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Battlestar Galactica Official Final Season Thread
- Thread starter Stoney Mason
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firehawk12
Subete no aware
The plot exposition here was about as inane as the exposition on Lost earlier in the week. I don't understand how they could just have a character blab on and on for 20 minutes and expect anyone to be satisfied.
It almost trumps the revelation of Earth as the most disappointing resolution of the series.
It almost trumps the revelation of Earth as the most disappointing resolution of the series.
Femmeworth
Banned
I was pretty satisfied. It wasn't just the information, but the character development of Cavil that made this episode great. Sam's talking never got boring, since it was interlaced with the other scenes.firehawk12 said:
Tenacious-V said:
This didn't have story progression, it had one character explaining all of the stuff they couldn't figure out how to write into the show. He got backstory diarrhea and just shat out all of these details that, if handled by a competent team of writers, would have actually been worked into an organic story. This reeks of "Fuck, we didn't figure it out soon enough and now we're out of time" even though they've known how long they would have left in the series. They've been clearly making it up as they go along and they aren't talented enough to figure out how to do that, the episode suffered as a result.
The Librarian
Banned
Last night's episode was good, but I'm a bit confused on the storyline so far.
Skittleguy
Ring a Bell for me
What if the corrupted DNA made Daniel into a girl?
Think about it....
Think about it....
For those still confused, here's some links to some reviews, all of which (my own included) offered a rundown of the facts.
Review - "No Exit" - Cultural Learnings (Sidenote: I credit GAF for the Daniel/Starbuck potential connection, so props to this thread on that one)
Review - "No Exit" - Alan Sepinwall
Review - "No Exit" - The House Next Door
Mine is, by far, the most negative sounding. I don't think the episode tell-don't-show ideology is inherently problematic on its own, but it felt more problematic when we could have gotten this information spread over a longer period of time, going back to the beginnings of season 4. Or heck, put Anders in this altered state at the beginning of 4.5, and have the mutiny interrupt his story sessions. I complained a fair deal in a post yesterday about how the human/Cylon binary was devalued during the mutiny for the sake of expediency, and the sheer information overload that was required here just felt like evidence that there needed to be more integration between the two sides.
That being said? What we learned was fascinating, the Ellen/Cavil stuff was fun to watch and philosophically interesting despite a few clunkers, and I'm still very excited to see where this all goes.
Review - "No Exit" - Cultural Learnings (Sidenote: I credit GAF for the Daniel/Starbuck potential connection, so props to this thread on that one)
Review - "No Exit" - Alan Sepinwall
Review - "No Exit" - The House Next Door
Mine is, by far, the most negative sounding. I don't think the episode tell-don't-show ideology is inherently problematic on its own, but it felt more problematic when we could have gotten this information spread over a longer period of time, going back to the beginnings of season 4. Or heck, put Anders in this altered state at the beginning of 4.5, and have the mutiny interrupt his story sessions. I complained a fair deal in a post yesterday about how the human/Cylon binary was devalued during the mutiny for the sake of expediency, and the sheer information overload that was required here just felt like evidence that there needed to be more integration between the two sides.
That being said? What we learned was fascinating, the Ellen/Cavil stuff was fun to watch and philosophically interesting despite a few clunkers, and I'm still very excited to see where this all goes.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Man, John Hodgman was so out of place on this show...
Nice episode though.
Nice episode though.
DrForester said:
The worst thing was that the character could have been completely interesting if it hadn't been a joke and the doctor could have discussed, I dunno, the ramifications of operating on a Cylon brain, or the ethics of operating on Cylons, or any of the hundreds of complicated bio-ethical questions raised by the whole process.
Instead? Jokes.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
Or their daughter.B.K. said:
BenjaminBirdie said:
I'd say that is the high point of the entire series. It was utterly fantastic, and one of the best speeches I've seen in a TV show.
I liked the episode, even when being carpet bombed with exposition. I'm a bit disappointed with how they resolved things, though, as I think the series could have benefited from more planning instead of having a 'Retroactive Mastermind' to it all. It's kind of like Mother 3-- a creative plot and mythology that gets dumped in the last 10% with few signs and hints early on to support the revelations.
We're still missing a lot of pieces. There's gotta be more to the war than simple sadism, right? And what were the signs that he mentioned?
It doesn't give away enough crucial plot points.
Karakand said:
I've neartly quit this show so many times b/c of worthless episodes. All I could think of during that one was Monty Python storming in and yelling "No one ever suspects . . . the black market!"
Which is why it's so frustrating that they crammed all that in to this last episode. They should have just put up a FAQ on the website.
Won said:So much information in this episode and no budget to show some flachbacks?
Of course not! Why show something in a television series when you can just fucking talk about it for an hour or so!
Also, as far as the John/Ellen stuff being good, sure it was. But why was it all thrown in this episode? We couldn't have had that develop over time? Or put it somewhere into the series where it makes sense, like Ellen arriving on Galactica (or wherever she's heading) and retelling her story of how she got there. Instead, we got an out of place side story going back halfway into the series with a whole bunch of thirty second conversations over two years.
It was done for the sake of the shock of who is the last Cylon, in addition to the whole "Oh fuck, we have to pull a name out of a hat to find out the name of the last Cylon" part. And oh yeah, there's another one because why not raise more questions that were never hinted at before.
shawnlreed
Member
Coop said:
This was the first thing I thought as well. Freaky skin-jobs.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
CcrooK said:
the swirl.
and i can only imagine. i bet her vagina turns around inside itself.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
maharg said:
The case for Baltar:
- he seems to be infertile
- only cylons appear to have had (direct) contact with 'head people'
- too smart (Gaeta did say "and I thought I was pretty at it [science]. Until I met you")
- the daydreams / projection in earlier seasons
I'll admit Starbuck is the suggestion the episodes just screams at us by using 'the artist', but except for Starbucks ressurection and artistic ability, there is not a lot of previous basis for Starbuck being Daniel. Also, we can safely assume Anders would have known.
The final push for Baltar instead of Starbuck however, is the fact that these Head People have an agenda of their own, and it seems to involve Cataclysm a lot.
I liked the 'devil' suggestion that was made earlier in this thread. Starbuck (or Baltar) being some completely alternate Cylon design.
(her memories were erased by someone though. It's not a big jump to think the centurions may have had something to do with it. Come to think of it, did they really start the war because they felt mistreated or were they told some cataclysm themselves? They did have the idea of a single deity and the Head thing fits the profile)
Stoney Mason
Banned
Zeitgeister said:
Smart people use condoms.
Jonnyboy117
Member
Loved this episode and all the revelations, which actually make sense somehow. I also love that Adama continues to confront his own racism against Cylons... and now his beloved Galactica will become a Cylon herself.
One thing I still don't understand -- why don't they just go back and live on Kobol? It seemed like a nice enough place. It was Cylon-occupied, but that seems a minor issue now.
One thing I still don't understand -- why don't they just go back and live on Kobol? It seemed like a nice enough place. It was Cylon-occupied, but that seems a minor issue now.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Stoney Mason said:
I knew that was coming, and you might want to remember all those Sixes and Three (somes) the guy has had. Which are cylons couldn't care less about protection...
I'm confused about the origins/history here a little bit.
OK, so humans left Kobol and founded 13 new colonies, one on earth.
On earth, there were 5 technicians who developed ressurection technology. There was a holocaust, and they ressurected on a spaceship.
Now, what I'm confused about is the nature of the final 5.
Were they actually humans who found a way to ressurect themselves?
Were they cylons?
If they were cylons, why did they die in the holocaust? Was that holocaust cylon vs human as on caprica later? Were they the victim of human nuclear weapons?
If they were cylons, what was so special about them vs the cylons made by the humans on other colonies that those other cylons couldn't make themselves skin jobs too?
Were all the humanoid cylons made by the final five? Or did john and the other cylons gain enough knowledge from the final five to go on to create others without the final five? If they needed the final five to make them, then were the final five really showing the other cylons how to make skin jobs, or just doing it for them?
Why did those cylons want to make skin jobs anyway?
OK, so humans left Kobol and founded 13 new colonies, one on earth.
On earth, there were 5 technicians who developed ressurection technology. There was a holocaust, and they ressurected on a spaceship.
Now, what I'm confused about is the nature of the final 5.
Were they actually humans who found a way to ressurect themselves?
Were they cylons?
If they were cylons, why did they die in the holocaust? Was that holocaust cylon vs human as on caprica later? Were they the victim of human nuclear weapons?
If they were cylons, what was so special about them vs the cylons made by the humans on other colonies that those other cylons couldn't make themselves skin jobs too?
Were all the humanoid cylons made by the final five? Or did john and the other cylons gain enough knowledge from the final five to go on to create others without the final five? If they needed the final five to make them, then were the final five really showing the other cylons how to make skin jobs, or just doing it for them?
Why did those cylons want to make skin jobs anyway?
Skittleguy
Ring a Bell for me
"Electric Gonorrhea: The Noisy Killer"Zeitgeister said:
Femmeworth
Banned
Yeah, his part was the only real low of the episode.DrForester said:
gofreak said:
No. 4000 years ago 13th tribe (cylons) left Kobol for Earth, 2000 years later the humans left and founded the 12 colonies.
http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Kobol_(RDM)
The cylons on Earth were pretty much indistinguishable from humans, though. They reproduced like humans, presumably had genetic diversity like humans, etc. Basically, they're us. I'm assuming the idea is that the skinjob cylons from Kobol's "this has all happened before" were forced off Kobol, ended up on Earth but lost their history and technology (no ftl, no resurrection), and were forced to live like normal humans for a couple thousand years. Then 'god' or something came and spoke to the Five and they rediscovered resurrection technology and got resurrected in orbit, and then left to find the Kobol and then the 12 colonies to try and end the cycle of create artificial life -> artificial life revolts -> artificial life becomes more human -> exodus -> return and destruction.
But they failed, obviously. That's my overall understanding/theory at this point.
But they failed, obviously. That's my overall understanding/theory at this point.
Uncle said:
Ah right OK..
So, on Kobol, humans at some point made Cylons, and at some point Cylons upped sticks and left for earth (all of them?), and then 2000 years later, the humans left. At this point, the humans were completely without cylons? Looking at the Caprica trailers and stuff, the notion seems to be that much later on they 'redeveloped' robots and Cylons. The memory of the cylons on Kobol had been lost? Or were the cylons on kobol made by something else (God?), and were never in contact with the humans there, leaving before humans emerged on kobol?
(This was probably answered earlier in the series with the exposition of what was in the holy books and when they found kobol, but I cannot remember now :|)
Anyway, as NimbusD points out, as was also said a couple of episodes back, all the people on earth were Cylons. That being the case, what was the cause of the nuclear holocaust on earth? Who were they fighting?
And why did the final five want to go and warn the 12 human colonies about the danger of creating artificial life when they themselves were artificial life?
Sorry, I know these questions were probably answered along the way..I'm just trying to gather everything up.
edit - OK, so the cylons made a sub-class of cylon centurions who revolted? But why make centurions when you've evolved to the state you're at now? It'd be kind of like humans bringing back neantherthals..? Had the cylons on earth forgotten they were machines? The final five, at least, supposedly wouldn't have forgotten if they were able to forge an agreement with the '12 colony' cylons to end the war and help them make skin jobs. Was this an acknowledgement on their part that they shouldn't have gone back to making centurions, that they should now move to evolve all cylons to a more human form?
It's interesting then that you have the likes of Cavill who seem to basically want to go back to something more centurion-like.
Sullen said:
The Cylons on Kobol (original skinjobs) were created by humans on Kobol, they left and populated earth, forming the thirteenth colony. These same skinjob Cylons created centurions on earth, who rebelled, and destroyed all life on earth in a nuclear holocaust.
Something along those lines.
I did like the fact, that the 5 were stuck using Near Light speed engines, getting stuck with the whole Relativistic speed thing. I.E. To them, the trip to Kobol could be...5 months (random choice), but 2000 years have passed outside their ship.
So, the 5's "souls" could just be 40-60 years old (after their Lives on Earth), and have been resurrected only a small amount of times, and not resurrected hundreds of times, over the course of 2000 years. They only have memory problems because of what Cavill did to them.
So, the 5's "souls" could just be 40-60 years old (after their Lives on Earth), and have been resurrected only a small amount of times, and not resurrected hundreds of times, over the course of 2000 years. They only have memory problems because of what Cavill did to them.
gofreak said:
My theory is that humans on Kobol made the first (?) cylons over 4000 thousand years ago, the cylons rebelled and left. The humans then left for some unknown reason 2000 years later and founded the colonies without any cylons. At some point their history has turned into the stuff of legends and the memory of cylons had been forgotten, and they begun the cycle again. So a fitting end would be that they end up on Kobol again, with the cylons.
And as to who nuked Earth, I'd say that a civil war would be the easiest answer. If it were the humans (it was nuked at about the same time when humans left Kobol), why would the 5 go look for the humans to help them? Of course they could just be so nice, but I somehow doubt it. Also it would be kinda silly to travel thousands of years to the colonies, when the people you are looking for just nuked your planet. And some third party would be a bit dissapointing.
It sounded like he said "they were wanting to go warn the other colonies about building the robots." They just didn't have FTL drives, and it took longer to get there. Then it was almost too late (1st cylon war).
I have a feeling that the 13th colony left Kobol alot longer ago than 4000 years. How long ago was Kobol abandoned?
I'm figuring that in the time that Earth made robots and all that, Kobol did the same thing. Both sets of Robot's did the same thing, KILLKILLKILL, and that's why people left Kobol. Then they forgot about all that, and did it again.
I have a feeling that the 13th colony left Kobol alot longer ago than 4000 years. How long ago was Kobol abandoned?
I'm figuring that in the time that Earth made robots and all that, Kobol did the same thing. Both sets of Robot's did the same thing, KILLKILLKILL, and that's why people left Kobol. Then they forgot about all that, and did it again.
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