That was a great human interest episode. I like how the characters are fleshing out so nicely. Even some of the lesser supporting roles like the flight deck guy are given a lot of great lines.
Well, that episode answered the question of whether the ships are piloted by Cylons or are cylons themselves. It also brings even more questions to the table, in regards to the use of organic biotech.
Obviously the android duplicates are extensively organic, but what about the average Cylon Centurian? One up side, storywise, is that the use of organics even at that level gives the writers more leeway in terms of making the Cylons imperfect. Pure machines would be machine-precise. Organics would make mistakes allowing humans to outfly them in space and out manuever them in ground firefights.
I’m glad they didn’t fall into the trap of having a Cylon android as a pilot (it was too obvious to poke holes through). The organic is a perfect solution to the pilot problem - common (RL) thinking has it that one of the main problems with modern fighter aircraft is that we’ve pretty much reached the point where the performance characteristics of an aircraft can outstrip the limit of what a human pilot can endure, however no computer can (yet) match the capabilities of the human brain when it comes to make snap decisions, such as those required in a combat situation.
All around good form shown by everyone. And uh, yeah - I think blue is my new favourite colour :)
New episode was great. They handled a Witch Hunt in exactly the way I would have handled one.
Wow. Another great episode.
I agree. I do get sort of a thrill when Cmdr. Adama puts his foot down on something. Olmos does such a fantastic job at being the calm, yet commanding superior. Its hard to side with the civilian leadership sometimes.
Spoilage and Speculation
I like how things have turned between the crew chief and Boomer. I see this going either way. Either she, now being the jilted lover, lets her Cylon programming go crazygonuts and she starts sabotaging the ship every week; or she uses her freedom from the relationship to methodically seed her way into further infiltrate the military and perhaps pin the Cylon collusion on someone else – perhaps the crew chief.
The stuff on Caprica is interesting, but I’m not sure I like the way its developing. Its interesting insofar as it gives a lot of insight into how the Cylon-humans work, especially with the two Boomers to compare. Unfortuantely, it doesn’t feel like anything really moves forward during these scenes. Perhaps its because the Cylon behavior seems to be at complete odds with itself. On the one hand, they’re testing and observing Helo as he goes along on his own, being the last human on Caprica. On the other hand, their forces seem absolutely interested in destroying the human race. Doesn’t really sound like the action you want to take if you’re interested in their reactions. Unless things like the sabotage are simply tests to see what the human response is.
The stuff on Caprica hasn’t really interested me much. Helo hasn’t been given much character, so I don’t identify with him at all. Random Solder Number 32983 Stranded in Hostile Territory. His situation is also pathetically hopeless so it’s like watching a rat in the maze. I also easily see that whole portion of the show turning into “Caprica-Boomer now loves the human race and colludes to get them off the planet because Helo is that charming” and that whole situation would be a little silly.
Now, if Helo would maybe become AWARE of who Boomer is and what is going on… maybe he would use that information to do something drastic. I could see it going that way.
I also find myself liking Galactica-Boomer much less. I think this is intentional. She’s becoming increasingly dangerous even without being aware, so I no longer care if she’s found out and killed. Dr. Cyloninthehead should have his detector working soon.
Speaking of people becoming more dangerous… what about that exchange between Baltar and 6? Savage stuff.
And when Adama decided enough was enough with the Tribunal… I was nearly out of my seat. That lad carries the show at times.
Skip this if you haven’t seen episode 6 yet:
We have three relationships shown between a cylon and a human. Baltar and six, Boomer and the Chief, then Boomer and Helo. Between that fact alone I’m curious if a cross-breeding program of some sort isn’t the grand plan of the cylons. Add to that the exchange on Caprica between the three cylons and the plan seems more likely.
It’s interesting that in the mini-series we’re shown several mushroom clouds going up in the background, yet we see plenty of people running along in the field towards Boomer and Helo’s ship. Later we see Caprica City in relatively pristine condition. Between that and the radiation pills Helo ends up taking after being stranded, I believe those explosions were from “dirty bombs”, meant not to physically destroy but to irradiate and kill the life on the planet.
So why would the cylons want the structures kept intact? So maybe their cylon-human children can have a pre-built planet to grow up on? We can see that the cylons don’t seem affected by the radiation, so perhaps their cross-breads won’t mind a faintly glowing city to play in down the road.
Dirty bombs are designed to blow things to shit. You’re thinking of neutron bombs. However, I’m a little hard pressed to understand how a shockwave and explosion capable of forming mushroom clouds kills all the people, leaves -no- corpses, and leaves the cities undamaged.
Plot hole?
Limitation of sets?
Probably #2. I think the Caprica situation is such a small element of the show really (mainly the Cylons exploring humanity) that I can shunt my questions aside.
Adama is just so cool though. Did anyone else get the feeling that the Master At Arms was a total witch because she’s trying to divert the blame from herself? The Cylon agent did get through her security, after all.
No, I meant dirty bomb. The killer radiation from a neutron bomb tends to be intentionally far more limited in area covered, and the radiation ceases to be immediately incapacitating within 24 to 48 hours due to the short-lived isotopes they use.
Not that I’m implying the writers actually knew enough to write about them this way, but if those mushroom clouds were in fact dirty bombs, they’d essentually be low-yield nukes designed to toss up as much long-term radioactive fallout as possible. You wouldn’t need many for complete coverage, which is why large sections of the countryside are untouched.
As for the people, most likely the psychological effect of the mushroom clouds helped herd them into spaceports or fallout shelters, making them easy to collect. The fact that there are no bodies around is something I believe was intentional.
shrug
We’ve had one body though right? When Helo and Boomer first made it into the city. I feel like something decent is going to happen with Helo pretty soon - and I’m prepared to give the writers the leeway to let it develop, since they haven’t let us down yet.
I so wanted the Chief to work out what was going on, lose it and go postal on her - he’s about one step away from piecing it together, as far as I can tell. So yeah, die bitch!
No Apollo, very little Starbuck in this episode - their absence is not “good” as such, however it is good to see the show still has a decent amount of punch without them.
I think the writers are trying to avoid the kind of feeling that permeated the old Galatica. That one had an almost comedic, cowboys in space having a grand old time feeling going on. This one has a pervading aura of small hopes and desperation, and I think it’s serious nature wouldn’t do well with Starbuck and Apollo doing crazy shootouts every week. This one is more about how everyone is dealing with the situation, and how this civilization is coping with devestating loss.
Just watched episode six, and I agree with Euri. But I am starting to wonder how well this is going to work. I mean, we’re six episodes in now, and there isn’t any overall drive to the show beside the desperation. Which is fantastic, but won’t carry the show forever because people are going to start wondering how the fleet can just sort of aimlessly run without any idea of where it should be heading.
And except for that first episode, with the Cylons attacking the fleet every 33 minutes, there isn’t any sense of what the fleet is doing, where it’s headed, what the options are, etc. The whole “Let’s find this Earth place” theme seems to have been tossed after that very brief mention at the end of the miniseries, which to me is really disappointing, mostly because this hasn’t been replaced by anything else.
Anyhow, I’m still really loving this show. Great scripts, great acting, great sense of desperation. But I’d like to see the show start moving forward beyond these character sketches and see some real plot, some kind of goal. The overarching plot sort of ground to a halt during that Starbuck two-parter (which really should have been just the one episode), and nothing really happened at all in this witch hunt episode (which was far too much like that Star Trek: TNG episode with the daughter of that guy Picard admired and the half-Romulan crewman).
Also, it’d be nice to get more than this lame “They have a plan” tease about the Cylons. I’m not saying everything has to be revealed, but the Caprica stuff is meandering, and they never even tried to explain the reason why the Cylons sent the suicide bomber to the Galactica. If the Cylons know where the fleet is, why can’t they simply keep up the regular attacks? Seems pretty clear that the Cylons want the fleet to survive, and know exactly where it is. Which is sort of a nifty plot development, although I’d like to hear one of the cast say this out loud, because they seem pretty dumb worrying about this infiltration stuff without ever thinking how the Cylons are getting these operatives into the fleet in the first place.
I am also getting the feeling that Caprica is either not going anywhere and they are unsure, or there is some buildup that is just too subtle for me to see yet. The idea of human/cylon mating does seem reasonable given what shape the planets are in right now.
I think we’re still in the stage where the people on board the ships aren’t really certain WHERE they are going or WHAT they are doing, and they’re still settling into life before making some kind of final plan of action. Then again, I don’t see them discussing it at all.
So far, the writing has been top notch, so I don’t forsee any stupid slides in show quality unless, when it reaches the US, it doesn’t garner adequate ratings and they decide to turn it into Star Trek or Space Fighter 2005.
One thing to remember is that within the story timeline only two weeks have passed. When you think about it that way, there’s been a hell of a lot of stuff to keep them busy, what with the water loss, the water search, the water mining and then the search for Starbuck.
The curiousity was killing me, so I looked through the TVTome episode summaries for the remaining seven episodes. Suffice it to say, while the summaries weren’t in-depth, I can say that things should start heating up soon, including a discovery that should give the fleet both purpose and direction.
Excellent news. Despite my bitching, I think BG is pretty much the best thing on TV right now. Incredible potential, too. I sooo want to check out those episode summaries, too, but I’m enjoying going into every week without a clue about what’s coming up.
I’m not saying everything has to be revealed, but the Caprica stuff is meandering, and they never even tried to explain the reason why the Cylons sent the suicide bomber to the Galactica
They mentioned it probably being there to nuke Baltar’s research.
“and nothing really happened at all in this witch hunt episode (which was far too much like that Star Trek: TNG episode with the daughter of that guy Picard admired and the half-Romulan crewman)”
The Drumhead. I was thinking that too - although one thing that really came to mind is that they were right in one respect: being independant, Adama was breaking the rules by shutting them down like that. That, like the prison ship and the forthcoming elections, strikes me very much as a plotline that could really come back and start biting people. So far this series has been almost exclusively military - unsurprisingly - but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some real developments on the civilian side at some point.
Yeah, but that was just a throwaway line from Starbuck to Baltar that was then followed up in Baltar’s head with Six. I was thinking about Adama or Tighe or the president. Just seemed odd that nobody in charge didn’t say “Hey, maybe the Cylons know where we are!” and look into the motivations behind the attack.
It’s becoming really obvious that the Cylons are playing the same sort of game with the fleet as they are with Helo on Caprica. Assume that somebody is going to realize this at some point, and I thought a good time would be right after this suicide bomber showed up out of nowhere, at a time when the fleet had apparently lost the Cylons.
Well the suicide bomber could have infiltrated the fleet during the mass exodus or was on one of the planets and simply escaped with everyone. So the cylons may not know the exact location of the fleet, although a missing patrol will probably give them a good idea where.