The best and worst of “Battlestar Galactica”

Here’s my list of the best and worst episodes of the 2003-2009 series “Battlestar Galactica.” For MB’s benefit, I’m going to hide all my spoilers behind a jump this time! But if you are partway through and feel like reading anyways, I have organized the list chronologically by episode, so you can stop whenever you need to.

‘Battlestar Galactica: Daybreak’

Okay, so here’s what I didn’t like:

1. The religious themes, which were more active in this episode than I think they ever were in the show, except maybe to Gaius Baltar from the Six in his head. I liked it much better when the mythology held historical clues to help the fleet unravel the way to Earth, rather than when the supernatural plays an active role. I think that takes away from the characters as the main drivers of the show’s action. There never seemed to be any direction from an external entity until this point. This was most disappointing to me in Kara’s disappearance; in fact, now that I think back on it, I could have done without the whole “is Starbuck dead?” issue.
2. William Adama going off to be by himself for, apparently, the rest of his life. First, I don’t think that’s all that consistent with the character–although I think he definitely would have gone for some serious alone time, he would have come back to his people eventually. Especially to Lee, who is now basically screwed because he has nobody! (Which was not true until the Adama takeoff/Kara disappear scene.)
3. The robot montage at the end.

That said, I liked a great deal of the finale. I think it wrapped things up just about as well as the show could possibly have ended.

1. ‘Earth’ as an ideal that lends its name to the planet. I thought that was a logical and yet unexpected way to resolve the mid-season cliffhanger.
2. Tying in the Colonial fleet with present-day humans. Avoids all the nasty complications of what to do if the Colonials reached Earth in the present or future, and also ties in with the “life here began out there” mythology of the old ‘Battlestar Galactica’ series, which Ron Moore has referenced a couple of times.
3. The theme of cyclical time and breaking out of the cycle–which has been in vogue in scifi for quite some time now, but is still good to play with. I particularly liked, though, how BSG leaves breaking the cycle up to…the audience!
4. The cinematography (especially the music) for the scene where Kara punches the coordinates into the FTL system.
5. That battle…! Didn’t feel quite as epic a naval duel as the ones involving Pegasus or as fun a dogfight as the first season battles, but what a great way for the Galactica to go out. Hallway gunfights are also a great way to focus the action on the characters. Two more points here: (1) redstripe Centurions rock, and (2) the effects guys must have watched the opening scene of ‘Star Wars’ a lot when splicing the action sequences together.
6. The Opera House. To me, the culmination of that set of visions, especially from Baltar’s point of view, represents the idea of ‘fate,’ but not in the sense of predetermination–instead, it means ‘fate’ in the sense that our choice of actions lead us to a new set of choices, which lead us to a new set, all culminating at a specific point; our actions and the opportunities to choose those actions can be traced back through many critical points, though we still have free will to choose at each point. Think of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. The Opera House represented one possible critical point, given the set of all preceding choices. Looking at Baltar, specifically, we see that he had the free will to choose his path, and he almost always chose his own self-interest (or what his Six convinced him was his self-interest); his choices led him to a critical point facing Cavill in CIC.
7. Mary McDonnell’s acting. Also Edward James Olmos. They did a great job on the final episode.

It’s been a great ride. And while those disappointments in the finale were very disappointing, the episode as a whole kept me thinking, so it seems to have worked. Mostly, I’m sorry to see it go.

Dear BSG: usually you have a lot of realism, but

• naked
• singularities
• can
• not
• exist.

Starcraft 2 campaign story prediction

1. Zerg: Kerrigan hatches evil plan, battles Protoss and Dominion forces.  Go back to Earth to infest the population?
2. Protoss: The intrepid warriors discover Kerrigan’s plans, which of course involve the Protoss’ own Xel’Naga origins, and devise a way to circumvent her.
3. Terran: Rebel forces led by Jim Raynor fight against the Dominion for a while, but then Raynor’s old allies the Protoss come to him and he launches their bid to stop Kerrigan.  Raynor gets the girl?

semester’s over now

1. Northern Water Snakes
2. Enemy at the Gates
3. Robert Downey, Jr.
4. Book sale
5. Modeling clay
6. Window envelopes
7. Scrambled eggs
8. Nimbus clouds
9. Callithump
10. Twelve-hour airplane flights
11. Five hundred dollars
12. Science fiction

the last Cylon – Season 4 opening speculation

I was only a little bit correct about the four Cylons from Season 3.  So, here’s my list of characters who cannot be the last Cylon:

• Helo (Cylons cannot make babies.)
• Cally (Ditto.)
• William Adama (If he was, Lee would also have to be.)
• Lee Adama (See William Adama.)

And characters who are probably not the last Cylon:

• Starbuck (She seems to have been wormholed around by other means than Cylon ressurection.)
• Laura Roslin (I don’t think Cylons get cancer.)
• Gaius Baltar (As in my previous speculation – this would be to easy/unsatisfying.)

This doesn’t leave many characters.  Possibly the last one will be a new introduction, or – OH MY GOSH – a person from contemporary society once they reach Earth.  Anyway, my bets (tee hee):

• Billy Keikeia
• Ellen Tigh

all of a sudden, there are more good things on TV

1. Battlestar Galactica
2. Bionic Woman
3. Journeyman
4. The Office

well, well…

1. Glider and tow plane
2. Champagne Supernova
3. Vermont
4. Paycheck
5. Red October
6. Mozzarella pesto burgers
7. Jupiter
8. Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene
9. The Gates of the Desert

the way things used to be

1. Rock
2. Jetpack
3. Swiss Army Knife
4. Garthim
5. Sun
6. Swadesh list
7. Q

possible final five Cylons

I choose those characters who seem to have premonitions/visions/destinies.

1. Kara Thrace, because of her “destiny.”  And stupid end.  Obviously.
2. Galen Tyrol, because he seems to have some strong ties to the Temple of Five and has his own sense of “destiny.”
3. Laura Roslin, because she also has some air of the supernatural about her, especially the visions from season 1–though I think she is probably not a Cylon because that would be way too contrived.
4. Gaius Baltar, because of his projection ability.  However, this is what Baltar wants to be true…so it probably isn’t.  Though that leaves the “projection” mechanism unexplained.

…and these are probably safe from being Cylons:

1.  William and Lee Adama, because the series revolves around “the family Adama” (in Ron Moore’s words).  In addition, these two are pretty well established as a biological father-son pair.
2. Karl Agathon, because though he meets the “destiny” criterion, Cylons can’t reproduce.
3. Ellen Tigh, because although she began with suspicious motives, many of her motivations were revealed in “Exodus, Pt. 1” and they seem essentially un-Cylon.
4. Tom Zarek, because that would just be too obvious.