Battlestar Galactica
Sometimes called
As the Battlestar Turns
or
General Sick Bay
or
All My Cylon Children

My thoughts on a series going nowhere, but do they have a plan?
First posted April 4, 2007
Addition notes added: April 14, 2007
April 16, 2007
May 12, 2007
Comments about Razor - November 25, 2007
Sine Qua Non - May 30, 2008
Half season finale Revelations - June 13, 2008
While waiting for The Final One and the last 10 or 12 episoides
Where did they land? - don't link here if you haven't seen Revelations
The Last Supper Picture
My proposed ending
The End Begins - 1/16/2009 - Sometimes a Great Notion
The super FRACK!
Timeline of the Battlestar Galactica Universe
Now with the show over, there's some good news
This was an ending!
Crapcica posted May 9, 2009 after viewing
The Plan added August 2, 2009
followed by a brief review November 15, 2009

Season 1

By the end of season 1, I was hooked and couldn't wait for season 2.

Season 2

Most of season 2 was great, but I found that some of the plots were rerun, without significantly changing the story. The Ragtag Fleet ran out of water, then fuel. The resulting stories were all about the same: One of the pilots went out looking for the missing stuff, with great danger, a planet was found with the needed supplies and with some degree of difficulty, the fleet was replenished. While I found this troubling, I eventually accepted the stories and continued to watch.

Then the climax hour and a half season finale promised a new direction. By the end of the season, Baltar had won an election to president that Adama and Roslin had tried to cheat and win (I thought they were the good guys). Baltar led the colonists to a supposedly hidden planet, but gave a nuclear bomb to a very abused copy of the Cylon Six, who used it to blow herself up along with about 10,000 colonists.

The colonists find Baltar is acting like a king, rather than president. They are about to unionize and protest, when the atomic blast leads the Cylon fleet to the hidden planet, where Baltar surrenders in the name of the colonies. In that last episode, they jumped the time ahead one year, since the Cylons were one light year away when the saw the blast. Adama orders the fleet to escape to either find Earth or regroup to fight the Cylons. The Battlestar Pegasus was with the fleet too, under the command of Apollo.

'Webisodes'

Because there was such a long gap to season 3, the producers put together 10 'webisodes' that were placed on the web one a week. Each told part of the story of what was happening during the Cylon occupation of New Caprica.

I would have preferred to end season 2 with the landing on NC and the beginning of the unrest between the colonists and Baltar. Then the Cylons land. Then include the webisode stories in the regular season, perhaps 3 or 4 episodes, culminating in the rescue. This would have avoided the one year jump ahead and the flashback 'boxing' episode. But no.

Season 3

Season 3 opens with things coming to a head in the relations between the colonists, Baltar and the Cylons. Adama and the fleet plan to contact the resistance on NC with the idea of mounting an attack and rescue.

Then there were a few really lame stories and some marginally good ones. The worst was Unfinished Business, the boxing episode, where some of the NC back story was told as flashbacks (this could have been avoided by using my idea above). One of the better stories was Hero, involving a pilot, Bulldog, who was captured by the Cylons years ago. It turned out that Adama had ordered Bulldog's raider shot down while on a spy mission, leading to his capture.

Then there was the ongoing soap opera with Apollo, Starbuck, Dee (the comm officer) and Anders (the leader of the folks left on (Old) Caprica after the original attack. You, see, Starbuck was resopnsible for Apollo's brother's death (Zack). Then she and Apollo had a relationship going on. But Starbuck also had a thing for Baltar. Meanwhile Dee had a thing for Billy, the president's aid, but he got killed (the actor wanted to try a different show). So Starbuck went back to Caprica in search of Apollo's Arrow (to help them find Earth). Apollo falls for Dee and Starbuck meets Anders.
While on New Caprica, Starbuck and Apollo have sex and the following day she marries Anders. So Apollo marries Dee to get even with Starbuck.
Are you following all this?
I thought making Starbuck female would add a new dynamic to the Apollo/Starbuck relationship, but this soap opera was too much.

Then the food was contaminated, and again following the search for water and fuel, the plots repeated. We never did find out how the food was contaminated. I would think that finding the cause would be somewhat important to survival. There were other questionable command decisions that were made, that could have affected the fleet. some of these were never addressed again. First among this is that the Cylon have managed to surprise the fleet at least three times:

The original attack
The invasion of New Caprica
Finding the fleet at the algae planet.

In A Measure of Salvation, they find a Cylon base ship with all but a few Cylons dead from a virus that originated on a acient sattelite. They have a plan to destory all of the Cylons, but Helo thawrts it as unethical. Nothing ever happened to him for that. Then in Rapture, Helo kills his wife Athena (Boomer/Sharon the Cylon) so she can resuurect on the baseship and bring their daughter, Hera, back to Galactica. Although a Cylon, Athena seemed to be loyal to the fleet and as such had access to many fleet tactics and battle plans. We don't know how much base programming there is in these Cylon among the humans. If she is captured, will she be able to protect the fleet? This should have been dealt with as treason, but no, again Helo is not punished.

After the first five or six episodes, things improved to the point that I was enjoying the show again. However, going from the start, there was something that the producers (mainly Ron Moore) were doing, that I didn't care for. Some of the plot points that were included in the show required explanation in off camera web interviews and 'podcasts'. To me this means that the writer can't or won't make the story self contained. It also spoils key plot points that could be revaled later in the story. In one such interview, we were told that by the end of season 3, three things would happen:

One will be killed
One will find Earth
One will find that they are a Cylon

So, what happens in the last episodes?
Starbuck dies when her viper blows up.
FOUR think they are Cylons because they hear the same Earth music.
Starbuck is seen again flying a brand new viper and she says she found Earth.

While there are many reasons that these are unlikely cylons, the producer says they are. let's see:
Tigh - XO and Adm Adama's closest, long time friend in the fleet. Too much back history to rewrite.
Tyrol - Galactica's chief of maintenance. Married Cally on NC and had a child with her.Possible, but what are the odds that of all the maitenance chiefs in the fleet, he's the one on Galactica on the day of the attack.
Anders - Resistance leader AGAINST the Cylons on Old Caprica after the origianl attack He was a famous sports figure on Caprica. What are the odds that Starbuck would find him on Caprica when she went there to get the Arrow of Apollo?
Tory - President Roslin's aide. Got the job after Billy, the first aide, was killed.Would Billy have been the Cylon if he hadn't been killed? If so, why didn't he download (yes, I konw the actor wanted out)? What are the odds that two of the sleeper Cylons be appointed the aide? How did either of them manage to be on the Galactica (or any ship for that matter) on the day of the attack?

Up until that point none of them knew they were Cylons.

So are there five new Cylons in the fleet?
Is Starbuck the only one?
Did she find (our) Earth?

Then there's the music that the four revealed 'Cylons' heard. It was Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower. While many viewers knew the song, I didn't. But the composer says in an interview (scroll down to see the quote).
'an artist on one of the colonies may have recorded a song with the exact same melody and lyrics.'
and no inference should be made toward the time period that the Earth is in when the colonists find Earth. Give me a break! This is not good writing. Have him compose a new song as the Cylon Nationl Anthem. Talk about misleading the viewers.
This brings to mind the ST:TNG episode Inner Light, where Picard goes into a coma and 'lives' the life on a planet that was destroyed 1,000 years earlier. In that show a piece of music was writen for Picard's flute. Then in a later episode, Lessons, Picard and his new found girlfriend, Lieutenant Commander Nella Daren, play that same music. BSG should have done the same thing, write new music for the show, or admit that it's part of Earth's real culture.

Season 4 (preview during hiatus)

At the outset of the series, Moore said they will never find Earth. Sure, if they did, the show's over, right? Now he says they'll find Earth. One of the things that has been in non-interview articles about the show, is that the now extened to 20-22 episode season four, will be the last. So is finding Earth the end?

Added 4/9/2007 - Now it appears that in one of those podcasts, Moore has said that Season 4 will deal with the back stories (more flashbacks) of what he is saying are really, really, really four of the final five Cylons, the fact that Starbuck is NOT a Cylon, who that last Cylon is, and [ready for this] these Cylons are different from the other Cylons! Again, what's the point of telling us anything about the next season? If he leaks enough of this out, there won't be a reason to watch. He should have left us wanting more, instead he gave away the secrets to next season. Maybe I shouldn't read the newsgroup e-mail format or web browser format.

If these Final Five are actually different kinds of Cylons, is that going against Moore's statement that he won't use other aliens in the show? What's the difference between a new kind of Cylon or a new race called the NOLYCs? Will they help the humans or are they enemies too? Are they 'God' to the Cylons? Will Moore spill the beans before next January? Will anyone care?

I'm going to watch to see how much more the writers can
FRAK
with the fanbase and get away with it.

Another post in the newsgroup claims that Battlestar Galactica lost 30% of it's February (2006 to 2007) viewers due to the move from Friday to Sunday, but that's another issue.

On May 11 and 12 conflicting posts to the newsgroup claim that season 4 will be the last and the other say it isn't. Speaking of Frakking us...

Now there's a claim that the 'filler' episodes were forced on the producers by the network.

June 2 - It's official, 2008 will be the last season for BSG. Do they have a plan to end the show?

Modified July 14 - There will be a two hour show to be aired in November 2007. This is supposed to be about the Battlestar Pegasus between the attack and meeting up with Galactica. That will be followed by a full season beginning in January 2008, which will be the last for the series. I guess they'll find Earth or get wiped out!

On October 26, the newsgroup reported that Moore said that the final season will be DELAYED until April 2008.

Maybe they will find Miri's copy of the Earth, land in Mayberry, and find that Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) is the Imperious Leader.

My thoughts about Razor (aired on 11/24/2007 - Thanksgiving Saturday)

Much ado about little. There was little added to the BGS story with this two hour movie. In fact I found the most interesting thing shown was the promo for Tin Man, a remake of the Wizard of Oz (without the music).

What we learned:
Using flashbacks from the time right after Admiral Cain was assassinated by Gina and Lee Adama becomes the Pegasus commander, we learn about Kendra Shaw, who was Cain's comm officer. Because of her relationship with Cain, Lee appoints her XO in the new Pegasus command structure, to carry Cain's legacy. We never saw her in the Pegasus episodes in season 2.
Gina was also in the communications department and had become Cain's lover. Was there a Six on every battlestar? Are they all computer/communications geeks? For that matter, Kendra was sharp enough (maybe that's why she's the Razor) to realize the connection between Gina and the Six that boarded Pegasus with the Cylons to immediately jump to the conclusion that Gina was a humanoid Cylon.
In a flashback to the flashback we find a young William Adama coming across a Cylon/human hybrid experiment at the end of the first Cylon war. Because the war was declared over, he wasn't allowed to pursue it.
The hybrid on the Cylon ship warned Kendra Shaw that Starbuck would lead to destruction (but didn't specify whose - Cylon or Human)

What we knew and didn't really need to see:
Cain executed her XO in the CIC when he refused an order that was probably illegal.
Cain ordered civilians killed when she wanted key crew members supplies from a smaller rag tag fleet. Then she abandoned them after taking what the Pegasus needed.
She not only condoned, but authorized the torture of Gina by Lt. Thorne, once she was found to be a Cylon.
There's something about Starbuck (see above).
This happened before and will happen again and again and again and again
. . .

Bottom line:
This could have been a single episode during the regular season after cutting out the stuff we knew. Of course between the long hiatus and the writers strike, they probably needed to get something on the air to keep the fans' interest.

The beginning of Season 4

The first few episodes
The writers have clearly lost the plan, if they ever had one. The revealed four of the final five have major problems. How is it that they all just happen to be on the Galactica? What about Tori? She became the President's aide when Billy was killed. Was that planned? How did they know that the actor would want out?
If these so called Cylons are really 4000 years old, how does that fit into the idea that the Cylons were created by man, as robots and evolved into skin jobs? Were these four part of the Cylon development team forty years plus ago? How did they age, if they did? Then how is Tigh explained as a long time friend of Adama?

And from the Caprica web page:
(spoilers for prequel - click in box below to read it)

Given:

The final four of the five are over 4,000 years old.
The mechanical Cylons were created buy humans some time before the rebellion .
The rebellion and war was 40 years ago.

Questions:

How can the final four of five be Cylons and still be 4000 years old?

How can the seven skin jobs be programmed not to think about the final five? If that's the case, they wouldn't even know about them. If you try not to think about something, you can't help but think of it.

Who's Natalie?

In one of the newsgroup threads, the Six on the Cylon Basestar is referred to as Natalie. Someone asked who that is. The reply was: That's the lead Six's name in the captions (and presumably in the script) so it would appear she has a future.
So now we have to watch with closed captioning on to get all the nuances of story. Give me a break. The previous podcasts were bad enough when you had to listen to them to figure out what happened on the show.

Sine Qua Non - aired in the US May 30

The Latin translates to: without which not. What does this mean?

So:

It seems that the colonies have the same Latin as Earth did (does).
Without Earth, there's no Colonies.
Without the president, there's no leadership.
Without Laura, Bill Adama is useless.
Without the resurrection ship, the Six shot by Athena dies.
Without his cat, Lampkin is useless.
Without the whiteboard, we couldn't figure out that Lee would be the acting president.
Without Laura, the Council is a raving bunch of lunatics.
Without any command sense, Adama let half of his vipers fly to an enemy ship, which then jumped away to parts unknown
Without a plan the show is going no where.
Without closed captioning, viewers don't know all the details of the story.
Without the word FRAK, the fans wouldn't be able to argue whether the character said that or F***.

Spoiler from the 5/30 Next On...
(click in box below to read it)

Is the soil really radioactive?

Some folks recognized the device used in the final scene to NOT be a Geiger Counter. Others say that even if it were a GC, the rate of clicks was only enough to show normal background radiation.
So the other burning questions:

Was it a Geiger counter, or something else?
Or was it bad prop selection?
Was it really supposed to be radioactive?
Or was it bad science consulting?

Or was Moore just frakking with us again?

It's going to be a L--o--n--g wait!

An exchange on the Battlestar Galctia newsgroup:
That bridge was the 59th St bridge, rebuilt!
The final Cylon is Art Garfunkel

Cylon & Garfunkel

On September 4, it was reported that Olmos said at Dragoncon said it was Earth that they landed on. Yet another out of show statement.

Taken from a Ron Moore interview with Alan Sepinwall /The Star-Ledger (as in Newark, NJ)

AS: Some of the writers who have talked to people since the finale have been very evasive about what Earth is and what happened to it. I'm not going to ask you to give it away, but my first reaction to it, and a lot of people's, was, "Holy (bleep), it's the Brooklyn Bridge." And whether it's supposed to be that or not, given that the show deals so much with 9/11, were you deliberately trying to evoke that shape with that shot?
RM: It wasn't exactly my idea. It was something that the visual effects artists came up with. I dialed it back from being further in that direction. I wanted to evoke that feeling of familiarity, and I wanted to end with a big question mark. I didn't want them to know exactly what they were looking at, but you could pull that out of it.

Read the whole interview

The End Begins L--o--n--g wait is over and (1/16/2009) - Sometimes a Great Notion

OK, so it is the Earth, but all of the 'humanoid' remains found are Cylon. Starbuck finds her body and wrecked fighter and burns the body to hide it. Many of the fleet members are despondent. Dee finds a pocket watch and a set of jacks on the planet. Then later, Dee, has a seemingly good dinner with Apollo, followed by an almost romantic goodby --- kills herself. The revealed cylons realize they were alive 2000 years ago, in the very same spot that the fleet landed on. D'Anna wants to remain on the planet as the combined fleet leaves. Anders finds the remains of a guitar and begins to play All Along the Watchtower, a song he says he played for a love (but did he compose it? - That's not clear in dialogue). Tyrol says he remembers being in that very market at the ruins when the bombs fell and destroyed the civilization. Saul Tigh thinks back to the day and 'sees' Ellen after the blast, she's dying and says, "It's okay. It's okay. Everything is in place. We'll be reborn. Again. Together.." He says, "So you're the fifth." Roslin burns her copy of the the Prophecies of Pythia because of the disappointment.

Some on the BSG Newsgroup say that the the planet is not our Earth, but the Cylons called it earth. Give me a break. That's nothing but double talk.
So new questions arise:

Is it really our Earth?
How do the 2000 year old ruins mesh with the 4000 year old Cylons and the 50 year old Caprica story line?
Why is D'Anna interested in this planet, if she and the other of the Seven evolved from the man made Cylons?
How could they have landed at the same spot where the FOUR had lived 2000 years ago?
Is this Starbuck a clone, a Cylon, or something else?
Why did Dee seem so happy and then kill herself?
Is Ellen the final fifth? Or Starbuck? Or Cally? Or Rosiln? Or Dee? Or . . .
It seems that we are to argue what the definition is IS is.

A Disquiet Follows My Soul (1/23/2009)

Some new information: Tyrol is NOT the father of Cally's son, Nicholas. Thus Hera is still the only Human/Cylon hybrid. It turns out that Hot Dog is the father and Tyrol seeks him out, punches him out and makes him watch the kid, who is sick with renal failure. Previously, Moore had been quoted that Nicholas appeared to be a hybrid. But now not so. I wish he'd stop those spoiler interviews - red herrings are needed in good drama, just tell the fans to keep watching. However, that does reopen the possibility that Cally is a Cylon.
The Six is pregnant with Saul's child making a Cylon/Cylon baby, something thought to be impossible. So the Cylon race can continue without a Resurection Hub. But does that make the final four of five something other than true Cylons?
Zarek, as VP in Roslin's absence, manipulates the Quorum into voting against Adama/Roslin and prevents the Cylon technology (longer FTL jumping) from being installed in the fleet. There's still distrust between most of the humans and even the rebellious Cylons and the final four of five.
The tyllium fuel ship ran from the fleet when the Cylons came to install the equipment, but they returned after Zarek was jailed. He and Geata plan a mutiny (for next week).

Again from the newsgroup, more and more folks are saying that the final five are a different find of Cylon. So I ask again, why not call them something else?
Then there's the whole thing about Baltar's Cylon detector that was supposed to be used on all the fleet, starting with the top command. Not withstanding that Baltar lied on a few results, why didn't we see the results of the final four?

Stay tuned!

The Oath (1/30/2009)

Unlike the previous episodes, this well paced episoide advances the story well.
So Geata springs Zarek from the brig and mutinies the Galactica. Geata fakes a fire and downed comm in the ship and screens calls to Bill Adama about the 'problems'. Civilians arm themselves and when confronted by Starbuck she can't talk to the Admiral either. Apollo tries to get the Quorum to reverse its position and gets surprised when Zarek shows up. (the dialogue between the old and new Apollos was well paced). Apollo escapes to Galactica and meets up with Starbuck. They try to make their way to the CIC.
Meanwhile in the CIC, Adama and Tigh are arrested by Geata & the mutineers and sent to the brig. On the way, they overcome the marines guarding them and make their way to an escape route through a forgotten storage bay. Starbuck and Apollo find their way to Adama's quarters and meet the president there. By this time the full mutiny is found out and Starbuck, Apollo, and the President make their way to Baltar to use his 'secret' wireless to override the mutiny communications. Geata finds a way to cut off the president's plea to put down arms. Later Adama and Tigh meet up with Apollo & company, they make their was to the escape route, where Adama and Tigh stand their ground to allow Apollo, Strabuck and the president to escape. Yet another case where Adama's tactical methods come into question. What good could he and Tigh do after the president's Raptor escapes, other than becoming martyrs? A dead admiral does the fleet no good.By the time line on the show this all takes place over the course of a few hours.
The questions remain.

Blood on the Scales or how wreck a locomotive. (2/6/2009)

This was part II of the mutiny story. With clever preview editing we think Adama and Tigh are executed/killed, but it turns out not to be true. Zarek is shown to be the ruthless leader we thought he'd be as he executes the Quorum in cold blood, somewhat shocking Geata. Meanwhile the president and the 'good' Cylons try to break into the fleet comm signals to tell them to stop the coup. But the Galactica under Geata, tharwts the efforts. Zarack and Geata continue the coup/mutiny, but Adama, Tigh, Starbuck and Apollo are able to taks back the ship and the fleet. In the end, Adama and Roslin are reunited with the fleet and Zarack and Geata are about to be excuted and the show fades to black with Adama calling 'fire'.
Tyrol sabatoges the Galactica's FTL drive just before it jumps away from the fleet, preventing a further split of forces.

Another good episode that moves the story along. However, the FTL drive kind of looked like the inside of a diesel engine, didn't it? Pistons and all.

The Exit (2/13/2009)

From the previews on 2/6 - was that a resurection we saw? Weren't we told that the Hub was destroyed, with no way to resurrect? Another rewrite or misleading preview or another corner they have to write out from?

Ellen is the fifth, she resurected on the hub after she drank the poison on New Caprica. It turns out that the five helped the toasters 'evolve' the eight during the exile after the first war with the colonies, including resurection capabilies. A previously unknown character, named Daniel is Cylon #7, but it was killed by Cavil, who destroyed all but one each of the five and planted them in preparation for the attack on the Colonies forty years later. How does Billy fit here? If the actor didn't want to leave the show, would he have been one of the final five? Will that be metioned, or will the retcon be that he was killed to promote Tori to Roslin's assistant?

Anders, with a bullet in his head, is remembering part of this while under Cottle's care with the other three & Starbuck. During a series of time noted flashbacks beginning just after the escape from New Caprica, Ellen relives the events with Cavel and Boomer.

The two flashbacks help us put the pieces together of the history between the two types of Skinjobs, the toasters, the Caprica Series, and the Final Five. It appears that there was no plan and this is all a retcon to make what was shown on screen work out.

Then let's look at this reverse Oedipus complex: Ellen claims to be the mother to all the eight skinjobs. During the New Caprica story she was fracking Cavil, one of her children, who was made in the image of her father!

While this is going on, Tyrol and Adama are looking at cracks in Galactica's structure. With reluctance, Adama agrees to allow Tyrol to use a reconstuctive Cylon substance to repair the ship. Roslin and Apollo discuss rebuilding the civilian government with the quorum murdered and her dying of cancer. Is she the dying leader? Or is that another red herring?

Is Daniel really Zack, Billy, Zarek, Geata, or someone else? Will we see him? Or is it trans-gender and he's a she in Cally or Starbuck?

Interesting casting: the brain surgeon operating on Anders is the actor that plays the PC in the Mac commercials.

Still to be figured out if the final four had planted memories (major retcons):
How does Adama remember Tigh for so long and never noticed that his age never changed?
Anders was an athlete, so does anyone remember him playing?
Tyrol was the son of a preacher, why did Cavil plant those memories?

An interesting tid-bit: Tom Zarek has appeard in the same number of episodes (22) as Apollo did in the origianl series. Of course, both characters are played by Richard Hatch. Was that the PLAN?

Deadlock (2/20/2009)

Less excitement this week.

Ellen and Tigh reunite, she finds out about the pure Cylon, Leeum between Tigh and Caprica Six. Baltar convinces his followers to share their food, but Centurians (human) steal it. Baltar convinces Adama to give him weapons (remember how good giving Baltar the nuke turned out).

The Final Five with Anders still in coma, decide to leave the fleet in their basestar along with Six and Boomer. Ellen abstains form voting until after she meets with Caprica Six. Then after thinking about it, Ellen votes to leave the fleet. The vote is 3-2, with Tigh and Anders (based on his pre-coma statement) want to stay. This causes Caprica Six to lose the baby, because she realizes that Tigh loves Ellen, not her. Ellen apologizes and they decide to stay.

Is this another repeat plot, where the baby is not dead?

A number of copies of Sixes and Eights work with the crew to repair Galactica with the Cylon Goo. Adama wonders if he made a mistake in authorizing the use of the Goo. Will the ship become a Cylon?

I posted most of the above before I read the BSG Newsgroup this morning. My gut feeling that this was not a well writen episode was right! Most of the news posters did not like it. In fact, many of the fanboys hated it. A few hours later I read additional news group posts and it's worse!

There's another Tiral coming! That's at least the third story with a trial.

Anyone in favor of bringing in the famous lawyer James T. (Denny) Crainekirk, Captian Colonial Judge Advocate General?

Someone to Watch Over Me (2/27/2009)

Boomer Eight is in the brig, but Six wants her to come to trial on Cavil's Baseship. Kara is making the same flight briefing to the pilots, a mix of humans and cylons so much, she's doing it her sleep. Tyrol visits Boomer in the brig, they share a Cylon vision (not used since season 2) showing him the house they wanted to own and a child they never had. The confusing thing was that in the brig they used phones to talk, yet it appeared that they could touch through the grill. So why the phones? Tyrol, pleads with Roslin and Adama to not release Boomer to the Cylons. After the request is denied, he helps Boomer escape by replacing her with one of the Eights working on the ship. After the switch, Boomer attacks Athena (are you keeping this straight, at least three Eights and two Sixes) and then fraks Helo, who isn't 100% sure which Eight is there. Boomer kidnaps Hera and makes her way to the raptor that Athena was to fly and excapes with Hera, but Adama tries to stop her by closing the launch doors. As the ship leaves, it hits the side of Galactica. The plot all along with Boomer and Ellen was to get Hera back to Cavil. Roslin seems to collapse as Hers leave the ship. Is she dead?

Then there's the sub plot with Starbuck and the piano player (some think he's the Daniel #7 and Starbuck's father). He's composing music and Kara remembers a piece she played with her father. It turns out that the picture Hera gave to Starbuck, when turned horizontal, is the music to that song. Tigh, Ellen and Tori wonder how Starbuck knew the song. Again a reference to the three of the five knowing Daniel. More music to trigger the Cylons! Is there any plot that hasn't been repeated? Is the piece the opening to the original Lorne Greene theme? The title of the episode was the same as a Star Trek Voyager episode from season 5.

ISLANDED IN A STREAM OF STARS (3/6/2009)

In the preview, Adama cries again.

Boomer turns Hera over to Cavil, who seems to have build a complex base in a small planet or asteroid.

Adama convinces himself to abandon the Galactica after many crew members are lost to a hull leak. He also paints his quarters with the Cylon Goo and slides down the wall. This is a scene that's been used a number of times with various characters.

Anders is connected to the ship grid to help he 're-boot'. Kara tries to get the semi-awake Anders to find out about her resurection. Anders must be disconnected when ship's systems are affected.

Roslin is still at death's door. Adama reads a detective mystery to her in sick bay. They smoke medicinal weed. It's amazing that they still have cigarettes and weed two years afer fleeing New Caprica.

Kara gives the dogtags from her 'earth body' to Baltar for analysis. After the memorial to those lost in the hull leak, Baltar reveals that the blood on the tag is indeed from a body and that the DNA is a 100% match to Kara. The public revelation upsets her and she slaps him. Kara also places a photo of her former self on the memorial wall.

Various characters have visions in the Opera House.

More Moore Frakking us (from the News Group):

Apparently Chief Tyrol HAS BEEN ARRESTED for his role in aiding Boomer to escape. The scene explaining it has been cut from the episode but will be on the DVD:

Out of show comment from BSG composer Bear McCreary: "In addition to the version you just watched, I also scored an extended version for the DVD release. Not only are many of the dialog scenes expanded, but there are several scenes that were cut entirely from the show that required substantial original music. One of these scenes established that Tyrol is now in the brig for his role in Boomer's escape and kidnapping of Hera. I was disappointed that this story point was cut from the episode, since Chief's arc last week was so emotionally powerful."

Give me a break! This is poor planning for the episode, what a hack.

While viewing the episode, many thought they saw a shot of the Dee in the CIC, others thought so too, but it turned out to not be true. Thought there was another frack or a hack!

DAYBREAK - PART 1 (one hour 3/13/2009)

A usless episode. A bunch of flashbacks from Roslin, Baltar, Kara, Lee, Anders, and Zack! None of them are germane to any of the stories.

Months before the attack:

Roslin loses her two sisters and father in an auto accident after one sister's baby shower.

Baltar and Six get sidetracked with a visit to Baltar's father, who is a crotchety old man. Six arranges to move him to an assisted living home. This encounter gave the fans another instance where Baltar said FRAK or the other word!

Zack intorduces Kara to Lee.Weren't we led to believe that the Adama's knew Kara for years?

The only significant motion of the story: Adama readies the Galactica for abandonment. But Anders, hooked up to the ships systems, tells him where Hera is. Adama then readies Galactica for a final mission to rescue her. He asks for volunteers . . .

DAYBREAK - PART 2 (two hours 3/20/2009)

To wrap up last week's flashbacks of irrelevant stuff:
Lee and Kara almost frak while Zak sleeps off a drunk.
At a strip joint Bill and Tigh talk about the interview Still not sure what the interview was about, but they asked if he were a Cylon. But they didn't know about the skinjobs back then.
Laura realizes why Sean's name is familiar, he was a student of her's. They have a one night stand and then she decides to work for Adar as he ran for president.

In short the Colonials get Hera, lose Hera, get Hera, lose Hera . . .
The the final Five make a deal with Cavil & company to give them back resurection, in exchange for stopping the war. But on the connection between the final five, who have to work together to get the whole plan, Galen finds out that Tori killed Cally. He breaks the connection and all hell breaks lose. Galactica jumps away from the baseship. Cavil kills himself, the jump is under Starbuck's control, following Hera's musical notes as the coordinates. It turns out that the jump puts them at our Earth. The fleet somehow finds them too. They scout the planet and decide to split the remaining humans among the primitives on Earth. Each of the couples go their own way:
Adama and Roslin, but she dies and he buries her on a hill side.
Baltar and Six, and their respective virtuals find a place to farm.
Starbuck and Apollo walk and talk and Starbuck disapears there's still no indication of what Starbuck is or how she regenerated nor anything about her new viper. Many think she's just a different angel from the virtual Six and Baltar. For a show that wasn't supposed to have NO ALIENS, it sure has a large variety of different beings that on other shows would be called by different names..

Tyrol, Athena, and Hera look for a place to settle. In the penultimate scene Hera is walking with a stick.
Adama sets Anders, who now mentally controls the fleet, directs him to lead the fleet into the sun.

Jump 150,000 years into the future. We find Virtual Six and Virtual Baltar walking in Times Square and they find an article that archaeologists have found the mitochondrial Eve.

There is no explaination of what happened to the ship that Adama used.
The show closes with shots of various real robot experiments, including the Japanese female robot.

At the beginning of the mini-series, Six kills a baby and sometime after that said somtheing lik: It's about time you got here to someone. To whom was she talking?

And the reddest of red herrings in the show:
Who is Daniel? Cylon #7 - killed by Cavil
Starbuck's father (teaching her the music)?
The Cylon god?
Turns out it was just a throwaway line a few weeks from the end of the series. Back to 2-13

What a FRAK job! It's over! And everything is attributed to god!
That's a waste of all time since the end of season two!

The Super Frack!

So Moore says it's the EARTH as described in the Colonial Scrolls, but NOT OUR EARTH! Give me a break, this is a frack job by a hack writer. Why call it earth, call it Ishtibibbledebip for any that it matters. Miri's planet is looking better and better.

And now from the cutting room floor
(as reported in the newsgroup e-mail format or web browser format.):

Starbuck: The star patterns match what we saw in the Tomb of Athena.
Roslin: Four of them. What about the other eight?
Kara: What more do you want? A flashing neon sign that says Earth?!
What does this mean? Anything filmed, wheter it makes it to the screen or not is part of the story. More and more Moore looks like a hack.

Even President Obama is depressed!

And the hacking continutes! Craprica (posted May 9, 2009 after viewing)

To say this was disappointing is an understatement. The show starts with a virtual world we are led to believe was set up by the teenagers. Though the cut scenes may imply that the adults who worship the one god may have had a part in it.

Zoe Greystone and her friends spend time in the V Club, where anything goes from sex to drugs, to shooting, to ...

It's her friend, who blows up the train that killed Zoe and everyone on the train, including Bill Adams' sister and mother.

The Adamas come from Tauron, with overtones of Mafia like families, with godfathers, murder, bribery, favors, and extortion. They even threw in Tauron language with English subtitles.

It turns out that Daniel Greystone did not invent the Cylons by himself.
Greystone developed the robot body.
A competitor had a key part, which Greystone stole with Adams' help.
Zoe was the one who figured out how to download the memories and sprit of an individual into a V world program. Other people could have avitars created from various computer records including medical, credit card purchases, reports and e-mails.

The result is at the end of the show Geystone wins the Cylon construction contract and one Cylon awakens with Zoe's memories.

There were some scenes with the police talking about investigation oif the bombing, but nothing showing the investigation. It would have been nice to see some of the forensics leading to the conclusion that Zoe's friend was the bomber.

The series begins in 2010 on SyFy.

I don't think so.

The Plan

The PLAN, a recap from the Cylon perspective will be released on DVD and Blueray, but not broadcast on SyFy, October 27, 2009.

Is the date a coincidence? The IRT will be 105 years old that day! Don't forget that many thought they landed near the Brooklyn Bridge, which was the second station on the new subway in 1904!

If you haven't seen The Plan, do not read below this line.

If only they had a plan, any plan, when they wrote the scripts for the series. The PLAN is nothing more than a lame attempt to retcon the lame story of the final five, centering around the good and bad Cavils. It takes place in the fleet and on a few of the colonies over the time framejust over 200 days from the attack.

The bad Cavel was the one found on Galactica shortly after the attacks. He was trying to clean up the mess of not killing all of the humans. Among other things:

• He forced Boomer into sabataging the water and shooting Adama after destroying the Base Star.
• He helped Six try to frame Baltar on preventing the defense system from detecting the Cylons.
• He warned Doral that his variations of clothing choice were not enough to escape detection.
• He had at least one meeting with the various fleet Cylons about the issues.
• He tried to convince a copy of Simon to destroy the ship he and his human family were on.
• He killed a kid near the end of the show, who was annoying him. At first I thought it was Cylon #7, but the kid said his name was John, Cavil's first name. Cylon #7 was Daniel.. I don't get the need for that or the connection.

The good Cavil was the one that met up with Anders and his team of Pyramid Players.

• He befriends Anders, who was one of the final five.
• He tries to convince the humans that the Caprica Cylons wanted to stop the war.
• He and the evil Cavil try to reconcile before being air locked at the end of the show.

It turns out that another Cavil was the person Baltars physical Six met just before the attack. He tells her to destroy her current body, with poison before the attack so she can download. Perhaps this is a vague reference to how she became Baltar's Head Six.

Overall a poorly done retcon of the beginning given the unplanned outcome of the series.

The best part of the DVD is the extra feature that tells about the development of the special effects in the show.

Timeline of the Battlestar Galactica Universe