Battlestar Galactica; Season Two Premier tonight!

Did anyone happen to read the brand name on the bottle of lighter fluid Tigh was screwing around with in the flashback? I’m wondering if it’s a real brand or something they pasted together for the series. (What WAS he doing with the lighter fluid, anyway?)

[spoiler]Looks like he was about to torch all his military ranks insignia and possibly decorations, too, since it was implied that a lot of officers (Tigh and Adama incl.)were RIF’ed for some reason.

Ah, RIF is “Reduction In Force,” a polite military euphemism for “Thanks for all the great work, see ya later, we don’t need or want you anymore.”[/spoiler]

[spoiler]That scene also showed the MP’s knocking on his door just as he was about to torch his uniform (and then take his own life, apparently) - just to tell them that he was back in the Fleet, through Adama’s political connections. I’d assumed he was being discharged for alcoholism, not being RIF’fed.

The BoomerBot model has defects, as Six explained, but “will get the job done” or something like that. It seems to remember its Cylonitude only sporadically - as her concern over Adama’s condition shows.

The enemy fire scene on Kobol was pretty crappily set up. Where’s the chrome toasters? How come the Chief and Callie didn’t get a scratch? Were they on automatic, set to fire at any red shirts that passed by? How many more redshirts are left on the Raptor 1 crew, btw?

I seem to recall both landing pods being used in a Season 1 episode, but what the hey. I trust Ron Moore completely.[/spoiler]

Over all I enjoyed it a lot.

I do wish they would drop the enlisted versus officer crap down on Kobol. There’s enough drama with being shot down and possibly left without that old cliche. I hope that Kobol doesn’t turn into the Caprica scenes from Season 1, but it certainly has that potential. A few minutes of running from place to place to avoid the cylons. The Tigh character is really growing on me and I’m starting to warm up to Starbuck too. If they just tone down the wonder star buck she’d be perfect.

About Tigh and Adama:

[spoiler]I don’t have a cite for why I know this, but it might be from Ron Moore’s blog, where he was discussing his BSG bible, and how he envisions Tigh & Adama’s history together.

Tigh joined the military at the height of the first Cylon war. He started as an enlisted deckhand, and worked his way up the enlisted ranks. He’s seen, and been involved in some of the bloodiest battles of the war, battles where it was down to hand-to-hand combat, and survived the loss of several of the ships/crews he was stationed with.

Towards the end of the war, the fleet being short on pilots, Tigh was promoted to Lt. and trained as a fighter pilot. Around that time Adama joined the military and as a fresh, young naive new pilot, they became friends, and probably saw some combat together. We can imagine more than once, they’ve saved each other’s asses.

After the Armistice, they both were RIFted, and I think it was Adama that found them both work on a civilian freighter, as deckhands. But Adama remained determined to get back in the military, and when he did, he vowed he’d get Tigh back in. This last part is what we saw in this first episode.

Knowing this makes me really pissed off at Starbuck and the way she treats Tigh. She’s close to Adama, and at least once, Adama must have shared some stories with her about the first war and why he values Tigh so dearly. Yet, she still treats him with zero respect, and considers him a worthless officer.[/spoiler]

It kinda looked like she had her regular side-arm still strapped to her thigh, as all the pilots do. There’d be no reason for her to have that smaller handgun she used on Adama. Plus, there’s that scene where Gaeta walks up to congratulate her, he leans in towards her and extends his hand in what looks like an intimate handshake, but we’re never shown their hands. The camera jerks & zooms down towards their hands though, and this show doesn’t usually do that unless they’re directing your attention to something important.

Question about Tigh and Adama and military stuff:

[spoiler] Are good officers RIFed or do they keep the best and brightest and let the lower performers go? I ask because I’d always assumed they’d stayed in the military and hadn’t realized they’d been out for a while. This could mean different things for their characters. Either they weren’t stars when they saw combat, or they didn’t get along with the top dogs politically. Or maybe nothing if RIFs are random. How easy is it to get back in after being RIFed? (And am I making a fool out of my self by turning “RIF” into a verb?) There was some discussion about Adama maybe getting back in based on his wife’s connections.

My impression was that Kelly was only brought to the bridge after Adama was shot. As the third in line for command, maybe his duties are usually elsewhere and only the top two are normally on the bridge.[/spoiler]

I’m so glad this show is back! I’m back to my geeky ways of not doing anything on Friday night that may interfere with my BG watching!

Silly me. I did a search for “Battlestar Galactica”.

What a good way to kick off the season. Same strong writing and good acting as last season. I like the way they are portraying Boomer. I have a feeling we’re going to learn a lot more about the Cylon’s plans this season. I hope the writers keep the whole good/evil dichotomy in check and continue with the ambiguity.

[spoiler]Depends on the service, the politics of the “nation” being served, the battle record of the individual, the RIF plan, etc. Since BSG has a completely fictional military, there’s really no way to know for certain until R. Moore says some more about it.

My Dad was RIF’d at the end of WW II, drafed (well, called back up) again for Korea, and then RIF’d again after, but he was no one special to the military, just a body (Navy Machinist Mate 2nd Class) with needed skills in wartime (machinist).[/spoiler]

I don’t know that I would consider Adama and Tigh their ‘best and brightest’ since the ship they run was so antiquated it had a bay being used as a museum and is so old that their computers are not networked.

Is it just me, or do the Cylon raiders look like the BatPlane?

I think the season is off to a great start. I hope they don’t drag Adama’s wound on too long.

I also wonder what Helo thinks of Boomer now?

When Boomer2 shows up on BSG, will they realize they’re both Cylons, or will they think she’s the original and bloody cheek is the Cylon?

It seems to me that about now they should realize that Baltar’s Cylon detector isn’t worth crap.

It works; Boomer tested as a toaster head. He just lies about it.

When Galactica Boomer had herself tested, that was a side deal between her & Baltar since he “owed” her for saving him back on Caprica. The rest of the crew probably isn’t aware Baltar tested her and gave her a pass.

Yeah, but only we (the audience) saw that. He first, lied about it, and said she wasn’t a Cylon; then changed it so that it comes up “green” for everyone. So anyone that heard him say the results of Boomer’s test were clear should know it’s fake.

Which brings up the question: Did anyone else even know Boomer was tested? I don’t recall it being explicit either way.

lev, I had not seen your reply when I posted the above. Do you recall anything from the ep in question that makes that certain, or was it just left ambiguous?

I know for sure Boomer & Baltar were the only ones in the room when he tested her and gave her the bogus result. I also don’t think Baltar would have published her results because it was more or less an unauthorized test and it might draw further questions.

As an officer & pilot though, she would have been tested soon anyway, and Baltar would have to lie at that point. So what’s ambiguous is whether her normal testing date ever came up.

I remember Starbuck coming into his office so he could take a sample from her, though I don’t remember the episode that was. That would imply the testing process was far enough along that they were testing lieutenants (Baltar was supposed to start with key personnel first, then work his way down). Although, we all know Starbuck is very important so maybe she was a lot further up the list than Boomer.

[spoiler] I count five survivors - Tyrol, Cally, Crashdown, Baltar, and Socinus (the wounded one).

As for the question of why we didn’t see any Cylons - I suspect that they’re being fired on by a group of Boomers, which was intentionally obscured for dramatic effect. [/spoiler]

I felt the gritty return to Galactica. I appreciated the backstory on and development of Tigh.It felt right when Tigh disgustedly confessed to Adama, “I don’t want to lead.” Tigh appears as a stern task master that makes the “system” work, but is not one who likes to create the “system”. This fits Tigh - you can’t have everyone just leading or just following. I liked seeing more of Tyrol and how he works - he follows the leader and leads the followers and plays the role of negotiator well. Just as a Chief should.

Concerns on Kobol:

As noted by Hoops, it makes no sense that Tyrol and Callie weren’t pursued. And why weren’t they just swarmed during the shootout. Boomers were on a BaseStar and would be a poor choice to roam the woods as combat patrols so they should have been Toasters. A quick charge and the Toasters should have killed them, so why didn’t they? Maybe the Toasters want to track them and kill the entire group?

Concerns about the President:

I can see that many would regard her reverently, but the guard’s taking her hands for a prayer is wrong. He should have prayed with her at a distance nd not comprosied his guard.

Confusion about ship-Boomer:

I get that she doesn’t remember shooting Adama. I don’t understand why she insults Tigh. Perhaps the cylon personality was talking. It would be interesting if it came to the forefront to spare the Boomer personality the interrogation/pain.

Concerns about Computers:

Networking the ships computers seemed poorly written. I doubt networking a few computers would reduce calculations from 12 hours to 10 minutes. Since networked computers are vulnerable, I’m surprised that this ship’s expertise had the knowledge/software to construct a multi-level firewall and put it in stand-alone computers. But what always annoys me more is that every dramatic event is synchronized to the last millisecond. The firewalls are just about to be breached when calculations reach 100%; not 83% or 92%. I’m just glad he didn’t skimp on that last firewall. But then, why not one more firewall, why not twenty?

The Computer scenes I would have liked to see:

The firewalls are All breached when calculations are at 92%. Worried looks. Then Gaeta comments that the virus has infiltrated the backup computers, have realized it, and are making their way to the primary computers. Calculations are complete and Gaeta goes on ship-wide and yells “Disconnect!”. Then shots indifferent hallways as crew members pull the cables strewn about that linked the computers.

Notes on Human/Cylon personalities:

It seems to me there are[ul][li]Humans[]Humans with hidden Cylon personalities: ship-Boomer; Gaeta? Tyrol since he was so close to Boomer?[]Humans with implanted Cylon personalities: Baltar[]Cylons with hidden Human personalities: Six[]Cylons with shared Human personalities: Caprica-Boomer[/ul]And I wonder if Baltar is really a Cylon with a downloaded Baltar personality 1) since he was apparently blown up on Caprica and 2) he has tested himself but isn’t talking.[/li]Notes on spoilers:

Boy, boxing everything is sure [del]gonna[/del] get[ting] old fast.

Boxing things is already old. :slight_smile:

RE: 12 hrs vs 10 minutes. I think he was parallel tasking the computers. That would still requre them to talk to each other.

[Spoiler]I’d speculated that Gaeta was a cylon to my wife after watching this, I’m glad I’m not alone.

As near as I can tell there are still four models unaccounted for.

Gaeta “lost” the fleet.
Gaeta suggested networking the computers.
Gaeta cleared Baltar at the very last possible moment.
There was a transponder on the bridge before the PR guy came onboard Galactica. Boomerbot wouldn’t have her transponder on the bridge.

If Gaeta is a cylon, then either the cylon programming is very deeply repressed, or he is an improved model over Boomer, as he hasn’t developed her psychosis.[/Spoiler]

Imagine what Boxing Day must be like!

Networking Computers:

[spoiler]Even networking the computers, you still have to arrange for the tasks to be performed in parallel. It’s not automatic. Once you break up the tasks (let’s say they are already modular) you still have to synchronize them. If the ship’s computers weren’t multi-tasking then I can’t see a Battlestar functioning, so being multi-tasking, I can’t see that networking even 10 computers (didn’t Gaeta pull four cables from one = five computers) gives you a 72:1 speedup.

Maybe they should have used fiber optics to cut down on infiltration? Then again, since wires from the stand-alone computers are presumably going some distances (like outside the control room), I don’t see why the Cylons can infiltrate a network, but can’t jump into ship-wide wiring.

I could be overthinking all this though.[/spoiler]

The Gaeta Theory:

Perhaps everyone in the fleet is really a “new” Cylon and the old Cyclons are trying to recover what works and destroy the rest. Sort of a “Demon with a Glass Hand” (Outer Limits) scenario.