The Farm (205)

[Easter Lily]

Dr. Cylon said he removed "part" of her ovaries. To run tests I guess. But if they have part of her ovaries they certainly could have her eggs. They could have also implanted her. We'll see.

Is that what he said? Oh okay... We tried replaying that scene several times over... and couldn't seem to hear it... Hmmm... I read in a synopsis elsewhere that that's what he did but that conversation between Simon and Six was hard to follow... Must listen to it again...

I DO think there's a good chance - sorry LoneStar - that we may see some baby Karas or some CylonStarbucks before this is all over. They think she's "special", after all. And WHY, WHY is she special? WHY, WHY is Baltar special enough to be the "father" of the next generation.

Is she special because of her reproductive abilities though? Or is she special because she has something to do with finding earth? My observation is that Simon looked rather disappointed that she was going to be sent on her merry way. I think he really wanted her as lead hen...

Oh, I certainly hope your putting Kara and Baltar together in the same paragraph isn't because you think that they're going to be the patriarch and matriarch of the next generation. The horror, the horror...

The suspense is killing me... well, not quite...

[Uber]

It was great to see Grace/Boomer back on the show again. I am glad she
appears to be helping the humans again. Adama really cared for Boomer...
even when he found out she was a cylon..... I think him crying over her
body lets on that he knows more than most would think. Maybe she was
a double agent all along and her shooting Adama was a mistake in her programing they did not know about?

He has never cried for anyone that intense since the show began....
franky it really surprised me.

Maybe "love" was planted into the Cylon consiousness covertly by the colonials.
And maybe Adama and Sharon were part of this plot....who knows???

I also have been wondering if there's the potential for the BSG version of the Tok'ra...conscientious objectors who take an active stand and oppose the cylons on principle. That would make for an intriguing ally.

Sharon is still a mystery to me. She shot Adama but then it's like she had no idea she did it and was horrified by the thought. Did the "Sharons" on board the Cylon ship enter an override command into her that took over her temporarily and forced her to do something that's out of character? Kind of like in Water?

Then there's Sharon on Caprica who seems to be helping them (well now she's taking Kara and Helo back to Kobol)...why is she helping them?

Here's an intriguing thought...what if LOVE is not only the answer to solving the dilemma for procreation but is also the key to the downfall of the Cylons? The Sharons we've witnessed fall in love have been willing to "betray" the other Cylons to protect those they loved. With love comes compassion and self-sacrifice. Or is the Sharon model kind of like Fifth, more human than the other models and therefore more susceptible to human frailties?

Hmm...I'm going to have to mull over that for awhile...

[Mr. Seven]

My theory on Kara's ovaries -

Remember that around a week ago in the series..Baltar slepped with Kara...


Perhaps they are going to use their child as Model 13..

As for Kara's injuries, yeah I have to go with the Piano thing. Her mom probably slammed it shut on her while she was playing after her dad died.

Either that or they were broke from defending herself, but it looks like it was too precise to be that.

I look forward to some Helo and Apollo interaction in the coming episodes. Besides the wave in the mini they haven't talked ever.

To me it looked like they knew each other, but Ronald Moore says otherwise and he's writing the show

[zats]

Mmmmm. Dark. Edgy. Weird. Sounds good to me. [At least as BSG goes]

The Caprica plot was excellent. Kara whumps so well, doesn't she? And the Farms...suffice to say that they squicked me out. We'll leave it at that. To be honest, I was wondering when an ep like this would come up. It seems like all the darker shows have to do an ep where the baddies go poking around the uterine area--must be a requirement. The backstory was lovely (if decidedly creepish). Anyone know of any good Kara backstory fic?

Sue-Shaun...God, that was horrible. And very BSG.

Hate to say it (Kara/Lee will rule the WORLD!), but I like Anders. Hope he's not a toaster, but I don't know what to think anymore.

Good to see Adama the Elder back, if not quite all, um, there. He's definitely changed. Like a stroke victim, only 'victim' is not a would apply to Bill. Glad to see that Sharon's back. After she stole the raider I was afraid she'd do something really stupid.

All in all...mmmm.

[larocque6689]

Here is this week's excerpts from RDM's podcast.

--

This episode in all honesty was probably the most controversial episode of the season, second only, maybe, to "Valley of Darkness" for much the same reasons. This episode is dark. This is a dark tale, this is a dark show many times. And the controversy on this show is how dark is too dark, how much is too much? Will this episode, and episodes like it scare the audience away? Actually, interestingly enough, the discussion became, will it scare the female audience away? Our research shows that more men than women watch the show, which is to be expected. It's typical in the scifi genre, and the question is, how do you get more female viewers? The question that I put to you, and you can answer it in a way that you see fit, is this show a good show for women? Here is a female character, hereoine, who we put the screws to all through the episode. It deals with a lot of fertility issues, reproductive issues, some of which may be potentially uncomfortable or distasteful. And the question is, does that drive female audiences away, or does it bring them to the party. In any case, regardless of the controversies, this is the episode that we made and fought for, and I quite strongly believe in, frankly.

--

Viewers might notice that the wound jumped from left to right. That was something we knew in the editing room. It was a choice that the editor made, and we went with. It's not a mistake. It's part of the surrealness of what's going on. It's Kara's mind becoming unmoored from its moorings as she goes under.

--

This man was almost killed. He was shot point blank in the chest [with] two bullets, lay in sickbay for a long time in literally a near-death experience. And that he shouldn't just come back from that exactly the way he was before. And what we start saying was that Adama's changed, Adama's different. The emotions are closer to the surface, things that the man has held down and tamped down for many years and for many reasons now come forth. Essentially his emotions tend to burst forth without his wanting them to. You can see them right here, just that little beat of him telling everyone how much they means to him. Isn't that something that the typical Adama would have done? He's much more stoic, keeps things closer to the vest. I love this little beat here where he says he feels closer to the ground somehow. And this will continue. You will see this aspect of Adama for the rest of the season.

--

This was one of the most controversial scenes, which resulted in endless discussions. "Is this just too distasteful?" Is it just too awful to suggest that a woman is getting some kind of pelvic exam. Will it just drive women away? And my attitude was, "Oh come on, are you kidding?" It's nothing you don't see on ER or 50 other hospital shows. There's a concept pushed back from us on the show that says there's nothing that's too real, too graphic, too disturbing to put on the air. Personally, I just think there are very few boundaries that you can really say that's a step too far, that you've really pushed the audience tolerance into a place where they're going to turn off the show. I think there are people offended by individual scenes, people may be put off by something you say, but do they really just grab the remote and change the channel in a pique of outrage over something? I don't really think so. A lot of those fears are overlblown. But that's just me, what do I know?

--

David Eick really felt that Simon should be able to get under [Kara's] skin as it were, much in the way Leoben did, and cut to the heart of who Kara is. That the Cylons have ways of getting inside your head and twisting things around and really understanding them in ways that you don't want them to. And that Simon got in there and figured out that all of her fingers had been broken, and essentially, we believe it's by her mother, because that's who we've set up. And it's a nasty bit of business, it's a nasty horrible part of who Kara is. It goes to the notion I've discussed on this podcast before. Well, if you're going to make Starbuck a rogue, and you're going to make her the hotshot pilot and does things her own way, and is the daredevil -- who is that person and why is she like that? It's a damaged person, it's a person who's really screwed up, and here's one of the reasons she's screwed up.

--

This I think is interesting because Laura decides as a tactic to play the religious card, as it were. To embrace the path that she's on, about being a prophet and the scriptures, which she now believes do hold some very literal truths in them, and she embraces that role publically and calls people to her banner in the name of their faith. And then is has a consequence, people start looking at her differently, they ask for blessings, they look at her as a prophet, a spokeswoman for the gods, and that eventually that's going to come back and bite Laura on the ass. And I think that's interesting, I think think it's what began as something, a tactic of the moment, something to get her through a crisis, then it carries larger and more profound implications -- morally, spiritually, ethically -- down the line. I think that's really interesting stuff.

--

There was a bit of business after they agree to let Sharon help them, where we were going to cut in cold, and you'd be on the tarmac on an airbase someplace, and the camera would pull back on the tarmac and find dead Cylons, Centurions and humanoid Cylons, all over just littering the tarmac, and then pull back again, all silent in one shot, and would be Sharon, standing on the tarmac with a gun in her hand, looking down at all the ones she had just killed in some ambush, and she'd just walk off camera towards the heavy raider.

--

This whole bit of business here with the Cylon's interest in reproduction and biology and ultimately the plot of this episode, has to do with the Cylons' drive and desire to biologically reproduce. This is a direct outgrowth of season one, where the ongoing storyline between Sharon and Helo on Caprica, as I started to really seriously think, "OK, what's going on down there?" ... Why are the Cylons putting them together, what's the game that's going on, what are they trying to get out of him? It couldn't be any use for military information, he doesn't know where Galactica is or anything like that, he's just a pilot. What are they doing? This notion came out of long discussions about who the Cylons really are, what are the things they lack, what is it they want to be, what is their image of God, what does it mean to be a person?

And what I came to was, they can't biologically reproduce. They cannot have children, and they have tried. But they are unable to fulfil that role as biologically living people, because they can't have children. And that in their view, that makes them something less than people. God created animals and plants and people all of whom can reproduce. The Cylons can build many copies and many bodies and download consciousness and all these amazing things, but they cannot do the simple act of having a child. And that makes them something less than us. And they are determined to figure that out. So, they embark on these programs, and this farm that Kara is part of is one of many that are strewn all over Caprica and the other Colonies, trying to conceive, trying to figure out ways that they can reproduce... They're using human women and other facilities they are using human men, and then a variety of in vitro programs are being tested in test tubes, and all kinds of different projects.

Helo and Sharon were together in a very specific experiment, because the Cylons came up with this idea that maybe the one thing that was missing, maybe the reason they couldn't biologically reproduce, because they lacked God's love, and that God is love, and that without love, perhaps they can never truly be people. So they put Helo and Sharon as a way to try and make him fall in love with her. They knew things about Sharon, they knew that she and Helo had traded looks, that there was something going on, that there was an attraction there. So they put Helo in a situation where he's made to be protective of her, to guard her, to care for her. She saves him, and they are on the road together for a while, and they're bonding. And his true feelings for her come out and she responds. And Helo does fall for her, and the amazing thing is that Sharon fell in love with Helo, and that she turned on her own people out of love, and that was a wild card that they hadn't really anticipated. That love, true love, would cut both ways. And so Helo and Sharon then went on their own and did conceive a child. So the experiment worked. There really is a validity in this universe to the notion that there is such a thing as love, it is stronger than science, and perhaps it is bestowed by God or by the gods to people, and even Cylons, and that there's something special about that in the Galactica universe.

--

And Kara is special, Kara has a destiny. She has something that Leoben alluded to, and that everyone mentions every once in a while, that Kara is not just another person. There is something that's going to happen to her. And what did they do to Kara? They took some of her ovaries. And what are they going to do with those? Are they going to be just rolling little Kara's back here on Caprica, if they can figure out ways to conceive children other than falling in love? Who knows? It leaves her damaged, it leaves her having taken a loss, and it leaves her changed as well. And she wants to go after these farms, and wreak havoc and vengeance on this whole thing.

[Liebestraume]

Sharon is still a mystery to me. She shot Adama but then it's like she had no idea she did it and was horrified by the thought. Did the "Sharons" on board the Cylon ship enter an override command into her that took over her temporarily and forced her to do something that's out of character? Kind of like in Water?

The Sharon on Galactica didn't know she was a cylon, and that was why she had blended in so well for the past two years. Every time she did something cylon-y, it was like a hidden program taking over. Kind of like the good Dr. Jeckyll didn't know about the wicked Mr. Hyde. No extraneous interference required.

Then there's Sharon on Caprica who seems to be helping them (well now she's taking Kara and Helo back to Kobol)...why is she helping them?

Probably because she, as you said, fell in love. Or maybe she only helps them until another hidden program takes over. Who knows?

One thing we do know is that not all cylons are created equal. Not even all Sharons were. Makes one wonder about their preoccupation with procreation. Surely, they could make as many copies as they wanted and make them sufficiently different? Me thinks keshou hit the nail on its head: cylons have an inferiority complex , and through procreation they wanted to get one step closer to their god.

ETA -- larocque6689, thanks for doing the prodcast recap week after week. Awwww, RDM sounds like such a big softie this week. *sniff*

[zats]

Here is this week's excerpts from RDM's podcast:

[SNIP]Actually, interestingly enough, the discussion became, will it scare the female audience away? Our research shows that more men than women watch the show, which is to be expected. It's typical in the scifi genre, and the question is, how do you get more female viewers? The question that I put to you, and you can answer it in a way that you see fit, is this show a good show for women? [/SNIP]

Easy. The testosterone kamikazies pull the male viewers. We women, on the other hand, are somewhat lacking in that respect. If you simply must go the bikini route, have a few more grrls who wouldn't dream of it. And make them equal or better. We're bombarded with enough super-attractive, super-smart 'heroines'--but they aren't role models, they're male fantasies [I like Lara Croft as much as the next person, but really]. Give us something we can relate to.

--

[SNIP]There was a bit of business after they agree to let Sharon help them, where we were going to cut in cold, and you'd be on the tarmac on an airbase someplace, and the camera would pull back on the tarmac and find dead Cylons, Centurions and humanoid Cylons, all over just littering the tarmac, and then pull back again, all silent in one shot, and would be Sharon, standing on the tarmac with a gun in her hand, looking down at all the ones she had just killed in some ambush, and she'd just walk off camera towards the heavy raider.[/SNIP]

Whoa. That would've been so frakking awesome...[delightful shivers]


--

[SNIP]Kara is special.[/SNIP]

Yup. And that's why we love her. [begin Snoopy dance]

[Uber]

The Sharon on Galactica didn't know she was a cylon, and that was why she had blended in so well for the past two years. Every time she did something cylon-y, it was like a hidden program taking over. Kind of like the good Dr. Jeckyll didn't know about the wicked Mr. Hyde. No extraneous interference required.

Probably because she, as you said, fell in love. Or maybe she only helps them until another hidden program takes over. Who knows?

One thing we do know is that not all cylons are created equal. Not even all Sharons were. Makes one wonder about their preoccupation with procreation. Surely, they could make as many copies as they wanted and make them sufficiently different? Me thinks keshou hit the nail on its head: cylons have an inferiority complex , and through procreation they wanted to get one step closer to their god.

Sure but she found out she was a cylon after seeing a dozen hers aboard the cylon ship.

And the dead look in her eyes when she shot Adama and then seemed to snap out of it seemed like they (the cylons) uploaded an override command for her to shoot Adama and she did it almost in a trance state. Once it was done she was back to being her.

As for the preoccupation with procreation...it's all summed up by RDM:

They cannot have children, and they have tried. But they are unable to fulfil that role as biologically living people, because they can't have children. And that in their view, that makes them something less than people. God created animals and plants and people all of whom can reproduce. The Cylons can build many copies and many bodies and download consciousness and all these amazing things, but they cannot do the simple act of having a child. And that makes them something less than us.

[Liebestraume]

Sure but she found out she was a cylon after seeing a dozen hers aboard the cylon ship.

Then you must have underestimated the power of denial. It has been very well established that she didn't want to believe she was cylon, although she had harbored suspisions for a while. There was only a very short amount of time elapsed between then and her shooting Adama for her to properly process that new info.

And the dead look in her eyes when she shot Adama and then seemed to snap out of it seemed like they (the cylons) uploaded an override command for her to shoot Adama and she did it almost in a trance state.

Perhaps. However, if the "trance state" must be induced by external command, then who trigger her sabotage of the water tanks? Why did she have to struggle mightily to even tell Crashdown that she saw water?

As for the preoccupation with procreation...it's all summed up by RDM.

Yes, thanks for pointing that out. I didn't see the post when I pressed the "Reply" button.

[FeloniousMonk]

As for Kara's injuries, yeah I have to go with the Piano thing. Her mom probably slammed it shut on her while she was playing after her dad died.

Either that or they were broke from defending herself, but it looks like it was too precise to be that.

Actually it's something that happens far too frequently. Abusive parents will punish their children by breaking a finger. Have to let 'em heal before breaking them again so the kid can screw up ten times before the parent has to find another form of abuse.

I'm not saying the piano bit isn't likely but I'm assuming that Moore is trying to reference more common forms of child abuse. Christ, this is a dark show..

[Uber]

Then you must have underestimated the power of denial. It has been very well established that she didn't want to believe she was cylon, although she had harbored suspisions for a while. There was only a very short amount of time elapsed between then and her shooting Adama for her to properly process that new info.

Perhaps. However, if the "trance state" must be induced by external command, then who trigger her sabotage of the water tanks? Why did she have to struggle mightily to even tell Crashdown that she saw water?

Yes, thanks for pointing that out. I didn't see the post when I pressed the "Reply" button.

You're right...she wondered it...believed it...took that test and passed it (or at least that's what Gaius said)...she wanted to believe it but really didn't fully...and then at some point realized she really was a cylon and almost took her life...

Perhaps the cylons transmitted an order to her that took control at just the right minute. Perhaps the Sharons didn't specifically give her the order, but that instead as a cylon she received the order and carried it out in that trance like state as in Water...except this time, she didn't have to wonder about it later...she was certain she was the one who shot Adama.

It seems that Sharon is a contradiction unto herself...because she loves Adama yet she shot him...she loves her friends, yet had a hard time telling them about the water. She loves them...yet betrays them.

Again I have to wonder if perhaps the Sharon model is the cylon version of Fifth...perhaps closer to human but still deeply flawed and perverted by cylon reasoning...

I also ask again if LOVE is the cylon's Achilles heel...they need it to reproduce and fulfill their perceived destiny but in doing so they humanize themselves more and must deal with the ramifications of those emotions...the complications attached to caring and loving...

Can they have the emotions of people yet coldheartedly murder millions of people?

[zats]

I think so. It would be hard to comprehend a horror of that magnitude (even if you're a supercomputer)--maybe it was just as easy as flipping a light switch. Generally speaking, it's the small, everyday emotional triggers that cause the most grief.

[Easter Lily]

Actually it's something that happens far too frequently. Abusive parents will punish their children by breaking a finger. Have to let 'em heal before breaking them again so the kid can screw up ten times before the parent has to find another form of abuse.

I'm not saying the piano bit isn't likely but I'm assuming that Moore is trying to reference more common forms of child abuse. Christ, this is a dark show..

The fact that Kara reacted so violently to this revelation, suggests to me anyway, that it was child abuse...

[Easter Lily]

You're right...she wondered it...believed it...took that test and passed it (or at least that's what Gaius said)...she wanted to believe it but really didn't fully...and then at some point realized she really was a cylon and almost took her life...

Perhaps the cylons transmitted an order to her that took control at just the right minute. Perhaps the Sharons didn't specifically give her the order, but that instead as a cylon she received the order and carried it out in that trance like state as in Water...except this time, she didn't have to wonder about it later...she was certain she was the one who shot Adama.

It seems that Sharon is a contradiction unto herself...because she loves Adama yet she shot him...she loves her friends, yet had a hard time telling them about the water. She loves them...yet betrays them.

Again I have to wonder if perhaps the Sharon model is the cylon version of Fifth...perhaps closer to human but still deeply flawed and perverted by cylon reasoning...

A contradiction or a controlled being? I wonder...
I don't know that all the copies have equal knowledge of who they are or of what they're mission is. Evidence so far suggests... no... I tend to think that they are all separate personalities as a result of separate memories and separate experiences. Reminds me of the Thomas Riker/William Riker scenario...

Can they have the emotions of people yet coldheartedly murder millions of people?

Well, we certainly don't need to look too deeply into history to know the answer to that...

[beamerxl]

Boomer's "trance" reminds me most of the za'tarcs from SG:1. And it sort of makes sense... she might have been "programmed" for her Cylon part to take over if certain conditions are met. For example, she gets back to Galactica, she can tell something is up. Lee is in handcuffs, I can't remember if someone mentions the presidents' actions or not, but if she knew the president was in the brig, it would have been the perfect time for her programming to kick in. The civilian leader is down, so take out the military leader and the fleet breaks out into chaos.

That's my theory anyway. Whether she had this programming all along or got it from the Sharon copies, I donno. But I think the time was right to take a shot at Adama, so the Cylons took control of her and did it.