I have one thing to say: BAH HUMBUG FOR MIRACLE CURES.
It had to completely cure the cancer? It couldn�t just delay the inevitable by a year? This plotline reeked of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
I like Roslin. I like the character. And one thing about the character was that she was supposed to die. I hate when tv shows build this great, tragic flaw into a character onto to pull back at the last moment and say �Sike! Just kidding!� Laura�s cancer storyline were just a big cock tease, and this episode just seemed � oh! It�s frustrating.
I don�t thing BSG would be better if Laura died, actually, I think it might get worse � one of the best things about the show is the incredible civillian/military dynamic between Roslin and Adama. But I just can�t get it out of mind that it could have been handled better. I hope that perhaps the cancer will reappear in a few seasons with a powerful vengeance and kill Roslin, perhaps we find Adama the elected President by that point and he gets to put down fascist uprisings by Admiral Tigh. Heh.
***
Mention of the Pegasus, but hoorah for not seeing her or any of her crew. I�m sure we�ll see the ship from time to time but, really, it�s not Battlestar Galactica & Pegasus.
***
Wow. Sharon II is pissed about them Marines trying to abort her kid against her will. And good for Helo for standing up to Adama, even if he did almost get turned into �swiss lieutenant� for it. Here�s a wild bet: this will still end badly.
***
�I am not the man you think I am.�
A line delivered by Baltar, directed not just at �Gina�, but at the audience. Gaius Baltar is the man whose actions most directly provided for the downfall of the Colonies, as his relationship with the Cylon-agent �Gina/Number Six� gave the Cylons access to top-secret information at the Ministry of Defense and the opportunity to sabotauge the Colonies� defenses.
Ever since he realized his accidental role in the near genocide of mankind, Baltar has been on the uber-defensive, every action on behalf of the Cylons taken to cover-up his own guilt. Yet here Baltar seemed to look at his actions, to look at the path he�d chosen for himself, and to make a conscious decision to damn the consequences and make sure he acted in the best way to ensure the survival of the human race � namely, by discovering the �miracle cure� and keeping Roslin alive (and as President).
Then he reads the letter Roslin had written him for him to read after her death. Yeah, Laura. Great choice of words. Baltar looked at the path he chose, a path of Cylon collusion, and he carefully stepped away from it. Then he got his feelings hurt in a letter, jumped on a bus, and signed boldly on the dotted line that read �Traitor.�
This kind of character development and treatment is why I LOVE THIS SHOW.
***
When Baltar freed �Gina� from the Pegasus in the last episode, she killed Admiral Cain, then started looking for ways to sabotauge the fleet she found herself with. So she found her way to join (or start) a radical-left-wing peacenik (but, y�know, with exceptions for trying to kill Viper pilots and succeeding at killing tanker-carrier crews) organization screaming �fascism!� at the military (frankly, however, not an entirely unjustified review of Adama�s command) and demanding peace with the Cylons.
As far as �peace with the Cylons� goes, of course, it takes two to tango, and I seem to recall that even offering an unconditional surrender wouldn�t stop the bloodlust of the Cylons. On the other hand, �Gina� doesn�t neccessarily want the organization to succeed � she just wants the fleet to tear itself apart so that the Cylons can pounce.
Roslin�s biggest strength � strong leadership � also seems to be a big downfall here. Releasing the spokesman for the organization to allow for negotiations (provided there are no other acts of violence), he is intercepted by Baltar who provides him with � the nuclear warhead, given to him by Adama for the �Cylon detector� last season.
Whooooooops.
Yeah, Roslin, great word choice with your letter.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
I thought it was interesting seeing into Laura's past through her sickness-induced haze. So she and the Prez were an item? I don't know if it was improper or not, since I don't know if either of them were married.
Also, she remembers seeing Baltar with Gina! And she very nearly calls him on it, too. Not sure why she didn't, though. Maybe she wasn't entirely sure it wasn't just the cancer playing tricks with her mind.
Forget Starbuck. I'm suprised Cat hasn't slugged a superior officer yet. She's got issues.
B.J.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
I thought that the leader dying was a big issue, being prophesied that the dying leader would lead hem to the 13th tribe. How can she forfill this if she's not terminal?
Roslin may haveheld off calling Baltar on her visions due to the fact that he had come up with the cure for her. I would imagine that something like this occuring could throw a curve ball in to ripping in to him.
I began the series with sever misgivings, but have enjoyed it a lot.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I'll be really interested to see where the storyline with Gina goes. I'm not sure that she's working with the Cylons' general agenda. Like Boomer, the Cylons' agenda placed her in a unique position to get a radical change in psyche. It certainly appears that she's trying to sow insurrection against the military and trying to divide public opinion � certainly this "peace with the Cylons" idea is probably too wacky to come from anyone but Gina (though you never know for sure). However, considering the continual "plans within plans" nature of Galactica's plots, I reserve judgment for future episodes.
Concerning the curing of Laura's cancer... well, yeah, it would've been a bit less of a deus ex machina if her cancer had simply been put into remission. But, considering the sci-fi-ness of the show and the fact that the Cylons can do wacky things like jam fiber-optic cables up their wrists to hook into computer networks...
I'm really pissed because the phone rang for a few seconds just as Baltar was reading Laura's letter, so I missed a couple of sentences. I still got the gist of it, but the dramatic effect was still greatly reduced. Of course, the key here isn't what Laura wrote, but rather that Baltar opened the note before she died. Obviously the letter was intended for a completely different mindset. (Also, Baltar seemed to completely miss the point of the letter, in that it was to provide advice and alternate points of view rather than to chide and indicate a lack of trust.)
A couple of things I was quite surprised but still disappointed about: Laura and President Adar were secret lovers? Yeesh! Also, way to rip off "Commander in Chief" with the news that Adar wanted Roslin to resign, and the fight for her job was going to begin once she got back from the Galactica.
Finally, I really wonder if Roslin is going to remember that she actually saw Baltar making out with Number Six in Caprica City before the attack, or if she'll dismiss it as a pain- or drug-induced hallucination or flawed memory. Of course, combined with Baltar's misinterpretation of her letter and his "gift" of the nuclear warhead, this will clearly serve to shift him much closer to the villain role than we've seen him since the early first season when he was doing everything he could to cover his own ass.
And then there's poor Sharon. She's not likely to forget this incident, thinking that the only thing that saved her baby's life was the fact that they could use "it" to cure Roslin's cancer, thus meriting "further study" � translation: more experiments. And I'm liking Helo more and more now. Rock on for standing up to the Commander Admiral!
Regardless, I liked this episode, because even while it was maintaining stability of a sort by not killing Roslin, it was still screwing things up majorly and creating a huge shift in the positions of several characters.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"One of the most interesting things about being president is that you don't have to explain yourself. To anyone."
Evidently, the president of the Colonies is not democratically elected. Because, theoretically, a democratically elected president has to explain himself to everybody. (Current events notwithstanding.)
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
I think you're reading a bit too much into that statement.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I think there's a difference between having to explain yourself and being responsible for your actions. The Office of the President is a position of authority; by nature the person in that position tells other people what to do from time to time. However, if a subordinate doesn't agree with whatever they've been told to do, the President is not necessarily obligated to explain why they're giving that particular order.
Of course, refusing to explain yourself too often will lead to frustration, doubt, and loss of trust. So it's something that reasonably isn't invoked very often, but it is a reasonable argument.
That's one of the things that I love about Adama's character; too often the lead character will question someone's decisions for the sake of drama and argument, but Adama, being a trained military commander, accepts Laura's verdict without argument once she's spoken. It's subtle, but important. He knows the principle of not needing to explain yourself... 'cause he never needs to explain himself to his own crew when he gives apparently strange orders.
It all comes down to trust.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: "One of the most interesting things about being president is that you don't have to explain yourself. To anyone."
Evidently, the president of the Colonies is not democratically elected.
Or, more specifically, doesn't have the chance to be democratically elected again. Single-term presidents unencumbered by party politics would be quite a bit more willing to flip the bird to the proverbial media, one would think.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
This was probably thr stupidest episode to date, if not the worst. Compared to this, "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" made sense.
So, dig it, right? Humans have hexagonal blood and Cylons have octagonal. So if we inject someone with blood from a human-Cylon hybrid (just out of interest, what shape would this blood be? Heptagonal?) this will near-instantly cure them of cancer. And you don't even have to worry about blood types or tissue rejection - unless that's what the convulsions were all about, before the Cylon antigens started working.
This could herald a massive change in the Roslin character's arc on the show. The whole point was, she was dying so did whatever she wanted to ensure the survival of her people. Now she has posterity to worry about.
Meanwhile, Gina goes from being suicidal - and wanting to help humans destroy the Flying Toastrack so that there'd be no hope of resurrection for this incarnation of herself - to actively helping a Cylon appeasement group (despite knowing such an aim would be pointless). It's another suggestion, then, that Baltar-Six doesn't really exist - otherwise, Gina-Six would know that she existed, would someday be extracted, and would immediately report Gina for not trying to stop or warn of the attack on the Resurrection Ship. (Unless, that is, she'd been in-cover long before the attack on the colonies so had no way of knowing Six had pulled a Harvey on Baltar)
Colm Feore is a reasonable well-known character actor, they're doing well with their guest-stars. Can't help but think, though, that they could have given the group some other stated aim and used it to being back Tom Zarek. I can't see Zarek pushing for peace negotiations with the Cylons.
Yet another double-about-turn by Baltar. It's getting tedious. "Oh, the President wrote me a slightly-patronising letter, so I'll go right back to betraying my species." If Billy's a Cylon, that letter could be a fake, though. . .
We all know where that nuke's gonna end up, don't we? The Pegasus.
I thought this ep was going to reveal who Six met with way back in the miniseries, after leaving her meeting with Baltar that Roslin observed. Perhaps that'll happen in the upcoming Cylon POV show.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Damn. Pegasus. I hadn't thought of that. Nice, Lee.
I too had issues with the actions and reason behind this episode. I believe that Baltar stated that Sharon's baby was absent the antigens we generally use to test the bloodtype of a person. We know that a transfusion of blood of the wrong type will likely result in profound illness, but the mechanism which causes this is not well understood. If the human-cylon hybrid blood is completely without the structures which would trigger an immune response, then it could potentially be a universal donor. Provided that it actually acted like blood and did the sorts of things that blood is supposed to do. I suspect there are a number of substances which do not contain A or B antigens or have a Rhesus factor that might even destroy cancerous tissue but would still kill you if you injected it into your vein. Battery acid, for example.
But we know that the human-cylon blood is difficult to dinstinguish from human blood (though if it is a matter of 6 or 8 ring carbon, I can't imagine why it would be). Anyway, granted the conceit that it performs the same function as human blood, but with the added benefit of eating cancer and leaving no trace (which violates some thermodynamics thing, I'm certain), then perhaps it might work. But there's some pretty sketchy science going on there. Maybe I'm just excited for more Mary McDonnell goodness.
I actually had a bigger problem with the B story. While the idea of a pacifist movement is certainly topical, I can't imagine that many people who had narrowly escaped the clutches of the enemy only to witness the people they loved along with the surfaces of their respective planets vaporized in firey, atomic holocaust would ever be able to really get behind a peacenik movement. Certainly not one who were calling it a foolish and uneccessary war. Which isn't even getting into the using violence to stop violence thing. And also now Gina is somehow not recognized by anyone as being a Cylon? Because didn't they put out postings through the fleet to be on the lookout for these individuals believed to be Cylon agents, like on the TV or whatever. And there was posters of Leoban and Six. It just doesn't seem plausible at this point. Maybe after they've been hitting the cylons for a couple months and losses are mounting with no end in sight. But not now.
And Baltar does seem a little too eager to reject the human cause and embrace his cylon masters (although, I'm not sure how well I'd fare if they came in the appealing form of Tricia Helfer).
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yeah, I also agree that the peacenik movement is a bit farfetched, but I don't think it's implausible. For one thing, assuming that Gina was the one who started it, the fact remains that the people of the fleet are tired, hungry, and stressed-out, and they just want the struggle to end. It's perfectly believable that at least a few would buy into the crazy notion that the Cylons are superior and we need to make peace with them.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
It might have been better set up if they'd lost one of the civvie ships during the battle last week.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Yes, pony-tail and glasses, that'll fool 'em. To quote Tempus: "There is one question that keeps coming up: "How dumb was she?" Here, I'll show you what I mean. Look (puts glasses on), I'm Clark Kent! (Takes glasses off) No, I'm Superman! (Puts glasses on) Mild-mannered reporter. (Takes glasses off) Superhero. Hello! Duh! Clark Kent IS Superman. Ha, ha, ha! Well, that was worth the whole trip. To actually meet the most galactically stupid woman who ever lived!"
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Do you think they'll figure out they may be able to develop a better Cylon detector now? If the baby's blood is special and eats cancer, are there any special properties in Cylon blood? Is Cylon blood a different "shape" for lack of a better word?
Has anyone called Baltar on the carpet for mis-identifying Sharon as NOT a Cylon? Or does anyone know he said she was human?
I didn't think about nuking the Pegaus either, but that makes sense.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
After the attempted assassination of Adama - alliteration ahoy! - Tigh did say something to Baltar about how come she'd been cleared like everyone else, and Baltar just said he'd have to improve his test. Or something like that.
Really I'm amazed that no-one's said anything about him yet. "Epiphanies" had the most blatant example of him apparently speaking to mid-air in public that we've seen yet. Although no-one has any real reason to suspect what's really going on,you'd think they might have thought twice about his mental state and his suitability for a) heading the Cylon-detection effort, b) having the run of the Fleet, and access to a nuke, and c) being Vice-President of the Colonies!
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
*Completely random observation*: Did anyone else notice that when Cat and Starbuck were headed back to the Galactica, it looked like they were going into the *front* end of the port bay?
B.J.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yeah, I noticed that. It makes sense that they'd go for the closest entrance in an emergency situation. It's just that it's supposed to be easier for most landings to approach from the rear, 'cause the pilots can take it easy rather than go for a hard landing.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Plus if you always go in for the rear approach, she may start feeling you don't respect her anymore.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
You know, it's just occurred to me, they're pretty vague when it comes to showing how fighters are launched. You see the fighters emerging, but the camerawork is full of that faux-reality hand-held nonsense that it's impossible to tell where they actually come from.
Not that the original series was any better, you could see down the whole length of the landing bay - yet where were the launch tubes?!
Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on :
I think they're supposed to be under the landing strip, don't quote me on it though.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Original BSG the landing area was between where the fithers sat and the launch tubes.
I had a Battlestar Galactica board game that had little detailed pictures of the landing bay.
I can Google and find pictues of the boardgame, but the image is too small to show the inside of the bay.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
I seem to recall both shows indicating that the launch tubes propelled vipers out the sides of the pods, perpendicularly from the direction of travel and perhaps even at a jaunty angle with respect to vertical. I just assume that there are launch tubes immediately adjacent to the engineering bays just beneath the main landing bays in either pod. (But what have we learned about assumption?)
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I do recall a couple of effects shots that showed relatively clearly that the Vipers launch from the sides of the pods, underneath the landing bay area. I'll see if I can get a quick movie clip posted in slow-mo to illustrate...
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
While I'd imagine Vipers could launch from the flight deck, we see them emerge from the launch tubes under the deck. Generally, the fighters apply thrusters and bank hard to wherever the threat is.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Oh hey, if you can do that, then you could get a caputre of the shot I'm thinking of. Really, any image that shows a pilot's eye view of the landing on Galactica. I'm thinking the end of the first episode where Apollo and Starbuck peel off and land in either bay.
Yes, it's definitely been made clear the vipers do launch out of the sides of the pods, perpendicular to the direction of travel of the Galactica.
Although it took a long time before that point was clear to me. What can I say, at 7 years old (in 1978) I couln't figure out where they launched from, I just knew it wasn't from out of the "front" or "back" of the pods.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I guess that, even back in 1979, I just assumed that since everything lands at the back, they all came out the front. But now I think about it, we never did see Vipers launch out the front did we?
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Actually, we did. I just never noticed it at the time.
My wife bought me the original series on DVD for our first anniversary. I watched the series with my step-son and, sure enough, there are shots of the vipers launching from the bays with a camera angle shooting "down" toward the landing pod and vipers flying out.
Although I think the new series does a much better job of showing them launching out of the side pods.
Posted by Bones McCoy (Member # 1480) on :
The prophecy says she's gonna die.
...
It doesn't say she's gonna die of cancer...
DUM DUM DUUUUM
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think it just says they the "Leader" would have a wasting disease and that she would not set foot on the "promise land". Thats the thing with prophecies, the context is everything. Just look at Babylon 5, they dropped hints to most of the major plot threads within the first few episodes. Which may seam blatant in hindsight, but without the context, you really have no idea where the story will go.
Posted by Not Invented Here (Member # 1606) on :
quote:Originally posted by HerbShrump: Yes, it's definitely been made clear the vipers do launch out of the sides of the pods, perpendicular to the direction of travel of the Galactica.
Having just bought the miniseries+season 1 from Amazon, I can second this. The first time the Mark II Vipers are launched it's very obvious they come out of the side.
On another note, for those that have the DVD, take a close look at the picture the engineering crew give Adama of his early years. I swear Adama is the Fonz incarnate.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Actually, I think it says "a dying leader" ... but, dying of what?
![[Wink]](wink.gif)