Crossroads, Part 2 (320)

[foxhound22]

Yup, just read it and was about to edit my initial post to state that.

Thanks for the heads up.

[Tanduay]

I may be alone here......etc

I think you might be. But you make some good points. If I were Adama or Roslin those bloody reporters would have been working on the tilium refinary ship long ago.

[Trek_Girl42]

I may be alone here but I was majorly disappointed by this episode in fact by the whole season.

There's been too much cylon mysticism, most of which is unexplained and much of which contradicts basic assumptions established in the major plot lines.

As the Producer admits in an interview he decided THIS SEASON that Anders, Thigh et al would be Cylons. That's not quality writing and that's not how you keep a series on top. After three years the characters are established and making them cylons now flies in the face and contradicts what is known about them.

Look at the posts in this thread. Many of you couldn't believe they're Cylons and even now some think "well not full cylons." That's because it just doesn't make sense and you know it.

Good writing for a show that lasts means there basic premises are quickly established and then further developed over time. You accept those premises and say "If that's true then this is possible." But too much of this season (and part of last season as well) contradicts the basic premises of the show. Yes there will and should be suprises and new elements can be introduced but not without some foundation.

Such as the Cylons deciding that god doesn't want the humans wiped out after all without any prior hint of misgivings and apparently without much dissent either.

As more unexplained Cylon mysteries have been introduced without putting out explanations or a foundation for them more viewers have stopped watching.

Many of the human subplots don't make sense either. Would the last surivors of the human race really act the way these folks do? Would a Doctor knowing that less than 3,000 humans are alive kill dozens because he's a bigot? Would there really be 50 reporters (about 1 reporter for every 50 people at press conferences? Would someone who rose as high as the Admiral did really think the son he's known for his son's whole life has no integrity?

And yes Lee's speech was powerful but it's another example of bad writing. It should have been given in a summation not some cheesy unreal testimony from the stand that no court worth its name would have allowed.

They did to get out of that whole "You have no integrity and no place in my fleet thing," If he had just given the Defense summation, Lee wouldn't have had the chance to refuse to answer questions about what his Dad said to him and prove him wrong.

Now Adama can say Lee didn't betray his trust and he was wrong to think Lee betrayed Roslin.

The network knows the quality isn't there. That's why they pulled the plug on the planned prequel series and the planned movie will be straight to DVD instead of in theatrical release (if it's made at all).

The bottom line for me is that I don't care when it returns to the air. After three years of faithful watching, I've seen too many contradictions in the plot to care. It's good that some of you do still care and will watch it to the end, but you should demand better quality than your getting here.

Part of writing is discovering things along the way. RDM has said this all along since the beginning of the series- in recent podcasts he has gone into detail describing his show-running style and the pros and cons of it. Usually things pan out, occasionally they don't (Lee/Dee relationship, and the Sagitarion sub-plot, for example). As for the revealed cylons, I personally can't think that it was a complete snap descision by RDM. He's obviously been thinking about who the cylons are since the very beginning of the series, but was wise to leave his options open. When the series came to this point, he made his descision.

As for the actions of the people in the fleet, do you really think, that just because there are so few people left, everyone is going to drop everything and be kind. Hug and it's all better? People are going to carry on with their prejudices; in fact with such a small group of humans focused on, everything suddenly seems a lot bigger. For example, those Sagitairons who lived next door to you, that you don't like, they're going to feel like the only people in the world once they're all that's left around. And they are going to drive you crazy. If you're a lunatic, like the doctor in the episode, you might take some extreme measures. When it's the end of the world, there's not much left to lose, and yes, that means feeling like you can get away with murder (and a lot of people in the fleet are/have been). After all, what's the point anymore? As for the number of reporters, recall the miniseries? Where Galactica was being decomissioned? That would be where the reporters came from.

As for Lee's testimony, this is, first and foremost, a drama. If this court case went exactly as real court cases do, we'd still be watching *yawn*. The writers had a loophole in the Colonial legal system being *not* the American one, therefore allowing enough room for Lee to get out that speech, etc. I'd rather see some legal innacuracies then a bland courtroom drama in which no character can speak their peace and say anything worth saying: worth us hearing. That is boring.

Annnd, onto the movie: it has always been a direct to dvd/air on SCI-FI around the same time, and it has been confirmed that it's going forward. There has never been any plan for a theatrical film.

The quality that BSG is displaying is, in my opinion, equal to any top drama on television. And I'll certainly be watching through to the end.

[Trek_Girl42]

If I were Adama or Roslin those bloody reporters would have been working on the tilium refinary ship long ago.

LMAO.....gotta agree with you there.

[startrekjg]

If they do anything like the original series it would be modern day earth. I remember seeing some episodes of the original one where they find earth and its the year 1984 or something. Think it was a spin off or something that did not last.

[Lady Snow]

If they do anything like the original series it would be modern day earth. I remember seeing some episodes of the original one where they find earth and its the year 1984 or something. Think it was a spin off or something that did not last.

For some reason, when reading your post, I found myself picturing a crossover between BSG and Orwell.

How bizarre.

[GreyFox]

maybe tigh always has been (cavil is also old) or they simply replaced tigh with cylon tigh.

[Lady Snow]

As the Producer admits in an interview he decided THIS SEASON that Anders, Thigh et al would be Cylons. That's not quality writing and that's not how you keep a series on top. After three years the characters are established and making them cylons now flies in the face and contradicts what is known about them.

I'd like to point out that Anders and Tori have been around for less than two full seasons; the latter, in fact, has been around for barely over one season.

[Locutus_Of_Borg]

I Wanna Kiss Someone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[alatien]

I thought it was a great episode, but it definetly left more loose ends. I was just wondring about the nebula they have entered, and which is supposed to be close to Earth. Well, the closest nebula is the Helix nebula, and its 650 l.y. from Earth. What is interesting, is how it looks:


Anything familiar? Looks very much like the nebula in which Kara 'died' and about which she dreamed. But if that was Helix nebula, then in what nebula are they now?

I also believe that the 'reborn' Kara is just in Apollo's mind, much like the Cylon Raider Kara saw in the nebula. So lets asume she is a 'ghost' for sake of discussion. Further I like the idea of Apollo in his Viper ('arrow') following 'Kara' and leading fleet to Earth giving us: 'Arrow of Apollo will point the way to Earth'.

But even if Apollo can see Kara and she shows him the way, he still has to convince Roslin and Adama to follow. And here is a twist, since both Adama and Roslin have 'new' advisors. What would Tigh and the 'secretary' do if Apollo came up with crazy 'follow me to Earth' idea?

Also notice that remaining two 'new' Cylons are a hangar chief and a Raptor trainee-pilot. What if Apollo needed to make an unauthorized jump to Earth, to take pictures and proove his point? Who would help him and who would he take?

[titans]

I am glad at least someone agrees with me that Tori is hot. Damn she is good enough to be a BBC World Newscaster.

Tori is SUPER HOT!!! When is her Maxim / Playboy spread??????

[Anonmatel]

Yeah, It may just be Cylon Brainwashing them into thinking they are Cylon. I don't think they would bow their cylon load mystery all in one go. They ain't Cylon is my prediction.

If Starbuck has been to earth and she knows how to get there then that means Leoben helped her. That doesn't make sense. A more likely scenario is that Starbuck is the 8th Cylon and she'll be leading them away from earth.

[ata_beckett]

I haven't read all of the comments in this thread, so bare with me if I say something that's already been said.

One of the biggest things that got me about the ending was Starbuck. I'm not sure if it was intentional on the director's part, Katee's part or RDM's part, but Starbuck is DIFFERENT. She only had like five lines, but you can tell that Maelstrom completely changed her. I don't think in the entire run of the show that we've seen her seem so very in control, calm and accepting about things. And it's all in Lee's face that he sees it too.

So either--
1- She's head!Starbuck
Which could be cheesy, but COULD be pretty cool if it finally starts to shed light on head!Six and head!Baltar

or

2- Whatever happened between her viper "exploding" and that moment had a profound impact on her. The dealing with her past, finding out who she is, and finally gaining a bit of stability (because as long as we've known Starbuck, she's been a fundamentally unstable character).


Can I also say that I'm curious as to how a) the cylons made it there first and b) how Kara just happened to be there "with" them.


In regards to our new cylon friends:
I'm VERY interested to see how this plays out next season. I suspected for a long time that Tyrol was a cylon (way back to LDYB and his session with Cavil), and even more so when they started developing him as a character even more.

And Tigh. God...every time I watch his bit about "If I die today...that's the man I'll be" I gain SO MUCH respect for him as a character. Because he's so set on who he is.


And randomly--- does anyone else crack up at that last scene in the CIC when Tigh says "You can count on me" then Tory says "I'm here if you need me, Madam President", and Roslin just gives her this look that says "That's nice, dear, but I haven't trusted you since you frakked up and lost Hera that time."

[badgerguy]

Yeah, It may just be Cylon Brainwashing them into thinking they are Cylon. I don't think they would bow their cylon load mystery all in one go. They ain't Cylon is my prediction.

If Starbuck has been to earth and she knows how to get there then that means Leoben helped her. That doesn't make sense. A more likely scenario is that Starbuck is the 8th Cylon and she'll be leading them away from earth.

Actually RDM says in an interview that they are definitely Cylons. That he decided to make them Cylons this season. This is a big part of my problem with the way the series has been developed. It's like "Let's throw a big curve ball in there, even though according to everything else we've done the pitcher isn't supposed to be able to throw one."

All along they've said the missing five cylons are powerful. How else could they prevent anyone from knowing of their existance. There aren't any extra models. Now we're supposed to believe that even THEY didn't know of their existance?

It's one of many elements they've thrown in that either contradict what they've said or that has no foundation whatsoever. It's like the writers sit there and say "Wouldn't it be neat if we .... and then "Wish we had thought of that earlier oh well let's do it anyway."

It's great to speculate on what's happening but when the writers don't build those bridges most of the audience is confused, not entertained and stops watching. That's what's happened here.

[ShadowMaat]

Maybe the Cylons brainwashed RDM into SAYING that the Four were Cylons. After all, if Dylan is the Cylon god, he could easily have gotten to Ron and convinced him of who knows what.