I have been watching it for the first time, streaming on Netflix. Up to a few episodes in season 2. And I am confused. I really just want to know if certain inexplicable things are ever explained.
Is it ever explained what they wanted to accomplish with keeping Helo alive on Caprica with that fairly elaborate ruse? Just have human-Cylon hybrid babies? If so dang easier ways of doing that if you just hadn’t killed off the whole damn population. Could have kept a bunch of breeding stock and harvested sperm and inseminated one way or the other. Find out something about humans? About the Sharon model? Or do they never explain?
Why are they trying to destroy BSG while it clearly is their plan to not destroy it? Alternatively why try so halfassed? Damn Sharon could have depressurized the whole thing anytime. And why sacrifice all those Sharon models? Why shoot Adama then rather than some earlier time?
Do these things ever get answered or are they left unresolved? If they are just going to be ignored then I may just bag it and go back to streaming Sherlock.
Just reassurances that they are answered is enough but I am not one who gets horribly upset over spoilers so don’t fret about being TOO careful, on my behalf anyway.
The Cylons kept Helo alive on Caprica because some of them thought that a hybrid baby could only be conceived if its parents loved each other. They knew that Helo loved Sharon (unrequited), so they put him in a situation with another Sharon who loved him back.
The episode “The Farm” actually covers them trying to harvest human sperm & ova to make hybrids; it doesn’t work. And then gets Starbucked, anyway.
The BSG special “The Plan” decribes what the “plan” was. As Chronos mentions, although the Cylons make much of agreeing with each other, they actually don’t. So, the “plan” keeps getting altered and eventually sort of falls apart. Why Sharon wasn’t successful at her sabotage, at least, is because she herself was conflicted about the “plan”, and apparently subconsciously sabotaging the sabotage.
At this point S2:E3 I’m seeing the Sharon model on the battlestar as programmed (and not consciously aware of it) to not destroy the ship but to divide the population. Not much else explains the timing of the attack on Adama.
Not liking how Tigh was rationing out the last drops of his alcohol, surprised that somehow Helen had a bottle, and then within a few episodes alcohol is easy to get. Are there suddenly going to be lots of cigars for Starbuck?
You may recall the scene in season one of Chief Tyrol discovering that his deck boys had set up an illicit still - and then giving them some tips on how to make it work better.
I do. Which makes more puzzled at how free flowing the quality alcohol was both at the bar, at the dinner party with Helen, and subsequently in Tigh’s quarters and his again ever present ankle flask. They found new water not new bourbon … a minor nit I know. So long as I know other more major puzzlements actually get answered as the motivations of different Cylon models are … fleshed out … I’ll persevere.
Do different individuals of the same model end up have majorly different motivations or do all Sharons for example tend to want to accomplish the same ends? Nah, don’t tell me.
It’s worth saying that the writers painted themselves into several corners by the third season, and not all of the steps they undertook to wrap things up were good ones. There are some seriously wonky “answers” and fixes. Overall, it’s pretty good, though - we’re about five eps from the end on our second or third watch-through. Much more consistent and arc-driven than 90% of shows, but still short on the B5 (or now, Breaking Bad) scale.
It’s minor, but I will spoiler this small screwup that never should have happened:
The writers made much of numbering the Cylon types but managed to overlook, until well into the third season, that they had skipped a Number Seven and had painted themselves into a tiny corner with explosive epoxy paint on the point. There is a very weak reference to Number Seven, a “Daniel” model, having been boxed long ago… meaning there were thirteen types.
Most people think that the ending was horribly mangled, but up until a few episodes from the end, it was still pretty good. If you get to that point and think it’s starting to go seriously downhill, but you want to stick it out to find the explanations for a last few plot points… don’t bother, because they’re not going to satisfactorily explain them in the finale, either. But do keep on until that point.
There were at least 17 models, possibly more. In addition to the 13 humanoid models, there were also the First War centurions, the Second War centurions, the small-craft pilots, and the basestar-controlling hybrids. And it’s possible that there were multiple models of pilot (for different ship types or eras) or hybrids. You could argue that they don’t count, but the Hot Chicks Rebellion seemed to think that they did.
I’m comfortable with “12 models” referring only to the humanoid ones; we have no idea how many different kinds of toaster there were. But I’d include the Hybrid as a 14th model.
And yeah, it’s good almost to the end, even into the last episode… but when it just kind of stops and you realize there aren’t going to be answers to a lot of things, it’s a letdown.
I’d say watch it right up until a signficant character “disappears” - you’ll know it when you see it - and skip to the credits pretending all the answers were in that last fifteen minutes.
Exactly, because when you get to the point that the big revelation you’ve been waiting occurs… it’s stupid and breaks all the rules you’ve been given about this whole thing.
So the end will disappoint. I will go forward with that knowledge.
Meanwhile having just finished “The Farm” Sharon’s explanation rings hollow and I hope there is more to the drive to create human-Cylon hybrids than just “be fruitful and multiply” … obviously they know how to build more of themselves: “many copies exist” … and obviously they have been able to create novel models for variety.
I think the ending was a little wonky, I don’t hate it like a lot of people do. But at least it had an ending. Getting that far and have the show cancelled would have sucked. Thinking of Deadwood on HBO.
Deadwood was never going to “end” - the town is still there and most of those characters (or their historical equivalents) lived on for years, doing nothing much. They were given a third season and to say they pissed it away is far too kind. To build a huge, immovable-rock-meets-irresistable-force confrontation and have it end with an exchange of dirty looks as one party leaves town is the definition of “suckage,” IMHO.
Well my impression of cylons is that they’re more human than they’d like to admit, and have what amounts to emotions in their decision making and make dumb decisions and change their mind, and at the core just want to be loved, well at least some of them, some of them are just all about exterminating the humans, unless its more pragmatic not to in a given context. I don’t have anything against cylons, personally, some of my best friends are robots.