Glad I wasn’t the only one!
I liked Billy 
All I say is Starbuck better be careful. Last week, she lost her special ‘Best Pilot in the Fleet’ mug and this week, she lost her “Best Infiltrator” chops. She better start training or she’ll do pathetically at the next “Best in the Fleet” intership competition they hold.
Starbuck: Now that Billy is dead, that makes be Best Intern In The Fleet. Which press guys you need tortured?
Roslin: You ARE the best intern in the fleet!
-Joe
True, but they did flashback to that woman’s husband getting killed in a recent attack by the Cylons on a civilian ship. They casually tossed that in there even though they’ve never indicated the Cylons were staging little hit and run attacks this whole time. They’ve always and only been after the Galactica and its Viper pilots. It’s kinda like Ron Moore is saying “oh, didn’t you get the memo? Yeah, Cylons have been doing this all along. Try to keep up.”
Ellen assuming Lee wanted a quick scrog in the bathroom was perfect Ellen. Especially right after she was giving Lee her little speech about “people like us.”
Yeah, no kidding. Ok, we get it Mr. Moore. We teased you relentlessly all first season about Starbuck being the best everything in the fleet. Now we know she’s all human and stuff. She isn’t the hottest stick in the fleet. Now she’s not the best shot in the fleet. We get it! You’ve shot so many people and had them survive there was no reason for me to believe Billy wouldn’t survive his little wound-ey.
It’s not uncommon for Moore to take a little-used character and give them a little more prominence every once in awhile. It shouldn’t mean, “oh, this one’s about to die.” Alas…
At least that Marine “Gunney” didn’t die. Maybe we’ll see him again someday.
I saw it as a bit more ominous than that…
Adama: Would you tell me about the other Cylons in the fleet?
BoomerBot: No. <thinks> Because you would have a heart attack if I did…
After all, we still have six models left to uncover, and what are the odds that they’ll be just random people, rather than characters we know and love?
Lee? Bill Adama himself? Roslyn? Dualla?
After all, about the only people in the fleet we can say with near-absolute confidence are not cylons are Helo and Starbuck. With somewhat less certainty, we can say that Baltar and Col. Tigh aren’t, either, but that still leaves the field wide open.
As far as I can remember, the cylons have never stated absolutely that they cannot replicate living humans and reintroduce them as sleepers.
Battlestar Galactica hasn’t jumped the shark yet, but they’ve filled the tank with seawater, set up the ramps and gassed up the motorcycle. It looks like they’ve started padding the series with one-off episodes to get that magic syndication count. And it looks like more of the same next week.
Didn’t they say on one of the Caprica episodes that they could only get twelve models to work, which is why they’re doing the whole breed with humans thing?
It bothered me quite a bit, having seen that Apollo was willing feed a lead lozenge to the black marketer a couple of weeks ago, a man who was unarmed and who represented a real but not immediate threat, that when Dana Delaney told him he wouldn’t shoot his captive terrorist, a man who was armed and who represented a very real and very immediate threat, he accepted her assertion and backed down.
Other than that, I liked most everything in this episode.
Roslin to Billy: “Somebody took his vitamins today.” 
Dualla’s party dress: :eek: 
(Though I have to wonder: Where are they getting the cosmetics? I can see setting up a viper factory, but who’s making the rouge and lipstick?)
I also really liked that the conspiracy theorists in the fleet have arrived, apparently as much by accident as anything, at the correct conclusion that the defense ministry had been infiltrated and that the crushing defeat was the result of insider collusion with Cylon forces. For some reason, this amuses me greatly.
Sigh … Me three.
I just listened to the podcast, so now I feel better about offing Billy. But this is yet another episode Ron Moore isn’t totally happy with.
Oh, and Ron Moore smokes. I think he had at least two cigarettes during the podcast. And it was trash pick-up day.
On the one hand, it’s nice to have a showrunner who aspires to such a high standard for his own work. On the other hand, it’s a little awkward when he has to apologize for his criticisms at the beginning of the podcast and clarify that he’s not knocking the cast or crew, and that he accepts responsibility for what he perceives as the problems.
One hopes, though, that the very high standard he sets means that he won’t be satisfied until he returns to the heights he achieved with episodes like “Kobol’s Last Gleaming.”
<klingon> And it will be glorious! </klingon>
Well, sure. Is he going to say, “The guys who wrote and produced this episode suck, and I never want to work with them again.”?
I’d say his best characteristic is shouldering the blame. Someone asked him (I paraphrase here) if future episodes would show better knowledge of computer networking. He responded (again I paraphrase) “mistakes that favor the plot against science are usually mine”. Which I guess is a nice way of saying, “FU, drama is more important that facts.”
It is well past time for some Marine Officers in this thing. I’m sick having assorted Viper Pilots command ground forces and security details. It’s standard practice on large capital Navy vessels to have contingents of Marines, with their own officers.
And it’s possible, isn’t it, that the assorted SWAT/Police types may have survived in some parts of the fleet? Are there no police types crewing that former prison ship?
As for Dualla, she’s got some serious Space Skank Karma coming her way. Maybe they can stick a CyberBilly chip in her head, and let bug her, Model 6 style.
He’s adding in Klingons?! Come on, that’s just pandering.
The Boomer switch was obvious to me too. I was kind of annoyed that Apollo could be shot and just lay wounded for a lengthy period of time but Billy got shot and died instantly. Was he shot directly in the heart? As for Starbuck’s screwup, why did she have guns? I thought she was just supposed to do recon and then report back. I always thought Ellen was a toaster and her actions this episode only make it more obvious. I’m wondering why Boomer isn’t fully cooperating. Maybe she’s only giving enough information to protect herself and her baby. Strangely I thought D looked even more butch in a dress. She is cut!
Nah, Seven of Nine would be pandering. Klingons are cool.
I don’t know why Boomer will give up strategic and tactical information but won’t reveal the identities of other cylons in the fleet. My best guess is that she isn’t willing to betray individuals who would then be apprehended, interrogated, and perhaps airlocked (especially since there’s no resurrection ship nearby).
I think Starbuck brought guns with her in case something went wrong or to take advantage of an opportunity that presented itself. Or maybe she’s read the “shoot the hostage” threads on the SDMB.
Frankly, I think it was pretty stupid of her to volunteer to be the recon person. As mentioned, the chances of her being identified were pretty high. Even if her face isn’t all over as a hero of the fleet, she knew several people in the room who could blow her cover (which happened). If there were no volunteers available to her other than brand new recruits or civilians, I could see her choice making sense. But she had marines with her! Even if she is the “best shot in the fleet in or out of a cockpit” she’s not as trained in ground fighting as they are.
I read on TWOP that there may have been plans for this episode to precede Black Market and Scar. If that’s true, I wonder why the order was switched. I think Starbuck’s angst and drinking in Scar would have made a lot more sense coming off of the experience of shooting Apollo. And Apollo’s decision to shoot the bad guy in BM would have been much more shocking after his decision not to shoot in this hostage situation.
Big difference in the ‘why’ Apollo didn’t shoot in this one vs in the BlackMarket episode…
In the Black Market episode, there was zero chance of any innocents being killed, and he himself had a greater chance of walking out unscathed.
In this episode, he was facing 3 ‘other’ gunmen, and the hostages would’ve been quick and easy targets.
Giving himself up so easy was what was out of charector… he should’ve went ‘Die Hard’ and stayed hidden… forcing the hostage takers to risk atleast 1 more baddie to look for what happened to the first one… that would’ve evened the odds and it’s a good chance that the lady (cannot remember her name) would not have shot.
Gaeta.
He’s really good at math, has self-destructive tendencies (inking and smoking), and, if we’re doing the whole “herding the hu-mans toward Earth to make a clean sweep” plan, his ability to calculate many jumps accurately and quickly was absolutely vital to making the plan work.
Which would kinda suck, because I love Felix, even if we haven’t seen him much.
-Joe
I don’t think that’s the case.
If Lee had shot the guy, then what? A gun battle where he’s outnumbered and outgunned in the middle of a pack of innocents. Lee thinks ahead more than that - unlike Starbuck - and we saw what happened there.
It would have been stupid, and all it would have accomplished was getting a bunch of people killed - and most of them not terrorists.
As for “jumping the shark”, I’m pretty confident that they’re not ‘filling the tank’ by padding out the episode count. Not unless we’re a whole lot closer to 100 episodes than I thought. And if that’s the case I must have been in a coma lately, or something. Which is kind of cool, because we’re then closer to 2009 and I’ve got some good books and movies to catch up on.
cerberus - I deal with jails and prisons from time to time for work, and while you get the occasional qualified and capable folks working there, they’re typically far below the level of a cop or SWAT officer. Besides, the guys on Astral Queen were more like the bus drivers taking prisoners from the prison to a parole hearing.
jackdavinci - Lee got shot in the right side of his chest, Billy got shot in the left side. Take from that what you will…but I usually keep my heart on the left side.
-Joe
That makes perfect sense! When I get the DVD set for this season I’m gonna watch them in that order…Sacrifice, then Black Market, then Scar.
Maybe that’s part of the reason Moore was not happy with these eps? Because they were shown or edited out of order…?