So…
[spoiler]The Admiralty, suspecting that the Cylons may be building up a huge war machine, send a stealth (?) recon flight into Cylon territory…
And the Cylons, after finding this out…launch a genocidal nuclear assault to wipe out human civilization!
Pardon me, but I don’t think that was humanity provoking a war—think that was just them proving their own point. (A majorly Pyrrhic point-proving, but still…)[/spoiler]
Err, sign me up.
Great episode. This is the show that I’ve grown to know and love. Human drama takes precedence over SciFi mumbo jumbo. What did the Prez say-- take the frakin’ medal as your penance if that’s what you want? Good stuff!!
I agree. All you complainers are just… Complainy Complainersons. 
I can see how some might really enjoy this episode. I’m not one of them. Adama blaming himself for starting the war just doesn’t seem logical to me. He was a military guy carrying out his orders on a covert mission. Once the mission was blown, I don’t see how he could have prevented the war–the Cylons would either attack or they would not, and he didn’t get a vote.
Awarding a ding for “Medal of Distinction”. What a crappy name for a medal. This is supposed to be a major big deal, possibly the highest military honor the Colonies have. The name should be something spiffier.
The flashback/dream scenes make me wonder if maybe RDM was into acid at some point in his past…
Will give credit to the cast for doing a good job with a so-so script. Michael Hogan rocks as Tigh, but the rest of the cast is damn good.
The picture Roslin looked at showed mostly the same crew, but on the Valkyrie. Adama’s served with them for that many years (yahrons?), just not all on the same ship.
Do Raiders have mouths? If not, why was Bulldog able to make voice radio contact? Also, why didn’t Kara just say “Hey Lee, please don’t shoot me” over her radio, into the little microphone that must be in the raider somewhere to transmit voice communication?
Excellent call. As a for-instance, I believe Cmdr. Adama mentioned in Litmus that he served aboard the Galactica with Chief Tyrol for five years (“If he wanted to destroy the Galactica, he could!” or something to that effect).
Again, it seems the writers don’t watch their own fucking show.
alphaboi867 can speak for him/herself but I think he/she is pointing out the Gilligan-Islandness of her having all kinds of crap aboard Galactica. We are seeing some costume changes among the civilians that raise some issues (e.g. Tom Zarek has been in several suits and prison garb etc. - has the Presidnet always been in the same clothes -? I don’t really recall…).
Agree that the Episode was weak, but the overall arc is still kind of neat (like that Adama is guilty and Tighe is pulling himself together)
I think they wore the same clothes on Gillligan. 
I’d think if people were traveling when the attack occured they would have luggage with them. Would a luxury liner have stores with clothing and articles for sale?
So you quit watching in the second season? Too bad. That’s when it started getting good.
-Joe
Any excuse to bitch, huh?
We have a guy that Adama has known for a long time. Let’s pick a number and say ten years. The DNA matches his records, so this is REALLY the guy that Adama knew ten years ago. He’s not a fake.
Unless you’re going to start wondering if Adama is a Cylon? How about Lee? Maybe Tigh.
Did you notice the picture from the Valkyrie? Tigh was in it and a few familiar faces as well. So, he was serving with a bunch of them longer than a year and a half.
-Joe
Any excuse to grab your ankels and be RDM’s unquestioning fanboy bitch? Look, I’ll be plain: If you want to complain about me personally, do it in the pit where I can properly ignore you, like I do your commentary, which never fails to send me lunging for the scroll bar. You can privately hold me in equally low regard, which strikes me as only fair, and concerns me not at all.
End frakking hijack.
Bulldog’s escape wasreally implausible. Not just how he got out of his cage, but the fact that he apparently chopped out a Raptor’s brain and learned to fly by kneading its muscles and nerves like Starbuck did – all while surrounded by Cylons on a BaseStar. The fact that he found a radio is the least of the implausibility about his escape.
I’d’ve expected someone – Roslyn, Apollo, or Starbuck – to have realized this even earlier, if it wasn’t for the fact that Adama (and even, Tigh) wanted to believe that it could have happened.
Not only noticed it but as is my nature, I’m obsessing over it.
The only faces I recognize for sure are Adama and Tigh. Possibly Bulldog.
It’s always been clear wherever Adama goes, Tigh goes with him. They watch each other’s backs and I’m pretty sure Tigh wouldn’t have lasted long without Adama constantly covering for him.
After the black ops mission the Admiralty wanted Adama (and Tigh of course) to quietly retire so they gave him the Galactica. It was his first duty assignment and it was about to be decommissioned. But I don’t see why in the normal course of things, Adama would bring his Valkyrie crew along with him to quietly retire.
As Loopydude pointed out, it seems to have been established Adama and Tyrol have worked together on the Galactica for five years - unless it’s only Tyrol who’s been on the Galactica five years and Adama was just noting that. I also want to check the episode Collaborators because Tigh mentions a number of years he’s served side-by-side with Gaeta in the CIC.
I’m trying to put together Adama’s service record. This is what I’ve got so far:
MILITARY SERVICE
XXXXXX First commission
Battlestar Galactica
fighter squadron
XXXXXX Commendation for
shooting down Cylon
fighter in [first?] combat mission.
XXXXXX [Mustered?] out of service [post?] armistice.
XXXXXX Served as Deck Hand on [something, something, something]
XXXXXX Recommissioned [etc]
Can’t make out the rest because my damn DVR puts up a big fat “pause” graphic across the bottom of the screen while pausing, rewinding, etc. Grr. I’m hoping someone with HDTV will be along to help fill in Adama’s service record. I’m especially interested in the dates.
Yeah, there are some big ol’ whopping implausibilities, but there are a couple things I can understand. First, the Cylons probably weren’t suffering from a virus but were faking it so Bulldog would escape. After years of captivity, Bulldog probably wasn’t going to stick around and investigate. They left a Raider someplace Bulldog would find, it appeared to be incapacitated from the virus so Bulldog gutted it and took off.
In flashback, Adama established there was only one pilot he’d trust on the black op mission and that was Bulldog so I’ll assume he’s as good or better a pilot than Starbuck. RDM seems to be moving away from Starbuck being the best at everything anyway. If Starbuck could get a Raider flying, so could Bulldog.
I kinda hope Bulldog gets over his little psychological issues and takes over as best pilot in the fleet. I can’t stand Kat.
Next week it appears Starbuck and Apollo may be working out whatever issues developed between them during the year on New Caprica we don’t know about. That should be interesting.
I guess I could see Bulldog being pretty addled by years of captivity and perhaps torture, but the rest of it requires titanic suspension of disbelief. The mere fact Bulldog found their precise location the vastness of the galaxy should have set off immediate alarms in even the most imbecillic knuckle-dragger’s head, much less anyone breathing in the CIC. I think Starbuck’s video recap was more than overkill at that point. I mean, hooray for Kara for not being functionally braindead. What a hero.
Oh well. Just more evidence it’s the need for drama that’s now totally driving the show, and to hell with anything else that gets in the way, even the very basics of continuity. It’s a pretty sad waste really, because I don’t see why it would be so difficult to have “drama” and display some concern that even the most basic of facts revealed in prior episodes actually matter. It seemed to work well enough before. I know some degree of plausibility must be sacrificed for the sake of sci-fi, but, BSG has veered wildly into the borderline-insulting realm of Trek all of the sudden. It’s even just plain sloppy at times. WTF?
Well, rather than bitch and complain here, which does get old I suppose, I’d rather bitch and complain to the BSG staff. Is there a way to do this? I see RDM has a blog, and that he answers viewers questions, but I don’t see where it is that these questions can be sent to him, except perhaps indirectly through Sci-Fi’s fora, which are, as far as I can tell, a frothy circle-jerk of slavering fanboy worship. What’s RDM’s email address, anybody know?
Well, I think Starbuck, as originally conceived, has or had the ability, at least, to be the best pilot ever. In the miniseries it was established quite explicitly that Starbuck was easily the best pilot Adama had ever seen, and I don’t think that’s necessarily refuted by this hideous Bulldog retcon. If she gets her act together, I see no reason why she can’t reclaim her “best of” title. She may not get her act together, though, in which case Bulldog could be a contenda, I suppose. He’s got a lot of retraining to do, though, I imagine. I doubt flying a viper is like riding a bike.
At any rate, flying a raider doesn’t seem all that tough. As good as Kara is, it’s rather incredible she could learn in minutes to fly the thing well enough to outmaneuver Lee in a Viper, as he’s no slouch. It must have one of the most intuitive control systems ever invented.
Couldn’t agree more, and that’s why I’ll be back in front of the tube next week. The show’s still got plenty of goodwill to squander before I’m done with it, I suppose.
On the SciFi BSG board, Ron’s wife has a thread. It’s pinned in the top section. Perhaps you’d prefer to rant there?
This requires some fan wanking so brace yourself.
We learned Centurions can hear and understand voice commands. Makes sense Raiders also have this ability to some extent. It would also make sense that a Raider would have the ability to listen in on any unencrypted human radio traffic they were able to intercept. If they can potentially receive voice commands and understand human voice communications in general, they may have a small speaker somewhere in the cockpit. With a little rewiring, a speaker can be used as a microphone and transmit voice. We just have to assume Bulldog really is one hotshot pilot, and figured out something Starbuck missed when she was gutting her pet Raider.
Besides, if the Cylons wanted Bulldog to find the fleet and not get shot down, they’d have made sure there was something in the Raider which could be used as a radio.
Starbuck should have remarked on that, though.
We should also have learned the Cylons knew the human fleet was in a nearby star system, Bulldog overheard this, and the reason the Cylons hadn’t already found them and launched an attack was because of the virus messing them up.
Bulldog could have spent a day or so jumping to nearby systems using his DRAEDIS to locate the fleet.
If the Cylons knew where the fleet was, why didn’t they just send in some Basestars to take them out? Well, is that the Cylon plan anymore? They want to find Earth and Baltar doesn’t know exactly where it is, so why risk taking out the fleet when there’s still the possibility the fleet could lead them to Earth?
Adama should have had the fleet jump as soon as he realized the Cylons probably know where he is, though.