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'Battlestar Galactica': Earth
Well, folks, we're at the "Battlestar Galactica" midseason finale, and boy does Korbi's look at the remaining episodes give me hope for what's to come.
Meanwhile, Starbuck and Apollo hope to walk together in the Temple of Aurora on Earth, at least as described by one of Caprica's philosophers. I wish I could peg Apollo's drawing to a real Earth structure, but it's fairly generic. Anyone want to step up?
On the basestar, Three lets Roslin's crew know they're hostages until the Final Four Cylons are handed over. The shenanigans continue, though: Roslin secretly tells Adama to blow the basestar and everyone aboard if the Final Four are handed over. Three and Adama head over to Galactica, where Three offers to trade the hostages for the Four. Looks like we have a standoff.
Tory, ever resourceful, says, she has to take Roslin's meds back with Three. The two go, and on the basestar Three introduces Tory to the other numbered Cylons. Tory embraces "her people" and refuses Roslin's request to mediate with Three. On the contrary, Three kills a hostage and says she'll kill more until the remaining Cylons are delivered. Well, damn.
Apollo and Adama plan a rescue mission, but music crackles into the heads of Tory, Tigh, Tyrol and Anders. The latter three convene around Starbuck's Destiny-viper, insisting something has changed. Well, that's an understatement. It had been crushed in a gravity well, after all. Tigh tells Anders to find Starbuck, and then goes to Adama.
What follows is one of the series' best scenes. In short, spitting phrases, Saul Tigh confesses his Cylonitude to lifelong friend Bill Adama. I have to think both men disbelieve at first, but Tigh grows more and more comfortable with his true identity, while Adama brings up many of the arguments (like that of Tigh's age) we viewers have been chewing over for months. It's heartwrenching to see Adama come to the truth.
Next up, Adama gets piss drunk! Apollo, meanwhile, takes command and has Tigh brought to an empty airlock. Three doesn't take kindly; at Tory's urging -- and damn, why does anyone listen to Tory? -- Three prepares to execute the hostages and arms the basestar's nukes. To his credit, Baltar tries to argue against this course of action. Tigh gives up Anders and Tyrol, but Three is set on her course.
...Until, that is, Starbuck turns on the Dradis in the Destiny-viper and catches a course heading that blends with the music-signal. Yep, the Final Four are broadcasting, or receiving, or something. Does this make Destiny-viper the last Cylon? Anyway, Starbuck stops Apollo from airlocking Tigh in the nick of time.
Remember when I said the scene above was one of the series' best? This is better. Three and her entourage meet with the Galactica crew (including the now-free Final Four) in the Destiny-viper's hangar. An Eight confirms the heading signal (435, not 325, to my dismay), but Three isn't quite ready to join forces and find Earth. "All of this has happened before..."
"...but it does not have to happen again," Apollo finishes. The human-Cylon war now has both races near extinction, he says, but actually working together for once could save them both on Earth. He's very presidential, and after a moment Three clasps his hand. I have to admit, I got chills.
Just one more jump, then, and... hey, they're at Earth! I actually expected the still-bad Cylons to show up and stop our heroes. But no, they're here, and everyone's happy. Seriously, Apollo even rips off his suit jacket and dances on top of the control table. What, no greetings from the planet? That missile defense system really doesn't work. Soon we find out why: Once on the planet's surface, an away team made up of the main characters finds not much more than radioactive mud and, in the distance, what appears to be the ruins of New York City. Um, oops. Can we at least blame it on the damn dirty apes?
Intriguing. I like the way they've kept turning the story in unexpected directions. The final half of the season should be a barnstormer. Shame it won't be till next year.
tacitus | Jun 13, 2008 11:29:37 PM | #This was a great episode, capping off a good, but spotty, first half (seriously, why don't they just call this season 4, and the last 11 episodes season 5).
Today, we saw the growth of Lee Adama. The scene between Jamie Bamber and Edward James Olmos was great. Granted, I thought the whole Lee ripping off his jacket thing was, odd.
This show has a tendency to throw hints, and I am wondering D'Anna's early comment that only four of the final figve were in the fleet has any meaning. Does that mean the final five doesn't exist, and that it is a mythical god of some sort, perhaps the individual orchestrating this? Or does that mean the 5th cylon was among the prisoners on the baseship, whether it be Helo, Baltar, or maybe a lesser character, say, a Seelix?
All in all, this was the "ending". That is, the semi-happy ending. Comments from the cast, including the bit in Korbi's thing, haave suggested that the ending isn't exactly happy.
Tony | Jun 13, 2008 11:48:37 PM | #You know how they dont make a big thing out of the chief kid.......like hera, its cause the final cylons is....wiat for it!!!!!! not born yet.....its in 6's belly. that or Chief wife Cally is the final cylon, remember, she was killed before the Hub went down, she could still be somewhere
Jp313131 | Jun 14, 2008 7:04:42 AM | #looks more like sydney from milsons point to me
http://flickr.com/photos/kurtmate_ezs/369847271/sizes/l/
i live on the other side
james s | Jun 14, 2008 7:59:05 AM | #The last cylon is L. Ron Hubbard.
Matt | Jun 14, 2008 7:59:09 AM | #I loved Anders' droll comment to Tighe in the airlock, "Just a wild guess, but, did you tell them?"
Sue | Jun 14, 2008 9:37:38 AM | #The final cylon is Dick Cheney. After all, they say only cockroaches can survive a nuclear war.
Seriously though, I like this turn of events. I was with you. I so used to politcal statements in scripted TV that I thought that they'd gt to Earth and all be blown out of the sky by some earliy warning system. My biggest worry is the drumming in "it all happened before" If they do a Star Trek "Voyage Home" time travel around the Sun to before the Cylon/Human War hit the Earth, I'll go postal.
| Jun 14, 2008 10:07:02 AM | #I knew they wouldn't get to Earth in present times like they did on the original series(although it would have been funny if they showed up in the '70's like the original one). It was very cool to see them show up in the post apocalyptic future and now it will be interesting to see when the other Cylons show up or perhaps they already got there. Either way, best show this season. My only gripe is that they should have wasted less time earlier in the year and spread this last two episode over two hours instead of just one. The shock of Tigh revealing the truth to Adama could have made for a really good episode by itself. they could have had some flashbacks to the times they spent together in the fleet. I can't wait to see what happens in the final episodes.
Steve | Jun 14, 2008 11:39:54 AM | #Wow! I did have a Planet of the Apes flashback when they were standing among the wreckage of an abandoned city. Was looking around for the Statue of Liberty head at that point. I felt they were celebrating a little too prematurely onboard Galactica. Why not send a search party down before stipping and dancing on the table, Lee? Didn't anyone get concerned that no one one the surface tried to contact them? Great episode, great ending, waaaayyyy to long of a wait in store for us. Frack!
Fresh | Jun 14, 2008 12:00:11 PM | #My thoughts are that in fact the final cylon wasn't with the fleet at that time bue was with the cylons.
Meaning it's either Bill Adama, Laura Roslyn, Baltar, Helo or Seelix.
My money is on Bill Adama. It just seems like the RDM gutt punch.
Lt. Mindcrime | Jun 14, 2008 1:08:10 PM | #I don't think that this planet is Earth. They never once showed a shot of any recognizable land masses, no solar system shot. And Roslin (the dying leader) is still alive, which goes against the prophecy. The only "proof" of it being Earth is that the constellations match, which leaves some room for error.
If this is "the moment" this show has been leading towards for four years, why not capitalize on the emotional payoff of it CLEARLY being Earth, instead of a cloudy blue planet? I mean, what we saw in the across-the-galaxy zoom in shot at the very end of season 3 was Earth, without a doubt. This planet? Not so much.
And if it IS Earth, well... frak. If I were those guys, I'd be all, "Well, this place sucks. Wanna go back to New Caprica? Cool. Jump!"
Nerbil | Jun 14, 2008 1:36:49 PM | #I think the final Cylon might be on the planet-that-may-or-may-not-be Earth. I think it might be someone we've seen before (Kendra Shaw?), and that they are the one that sent Starbuck back to the fleet.
But I welcome the time when I'll be proven completely wrong. I just hope it's before the end of 2008.
Sean | Jun 14, 2008 5:47:50 PM | #"Save us, Dr. Zaius!"
Reggie | Jun 14, 2008 6:45:05 PM | #Great episode! Of course, I guess a bunch of us figured out that Earth would be a nuclear wasteland once the fleet got there. As for everything happening again and again, I wonder if they mean that civilization builds itself up to a point, destroys itself, and the survivors move on and create another civilization, which ultimately destroys itself, and so on. I wonder if survivors from Earth founded the 12 colonies.
I still think the final Cylon is Tigh's wife, what's-her-name.
There's supposed to be a really good twist near the end of the series. I wonder if it's that the colonialists are a type of Cylon also. Or, and this would make the fans riot, the whole series has been a vision of what could happen, and it's up to Secretary of Education Roslin to convince the Caprica government that the Cylons are coming to destroy them.
Himmiefan | Jun 14, 2008 6:52:33 PM | #Believe it or not, Olmos has a "no cylon" demand in his contract. He joined the project back in 2003 with two very specific demands. Don't ever make me a cylon, and never, ever introduce "aliens".
But beside that this was an awesome episode. Looking back they really have so much more to explain, especially now with Earth as it is. Who is orchestrating the four? Who revived Kara? Why is it an ancient virus only targets non-five cylons? How it is that Kobol is still where everyone thinks humanity originated? Who made the skinjobs...? It's pretty obvious at this point it wasn't the cylons! My guess... they are the last remnants of the 13th tribe. Just thinking about all of this makes my head spin.
John C | Jun 14, 2008 7:07:15 PM | #I thought it was a better than average episode of a mediocre season. I wondered why the Galactica and the Basestar wouldn't have known the devastated state of "maybe-Earth." If they orbited around the planet, surely they would have noticed the lack of lights indicating the total absence of cities, roads, etc? I guess it's logic sacrificed for surprise, so I shouldn't complain.
I liked the shot of the end, with everyone heartbroken on the barren planet, some of them trying ineffectually to console each other. This is the earth they've all longer for, and it's a horrible barren place. I've noticed that BSG makes all its victories so bitter - they are almost worse than their defeats.
I'm with Lt. Mindcrime with the reason about the fifth (being with the folks on the basestar), BUT .... as posted last week, I'm of the mind that the last is Helo, and that's why Hera was so special. She is the first real cylon-cylon offsrping.
Wilder | Jun 14, 2008 9:30:13 PM | #a few small theories....only for what they're worth...
1..I agree that they were careful to not show any specific landmasses or anything 100% earth....the 5th planet? (now an asteroid belt)
2...maybe this is about 10,000 years ago and they have to abandon technology etc. in order to survive....they become our progenitors (just an idea)
3..."The dying leader". You could say that Roslin didn't really lead them to Earth, but that any one of Starbuck, Apollo or Adama has actually "led" them there...and if one dies, they "become" the fifth.
4...remember the prophecy...Kara Thrace will bring the end of mankind (or something like that) and the naming of Kara Thrace "Harbinger of Death". What could that be setting up?
5. Kendra Shaw still has "something" to do with the final episodes...why show her pic out of all the people who died at the end. No mention of
Cally or anyone else...just Shaw.
That's it. Could be all crap, or maybe I accidentally stumbled on to something (ps....loved the earlier Dick Cheney comment)
no-one important | Jun 15, 2008 6:42:13 AM | #I don't think it's earth. Earth was clear at the end of season 3, why tease earth then, only to keep it hidden under clouds this time? I think the 13 tribe never made it to earth. This planet could be the place known as Terra from the original series. You know Ron Moore likes to use things from that series aaaaaaaaaaand Roslin is still alive. She dies before they get to earth remember? Baltar is the last cylon, I'm pretty sure of it. From the start he's been used to orchestrate the destruction of the 12 colonies and now he's got the cylon one God Jesus thing going, plus he wasn't with the fleet when Xena said the last cylon wasn't with the fleet. So either he is the last cylon or EXTREMELY instrumental in the last cylon's plan, meaning the last is someone really close to Baltar.
cylon guy | Jun 15, 2008 9:06:19 AM | #Was that Shaw they showed a picture of in the hallway? I thought it was Kat...?
Nerbil | Jun 15, 2008 11:58:21 AM | #you're right...I'm stupid, it was Kat.
OK...so let's revise and say maybe Kat has something to do yet
no-one important | Jun 15, 2008 12:37:42 PM | #let's try the math on Helo....
a) "supposedly" the 7 cylons can't reproduce. 2 of the "4" have proven they can...Tyrol and Tigh. Tyrol with a human, and Tigh with a Cylon....therefore obviously cylons can reproduce, as long as one of the final "5" is in the equation
b) Hera is incredibly important
c) If cylons can't reproduce without 1 of the final 5, it stands to reason that Helo is "it", or else Boomer couldn't have had Hera.
Ok...I've had enough fun.
no-one important | Jun 15, 2008 12:51:14 PM | #I liked the episode a lot, but I kindof wanted a 'bigger' moment for the last shot. I know it was a big 'moment' emotionally, but it seems like a bit of a letdown to me. I guess they are saving some $ on this half for more big scenes - at least cost wise - for the second half. Although, for the life of me, I can't figure out why Sci-Fi wouldn't authorize a bigger budget for the show during it's last season if they were going to go over.
As an aside, I want the final 5 to be numbered. I know that they can't comeback, but I still want to know who was what number.
Rishi | Jun 15, 2008 2:20:33 PM | #Oh yeah, and when Roslin said (paraphrasing here) "let's go to earth" I was hoping that she was going to go all hybridy and yell "JUMP!" instead.
Rishi | Jun 15, 2008 2:21:44 PM | #Boomer (she shot Adama) didn't have Hera, Athena (she befriended Helo on Caprica) did. Boomer was jealous of Athena because she couldn't have a child with Tyrol and Athena had one with Helo. We were lead to believe (after the finale of season 3) that the reason Boomer hadn't gotten pregnant by Tyrol was because Tyrol is a cylon...
Skip | Jun 15, 2008 2:41:35 PM | #
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