Battlestar Galactica: Season 4 Thread

[Lord of Oop North]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1296601' date='Apr 1 2008, 16.34']Haha, always reminds me of a great scene from an episode of Duckman, where he something happens and Duckman goes off ranting about it"

"But why? Why would he do something so stupid, and idiotic and completely out of character?"

And then everything freezes and another voice comes in and says "The key word is: Bad Writing", while the words [b]Bad Writing[/b] flash in big yellow letters at the bottom of the screen.[/quote]

Ah, Duckman. Great show. I wish I could watch some episodes of it. I heard there will be a DVD release this year.

[Shryke]

[quote name='Lord of the North' post='1296648' date='Apr 1 2008, 16.49']Ah, Duckman. Great show. I wish I could watch some episodes of it. I heard there will be a DVD release this year.[/quote]

REALLY? About Fucking Time. Their Star Trek spoof episode is one of the best 30 minutes ever.

[Lord of Oop North]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1296651' date='Apr 1 2008, 16.51']REALLY? About Fucking Time. Their Star Trek spoof episode is one of the best 30 minutes ever.[/quote]

Apparantly CBS DVD recieved a petition with over 7,000 signatures demanding Duckman on DVD. I don't think that is the first such petition either. From what I know, the reason for the delay has something to do with Frank Zappa. His trust was negotiating with the producers because of the music that was provided for the first season.

And yea, the Star Trek spoof is a legendary television episode.


[quote]Anders had pneumonia or something like it on New Caprica, so I was thinking that might mean that the 5 are fundamentally different from the 7 if the 7 aren't susceptible to normal illnesses.[/quote]

I'm thinking that this was a writing boo-boo. I bet they had no idea who the final five were when they wrote any of that.

[Relic]

[quote name='Lord of the North' post='1296783' date='Apr 1 2008, 19.40']I'm thinking that this was a writing boo-boo. I bet they had no idea who the final five were when they wrote any of that.[/quote]


yeah they pretty much admitted that

[tzanth]

[quote name='HokieStone' post='1295320' date='Mar 31 2008, 14.01']I'm not complaining about them mixing and matching "real life" ranks - they can call their ranks whatever they want. My nitpick is that very junior officers are getting gigantic promotions. What could possibly have qualified Dualla to be XO of the Pegasus? And "Bulldog" was very chummy with Adama and Tigh...and yet he was only a Lieutenant?[/quote]
It's called nepotism. Shes the daughter in law of the head honcho.

[Shryke]

It doesn't have to have anything to do with Nepotism. I mean, really, who's higher up in the military command structure then her?

Adama, Tigh, Gaeta, Lee, that other guy who it turned out was making the bombs

I think that's it.

[tzanth]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1297192' date='Apr 1 2008, 22.45']It doesn't have to have anything to do with Nepotism. I mean, really, who's higher up in the military command structure then her?

Adama, Tigh, Gaeta, Lee, that other guy who it turned out was making the bombs

I think that's it.[/quote]
You might be right in this case, however one of my favorite things about BSG has always been its rather stark portrayal of power.

[Paddy]

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1297536' date='Apr 2 2008, 15.59']Fair enough. Considering what we were left with, it might have been advantageous. I liked the 4 episode arc, though. Its the rest of the season that needed changing.[/quote]
I completely agree. They did all they needed to do with the 4 (and a bit) episode arc. Any more than that and it would have been boring.
Those 4 episodes were fantastic, as Coco says, it was the rest of the season that was messed up (and I think that it's not even close to as bad as people here generally make out).

[Shryke]

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1297536' date='Apr 2 2008, 10.59']Fair enough. Considering what we were left with, it might have been advantageous. I liked the 4 episode arc, though. Its the rest of the season that needed changing.[/quote]

Agree 100%.

Originally, I too thought the occupation arc was gonna go on longer. I was thinking like half a season. But, once I saw the first episode, I knew it was gonna be over fast. They basically skipped over the steady buildup. (Actually, they confined it to the webisodes between seasons) By hte time the first episode had begun, they'd skipped over the boring "stuff getting steadly worse" stuff and gone straight to the "shit has hit the fan" part and ran with it.

[Wouter]

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1297536' date='Apr 2 2008, 16.59']I still think it sounds utterly ridiculous.[/quote]
The effect actually was sort of cool in the promo, the way it was shown. Wait till you've seen it.

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1297536' date='Apr 2 2008, 16.59']Going on a military "suicide mission" has been practiced for as long as anyone can remember.[/quote]
Still not quite the same as blowing yourself up. Even with those "suicide missions", there's still a chance to come back alive, allthough it's a small one.

In BSG, I think that the attack on the baseship in orbit around Kobol could well be termed a "suicide mission" (take a Raptor and a nuke to attack a basestar and [i]we hope[/i] his transponder will make them think you are Cylon and also stop them ask any questions), but they still returned.

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1297536' date='Apr 2 2008, 16.59']You think that nobody in the fleet committed suicide? I think that'd be preposterous.[/quote]
Not at all; what I meant was that the people who were still alive after 1 year on New Caprica obviously hadn't given in to the desire to kill themselves, which must have been prevalent among the fleet ever since the miniseries. I think suicides are mentioned in the first episodes of the series, as could be expected.

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1297536' date='Apr 2 2008, 16.59']I heard less than a week ago about a captain going down with his fishing ship in Alaska. In any case, the invention of the suicide vest was by the Tamil Tigers... a nationalist organization.[/quote]
Don't the Tamils have religious undertones and a person cultus as well (I heard that all the tigers need personal permission from the "leader" to marry)? A bit like imperial Japan?
In any case, I don't think the mindset of the Tamils is comparable to those of the New Capricans.

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1297536' date='Apr 2 2008, 16.59']The Alamo is probably the best example of this in American history - they had plenty of chances to retreat, but again, their motivation was political. Ask yourself this - what is the fundamental difference between getting oneself killed for a political cause, and getting oneself killed for a religious one? Because I see little difference.[/quote]
The Alamo, wasn't that more a case of the attacker fighting without mercy? Murder rather than suicide (allthough it was a suicidal mission, granted; they didn't kill themselves though).

As for the difference: as you yourself wrote, religiously motivated suicide bomber often have political motives as well (usually tied in closely with the religious agenda though). But, if all you have to work with are political motives (say, you want to go for a communist revolution), you can't play the afterlife card. If all you can say is that there is nothing after the sacrifice, it is going to be very hard to get volunteers, compared to when you can literally promise heaven.

[Lord of Oop North]

[quote]If all you can say is that there is nothing after the sacrifice, it is going to be very hard to get volunteers, compared to when you can literally promise heaven.[/quote]

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or the one"

Sacrifice for a cause does not require spiritual rewards.

[HokieStone]

So, I just watched "The Woman King". Is this where season 3 starts to plunge downhill? I was confused from the get-go on this one. The "previously on Battlestar Galactica" scenes show some where Helo was assigned to manage the refugees and talk about the Sagittarons arriving. Huh? I don't remember any such scenes from the previous episodes. I take it that these were scenes that were cut, but they kind snuck 'em in there at the beginning of this episode to make you think they were in a previous episode and you just kind of forgot about them?

Anyway, don't know what else to say about this episode that probably hasn't been said before. We get some heavy-handed moralizing...when what I want to see is humans fighting cylons! Adama seemed way out of character when he chews out Helo near the beginning of the episode.


On a more general nitpick...there's been several episodes this season where Vipers have had to make emergency landings en masse...Galactica needs to jump and they all need to get back on board ASAP. It amuses me to no end to watch them bounce all over the deck on their landing skids. For god's sake, maybe it's time to mount some wheels on those things!

[Shryke]

[quote name='HokieStone' post='1298613' date='Apr 2 2008, 22.49']So, I just watched "The Woman King". Is this where season 3 starts to plunge downhill? I was confused from the get-go on this one. The "previously on Battlestar Galactica" scenes show some where Helo was assigned to manage the refugees and talk about the Sagittarons arriving. Huh? I don't remember any such scenes from the previous episodes. I take it that these were scenes that were cut, but they kind snuck 'em in there at the beginning of this episode to make you think they were in a previous episode and you just kind of forgot about them?

Anyway, don't know what else to say about this episode that probably hasn't been said before. We get some heavy-handed moralizing...when what I want to see is humans fighting cylons! Adama seemed way out of character when he chews out Helo near the beginning of the episode.


On a more general nitpick...there's been several episodes this season where Vipers have had to make emergency landings en masse...Galactica needs to jump and they all need to get back on board ASAP. It amuses me to no end to watch them bounce all over the deck on their landing skids. For god's sake, maybe it's time to mount some wheels on those things![/quote]

The Women King is the worst episode for being gutted when they cut the Saggitaron story. It's, frankly, a bit of a mess.

[Wouter]

[quote name='Lord of the North' post='1298426' date='Apr 3 2008, 02.26']"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or the one"

Sacrifice for a cause does not require spiritual rewards.[/quote]
But it's a lot easier to get others to turn themselves into bombs when you do promise them eternal life in heaven (or when you have the framework of a semi-religious totalitarian ideology like Bushido).

[Lord of Oop North]

[quote name='Wouter' post='1299527' date='Apr 3 2008, 14.35']But it's a lot easier to get others to turn themselves into bombs when you do promise them eternal life in heaven (or when you have the framework of a semi-religious totalitarian ideology like Bushido).[/quote]

It does not mean it is impossible. There are plenty of military examples of soldiers sacrificing themselves to save their comrades. Or basically sacrificing themselves to deal a serious blow to the enemy.

The colonials were in a pretty extreme situation. I can't imagine it would be very hard to get people to blow themselves up to take out the Cylons, or those who are collaboratoring with their genocidal conquerers.

[Werthead]

Saw an interview earlier where RDM confirmed, once more, that:

SPOILER: BSG

The Final One isn't in the Last Supper picture. So it's not Adama, Roslin, Lee, Starbuck, Baltar or Helo. That really doesn't leave a lot of options. Zarek is still my favourite, but Gaeta, Dee, Doc Cottle, Captain Kelly or one of the pilots may be in with a shot I suppose.

[Wouter]

This is the interview mentioned: [url="http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2008/04/ron-moore-on-ba.html"]http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/en...oore-on-ba.html[/url]

This comment from Moore got my attention:

SPOILER: BSG

"Yes, there are some relationships that will be torn asunder and will not be put back together. There will be some things that will be fundamentally broken over the course of the season. We’re going to lose certain characters, some things are not going to be repaired. There’s a sense of finality about it. "

[Tb0ne]

[quote name='Blanc de Wert '79' post='1299587' date='Apr 3 2008, 11.13']Saw an interview earlier where RDM confirmed, once more, that:

SPOILER: BSG

The Final One isn't in the Last Supper picture. So it's not Adama, Roslin, Lee, Starbuck, Baltar or Helo. That really doesn't leave a lot of options. Zarek is still my favourite, but Gaeta, Dee, Doc Cottle, Captain Kelly or one of the pilots may be in with a shot I suppose.

[/quote]

There was a point when I thought

SPOILER: BSG

Doc Cottle might be a Cylon

but I can't remember why...

[Cel]

[quote name='Cocomaan' post='1297630' date='Apr 2 2008, 10.00']...
And for anyone thinking season 3 was anything but atrocious, all I have to say is:

[size=7][b]"I LOVE KARA THRACE!"[/b][/size][/quote]

Come on, that wasn't that bad. The "I Love Lee Adama" was much worse!

In all fairness, I did enjoy watching the season in one lump sum instead of week by week. I think it flows much better that way. The first time I watched the Baltar trial I was bored out of my mind. I watched it again recently. I don't like law shows and still don't like the trial scenes, but I do really like Lee's speech. It's very true. I like to think of it as the writers sort of poking fun at themselves since things haven't always been consistent.

[Werthead]

[quote]Come on, that wasn't that bad. The "I Love Lee Adama" was much worse![/quote]

When Starbuck yelled that out, I was hoping someone's voice would come drifting back across the plain, "Yeah, but [i]why?[/i]"