Battlestar Galactica's first season began and ended with a bang. It was an amazing collection of thirteen episodes (well, "Tigh Me Up..." was pretty bad) that exemplified the best of an hour-long dramatic television series. Even with the super large cast of main and recurring and not-so-main-or-recurring characters it became impossible to not become super involved in their collective plight: avoiding extinction. And all the plot points! So many threads, woven together expertly -- then again, show headwig Ron Moore worked on Deep Space Nine, and that paid off -- and then the finale. Even though everything was already pretty much in the shitter for these characters ... hey, you can always be more in the shitter: the Chief and Baltar stranded on Kobol; the President arrested; Boomer under guard after shooting Bill Adama; Apollo in chains for turning on Tigh; Starbuck on Caprica after stealing the cylon raider.
That said, Battlestar Galactica's second season premiered tonight on the sci-fi channel and ... wow.
I was, I will admit, a little worried that all of this would be wrapped up in one episode and everyone would be all good and friendly with each other by the end of the hour. Boy is that ever not the case. This is very much Tigh's episode, all about the pressures of command and the rapidly deteriorating situation -- picking up right where "Kobol's Last Gleaming Pt. II" ended, a Cylon basestar shows up and the fleet scrambles to jump. In the confusion, Gaeta forgets to transmit the recently-updated escape coordinates, so Galactica jumps to one place, and the civillian fleet to another. In addition, the Doc was off on one of those civillian ships when Adama was shot, so the surgery Adama needs to survive has to be carried out by ... a medic. I don't want to give away too many plot points except to say that this episode is a great example of "for every foot you step forward, take two back." Every accomplishment achieved by the characters in their various situations is accompanies by a series of setbacks ... all major. The second season is off to just as exciting a beginning as the first season was, and it's going to be a fun several months watching everything unfold. This isn't Star Trek, where everybody likes each other ... particularly after the conclusion of this story arc, everybody is going to be at everyone elses' throat. It's brutal, murderous ... it's hard to relax and watch, y'know? You so want to jump up and try to help make things right even though ... y'know ... it's a tv show.
Everybody's got a part in this episode, and as a result, a lot of people don't have much screentime at all. I think Starbuck is in one scene, but that's fine: this episode's major plot points are with Galactica ... there'll be time enough for the others later).
(If you're reading this, don't be all "Oh, no, I missed it!" Sci-Fi is going to reair the episode at 1am tonight - er, tomorrow morning? and will undoubtedly repeat it later in the week. Check yer' listing.)
Tidbit:
Captain Kelly -- a character seen in the miniseries -- is back after an unexplained absence in season one. His main purpose in the episode is to be Lt. Gaeta's nemesis. Anyway, I'd noticed Kelly's absence in the first season and wondered what'd happened to him. He's back!
Next Episode:
Cylon deathbots on Galactica! Fuck the office building, this is Die Hard in space, baby!
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Uh, yeah.
But: awesome.
Posted by Mighty Blogger Snay (Member # 411) on :
Without doubt!
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Tigh Me Up had one of the best strategic battle scenes ever.
"Backdoor is open... Backdoor is open..."
Tigh with his first blunder of command - He didn't send anyone to check out what penetrated the Galactica's starboard bay.
With all the damage to the starboard bay, where will the returning fighters land? Can they all fit in the port side?
Which reminds me of a complaint I had from the mini-series. A plot hole never closed. The old Vipers couldn't launch from the bay they were end because the end of the bay was taken up by a gift ship. Everyone was told to grab a Viper and take it TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SHIP! Now, how in the world did they do that? Even assuming they used tractors, how did they move the vipers through the Galactica's main hull?
::end rant::
Can't totally blame Tigh yet. Did Apollo make it clear that this was a newly designed Cylon and that it penetrated and stayed in the Galactica?
Convenient that the first time Galactica builds a computer network the Cylons attempt to hack it. Do they attempt to hack computer networks all the time or did they have some inside knowledge?
The guard praying with President Rosylin.... Did he say in prayer that she was a prophet?
Herb
Posted by Mighty Blogger Snay (Member # 411) on :
Herb:
RE: Miniseries complaint. IIRC, there are cut scenes included in the DVD, and in one of them they discuss access tunnels which connect the two launch bays.
Ron Moore hinted on his blog that we'd get a Marine as a recurring character ... I'm almost willing to bet that guy was him.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I was quite surprised at the guard asking to pray with Roslin, and then directly referring to her as a "prophet", but considering the prevalence of religious themes in the show, plus all the mumbo-jumbo spouted by that "High Priestess of Vague Mysticism" (as Television Without Pity has referred to her), I think it makes perfect sense. And it's quite ironic that the guard, while following orders, still obviously is on her side. That should make things very interesting...
Concerning the computer hacking, I think it's perfectly natural... the Cylons, being computer-based, would use every advantage to exploit a potential weakness. The only thing I don't get is exactly how the Cylons would be able to hack into those computers, even though they were networked, if they weren't hooked into some kind of comm system. And wouldn't the Colonials have some sort of better defense against hacking, even if it was forty years old? (Maybe not, I guess, seeing how much the Cylons have advanced...)
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
The 'heavy raider' crashed into the gift shop and seating area we saw in the miniseries, where Adama gave his farewell speach. The crew was pretty busy on the OTHER side of the ship, and getting ready to jump.
Oh, and the ship is a carrier for poop's sake, of course they can transfer vipers to the other flight pod... probably in a hurry, too.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
This network thing is still incredibly stupid. So, the Cylons can't hack into the ship's computers, but, as soon as you hook two of them together, they somehow become accessible by anyone in the vicinty?
Also, the baby. We know there's one baby whose parents are Helo and Sharon the Cylon. So what was Six going on about, saying there was a baby whose parents were she and Baltar? Was she speaking metaphorically just in the sense that the parents were a human and a Cylon? Because, if so, she certainly wasn't making that clear to Baltar. Or is she saying that she did something like transmitting a copy of Baltar's DNA to the Cylons, and another Six somewhere is carrying the baby?
[ July 16, 2005, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: TSN ]
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
It's all gone a bit First Contact, really. I kept expecting Kobol-Six to say to Baltar, "You humans think so three-dimensionally" (the second greatest dialogue-based cop-out in Trek after Worf's "We do not discuss it with outsiders"). And next we're going to have them fighting Borg, er, Cylons on the ship.
Why did Tyrol tell weasel-faced redshirt to leave his backpack, but not Cally? As it was I didn't notice on first viewing that she didn't leave her backpack as well, making me think (when I saw her still wearing it later) I'd spotted a continuity error. Anyone want to give odds on that fire they came under on the way back being a bit friendly in origin?
Bit of added sex appeal: Racetrack is hot, and that medic wasn't too bad either. Even though she was speaking with what Yanks consider a British accent - nobody from the UK really speaks like that apart from Amanda Pays, and we think she's actually putting it on.
As for the errant Kelly, I assume that he was probably senior officer on another watch - Adama, Tigh and Gaeta can't be on duty all the time.
I don't have the miniseries to hand - any info back then on what Adama was doing out of the Fleet, and how he got back in?
I'm not a West Wing fan, but I clearly remember an episode following an assassination attempt on the President, where all his key members of staff have flashbacks about how they came to be doing their jobs for him. Hmm. . .
Nothing comes out of the front of the launchbays, right? The Vipers launch out the sides?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Also - don't like the new opening. They've tighetened up the "The Cylons were created by man" sequence, and the title sequence as well, and I think the magic has gone. The preview bit after the credits was missing too - not sure how I feel about that, the idea had its pros and cons.
One other thing that may be significant - Museum-Six seemed to take a great deal of personal pleasure in kicking Starbuck's posterior: it's as if she knows how Balter feels about Thrace and is more than a little peeved. . . But how does she know? Whatever implant controls/manifests Baltar-Six retains the long-distance download/information-update capability? Powerful little gizmo. . .
Posted by Mighty Blogger Snay (Member # 411) on :
Lee,
Those Raptors might launch from the actual bay ... I think. I don't think we've ever seen it. No, I don't think we heard anything about Adama's departure from the fleet before, or at least nothing beyond a passing reference.
Posted by Trimm (Member # 865) on :
Best line of the show: "Bitch stole my ride"
Classic
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
According to Ron Moore's downloadable commentary thing, Adama and Tigh (and lots of others) were discharged after the conclusion of the first war with the Cylons.
The problem with the network thing, as Tim gets at, is that, if they can get inside the wire connecting one computer to another, what stops them from getting into the connections inside a single computer? It would have been fine if the network was wireless, but we clearly see wires running from console to console, which Gaeta pulls when it comes time to shut the network down.
Ellen Tigh seems determined to get her husband to make hasty decisions. Like, why not get really mad at Gaeta, sweetheart?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I'm still undecided about the impact of "Tigh me up..." - It is entirely conceivable that Ellen Tigh is a Cylon.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
She doesn't have to be a Cylon, you know, she could just be a bitch. Getting her husband to get mad at Gaeta is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Well that's the other thing - she could just be a power-hungry bitch. That's what is very cool about BSG - you don't exactly know where each character stands.
We REALLY don't know if Six is just a figment of Baltar's imagination and everything that has happened could be just dumb luck. They've covered their tracks well. I believe Ron Moore wants to keep it ambiguous.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
The loss of the preview scenes in the opening sequence is awful! That was the best part!
As far as networks go, I think part of the problem is that while certain systems can by nature be accessed from outside (like, say, navigational sensors), those systems aren't generally directly connected to the computer system. The problem lies in connecting vital systems to ones that are related to external communication. At least, that's what would make sense, so I'm assuming that's their explanantion too. Posted by Mighty Blogger Snay (Member # 411) on :
I had the thinking the preview scenes in the opening sequence might just have been cut for this episode, since there was such a lengthy "Previously, On Battlestar..." sequence.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
It's true, there was a lot of credit sequence in the first season - The "season precis," as it were, the "Cylons were created by man" bit I mean; the actual "Previously on BG" bit; then the pre-credits part of the actual episode (there's a name for it, I forget what); then the credits/title sequence; then the flash-preview. That's a lot of stuff to get through every week, especially given how the pre-credits bit of some eps were about 5 or 10 minutes long.
Perhaps Ellen Tigh wants Gaeta punished because he'd then be out of the way, as he's too much of a straight arrow to be corrupted by her?
Mind you, if anyone else ever turns out to be a secret Cylon, my money's on Gaeta anyway. Someone put that transponder in C&C in the miniseries and it needn't have been Doral.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
quote:the pre-credits part of the actual episode (there's a name for it, I forget what)
Teaser, is what I've always called it.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Also, the cutting out of the episode preview altogether would fit with Sci-Fi's chopping of the Stargate opening sequences to 10 seconds each.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Ah, so they've finally discovered the secret speed-dial function of the Stargates. Next they'll be using them to send text and photo messages too.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
And everyone will be transmitted as .rar files
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Fucking .rars.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Yeah, just use Winzip for fuck's sake.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Yes, imagine the xenophobic Ziploids suddenly reprogrammed a gate to decompress only travellers from their own kind and just broke compatibility with the rest of the galaxy where the Rarwinian toolset (capable of easily unpacking even the densest Ziploid stream) was still installed in each gate. It'd go against all the principles of the show. B)
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
a) What are you on? b) I hope you brought enough for everybody.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
And anyway, enough hijacking this thread! It's all a ploy by the Stargate-should-have-its-own-forumites. So, Battlestar Galactica, replicants, whoo, scary! If they were created by men, do you think they got their name because they were fitted with the Intel Cylon processor?
(I now have this idea for an advert for the Cylon processor stuck in my mind - instead of the whirplool and bing-bing-bing-bong sound, you have a red dot that goes left-to-right-then-back twice and a voom-voom, voom-voom sound)
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
So Starbuck's stuck on Caprica now, too. Crap.
I personally wish they'd replace that effects shot of the Vipers landing (reused from the mini). There's only one Mk VII in that shot, and it bounces badly off the landing strip. Apollo's Mk VII is the only one left, and he's a much better pilot than that.
As for Ellen Tigh, I like Apollo's comment (as best I can remember) about that: "If she's not a Cylon, we're really in trouble."
I'm not sure whether I like the new opening music or not yet. I liked the way the original was almost all percussion. Of course, being a drummer, I might be biased.
Re: STARGATE - They meant that the opening credits were cut from 1 minute to 10 seconds, so that Sci-Fi can have 50 more seconds for commercials. That really sucks because I happen to like the music, and the producers think it helps make the show what it is.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)