posted
I was trying to think of a good introductory sentence for this post.
First it was "Gaeta's uniform isn't prim & proper!"
Then it was, "Gaeta smokes!"
Then how could I resist, "Gaeta has a tatoo!"
But then I was like, "Aw shit, Starbuck's back in the cockpit!" (For those of you paying attention, Starbuck's character, a fighter pilot, hasn't been in a cockpit since the fourth episode of the 1st season -- in other words, sixteen episodes ago).
And then, how could I resist, "Aw shit, we know another Cylon!"
Hell, she played everybody. Xena was always going to put out a fluff piece (regardless of how accurate) to engraciate herself to the Galactica's crew. Gain their trust, become a regular pipeline of information to the Cylon command on Caprica. Surprising? Hey, I didn't see it coming, so let that inform your judgement.
There's a lot to like about this episode -- it's sort of like "a day in the life". I particularly enjoyed seeing the operations of Tyrol's crews aboard the flight deck. One thing I never liked about Star Trek Voyager was that no matter how many years it'd been since the ship had last seen a starbase's "Merry Maid" detachment, the ship always looked brand new. Like, when you first see the Colonial Viper Mk II in the miniseries, they've got sparkling paint jobs and they're gleaming in their white and red paint schemes. Here, several scenes focuses on Kat's Viper, which is burned, blackened, the paint is peeling, it looks like me after six rounds with Mista' T. I commented in another post that the Galactica's hanger deck was similarly scarred. THAT'S AWESOME! It reinforces the illusion that the ship has been away from maintence for close to a year, and just those little details makes it all so much more real.
There's not a whole lot else I can say about the episode. Captain Kelly makes a rare appearance -- I guess he's the "Boss" of the flight pattern. Looks like Lee's back as CAG (not surprising), I'm a little curious about one thing - Hot Dog chases Kat into the pilot's rack, and Lee chases him back out chiding him for coming into senior officers' bunks. Maybe its just a misunderstanding, but Hot Dog and Kat were both enlisted from the fleet and trained together -- shouldn't they be the same rank? On the other hand, maybe Lee intended the chide for both of them. Whatever - you'd think as CAG, Lee would rate his own cabin.
Lee and Starbuck are the leaders of the flight squadron, and Starbuck demonstrates her leadership clearly in several instances -- first, breaking up a fight between Kat and Tyrol, and then trying to assist a drug-addled Kat into a not-so-non-crashy landing. We haven't seen a lot of Starbuck in her job on Galactica lately (obvious reasons why), and it's great to see her getting into the swing of things.
The Corridor of Photos, last seen I think in the first season opener, is back. It's particularly resonating what with the upcoming four-year anniversary of September 11th (from which the producers admit they got the idea), plus photos I saw briefly on CNN of a similar wall in New Orleans, with photos and notes of and to family and friends, from the victims of Katrina.
A big deal is made about the "Massacre at Gideon", during which Galactica Marines, in an attempt to retrieve supplies neccessary for the ship, opened fire on a hostile mob and killed four. Lt. Palladino, a pilot who led the mission, apparently is a bit unhinged about the whole incident and finally snaps, ready to take out the man who ordered it - Tigh. "Snapping under stress" seems to be a recurring theme of the episode, but one I hope the show revisits. This brings up something else: Galactica has a rather large Marine detachment aboard, yet earlier in the season the point was made that there weren't enough Marine NCOs to command the number of raiding parties Tigh ordered (this is why Palladino was in command on Gideon). Ok. So the Marines don't have a lot of NCOs, and apparently, they don't have any Marine officers, either? Something fishy, there ...
What was wrong with Sharon? I mean, besides the blood on her hands.
One complaint -- two episodes ago, everyone was at each other's throats. Now they're all buddy-buddy again. I would've liked to see some conflict between Starbuck and Tigh or something, y'know, something along the lines of, "Meh, I still don't trust you."
Did Billy even get a line this episode? I think he was in the background of the teaser. Oh, yes -- this is also the first time I can remember seeing Colonial One this season.
Well, that's it for me. Two weeks until the mid-season break, and then no more Galactica until January.
posted
Billy was there during the viewing of the story, at the end.
I thought this one was OK. I mean, it was nice to see some quieter moments from various people, like Gaeta. (Felix. And for that matter, Anastacia Dualla.) But I guess I wasn't blown away or anything.
The ending changes things up, though. I mean, we still don't know how hard the Cylons were trying to blow up Galactica before, but they now seem agreed not to try that now. (Despite what the preview for next week suggests, I guess.) [On the other hand, Leoban and Simon weren't in the theater.] So, assuming that their attempts to track Sharon down earlier were genuine, are they going to allow her to give birth on Galactica, or will they try to retrieve her before then?
Oh, and that reminds me: the Cylons used this opportunity to find out whether Sharon had made it to the fleet. So either Baltar's Six couldn't tell them or chose not to.
Survivors: 47,853.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Fun subtitle facts (decoded only with the help of those downloadable commentaries): Lee Adama is (or I guess was, at this point) in the Reserves.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Interestingly enough there are people like Lee Adama, who has an R after his, uh, name. Quite often the Navy, the ROTC program, is a reserve program. The idea is you go into the service and serve active duty for four years, six years, whatever you commit to, depending on the program you're in, and then after that you take a commission in the reserves unless you're offered a commission as a regular serving officer. And so I thought that someone like Lee Adama essentially went in like that, and was heading for the reserves at some point . . . but the point was that Lee was not somebody who was on the full career path . . . in the show bible I stroked out Lee's backstory saying that he was a test pilot; he was going a different route from his father in that his father wanted to command a battlestar and Lee didn't want to do that . . . always liked the idea that Lee very much did not want to follow in his father's footsteps . . . at some point he did not want to make this his life
posted
Something I saw mentioned elsewhere that is now gnawing at me: The Cylons are watching the film at the end, which was transmitted to them under cover of a raider attack, which happened while the story was still being filmed.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
One thing I've been feeling in recent years is that the various plot "twists" in various sci-fi stories are easily predictable, ones that I can see coming at least ten or twenty minutes in advance. Certainly every show has both its obvious and not-so-obvious plot twists, like SG-1 last night (I could see that what's-his-name was going to turn out to be the not-dead guy's brother, and would be fighting Mitchell). But this week's episode (I just finished watching it now, had to work late last night) was incredibly mind-blowing at the end. It was that rare plot twist that was not telegraphed in any way ahead of time, but still made absolutely perfect sense, regardless. Kudos to the BSG writers for such an awesome story!
Sol: I don't think the raider attack was supposed to be the transmission period. When I was watching the show, and the raiders popped up, I thought, "How convenient that Reporter Lady gets the perfect shot to film the Galactica crew doing their most critical job -- protecting the fleet from the Cylons." Yeah, it was a plot device... but it was a plot device that the Cylons created for their own purposes. That's what I love about the whole surprise most of all. I expected that the raider attack would be just written off as random -- but instead, the Cylons deliberately staged the attack for their own purposes!
Concerning the problem of fighter pilot burnout, I guess it's a good thing that the Pegasus will be showing up in a couple of weeks...
Oh, one other really neat nuance that caught my eye: In the first seconds of seeing Number Six react to the cut footage of Sharon in Sickbay, for a split moment I thought she was reacting in disgust (at the commotion and apparent possible cruelty towards Sharon). Then that expression became a smile. A very nice touch there, very good acting.
Snay: Concerning Galactica's well-worn appearance... considering that Moore worked with the Voyager staff for a few weeks, and that multiple comments that he's made in the podcasts have been subtly-phrased but very pointed criticisms of Trek, and Voyager in particular, I'm not surprised in the least that they're taking the time to make sure all the sets look beat-up. After they've started placing the survivor tally from the President's "Whiteboard of Doom" in the opening credits, I think it's the least they can do...
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
Oh, and one more important bit: We've now got the identity of six out of the twelve models of Cylon. (I've been assuming that the "twelve models" that they referenced in the miniseries were just the Human-type ones... am I misremembering that?)
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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quote:Concerning the problem of fighter pilot burnout, I guess it's a good thing that the Pegasus will be showing up in a couple of weeks...
I think I read somewhere that Pegasus is worse off on Vipers than Galactica!
quote:Oh, and one more important bit: We've now got the identity of six out of the twelve models of Cylon. (I've been assuming that the "twelve models" that they referenced in the miniseries were just the Human-type ones... am I misremembering that?)
No, I think you're right ... of course, it's always possible that the Cylons have since created more models. We're meeting a lot of the new Cylons this season -- the Doctor a few episodes ago, now Xena, and as I understand it, another Cylon is on Pegasus.
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
As a result of Home Part 2, I now conjecture that BSG is actually set in our distant future. The reference the 'ancient names' of the Twelve Colonies, which are the names of the constellations as we know them.
My conjecture is solidified by a far more thrown away line from this episode. When Kat and the other pilot run into the pilots' quarters, what's-his-name calls them Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, a reference to contemporary Earth literature.
Now, sure, it could be a slip up of improv, but the actual dialogue is actually integral to the whole B-Plot of Tigh's death threats, so it was almost certainly more carefully planned and written than it appears.
Also...
HOLY CRAP THE ORIGINAL THEME! OMG WTF BBQ AWESOME!
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
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Re: the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum references ... I wouldn't read much into them, paticularly since Caprica and the other colonies have apparently had a considerable amount of parallel development - Starbuck's Humvee? The P90 the Marines often carry?
"What was wrong with Sharon? I mean, besides the blood on her hands."
Well, given all the concern about saving her baby, I'll give you one guess as to where that blood was coming out of her.
As for the attack, I never got the impression that it had anything to do with the transmission of the story. Has there ever been any indication that the crew has a means of detecting Cylon brain-to-brain (B2B?) downloads?
And the survivor count was the same in the opening credits as in Roslin's office. So I guess we now know for certain that the credits count is "as far as the characters know", i.e. it doesn't discount the remaining undiscovered Cylons.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Well, given all the concern about saving her baby, I'll give you one guess as to where that blood was coming out of her.
Well, I'd imagine if you shoot a pregnant woman anywhere, Doctors would be worried about saving the baby one way or the other. Did the Cylons - when they designed the human Cylons - purposely build flaws to try to replicate the human experience of child-carrying as closely as possible?
quote:As for the attack, I never got the impression that it had anything to do with the transmission of the story.
At the end, the Cylon-brain-trust mentions that the whole purpose for the Cylon attack was to recieve and transmit either the story or the Sharon footage.
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