Battlestar Galactica - The TV show

[seurat]

The show has been very good this year, and I was really impressed by the latest ep in particular. Some stellar acting, from Michael Hogan and Kate Vernon for example, and a great action sequence when Adama 'jumped' the Galactica right into the atmosphere above the camp and released the vipers and then jumped again before the ship could plummet to the ground. Whew!

Nice twist with Kacey at the end too, I didn't see that coming. My favorite secondary character, Cally, didn't make an appearance but I can't complain since she's been in the show quite a lot this season. I'm glad they are back on the ship again and off the planet, but the time there was interesting to say the least and should give them lots of plot points to use in the future.

[boomstick79]

Just watched episode 4 - bloody awesome! 'Nuff said!

~Lou

[Hemiola]

There can be no doubt after viewing the most recent episode how vastly superior the current incarnation of "BG" is to the original version.

Here we have all that was missing from the original: human drama, psychological depth, and profound insight into character. The original was little more than a comic-book-style ripoff of "Star Wars" and "Star Trek".

The most extraordinary thing for me is that I actually can manage a degree of pity for Baltar--something that was impossible for the cartoonish character in the original (even though he was portrayed by the marvelous John Colicos!).

On another note, isn't Lucy Lawless lookin' fiiiiiiiiiinnnne.

[FineyMcFine]

Truly, this is one of the best shows on television!

[seurat]

Although not as amazing as last week's ep, the latest ep was still very good. I'm not all that intrigued by what happens to Baltar with the Cylons, but all of the action on the Galactica was interesting. Secret trials, discipline beginning to break down, Tigh going off the deep end and Starbuck going out so far she can't even see the deep end anymore. She was pretty wild at Gaeta's trial, and looked pissed when her own taunting of him accidentally proved him innocent. Loved Roslin in this ep, she can be my president anyday. (Or prime minister. Whatever.) I suspect some of the resistance vets, especially Tigh, aren't going to be too happy with Roslin though.

[SySnootles]

Starbuck finally cut her hair. Woo hoo!

And it was the best episode of the season by far, in my opinion. Let's hope it stays on track for a while.

[Gatito Grande]

...and this week's (A Measure of Salvation) was, if anything, even better!

GG This show TOTALLY rules! Out

Agreed, Hemi, re LL (duh!)

[SySnootles]

I wasn't particularly fond of this week's episode. I wanted to throttle Helo throughout most of it. The only really good part of the episode (in my opinion) was the President. But she's always good, so that wasn't much of a surprise.

[seurat]

I was actually really impressed with this ep too, and for the first time I found the scenes with Baltar and the cylons interesting too. I really liked the idea that Helo brought up, and that Adama seemed to by sympathetic too as well, which is that genocide is always genocide no matter what the situation. And life is still life, although of course there is some dispute on the show about whether the cylons are truly "alive" or not. The writing just seems to get better and better as this goes along.

[wiccie]

Wow - femslashy subtext becomes maintext...with the usual result. Spoiler alerts necessary, or has everyone here seen the ep that aired in the US Friday Nov.17?

Oh, hi 3 people who might remember me. I'm back - mostly(':pride')

[Gatito Grande]

I believe wiccie (welcome back! I'll remember you, if you remember me? ) is referring to that [which is being gushed over], here

GG La-la-la-LUV this show! Out

[wiccie]

Hi GG - ah, the old days. Linky no worky. And moving on to this week's BSG why the hell has a "boxing episode" become mandatory between-sweeps filler for sci-fi shows????

Oh, yeah, it's cheap and has little or no CGI. Right.

[Giftofamber]

You mean this wasn't a sweeps episode? It felt like one. I mean, finally explaining what happened between Apollo and Starbuck--bout time they did that.

Thanks for the link GG to the lesbian subtext/maintext issue. I probably missed it the first time because I have a tendency to walk away from the screen when I see Baltar. He just repulses me so much. Maybe we'll get lucky and we'll see some of that with the Sharons .

[Ben Varkentine]

There's an entry in the Wired blog here-

http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontent ... tar_g.html

-arguing that Battlestar Galactica has "jumped," or is in danger of jumping. I don't watch the series, so I'll let you who do get into the wrongs or rights of this.

But I wanted to call it to your attention because of the blogger's go-to reference for a show that has gone, shall we say, past its prime:

Will our beloved show go Star Trek:TNG season 7 on us? Or, worse, Buffy season 6?

Emphasis mine. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha. Inch by inch...

[BBOvenGuy]

Will our beloved show go Star Trek:TNG season 7 on us? Or, worse, Buffy season 6?

That's funny.

And yes, the boxing episode was truly dreadful. It should be no surprise that reportedly loved it. It made Calamity Jane Espenson's episode this past Friday look good by comparison - although it too was kind of overwrought and Mary Sue-ish.

It's funny - you hear and Calamity Jane and a bunch of other writers saying, "The audience doesn't really want what they say they want, so you can't give it to them," but then they turn around and write a bunch of stories that could easily have come from bad fanfic. It's not too late for Galactica to pull back from the brink, but they're definitely in trouble at the moment.

[SySnootles]

Well crap. Oh well. I hope they don't drop the "Eye of Jupiter" storyline for a number of reasons now.

[seurat]

I'm nearly certain that Kara will be back, although I have no idea how they are going to do it. As much as the character has frustrated the crap out of me all season ,I still want her back, so whatever crazy thing they come up with to accomplish her return will be fine.

The show has been pretty uneven this season with several dismal ep's, but it still has some great moments and remains one of my favorite shows. The season finale is going to be pretty wild.

[BBOvenGuy]

I'm nearly certain that Kara will be back, although I have no idea how they are going to do it.

I thought that, too, but then I went spoiler-hunting today. Unfortunately, this interview seems to indicate otherwise.

Whether she comes back or not, in retrospect I'm not very surprised that they killed her off. They'd pretty much run the character into the ground over the course of this season. There was nowhere left for her to go.

This show has been on the brink of shark-jumping since the boxing episode. There are three more episodes left in the season - three more chances to see if they'll finally do it.

[seurat]

Bob-

Spoiler:

But there was also a detailed spoiler from someone who had seen a screener of the ep -and we know those do exist - that says Kara is in the final few minutes of the finale ep. Also reveals who four of the final cylons are, all characters we know well. So who knows? I'd like to believe it.

No argument about the guality of this season, the writing has been up and down for awhile now. Maybe they can save it yet though. We'll see.

[BBOvenGuy]

Peter David makes an interesting comment in his latest blog entry

I have to think BSG is gonna take a hit in terms of fan support for this one, a hit that could conceivably damage the show especially when one considers that between the departure of Lucy Lawless's Cylon, the death of Kat and now of Starbuck, strong female characters are dropping like flies. Short term shock value could be hurt by long term anger.

Sound like any other show we've seen?

[SySnootles]

Um, actually no. At least not in my opinion. Buffy was a show which centered around a strong female character, whereas Galactica is very much an ensemble piece. It is true Buffy became more of an ensemble show as it moved along, Galactica has always been a show about characters and their interactions with each other and their surroundings/circumstances. Very different, at least in my opinion. And personally, I hated Kat and was absolutely thrilled when she bit the big one. The episode itself sucked (generic, unoriginal, unnecessary), but I was happy with the outcome.

[sheila wt]

From Cynopsis:

Battlestar Galactica fans will be happy to hear Sci Fi Channel has increased the episode order from 13 to 22 for Season #4, which will also include a special 2-hour event scheduled for 4th qtr 2007, and which will also be later released on DVD. Season Four kicks off early next year.

[SithLordWiccan]

Spoiler:

The Final Five Cyclons are Tigh, Tyrol, Anders, Tory Foster and Starbuck.

Yeah, you heard me. She made an appearance at the end of the episode, saying that she's been to Earth, and will lead the fleet there.

Oh, and Baltar got off Scott free. That THAT Georgina Bush!

[GoodWitch]

Battlestar Galactica's second season episode "Downloaded" just got nominated for a Hugo Award! Wow, was that episode GREAT! Had Lucy Lawless (Xena) in it. What Sharon & Number 6 did to Lucy's character was really cooool! Congrats to BSG for the nomination.

[GoodWitch]

OK The show is getting more than a bit silly, now, so I am going to make a prediction as to the ultimate punchline of the entire show... Are you ready? Here is the outcome of BSG according to GoodWitch:
DR. Baltar is the Only Human. Everyone else is a Cylon... That's right, Adama, President Roslin, Everybody. Baltar really Did help the cylons Totally annihilate the entire human race and that is the reason they kept him alive. All this stuff about being on in a space ship fleet with human survivors? Well, that is just the Cylons performing psychological experiments on the only surviving human... Baltar. That's why he keeps coming close to getting caught but never actually has to pay for his crimes against humanity. There Are No Humans Left to judge him accordingly.
The show is getting more than a little disgruntling so that this really seems to be a logical direction for it to go and for it to end up. But at this point, even the ending I have just described wouldn't surprise me given the season we have just seen.
Oh, and I have a serious question and Another Comment on Starbuck-in-the-last-episode hidden in this spoiler box. Please read if you are so inclined.

Spoiler:

Is anyone else tired of seeing the main and secondary WOMEN killed off? I mean THREE in this season alone.
ORRRR... Starbuck has died and gone to Heaven (Ooops, You mean EARTH, don't you?) And she comes back to Apollo and tells him she wants to lead all of humankind to Heaven (I mean, Earth...). So she is one of the Final Five and trying the kill the rest of the human race by leading them to Heaven (No, Really, I want to take you all to EARTH!)

Don't get me wrong, I love this show, especially Edward James Olmos & Mary McDonnell. But that doesn't mean I have to like every plot twist. I really wanna see if they can "save" some of the things they've done in this season.

[GoodWitch]

This show has been on the brink of shark-jumping since the boxing episode.

"Shark Jumping"? What does that mean?

[BBOvenGuy]

"Shark Jumping"? What does that mean?

When you say a TV show has "jumped the shark," that means it's reached the point where it's no longer any good. Either too many good cast members have left, or the storyline has taken too many bad turns, or there's been some similar event that makes the show no longer watchable.

The expression comes from the TV show Happy Days, which had an episode where Fonzie jumps over a shark while on water skiis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark-jumping

[GoodWitch]

When you say a TV show has "jumped the shark," that means it's reached the point where it's no longer any good. Either too many good cast members have left, or the storyline has taken too many bad turns, or there's been some similar event that makes the show no longer watchable.

Ahh! Thanks for that explanation! I have to concur at least with the assessment that BSG is in serious danger of jumping that shark. We will have to see what they do to ameliorate some of the plot/character directions they took this season.

[Katharyn]

I've only ever seen one or two eps of BSG, but I never knew that was where Jumping the Shark came from. Could it be that the longest lasting legacy of Happy Days will not be Fonzie's "Heyyyyyy" but instead the term "Jumping the Shark"? LOL

That's kind of sad, I used to like Happy Days (always shown out of order as it was here in the UK)

Katharyn

[GoodWitch]

Oh, And another thing about Baltar that I am Sure folks have figured out:

Spoiler:

Now that he has gotten off Scott Free, he is Still the President! So is Roslin going to go back to teaching?

I wonder how they are going to deal with that.