanding of how it works. So the liquid is the information medium? Or is it merely a conduit? Only Ellen seems to remember anything of significance from their earlier lives - including resurrection technology, so touching the water unleashes those memories? Gee, if that's the case wouldn't it have been nice to see Sam touch the water in that previous ep and experience some memories? This is what I'm talking about with missed opportunities and dangling threads. Better writing would have done something like this and made more whole the meaning of the liquid and the lights and what the Cylon skinjobs experience when they interface with it and how they percieve their former lives and their relationship to the memories of other models in their line.

[more coming]

Dangling Story Threads:

DAYBREAK, PT II - REVIEW

[Updated - 2nd viewing Review at end of post]
Git yer Lynard Skynard and put on Freebird ... It's a wrap! No more Battlestar Galactica reimagined. Show's over. All that remains are the extras: The Plan backstory telemovie and the myriad of extended scenes, deleted scenes, director's cuts, podcasts, ad infinitum (whatever NBC-Uni SciFi, er SyFy can sell you).

The first thing you can take away from Daybreak, Pt. II is a reaffirmation that this show should have run at least 5 seasons to properly tell its story and whomever is responsible for aborting the run of the show killed it. Remember the info-dump in No Exit? I hope you were taking notes through this ep because the Exposition Monster made a return engagement for the finale, although it dropped a lighter load this time.

First, here's the rundown of "the answers," (what we plot people love) then I'll get into the actual review. The character people should have been orgasming throughout much of the ep, because we got overwrought and treacly farewells.

The Opera House: cleverly done, but diminished
Head Characters: just short of ridiculous
Cylon God: or The God - only talked about by Head characters
Unseen Power Guiding Events: ibid
Kara's Special Destiny: poof - angels feel empty inside and disappear
Real Earth: fire is high-technology
Daniel: Nope
The Pigeon: She was back - and she was free as a ...
Ship of Lights: Nope
Lord Iblis: Nope
A Crazy 8 shoots someone: Of course! Gratuitous Boomer Slaughter
Timeline Jump: Forward 150,000 years
Roslin Dies: Yes, sweetly
Galactica is destroyed: Into the Sun (my idea)
Magic Viper: Angels need them - they come with a cosmic warranty
Tyrol continues to wear figure-flattering orange jumpsuit: thankfully no
Who Dies: Cavil (one of them anyway), various Marines, Centurions old and new, and redshirts, and Tory!
Hot Dog: Survives the Colony but we don't see him again

I rated the ep based upon this scale below. It goes from the negative to 13, high number being best. Anything below a 6 is bad, below 4 is shameful, above 7 is good, above 10 is excellent.



Here is the full review (it's a long one):
They added an extra 11 minutes to this 2-hour finale. Not only was that extraneous, but they could have probably cut another 25 minutes. Yikes. Talk about self-indulgent. But I'll get to that at the end of the blow-by-blow. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog may threaten to "poop on you" but Ron Moore had Adama barf on us. Yuck. I won't show the vulgar, needless image.

Extra-long recap to open the ep, then a beautiful sweeping nighttime flyover of the colorful, Bladerunner-esque Flashback City, er I mean Caprica City and on into a strip club - the music was different, my guess the Caprica theme. Some strange overracting by Michael Hogan (did the director tell him to yell that loud?) and they talk about Adama's retirement.

Ellen is there. Then we transition to the dinner with Lee, Kara and Zak and like most of the Part II's in this series it is better than the Part I. Kara's initial interest in Lee is sparked and we learn some interesting but not necessary family dynamic between Lee and his father Bill Adama. This serves to bookend the series with what started in the mini but does little else. The drinking theme takes over and it becomes the throughline for these flashbacks ... Roslin has her blind date with a tall, handsome youngish man who turns out to have been one of her students (more wine please) ... Adama is pounding shots and tries to get Tigh to admit he'd take the desk job Adama has been offered but Tigh won't answer which is his answer ...

Zak is passing out after the dinner party and Kara and Lee put him to bed on the couch ... we finish with a real lovely shot of Adama in an alley barfing on himself and then his POV of the stars and we transition to present-day and the fleet.

We see one of the transport vessels and Colonial One leaving the Galactica launch Pod, then we switch to Baltar sitting alone in the now empty Baltarzone. Head Six appears and she tells Baltar again that he is following "God's plan" and what is it he asks, "to take charge of the remainder of humanity and lead them all to their end" she says ... and he finally asks, "end of what?"

Roslin gets her final meds from Doc Cottle and we find out she has about 48 hours. A touching scene with more amazing Mary McDonnell acting and one of the best lines in the whole series as Cottle gets choked up, she tells him "Don't spoil your image, go light a cigarette and go grumble." Aces.

Helo is now the Cag and all the pilots volunteer for the threading a needle while riding a roller coaster mission, and Athena shoots him a small smile, so they must be on the mend as a couple. All layers of planning are shown, Cylons and Kara with Sam, Lee with the Quorum(?), Adama with his officers ... it's all about the attack on Cavil and Colony now. Knowitall Ellen says that Sam needs to be networked with Galactica and once in range he should be able to communicate with the Colony's Hybrids - info-dump Round One. [er, why can't they just consult with the rebel Base Ship's Hybrid?]

Adama turns over his command insignia to .... Lt. Hoshi (brakes screeeeeeeeeech) ... who is put in charge of the Base Ship and the fleet. Cue Countdown Clock: "If we don't meet you at the rendezvous point in 12 hours, we won't be coming. Thank you, Admiral Hoshi." Adama goes straight into C&C where Sam's tank has been put in the upper deck sporting cables galore and cool red glowy Cylon panels show he's being put in charge - they plug him in and lights flicker all up and down the ship - including red lights. We cut to Lee escorting Romo to the "last Raptor out" with Admiral Hoshi, and some banter tells us Romo is now president of the Colonies. I'm serious. Baltar shows up with the GroupieGirlz and tells them, "I don't belong to you," and finally ditches that dreary bunch - at last the subplot that wouldn't die is dead! [but it never should have lived in the first place]. Lee throws Baltar a big rifle. A Six extra in the platinum wig marches a battalion of CGI Centurions down the hangar bay - and they have been festooned with sashes of red paint (don't ask). Admiral Hoshi calls over from the Base Ship and they are sent on their merry way - not to interfere with the big Galactica battle scene for our audience's finale. Roslin is going to work triage in the medical bay, and, amazingly, there seem to be plenty of sterile sheets and medical supplies all these years later.

The Galactica check-off ensues and we see all aspects: Raptors in the gift shop landing pod (I guess they'll bust through the glass), Marines, Centurions, and Baltar and Caprica Six find each other but it's a bit of a cool reunion - and utterly contrived. Adama's last speech on the phone-thingy, "This is the Admiral ..." really? Does Hoshi know? They spool up for the perfect-throw jump to the Colony.
JUMP

We see a quick overlay of the Colony appearing - growing - then zero in on the "mouth" and JUMP there is Galactica, and BIG GUNS start firing (conventional ballistic weapons still - even on the Colony?) ... Galactica is lit up - almost orange from so many strikes - cool CGI here - then MommaCylonEllen leans down and says, "It's time, Sam" and he sends out Final Fiver Hybrid love waves to the (single?) Colony Hybrid and she feels him, and her cool blue tank and light turns red like Sam's and the Colony guns stop. The new female communications specialist who took over for Lt. Hoshi in C&C says the Colony will be launching Raiders. Really? Wouldn't Sam-ized Colony Hybrid stop that? Does not compute

Then Tigh says, "lauch all wings" and we see all kinds of Vipers come screeching out of Galactica (first continuity error, they cannibalized all the launch mechanisms save for one in Part I). Then, ramming speed, sure enough they plow the Galactica right into Colony and they - punch through. Really? We never hear that they did recon to find out the specifics of the Colony - the thickness of its shell perhaps. The Raiders in the gift shop FTL'd into space and
start their strafing run - the whole issue of FTLing near the Galactica (and certainly from inside) is ignored. I guess for several episodes Adama had to ponder the strength of the buckling support members and yet here at the end FTLing from inside a pod and ramming the ship into a many-miles-wide base isn't a worry. I can suspend disbelief but I can't suspend logic. Cylon raiders pour out of the Colony and inside where she's punched through, the Galactica blows some hatches that luckily weren't bent and crumpled by the impact and goodguy Centurions (moving real fast now) and Lee and Marines descend and there is gravity and they quickly make their way into red-light-paneled corridors. The humans wear EVA suits, then we hear "We've got pressure," and Lee orders them to take off their helmets - I guess "pressure" is breathable air and why have the added protection of a helmet when your hair can flow free? Then the Kara, Helo, Athena, Racetrack, etc. Raptor wing dodges zillions of asteroids and poor Cartwheel hits one. Adama said it was too dangerous for Helo and Athena to go look for Hera but they can do this? Rrrrriiight

Racetrack's co-pilot, a rare black guy, starts bantering and a nasty little rock pierces their windshield and splatters his brains ... didn't you listen to Chef in South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut? The black guy always dies. The surviving Raptors land on some flat area on the Colony and use welding torches to cut through - metal? When Galactica punched through the shell of the Colony it looked like ceramic or beetle shell. Instantly Kara and her assault team, sporting spiffy black ops black uniforms, race through the giant 60s giant-bubble-wrap-lava-lamp corridors - guns aimed.

Simon is using a metal Silly-Straw to touch the sedated Hera's head (doesn't look any cutting has been done yet) and Boomer is now uber-maternal. The Colony is coming down around us she proclaims to which Simon dismissively retorts, "In the end it's all about mathematics, we have superior numbers," superior weapons, etc. Cue Cylon-on-Cylon neck snap. Sorry Rick Worthy, the black guy always dies. Back in the corridors old model Centurions fight alongside the newer models (of course no explanation) and now the red stripes have a meaning - to let the humans know who's on their side. The CGI here is iffy, the Centurions move much too fast and why the hand-to-hand combat when they could fire weapons? Cavil, Doral and another Simon (how long have you got buddy?) find the dead doctor Simon and once again Cavil shows himself to be a pathetic military planner, he admits he "miscalculated" Boomer's actions.

The Galactica is rocked about endlessly, Roslin still waits in an empty sickbay for the carnage to come. Caprica Six and Baltar have some forced, stilted exchange about how she is now "proud" of him for putting himself in the line of fire. They look into each others eyes - the spark is still there. He grabs her and lays on a passionate kiss. Voiceover of Head-Six and they both look and see Head-Six (red dress) and Head-Balter and they say - in unison - "You hold the future of Cylons and humans in your hands." You know how you see someone do something embarrassing and you end up feeling embarrassed? This does not work. It is really awkward.

More Kara/Helo/Athea Squad prowling the same corridors (did they only build like three of these?) and here comes Boomer out of the spent ammo fog holding a big Hera (that girl grew!). She gives her over to Athena and tells Athena to tell Adama she owed him one, and once again a Crazy 8 has to pull the trigger and Athena wastes her. Um, okay - gratuitous, but I guess you can check one off your list. Aaaannd Flaaaaashback: Adama and Tigh lecture Boomer for her poor landings (linking back to the mini again) and we get the set-up about her owing him one. There, tied in a bow.

Screams and blood as the injured now pour into the medical bay and Roslin is still wearing that silly wig even with the chaos and her bloody hands. War is an ugly business and she just doesn't want to put that "X" on the the foreheads of the ones who won't make it.

Back to the corridors and Kara is still weilding that gun like a kid who is overacting while they play cops and robbers. They meet up with Lee's squad (kinda like during the Gaeta coup when they found Tigh and Adama) and they see the objective of the mission, little, well medium, Hera (what is she 8 now?) and retrace their steps. Back on Galactica C&C Adama and Tigh bark into the old phone-thingies and Tigh sends the "red-stripes" Centurions to repel the attack by Cavil's forces who penetrated deck 21 and Adama says "ETA five minutes" for Lee's return with Hera, et al (guess it's a quick climb back up those ropes?). And lickety-split they're back on the Galactica, coming round the corridor where they find Caprica Six and Baltar shooting at things. Lee gives a half-ounce of appreciation, then some more sloppy CGI work as newer model Centurions in pursuit are waylaid by rifle fire in a manner a human body might fall (too fast for such heavy robots to recoil like that). A Doral rounds a corner and takes out a marine and hits Helo in an artery in the leg and Hera runs off.

Roslin, shell-shocked, sits outside Medlab and shoots herself up with some drugs and has a quickie Opera-House flash and knows instantly Hera is back and instinctively knows which way to go (Roslin's connection to her will never be explained).

Athena runs after Hera after shouting at Helo, "You'll bleed out," "Go!" Helo orders. And the Opera House intercuts, Hera running down the Opera House corridors and then the real corridors, bodies and bullets everywhere but she is strangely calm - I couldn't help but thinking of C3PO and R2D2 in the first and best Star Wars movie crossing that corridor with all the laser fire zipping about but none hitting them. Druggy, dying Roslin lumbers about looking for Hera.

Music rises with an all-is-lost theme as Cavil now marches Galactica's corridors with his Centurion army. Roslin finally catches up to Hera and we see her Opera House visions and she gathers her up in the Galactica corridor and shields her and hides her. Cavil and his forces go by and when Roslin looks down Hera is gone. Cue Baltar and Six for their Opera House turn (is this a ride?) Baltar checks his ammo, "I'm empty" "Two rounds" responds Cap6. Baltar and Cap6 then turn to see that standing there shielding her ears is Hera. Roslin gamely limps about and finds Athena as they close in and at last the Opera House montage comes together as they traverse through the Galactica in time with the Opera House visions - matching as Roslin and Athena get their too late as Cap6 and Baltar swoop her up and take her "inside" - are they all projecting? Inside the "Opera House" is a scene of bloody carnage on the Galactica C&C - with Adama kicking down a neck-blood-spurting Simon. In Opera-House vision overlay, Baltar and Cap6 look up at the upper deck where Ellen, Tigh, Tyrol, Tory and Anders in his tank are and we cut back-and-forth to the glowing robes Final Five on the balcony. This few minutes is far superior to anything else so far this ep.

Scccrreeeeeeeeeeccchhh. Not so fast. Suddenly Cavil is there (where did he step forward from?) and gets Hera in a headlock and has a gun to her head. Everyone else aims as Cavil and rather than in the trial scene at the end of Season 3 now we get Baltar's big monologue. "I see angels" and standing Stage Right are Head-Six and Head-Baltar (oh dear). For some reason Cavil entertains Baltar's ramblings about some larger force being at work and how it all must end, the cycle of death and conflict blah blah. Tigh intones, "We'll give you resurrection." Oh, he remembers now? To which Ellen retorts, "Saul!" as of he'd farted at the dinner table or something. Tigh says end the war for now and all time. Cavil says he can do something about it right now and asks for the Galactica-actual phone-thingy and says, "This is Cavil. All forces stand-down." Er, who was he talking to? The phone just had a direct line to the Colony brain? Hot Dog (aaaargghh, he still lives?!) calls in from dodging asteroids and tells them the fight is over. The Deal is struck, Cavil will just leave the humans alone and get resurrection in return. [gee, if he'd only guarded the Hub with 20 Base Ships .... hmmm]

Ellen, Tigh, Tory and Tyrol stand around Sam's tank and are going to touch the water and they will be joined in the data-stream so they can piece together resurrection technology to transfer to Cavil. Tory is very nervous because they'll all know everything about one another and find out she killed Callie. They touch the water and things go red again and now a Simon is on the phone (wow, you're still here?) to the Colony and says "We're getting the designs, it looks right." Then Tyrol and the others have flashbacks (very brief) and all see Tory killing Callie and Tryol becomes enraged at this and pulls his hand from the water and Sam and Colony Hybrid scream. Tryol grabs Tory by the neck and all can clearly see what is happening but Doral shouts, "It's a trick" "Open fire" from somebody else and more needless carnage and fake drama. Tory is dead dead dead, and this from a guy who was with her 2000 years previously and didn't really love Callie and boo-hooed about that constantly. During the eruption of gunfire Cavil decides to eat a bullet. You read that right, he stuck a gun in his mouth and killed himself. There simply is no explanation. It steps completely outside the realm of logic.

Then we cut to outside the Colony where Racetrack's Raptor is slowly rotating and a little rock bangs it and we see, oh Racetrack is dead too yet the nudge knocks her hands down onto the launch-nuclear-weapons button (I guess when the windshield broke it let gravity pour in) ... and an array of nukes heads for the Colony. BoomBangBOomBaby ... all up and down those arms and center it is goin' up. Camera zooms in on one of the arms and we see Galactica is lodged in there - gee how did they know it was way down that arm they wanted to make their assault? Adama tells "Starbuck" to jump the ship. Um, I thought Sam was controlling all that, and I thought it took time to "spool up."

Kara says, "There's gotta be some way outta this place," and we see a montage of her musical notes, equations, little girl memories, Hera's dots, etc. etc. and she plays the FTL keypad with the song notes for coordinates because the rendezvous point isn't in there for some reason. JUMP

... into the Kara-Lee Zak-passed-out flashback ... good exchange of Kara explaining to Lee that she's not afraid of dying - about the only compelling moment out of any of the flashbacks.

JUMP ... the Galactica heaves and pulses, almost tearing apart as it recoils from the jump - pieces flying off ... sorry CGI dept., but this looked not so top-notch (the lighting - it looked video-gamish). Back inside we see Kara's magical numbers: 1123.6536.5321 ... Tigh says, "She's broke her back, she'll never jump again." Cue The Moon as Galactica, crumbling, passes close and on toward our Earth, with Africa visible and almost no cloud cover. Then we see Galactica low in orbit over our Earth and in jumps the rest of the fleet. Cut to ships descending to Africa and then a bunch of guys laying on the grass, including Cottle. Hoshi gives his Admiral stars back to Adama. They see primitive humans and Baltar tells them that a divine hand must have put them there. Cottle tells them their DNA is compatible (he ran tests already?) President Romo talks of building cities and Lee says, nah, let's go native and as I predicted when I first started this blog, the ships were flown into the sun. Kara says a farewell to Sam first and tells him she loves him (not Lee?) and touches the water hoping for something, but nothing - best moment for Katee Sackhoff.

Adama, in full Viper pilot gear, is the last man on the old gal and looks over the huge hangar deck - which looks none the worse for wear given the battle and having its back broken (c'mon CGI guys, most of that is computer-generated - lights couldn't be out, beams askew, floors buckled?). This scene could easily have been cut.

Back on GreenGrass Tarp City (as all the fleet agreed to abandon technology and live off the land !?!?) the endless ending shows us Roslin dying, Lee and Kara together, Tyrol going off to Scotland by himself, and Ellen and Tigh having flashbacks to the strip joint and Adama flashbacks to the job interview where he had to take a lie-detector test, "Are you a Cylon?" [this brief moment was interesting] Then Adama loads up last-moments-Roslin and takes her to Valhalla in the Raptor and Adama is either going to crash it or jump it into the sun or live alone somewhere because it was a farewell with finality to Lee and Kara. Kara then tells Lee she's going for good too and we Flaaaashback to Zak-Lee-Kara drunk-post-dinner-doing-shots where Kara "double-dog" dares him to do her on the table right then and there (was she channeling Ellen?). This bit was just cringe-worthy.

Kara and Lee then stand on the Windows XP landscape with the sweeping green grass and he talks about exploring and then turns around the huge grassy expanse and she is gone. So it's 3 angels: Head-Six, Head-Baltar, and Kara. Lee then wakes up in his place on Caprica/flashback and the pigeon is there on the table and shows itself out, flying out the open kitchen door. You know what I think of that from above.

Flashback to Laura's blind-date on Caprica and she's had second thoughts and tells the hunk to take a hike, then calls Adar's rep and says she'll join the campaign. So.

The rest is just the endless ending not ending! Romo counting hippies, er, live-off-the-land humans. More green fields, Helo with a walking stick (he lives!), Hera and Athena. Baltar and Caprica Six looking on and the final appearance of Head-Six and Head-Baltar (or so we think) giving the real ones the kiss-off. Hera in 60s solarization - the Earth-child-divine-mother-whatever.

Fast-forward 150,000 years (no, for real) and now Head-Six and Head-Baltar are snarkily wondering if the cycle will repeat as they walk around New York City. They reference "god" again, so I guess we're left with the impression that there is really a god and really are angels and Kara, Head-Six and Head-Baltar were angels.

This was so strange - really, it was like watching a completely different show than what I watched when I first viewed the minseries. It's like they aren't even the same show. What Moore did was connect-the-dots with his plot-points but it was not satisfying, it was infuriating and at times ridiculous. If ever there were an example of a writer being in way too deep to see the forest for the trees, you witnessed it with Daybreak, Pt. II.

I hate to say it, because I really wanted to have the show redeem itself from its wrong-way-Betty problems of Season 4 and especially Season 4.5, but I must say the finale was awful. A mighty let-down.

2nd Viewing Review [rebroadcast on SciFi 3/27]
I wish I could say I enjoyed it better. I did not. I just kept finding more weak points. This time Bear's music really bugged me - I found it overly mushy and too same-sounding throughout. I also noticed that I thought the Sam-taking-over lighting effects seemed cheap - simple strobes as if someone was standing their flicking a switch on-and-off rather than a random pattern. I was annoyed that the ships looked in such good condition when they formed up to fly into the sun - especially the rebuilt Zephyr (all that effort to repair its ring and its crew is going to go Native and give it up? rrriiiight)

I'm surprised Michael Hall hasn't done an extensive post about this: I noticed in one shot in "Africa" were a stand of Birch trees - native to cooler northern climes. [I know, it was the Canadian outback within driving distance of the studio]

What really shocked me is that when they did finally cut to people on Earth it was Cottle and the gang laying prone rather than a stand of taller green grass and Lee, Laura, Kara and Adama (sans Billy of course) at night looking at the stars, reprising the scene from the Temple of Athena (that would have been a goosebumps moment).

When Adama tells Lee as he leaves "I don't have much time, son" they could've shown his old chest scar weeping blood from when he was slammed into the CIC console or some such.

They mention "one million light years" as the distance they traveled - I'm assuming from the Colonies to New Earth. The Milky Way is estimated to be only 100,000 light years across with 200 to 400 billion stars. So they bounced around the galaxy around 10 times or traveled from another galaxy.

And when Lee tells "president" Romo "No cities," is that not a dictator talking - wouldn't Romo the man of the law remind him that they are still a democracy and must vote on it? He just accepts Lee's explanation that the cycle must be broken without suggesting due process. I know, I quibble - Moore had to wrap it up.

Then there's the Cavil conundrums:

-Cavil wakes D'Anna at the request of the 4s, 5s, and Boomer to end the Cylon civil war. If Cavil knew all along who the Final Five were and planned to simply wipe out all humans so they wouldn't get in the way of his goal to be a better machine, why would he entertain such a request at all, ever?

-Cavil's key mistake (and I think other than bringing Ellen back the key mistake of the show) is his poor guarding of the Hub. The ability to resurrect is the key strategic asset and legacy asset for Cylons (in terms of perpetuating their civilization) and he only guarded it with 2 Base Ships when we are led to believe there are tens or hundreds or even thousands out there. He could have formed a shell of Base ships around it. In losing the Hub his focus went from offense to defense - needing assets from the enemy to regain resurrection technology (The Final Five and/or Hera). This is an unforgivable weakness in the story construction.

-Then after the Hub was destroyed he seemingly made no attempt to kidnap Hera until Ellen showed up unexpectedly and he laid his trap with his "pet 8" ... he could have also sought to kidnap the Final Four still in the fleet since he knew who they were.

-Cavil listens to Baltar's angel speech. Cavil wanted to be a better machine and knew Baltar to be a self-serving atheist and it defies logic that he would entertain his religious pleadings even for a moment (other than Moore the writer wanted it that way).

-Cavil eats a bullet. I've read that Dean Stockwell suggested that. It reminded me of a David Lynch moment ... and had they gone even crazier with the lighting and music and chaos it could have worked on that level, otherwise it just makes zero sense.

The last thing that sticks in my craw is the voiceover of how the Centurions "were given their freedom" and let go on the Base Ship and the "2s,6s and 8s agreed to live" on new Earth ... yet there is no mention of the 1s, 4s and 5s. What happened to them?

FUN STUFF

Here are some fun images I made for the blog. Below I've also included other images I've found on various websites and blogs and boards (sorry I didn't log who made them - feel free to take credit in comments for your work if you see it). Click for larger images.

FINALE SPOILERS & SPECULATION

[warning: deductive reasoning applied here]
The release (through PR) of these promo images [Nos. 5,6,7,8, 10 below] let us make some deductions about what we'll see in Daybreak, Pt. II. First, we know we'll see some kind of big space battle (one which is totally unnecessary, mind you, if Cavil had only guarded the Hub better ... but, hey, this show needs a whiz-bang ending). We know HybridSam will make that perfect throw. We know Roslin probably finally dies, perhaps alone on the Galactica - having been forgotten or left behind (or it's a fake-out and someone takes her on a Raider). From other promo images floating around (in some cases for months) We know that Cavil, Simons, Dorals (and probably inhibitor-chipped Centurions) board the Galactica. The only reason they would do this is to kidnap Ellen and/or the Final Fivers for their resurrection knowledge or to retrieve Hera again for her secrets to resurrection and Cylon survival if she had been rescued and returned to the dying Galactica (which Cavil wouldn't need if only he'd protected the Hub). Third option is that Cavil sends extra models of himself and the 4s and 5s to finish the old rust-bucket off for the sheer joy of it.

We know that Caprica Six decides to stay with Baltar and fight (ah, can't you just hear Reunited and it feels so good ...?). People in the C&C are looking up: is something on dradis? Is Cavil or somebody in the upper tier? We know Helo gets a severe injury and probably dies (at last ... can't they splatter Hot Dog already while they're at it?).


Some smallish craft jumps in or out from between the attacking Cavil forces and the Galactica. And in the biggest reveal so far the Final Fivers (except Sam - who is stuck in the Galactica version of a Goo tank) and Boomer stand around something in The Colony. The supports behind the actors and the larger scale of the room allude to it being not on a Base Ship so it must be in The Colony. This is probably the big reveal scene/info-dump. It could be the remains of Daniel lying there in that tank as he gurgles out answers, looking kind of like this maybe. The FFourers look kinda sad, so I guess it's not good news. Our big grand story is probably going to boil down to Goo-Daniel, or some other higher power, telling them all that they are abominations and should all die and never recreate robots or resurrection technology again.

Cavil won't like this and has kept Daniel alive to torment him and now seeks to rub Ellen's nose in the suffering - or Cylons are a very ancient race and morphed many times and we'll hear from an ancient Cylon "god" delivering the same message. Cavil goes nuts, tries to kill the higher power and is destroyed (perhaps Hera interfaces or has her eyes read by a Centurion and directs them to revolt). Moore is throwing buckets of cold water on the Daniel angle, and if he's telling the truth then the Daniel thing has been an epic fail - a horrific retcon.

As I've pointed out on the SciFi message boards there was no need for a Daniel character to be introduced at all. Ellen could have just said, "I like the number seven and kept if for myself," and no character, nor the audience, would have questioned it - she's a floozy boozy whackjob when she's not CylonMotherGodWhoKnowsAll - the numbering problem solved.

Our survivors of course limp off to real Earth. Groovy. Then the issue becomes when?

BATTLESTAR THE TELENOVELA

Ron Moore seemed overwhelmed by the complex array of plot threads he'd created and left dangling over 3+ seasons and the mini so as he set about to write his finale he switched from seeking to explain the story to giving us a telenovela.

Here are some other sample titles we could use:La Verdad Oculta (The Hidden Truth)
Querida Enemiga de Roboto- (Dearest Robot Enemy)

Here is Moore's exact quote:

"In the writers’ room, we spent the first day [of breaking that episode] in a lot of difficulty, a lot of frustration. We sort of knew what the plot was, we knew the action story, we knew the plot of the finale. We spent that whole first day just struggling with the mechanics of the plot, how you got from A to B. We were spinning our wheels. I went home and I was in the shower and I had this “Duh” moment – the show was never about that. That’s not why I love the show. It’s not about the plot. I went into the writers’ room the next day and wrote on the big dry-erase board, 'It’s the characters, stupid,' and the writers laughed and we all sat back and said, 'Who gives a [expletive] about the plot? Let’s just talk about these characters.'”

SciFi's big ad campaign has been You Will Know the Truth .... will we?

PODCASTS DON'T COUNT

Technology has given us new ways to take in media content and also to interract with it, but a performance piece - whether it be music, film, television, comedy stand-up, performance art, whathaveyou can still be defined as a single work from its beginning to its end. A real artsy-fartsy modern art live installation with performers might be open-ended to explore time as a factor in the perception of it as art, but they tell you so.

With a television episode we can expect that what makes it to air is the completed piece of work. We all know that down-the-road there may be director's cuts, extended versions, alternate versions, deleted scenes, etc. etc. but a choice was made by the creative team as to what makes it to air and that is the completed work. Anything after that is a revised work. With Season 4 of Battlestar, especially Season 4.5 there are all kinds important, even critically important plot developments (Tyrol was thrown in the brig after freeing Boomer, mutineers were sent to prison ships) that have not made it to air but been mentioned and referenced online in forums, on blogs, in the general entertainment ethosphere. The juciest of these come from podcasts by Ron Moore. They don't count as storytelling.

And once again with Daybreak, Pt. 1 we get a synopsis on the SciFi website that includes this: "Bill Adama is in his office discussing whether or not he's going to command the battlestar one last time before his retirement." What was onscreen gave no indication of what his meeting was about, we were told by the guest actor, "It's an hour of your time." Further, once again a character behaved in a way very inconsistent with their past behavior: Kara's little dinner party for Lee and Zak had her behaving every bit like Martha Stewart. When Kara and Helo went back to her apartment after the Cylon attack (in which Kara was on a mission to retrieve the Arrow of Apollo) her place was a dump and she lived like a slob. At left is an image not in the episode but put up on the SciFi website as part of the synopsis. Here is another of Roslin walking through the park - again not shown onscreen.

"A MESSENGER SENT BY A HIGHER POWER"

re; Head-Six

RDM's own words from tonight's Last Frakkin' Special

U R THE HARBINGER OF DEATH KARA THRACE

Look familiar?


Latest trailer from SciFi (oop, SyFy) uses a favorite plot device - the trigger/switch/off button ... and it looks like Kara makes it to the console during the Cavil-Doral-Simon invasion of Galactica's C&C and turns the FTL drive (where'0'where could they be going ?? Colony mouth anyone?)

POST EXPLOSION

In about a week we all move on with our lives, so not much reason to visit here after BSG ends (but I do hope you'll stop by Battlestar: Variant 1 because I am going to finish that story and give fans the much better ending they deserve) ... so there will many posts this week. I've found some great images and will be putting those up in posts and some humor-related stuff too.
Oh, here's a close-up of Lee's pigeon:

DAYBREAK, PT. II - PREVIEW

Remember that line from Aliens? This little girl survived with no weapons and no training. To which the classic retort came, Why don't you put her in charge? It seems little Hera may have to take matters into her own hands (can they do more than draw with crayons? - Don't let her touch the lighted, watery interface panel!) But as Cartman doing the little girl on South Park reminded us, they mostly come at night - mostly... he-heh


After a crappy Season 4.5 and what is shaping up as an historically lame ending, I think many of us feel like how poor Sam here looks.

There are also some very disturbing indicators that we are going to get the it's all a virtual-reality scenario ending. The flashback sequences in Daybreak, Pt. I had direct tie-ins to what was going on in the characters' lives on Galactica: Roslin under the fountain suffering emotionally from great loss corresponded with her IV drip and her dying from cancer; Lee swatting at that pidgeon possibly related to him swatting away Baltar's entreaties to power? ... and is Baltar the instrument of peace? gah; Anders soaking in a sports rehab bath while on Galactica he's in a tub of Cylon goo plugged in as a Hybrid; and Caprica Six sitting in Baltar's lakeside pad drinking Ambrosia or some such which looks like the algae booze - swirling it so we see it.

Are we going to get the Ship of Lights aliens swooping in to save the day or to tell us it's all been a dream or simulation?

Or maybe no Ship of Lights and just introduced-late-in-ActIII Daniel emerging from behind the curtain?

WHAT'S LEFT?

From SciFi's official clue site You Will Know the Truth, by my count there are 3 outstanding clues yet to be addressed:

Clue 6 - Head-Six asks Baltar, "If you were one of the Old Gods, which one will it be?" (video clip)
Clue 7 - The Last Supper image minus Roslin (still image) - she ain't dead yet
Clue 11 - Twelve tolls of a bell (audio clip)
... and possibly a fourth clue (Clue 16), a scratchy audio clip which I deciphered to mean "Do you remember what we said on New Caprica?" - sounds like Six or Kara)

Further, there are several huge questions left outstanding:
-The meaning of the Opera House visions, and possibly the Opera House itself from the Kobol days
-The power orchestrating all of it - we've been told again and again that someone or some thing is pulling the strings
-How did Kara come back? And what is she?
-Who built the Magic Viper?
-The meaning and nature of the Head characters

DAYBREAK, PT. I - REVIEW

I told someone if this episode were just another 42 minutes of set-up I'd scream. I would but, since the ep nearly put me to sleep I just don't have the energy to bother. Yes, it was all set-up again.

How lame was the ep? Let me put it this way, I'm up very late and watched Daybreak, Pt. I around 2am and now at 3am that cheesy low-budget sci-fi movie The Flesheaters is on for like the tenth time in the last 2 months and it's much more compelling.

Daybreak, Pt. I opens with some artsy camera shots: a beautiful colorful small galaxy; a silhouette of a bird trapped under a roof trying to get out [more on that later]; and real Earth [I immediately thought of that Babylon 5 dream sequence with the bird and Girabaldi]

In a nutshell, Ron Moore decided to go backwards to go forward - as in Flaaaaashback City:

Lee, with flowers shows up at Kara's New Caprica cell - oops I mean her apartment in Caprica City on the real Caprica pre-Cylon attack [pCA] (same set - I got so confuuused).

We see Zak Adama for like a second and rough, sweaty Kara is all Martha Stewart with the cooking and dinner table. Is this our Kara?

Adama, in civilian clothes, is told he has to do something for an hour in a meeting in an office on New Caprica [pCA]

Anders soaks in a rehabilitation bath in a sports locker room and tells a sports reporter its the math and physics and doing the perfect move - seeking perfection that motivates him [ooh, deep ... of course pCA]

Roslin has a baby shower for her younger sister and wears a dress that did not flatter her. Later people in uniform show up to tell her both her sisters and father were killed by a drunk in a car accident. Stunned she goes out to the park and walks in the fountain and under the spray of water [pCA]

Our last pCA Caprica City character study is Baltar riding in a limo with Caprica Six before he got to know her better and they go by his cranky old retired farmer father's place and he mistreats the old guy and is embarrased and ashamed of his past. Cap6 seems intrigued and compassionate (or something) and later she breaks into Baltar's house for the first time which scares him and then tells him she had his father moved to a primo old folks home where he can garden.

All of these were ridiculous and lent nothing to the story and just ate up minutes that we could have learned something about the fleet, where they're going, where the hell is Leoben? Ad nauseam

It is truly a cruel torture watching this show now. It was punishment, pure and simple. There was no joy watching any part of this episode [okay, the 2 seconds of CGI of the Colony at the singularity]. This episode was a husk of a dead insect, an empty shell, an echo of a voice which once spoke.

Poor, sick, doddering Roslin shuffling over to the suicide mission side of the red line after Adama's shouting, er inspirational speech, caught the mood perfectly.

Hairy Human Specialist was brought back for a bit of foreshadowing - they're gonna leave one active launch tube in the Galactica (be sure not to miss that next week).

Helo visits Tyrol in the brig (that's where he was if you were wondering since they didn't manage to even fit in a toss-off line about it last ep ... podcasts don't count, put it onscreen)
Athena is convinced they are too late and Hera has been cut apart and she just cries a river of tears and seems to have hate in her heart for her husband now, consumed with feelings of betrayal for his innocent sexcapade with Boomer-in-disguise. Helo now shows flashes of second thoughts after Tyrol said none of the 8s can be trusted, none.

We saw Adama packing up (with brand new labels someone made that said Base Ship Deck 74 ... wow, big place! ... is that an upper arm or lower arm? In space no one can hear your confusion over up-and-down)

In the Baltarsubplotzone they are rolling up their rugs and moving the silk pillows for the last time and annoying Number #2 groupiegirl and Head-Six pitch to him that he should seek political power now among the fleet. How many times can you beat a dead horse? Baltar seeks out Lee and pitches that he should share power on the new council and Lee rebukes him utterly, calling him out for his untrustworthiness and Baltar admits, "I wouldn't trust me either." ???? Then a weird, out-of-sequence flashback with Lee coming home drunk and using a broom to try to shoo the lost, trapped pidgeon seen earlier in the artsy opening out of his house (the Dove of Peace came to Lee and he didn't recognize it the first time?)

*Man-in-rubber-suit! No, just a Hot Dog sighting. He's still alive! Damn it. He got a scene with Dad, since Adama and Bodie (playing the wiener) bump into each other and he drops some pictures in the Memorial Hallway and mentions that some pictures are left behind. Adama is touched for some reason by a picture on the wall-of-the-dead of two live people who's joint pic is for some reason up there: Athena and Hera. He marches off then has an overly-dramatic moment with a too-long pause in a hallway junction then turns on his heel and retrieves the photo. [Was trying not to doze off here] Adama goes to visit Sam the Hybrid and Kara is there with her music sheet and some square root notations and tells Pappa (since, hey, "you're my daughter" dead girl) what she's been working on and he says "Plug him in," but then has Kara ask him his question (offscreen). And that's when we get the shouting in the Hangar Deck and volunteers for the Hera rescue mission with no explanation as to why he came around to thinking it was a good idea.

The Colony: Last time - from a lower perspective, it had a purple background. This time it had giant insect-like arms and was enshrouded in a yellow-green nebulosity filled with asteroids and debris. We learn later - via Racetrack's recon mission - that it sits at the one stable spot around a singularity (I can't wait for Michael Hall's analysis of that over on his Galactica-Science site). Of course this positioning means there is only one "point-blank" avenue of assault. Meanwhile, inside the Colony, meanie Cavil rebukes Boomer's protestations that Hera's childhood fears should be listened to and she should not be cut open and tells a gloved-up Simon and a can't-be-bothered-to-stick-around Doral to get to the job of cutting the information he wants out of her, since it's in her DNA and the colored dots are wasting his time. What's the rush? As machines, don't they have all the time they need - Hera can grow up with them and eventually come around.

Now, to the conceit of this plot device to set in motion the grand battle for the 2-hour finale: if Hera is the key to unlocking resurrection technology then why did Cavil leave the Hub so poorly defended? They wouldn't be in this pickle if they had done a decent job with their "millions" to guard the place. And what about the rebel Hybrid - why did she betray Cylon resurrection in taking the attack to the Hub? It bears comment.

The focus on the characters with all the flashbacks really made you feel that Moore had indeed completely run out of ideas. He didn't know what to do with the myraid of story threads he needed to weave together to finish this tale. Now the story is about resurrection technology and who has it. Since Ellen is coming to save Hera Cavil can capture her too and have two sources.

The preview for the 2-hour finale looks like a lot of people shooting guns at each other on the dying Galactica. I wish I could say I can't wait.

HOPING AGAINST HOPE

Please, please let the finale be good


Centurions love toast

HOW DID IT GO SO TERRIBLY WRONG?

It seems that Ron Moore lost interest in Battlestar Galactica as the writers' strike dragged on a little over a year ago. Various sources say he decided to change-up where the story was going in the episodes remaining from what was already in the can - through Sometimes A Great Notion. Maybe too much sun penetrated that thick mop of black hair and baked his noodle? Somebody with the access and the journalistic skills needs to do a postmortem on the show and find out where it went off the rails.

One would think that with those three months of free time Moore and the show's writers and creative team would go back and watch all the episodes again - sort of like a sculptor stepping back from his chiseling to take a look before continuing. This immersion in the episodes already aired would surely give context and global view of the story to help focus Moore and the writers as they completed the final ten episodes of the series and seamlessly wove together their many complicated story threads. We all thought they would come back refreshed and infused with the totality of the story energizing them to create a masterful ending.

But Season 4.5 has been just short of a mess. Sometimes A Great Notion is by far the best ep of the eight which have aired, but - as noted - it was written and shot before the strike. Now all fan hopes are that the entire series, and particularly Season 4.5, can be salvaged with the the two-night, 3-part Daybreak finale written by Moore. Regretfully, the teasers are none too promising. More Adama shouting, more sad looking extras in sets that look like they are all that were left as others were torn down, more gunfire and hand-to-hand combat. Much chatter tells us that a big chunk of the budget was held in reserve for a great final space battle in CGI, but there seems little reason for any kind of grand battle given the somber, cynical dénouement to the overall story. There hardly seems any point to having a bang with all the whimpers. What conflict remains? The great journey is over - it's just a matter of limping off to a habitable rock (oh wait, we still have to go to real Earth). Ellen, our-late-in-Act-III-resurrectee, wants Human and Cylon to integrate, and "John" Cavil, her, er, son, wants machine to be machine and humans to just go away. Cavil seems to have already won. He's outplayed his creators and seemingly set his plan in motion long ago and has his pieces arranged. And if the coming battle by the Galactica and its Rebel Cylon Alliance is against Cavil, what is the point? They eliminate their pursuer, is that all? Why waste the lives and resources? After the exposition-dump in No Exit, the story was made so small that much of the motivation for the hatred has evaporated. We are all the same - Kumbaya. Cavil has said that they are machines and can just go chill for 5000 years, and the galaxy is large - let the remaining humans go off an colonize some other planet far away - or die on the journey. It will be interesting to see what plot device they use to trigger the big battle. Cavil is still hell-bent on wiping out all humans? Short of that, what could be the reason?


Which brings me to the complexity of the story.

Even a simple arachnid can compose an elegant web all on its own (and much larger than itself) through biological imperative, yet our creative team seems to have made this jumbled mess out of their story threads. They got bogged down, big time, and only seemed to dig themselves deeper and deeper into the mess.


Their ultimate solution? Cut the knot. But they were not Alexander, and it was not the proverbial Gordian Knot - so it came out with blood spatters and slop flying everywhere in the form of the Exposition
Monster in No Exit. Yikes. That was, frankly, the death-knell of the show we once loved. That hack-and-slash was fatal I'm afraid. It was a bonehead choice that greatly diminished the story and made petty what had seemed grandiose. If it is a belated attempt at irony, it is clumsy. [If you want irony, watch the original Wicker Man with Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee by Anthony Shaffer from the early 70s]

The miniseries and Season 1 were stellar, and most of Season 2 was excellent as well. With Season 3 it became clear that there was no overall design to the story as Moore and the writers foundered and flailed about - particularly with the mostly terrible stand-alones. But other than a few weak eps here and there and the stand-alones in Season 3, most episodes of the series, starting with the mini, would rate very highly with an 8 or 9 out of 10. Yet in Season 4.5 one can only rate Sometimes A Great Notion that highly. The other episodes rate thusly: A Disquiet Follows My Soul - 6, The Oath - 6, Blood on the Scales - 5, No Exit - 3, Deadlock - 3, Someone to Watch Over Me - 6, Islanded in a Stream of Stars - 6. This is not only disheartening, it is almost panic-inducing for hardcore fans of the show. We're left with anxiety prior to each episode now rather than happy anticipation, and often the feeling of being punched in the gut afterwards.

Moore is going to have to make that Luke Skywalker shot down that vent tube to blow up the Deathstar if he is to pull the proverbial rabbit-out-of-a-hat last-minute and come up with a satisfying ending. The alarm bells have been ringing for months with actor comments, however, indicating that this is anything but likely. Katie Sackhoff said, "Hmmm, that's the direction you want to go with it?" or some such, and the overly-effusive praise from some of the more senior actors sounds like spin. Ronald D. Moore: "This is not going to be the ending you’re anticipating." Jamie Bamber: “In the finale, it goes back to the beginning of Apollo and Starbuck, and you see where they come from. I think it’s as satisfying as it can be.” [Is that damning with feint praise?] Kate Vernon: "The ending is like nothing you'd ever expect. I don't think all the fans could ever be satisfied by one ending, which is a good thing. So this way, they're be left going, 'but, wait!' " I've been going But, wait! for about 8 episodes.

It seems we might end up with an empty feeling, which is indeed a pity for a once great show that used to leave us so fulfilled.

ACT III STARS

Now appearing, late in Act III, are the stars of our climax to the story: Daniel - sensitive artist and Cylon #7; Zak Adama - a ghost? a flashback? Yet another resurrectee? The Colony - wearing a crown or growing Base Ships? Why the stone face?; Hera - all that running in visions and now she finally gets to play with toys; and Ellen - the reborn, resurrected, imprisoned 18 months-Ellen who remembers all - including how to be a hussy.

DAYBREAK, PART I - PREVIEW

Once again the blue-light transition effect is used for the SciFi trailer for the next ep ... and once again it emerges at the tip of Adama's nose. Maybe he hasn't been able to see what's been there all along?

We also now have a new design feature - concentric arches. Do these denote the repeating cycles of time? Or are they a reference to the inside of the Colony?

And our former mutineers must have volunteered for the "one-way mission" because Racetrack and some other guy jump their Raptor into what looks like the asteroid belt (I called that years ago) and it looks like Giga-Cavil is emerging in front of them.



Lastly, who's idea has it been to have Adama
shout during his speeches?

ISLANDED IN A STREAM OF STARS - REVIEW

[more images to come]
This is the last ep directed by Eddie Olmos, and he always delivers something interesting. I thought the direction was the best thing about this ep, actually - interesting camera angles, some warm lighting, good character exchanges, visceral - really, all of it. Jamie Bamber should also be singled out for his performance. I usually find him a bore, and there have been a few good moments - particularly in Sometimes A Great Notion - where he has shone, but this ep he was consistently good and interesting. All the other actors were fine, and Grace Park had some wonderful moments as a conflicted Boomer, and Tahmoh Penikett was terrific in his scene with Olmos - really stellar work there.

The weakness, again, is the writing. And, again, it is the small choices the creative team as a group locked themselves into. Ellen as the 5th was just a terrible choice, pure and simple, and every time she dons the mantle of the great leader and spouts some self-important gibberish which is really just another expository info-dump it makes you cringe or is just laughable. Fortunately the info-dump was brief this time - but MOMENTOUS. This is no fault of the actress, Kate Vernon, who is terrific, but she is burdened with the task of Sisyphus in selling this garbage Moore and the writers' room came up with. The latest character which plays into our finale and is introduced in the Third Act is The Colony (and crafty Cavil has moved it) - which, as predicted, is like the Lexx (but sporting a big crown)- it looks like a big bug and they fly through portals and caverns inside of it as with the Lexx.


I enjoyed the ep, since my expectations were so low, and particularly the interesting things Eddie Olmos did behind the camera, but it was another bridge episode - not much really happened - it was, once again, more set up.

Here's the rundown:
Hera dreams of crashing the Galactica into a Base Ship - probably a big foreshadowing of how the Galactica will meet its end and take out Cavil's forces, then the dream morphs into Hera running down the Opera House hall. CUT TO: A Natalie-Six and a generic Eight argue with a hairy human over the goo-repairs and vulgar language ensues before RRRRiiippPPPP - a big tear in the hull and Natalie-Six saves the hairy human before being sucked out into the cold dark emptiness of space. Doc Cottle tells us later 61 dead, 26 of them Cylon. There is a big memorial service (where do they keep the dress uniforms and who presses them?) and Baltar decides to (well, I'll get to that)

... CUT TO: Sure enough Sam Anders is made into the Galactica Hybrid by the Cylons - 6s and 8s (still no Leobens ???). Love the cool red disco space-invader lights dancing on the walls - possibly my favorite thing in the whole ep. Michael Trucco's version of Hybridspeak is a bit ... awkward - it comes across a bit as of a parody rather than mystical-sounding - and the choices of the words ... er, wouldn't there be more of a transition between his "word salad," his regular speech and Hybridspeak? But I quibble.

Adama reads to Roslin - who lives - in sickbay (which is pretty busy and looks smaller somehow). They share a Kamala joint - kind of a Cheech&Chong moment (wink) - they did come of age in the 60s ... cute. More Opera House visions by Roslin, Athena and Caprica Six that tell us nothing new (Hera running, Roslin and Athena concerned and Baltar and Head Six sweep her up and take the little girl into the auditorium and close the door - we got it). Ho hum.

Great line from Adama when he finally says "I've had it up to here with prophecy and destiny" or some such. Great line-reading by Olmos on that one. Given how the story is turning out, many in the audience can now say it too. They laid it on so thick and heavy earlier in the series that it's tasting rather thin now - like watered-down wine. Speaking of tasting, plenty of alcohol still around for everyone - I'd like to see the booze resurrection still. Adama agrees to give the Final Fivers (er, Four) a Raptor to do recon for the Colony, and Ellen tells us (drumroll please) "Where we and the Centurions went after we ended the war and got them to end their experiments with evolution in exchange for resurrection technology" (Brakes screeeeeeech) Er, what? All one can do after that is exhale a heavy sigh. SLAP-CHOP anyone? Adama doesn't want Helo and Athena knowing about the little Raptor recon though (What? Whhhyyyyy?) ... phony. They would be the perfect people to put on the mission, so we must assume the writers need them for a later episode positioned differently. Okay.

We hear of Sonja Six, Cylon Quorum member, has urged Adama to transfer his ship's flag to the Base Ship and then there is a terrific scene of the new Quorum (Sonja is there) - now made up of various ship's representatives - arguing like the dickens over what they can rip out of the dying Galactica.

CUT TO: Baltar radio address (people are still interested in hearing his drivel?) where he describes angels, and looks at Head Six (now in a more demure white dress, not that weird sea-nymph outfit) as he says they're real and I see one and "they take the form of those nearest and dearest to you."

CUT TO: Boomer jumps her Raptor to a place between Jupiter and Ganymede it looks like and has a bonding moment with Hera after being mean to her. Boomer's vulnerable side emerges a bit and she projects with Hera into her dream house. Yes, of course Hera can project, silly Cylon. CUT TO: Dumb scene of harlot Ellen hectoring Tigh and he finds an empty booze bottle under his sofa and tosses it against the wall. Hell, why not? I feel like doing that now when I watch the show. Ellen reminds Tigh that they, in their earlier lives she remembers better, sought to end the cycle of war between man and machine, to which the best line of the ep is spoken by Tigh, "Well, that was a bust." Heh-heh.

CUT TO: Kara on a toilet while Baltar shaves (why did he get rid of the Jesus beard anyway? Couldn't Ellen put that into an info-dump?) ... again the Galactica is strangely empty - no one else in the formerly packed bathroom. The scene gets much better after Kara thankfully washes her hands and then challenges Baltar she died and to check her duplicate dogtags. SIDE NOTE: The past few eps have felt more and more like the budget has dictated the reduction in numbers more than the references in the dialog telling us they've died or moved to other ships. It feels like some sets have been torn down already and they're working around it, as in The Face of the Enemy webisodes. CUT TO: More Sam Hybridbabble and they unplug him then plug him back in and it turns out he's used the Cylon goo's conductivity to tap into the ship's systems and is operating things (none of us saw this coming - riiiight). Kara takes her musical notes to him and tells him he's gonna figure it out and 'splain it to her.

BACK TO BALTAR AT MEMORIAL SERVICE: Baltar outs Kara to all those in attendance as one who has come back from the dead and she walks over and gives him a tiny little slap. Uh, what? That's right, that's all she did. After Helo begs Adama to let him have a Raptor - and Adama says no, Adama has another breakdown - kind of a redux of the Kara-Leoben gesso paint thing but with no booby-grabbing, just sobbing. Adama cleans up his face and hands, but not his pants, and Tigh enters and they sit like the old saws they are (drinks in hand of course) and accept Adama's decision that they are going to abandon Galactica (but Galactica fans, remember Hera's little dream, the old girl has one job left).

I haven't thought of the movie Porky's in like forever, and thought it was a stupid teen movie at the time, but I remembered it because it sort of encapsulates where we are right now as the audience of Battlestar Galactica: We really want it bad, so bad it hurts, a great satisfying ending to this magnificent show - after all that buildup. But ... like the horny virgins in that movie, we are ending up with an old haggard hairy-mole hooker. It's a let-down.

It just seems impossible for three 42-minute segments (a 1 hour and and a 2 hour ep) remaining to wrap up this story in a satisfying way, especially with strip joints and Zak Adama.

The one bright spot of the ep was the unexpected way in which Cavil took possession of Hera - it was almost with fatherly love ... so what his ultimate plan is could well be the interesting wild-card. More fool me for my optimism I suspect.

ISLANDED IN A STREAM OF STARS - PREVIEW

Quote from Night on the Great Beach, in Henry Beston's The Outermost House:

"For a moment of night we have a glimpse of ourselves and of our world islanded in its stream of stars— pilgrims of mortality, voyaging between horizons across eternal seas of space and time."

Here is a link where you can read the whole page the quote comes from [page 173]

The buzz is that we'll get most of the rest of the answers this ep (possibly Opera House, Head-characters, Kara's true nature, etc. Fingers crossed it is done more artfully than the info-dump in No Exit)

What is this?










And this?

It's cool, whatever the hell it is [and very Lexx] ... I'm thinkin' Lion's Head Nebula and secret Cylon colony

... but then again this "Lion's" head looks more like a deep sea fish (a Viperfish, in fact)

STORY STATUS

Ta-Da!

Is Cavil really going to cut Ellen in half?

And who is Boomer really assisting?

Somebody let Hera out of that box!

VISUAL CLUES

The show's creative team likes to plant visual references into shots - sometimes for thematic effect, sometimes for specific historical references (usually statues), and sometimes to foreshadow what's coming. Could the blue straws, the light in the mirror and the reflection of the wing on Kara's arm be referencing the coming of the Ship of Lights - the "miracle" Sam spoke of?

[click for larger images]

And what about this rug Roslin has collapsed onto? Did she die? Don't those patterns look and awful lot like an overhead view of Cylon resurrection goo tanks? And I count 13.

COLOR THEORY

[mega-spoilery speculation]
Based upon simple deduction we can draw some pretty big conclusions from some of the visuals we've been given since Battlestar Galactica returned for Season 4.5 The most noticeable change has been the shift from black to white.

All logo and promo materials have always featured a black background, until 4.5 - the sequence of episodes composing the final arc of the story.

Now it is a white background which is featured in the promo materials and the appearance of a light blue colored light as a transition element. Since in the past most of the overall story mirrors the original series and what is teased in trailers and leaked as promo material spoiler images actually occurs in eps (if a bit out-of-sequence) we should expect what we are being shown now has meaning and that it comports with the original series and earlier story of this incarnation of BSG. Thematically I believe we can expect an ending that ends with light - literally and figuratively. It will be studied bleakness until the last moments, however.

[stop now if you don't want the ending to be spoiled - I have no inside info, just the application of simple deduction - Highlight for biggest potential spoiler]

>>I believe they are actually going to bring the Ship of Lights subplot from the original series into their version of the story. I believe this blue light is visual foreshadowing, and the many many references in the dialog throughout the series to the One True God (and "someone or some thing is orchestrating all this") will be wrapped up in this way. Just look at how well the fit is between the original Ship of Lights and this screen-cap of the blue-light transition. <<


Roslin will be reborn - as we have seen in these images (the last shot for the series I believe) - unless it is a flashback to a free-spirited moment she had after her cancer diagnosis on Caprica (and if that were the case it would have merited some mention that she had made a public spectacle of herself prior to her appearance at the Galactica decommissioning ceremony as a Cabinet official of the government).

If the end is the beginning, then perhaps our characters are returned to pivotal times and places [by the One True God] - but with the knowledge giving them the choice not to let the cycle repeat. That would be a mystical ending with the thematic heft to close the loop of the overall story.

We see a happy couple, Baltar and Caprica Six (is this the actors out-of-character or a lighter moment between the conspirators of the Colonies' demise?), in different outfits than in the scenes form the miniseries at this location. Does it reference a different meeting from the era of the mini, or is it "new?"

Adama and Roslin are together in this green-screen shot in a Raptor - so was it cut, or is it from before Roslin dies?


This shot of Lee greiving is a promo still from Islanded In A Stream of Stars and the weight of his sorrow and formal attire of those assembled denotes a high rank indeed for the deceased. Only Roslin, Kara or his father could evoke such grief from Lee. Most likely it is Roslin, since he seems to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders as he performs here.

It seems not likely at all that Kara will die in the episode where we finally seem about to learn her true nature after the set-up in Someone To Watch Over Me. It would be bold to have Roslin die so simply at the end of STWOM - a reaction to Hera's abduction. It doesn't make much sense, but it would be bold.

Kara has been told by the rebel Hybrid that she is the, "harbinger of death" and the Old Hybrid said, "not an end, but a beginning."

So, with the blending now introduced into the story it seems that the "end" represents the end of difference between human and Cylon as they become a blended people.

CYCLE: RINSE, REPEAT

If the brain-trust of Battlestar Galactica is going to tie up all the story threads by the end of the series they must explain the oft-used refrain, "All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again." We have also been told that the same people will play different roles in future cycles.

So maybe Cylon Centurions will look like this at some point? And the Final Five will all end up like Crispy Kara?

The major conundrum I've found with BSG reimagined creator Moore's approach to the story is his insistence that the characters and their relationships are central to the story. If the mythology of the story is that people are interchangeable as each new iteration unfolds, is this not an inherent contradiction?


You would think that one of these people trapped in this cycle would attempt to break it, to create an anomaly in the waveform. Oop, she got written out.

STWOM - REVIEW

Why am I left feeling exhausted? I dreaded even playing back the recording of Someone To Watch Over Me. How did this happen? I so loved this show and now I just wonder what sucker punch is coming next.

STWOM was a good ep, it was extremely well-made, and showed superior direction and some wonderful performances. The problem, yet again, is in the writing. I don't blame the two best writers from the show - Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, who did this ep - I sadly must conclude - after taking time to give some thought to what I'd seen - that I had witnessed some of the most self-indulgent story direction I've ever witnessed - and that comes from Ron Moore. These are his choices.

With so few episodes remaining, so little time to give dimension to the grand story we've experienced up till now, it is not just baffling to have an art-house film for an episode they way we did tonight, it seems the height of arrogance. Moore is trumpeting loudly that he doesn't give a damn what the audience wants, or that he feels the least bit constrained by what has come before - and he's going to do it his way. He's said repeatedly it's about the characters and their relationships. To many, if not most, of the fans, it's about the story we've been told and the mythologies behind these cultures - the hows and the whys. We want to understand the grand design, for if the cycle repeats and people play different roles next time around then the story is the thing, not the people, eh?

In a nutshell, Boomer is the ultimate agent provocateur and has now fulfilled the plan Cavil set in motion long ago - to get Hera to him.

I won't give a blow-by-blow of the ep because it's worth watching more than once, but I will give a basic run-down: Kara spends a lot of time at the bar on Galactica and interacts with a piano player and it's at the end of the ep we learn it's all been an hallucination - or she's been Cylon projecting? Hera had earlier given her a drawing of dots and it turns out it is the musical notes for the song that triggered the awakening of Tigh, Tyrol, Tory and Anders. Ellen, Tigh, Tory and Tyrol spend some time at a table at this same bar. Again, where the hell does all this alcohol come from? No one ever pays. Why so empty of people? Wouldn't everyone want to be at the bar drowning their sorrows or trying to get some since the great quest all came to nothing?

Anders' brain-monitor still shows the same scroll of heightened-activity, but Doc Cottle (in yet another fresh lab coat) says it's nothing. We all know better and it's annoying waiting to find out. Ellen and the other Final Fivers seemed diminished, like Romo the second time around. All this hoo-ha about how important they are to the other Cylons and they seem all but useless. The Sixes and Eights seemed a lot more substantive this ep, at least they were doing something - and why are there no Leobens (2s) slapping the Cylon goo (still) on the beams? Was Callum Keith Rennie beyond the budget? Sonja Six is elected to the new Quorum, so the blending continues and we even see several Sixes in the pilots' ready-room and we get the exposition about how the fleet is looking for a habitable planet [the star patterns for several eps, according to galactica-science's MHall, have shown that they are already in the Earth solar system, so how are they missing it?].

Tigh just stays drunk, and Adama just suffers as the lights flicker and Galactica shudders menacingly all through the ep since they want us to believe it is dying. The first reaction shot of Eddie Olmos conveying his heavy heart at the ship's decay is just a moment but illustrates once more what a terrific actor the man is - the weight of the moment and what it means just cascades through his face and body. Tyrol remembers how much he loved Boomer and embarks on a crusade to save her - Roslin says no way and signs her death warrant (her extradition to the Base Ship where the 2s-6s-8s want to put her on trial for treason for siding with Cavil in the Cylon civil war). Adama is almost mute this ep, Roslin is weary and thank heavens no lame Baltarsubplotzone at all.

They overdid it with the Galactica in its death throes - since it hadn't happened at all before this ep - just a few cracks in one or two previous eps. We get the countdown clock dramatic device again since we were told by Tyrol that the FTL drive only has a few unknown number of jumps left in it. What could be happening is the Cylon Gloppy Tar is causing the shudders and it will be reborn anew, but they seem to be foreshadowing for now an ugly end to the old girl. If it's in such a state, why are the Cylon gals willing to keep hauling goo over from the Base Ship and spend their time painting it on? Wouldn't they say they've got better things to do?

Tyrol gets played big time by Boomer - this is her ep and Grace Park has never been better - she got to play about eight different 8s and brought depth and texture to the multitude of copies of her character. The fight where Boomer knocks out and binds Athena and then makes love to Helo in front of Athena was terrific. Great direction and camera work. My key fault with this scene and the whole ep is why the ship is so empty of people. [Images below this point from Islanded In A Stream of Stars] We were not shown or told that so many had died or been hauled off to prison ships as a result of the mutiny (podcasts, etc. don't count - it has to be onscreen).

Overall, I feel like I've had another session on the rack - the show is like a grinding torture now and the emptiness I feel compared to the elation I used to get from each episode leaves me sorrowful.

This was a much higher caliber ep and there was real entertainment value to it, and the story progressed - Boomer is truly evil (or a compliant instrument of evil), is on the loose, kidnapped Hera, severely damaged Galactica with a too-close FTL jump, Kara is closing in on who and what she is with her Daddy flashback, music plays a central role, Roslin has collapsed and may be dead, and Sam has a larger role to play when he regains some kind of consciousness, and Ellen is gearing up for her showdown with Cavil.

The buzz is that the next ep Islanded in a Stream of Stars is going to answer a lot of the remaining questions. I hope I don't get beat up again next week.

IS SAM GOING TO BE GALACTICA'S HYBRID?

Talk about blending ...