According to Bear McCreary's blog, the next episode is even more action-packed!

crap... I didn't even know it had started again. got to find some torrents to catch up.

Just watched Friday's episode.. and ZOMG.

The best part of last Friday's episode is a tie between Starbuck saving Apollo in the hangar, and Adama/Tigh dual-wielding badassery

Yes. Definitely a tie.

I'd like Apollo giftwrapped and in front of my door for Valentine's Day. Kthx.

I've only watched the first four episodes from the first part of this season. I think I will be having a Battlestar Marathon this weekend.

I'm finally caught up on Season 4, thanks to Ninja Video, I think the "everyone is a cylon" theory is the only one that makes sense at this point. I'm more concerned with Earth is a nuclear wasteland 2000 years old? What the frak is that about? Where are we? Are we Cylons? Did Cylons begat humans or the other way around? I was lying awake last night thinking about this. Certainly lends credo to the whole "everything has happened before and will happen again" theory.

I just got around to watching the season opener and WHY DEE? WHY?!!?!?!?!??!! :sad:

Not much to say other than BSG is kicking ass as usual...perhaps even more than usual.

Also, did anyone else notice that it says 1337 hours before a certain kickass scene with Apollo and Starbuck?

So happy to see Tom Zarek in the launch tube! Now if only Gaius Baltar would join him...But it did seem like Baltar was developing a bit of a conscience in the last ep.

"It would have been funny if you'd done it" May be my favorite line in the whole series.

And I wanted the old man to put a bullet in Narcho bad. Real bad.

What's with the tears in the wall that Tyrol finds? He's in the FTL room, his hands are blody from removing what looked like a big fuse, and he looks over to see tears in the metal wall. he whispers, "Oh, no..." Could the FTL be dead?

stress fractures...the ship is falling apart.

Yep. I bet that's a topic next week. Have you looked at the panning shots they do of the Galactica? Compare the ones this season to season one. The old girl is in bad shape.

I caught the 1337 hours scrawl, too, Smeth, and thought, "Surely, that was intentional...".

Maybe it's just me, but was that whole dream tea party between the two G's meant to convey Gaeta as a possible skinjob? If so, then how can his leg be that way?

Also, when they executed them, right beforehand, Gaeta looks down at his stump, and says it stopped hurting.
That was the first time I actually felt something for his character.

Btw, the cylon Starbuck was helping, her boyfriend/hubby (not sure), what happened with him? I missed the climax of that part. I saw up until Adama's lawyer started helping her. Did he live?

The scene with Gaeta and Baltar isn't a dream, it's his last rites. No skinjob there (besides, we already know Ellen is the final cylon), just someone who is worried people won't realize that he is not an evil person. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Whoa, that wasn't a dream? Maybe I was dreaming... or just off in a daze with my game, again. ;)
Now I get the part where Gaeta said "no religious stuff".

Thanks, Smeth, for the clarification.

Yeah. Poor Felix. Black-and-white morality is a bitch.

Good Riddance Zerak! Too bad about Felix though. To be executed beside Zerak was an insult to his character.

I absolutely loved how his leg stopped itching, finally. It was almost as it to say, "Don't worry, Felix, you'll finally be at peace."

Awesome episode... the grenade scene was probably my favorite.

Narcho is a douche.

I wasn't too sure what those marks on the wall in the FTL room were, but stress fractures makes sense. Seeing as the finale is March 21st, they HAVE to either find permanent settlement or something soon before Galactica collapses in on itself.

Now that the Quorum, except for Lee, is dead and the VP is dead too, what's next for the Colonial gov't? My sister thinks they'll add a seat for the rebel Cylons on the Quorum (Tyrol?). Maybe Adama will declare martial law and hunt down all the people involved in the coup? But then how will Galactica even function? I'm not sure how this is going to play out.

Also they got some 'splaining to do about Ellen's resurrection which they showed a part of in the preview for the next episode. I thought the resurrection hub was destroyed, so no more Cylon resurrection? If she can resurrect, and Anders dies, then it's pretty safe to say he'll probably resurrect too?

I'm pretty sure those aren't stress fractures, but in fact the claw marks of the Lakuthaa Beast that lives in the bowels of the ship and feeds on energy from the jump drive. It's now loose and will begin picking off crew one by one.

Actually, I think Ellen is going to be a greater threat.

It's too bad they waited so long, this show was epic, now it's just OK.

You should meet his brother, Narchos Bell Grande.

Okay, we've got a TON tonight.

Spoiler: Ellen and the Five brought monotheism to the 12 Colony-created cylons, in order to give them morality. She, along with the other five, created the 8 human-form Cylons, in an attempt to end the human-Cylon war 40 years ago. The eighth human form Cylon, Daniel, was killed off by Cavil out of jealousy and self-loathing. In his rage, Cavil trapped the Five and suffocated them, resurrecting them on the 12 Colonies without their memories, in order to teach them a lesson about humans. But they survived the attack. That was one of several occurrences in the series, one of the other of which being the star of the Eye of Jupiter going nova, which cannot be explained by the Cylon at all. I believe these support my theory about the third party. Anyway, the hunting of the fleet, Boomer, New Caprica, etc. were all about Cavil continuing his sick lesson to teach the Five they were wrong about humans, and that he was right.

And Ellen has escaped...

I'm more confused than ever

I was expecting Ellen to be the "Bad" cyclon. Boy was I wrong.

I think the most amazing thing about this episode - or really, about the "true" story behind the Cylons - is that it completely makes sense. This isn't some "Lost" or "X-Files" -style massive buildup of random backstory that can never be sensibly, and logically, resolved. Instead, the truth fits absolutely perfectly with everything from the whole series - the "markers" they found on the way to earth, how those markers got there thousands of years ago, what "this has happened before and will happen again" means, why there's only single copies of the final five, why they have no memories, where the other seven come from, even why precisely the war ended.

I'm just so frakking impressed, I guess. Spoiler: And the revelation of how Cavill (or, should I say, John) is so petty and vengeful and human is perfect: he always came off as too convenient a villain, with precisely the most useful beliefs (his cynicism, his part in creating the Cylon civil war) for advancing the plot. But now he's a full, three-dimensional character with beliefs and weaknesses and an explanation for why he's done all those horrible things.

This episode was awesome! It explained so much.

I couldn't agree more. Spoiler: Cavil is actually the central character in the events of the past 4 seasons. He is the "why". And you're right that this really gives him a full character.

And the more I think about it, the more I want to go back and re-watch that scene in Season 1 when Tyrol thinks he might be a Cylon and goes to see a priest, who is of course Cavil in disguise. Cavil must have been loving that moment in a way that I can scarcely imagine!

I'm looking forward to the latest hybrid being born...

The newly decked out with organic cylon resin Battlestar Galactica!

I would like to know if Starbuck is a cylon because we did see her body and fighter ship destroyed on Earth. Does anyone have suggestions or theories on how or why this could happen?

Television Without Pity reports it this (UNSPOILER-TAGGED SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!)

So is this THE last season of Battlestar? I'm liking it way too much for it to end. :(

I love Jacob's recaps of the series. I'll admit, I sometimes get bogged down in the 20+ pages, but I always come out with nuggets like "Fucking lederhosen forever?" that make me think- Aha! That's just how I felt about that! I just didn't know how to say it.

Love how all the "Final 5" "Birth/built/betrayed" stuff fit in logically and without a whole lot of WTF? Writers are pretty amazing people. I'm going to need to go back to the first season and rewatch the scenes between Cavil and Tyrol. Luckily, I have a friend who has never watched the series, so I'm going to rewatch them all with her. (can't wait to watch the Adama maneuver again.)

Maybe Starbuck IS Daniel? Or Maybe there's humans left on earth that have figured out resurrection technology and are able to use it on humans. Maybe it was an act of the Gods. There's definitely something interesting happening with her.

Man that was kind of information overload. I need to rewatch this episode to make sure I got everything.

My girlfriend always said Starbuck kind of looked like a dude :D

Our theories right after watching were either Baltar is Daniel or Starbucks dad is Daniel... or both.



The other thing that really struck me was Ellen and Cavill doing it on New Caprica was way grosser than I had originally thought. Yucky.

John Cavill is my hero.

I just read this:
Universal in talks for 'Battlestar' movie

Makes me a little sad they'd reboot BSG with a new cast after such a recent and successful run with the series.

Oy, I hope they don't do that. I know it's bitchy of me to complain that the original creator of BSG wants to retake the franchise and reboot it after Moore took it from him and rebooted it, but still. This BSG is like the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I dread having to explain to people 3 years from now how there are 3 different BSGs, how the movie is different from the rebooted TV show, but made by the creator of the original show, and how the new TV show's prequel is Caprica...

Especially cause, frankly, the original BSG wasn't exactly Shakespeare. And while Magnum P.I is kinda humorous in a really really 80s kind of way, this Larson guy's resume doesn't exactly get me excited.

Any chance that Tigh and 6's baby downloaded into Anders' braindead body?

Probably not since the resurrection ship is kaput.

Can someone please just put a bullet into Baltar?

Maybe Anders resurrects somewhere else?

Well, yet again we're reminded why Battlestar has the best writing on the planet.
Spoiler: Kara is, of course, a half-breed between her human mother and her father, a Daniel model of Cylon, who had to leave because his model was dying. Boomer was, yet again, a sleeper, still playing on Tyrol's love in order to get what she wants. Now Hera is likely with John Cavil and the rest of the cylon fleet.

And as if things weren't bad enough, Athena had to watch as Boomer had sex with her husband, confirming her worst fears: she's not special, she's just another copy.

BTW, Anders taught Daniel, and was likely particularly involved with Daniel, which means that Starbuck was attracted to a man who shared traits with her father. Freud would be proud.
It's quite something.

does this mean that Hera doesn't matter

how do we really KNOW that it is Hera in the Opera

relating to way back the cold virus since BSG now has cylon tech built into her core could she "die" from getting the common cold, can't remember if it only affected the human forms, seem to remember it killing the centurions and hybrids-therefor ships

now that the 5 know who they are whats johns motivation, how can you torture someone if you have no power over them?

what would the movie be about? (the series has covered just about everything)

I'm sure she still matters, as she's the "shape of things to come" established by the third party way back in the first season.
In Crossroads part 1, we can clearly see a little girl with black, curly hair, just like Hera. I doubt it's Starbuck.
It was both human form and non-human form. Why? The 13th tribe of Cylon figured out that it's entirely possible humans would repeat their mistake and put up a roadblock to protect themselves from the cylon.
Cavil likely still has the primary goals of attaining Hera (mission successful), and rebuilding the resurrection ship.
The movie is about the series from the perspective of the Cylon.

Was Starbuck imagining the piano player while playing the piano?

I think it's similar to the Six in Baltar's head. Cylon's have mind sharing capabilities to a certain extent and I think he's some kind of remainder from when he was really around.

Here's my new wild theory: Anders is becoming the newly organic Galactica's Hybrid! I can't wait until he surprises the hell out of everyone by yelling "JUMP!" and they do.

You heard it here first. ;)

I think you are onto something there, Fresnelly!

was the piano player her dad?

and if so wouldn't she have remembered him, as she seems to have put some importance on him through the series and I can't remember if we ever saw a picture of him, so could she remember what he looked like from when she was three?

what is with baltars angel? I always thought he was one of the final five or had some kind of other implant, if Kara has the same kind of visions now could Baltar have been taken like Kara was?

When is Baltar going to learn, I thought he'd made major progress after/during the mutiny and was going to be a "better" person, the whole have to go back to them not for me(free sex,food,worshipers etc) but to protect and help them, the whole gun issue just seems very MAD to me and I think that what with the recent proof of the stupidity of violence against themselves that "they" might have learned something

sorry for constantly asking questions I think this series just seems to be so open for debate as to pretty much everything unlike others I will not name

In order to rebuild the resurrection ship Cavil will have to find the lab, my thoughts on that are could BSG make the trip back to Cylon space or to earths lab first obviously the final five were NOT Cylons the first time so is it possible for BSG to make their own Rship, the ramifications of that would be huge

Anders as a hybrid would be kinda sad, hows he going to play ball strapped in, still doesn't mean it wouldn't be hilarious to see the Docs face at "JUMP"

Yes.
She probably didn't expect to see him in his 30s playing piano in the bar on Galactica. And if you look at his photo on the cassette case, he had very long hair and a beard when he was younger.
We're not supposed to know about the incorporeal characters yet. I have my guesses, but it's not here yet.

I didn't even put two and two together that that was her dad. But I wonder how he's so young given whatever age Starbuck is on the show?

No, no, he's likely long since dead. She was reliving his presence, partially in order to come to peace with his departure and partially to remember the tune from All Along the Watchtower.

Or, maybe he was resurrected somehow as well?

He disappeared from the piano bench the instant Tigh grabbed Starbuck's shoulders. He could have been an aberration, like head Six and head Baltar, but there's no way to know that for sure.

Wow, seriously, how did I miss that part? thanks for pointing that out LOL That makes more sense then as her imagining him.

It's gotta happen soon... we only have 4 hours of show left. What are your theories?

Its weird it took me so long to get around to watch this last episode...

I could see the idea of Anders becoming Galactica's hybrid, but he'd have to get "hooked into" the ship somehow... right? He can't just be sitting in the ER and yell "Jump!" and make this ship jump, unless he's somehow interfaced into the ship itself.

I thought it was (unintentionally) funny the way the Chief knocked out a random Eight and swapped her with Boomer. He is going to be so fucked up from now on, though. Damn Boomer is cold. It was interesting that originally Athena was pretending to be Boomer when she hooked up with Helo, now Boomer is pretending to be Athena and hooked up with Helo. Uh it seems like Boomer has some pretty hard feelings about Athena getting Helo and having Hera. Damn these writers are good.

I'd still like it to be the seraphs (from the original series), but knowing Ron Moore's writing, it's unlikely. As this point, it's still hard to say. My guess is that it's linked with the plane of existence reached during resurrection.

Maybe the whole thing is taking place inside Hera's snow-globe...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we are about to witness a series finale that will go down as one of the great ones you'll read about in TV Guide years from now.

Good call about Anders. I was thinking the Galactica not being networked (the show said "firewalled") might be an issue, but the writers got around that one.

Were those "classic" Cylon raiders in the hanger where Boomer landed her Raptor? That was the Cylon Colony right?

The best part was President Roslin smoking out Adama in the sick bay. I lol'd. Another unintentionally funny scene?

There's no way they're going to strip Galactica for parts and abandon ship. Either she lives through the finale, or goes down fighting Cavill.

I was kind of hoping that they might gut strip Galactica, move the people from the fleet on board and mold/meld/merge Galactica into one of the arms on the Basestar, just let that biomatter gunk make her part of the structure.
Fresnelly sure called the Ander's Hybridization right on. I laughed out loud when I saw the red lights on the bulkheads and him sitting in the bath-thingy. Got any more bright ideas, Fresn?

I stood up and made the successful field goal signal when I saw it :D.

I think what happens next is obvious, though how it plays out is a tough one.

Adama has resolved to send Galactica "off in style", which to me means only one thing: "RAMMING SPEED!!"

Adama is going to remove all but a skeleton crew of volunteers, load it up with nukes, and send the whole thing hurtling into the Cylon colony.

I don't know what's going to happen after the point of contact but you can bet it's going to be a special effects orgasm.

This is quite possibly the best single quote recap of the latest BSG (courtesy of Television Without Pity - thank-you Willravel for introducing me to that internet gem):

So Kara wanders around peeing in front of people and offering Sam some Kevorkian therapy before a well-timed piece of Baltar Bullshit and a sweet little speech from Lee help her pull it together and stop making her existential issues everybody's problem. Gaius blows her spot about being a zombie, on the way to his usual religious crap, but nobody even really cares. Meanwhile, the 268s have plugged Sam into a Hybrid tub in the hopes of rebooting him, but instead he Hybrid-connects himself to the Cylon goo and is now pretty much Battlegod Godlactica. The Colonel reacts to this with some gritty annoyance.

But I'm still puzzled over the whole Kara "Harbinger of Death" Thrace thing. Is she dead? Is she alive?

I figure she'll be at the wheel or button when Galactica needs to pull whatever stunt Adama has planned.

Anders' control of the ship is a real wildcard though...

I think part of the Anders thing is that Anders will fly BSG into cavils colony without there needing to be a skeleton crew, because of the crap Anders pulled while still being firewalled out of the computers imagine what he could do hooked in?

basically cavil has no idea what hes in for, Am I the only one who thinks Baltar and Caprica Six will go in undercover to the colony and get Hera out through some sort of "magic" way hence fulfilling the opera house, the vision has been told many times from many different people could it be that because everybody is looking for Hera and the opera house is simply a "sending" like boomers/chiefs

I think I understand what the "Harbinger of Death" thing is going to be, but I can't quite put it into words. I highly doubt Kara will "switch on" and nuke all the survivors. I think she's going to be presented with a choice to save everyone now only to doom them very far into the future, or sacrifice a bunch of people now and prevent some future war. Or it could be that her choice is to not share whatever information she finds on how she resurrected therefore preventing people from being reborn, therefore "causing" everyone to eventually die a permanent death..

Yep. I think Adama's going to strip the ship and head out to find Cavil and the colony, but not before the raptors find a suitable planet to settle on (hopefully a little nicer then the last few they've set down on: New Caprica, the algae planet, Earth). Once his people are ok, his job is done.

I think Bill and Tigh will both die on Gallactica. Their friendship has been one constant in the whole series, so it would be good to see them finish up together.

If this whole thing wasn't wrapping up so satisfyingly, I'd be more upset that it was ending. So glad I've watched this show.

I hope that Adama and Tigh take Baltar down with them!

I doubt it. Baltar has been on a journey since the first time we saw him. He's reinventing who he is, hopefully turning himself into a better man. I can't see his journey ending in sacrifice. I think he has alot more atoning to do.

A friend of mine just started watching the old episodes and I've been watching with her. Seems like all of the characters have evolved so much. Baltar's still hilarious though (especially his dealings with chip six). Can't believe I can loathe a character and want to give him a hug at the same time.

Is it possible that we are going to see the battle of the universe next week that ends with everyone getting destroyed by a black hole?

Is it possible that the ships will go through the black hole, survive the trip, and find an alternate Earth that isn't a nuclear wasteland?

Or maybe the humans will make a deal with Cavil? He'll give back Hera and, in exchange, Adama will agree to teach math to inner city Cylons.

Wow. My guess was always that Baltar stayed with the fleet. That his "chapter" to write was to guide the remaining people to a new place to live (not that he did all that well with it last time), but from the previews, it looks like he's on Galactica. I guess that makes sense, he still needs to figure out why he has Six in his head, doesn't he? Plus, he's so flawed. He needs to atone... maybe blood is the only way that can happen.

I would say that anyone who goes with Gallactica ain't coming back, but someone has to rescue Hera, right? Will it be both the fighting Agathons or only one. Who else?

I think it'll be a blood bath. I plan of weeping for each one that falls when this great show ends.

This is going to be a long week.

I'm pretty sure that we've already been given the answer as to why Baltar sees Head Six. And he certainly believes he has the answer.

She's an angel.

Interestingly, it occurred to me the other day that the only characters that have seen "head" people have also experienced death. Starbuck saw Head Piano Guy after dying, Six is a cylon so she has obviously died and been resurrected and she has seen Head Baltar,... and perhaps Baltar died in the explosion on Caprica. We still have not been given an answer as to how he survived that. It fits with the head people being angels too: these characters each straddle this life and the next.

I seems pretty clear to me that Starbuck died, and came back. The most likely scenario to me is that she is indeed Daniel's daughter. That neatly explains the resurrection, her painting the supernova, knowing the cylon song, etc, etc. I think Daniel (or a set of Daniels) is out there somewhere, coordinating things, most probably working against Cavil and for peaceful human/cylon relations. Starbuck is therefore the first (known) human/cylon hybrid.

I dunno. While I still think Kara was Daniel's daughter, I don't think it's just a Daniel or some Daniels that are pulling the strings. I like the symmetry of Daniel being the anti-Cavil, but I still think it's the third party.

That's possible, but I'm trying to 'solve' the series with the characters we know about already, without bringing in third parties in a deus ex machina way. Literally deus if they make the third party God/gods. The end of a drama is almost always the wrong time to introduce new characters...they can get a pass on Daniel if he really is Starbuck's father, and he has a big reveal at the end, and it shows how he was working behind the scenes the whole time.

But if they bring in another agent at this late date, I'm not seeing how that will be a satisfying ending, and something other than a deus ex machina, there to wrap up all the loose ends but otherwise not an interesting part of the narrative. Especially since a Daniel character (or group of Daniels) has already been introduced, and is sufficient to wrap up most, if not all, of the existing plot threads. I wouldn't be surprised if they left a few things not-quite-explained to leave room for the possibility that divine intervention is an active part of driving the story, however.

Anyway, we'll see how it all plays out in a couple of weeks. :-) Then we get to wait for Caprica in 2010...

It would not be introducing new characters to say that there is a supernatural force at work here. It has been increasingly apparent, from the very beginning of the series, that there is a supernatural force in the BSG universe.

I don't think it will turn out to be a Ship of Lights type deal anymore, and in fact I don't think this supernatural force will be explored to much degree at all. Everything that needs to be established has already been shown: there is a supernatural force and the head characters are a part of that supernatural force.

The idea that Starbuck is Daniel's daughter does not actually explain anything regarding her death. So she can resurrect because she's a hybrid? Where did she resurrect? Why doesn't she remember resurrecting like every single other resurrected character does? How did she end up in a brand new viper? If there was a brand new viper just waiting for her and somehow she was able to resurrect into that rather than the necessary resurrection vat, then who put the viper there and planned for this. No matter what, it has been clearly established that there is a supernatural force at play. I don't think Starbuck has any relation to Daniel at all - it unnecessarily complicates things when the supernatural force of the universe is enough to explain everything.

It would be a Deus ex Machina if there were not precedent. But so far we have had scripture, miraculous signs (the supernova is just one of many examples), and head characters who have proven to go well beyond just the head (disappearing Six in season 1, Head Six lifting Baltar up in season 4). This would not be coming out of nowhere, it would be deeply rooted in the very beginning of the series.

Kara being Daniel's daughter is about explaining her connection to the cylon, knowing the song, knowing parts of her future. It would only be about her rebirth in following with the importance of the hybrid storyline.

Mostly explained by the fact she has been dead and now has a connection to that realm. (A realm which, again, has been shown to exist on BSG, whether it's in Roslin's vision of the stream, or in her vision while jumping.) The few things that happened before that - painting the supernova and being drawn to the maelstrom - can be explained by the meddling of the supernatural force in the BSG universe, which is not a stretch by any means considering all the other meddling we've seen.

Speaking of the maelstrom, have you been painting your avatar since you were little?

FYI, the imdb listing for the upcoming Caprica series has a character played by Eric Stoltz named "Daniel Graystone". Perhaps he's our #7 Daniel.

Anyhoo, the black hole near the colony is the ultimate Elephant in the Room so I can't imagine it won't play a role in the finale.

A conventional ending would lock the Galactica and Hub of the Colony together after a collision and send them on a mutual trajectory into the hole and doom.

At the last second Anders jumps them away or Will's Third Party scoops them up and Cavil and Co. are left to plummet and die. It's all a bit neat and tidy but why not?

A wilder ending treats the black hole as something mystical where anything's possible. I imagine we'll be spending a fair amount of time in the Opera House. I figure it's someone's happy place, like Boomer and Tyrol's house and just who that person is, will be a bit of a revelation.

Daniel Graystone is not #7. He is the guy who creates the cylons out of despair after losing his daughter.

RDM has said flat out that there is absolutely no significance to Daniel, other than that they needed a #7 in order to have the Final Five be sequential.

I'm not sure about what role the black hole or the opera house will play, but I'm anxious to find out. I've always been biased toward the idea of everyone dying except a handful of people to start the cycle anew. That may or may not be the direction they will go.

a la The Matrix? that might be a bit disappointing, but conceivable. I think the Opera House is a metaphor for the black hole, and the image of Six and Baltar disappearing behind the door with Hera is foreshadowing of everyone getting sucked into the black hole. What happens then is anyone's guess.

He also said that Adama and Tigh would have a sexual relationship at one point (which he later referenced as a joke, Brokeback Galactica), so I don't know if you can take him 100% at his word. He could be fracking with us. It's possible Daniel has significance but elaborating at all would give a lot away. Or he could have no significance whatsoever.

I dunno, I think it's pretty clear most of the time when he's joking and when he isn't. I won't be surprised if they do something with Daniel, but I wouldn't put even a dollar on it.
Ah, but NOT a la The Matrix. In the Matrix, the cycle was broken in a bittersweet but happy ending. I think it would be pretty awesome if everyone died and the cycle started anew, with no indication that it will end anytime soon.

I'm not saying it's certain, far from it. Only that it would be compelling and that it would fit with the story.

STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING RIGHT NOW.

This is a link to a video of Battlestar Galactica at the UN. You'll want to see this.
Link (opens Real Player)

I can't stress just how much I abhor Real Player. Got a link for something less obtrusive? maybe Quicktime or WMP?

Believe me I wish I did. I also hate RP.

Spoilers ahead.

First off, this was as good if not better than I expected. The attack on the cylon base was outstanding. Baltar and Six, Roselyn and Bill, Kara and Anders, Kara and Lee, etc. all really worked. I must admit I especially loved Athena and Helo coming out alive, I was very afraid that Helo was done for. I'm sad about the destruction of basically the entire skin job race, but it makes sense. It needed to happen for Hera to be the shape of things to come: humanity on Earth.

Still, very big things are still a mystery. We don't know who the third party is. We know that they were making sure that the cycle continued so that humanity was given another chance to make the right decisions, but we don't know who they are and how it is they do what they do. I've got my suspicion (I'm pretty sure it's a Baltar from a previous cycle that evolved into something god-like), but we don't have enough information to know. And while we do know why Kara was brought back and by whom, we don't know how.

All-in-all, Battlestar Galactica was about what television can do as a vehicle for storytelling. It was about throwing out convention and precedent, throwing off the chains of monotony. My hope is that Battlestar can stand as a model of how entertainment doesn't just have to be escapism, but it can be a mirror into our own selves, the best and worst of what we are, allowing us a better understanding of our existence.

Now, I'm off to make the thread about Caprica... this thread has happened before and it will happen again.

I was very pleased with the conclusion.

I just wanna say, HOLY SHIT BEST FINALE EVER!

I loved the old school centurions, I loved seeing Tyrol strangle that bitch that killed his wife and the ending was more satisfying than I expected. I'm so glad this series had a planned ending. That's such a rare thing nowadays.

Something that really kind of annoys me - and please don't take offense, this has more to do with comments I've seen elsewhere - is how so many people are still wanting more answers. Where did Kara go? How was she resurrected? What exactly are the Head People? Etc.

First off, people need to learn to accept a little ambiguity in their frakking lives. And second, I guarantee that people would find a reason to bitch and moan about the answers if they were given, and might even complain that they were given in the first place.

We're not supposed to know who the third party is, and if there's one thing I really hate, it's reading too damn much into things (again, no offense). Speculate all you want, but I think one thing can be guaranteed: as far as the creators are concerned, the third party exists, and that's about all the thinking they've bothered to give to it. Because even the creators don't need to know if they are aliens, or god, or whatever... sometimes you just decide that something exists in your creation and that's just how it is. It's fun (I guess, though I don't see the appeal in it) to create twisty theories about how Baltar (or someone like him) evolved and became god-like, but those kinds of theories are almost always make WAY more sense in the head of the fan than of the creator. (See: all the BS about Daniel and Starbuck. RDM never expected people to create all those convoluted speculations about Daniel and now regrets even putting it into the show when all he wanted to do was explain the #7 gap and demonstrate Cavil's character.)

We haven't been given a specific explanation for this third party, but I do think it's very safe to say it is entirely metaphysical and not alien or the product of some sort of evolution. Aside for what has been shown in the show, RDM has been fairly straightforward in interviews that the metaphysical has always been a part of the show for him, despite knowing that a lot of fans have been upset at its inclusion in BSG.

Kara... well she's just part of that. After seeing the finale, I don't think it's even a valid question to ask what she is. She just is. She lived, died, came back and led them to Earth. Why? How? Because it was the divine will, pure and simple. Again, I'd bet a large sum of money that the creators haven't thought about it beyond that, and I honestly don't think they need to.

People want things spoon-fed too much. I think the BSG finale answered everything that needed to be answered explicitly, and answered plenty more implicitly without being too direct. It was a great ending for a great series.

And now I'm going to stop watching the #bsg posts on Twitter before they upset me any more ;)

---------- Post added at 04:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:42 AM ----------

Mixed in with all the dreck on the IMdB forums (why am I even reading them when I know they'll mostly annoy me?), I found this worthwhile nugget...

Now that the series is over, I can bitch about the one thing that bugged the shit out of me - the writers made a mistake with Callie.

Why would she want to put her baby out the airlock if little Nick WASN'T actually Gaelin's child?? They tell us later that Nick is Hot Dog's kid.. but that wouldn't explain in any way why she would want to kill the kid over his "father" being a cylon.

That just really bothers me.

/end rant

She was killing herself and the kid - I think in her mind to protect him from Tyrol, not because she thought Nicky was half-cylon, and she was going kinda crazy in the first place. Crazy mothers do crazy things, like infanticide/suicide. It happens in real life, so why not in BSG?

Here's a good interview with RDM & Co.: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sc...e-got-answers/
Lots and lots and lots of spoilers follow...

I must admit I'm a little disappointed in the finale. It wrapped up satisfactorily, the attack on the Cylon colony was spectacular, but then they went and ripped off "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" for the ending of it all. Don't any of you Sci-Fi geeks remember the ending of the 2nd book of the 'trilogy' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Ford and Arthur end up on ancient Earth with the ark load of middle management types:


Chapter 33

A mile or so away through the wood, Arthur Dent was too busily engrossed with what he was doing to hear Ford Prefect approach.

What he was doing was rather curious, and this is what it was: on a wide flat piece of rock he had scratched out the shape of a large square, subdivided into one hundred and sixty-nine smaller squares, thirteen to a side.

Furthermore he had collected together a pile of smallish flattish stones and scratched the shape of a letter on to each. Sitting morosely round the rock were a couple of the surviving local native men whom Arthur Dent was trying to introduce the curious concept embodied in these stones.

So far they had not done well. They had attempted to eat some of them, bury others and throw the rest of them away. Arthur had finally encouraged one of them to lay a couple of stones on the board he had scratched out, which was not even as far as he'd managed to get the day before. Along with the rapid deterioration in the morale of these creatures, there seemed to be a corresponding deterioration in their actual intelligence.

In an attempt to egg them along, Arthur set out a number of letters on the board himself, and then tried to encourage the natives to add some more themselves.

It was not going well.

Ford watched quietly from beside a nearby tree.

"No," said Arthur to one of the natives who had just shuffled some of the letters round in a fit of abysmal dejection, "Q scores ten you see, and it's on a triple word score, so ... look, I've explained the rules to you ... no no, look please, put down that jawbone ... alright, we'll start again. And try to concentrate this time."

Ford leaned his elbow against the tree and his hand against his head.

"What are you doing, Arthur?" he asked quietly.

Arthur looked up with a start. He suddenly had a feeling that all this might look slightly foolish. All he knew was that it had worked like a dream on him when he was a child. But things were different then, or rather would be.

"I'm trying to teach the cavemen to play Scrabble," he said.

"They're not cavemen," said Ford.

"They look like cavemen."

Ford let it pass.

"I see," he said.

"It's uphill work," said Arthur wearily, "the only word they know is grunt and they can't spell it."

He sighed and sat back.

"What's that supposed to achieve?" asked Ford.

"We've got to encourage them to evolve! To develop!" Arthur burst out angrily. He hoped that the weary sigh and then the anger might do something to counteract the overriding feeling of foolishness from which he was currently suffering. It didn't. He jumped to his feet.

"Can you imagine what a world would be like descended from those ... cretins we arrived with?" he said.

"Imagine?" said Ford, rising his eyebrows. "We don't have to imagine. We've seen it."

"But ..." Arthur waved his arms about hopelessly.

"We've seen it," said Ford, "there's no escape."

Arthur kicked at a stone.

"Did you tell them what we've discovered?" he asked.

"Hmmmm?" said Ford, not really concentrating.

"Norway," said Arthur, "Slartibartfast's signature in the glacier. Did you tell them?"

"What's the point?" said Ford, "What would it mean to them?"

"Mean?" said Arthur, "Mean? You know perfectly well what it means. It means that this planet is the Earth! It's my home! It's where I was born!"

"Was?" said Ford.

"Alright, will be."

"Yes, in two million years' time. Why don't you tell them that? Go and say to them, 'Excuse me, I'd just like to point out that in two million years' time I will be born just a few miles from here.' See what they say. They'll chase you up a tree and set fire to it."

Arthur absorbed this unhappily.

"Face it," said Ford, "those zeebs over there are your ancestors, not these poor creatures here."

He went over to where the apemen creatures were rummaging listlessly with the stone letters. He shook his head.

"Put the Scrabble away, Arthur," he said, "it won't save the human race, because this lot aren't going to be the human race. The human race is currently sitting round a rock on the other side of this hill making documentaries about themselves."

Arthur winced.