Well... The miniseries started us out at SNAFU (situation normal: all fracked up). I'd say things jumped to TARFU (things are really fracked up) when the fleet had to jump and abandon the non-FTL-capable ships to the Cylons. When things escalated from TARFU to FUBAR (fracked up beyond all recognition), I couldn't say, but this episode has moved us squarely from FUBAR to TASFUIRA (things are so fracked up it's really amazing), and I know of no higher operating condition.
Mrs. Tigh needs a large dose of explosive decompression. No wonder our poor henpecked Saul lives in a bottle.
It's gotta be a little galling for Starbuck to have been ambushed by a Triad -- sorry, Pyramid -- team, but I'd say things are looking up (for the moment) on Caprica.
The felgercarb-storm that Tigh created and fed whilst in command is turning into a fascinating story arc, especially now that Commander Adama is back on his feet. Saul's got a lot to answer for...
And I feel so sorry for Tyrol. He gets back to find out Boomer shot the Commander, only to find himself suspected of being a Cylon, too. Thanks to Baltar, his revulsion to Boomer gets shaken up and his unshakable love starts coming through again -- just in time for Boomer to get shot and killed by Kally. Man.
--Jonah
Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :
quote:Originally posted by Peregrinus: Mrs. Tigh needs a large dose of explosive decompression.
I'm glad somebody else wants to see this woman die a terrible death.
quote:And I feel so sorry for Tyrol. He gets back to find out Boomer shot the Commander, only to find himself suspected of being a Cylon, too. Thanks to Baltar, his revulsion to Boomer gets shaken up and his unshakable love starts coming through again -- just in time for Boomer to get shot and killed by Kally. Man.
That was really what grabbed me in this episode. I didn't even dawn on me until this episode began that Tyrol would suspected of being a Cylon, and then to see Tigh having him tortured... Wow.
And on a similar note, am I the only one that's been having trouble sympathizing with either one of the Boomers?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
By the way, Crashdown appears to be the only one who died since the beginning of the previous episode. The count went from 47 862 to 47 861.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:And on a similar note, am I the only one that's been having trouble sympathizing with either one of the Boomers?
I've frequently thought that Boomer -- the one on the Galactica, that is -- has got one of the rawest deals of all the characters. Mentally, she is (was?) fully Human, not realizing her identity, and thus being manipulated on a subconscious level. In effect, she had a split personality, and one had no awareness of what the other was doing. She was subconsciously forced to use the people she cared for most against themselves (ironically, both by the Cylons, in forcing her to exploit poor Tyrol, and by Baltar, who was playing mind games with her).
I don't know what to think about the one who was on Caprica with Helo... that's a tougher one to figure out. Number Six commented about how the Boomer model was a "flawed" one, but that seems really bizarre, considering how the Cylons seem to be striving towards perceived sentience and equality/similarity with Humans. Were I to speculate, I'd say that Boomer was probably one of the last of the humanoid models in the first batch of twelve, and probably ended up the most Human-like. Since she (both copies that we've seen the most of) has the most Human-like qualities, those qualities which make her sympathetic and allow her to relate to us are exactly the qualities that are also being used against her. It's really pretty twisted, I think.
On another matter... I've got this sinking feeling, deep down, that these "Resistance" members are all in fact Cylons, and that the Cylons are for whatever nutty reason trying to pull the exact same trick that Boomer pulled on Helo in season one, only on a larger scale, and this time against both Helo and Starbuck. Think about it: the original subject(s) are stranded, lost and alone, and are suddenly "rescued" out of the blue by a savior that they didn't know even existed. They're then led on some kind of cat-and-mouse adventure across Caprica that's supposed to explore and reveal something crucial about either the Cylons or the Humans (or probably both).
"There's an old, old Earth saying, Mister Sulu: 'Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me.'" What do you think?
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Except that there are more than 12 individuals in the resistance group, and the mini specified there are only 12 types of Cylons.
Nothing to stop them from making more, however.
That's the drawback with this type of plot device, though. It's gonna get old and can easily get pulled out of the hat. "Oh, we're stuck. Well, let's just reveal that so-and-so is a Cylon."
Are there really 8 Cylons in the fleet? We may never know...
quote:Saul's got a lot to answer for...
But I doubt he will. I mean, next week Martial Law is still in place, the preisdent is still on the run and Adama is in command with Tigh at his side. Situation is the same, just the players have changed.
With this Boomer dead, does it make room for the Caprica Boomer to come onboard with the baby?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
If that Space Basketball team were Cylons, why would they have been talking amongst themselves about how they thought Helo and Starbuck were Cylons? Just on the off-chance someone was hiding nearby and overheard them?
I could see maybe a Cylon or two having infiltrated their little commune, but I don't see all, or even a large number, of them being Cylons.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Highlights: Roslin confronting the guard during her escape. Baltar extracting information from Boomer. (One of the only things we've seen him do that wasn't explicitly at the urging of Six.) Cally punching that guy.
I thought it was a little weird that Billy would help out in all the planning but not escape with them because he thought what Roslin was doing was wrong. (According to the downloadable commentary thing, the actor was trying out for a pilot, and they needed a way to have him not be around for awhile, or, if said pilot was picked up, be around at all. But it wasn't.)
It also seemed like they had a lot of help with the jailbreak. If Adama hadn't come back, just how long would Tigh have been able to hold on to command? And what's with Gaeta? Disagreements should be taken through the proper channels, but then he covers for Dualla?
Did the eight Cylons include Boomer?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: If that Space Basketball team were Cylons, why would they have been talking amongst themselves about how they thought Helo and Starbuck were Cylons? Just on the off-chance someone was hiding nearby and overheard them?
I could see maybe a Cylon or two having infiltrated their little commune, but I don't see all, or even a large number, of them being Cylons.
Whoops, you're right -- I forgot about that little scene at the beginning. Whew! Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
quote:If that Space Basketball team were Cylons, why would they have been talking amongst themselves about how they thought Helo and Starbuck were Cylons?
Maybe if they all THOUGHT they were human? But that's just a thought. If any one of them is a Cylon, it's the one that's obviously gonna bang Starbuck. Get the other side of the pregnancy picture going. But then, I don't see Starbuck keeping a baby.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Bit of a ludicrous gun overload this time round. The colonies have somehow, in a burst of parallel development, manufactured Uzi and Skorpion machine pistols. It makes it hard for you to suspend disbelief that we're seeing an alien culture, especially after seeing a Hummer/Humvee. They did a nice job of dressing the pistols (revolver and semi-auto ones), and you could shrug off having the occasional P90 popping up. But it's all becoming a bit hard to ignore.
Also, where exactly does one pick up a SA80 (the British Army rifle) in the US or Canada? Are they on sale there? This is the second time we've seen one appear (that I know of, anyway - the other time was Zac Adama's honour guard where you saw several). I know there are replicas available, and they very rarely use real guns on sets these days anyway, but I'm curious. But, hey! It's an 'alien' weapon I myself have fired. Cool.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Which brings me right back around to one of my biiiiig problems with the entire series: the Twelve Colonies of Kobol are advanced, space-faring cultures who have FTL propulsion and were able to create (don't get me started on this -- that's a whole 'nother rant) a "race" of artificially-intelligent beings... but they use slugthrowers as sidearms and all the weapons we've seen their ships fire are projectile-based, as well.
One of the things I loved about the original series was the Colonial Warriors' CO2 laser pistols -- bright white flash at the muzzle simultaneous with a small explosion at the aim-point. No "laser bolt" effect. They did it like a real pulse laser would do it (if we get the guts miniaturised to that point).
--Jonah
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I will bet right now that lasers will never ever ever replace propelling small bits of matter at high velocities as the primary means of killing people and breaking their stuff.
Maybe.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
There are a lot of "parallel development" points that gripe me. It's one of the areas where I feel TOS really excelled at over the new one.
It's an alien culture. True, they are all human, but it's still a foreign, alien culture. Why is it they know about Craps and rolling six the hard way?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I admit, when you look at what we saw of the Twelve Colonies, it seems hard to believe they'd have been able to create a race of sentient AIs that would then be able to equal then better their creators in technological development. They obviously have sophisticated computers, but I'm still in the dark about how networking them all together makes them so much more vulnerable to hacking by Cylon Wi-Fi.
Perhaps the original Cylon war left humanity at a slightly-lower stage of development? If a lot of the sum total of human knowledge is stored in computers, and those computers bugger off as part of the Cylon exodus, then you're left with what's in college textbooks!
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
ACK! Not that, anything but that!
I always figured the problem was that some computer systems, say the navigational ones, were required to have a contact with the outside world to function properly. I mean, not much point to navigational computers without the ability to pick up EM radiation, right? SOME systems are gonna be vunerable no matter what. The point is to isolate those from the other systems. Keeping the completely internal systems from connecting to each other is just an additional point of paranoia.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Yeah, I seem to remember the original Miniseries discussion thread getting bogged down on the networking question. . . You'd think they could have a completely internal network, one that connects to no external input/output devices (like sensors, etc.) and the only way of accessing this network was via dedicated terminals (that could not also be used to access external systems) and the only way to input large amounts of data was by purely physical media - optical or magnetic, USB keys, whatever.
Posted by machf (Member # 1233) on :
Their problem may be that they only have networking accessories designed for wireless networks... (yes, it sounds stupid, but I can't think of a better explanation of why the Cylons could be able to easily hack into their computers if they were networked, but they couldn't if they weren't)
Regarding the "parallel development" issues, a friend of mine has this theory that the action doesn't take palce in the present, but in the future, and that the Lords of Kobol originally came from Earth (that being the reason why some of them went back to it instead of the Twelve Colonies, after leaving Kobol). Of course, that would also imply that Earth -unlike in the original series- could be in an advanced state of technological development and be able to help mount an offensive against the Cylons once they finally contact it. Of course, to bring him down, I asked him: "But what if Earth is the new Cylon homeworld?"... Or, what if Earth is populated by Cylons who think they're humans? (There's an early Asimov story suggesting something like that, IIRC)
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Interesting points. I like the cut of your jibb, machy.
Ok, so assuming the new BSG lasts its entire projected run (any indications of how long that might b, BTW?). Obviously we're gonna find out What The Cylons Want. And Who They Are. And Where They Are Going. And maybe even Who They Serve, and Who They Trust.
But should the humans find Earth? And if so, what would they find there? "Hey, Starbuck, look! They have guns and cars that look exactly like ours!" It was no great surprise that original BSG/G'80 would find Earth to be 'our' 'modern' Earth. But if new BSG does the same, it'll come over as even less impressive than Galactica 1980 - if that's possible.
They could arrive in our past, but where's the fun in that? Our future presents more interesting possibilities. And either way, as machf suggests, the population could be Cylon. If in the past, Baltar and Six as Adam & Eve, anyone?
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Hell, I've always loved the mental image of BSG meets TNG (back when TNG was still on the air). Had this hazy mental storyboard of the Enterprise getting its ass kicked by a Borg cube, which suddenly gets blown into tiny, tiny bits. Through the wreckage comes this scary-lookin' mile-long spaceship with a couple of squadrons of fighters flying escort. Then things kind of dissolved into that mental mist of not really knowing how the rest of it would play out.
--Jonah
P.S. Oo, ick! Cylons and Borg join together...? *shudder*
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