I’ve been thinking altogether too much about Battlestar Galactica lately. Not sure why.

Maybe because news has come out about The Plan telemovie. Maybe because Katee Sackhoff was cast in Season 8 of 24. Maybe because the Season 4.5 DVD drops next month. Maybe because I have the Caprica DVD sitting on the piano, mocking me for not having watched it yet.

Maybe just because I haven’t been able to cope with the fact that the series is over and it was just that frakkin’ good.

But I was thinking to myself about all the ways the new series was better than the old, and I realized that the old series doesn’t quite get its due among fans of the reimagining.

So I thought I’d do an old-fashioned matchup and see how the two stack up:

• Adama: Sorry Lorne Greene, I know you’re dead and all, and you were definitely awesome as Cmdr. Adama back in 1979, but Eddie kicks your ass. Edward James Olmos scared me in the way that the commander of a mixed civilian/military fleet should. When Lorne got mad, I felt like I’d disappointed my grandfather. When Eddie got mad, I wanted to hide under the sofa. Advantage: Reimagining.

• Starbuck: This is a tough one. Many were taken aback when Starbuck was turned into a woman for the new series, but I thought that Katee Sackhoff did a great job of embodying the spirit of Starbuck at the start, but then turning the character into something of her own. But how can you not love the classic Dirk Benedict character, cigar in mouth, winning at Pyramid games, romancing the ladies? I’d call it a draw. I can’t decide.

• Apollo: A young Richard Hatch v. Jamie Bamber? In and of itself, that’s a nearly impossible decision to make. But I have to go with the classic flavor here. Old-school Apollo was always good, always made the right decision and was damn cute while making it. New-school Apollo had great abs, but made bad choice after bad choice, screwed over Dualla and just made me want to slap him silly on more than on occasion. Advantage: Classic.

• Fight scenes: Hands down, the new series. Part of this was due to the advances in special effects, of course. But part was also because the old one recycled the same freakin’ scenes over and over and over and over again. How many times did you see the triangle of Cylon fighters flying in perfect formation, with one Colonial viper on their ass, shooting them up? Did the Cylons learn NOTHING from previous fights? These new Cylons were crazy! They randomly flew around, shooting anything that moved. And the fighters themselves were Cylons! There’s a twist. Advantage: Reimagining.

• Baltar: No contest. The new Baltar was a sniveling genius who just wanted to have sex with women. Old-school Baltar was evil with a capital E. John Colicos looked mean and evil and scary. You did not want to cross this man. A little-known fact is that an alternate ending of the original miniseries had Baltar being killed by the Cylons because the humans weren’t completely wiped out. He argued that his colony was supposed to have been spared. They beheaded him. So that’s why he did it. Yeah, I have the boxed set of the original series, the one that comes in the centurion-head-shaped box. Don’t judge me. Advantage: Classic.

• Cylons: “By your command.” That roving red eye. That humming sound whenever they walked into the room (hard for them to sneak up on anyone with all their clanking metal and that humming, but still cool). And some of them even had those little toga-ish skirts, which was just so stylish. But the idea to have the Cylons be Centurions, Fighters, Base Stars and the human form? Soooooo cool. The fact that they were all partly organic and that all machines were Cylons was a stroke of genius, IMHO. Advantage: Reimagining.

• The Quorum: Frankly, both versions of the Quorum of 12 needed to be slapped into submission. In the old series, they were always second-guessing Adama, despite his being proven right EVERY SINGLE TIME. Idiots. And they were all a bunch of really old white guys. The new quorum, however, typified every single thing that’s wrong with modern-day politics. Wait – they’re basically the same thing. I gotta call it a draw. I hated both of them.

• Pets: Old series wins this one, hands down. No daggits? No Muffit, real or mechanical? Come on, Moore & Eick. You totally could have gone the merchandising route. Advantage: Classic.

• Boomer: Another major character turned into a woman. But whereas the old Boomer was a loyal pal to Apollo and Starbuck and generally a third wheel, Sharon Valerii was third wheel to no one. She was, however, a Cylon, and almost killed Adama. I gotta go with Herb Jefferson Jr. on this one. He only tried to kill Cylons. Advantage: Classic.

• Aliens: Now this is a weird one. The old series had those weird bugs in the miniseries, some chicks with three eyes and a whole bunch of planets they kept mistaking for Earth that had humans on them. The new one: Nothin’. There were humans and Cylons and that’s it. I can’t decide which is better, but for realism, I’d have to go with the new one, because if there were a whole bunch of habitable planets out there, what are the odds that they’d all be just like Earth and evolve beings just like those on Earth? Advantage: Reimagining.

• The Galactica: She was an awesome ship in both series. Huge, well-armed and with all sorts of funky hiding places. I have to go with the new Galactica, though, because she wasn’t all networked up and showed her age. I liked her external design better, too. Advantage: Reimagining (but not by a heckuva lot).

Score

Reimagining: 5
Classic: 4
Draw: 2

Not too shabby, Glen A. Larson.

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Everyone, it seems, felt as if they were in a holding pattern this week, with a really good ep of Battlestar Galactica that was totally just the first hour of the end, and answered really nothing at all.

The biggest question seemed to be what the point of the flashbacks was, though the consensus was that they were quite good, whether or not they were necessary.

I would like to make this comment about the Baltar flashbacks – I think that Caprica Six was so solicitus toward Julius Baltar for more than one reason. I think she saw solving that problem as a way to get on Gaius’ good side, and that was vital. But she was, indeed, taken with Julius, despite his crudeness. Was it a matter of having a respect for one’s parents, parents whom Six did not know but, somehow, deep down, knew she had and had respect for?

Or, and this is TOTALLY speculative and I have no reason to think it other than I’m trying to figure it all out, is Julius some frakked up version of Daniel and Six knows on some level that he’s important and should be taken care of? There’s been some speculation in the blogosphere that Kara and Gaius could be brother and sister, both children of Daniel. I find it hard to believe that Julius could actually be Daniel, but don’t forget that Daniel disappeared from Kara’s life when she was quite young, and there were multiple copies of all the “new” skinjobs.

There are a zillion reasons none of this makes sense, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the broader scope of BSG.

Oh, and just one more thing: way back when, Ron Moore told Mo Ryan that the ruined Earth WAS indeed our Earth. Not some other Earth. It’s Earth. There’s no Earth they’re suddenly going to discover.

They have found Earth. This is the Earth that the 13th Colony discovered, they christened it Earth. They found Earth.

And with that, I give you the penultimate So Say We All: The Battlestar Galactica Blog Carnival.

First off, we have two posts from Kenneth Hynek‘s blog. First, he submitted a post dissecting online spoilers about the upcoming finale, in Could this be the way BSG ends? – I am desperately trying to remain spoiler-free, so I stopped reading a few paragraphs in. And then there’s his recap of the first hour of the last three hours of our beloved show, in I’d almost call it “Twilight” myself… He looks at the flashbacks and what we learned about our characters from watching them.

Tru presents BSG – 9 down, 1 this-frakkin-better-be-good series finale to go posted at True Science Fiction. She felt as many of us did – that giving us this one hour without the other two right behind it left us all hanging. I don’t blame the writers, though. I blame the Sci Fi Channel (or SyFy, as they’ve renamed themselves – whatever) for splitting it up.

Norman Doering presents Battlestar Galactica: “Daybreak” – Part 1 posted at A Blog from Hell. Like many, Norman can’t help but wonder what, exactly, these micro-stories have to do with the finale. He fears he’s going to be quite disappointed. He’s hoping he’s not.

Ms. SP presents The Dark Before The Dawn posted at Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All. You know what? Ms. Smarty Pants is gonna be OK with however it goes, so long as the two-hour finale is kick-ass. It’s been one helluva ride, and she appreciates it.

Lisa Paitz Spindler presents Slip the surly bonds of Earth posted at Lisa Paitz Spindler, Danger Gal. She poses this question: What if this all takes place in an alternate universe? Not a Star Trek-type alternate universe where Baltar’s a selfless leader and Adama’s an evil megalomaniac, but just another universe where things are very similar, yet quite different. Where everything just happened slightly differently.

And last, but not least, Nina presents Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 Epi. 19: Daybreak, Part I posted at Blog it out, Bitch. She loved the episode, has no idea what the scene with Lee and the pigeon was about and suggests that Hoshi buy a Shamwow – it’ll be a lot easier to clean up spilled coffee that way. Be sure to read her captions – you’ll LOL.

And that’s it for this week.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m going to be away from Friday through the following weekend. When I get to review the two-hour finale and when I get to post the blog carnival depends entirely upon when NBC Universal decides to post the finale on Hulu. They’ve been waiting eight days for the past few episodes, so I might be a week late.

Even so, submit your blog article to the next edition of so say we all using our
carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

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And so we move one step closer to the end.

The fandom seems a bit split by Someone to Watch Over Me, with some believing it advanced our knowledge of what, exactly, is going on and others wondering what the frak they were watching. I started more in the camp of the latter, but with time and pondering, I’m more convinced that we learned a heckuva lot, though I’m still not sure exactly what.

OK, so I’ll just let you read what others had to say, in this week’s edition of the blog carnival:

First off, Tru presents BSG – 7 down, 3 to go posted at True Science Fiction. He points out that now Starbuck also has a head person, the piano player who may or may not be her father (but at the very least represents him). Does that mean she’s a hybrid?

Norman Doering presents Battlestar Galactica: “Someone to Watch Over Me” posted at A Blog from Hell. He outlines the two main storylines and has some interesting thoughts about the musical score and links to Bear McCreary’s excellent blog. As usual, Norman has some excellent turns of phrase, such as “exposition dump-itis.”

Ms. SP presents There’s a Somebody I’m Longing to See posted at Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All. She watched the episode a second time immediately after it ended its first run-through, even though she still isn’t quite sure what happened. But Starbuck and Tyrol, she realizes, were both faced with mirages.

Kenneth Hynek presents Someone to Watch Over Hera & Starbuck posted at Kenneth Hynek. All I can say is, wow. Lots of good stuff here, so here’s what he had to say by way of introduction: ” I was reminded, watching “Someone to Watch Over Me,” of an earlier “Starbuck“-themed episode, which (not coincidentally?) came near the end of one of the show’s seasons (its third). Of course, I’m speaking about “Maelstrom,” in which Kara has to confront one of her personal demons — her relationship with her mother — before she can pursue her destiny to its next stage. This episode puts her through a similar situation, albeit without the apparition of Leoben Conoy guiding her through it; this time, however, the demon she’s confronting is her relationship with her father. ”

Erika presents Battlestar Galactica – “Deadlock” posted at Seriality. She hated Deadlock, as did many in fandom, though I actually liked it. Her reasons are well spelled out, though. But one thing: The last 3 (D’Anna) decided to stay beind on the nuked Earth. She’s done. That was the last episode Lucy Lawless filmed.

Roberta presents BSG So Say We All Blog Carnival – I have a new theory! posted at CouchSlobs – A Monument To Human Idleness. Roberta is on the “Daniel is Starbuck’s father” train, and I’m with her.

Nina presents Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 Epi. 17: Someone to Watch Over Me posted at Blog It Out Bitch. As usual, Nina points out some of the best lines in the episode, including Tigh’s oh-so-appropriate “What the frak?!” when Kara is playing The Final Four Theme (which Bear McCreary describes as pretty much All Along the Watchtower, but different).

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of so say we all using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:
so say we all, blog carnival, battlestar galactica.

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I would like to start by saying this:

I always believed Ellen Tigh to be bat-guano crazy and I’m glad that her being a Cylon doesn’t mean that was inaccurate.

Spoilers abound. Read at your own risk.

OK, I just finished watching and I’m filled with … opinions.

First, this wasn’t the most action- nor exposition-filled of episodes, yet it answered a lot of questions – in my mind, at least.

Ellen Tigh, Cylon or human, loves Saul Tigh so unreasonably so that she is completely unhinged, even without alcohol. Though, of course, she prefers to have some on hand.

Last week left us with the misimpression that Ellen Tigh’s human behavior was simply because she didn’t remember who she was and who Saul was and their thousands of years of history together.

Hahahahaha.

No, Ellen Tigh’s just a crazy lady. And so’s Saul Tigh.

Raise your hand if you thought that Tigh and Adama were going to kiss each other when they were hugging over the death of Liam.

OK, but to be serious:

The reason Hera is so important is that a Cylon-Cylon pairing may not actually be able to produce a child. Maybe the One True God decided that the offspring of two Cylons was too dangerous, because the only way to end the cycle of “All this has happened before and will happen again” was to have a combined race, human/Cylon.

That still doesn’t explain why Hera is so drawn to Six. Is it that she’s supposed to be the mother of the new hybrid race?

OK, I get ahead of myself.

First off, Ellen’s anger at Saul was so insane. Saul doesn’t remember being a Cylon. He had no idea whatsoever when he frakked Caprica Six that he was partially responsible for creating her. No more than Ellen remembered that about Cavil/John when she frakked him.

And Caprica Six’s memory was blocked on that point, too, unlike Cavil/John’s. I mean, that was way creepier than the Saul/Six pairing. Though, with a child in the offing, it’s more … permanent.

I wonder if Ellen was able to make the “intuitive leap” to the resurrection technology in part because she was unable to have children. Obviously, the problem ain’t Saul. And she didn’t get preggers from her liaisons with Cavil/John, either.

I think her inability to have children, way back on Earth, affected her very deeply, and made her believe the only way to ensure her future with her One True Love, Saul, was to perfect the resurrection tech?

Other initial thoughts (I’m sure I’ll have more later this weekend):

• Tyrol and Boomer are going to end up together. If Anders recovers, will he be with Tori, who I believe is the woman he was in love with back on Earth, despite her crazy in love relationship with Tyrol. Whatever the case, Tyrol and Tori are NOT in love, and Tyrol’s always loved Boomer. Now that they’re both Cylon, what’s to stop them? And if Tyrol’s out of the way, mayhaps Anders will feel more at ease going for Tori? What of Starbuck, in that case? She loves Lee, but she luvvvvvvvvvs Anders.

• It’s true that Saul Tigh’s first love is the Galactica and Bill Adama. Adama was actually his first friend, if you think about it. When Cavil/John placed Saul among the humans, Ellen wasn’t there yet. The first person he really got to know was Bill Adama. His current incarnation has known Bill longer than anyone. Perhaps if he were resurrected and regained all his memories, this would be different, but until/unless that happens, it won’t be.

• Best line of the night award goes to Saul Tigh: “My grandfather was a power sander.”

• Besides Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, Michael Hogan and Kate Vernon SO deserve Emmy nominations, at the very very least. C’mon!

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I don’t think I need to repeat how fantastic I thought Friday’s ep was, so I’m not gonna say much here. Let’s just get into the week’s

submissions, no? (I can’t believe there are only five episodes left!!!!!) By the way, if after reading all this, you still want more, head over to Mo Ryan’s blog at the Chicago Tribune and check out her Q&A with the writers. We will find out what Starbuck is and we’ll get more Boomer. Oh, and the devastation on Earth was, indeed, the result of a Cylon Civil War.

Nina presents Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 Epi. 15: No Exit posted at Blog It Out Bitch. She has a very interesting theory about Starbuck that actually makes more sense than mine. Be sure to check out the pre- and post-episode questions. Amazing how many questions the ep actually did answer.

Tru presents BSG – 5 down, 5 to go posted at True Science Fiction. John/Cavil’s rebellion against the Final Five is very much the stuff of nightmares for every parent of a teenager, he notes.

Norman Doering presents A few Pieces of a Puzzle posted at A Blog from Hell. “In a way,” he says, “Ellen Tigh is our Doctor Frankenstein and Cavil is her monster. The others making up the final five are apparently just a collection of Igors.”

Jayson Peters presents “Battlestar Galactica: No Exit” — It’s all coming together posted at Nerdvana. He points out that Ellen Tigh wasn’t the Final Cylon after all, and that Moore & Eick were all tricky on us, hiding a No. 7.

Ms. Smarty Pants presents Hell is Clunky Exposition posted at Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All. Not a fan of the exposition dump (as Norman, above, called the episode), Ms. SP still found there to be some interesting answers, not least of which is that the Final Five all had “head angels” like Baltar has. Hmmm. What the frak does that mean, though???

Roberta presents BSG So Say We All Blog Carnival – brainfry anyone? posted at CouchSlobs – A Monument To Human Idleness. She managed to pull her frazzled brain together enough to ponder Daniel (and express relief that my urgent cries of WHY IS SHARON NO. 8??? were finally answered) and express rather interesting thoughts about the Cylons’ desire to be more human.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of so say we all using our
carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:

so say we all, blog carnival.

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The words to the William Butler Yeats poem kept running through my head today as I pondered last night’s installment of BSG.

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”

Since the discovery that Earth was a complete ruin, everyone in the fleet has been on edge. We saw that last week, but their inability to move onto the next step – i.e., finding a new place to live – combined with the now-unnecessary alliance with the Six faction of the Cylons and the threat of the Cavil faction still being out there has proven to be too much for anyone to handle.

Baltar has gone from preaching the word of the One True God to berating any god that would punish its followers for no reason. He basically has his followers good and riled up, with no riot to attend. At least Tyrol attacking Hot Dog relieved some of the crowd’s pent-up rage.

Will Baltar’s followers become the footsoldiers in Tom Zarek/Felix Gaeta’s revolution?

I honestly didn’t think Gaeta had it in him. But after being reviled for working for Baltar on New Caprica and losing his leg because he had to wait for Starbuck to return (and she was married to a Cylon, etc.) and almost being airlocked by two Cylons and Starbuck, he isn’t about to roll over and let Cylon have ANY say in the fleet.

His throwing in with Zarek isn’t all that shocking. But because Roslin has been MIA since Earth, Zarek’s had a bully pulpit from which to seize the ring of leadership and shut down any dissenting voices (Lee). There’s going to be a civilian v. military showdown, and nothing’s certain as to who’s gonna win.

On the one hand, you have to pull for the civilians, because in the real world, we know how well military coups work out. On the other hand, because this is television, we know that Adama’s right and is more likely to have the best interest of everyone involved and should emerge victorious. Should. Doesn’t mean he will.

As for the show’s mythology, we actually learned a couple of interesting things:

• Hera, the human/Cylon hybrid, truly is the only human/Cylon hybrid. Nicholas, son of Tyrol/Callie, isn’t actually Tyrol’s son. Who knew Callie was sleeping around? Certainly not Tyrol. That knowledge, however, certainly colors her behavior toward Tyrol in the weeks before her death. Was she regretting that she married Galen instead of Hot Dog?

• The Cylons actually can reproduce, but perhaps only the Earth Cylons and the new Cylons. Good thing, seeing as the Resurrection Hub is gone. And, I wonder, is Six based on the old-school Ellen Cylon?

And a couple of questions:

• How come the Cylons can’t build a new Resurrection Hub? This just occurred to me now.

• Why is Sharon a model 8? Why was model 7 skipped? That’s driven me crazy for years now. Will that question ever be answered?

Come back Tuesday for the So Say We All blog carnival. You can submit entries here.

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The thing that has kept running through my brain since Friday night is this: What the frak is Starbuck?

It would seem she’s not a Cylon. We know the final Cylon is Ellen Tigh. Don’t we? (Questions – was Ellen resurrected somewhere before the resurrection hub was destroyed? Is there another resurrection hub somewhere for the Earth Cylons? Did Brother Cavil know she and/or Saul were Cylons?)

But we know that there’s a dead Starbuck on Earth. She did crash-land there and die. Her dogtags, her wedding band, her ship. All were there. And we know that she’s the harbinger of death. But what does that even mean????

Leoben seemed to think she was the final Cylon until they saw her dogtags. Then he seemed so uncertain about everything. I found that a bit puzzling, because the dogtags would initially have seemed to confirm it to him. Until she mentioned what the hybrid had told her.

Then, Leoben couldn’t get far enough away from her. But the Leobens have always known something about Starbuck and her destiny. They just didn’t know what they knew.

The only thing I can think of is something that makes no sense chronologically, but I’ve believed from the moment I saw the Razor telemovie.

Remember the scene where Husker’s in the creepy Cylon building with all the human parts in tanks, just before he finds out an armistice has been signed?

Some people are trapped in a room and he can’t quite get the door open. One of those trapped in there is a young girl with blonde hair.

I’ve been convinced ever since that she was Starbuck.

Now, the Cylon Wars were 40 years ago, and Kara Thrace isn’t 40.

But what if she’s some sort of hybrid who ages differently? Obviously, the Cylons were creating hybrids there. Perhaps she’s the missing link, of a sort. I’m not sure which link, even, because we don’t know how the Earth Cylons fit into all this yet.

But we know that Hera and Nicholas (Tyrol’s son) are hybrids. But they’re different kinds of hybrids, as Tyrol is an Earth Cylon and Sharon’s a New Cylon. What does that even mean? I don’t know.

The theme of the show is and has always been, “All this has happened before and all of it will happen again.” The Cylons and humans obviously intermingled (intermarried?) on Kobol. The Earth Cylons had some sort of Civil War that culminated in the destruction of the planet and the race – which might happen again with the Cavil v. Six war among the New Cylons.

Did Starbuck die on Earth before or after they made the jump there? Why was her distress call not even activated until four of the final five were uncovered?

Who, or what, is Starbuck? Is she alive? Is she dead? Is she a hybrid? Is she a hallucination? Will the final episode end with her taking a shower, telling Zack Adama she had the weirdest dream last night?

OK, I’m obviously joking with the last one there, but I’m really intrigued, and curious to find out the rest of this story.

Nine more weeks to go.

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