Pondering a little Norse analogy.
Tigh = Odin, Chief = Thor, Anders = Loki, Tory = Hel?
Starbuck’s last line was “…and I’m gonna take us there”.
So who’s us?
She and Apollo?
The Fleet?
The Humans and the Cylons?
This episode was better than the previous 10 or so put together. However, Lee’s speech at the trial, stirring and genuinely interesting thought it was, was a bit of a copout. Sure, Baltar was in an impossible situation, but he could have done WAY more. He could have been part of the resistance. He could have done ANYTHING. Furthermore, he’s still guilty of treason-leading-to-genocide (which it’s unclear the fleeties could be aware of), sleeping with the enemy (which they certainly should be aware of) and lying to them about building a cylon detector, which led directly to the nuking of lots of innocent people. So Lee’s speech about moral ambiguity in impossible situations was all well and good, except for the part where it doesn’t apply to Baltar in the slightest.
And I completely don’t buy the Baltar cult… either its existence, or the idea that he could be taken somewhere secret on a tiny fleet of spaceships.
Still, a great episode… and about damn time.
(I also like the idea of “I may know that I’m a cylon, but I’m still a free willed individual”. You’d think that the example of Athena would prove to people that being a Cylon is not an automatic sentence of traitorousness…)
Baltar is the last Cylon…he was hearing the music as well right before they crazyies tossed a robe on him and dragged him off.
Baltar has also betrayed Humanity first in the initial attacks by providing access to the defense network, second by providing a nuke to 6 that left its radiation signature that the cylon fleet found them on new craprica by following.
the Dylan track was really weird to hear in a sci-fi setting like that but pretty cool.
and WOW I didnt expect the final five to turn out like that, and two of them so close to the top of the food chain and a third in position to sabotage the hell out of Galactica it will be interesting to see.
No No No No. I was afraid RDM would do something like this, it’s not bold or inovative just stupid. Why did they do this? Tigh (my favorite character) a Cylon, the chief, this invalidates so much of the backstory and what was established is past episodes. They did the same thing with DS9 (Sisko believing in the prophets and all the mystical mumbo jumbo). I can’t watch the series anymore. :mad: 
And here I am, watching Galactica on TV and going through DS9 on Netflix.
I really liked the sitar’s influence on this classic song.
Eh, well, it could have been a bold cool way to exit a character, to have them burn out like that and just give up, especially a major character like Starbuck. But in this particular case it would have left too many loose ends about her “special destiny”. I saw Jamie Bamber this weekend at a con and someone asked him if Starbuck was really dead and he got all serious and stern and said of course she’s dead, her ship exploded, etc. I’m not sure if he was trying to fool the audience, or if he was just trying to cement the fact that her physical body was definitely destroyed.
In the algae planet episode it seemed like he was either a ground troop soldier or a semi civilian. In the season finale it seemed like he was in training to become a pilot.
lol yeah. I mean obviously this was a lawyer ploy all along. But the way it was played was that Lee wasn’t cooperating with the testimony, so he was going to try to get him to agree to testify by asking him some leading questions, but then Lee just ended up going on a big rant that was more useful than the original idea of a mistrial. They should have at least addressed the fact that the mistrial was withdrawn though.
I did like Lee’s speech though. Jamie Bamber said at the convention that one of the things he liked about the show was that no character is written as either totally good or totally evil and that if they made anyone too sympathetic or unsympathetic it would make things less interesting. I guess Adama Sr took Lee’s speech to heart considering his vote. I’m wondering if they will forgive each other now or if there will still be bad blood.
Yeah I mean even the cylons didn’t know who the final five were (although I guess really they should be called the first five), except eventually Xenabot who was boxed before she could tell anyone. I guess you could question now, were there real humans who were replaced by cylons who somehow duplicated their memories? Boomer had false memories but there was never a ‘real Boomer’. Clearly there was at some point a ‘real’ Tigh in historical terms. The alternative is that they are special cylons who are able to grow from infancy to adulthood and reproduce like normal humans. The biggest weirdness I see is that the final five seem to have something to do with the algae planet temple which was built long before humanity came to the 12 colonies. But the building of the non humanoid cylons seems to have happened long after the colonies were established. So the origin of the humanoid cylons seems somewhat contradictory so far.
There seems to be some evidence of Roslyn being a cylon. But it could just be the drug she’s on giving her more visions. I don’t think Baltar is a cylon. I think the story is much more interesting and he’s a more tragic figure if he turns out to just be human. He’s still special by virtue of his mind meld with 6. I think the Baltar in the Opera House is 6’s mental Baltar and not regular Baltar. Obviously now Starbuck could be number one with her special destiny and her apparent death.
I guess they gave Roslyn cancer again so she can die on the way to Earth like the prophecy said. Why she is taking the drug again rather than injecting herself with Hera blood again remains to be seen.
Although it would be interesting if Starbuck ended up being the actual prophecy girl, since she technically died before they reaches earth and seems to be about to help lead them there. Her ‘wasting illness’ could be her depression. Maybe the eye of jupiter symbol that she painted was her vision of the twelve snakes.
We’ve only seen special cases like Baltar’s trial, Rosyln’s pardon, and the secret tribunal (and the prison ship). In those cases they’ve had to appoint non legal people into legal roles. I wonder what they have been doing about regular run of the mill crime. Landing and leaving New Caprica must have both been ‘fresh starts’ where things were reset in a sense legally. And actually, the lawyer implies that this trial has kind of rebooted the legal system so it’s in play again in a way it hadn’t been before.
It came across to me as someone who had had a catharsis and finally found peace with themself. Which I guess is what you’d expect of someone who died, was reborn, and embraced her special destiny.
Roslyn, Kara, and Baltar all seem to be in a race towards being elected cylon number one. But Roslyn tend to be vision girl on the drugs. I think opera house Baltar was just 6’s mental Baltar. And Kara could just be special destiny girl. Cylon number one could end up being Dirk Benedict.
So are they:
- Just assuming they are cylons because what the hell else would explain it.
- Had something activate in themselves such that they realize they are cylons, but otherwise have no idea what is going on?
- Know that they are cylons, and also got activated new memories of cylonness, or other information about themselves, their origin, nature, and prupose, etc, that they just haven’t ‘told the audience’ yet?
I don’t think it’s been an outright betrayal. It’s been more a mix of cowardly self preservation with confusion about his nature with honestly trying to walk a difficult line between helping humanity by staying in charge without pissing off the cylons too much.
How could he not? I couldn’t see him taking over the pilots again what with the recent issues with his father, but with a huge cylon attack underway how could he not join the battle as a regular pilot?
According to wikipedia " The cover version heard in the last minute of the episode is performed by Bt4, brother of series composer Bear McCreary."
Why do people worship Satan or Bin Laden? Or Che? It could turn out to have some mythical significance but I think it’s more likely he just has fans based on the book he was writing and it seen as some sort of spokesperson for the downtrodden by certain members of that section of the population. And his trial gives him certain martyr qualities.
Tahmoh Penikett plays Helo for those who were wondering. As mentioned before it probably has to do with his First Nation background. In this interview he says It’s Tah - Môh, that’s the proper pronunciation, Tah - Môh. And last name of course is just Penikett; that’s any easy one. And what was the second question? What does it mean? I was named after my great uncle. He was a great doctor and trapper, but I can’t tell you the meaning."
Didn’t he actually say unlike himself and Lee’s grandfather? Implying that the grandfather was not just defending criminals out of a sense of justice but also because he was kind of crooked himself?
Actually that could be an interesting twist lol.
I was struck by how this mirrored Starbuck’s last mission. And amusingly I find it less hard to believe that Starbuck is alive than that she managed to get another viper. Maybe both Starbuck and the phantom cylon were both something else in disguise.
We don’t know if it’s true, but Baltar did tell Gaeta that he knew he was feeding info to the resistance and he purposely turned a blind eye to it. A lot of the other stuff Lee didn’t know about. And his point about everyone else doing questionable things and being forgiven was still valid as was his theory that if Baltar hadn’t cooperated the Cylons would have killed him and most likely just nuked the planet. As for the stuff Baltar was actually guilty of, like Adama Sr said, Baltar may be guilty as sin, but the prosecution didn’t make it’s case, and they have to look to the future.
I didn’t get the impression that he heard the music. He was just lonely and frightened of the shadow people approaching him.
Just wanted to add that although I appreciated* All Along the Watchtower* musically I never really understood what it meant. It’s role in this episode led me to look around and I foundthis page which has some interesting ideas.
I guess it’s about two archetypal figures who have been through hard times and now understand the true value of life and either initiate or become part of already brewing storm that threatens to overturn the established order of things. Which put the events of the episode into an interesting and appropriate light for me.
I’m wondering what other people’s interpretations of the song itself and it’s application to the eseries are?
I loved the interaction between Adama and Roslyn at the beginning, over the phone. 
Some thoughts and comments -
I don’t think that Anders, Tigh, Tyrol or Tori are actually Cylons, though they may think that they are. True, we don’t know much about Anders and Tori’s backgrounds. But Tigh is supposed to be older than the existence of the meat models, and we have seen flashbacks to him in younger days, so he’s been aging right alongside Bill Adama. That doesn’t seem to be something the meat models are capable of. I suppose Tyrol’s memories of his parents could have been fakes, but it’s hard to see then why he should have had such difficulty “remembering” things about the Eye of Jupiter in the temple on the algae planet if he were just waiting for a trigger for Earth to be activated… that place should have been a humdinger for him.
I think it’s possible that those four have some special latent human ability that’s being kickstarted by an outside agent, maybe via the Lords of Kobol. I think also that Starbuck and Roslin, and maybe Baltar, fall into this same group. The fact that Caprica Six is also showing some signs of this ability, and the need she feels to “protect Hera” - from what we don’t know - could be significant in terms of understanding the origins of the meat models (i.e., were they based on actual humans or developed from something else).
You know, given how the seven models didn’t generally like to talk about the final five, and the way that Caprica Six looks, almost fearfully, at the five hooded figures in the opera house, I’m really wondering now who would have told Adama way back when that there were 12 models. Was it really another Cylon on board back then? Could someone have been directed to leave the note, by the same mechanism that’s currently getting Anders et al. to hear music? Or is RM conveniently forgetting about stuff that he can’t readily fit into the plot any more?
No one’s yet mentioned for this episode how much more of the close friendship we see between Adama and Roslin. Who’da thunk she’d call his personal line to chit-chat about getting out of bed, and that he’d play along with it like it was totally natural? I really like this turn. 
And it works very well after the trial, when she’s still very upset about the outcome and realizes that Adama was one of the ‘not guilty’ vote casters… I think he’s the only person who could have turned back on her the attitude she has often held (doing things in the name of the need to move forward) in a way that she could ultimately accept, though she was clearly still not happy about it at the time.
Wonder how Dee feels right now about having left Lee. I also wonder how the rest of the pilots will view him now.
As to Baltar’s women, well, there are always some people drawn to tragic, charismatic figures. Baltar being the opportunist that he is, he’ll likely start trying to impress upon these women that he has some special status, just like he did with D’Anna. He may even come to believe his own claptrap, but I too would like to see him just be a very ordinary human in the end.
When D’Anna had her vision of the final five down on the algae planet, she stopped in front of one and said something like (IIRC), “Oh! I’m sorry. So beautiful…” As if this one was someone that she’d previously treated badly and/or regarded as insignificant, but now realized otherwise. And apparently that one is quite beautiful in their special form. Does anyone think that could really apply to any of the for in this episode who now think they’re Cylons? It just doesn’t seem to jibe with them, for one reason or another. For example, Tigh was treated badly, but I’ll be damned if anyone could call him beautiful.
Well, they could be about 830 light years out, with next season taking place in AD 2798 or so, but I think we can safely rule out ancient Earth. We’ll have to wait and see.
I suspect that Tigh, Tyrol, Anders, and Tory could be a cylon faction with a different agenda than that of Cavil, Leoben, D’Anna and company. Their models got boxed for a reason, right? Maybe it was a power struggle. They apparently don’t have any programming to aid the main cylon force or sabotage Galactica (the way Boomer did when she was a sleeper agent), so an independent agenda is possible. Why they were “dormant” and why they were activated, I couldn’t tell you. A renegade cylon faction hiding within the fleet could be very interesting indeed.
What am I, chopped liver?
Yes you are… 
It took a while for me to compose my post over breakfast, and I didn’t check to see whether anything new had been posted while I was writing. Sorry.
I actually like the idea that Tigh (at least thinks he) is a Cylon, because of the way he reacts to it. It goes back to the eternal question, “What makes you you?” And I love his fierce determination to maintain what he considers his true personality. It’s just what you’d expect him to do, given his character development.
I’m not totally convinced they are Cylons, but if they are, I don’t think it’s a disaster. As others pointed out, Sharon is proof that Cylons can have free will.
I loved how Baltar’s post-trial attitude went precipitously from, “Hurray! I’m the winner!” to “Oh crap, I have no place to go and even my lawyers hate me.” Never mind wormholes to Earth, Dylan playing in the ship’s walls, and Starbuck back to life,* the least believable thing was that Baltar survived long enough to be rescued.
Anyway, I spoiled myself for the second half, and in a way it made it more exciting and fun. I think they had Tyrol humming the song, and that was the first time you could discern what it was, and I was thinking, “Oh my, they may really be doing this,” then Tigh said, “There’s too much confusion,” and I thought, “Holy crap, they are really going to do this!” But I tried to maintain my poker face for unspoiled Mr. Cinnamon.
So I guess there are four possible explanations for Roslin’s sudden headache/attack/whatever just before the fleet lost power:
- Coincidence - unlikely on this show
- Kamala-induced psychic powers
- Latent magical poptart blood effect - though how does that jibe with the cancer’s return?
- She’s a Cylon
As much as I love the show, I’ll be glad if they just finish it up during the next season. I think they have it in them to make a rip-roaring final season, tie up most loose ends, and keep it very entertaining. Much better than what happened to, say, The X-Files.
*And for those who insisted Starbuck was dead, dead, dead, because RDM said she was, because Katee said she wouldn’t be cutting her hair anymore, etc., I have prepared this song: I told you so, I told you so, I-I-I told you so . . . 
Hrrrm ok, that was some seriously wtf tv. You know, the Cylon fleet they encountered, it hasn’t attacked yet has it? What if there’s a Cylon faction that isn’t hostile to the Colonies, and has its own fleets crewed by the Final Five models? So that would be why Tighe/Anders/Hottie/Tyrol started hearing the music as the Galactica drew nearer to the neutral fleet’s position. Maybe the phantom that drew Starwhore into the maelstrom before she blew up was one of these.
…
I’m not sure if I liked that episode.
It’s Patrick McGoohan!
Good question. Are she and Athena on bad terms now since Athena found out that Roslin conspired to take Hera away from her?
- Back on Caprica, he gave crucial information to 6, which enabled the invasion.
- He faked the Cylon detector, which would have changed history radically in favor of the humans.
- He gave Gina 6 a nuke, which led to not only the destruction of a ship full of humans, but created a signal that enabled the Cylons to find New Caprica.
- He convinced humans colonize New Caprica in the first place, with the avid coaching of 6, making them sitting ducks for the invasion.
Any one of these is treason. All 4? Airlock him.
Because Apollo was no longer a regular pilot. He resigned his commission, was therefore a civilian, and shouldn’t have been flying at all.
Did people think Che could heal their dying child? Or that Bin Laden can? Satan is a different story as he is a mystical being. Maybe I’d compare Baltar to Haile Selassie in this situation maybe, but not to Che Guevara (who was never reviled by his people as Baltar is), or Saddam (who wasn’t attributed with mystical powers by his proponents AFAIK).
Lee’s exposition in the courtroom was just excruciatingly bad writing. EJO is just about the only one on this show who’s pulled off an impassioned speech, and even that’s been hit-and-miss. They could’ve saved those few minutes for some of the interesting storylines. When BSG remembers “show, don’t tell” they do good; this wasn’t one of those times.
However, I’m liking that they’ve re-set up one of the premises of the series that BSG has been very good at – conflict over Cylon sleeper agents in the midst of the Colonials. Hopefully 2008 will be a return to form for BSG.
It should be interesting when/if Kara returns to Galactica with Lee… he’s seen her Viper blow up, and she returns in a completely new Viper, at the same time that a Cylon fleet just showed up… and there’s a bunch of Cylons on Galactica who don’t want people asking questions again about who else might be a Cylon…
Too bad for Tigh that he’d insisted to Adama that there was Cylon sabotage going on. Right before it turned out that there really was Cylon sabotage. Which Tigh may have been responsible for. And is now likely to be the person Adama sets to investigating…
That was supposed to be the Ionian Nebula. BSG space weather is confusing, but that wasn’t planetary weather he was flying through.
Lampkin did say that Lee was honest, unlike his grandfather. Rather implying that he’d been lying about everything, not just the crutch. Which we could tell because he David Caruso’d his sunglasses after saying that.
Eh? There’s never been anything about the Final Five having been boxed. And judging from D’Anna, there’s no way that there could be active models once an entire line of Cylons was boxed – according to Moore, D’Anna died in the Temple of the Five because Cavil hit the “box” button back on the baseship, and all the Fives shut down.
On the stupid front, the St. Louis Post Dispatch had an article in their “Everyday” (= entertainment & pop culture) section, saying how BSG attracts women viewers, who were praising the show. The stupid part comes from the fact that the article ran on the weekend of the second-half of the season ender – a season ender that would be completely confusing to new viewers, AND right before the show goes into hiatus for 7 months. Fracked up.