Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Battlestar Galactica: Season 3

I psychotic freakshow!

Amen to psychotic freakshow. And if she's not the final Cylon, I'll eat my hat. That was kind of Tigh's finest moment--his little speech to the other Cylons (?). Interesting that many of those who might be in the final five have really been put through the ringer by the other Cylons. Nice speech by Apollo--he just about convinced me. I kept saying "Yeah, but..." to myself. Baltar has caused an enormous amount of suffering indirectly--what crimes has he actually committed himself? I keep trying to remember anything he's really done. The problem from an ethical point of view is that all of that suffering has not happened independently of Baltar--and he has caused that suffering for the most selfish, cowardly, and self-serving of reasons. A realistic villain!

I'm all for those four not actually being cylons. But, in any case, it's more of an excuse to have stoylines not revolving around the "psychotic freakshow" or Lee the shmuck. Unfortunately Gaius gets his own new plot. Hmmm... seems I want to see more of the cylons and less of the stupid humans. Maybe I'm the last cylon.

I would think giving a nuclear bomb to a group of terrorists is direct enough.

The most amusing thing to me about the Baltar trial is that he is (almost) responsible for the genocide of the 12 colonies, but no one knows (only Roslyn suspects).

I can't decide whether last night's episode was "Grant Morrison good" weird or "Dr. Mayavale bad" weird.

I'm not sure I really care about these characters much anymore, and I kind of half-watch to see how they tie things up. Adama's behavior recently towards Tyrol and Lee is just characterization rape, if you ask me.

True enough. I keep waiting for Bill Adama to remember that he gave Baltar that nuke and to put two and two together about Cloud 9. Of course, they have all been fairly busy.

The thing that bugs me is no more BG until 2008. I really expect things to fall apart before then. I smell a 'Farscape syndrome' coming on. I do so hope I am wrong...

wow. fantastic show. I loved the pull back shot that showed that, comparatively speaking, they aren't that far from their final goal. but I imagine that even with FTL it will take while to get where they are going.

starbuck? I don't know. but I do find it interesting that she was able to fly a Cylon drone. that seems to be more than just really good piloting skill.

also, how about this? the tv person for my local paper wonders if everyone is a a Cylon. the humans died long ago and this is just a civil war between different factions of Cylons.

"the tv person for my local paper wonders if everyone is a a Cylon. the humans died long ago and this is just a civil war between different factions of Cylons"

I don't know if it was ever spelled out on-screen, but in the original series, The Cylons were supposed to be the creations of ANOTHER race, called The Cylons, not the humans-- and the original Cylons all died when their creations turned against them. After that, their "conquest" mentality ran afoul of humans' love of freedom, which was how the 1,000-year-long war started. That war only ended with the fake armistice and sneak attack-- engineered, in part, deliberately, by Baltar (John Colicos). He just didn't realize they didn't want to enslave humans-- they wanted to kill them all-- including him! (Oops...)

Since in the new series The Cylons were created originally by humans... HMMM!

Random Cylon/Final 5 question: Has Leoben EVER been seen with the other Cylons, like on a Basestar in the background, or a group during the occupation? I always remember seeing him entirely by himself. Just curious.'

I've wondered something similar, Wamu. Given that humans can apparently interbreed at will with the Cylons, it's not clear there's any real difference between the two. And, if you look at the philosophies/religious beliefs of the two groups and smush them together, you get what we think of as historic human belief systems.

dc, I remember Leoben being among the Cylons shown at the end of the original miniseries at least--the shot that revealed Sharon to the audience as a Cylon.

you know LL i was thinking that if they were recieveing a radio signal from earth circa 1968, wasn't that kinda like how in the final episode of the original series when they got the TV signal of the moon landing?

ok i remember that weren't the Cylons a race of reptillian creatures? i think that the imperious leader was the one of the few remaining ones of his race and Lucifer (& his kind)and the centurions were like the labour and army of the Cylon culture.

So much got changed before the show ever got on the air, so much was never developed to its fullest potential... The Cylons were supposed to be a reptillian race. But because BG hit the airwaves during the season at the very HEIGHT of the "anti-violence" period, when you had "Family Viewing Hour" (never mind 8-9, that season, virtually nothing "interesting" was on before 10 PM) The Cylons were changed from reptiles to robots. that way, you could "get away with" shooting as many as you wanted, since, hey, they're only shooting machines.

Anybody remember Quinn Martin's MOST WANTED with Robert Stack? DULLEST "cop" show I ever saw-- the only place you ever saw a gun being fired was in the opening credits! That probably blew the "quota" for the hour...

This was the same season when TV GUIDE promised that STARSKY AND HUTCH would focus less on violence and more on "relationships". As a fan of the 2nd season, I thought, isn't the show like that already? I didn't know what they meant. What they meant was, NO violence at all, and the 2 main characters became such wimps, they might as well as been hairdressers (and in fact, one of the opening credits shots was them udercover AS hairdressers, just to drive home the point).

Now, I LOVED the original BG-- in spite of its faults (which were huge and too numerous to count). But I've always ranked 1978-79 as the WORST tv season in my lifetime. The most "exciting" show on the air that year was an import from England-- THE NEW AVENGERS-- and CBS felt it was "too violent" for Prime Time-- even for 10 PM-- so they put it on the CBS LATE MOVIE at 11:30. And, if anybody's seen the show, you realize what a sick joke that "too violent" description was. (grrrrrrr.)

A couple years later, HILL STREET BLUES debuted, and I knew "good" cop shows had finally returned. A couple years later, MIKE HAMMER was on at 8 PM-- and I knew "Family Viewing Hour" was finally a thing of the past. GOOD RIDDANCE!


Back on BG... The Imperious Leader, visually, was supposed to resemble the original Cylons-- but, he was definitely a robot like the Centurions and Lucifer types-- just with a bigger brain. But the WEIRD thing was when Baltar recognized that Count Iblis had the SAME voice as the voice of the Cylon Imperious Leader. The last original Cylon had died 1,000 years earlier-- about the start of the war. Which made Baltar wonder, HOW could this man's voice have been the basis for the robot's voice? (heehee)

There's a few episodes of the original BG that really shine, even now. But I always wish the show had had better writing-- MUCH, MUCH better writing!! Imagine the original cast & characters-- with the quality of writing of the new series.

Leoben was on the basestar with Baltar and all the other Cylons this season.

I just had a thought:

Who were the main leaders of the resistance on New Caprica?

Besides Roslin, they were...

Tigh, Anders, Tori, and Chief.

Now, think about this... what if the entire point of the Cylon occupation on New Caprica was to begin the process of reactivation of these four? What if the "And they have a plan" part of the opening... what if THIS is what that was all about?

I agree that it doesn't make sense if you take the New Caprica episodes by themselves, but retroactively... I could see them going there with this. And the neat thing about it is, if they pull it off, there might very well be an overall Cylon plan that makes sense and is actually somewhat well-written.

Neat!

One thing I noticed at the end of this episode.

While the camera was pulling away from the fleet I noticed a somewhat distinct looking star in the lower right of the screen.
It was the only star to look like that so it caught my attention.



It kinda freaked me out when I saw it and I was thinking, "Holy Frack!! The Ship of lights!!"

It would be pretty damn sweet if that bright pointy star turns out to be the ship in the above picture.



Wouldn't be too far a leap since the Final Five look very similar to the Seraphs from the original series.

Great interview here with Moore:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07085/770732-352.stm

Another thought: anyone else struck by the obvious Jesus imagery with Baltar? First, the full beard and long hair. The cult following. Then, being spirited away to a "new life" under a robe-like blanket by 3 women (some King Arthur there, too). I have to say I can't wait to see if this most petty, narcissistic Judas of a fellow ends up as humanity's savior next season.

Yeah, the Jesus parallels are inescapable. There's also the fact that he's a monotheist being persecuted by polytheists. More academic minds than mine would have a field day, I'm sure.

Kid Prime, I also noticed how the resistance leaders ended up being (possibly) Cylons themselves. That can't be a coincidence.

Thinking more about the song that played in their heads and how that could be possible, my only theory about the Final5 (also considering Starbuck's declaration at the end) is that they're already on Earth.

That rocks. I never thought about that angle. Another reason why I love this show.

The repeat comes on in a few hours, and I can't wait to see it again. (Normally, I would have it on TiVO, but the TiVO's at home with Lee.)

Lot's of talk on Mo Ryan's TV blog (thanks, Wamu!) about what all this means. One idea I like is that all this takes place in the far future. Kobol is settled from Earth. Bad things happen, and some humans return to Earth, some found the 12 colonies.

I like this idea, because there is abundant evidence that humans actually, you know, evolved on Earth, and I can't imagine Moore ignoring that.

It also makes me think of Roger Zelazny's awesome book, Lord of Light. In it, refugees from Earth have settled a new planet, and the crew of the spaceship have used advanced technology to make themselves immortal and refashion themselves as the Hindu vedic gods. That could explain the idea that the "gods" lived with the humans on Kobol. It suggests that the gods may have left their...genes in the human population, and the use of advanced technology may tie directly to the Cylons.

Speculation is fun and you can do it for free, if you want!

[ot] Best. Book. Ever! [/ot]

Well, I watched it again tonight. I still thought it was great, though on a second viewing, I thought Lee's courtroom speech went on about 2 min. too long, and Kara's little speech at the end was, well, not very well-written.

But the 4 in the room was AWESOME. One of the best BSG scenes ever.

I hope season 4 is about redemption. They all need it (except Helo, he's practically prefect in every way.)

"One idea I like is that all this takes place in the far future. Kobol is settled from Earth. Bad things happen, and some humans return to Earth, some found the 12 colonies."

That would be an interesting twist on the original show. One thing I NEVER liked was the idea that BG took place in the "present day". Sure enough, when they did that ABORTION of a so-called "sequel" (whose name I never utter) the severe LIMITATIONS of trying to set such a culture-shaking story "today" was obvious within the first 5 minutes. A fleet of felow human reach Earth-- EVERYTHING would change for those on Earth! Since they didn't want to deal with that, you had... a show that's best forgotten.

A few years later, the series V dealt with a similar theme-- with some success. Mainly, because they dealt with it head-on.

Myself, I preferred setting the series some time in the future. Far enough that Earth technology had developed-- "again"-- to some point of equality with the refugee fleet. That's why I set my own sequel-tribute, "2230" in the time of the original STAR TREK...!

http://www.webspawner.com/users/zodiaccomics/2230.html

The colony names would suggest either a derivation from or a predecessor to the Zodiac we know today. It does not, to me, suggest a concurrent with 2007 space opera. Myself, I kinda hope that these guys end up settling in ancient Greece.