Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Battlestar Galactica - Season 4

Actually, I typo'd in that post. I meant to say "seventeen" not seven. I'm aware that we're in the midst of a ten-episode stretch and that the back ten may not be shown 'til 2009! FRAK!!!

Still, there's a lot to wrap up in seventeen episodes. I wonder if this half season will end with the final Cylon reveal?

Well, tonight certainly didn't let up on the intensity! Tigh gettin' it on with Caprica 6 was, well, something else. I didn't really see that coming.

I REALLY liked the scene in the bar between Tyrol and Adama. All these "hidden four" are really on their own journeys of self-discovery now. It was good to hear him say what he did about Callie--clearly he was unhappy, even before he found out he was a Cylon. It was good to see him confront that.

I remain absolutely transfixed by the transformation of Gaius Baltar into Jesus Christ. Notice how it really looked like someone picking him up after being knocked down -- it looked that way even to the characters who couldn't see number 6? Maybe she is the holy spirit or something? The mention of Mithraists was fun, too. Moore and Eicke have done their axial age homework here, and it shows.

I'd rate this the best of the four episodes of this season so far. Very intense character work surrounding Tigh and Tyrol!

Looks like the next one will focus primarily on Starbuck's mission. I kinda hope we still see some more of Tyrol and Tigh next week, though.

excellent work by the acting crew. wow, Tyrol's rant about his marriage and life in general. excellent performance.

the President needs to be impeached! on the other hand would they really be better off with Zarek running things?

and the Baltar plot is coming along nicely. nothing like religion to have people at one another's throats.

SPOILER-FREE!!!!

Galactica is rocketing into the stratosphere as we get deeper into this final season! After an initial slow start with its return, I feel like I'm watching some of the best television I've ever seen. Awesome, awesome episode tonight!

It's an absolute pleasure to watch two brilliantly-crafted series, Galactica and Lost, on back-to-back nights!

Watched the TIVO of Friday's episode yesterday. Man, what a show! It's like descending into a fully absorbing, engrossing world of despair and horror...of space! The characters really are spiralling together into the center of some maelstrom of revelation that I really can't guess at, though I continue to try. The Final 5 came from Earth!?!?! Even though that was from last week, it only sank in this week. That's just freaky, and the implications are stunning. Is Earth the secret architect behind the entire conflict of this series? Has it secretly manipulated both the colonials and the Cylons from their very inception?

The killings this week and last week, too, have a biblical quality to them. On the surface, they look like the tit-for-tat murders of rival gangs, but there's a deeper undercurrent to them, of two races (clans, groups) coming together and learning the hard way the rules of co-existence. Again, it has an Old Testament feel to it. And Hera's book of "6" doodles was one of the creepier things I've seen before. It only dawned on me then, the connection between the sixes and "666," the mark of the beast. And little Hera ends up out-Omening little Damien.

Anybody know how many episodes of BatGal are left?

Wow. What an episode tonight. What a denouement (sic?) this series will have next year. I suppose, given the imminent fulfillment of everyone's hopes, tonight's twist was the only way to end the episode and continue the series. I had some premonition from last week's preview that something was very wrong with the earth they found. Still, this ending had the weight the best surprise endings, say Planet of the Apes. Wow. I was already feeling a little devastated tonight for a number of reasons. Now, after watching BSG, I feel...the dashing of all hope, everywhere, for all time. You blew it up, damn you! You had to go and do it! Damn you all!

Yeah, it was absolutely devastating! Makes me wonder, though...where the hell do they go from here?!?! We've still got 11 hours of show to go next year!!!!

(Can't wait! )

Well, now that they know where earth is, they could go anywhere -- back to Kobol, back to the 12 colonies, whatever. Heck, they could go to Disneyland!

Of all the burning questions I have, the most powerful is the thing about Kara being the harbinger of destruction. The hybrid never specified WHOSE destruction.

I guess Earth not being the end was the ultimate reversal of our expectations by the creators! Our expectation was always that finding Earth would be the shows conclusion; now we know it's not.

There are still hostile Cylons out there, I'd imagine. I assume they're still occupying the colonies?

And of what significance is that final Cylon model still unrevealed? D'Anna said that only four of them were in the fleet. Was the fifth on the basestar at the time? Baltar or Roslin?

Was Kara the harbinger of Earth's destruction? At some point I'm betting we'll have full disclosure of what happened to her when she 'died'. When that is shown, I'm sure we'll know a lot more.

Finally, what role has Hera to play in all this? Her significance has been played up for a long time and was touched on again a couple episodes ago to remind us. What can this little girl possibly do?

For now, it seems we're left with a further deepening of the Jewish analogy as the colonists seem cursed to roam the desert a long, long time.

i was very satisfied with the show last night, i was wondering if Tigh would give himself up and when he did i was just WOW!
Its what i wanted to happen but didnt think it would, at least not til later. I thought they were going to end the episode with them just arriving at Earth and not going down, and now that they are down on Earth, i still dont know the answer to my question. When are they? the future? the past? are there reigions based on oures or vice versa?

I knida expected Earth wouldn't be everything it was cracked up to be; I could see it being unpopulated and the fleet and Cylon remnants repopulating it. Anything else mightveer close to G:1980 turf (contact or avoidance/etc).

Options:
1. This isn't really earth; it's an updated version of the red herring the original BSg encountered with the City of Lights story; the world with the West and East poised to destroy each other. Here, maybe they did; maybe Kara's last visit was the catalyst.

2. This is Earth in our distant past; Colonial earth met a grizzly end and the Earth we know will be setled and peopled by the fleet.

3. This is Earth in our future that either wiped iutself out, the 'evil' Cylons recently found it on their own and wiped it out, or Kara's visit likewise served as a catalyst. (maybe they'll travel back to WWII to change the outcome a la G:1980! nah. Don't think so)

Either way:
A. There could be survivors, even sub-surface ones.
B. Starbuck's voyage/ship haven't been explained' still seems like City of Lights to me (Earth survivors who advanced or ascended?)

I suspect the last Cylon is on Earth, or was, before the fleet's arrival. Otherwise, it's Starbuck, if it's a known cast member.

I'm still flashing on the overpowering emotion of less than 50,000 people surviving the annihilation of 12 planets, struggling desperately across space for years pursued by an implacable enemy, the hope of earth providing the only impetus to keep going, and when they get there, it's...the same blasted mess they all barely survived 4 years ago. It seems the only logicval choice, like any good plot in retrospect.

The more I reflected on this overnight, the more I realized that an outside force (the angels?) are manipulating this. I was convinced for the longest time that everything I didn't know the answer too (especially Starbuck) was the result of a hidden Cylon plot. But the signal from earth to Kara's viper confirms some other agency at work. And we "know" from the oracle that the final 5 have been to earth, and then there's the temple of the 5 and the eye of jupiter and all that.

Did the same entity that brought the humans and cylons to earth engineer manipulate the events that led to the destruction of the 12 colonies? Or are there competing agents at work here?

One scientific constraint: the appearance of the constellations. Stars move around at different speeds, so the shapes of constellations changes over time, depending on how far the major stars are from earth and how fast they move relative to our solar system (their "proper" motion). My cursory research hasn't turned up the "lifespan" of the zodiacal constellations, but I did see lots of examples of how the big dipper is only a dipper for a few tens of 1,000s of years to the past and future of us now. So if Moore and Eicke want to be accurate about it, the "earth" found at the end of last night's episode has to be 21C +/- say 20,000 years or so.

I'm a latecomer to this party. I watched an episode here and there in earlier years, but this season's the first one I've watched from beginning to end.

And I've been riveted. Guess I've finally partially forgiven Sc-Fi Channel for canceling FARSCAPE?

Anyway, I thought the last 10-12 minutes was among the best TV I've seen in years. The music worked, the crowd reactions were believable (I wonder if all the supporting players knew what the announcement they were going to hear was?) which is often lacking in these sort of plot events.

The twist of Earth (or at least the part of Earth they're standing on) being desolate and radioactive was heart-wrenching. The color went out of the actor's faces; their collective hope's death scene was one I'll never forget.

I find the underpinning of the worship of Greek gods fascinating. Has anyone plugged in the 12 Cylon 'prototypes' into the roles of the Olympian Pantheon? I can see possible analogs for Hephasteus (the engineer), Ares (the Dean Stockwell character), Hades (Tigh) who's in love with Six(?- the sexy blonde), who would then be Persephone.

The fact that other characters on the shown might be bearing the same names as gods who they *aren't* similar to, makes this a somewhat complex exercise. For instance, Apollo wouldn't be an analog to the god, Apollo- but the tall, handsome guy who's one of the Final Five would be.

Who's Athena? Dionysious? Aphropdite? Zeus? Hermes? Hera? Artemis?

we have athena and hera, right?

Athena is Sharon's call sign, and Hera is Sharon's and Helo's daughter. I found it odd that the mother has a daughter's name and the child has a mother's name in Greek mythology. I wonder how important that is?

Anybody know when this returns?

Sadly, apparently not 'til 2009.

2009? What is this - a way to get a 4-year series to last 8 years?

Yeah, apparently.

Really shitty, especially when you know they've already wrapped up production on all the remaining episodes! I mean, damn, why not air them this fall during sweeps?

DVD sales.

Yeah, that occurred to me as well. They split Season 2 sets into 2.0 and 2.5, and each costs about the same as a FULL SEASON!!! I didn't get those for a long time...until I found a decent deal on eBay.

So I'm sure gouging on DVDs is part of the plan for Sci-Fi, but milking what is unquestionably their best show for all it's worth is obviously the larger motivation.

I plan on renting all the seasons and watching them in order before the final half-season... but I'm not looking to buy just yet, as I'll probably be moving around a bit for a few years and need to downsize anyway.

Ok, so we're nearing the the end now; season 4.5 premieres in a little more than a month. In the meanwhile we're getting a little new material soon in the form of some webisodes, starting on 12/12/08 (and supposedly featuring Lt. Gaeta, one of my favorite 2nd tier characters.) New promos are popping up, which I'm actually avoiding since Sci-Fi tends to give a way a little bit too much for my tastes. And Sci-Fi announced that they are going ahead with the prequel series "Caprica" featuring the earlier generation of the Adama family.

But if you are really getting antsy like me, check this out: a downloadable pdf of the catalogue for the auction of BSG wardrobe, production art, set decorations and yes, a full scale Viper, Raptor and Cylon Raider!

http://www.battlestarprops.com/battlestar-galactica-auction-catalog-available-for-download/

Be warned - a few spoilers can be found in the text, but nothing extreme. Personally, I don't know what would be more awesome, the large painting from Admiral Adama's quarters or a pack of Doc Cottle's smokes. This catalogue gives a great peek at all the work that went into making this show look so real on the screen (even when the stories have gone a bit off course.)

On to 4.5!