Battlestar Galactica 2.20 — "Lay Down Your Burdens, Pt 2" (the spoilers have a plan)

Cafe Society
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While thinking about this, I remembered a pretty good example of another show throwing a giant curveball at the audience and sending the fans into a confused tizzy.

The best previous comparison I can think of is Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s fifth-season opener. For most of the show, it’s a one-off, Buffy dealing with the one and only Dracula. And then at the very end, we meet Dawn, introduced as Buffy’s sister, as if she’s been there the whole time, though we’ve never seen her before.

And the fans rocked back on their couches and said: What the hell?

That week was a flurry of confusion and concern, as people wildly speculated about what could possibly be going on. Had Joss lost his ever-lovin’ mind? Were viewers just supposed to accept that Buffy had had a sister we’d never met for the first four seasons? Fans debated the possibilities, and tuned in the following week with a mixture of hope and trepidation: Man, we hope this goes someplace, we hope this doesn’t suck, we hope Joss has a plan.

And over the next couple of episodes, the master blueprint was slowly revealed, and people settled down. It took a little while, but most people would agree, I think, that the giant plot twist worked out pretty well, for the most part.

But it was an unknown, until those subsequent episodes revealed what Joss was up to.

We have the same thing here, I think. If there’s a clear plan, if there’s a strong new direction, this could be a brave decision for a fearless show. If there isn’t, if the next few episodes slosh and stumble while the writers cast about for ideas, then we’ll know that Ron got bored with the cat-and-mouse of the show up to this point and randomly steered the show into a blind alley with his fingers crossed that it would amount to something.

The only difference between Buffy and this is that we have to wait seven months to find out whether or not there’s a plan, instead of a couple of weeks.

–shaking fist– Damn you, Ron Moore…

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By “gone” I meant Moore doesn’t have to tidy up. It’s been a year and that year has rendered irrelevent, anything Moore wants to declare irrelevant. He can choose to revisit anything he wants, though.

To be clear, I don’t hate flashbacks. Lots of people in these threads do. I’ve heard lots of bitching about it. Now we’re going to be getting more flashbacks. I was trying to rain on the “I loved this episode” parade. :stuck_out_tongue:

So it does. I’m educating myself; Reset Button Technique and Reboot. Neither of which exactly applies to what Moore has done. I need a new word for jumping forward a year and rendering irrelevant, whatever Moore wants to be irrelevant.

I’ve seen other shows & movies where they jump forward in time, but it’s usually clear that nothing particularly interesting or important happened in the interim. Is that the case here, or will season three be a flashback-o-rama?

Another thing. We know how much Moore likes ripping off scenes from all his favorite war movies. Does anyone else think we’re going to be getting cliched scenes from every war prison camp movie Ron Moore has ever liked? It’s like that scene with Starbuck & Anders. “I won’t go back there!” “If it comes to that, I’ll do us both!” Gah! That scene made me squirm.

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While this could turn out pretty badly and some of it is a little annoying and hard to swallow I do appreciate the fact that things are now much worse then they were at the beginning.

The cylons now have free reign over much remaining humanity, and have imposed martial law. There’s an unbreakble blockade over New Caprica. Half the military is now seperated from their battlestars, which are now down to even more of a skeleton crew. Adama or Tigh said something about not being able to field a CAP at this point.

At best, the fleet is back to running while they try to figure out a plan.

I can see a lot of potential for interesting storylines, but it would be nice if they don’t dwadle too long on New Caprica. Half a Season would probably be just enough, a full season at most.

It was a gutsy move, but by no means out of the blue. In fact, one has to appreciate the fact that Roslin and Adama did agree that Balter had won, and had not continued to subvert democracy for their purposes(as noble as they were). It would have felt like cheating to have something come out of nowhere at the last minute to get roslin back into power. Sometimes the good guys lose and there’s not a damn thing one can do about it. I’m glad Roslin didn’t try a last ditch effort of telling the fleet Balter was a cylon agent(without proof), which would have been incredibly stupid and just made her look desperate.

I would have liked to see more a stink raised about Cloud 9 going Boom and Balter doing nothing about it.

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One other thing.

I found it interesting Dead Stockwell Cylon’s response when asked about the Cylon God. “There is no Cylon God. The Supernatural is the primatives response to why the sun goes down”.(paraphrase).

I wonder if he’s not lying about this and the Priest model is actually an athiest.

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I thought he was lying his ass off. Remember that he was the one who told the humans that the Cylons had made a mistake in taking over the colonies and that they were going to leave. Why anyone believed him, I don’t know.

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Man, no kidding. I wanted Anders to say, “Uh, thanks, but I’ll take my chances with the anal probe, baby.”

This episode has managed to nail the coffin on Starbuck for me. I just loathe her now. I’m more fond of Baltar than I am of her. Every scene she was in was cringeworthy, whether it was cheesiness like the scene you mention or just sheer crassness like that “dry hump Anders while Apollo watches after completely insulting him” bit.

Dean Stockwell was brilliant, of course. There’s no disputing that the show had some great scenes, either, like the hangar deck and prison cell scenes and pretty much everything Roslyn did before the “1 Year Later” thing.

I can respect the opinions of those who think all of the changes that were wrought in the last half an hour were a good thing, too. But I have a very hard time envisioning a Third Season that I’ll want to watch very much. I see it as a lot more akin to “Revenge of the Sith” – I watched it, but only reluctantly, and because I’d already invested a lot of time in the series.

They shook up my preconceptions, sure, but mainly my preconception that I’d continue to give a crap about any of the characters.

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I knew I had heard some of that before!

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Since I never saw TOS - how did they wrap up that? It was only two seasons, right?

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1 season, unless you count the season that never happened.

But it never happened, so you don’t.

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They wrapped up the season by having Galatica blow up a Basestar, and pick up a transmission from earth(of the Apollo 11 landing in particular). However, nobody realizes it’s from earth nor is anyone actually watching it during the interesting part(they see video of a capsule floating through space, dismiss it as an old probe and leave the comm room just before “The Eagle has landed”).

Presumably, they never find Earth. Anyone who says to the contrary is a damn dirty toaster.

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The more I think about it, the happier I am with the one year fast forward. I just see the colonization of the planet getting old and stuck in a rut, real fast. I mean if anything would make the show jump the shark, it would be watching Starbuck hookup with Ultrajock and buying a trailer on New Caprica.

Stuff I really liked:

  1. The risky change in the show, as much as I love BSG I think we could use a season off from the usual routine, though I’ll miss my steady diet of space combat.

  2. They kept the Pegasus, leaving open the chance for Adama to execute some serious offensive ops against the Cylons.

  3. Stockwell’s cylon.

  4. Leoben’s back and still on the show.
    Wild prediction: Poptart will mature faster than an ordinary human.

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G-d, please, no.

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Maybe wild daggits like poptarts.

“Trust Ron, and it will all work out OK. Trust Ron and it will all work out OK. Trust Ron…”

(Seems I’ve gone through something like this before. If Ron hires Marti Noxon, I’ll scream!)

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I thought the episode was an improvement, especially the nuke. Pity Ron Moore wasn’t on board. I agree with his partner – wrong, wrong and wrong.

The one year later thing is LAZY and it was weak.
Although I can’t say it was all bad, because Baltar’s Brunette Bimbo was hot enough to be a Cylon.
I said it before, they didn’t expect it to go this far, they’ve been riffing for about a half-season, and since they were clueless on anything else to do, decided the resurrect the 80’s cheese of “V” using Cylons.

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Fast forward 5 years. Mom is getting little Poptart ready for school:

Mom: OK, Poptart, now make sure you look both ways before crossing the street.
Poptart: By your command.

:eek:

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She will telekenitically move the car out of her way. She’ll spell it right, too. :slight_smile:

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That was S. Harris, not Gary Larson.

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She looks like she’s already about six months behind.

E.

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Mrs. Plant mentioned that.

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This episode has finally inspired me to renew my long dormant subscription and start posting again.

I actually enjoyed the fall asleep/wake up a year later bit. I really liked the fact that Pres. Baltar had an official portrait of himself in his office - just like the Post Office!

I just rewatched some scenes on DVR - Cally is way pregnant. I don’t think Starbuck is though - there’s only one New Caprica scene of her without her jacket on, and her waist still looked pretty flat. Lee looked more pregnant then her. She is way hot with the long hair though.

When Tigh suggested Starbuck ask Lee for meds, and she said he wouldn’t help her, he replied “That was a long time ago. People change.” which I took to mean that something happened that he (and presumably lots of other people) knew about - not just the drunken scene make out scene we saw.

PopTart is pretty small for a 1 year old (my 1 year old could probably eat her, and would certainly try), but don’t forget she was a preemie, who I believe stay small for quite a while.

Did anyone else think that the 6 who walked in at the surrender scene was Gina 6, not Caprica 6? The reason I thought that was when PR Cylon (the male in the scene) said they detected a nuclear explosion 1 light year away, he turned his head towards her, she blinked and swallowed, and then when the scene shifted back to Baltar he was looking at her with the tear rolling down his cheek. It was just the focus on her while they were explaining the detection that made me think she was a reincarnated Gina.

Useless nitpick:

When Fonzie jumped the shark (and I watched the original), he was waterskiing, not on his motorcycle. cite, including a picture. I seem to remember he jumped it to win some contest to get money to save Arnold’s, but I could be wrong about that.

Of course - I don’t think this was a shark-jumper at all. I’m really looking forward to what Ron Moore has in store for us in the fall. I really, really want to see an some more of Chief Tyrol as the rabble rousing union leader.