Battlestar Galactica: Season 4 Thread

[Bronn Stone]

Is this officially a spoiler thread?

SPOILER: Just in Case Not

Watched [i]He That Believeth In Me[/i] three times now. Baltar's Coterie of Supplicant Bimbos does not strike me as an appealing storyline.

But I am insanely curious about Starbuck's journey. I do find it somewhat incredulous that she's not in the brig. The Colonials have to know that she's been in contact with some powerful entity or another (God? The Devil?? The Cylons??? Lorien????) and I'd think erring on the side of caution would be the prudent course. Two marines mooks does not suffice. Nor should they have any real confidence in Doc Cottle's ability to identify a Cylon or Cylon agent.

Adama hasn't explicitly pointed it out on camera, but at this point they should be aware humanity and the fleet are alive because the Cylons want them alive. They have to reach that conclusion. Of course, I thought it pretty obvious even before this episode that the Cylons were herding the fleet - not actually attempting to destroy it. Adama and Roslin are soon going to have to start asking themselves why. And to what end. And if the risk they are leading the Cylons to Earth to finish the job they started in the Twelve Colonies outweighs their own need for a haven.

I also find myself asking if the answers to who is giving Roslin her visions, who put a Baltar in Caprica Six's head, who put a Six in Baltar's head and who is guiding/protecting/saving Starbuck might not just be the same - God. Or could it be rival gods? (Lords of Cobol vs. the one true God - whom I have decided to name R'hllor - with Caprica Six and her hot red dress being an official priestess)

Lots to think about. A solid debut for season 4.

[burnt hound]

Beautiful episode. A great battle in the beginning; hopefully we will get more of that as season 4 continues.

Baltar was awesome (but then he is always awesome). Tigh rocks, Tyrol too. Ah, Season 4, you will kick ass...

It's so nice to have Battlestar Galactica back :thumbsup:

[Brandon Stark]

[quote]I'm glad Baltar got rid of the face foliage. He looks sneakier without it, which is just what we like biggrin.gif .[/quote]

Indeed. I like my Christ imagery at a cool 6 or 7, as opposed to the 11 of the last little bit. I loved how they actually played on it almost comically during the first episode, though.

[Wouter]

[quote name='L’éclaircissementHK' post='1302031' date='Apr 5 2008, 19.21']And yeah, Adama you're a tough as nails realist, don't believe in miracles...might have worked in season 1, but I'd say that you've seen more than a few of them by now. What's the big deal?

And this is the trap a show like this falls into if it begins to rely too heavily on the mystic. You can't rightly dismiss it out of hand when another character says 'you've gotta believe me!'.[/quote]
Who says he does dismiss it out of hand? Adama changes his mind quite often; he didn't believe Roslin at first either, but has come round on that, at least to some degree. By next episode, he may already have doubts about the right course of action. That would be like Adama, no?

[Lord of Oop North]

Oh I forgot to mention one thing...

After Kara was tested, someone (I think Helo?) commented that Baltar's cylon detector was not able to identify Boomer as a Cylon. I have not seen that episode in a while, but I thought the test was positive and Baltar lied to her about the results?

[Bronn Stone]

[quote name='Lord of the North' post='1302106' date='Apr 5 2008, 10.55']Oh I forgot to mention one thing...

After Kara was tested, someone (I think Helo?) commented that Baltar's cylon detector was not able to identify Boomer as a Cylon. I have not seen that episode in a while, but I thought the test was positive and Baltar lied to her about the results?[/quote]

That is correct. But the fleet does not know that. In fact, if they did, Baltar would have been convicted of treason.

[Lord of Oop North]

[quote name='Bronn Stone' post='1302111' date='Apr 5 2008, 13.59']That is correct. But the fleet does not know that. In fact, if they did, Baltar would have been convicted of treason.[/quote]

Ah, ok. I was not sure if I was remembering the episode correctly. I know they would not know that, which is why I found it funny when they were saying the Cylon Detector was bogus.

I'm going to have to agree with EHK, the total disbelief of Kara's story was hard to believe. I hope Kara beats the crap out of Roslin, or calls her out on it in the next episode.

[Wouter]

One also has to consider Kara's brandnew Viper. That's bound to get disbelief. Where does it come from? How did she survive the explosion of the Viper she left in?

[Werthead]

I'm guessing the gas giant she saw was Saturn. I'm not sure about the triple star system. Probably Alpha Centauri but good luck to anyone trying to spot Proxima Centauri from more than a few dozen light-years away.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote]One also has to consider Kara's brandnew Viper. That's bound to get disbelief. Where does it come from? How did she survive the explosion of the Viper she left in?[/quote]

I've got no problem with them disbelieving her, its just that with all of the shit that has happened so far (especially to the very characters that are leading the charge to doubt Kara), you'd figure they'd give it a few moments longer consideration.

Actually, I'd be perfectly fine with the direction its going now so long as SOMEONE mentioned the President's 'Governing via hallucination' phase. It seems...almost disingenuous to the audience not to. You can't simply ignore highly relevant canon because its inconvenient at the time. And its not like it necessarily changes anything. Roslin can be a complete hypocrite and still oppose Kara. What's the big deal on someone actually calling her on it? 'Hey, didn't you commit a mutiny and steal half the fleet because you had some drug induced hallucinations? And now you're trying to play all hardnosed and logical? Crazy twit!'

[Ran]

There's the fact that everyone saw Kara Thrace [i]die[/i] in a fiery implosion, only to show up again in a brand new (old) Viper claiming she's been gone a few hours.

That's a whole new level of magical weirdness, and it's the thing that separates Roslin from Thrace. Roslin stretched the bounds of what could be believed to include prophetic warnings and whatnot. But she didn't come back from the dead under extremely mysterious circumstances before she did it.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote]There's the fact that everyone saw Kara Thrace die in a fiery implosion, only to show up again in a brand new (old) Viper claiming she's been gone a few hours.

That's a whole new level of magical weirdness, and it's the thing that separates Roslin from Thrace. Roslin stretched the bounds of what could be believed to include prophetic warnings and whatnot. But she didn't come back from the dead under extremely mysterious circumstances before she did it.[/quote]


I don't disagree that it separates them. I just want them to acknowledge Roslin's own weirdness. There's more than enough to bring an all new level of skepticism to Kara, but by not putting the shit in context, i think they're doing a disservice to the fans and the story. Its like when the nuke went off and nobody thought to ask Baltar 'WTF happened to that nuke we loaned you?' Roslin is leading the 'throw away the key' charge against Kara, someone needs to bring her (Roslin) shit up for the scenes to be buyable. Even if they still come to the same conclusions.

Otherwise it looks like the show is trying to forget that certain things happened when its convenient to the plot.

[Werthead]

[quote name='L’éclaircissementHK' post='1302254' date='Apr 5 2008, 23.42']Otherwise it looks like the show is trying to forget that certain things happened when its convenient to the plot.[/quote]

What, you mean like [i]Galactica[/i]'s four main batteries being blown clean off in [i]Exodus, Part 2[/i], only for them to be magically fully operational again in this ep? Those guns are pretty gargantuam, so it seems unlikely they'd have spares in stock to replace them.

The opening battle was supposed to be a bit more apocalyptic than it turned out to be, although that may have been a foiler. About 1,100 people died (presumably a few other ships other than the [i]Pixis[/i] got taken out) rather than the 5,000 that had been suggested before.

I think the episode belonged to Baltar though. After the long sequence of him walking into the cult's hideout, looking around with intense music playing, and him then just saying, "Right..." And of course, "Yes, I do feel God's presence." I think I called it a while ago that Baltar would end up being the Prophet of the Cylon God to the humans in the Fleet though. It seemed a very logical place for his character to go right from Season 1, and I like to think (probably kidding myself here) that this is where the writers were planning to take him from day one.

[Guest Domaine Raidneé]

Did I mention that the name Dualla invokes duality of character, and that her first name Anastasia means "resurrection" in Greek? Just sayin'

[Galactus]

Does it seem to anyone that a disproportionate number of space-hippies are attractive women?

Just sayin'.

[tzanth]

[quote name='Domaine Raidneé' post='1302273' date='Apr 5 2008, 14.14']Did I mention that the name Dualla invokes duality of character, and that her first name Anastasia means "resurrection" in Greek? Just sayin'[/quote]
Good point, although I'd like to hope that the final one would have some greater significance then just being another random side character. I mean, if it were just Dualla why didn't she come together with the last four?

[Lord of Oop North]

[quote name='Blanc de Wert '79' post='1302267' date='Apr 5 2008, 18.01']The opening battle was supposed to be a bit more apocalyptic than it turned out to be, although that may have been a foiler. About 1,100 people died (presumably a few other ships other than the [i]Pixis[/i] got taken out) rather than the 5,000 that had been suggested before.[/quote]

Battlestar Wiki lists 1,700 deaths, apparantly that is what was listed in the credits. Besides the Pixis, the Space Park and the Astral Queen were also hit by missiles. I am still quite surprised by how many of the survivors have been killed off. We started off with 50,000 in the mini-series, and now it is just under 40,000.

[tzanth]

[quote name='Galactus' post='1302281' date='Apr 5 2008, 14.22']Does it seem to anyone that a disproportionate number of space-hippies are attractive women?

Just sayin'.[/quote]
Ya, I thought it was a bit odd. I got the feeling they were trying to establish a sex cult/manson family type vibe.

[Mack Kilimaro]

So I hadn't watched an ep of BSG since, since around the episode where Baltar's lawyer got introduced. For me, the whole New Caprica plotline was just so awesome that I couldn't even watch any more after that, it could only go downhill (and it sounds like it did, as I've been following the threads and the spoilers). That said, I am a big nerd, so I gotta represent for good science fiction TV, or what used to be good TV, in its final season.

So where the hell did the Cult of Gaius Baltar come from? Are these people that I would have seen before or are they just a bunch of random, strikingly attractive women who all want to get in Baltar's pants, so much so that they don't even hold it against one of their own when they find her naked next to him? Seriously, what is up with that? It was totally surreal. Then again, maybe I'm just jealous of Baltar and the two guys in their little colony, because damn. If there were less than 40,000 humans alive and I was in cramped quarters with all of them, I might start thinking my fate wasn't too bad. Unless they turned out to all be lesbians.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote]So where the hell did the Cult of Gaius Baltar come from? Are these people that I would have seen before or are they just a bunch of random, strikingly attractive women who all want to get in Baltar's pants, so much so that they don't even hold it against one of their own when they find her naked next to him? Seriously, what is up with that? It was totally surreal.[/quote]

Quick Summary. After they escaped New Caprica, Baltar's new home became a Cylon base ship. Insert several episodes of boring discussions and pointless exposition between Baltar and his Cylon hosts leading up to a showdown over some mystically relevant (points the way to earth) planet between Cylons and the fleet. At some point during that showdown, Baltar is turned over to the humans.

They imprison and interrogate him. Debate whether to torture/shoot out an airlock/have him stand trial/etc. During his time in the cell he writes and smuggles out his Mein Kamph/Communist-Baltarian Manifesto and he and his words develop a cult following amongst the fleet. Basically they try to turn him into G'Kar. I didn't really buy it, but what the hell.

Anyway, after a rousing speech from Lee Adama, Baltar is found innocent at trial, and the fanatics that embraced his 'message' (we never quite know what that is, but it seemed like some variation of 'workers of the world unite') smuggle him to their little hideout and that's when the new season/episode starts.