BSG 4.5: Sometimes a Great Notion - Place your bets....

[JME2]

- lol humanity is the eighteenth angel 13th cylon model

Nice EVA reference.

In regards to the opera house, probably not; too many balls are in the air right now and even I sincerely doubt all the mysteries and emphasis on elements earlier in the series will be fully resolved or answered.

[The Yosemite Bear]

no, no, earth humans were actually destroyed by Refugees from Krypton, who are now hunting down the cylons....

[Gandalf]

This ep seemed to be a collection of stuff happening, as opposed to a story. There's one or two revelations, and a few more things tossed out.

3.5/5

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah. I was actually half expecting that Rosilin might be the first suicide, but Dee's death will certainly create ripples.

The prophecy said Roslin wouldn't live to find the new world didn't it? Thats part of what made me think this was not their final destination and just a stop along the way. Any planet Roslin sets her feet cannot be the real one, assuming the prophecy is true, which has generally been the case in this show.

[tim31]

I don't know which of you have read the (official scuttlebutt)spoilers for the final episode, or read that 'potentially massive spoiler' that Valdemar posted a few months ago, but I think that the planet they've found is the terminus for our story. And it's going to be the same as:
Spoiler

Beneath The Planet of the Apes

[charlemagne]

3/5 for me, as someone else said: just "stuff happening", no real story, but a nifty reveal at the end.

I thought Starbuck was pretty stupid for just burning the body instead of trying to get it at least DNA-tested. She could've gone to Baltar in secret or something.

Also, why are they packing up and leaving Earth so quickly? Why aren't they trying to learn as much as they can, starting some serious digging? They're pulling stuff from the ground that looks in pretty good shape considering that it's been 2000 years since the nuking, so there's got to be relatively intact archives and whatnot to discover.

[Bounty]

I don't know which of you have read the (official scuttlebutt)spoilers for the final episode, or read that 'potentially massive spoiler' that Valdemar posted a few months ago

What were those spoilers?

[Gaidin]

Also, why are they packing up and leaving Earth so quickly? Why aren't they trying to learn as much as they can, starting some serious digging? They're pulling stuff from the ground that looks in pretty good shape considering that it's been 2000 years since the nuking, so there's got to be relatively intact archives and whatnot to discover.

The fleet as a whole was falling apart. Even if Adama thinks its a good idea to stay and learn what they can, there's no way they could do that with everything collapsing. Best bet for both short-term and long-term survival was to get out of their and try to forget it and find another livable planet. What's there now will be there in a few years anyway and research teams can come back.

[Sarevok]

So what happened to that series about a space warship on the run from sapient robots ? What is all this religion and pseudo philosopher babble doing in there other than creating MASSIVE PLOTHOLES ?

BSG these days seems like...

The Matrix sequels.

[charlemagne]

The fleet as a whole was falling apart. Even if Adama thinks its a good idea to stay and learn what they can, there's no way they could do that with everything collapsing. Best bet for both short-term and long-term survival was to get out of their and try to forget it and find another livable planet. What's there now will be there in a few years anyway and research teams can come back.

Ok yeah, makes sense. Also, it's like Lee said: they're free from the prophecy now - or at least, they think so. I mean, it still all happened before and will happen again, the question is, what exactly did happen before and will happen again...

Also, Anders apparently is Dylan reborn

[Zac Naloen]

So what happened to that series about a space warship on the run from sapient robots ? What is all this religion and pseudo philosopher babble doing in there other than creating MASSIVE PLOTHOLES ?

BSG these days seems like...

The Matrix sequels.

It's been there since the beginning or did you forget to pay attention in season 1?

[Gaidin]

So what happened to that series about a space warship on the run from sapient robots ? What is all this religion and pseudo philosopher babble doing in there other than creating MASSIVE PLOTHOLES ?

I remember the 1's. They'll be a lot more careful now given they're the ones unwilling to have the Hub destroyed. All of two episodes ago.

[Coyote]

I thought that they originated on Kobol, humans and Cylons living together, including the skins, who were the gods. There was a civil war, and twelve colonies (of humans) fled to the Colonies to end up building Battlestars, etc, and the 13th tribe, that of Cylons, fled to Earth.

Now the question is, is the story where they find Earth taking place in our future, or in our far past?

One way or another, humans & cylons have been chasing one another back and forth across the distance of space, Earth-Algae Planet-Kobol-Colonies and back, each time one of them having the upper hand and nearly wiping out the other before falling to internal dissent as the almost-destroyed race finds a haven, rebuilds, then sets out for revenge millenia later.

Things are different this time; though-- this time they are aware of the cycle, and a link in the chain (Algae Planet) is broken. Will they be able to stop the cycle?

[Uraniun235]

It's been there since the beginning or did you forget to pay attention in season 1?

Uhhhh it's gotten a lot worse since then. At least back then there was some hope of eventually coming to some resolution or answer as to just what was going on, but now it's looking like we'll probably eventually see an interview with one of the producers in which they just say "oh yeah we just did that stuff because we thought it would look cool, lol, it doesn't actually mean anything".


I mean seriously the impression I get is that the writers just concoct whatever bullshit plot points they need in order to lurch the show from "serious hard-hitting character confrontation" to "Apollo angsting out yet again" to "mind-bending game-changing show-altering SUDDEN REVEAL CLIFFHANGER" to "ultra-tense suspenseful showdown IN CGI SPACE" and back again. There's "being a character-driven show" and there's "a bunch of bullshit we threw in to connect the close-up handcam shots" and frankly I think Battlestar Livejournal has shifted from the former to the latter during its run.

[Zac Naloen]

Are you trolling on purpose?

There are no signs at all that they have no intention of leaving anything totally unanswered.

[Turin]

It's been there since the beginning or did you forget to pay attention in season 1?

Uhhhh it's gotten a lot worse since then. At least back then there was some hope of eventually coming to some resolution or answer as to just what was going on, but now it's looking like we'll probably eventually see an interview with one of the producers in which they just say "oh yeah we just did that stuff because we thought it would look cool, lol, it doesn't actually mean anything".

Riiight. Because Season 1, Episode 1 ("33") wasn't almost entirely about Baltar giving himself over to God or anything (oops, character-driven inside an overall story!). I think this whole idea that the producers can't possibly wrap up all the loose ends is unfounded. We won't need to have every single thing explicitly stated by the end so long as there is enough to construct a coherent story out of what is told to us explicitly. Do you seriously need this much hand-holding?

[Galvatron]

Can someone quote dying Ellen's last words to Tigh from this episode? I think they're key.

[Ohma]

Uhhhh it's gotten a lot worse since then. At least back then there was some hope of eventually coming to some resolution or answer as to just what was going on, but now it's looking like we'll probably eventually see an interview with one of the producers in which they just say "oh yeah we just did that stuff because we thought it would look cool, lol, it doesn't actually mean anything".

The hilariously sad thing, RDM repeatedly says almost exactly that in the commentary tracks for season one. It really does explain a lot once you know that they've been playing it by ear from the beginning.

[McC]

Can someone quote dying Ellen's last words to Tigh from this episode? I think they're key.

From SciFi Rewind.

E: Saul. Saul! Saul. Saul!
T: I'll get you out!
<Tigh digs her out of some rubble>
E: It's okay. It's okay. Everything's in place. We'll be reborn. Again. Together.
<Boom>

[Mayabird]

To be fair, the weird religious stuff was a lot more vague and open to interpretation in the first season. For instance, that prophesy about the "two and ten serpents." Rosalyn hallucinated seeing twelve snakes on her podium, and that attack on the Cylon refinery was done by twelve Vipers, and both sides consider that the prophesy has been fulfilled but in a different way. Prophesies are typically written vaguely enough that you can interpret damn near anything into fulfilling them, including two different things at the same time.

[Themightytom]

To be fair, the weird religious stuff was a lot more vague and open to interpretation in the first season. For instance, that prophesy about the "two and ten serpents." Rosalyn hallucinated seeing twelve snakes on her podium, and that attack on the Cylon refinery was done by twelve Vipers, and both sides consider that the prophesy has been fulfilled but in a different way. Prophesies are typically written vaguely enough that you can interpret damn near anything into fulfilling them, including two different things at the same time.

There's was always the recurring theme that they would be lead to earth by a dying prophet, which the writers were setting up to be either Roslin, or Baltar.
There might have been a weak attempt to make Starbuck the dying prophet, she did a LOT of the legwork in bringing the fleet to Earth including finding the arrow of Apollo to open the tomb of Athena and then dying and being reborn to literally lead them to earth via her spaceship. I really don't think there is a concensus on what is what from season to season, episode to episode, its a series of moments that writers want to have that are connected by hack writing.

NOW I'm glad RDM didn't get to follow through on ST: the best of both worlds for a whole season, Wesley'd be running things at the end, Data would be the Borg God, Geordi would ahve one leg and or ahve been blown out an airlock by Gomez, Guinan would be pope and I don't even want to THINK what angst Riker and Troi would be going through.
Doctor Crusher would of course smoke cigars and ofer a crusty pearl of wisdom once every seven episodes.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I must've missed getting my copy of the final half of season four's scripts in the post. Would one of you fine people who knows full well what's going to happen regarding untied plotlines please lend me your copy so that I may educate myself? What's that? You don't have a copy of the scripts? Then shut the fuck up.

And if I hear one more reference to emoness, Live-fucking-journal or anything else, I'm going to call the person up on why they're trolling a thread on a programme they clearly have nothing but bullshit to add to.

Overall, the episode gave me a good impression of how much was riding on this Earth deal and how utterly adrift the fleet was after finding out they had to concoct a Plan B because, y'know, ancient prophecies aren't amazing foundations for building a rosy future for your nomadic civilisation.

Dualla's death shocked me. I didn't see it coming. And it still sucks to be Gaeta.

I'm glad Adama and Tigh managed to talk and see eye-to-eye (or is that eyes-to-eye?). What with Roslin in a foetal position nursing radioactive fauna, and Apollo being a bit wet behind the ears regarding leading a whole species, they need the Admiral and his XO more than ever. We've established Cavil and his ilk are the enemy, and there are good Cylons. They're all up a creek right now, so I hope they have some stellar plan to improve morale.

While I think we can explain away the five Cylons in the fleet having past lives, the deal with Starbuck looks increasingly like time travel or some very nifty trick with a duplicate of her. If there is a God/pantheon in this, then I want to know their motive (I have nothing against a religious explanation or something equally out there in an Evangelion kind of way which, as others alluded to, is what it feels like now in terms of bad luck cropping up) which would tie in with the other coincidences and visions seen. You can't ignore the religion and philosophy that only formed the backbone of the whole series, so either there's some truth to it or it was a big rope-a-dope. I'm inclined to go for the former.

[tim31]

Bounty, here's Valdemar's potentially massive spoilers thread, and then of course there's scraps of vague info to be found here

[Acidburns]

I've been re-watching the earlier series recently and in Season 3, when Baltar is first on the Cylon Basestar we are first introduced to Cylon "projection". The episode calls into question as to whether Baltar is a Cylon (he isn't effected by the Cylon disease so he we know he is at least has nothing in common with the regular Cylon gang). Anyway, the episode points out that his head six is similar to the Cylon projection.

If Starbuck is human, and has been shown to be resurrected could we be going down some sort of "humans and cylons are the same" route? Obviously they wouldn't be humans as we know them.

Themightytom pointed to Starbuck being hinted as the prophet. She did lead the fleet to earth, and judging from the wreck died before setting foot on the planet. However she wasn't "dieing" which was also mentioned in the prophecy.

[Uraniun235]

There's was always the recurring theme that they would be lead to earth by a dying prophet, which the writers were setting up to be either Roslin, or Baltar.

I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that Roslin was definitely supposed to die when they first started the series, but then the writers decided they liked her too much or something like that.

Because Season 1, Episode 1 ("33") wasn't almost entirely about Baltar giving himself over to God or anything (oops, character-driven inside an overall story!).

So, what does that mean? What did we ultimately get out of Baltar giving himself to God? From his perspective, things seemed to get better... but at the same time it could just be coincidence. See, that was good television because it left the question up in the air and similar writing - like the issue of whether or not Roslin was hallucinating when she saw the ancient lost city on Kobol when she looked at the recon photos - allowed for some excellent conflict between Roslin the faithful and Adama the atheist.

But it's been years since that point and we don't have anything more on just what Head-Six (or, now, Head-Baltar) means, or why or how she's there or what her (it's?) true motives are. Nothing. Well, there was an ambiguous scene where she appears to lift him up, but it's still ambiguous so we're no closer to an answer. Is one really going to be forthcoming? I'm not optimistic on that, although I'd love to be proven wrong on that count.


I'm also not sure what your jab there is supposed to mean, I'm not saying neoBSG has always been total shit, nor am I even saying character-oriented storytelling is a bad thing. Which aspect of my post did you think your jab cleverly refuted?

Are you trolling on purpose?

There are no signs at all that they have no intention of leaving anything totally unanswered.

No I'm not trolling on purpose, I'm basing this on the series writers' habit of both making the series up as they go, and employing blatantly contrived events in order to fiat their way through particularly sticky points. For examples of the former we have THE FINAL FIVE, we have Ellen being the final one (as the producers didn't know who it would be when Lucy Lawless saw the Five and said "oh i'm sorry, i didn't know" to one of them), Roslin magically surviving her cancer, the Cylons allegedly having "A Plan" when it turns out that they seemed to have as much of a plan as George Bush had when launching the invasion of Iraq.

For examples of the latter, see: Pegasus' third Commander biting it conveniently so's Apollo could take command, Pegasus conveniently being sacrificed to save Galactica so the writers could get rid of the super-battlestar, Adama and the Galactica crew suddenly being unable to "jump in, wait for res ship to jump in, shoot magic-virus-infected hostages, jump out" in anything resembling a competent fashion, and recently Earth magically both being unlivably radioactive and not managing to rust or erode any artifacts away (including a GUITAR) even after two thousand years.

Hey, if I'm wrong and the staff actually does wrap up most of the story to make sense, cool. Rub it in my face, put it in your sig, send me a razz over PM. I'll be happy too, I'd love to see how this all supposedly ties together. But don't get super-butthurt just because I'm not completely in love with the show. I love damn near any scene with Edward James Olmos in it, Baltar is hilarious whenever he gets a comedic moment, Tigh is magnificent when he's barking orders or growling at some underling - but these and other things I like about the series do not change the fact that I think the show suffers considerably from the lack of advance planning in the writing.

I must've missed getting my copy of the final half of season four's scripts in the post. Would one of you fine people who knows full well what's going to happen regarding untied plotlines please lend me your copy so that I may educate myself? What's that? You don't have a copy of the scripts? Then shut the fuck up.

And if I hear one more reference to emoness, Live-fucking-journal or anything else, I'm going to call the person up on why they're trolling a thread on a programme they clearly have nothing but bullshit to add to.

Hey, I'm glad to see you enjoyed the present I left in your Cheerios.

Seriously though it's not like I only just coined the term yesterday. And to be fair, I've warmed up to the 'wrecked Earth' development quite a bit since then (I don't like the development itself but I do like the opportunities it affords for character development and I do appreciate the simplicity of the writers not having to devise an Earth civilization for the show), although I still think I should get a pass on using the term "Battlestar Livejournal" since I termed it that way back before anyone could have known that's what would be found. Seriously, what's wrong with mocking the show for being grim and dark? Is 'grimdark' also unacceptable in a neoBSG thread now?

Anyway, last I heard, around here a "troll" was considered to be someone who makes a lot of fakeposts intended to anger people and intentionally derail threads with unproductive posts - i.e. a 'crime' of intent - but that's not my intent because this is seriously how I think and feel about Battlestar Galactica and I think it's on-topic to speculate on where the show is (or is not) going from here. There, now you know where I'm coming from, I just saved you the trouble of "calling me up".

You can't ignore the religion and philosophy that only formed the backbone of the whole series, so either there's some truth to it or it was a big rope-a-dope. I'm inclined to go for the former.

Yeah but in the first season as someone else pointed out it was a lot more vague and open to interpretation. Okay so Roslin saw an ancient lost city when she looked at the recon pictures of ruins - did she actually have an actual vision or did her mind imagine/hallucinate that based on her memory of reading their holy texts before? It wasn't definite - we could go either way. Similarly, was Head-Six actually a Cylon implant (like maybe a mental computer virus or something) or was she a hallucination or was she actually some sort of angel/devil being? Again, it could go either way. Even after taking the Arrow of Apollo to the holodeck Tomb of Athena, there's still the ambiguity of "so was that really advanced technology or was that holy magic". (I'm inclined to favor technology)

But where it started to crumble was Athena saying "we know a lot more about your gods than you do". Okay... like what? And how did you find out? You'd think this would actually be a relatively simple question to answer, but we never got anything more on that. Are we ever going to hear anything about the Lords of Kobol again, or on why exactly Kobol was abandoned? I'm betting we won't. I mentioned the Head-Six issue before, and how we haven't gotten anything further on that. Now there's Head-Baltar - what's that about? And what about the Operahouse? Again, used to be this nice ambiguous "vision or hallucination? actual thing or just Head-Six toying with him?" conflict to it. But now we've got Roslin and Six seeing the same thing at the same time - is that telepathy? Is that angels/devils/magic telebeacons planting images in their heads? We haven't gotten anything about that either. The Cylon/Human hybrid used to be a big deal - where did that go? The Cylons kept mentioning someone having programmed them and how important it is to follow the programming - who did it, what was their motive? How does the Basestar Hybrid know so goddamn much? How did the human oracle on New Caprica know stuff? Why did the supernova cook off just in time for D'anna to figure out the Eye of Jupiter but still leave Galactica just barely enough time to escape?

The problem isn't that they keep tossing new shiny balls up into the air, or even that they haven't been completely resolved, it's that those old balls just seem to stay up there and never get any progress or new clues. The problem isn't that there's a lot of religious/prophetic talk, the problem is that it doesn't seem to mean anything except "oh hey this sounds cool". I'd like to take it on faith that they've actually got this really spectacular grand plan of how it all fits together and that all those ominous Cylon portents actually meant something, but I can't because I know they've just been playing it by ear for the past few years, so it's hard for me to just believe that they've managed to bang out a stellar conclusion to the series.

Zac whined about how there's no evidence of the writers intending to leave things unanswered but my retort is where is the evidence that they actually do intend to resolve many of these questions they brought up? Or rather, where's the evidence that they will do so in a manner that's actually satisfying and thoughtful and doesn't just superficially gloss over everything they've built up over the run of the series? To be fair we've got D'anna being unboxed following the civil war, but that's not enough to really convince me.

And again like I said earlier, I'll be happy to be proven wrong and I'll watch the episodes as they come out because I want to see how it unfolds, but I fail to see what's so inappropriate about expressing skepticism over the quality of the finale of the show based on what's come before.




And seriously as much as I whined about "nuked earth = battlestar LJ" in that thread I linked to above, I think a deliberate "Battlestar Evangelion" ending would be even more absurdly awful since from what I've heard, NGE's "religious symbolism" was also just an assortment of random shit that "looked and sounded cool".