I’m referring only to the “new” BSG that aired on Sci-Fi and just ended in April 2009.
Massive spoilers for the show will be in forthcoming posts, including how the show ended and how early events connect to major late events, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, avoid this thread completely.
This is also not the thread to bash the new Battlestar Galactica. If you hated it, that’s cool, but not really the point.
I just thought I’d post a few questions that arise and thoughts I’m having as I re-watch BSG from the beginning, already knowing the end. Obviously, I have not seen the Plan, the movie that airs soon.
I am currently just re-beginning season 2.
Feel free to post your thoughts, speculations, or whatever you want, whether you are re-watching it yourself or just reading along.
OK, so I finished season one the other day and will give some thoughts about it.
The miniseries really was only OK at best. Too confusing for newbies, too boring in parts, and had some really out there aspects. The music was not that great either, which is odd since BSG has the best music ever(IMHO). Of course, Bear McCreary was only an assistant on the miniseries, so there is that.
33 is a great episode and may be one of the best in the series, aside from the finale(which, for the record, I love). I would actually show people 33 first with a brief explanation of the premise and then maybe go back and watch the miniseries.
Hand of God is also an amazing episode. It’s the one where they have to trick the Cylon fleet to steal/grab some trillium to make feul. It really emphasizes the idea of Gaius Baltar being moved by God(or generic supernatural force), something really comes back later.
Overall, season one is quite good, but the whole cylon detector storyline and some other minor issues make it not as good.
I’ll start posting some quesitons about early season 2 later. Comment all you want!
Great episode, but it does lose a lot on repeat. The first time through, you really thought Moore was willing to kill just about anyone off, and were left with a true sense that Lee was on a suicide run.
I totally didn’t see it that way. I thought she did it to spare it from the upcoming apocalypse. When she walked away I saw a twinge of remorse on her face.
So far, to me, the biggest problem in terms of plot/story comes in some of the interaction between Head/Angel Six and Baltar.
She shows him the shape of things to come, which is a baby. We know this is Hera because we have watched the whole show and she is the future. However, the dialogue runs more or less like this.
**
Angel Six: You are going to make a wonderful Father, Gaius.
Gaius: Father? Me?
Angel Six: Yes, you.
Gaius: I’m the Father?
Angel Six: And I’m the Mother. What don’t you understand?**
Uh, it really should have been more like “guardian” than Father. Gaius will eventually see his segment of the Opera House moment, which will manifest when he plays his part helping Hera off the colony(with Laura). That’s his key moment. That’s why exists. To be there, at that moment, to ensure the survival of Hera and the future of the human-cylon race, is his moment.
Anyway, it doesn’t affect my liking of the story, but it is weird.
And I saw it as an unfortunate accident on her part, hence the remorse. She was fascinated by it and bent it too far or pressed too hard or something equivalent.
For me the miniseries was excellent and contained many of television’s greatest moments of the last few years. My favorite part is when Tigh takes command of the repair parties.
33 was another great episode.
What I didn’t like about the series was the mystical overtone.
She knew there was an upcoming apocalypse, and that she would be responsible (directly or indirectly) for the deaths of millions, if not billions, of people. I thought that she snapped the baby’s neck for two reasons. First, maybe to spare the kid from the coming armageddon. But mainly to see what killing felt like first hand. To see whether she would be able to withstand the mental torment that comes with murder on that scale. Judging from her facial expression as she walks away, she couldn’t handle it very well. That moment is probably where her need for ultimate atonement (and New Caprica and the Cylon civil war) found its beginnings.
Why did the Cylons put Kara in a impregnation farm? I mean, they want to have kids? I guess I get it. What is her second scar from?
Also, wouldn’t having kids on a planet that is experiencing high radiation a bad idea? Shouldn’t they ship the people off planet to one of the Cylon ships?
Ah, I miss BSG!! I may go back and start watching again myself. We have Season 1 on DVD, need to dust it off and take it for a spin.
I don’t think they ever fully explained the whole Starbuck at the impregnation farm thing, it just kind of got abandoned. Unless I am forgetting something.
I’ve found that the first half of the miniseries holds up extremely well to repeated viewings, but the second half meanders a bit too much. Everything up to the Galactica’s arrival at Ragnar Anchorage is tense and expertly plotted, and the shades of 9/11 still feel all-too relevant. Plus there’s just something magical about that opening long shot introducing Galactica, from Doral’s tour through Adama practicing his speech, to “What do you hear, Starbuck?” (which encapsulates so much about the relationship between those two characters into three short lines), to Adama’s arrival at the CIC.
About Starbuck and the impregnation farm, the Cylons were experimenting trying to create hybrids. Boomer and Helo were one experiment, to see the role of love and if that helped, because they were making lots of human women pregnant at the farms and it wasn’t working. So Starbuck just got caught in their standard “this is what we do with human women we capture” at that point.
It was later that what’s-his-number (Leovin) tried to make Starbuck special, make her love him by separating her out. That played on the success of Boomer and Helo.
The breeding farm just didn’t work, it was shown that love was required for the cross-breeds to take. So ultimately the breeding farm was a dead end. It was abandoned by the time the Cylons go to, er, that planet and the occupation.
That’s all a bunch of hooey. She killed the baby because killing babies is evil. It was a shortcut for the writers to show us that she was bad.
Why would she kill a baby to spare the kid from the upcoming apocalypse? The baby’s going to die one way or the other, why should she make any special effort for just one baby unless the writers want us all to know right then and there that she’s a baddie.
Sure, she was evil, but she was conflicted about it. That’s the stepping stone that makes her such a compelling character, and why her character’s growth over the next 4 seasons is interesting and plausible.
Besides, a “mercy killing” of the baby is only one explanation for her actions. The other potential motivating factor (what does killing feel like/can she handle it/oh wow, now she’s conflicted) is, I think, much meatier and more open to interpretation.
