As a guy with no cable, I am just now coming to season one of Battlestar Galactica. On the whole, I find it pretty darn good but there is one significant plot element that is bugging me.
Specifically, we see that when the Cylon babes are enjoying sex their spines seem to glow red. In general, this is interesting but it brings to mind a problem. Not to be too graphic, but are we to believe that none of the men that are boinking the Cylons have ever employed the “doggie style” position or the “reverse cowgirl”? Is the future of sex much more vanilla than it is today?
Also, wouldn’t the Christmas tree lights or whatever causes this to happen be pretty easy to detect?
Well to be honest, that hasn’t ever shown up in other situations. And the glowing spine might have been caused by the fact that she actually cared for him or something else, I don’t know.
I recall twice when we saw the glowing spine (though my recollection may be faulty): once in the mini series with Six (with Baltar) and once with Caprica Boomer (with Helo). After that, they very wisely stopped with the glowing spine. It’s a stupid device, and I hope they forget about it because of the problems mentioned in the OP. Continuity be damned. The glowing spine is just stupid.
Well, sure, I guess that I can buy that. All that I am saying is that even a mildly adventurous lover would pretty much notice quite early on if his partner’s spine started glowing when they were knocking boots.
Also, you would think that whatever the source of that light is would be pretty easy to detect. I know that it is nit-picking but it kind of bothers me.
Just because the audience can see the Cylon’s spine glowing, that doesn’t mean her partner can. It could be something like Beltar’s visions of Number Six.
Of course the line for female-cylon detectors just got quite long…
…but there ain’t no one in the waiting for male-cylons.
(Seriously, why are the females all hot and the males crusty old men? I want some glowy beefcake, dammit!)
That sounds like one of those explanations that is very thin and made up whole cloth to explain away an earlier fuckup. I mean, it isn’t as if the audience is in the dark as to who the Cylons are, so there is really no advantage to doing this. Again, I know that this is a nit pick
I am a devoted fan of the new series, and a defender of many of its quirks, but even I have to say that this was a stupid idea that is best ignored and, with luck, will be forgotten.
I hear you. As someone that grew up with the original and was at just the right age to really dig it, I have to say that I like this version. It is “grown up” enough and has enough modern aesthetics that I can really get into it, while at the same time it is pretty clear to me that the folks that are making it have respect for the source material. Perfect combination.
Ron Moore has said essentially the same thing. It seemed like a good idea at the time, as a quick visual to indicate to the audience that this was not a human being. They then realized that they had sort of painted themselves in a corner, and then (with the exception of the Boomerbot/Helo scene) simply ignored it.
OTOH, they also wrote in Sharon’s ability to plug a cable into her arm and talk to computers. Come, on, that has to be something detectable by some means. It seems like you could search everyone in the fleet, and whoever has an RS-232 port in their forearm is a Cylon.
I mentally accounted for this ability, in a person otherwise normally detectible as human, by thinking that the Cylon meatbags had some type of nanites that could come together and perform such mechanical capabilities.
But then I’m known for making sh*t up, [sub]especially by my wife[/sub].
