Alternatives for the Final Five

[Conan Troutman]

Hi everyone,

recently watched the show for the first time on Netflix. While I was okay with the general idea of the Final Five, I think the resolution was rather poor. If you had to choose who the Final Five were, who would it be? Or more generally, which character would you have liked to be a Cylon (regular model, with plenty of copies).

My thoughts about the "real" ones:

- Saul Tigh: Okay, this one makes sense and works great. Wouldn't want to change that.
- Ellen Tigh: Explains a lot and she works a lot better as a Cylon than as a human. But I could live without the character entirely. When they revealed her as the final Final Five, I was like "oh great, now she's coming back, I was so happy when she died"...
- Chief Tyrol: This one's completely stupid and poses all sorts of problems. The biggest one is obviously the child with Cally, so they had to make her cheat on him retroactively, which was completely out of character. A member of the Final Five in love with his own creation/kid/whatever (Boomer) is also pretty creepy.
- Anders: Why did we have Anders in the first place? He was okay in the Resistance subplot, but why did they bring him back? Was more interesting after the reveal, but should've been left on Caprica and forgotten.
- Tory: Billy could've worked and the idea to make Roslins right hand a Cylon was okay, but they should've punted on it after Billy's actor left the show and not just choose his replacement.

My alternative candidates would be:

- Gaeta: I was pretty convinced he was a Cylon all the time. Would've made sense, high ranking officer, a rather ironic hatred for all thins Cylon like Tigh. Only downside is we wouldn't get the mutiny story line (or with someone else less believable).
- Dee/Dualla: Instead of the completely out of left field suicide we get an interesting twist. Also adds a nice touch to her romance story lines.
- Doc Cottle: At least gives an explantion why he hasn't died off lung cancer after chain smoking for 40+ years. Also more screen time for one of the best characters. Having a Cylon treat the President (and everbody else) would also raise some nice philosophical questions.
- Starbuck: Way better than the angel stuff and you could still pull off the twist with her dead body.
- Hotdog: With the Chief not a Cylon we wouldn't need the ridiculous "Hotdog did it" explanation for his and Cally's child. Bonus points for the actor being Olmos' real life son.
- Tom Zarek: Same with Gaeta, we would need somebody else for the mutiny plot (or cancel it altogether), but that would be a really nice twist here. Also, he's vice president, which would up the ante.

After all, I would go with Saul Tigh, Gaeta, Doc Cottle, Starbuck and Tom Zarek as the Final Five.

Candidates who would be interesting, but also complete nonsense:
- Laura Roslin: Was teased with, but would contradict with too many other plot points. A Cylon can't get cancer, the prophecies etc. etc. We also would get Zarek as new president.
- Bill Adama: It's a huge plot point that Cylons can't have kids. So him having not one, but two, would screw up the whole story. Lee is out for the same reason.

What's your take on this?

[Crazedwraith]

They shouldn't have been anyone we knew. The final five should not have been any different from the other 7. They should have just been revealed to the audience quicker or there should have been no Basestar/Cylon scenes that made their non-appearence too obviously a thing.

It would have saved them from their numbering snafu as well.

[garhkal]

I would have rather the 'final 5' have been more updated.. better models that would have properly bridged the divide between human and human form cylon.

[Traianus Augustus]

Yeah, the writers could've done better with their choices for the Final Five.

I liked that they made Ellen one of the Five as it made her character more interesting and sympathetic. Under her false human programming she was a manipulative slut who only did things for her own benefit and I was happy to see her go in early season 3. Her true Cylon personality was something different. She could still be manipulative and cruel, as evidenced by her treatment of Caprica Six after she returned to the fleet, but she showed that she cared for something larger than herself: the survival of the Cylon race.

I also liked Saul Tigh as a Cylon because it presented his character with an interesting dilemma. Here's a man who bitterly hated the Cylons, only to discover that he's one himself. This leads him to question everything about himself and, in the end, deciding to be the man he wants to be regardless of being a machine.

The only issue I see with making Anders one of the Five is explaining away his celebrity status in the Twelve Colonies. As a well known sports star surely people would've dug into his past to find out more about him only to scratch their heads wondering why he just "appeared" out of no where ten to twenty years before the beginning of the series. You could make the argument that Cavil found some way to create false records for Anders' childhood and adolescence, or that he was able to resurrect him in a really young copy of his body, hence he'd "grow up" in Colonial society.

Like Troutman pointed out, Tyrol didn't really make sense at all. He had a well established past by the end of season 3 and was shown to have had a child with Cally. What's worse is that in order to make it work they had to turn Cally into a cheating slut. From what we've seen their marriage didn't turn sour until well into season 4, so what reason would she have had to cheat on him before then?

I could really care less about Tory. She was an okay character in seasons 2 and 3, but any likeability she had went out the airlock when she blew Cally into space. After that her character quickly went downhill morally and I couldn't wait for her to get knocked off. It's actually fitting that it was Tyrol who killed her for Cally's death.

Who would I choose to be the Final Five?

Keep Ellen and Saul. Their characters became more interesting after their reveals.

Swap out Anders for Dualla. Dee doesn't have Anders' celebrity status problem and it would be a more interesting twist if she were a Cylon. Plus I hated that they killed her off. She was one of the most likeable characters in the series.

Swap out Tyrol for Starbuck. Her memories of her mother and father could be easily explained as false programming by Cavil, as in the case of Boomer, and her surprise resurrection at the end of season 3 would make much more sense. She could still have her "destiny" story arc; it would just play out a little differently than what we were given.

Finally, get rid of Tory and have Billy Keikeya in her place. As far as we know Billy's only family members died in the Cylon attack, so he has no firmly established past. Like Saul Tigh, he'd be faced with the terrible dilemma of being a Cylon and coming to terms with it while working closely with those who hate the Cylons.

[garhkal]

Rather than starbuck, what about that Lawyer they got to represent baltar!

[Traianus Augustus]

It would be a cool twist if Lampkin was one of the Five.

The main reason I felt that Starbuck would've been a better candidate is that it would've eliminated all the ambiguity her character took on due to her return from the dead. It was never clearly established just what she had become when she came back. If it was her destiny to lead both Humans and Cylons to Earth she could've accomplished that just as well as a Cylon. The "higher power" could still feed her visions just as it did with Boomer, D'Anna, Roslin, and Baltar. It would've made more sense all the way around.

[P-90_177]

I personally liked all the Final Five choices. Particularly since all five were major players in the resistance on New Caprica and some of the characters that had the most resistance to trusting Cylons. Tyrol in particular, I felt had a pretty good arc after finding out he was a toaster. The only one I was never sure about was Tory. She just seemed random given how little we knew about her before then. I agree Dee or Gaeta would have been good.