Tonight’s episode: Sometimes a Great Notion
When last we left this show, the fleet had finally reached Earth… and apparently we had already blown it up. Or the damn dirty apes did. The exact details remain to be seen. Hopefully we’ll know more tonight.
This is the second half of season four… or as normal people might refer to it, the first episode of the final season. You know what’s sad? This series premiered in 2003, which was six years ago, yet we are wrapping it up in “season four.” I realize I am the only one who cares about this and I am okay with that.
This has been a banner year so far for me, TV-wise. In the last calendar year, three of my favorite shows ended: The Wire, The Shield, and now Battlestar Galactica. That’s fantastic. On the plus side, this is the first season of Battlestar that I’ll be able to watch in high definition now that my cable company finally got around to adding Sci-Fi HD.
So, who’s the final Cylon? For some reason I keep thinking that it is going to be someone from out of left field like Dualla.
Speculations, theories, reactions, live blogs, you know the drill.
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Cannot wait!..All caught up and this will be the first episode I’ll be able to watch on Fridays ..Excellent
my boyfriend has called everyone to come over and watch. I’m not to happy.
@vamiangie: How many people? I know that there are a bunch of BATTLESTAR viewing parties going on tonight.
5 of us in total. I’m just going to play this weeks podcast till the new one come one. I still haven’t finishted it.
I’m watching these last two episodes again to catch up! Conchords starts in a couple of days. Can’t wait!
Family members have appropriated the big screen to watch Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader and then Numb3rs.
I hate my life right now.
@RobAbsten: Is there another TV? If not, you should take a page out of Batman’s playbook and throw down a smoke pellet and usher them out in the haze.
"It got all smokey and now we’re locked in this room… what happened?"
@conor: 20 inch old school magnavox crt tv is my other option. The big screen is a 47 inch plasma.
That smoke pellet’s not a bad idea. Either that or hulu tomorrow.
@RobAbsten: Is the 20" bigger or smaller than the monitor you’d use for Hulu?
I’m watching with some friends, but I won’t be live-blogging. Have a good time. Thoughts to follow!
I’m at a total loss as to who the final Cylon could be, because I remember the Lucy Lawless character (the 3’s?) saying the final one wasnt with the fleet.
I read somewhere that this episode was never supposed to be the second half of an epic cliffhanger. Instead, the massive "to be continued" nature of what we got (and all the acompanying PR and hype) was a result of the writers strike. So, I’m worried that people are going to be disapointed with the episode because it isn’t nearly as explosive as people are expecting
Conor, yes it is. And he hulu would be on the lcd in HD. But it’s tomorrow. Heading into the family room to plead my case.
Aha, success! Actually, I just walked in and they said "we’re going to the other tv." So, my family doesn’t always suck.
Spoiler: We are all cylons.
Nah, just kidding. I’ve no idea.
My standard practice is watching it later in the night after my wife has gone to bed. Which is a bummer, b/c it airs here at 7:00 PST since I have Dish Network, which uses the East Coast SciFi feed.
Are we supposed to find out the final Cylon tonight?
@piscespaul: I would be really surprised if we did.
@conor that was my thought too, just curious if i missed something
who knows I think the will still frak with us till the end.
Ack! Cat just jumped into lap, purring. Need to get up to go to family room but feel guilty….arghhhhh. Forces conspire against me! Into the floor, damned feline!
@connor @piscepaul I thought I heard that we would find out very early in the episode…the idea being that the indetity of the final cylon wasn’t really all that important to the overall story
If Osborne kills the 12th Cylon and then he gets elected the new President, I will be PISSED.
Here we go.
I think Kara’s viper is the fifth cylon.
christ, its been so long, I can barely remember all of the pre-episode setup stuff
Earth wouldn’t be so bad if they put up some gels.
Some serious buyer’s remorse going on right now.
Yay! I just made it!
Leoben still creeps me out
2000 years and those jacks are still shiny and new?
This… this is going to be a tough announcement to make to the crew.
Does nuclear radiation last 2000 years?
really? she could have just said "dude, we are so screwed"
Man that Underworld flick looks baaaad…
6 minutes in, and already the 1st commercial
@Jarrett depends on the Half-life.
mmmmm…crunchy on the outside, spicy on the inside
I still say that this would have been the best show ever if they had reached Earth and it was the Earth with the Federation and then Kirk blows up the Cylons and then beds Starbuck.
Turns out I am able to watch since my wife’s on the phone up in the bedroom. Not much has happened yet…
Having watched every other episode on DVD its going to be hard getting used to commercials
I’d thought they walk around on the planet more
@piscespaul: It’s a tough transition. Last "season" was the first time I watched it live every week. Before that I would mainline four or five episodes at a time on DVD.
oh and I am enjoying that @PaulMontgomery is here commenting…sweet fracking irony
Kara’s Raptor?
I feel like we’re headed into "nothing is what is seems" territory.
Starbuck could so kick my ass
Everyone knows I’ve been a devoted BSG fan since day one. 😛
D is going to eat Athena
Fun Fact: Mike Romo has been to a party at Katee Sackhoff’s house.
I suddenly agree that Dualla is the last Cylon. And I think the clues were planted back in the first season for that.
Shredder!
hey look, Cylons playing archaeologist
oh shit the orginals!!
Epic!
Well, that’s an unexpected development… the fifth cylon IS US!
Fun Fact : I’m insanely jealous of Mike Romo
Where is Heston when you need him? YOU BLEW IT UP! DAMN YOU!
Also *Oh Snap*
Oh god, flashbacks to explain how they got where they are. Did Bendis write this?
the chief is in the past buying Avocados
did cheif just have a flashback of earth dieing
Maybe the planet can time travel?
"I would like to buy this one avacado and… hey, what’s that bright light?"
"We have to keep the human race going."
That’s such an old line, I use it all the time.
Apollo needs a haircut
That’s a great pick-up line. "Let’s keep the human race goin’."
dude…is he really asking her out on a date?
Apollo needs to go back to being a cool pilot and quit all this mopy Mr Smith goes to Colonial One mess.
JINX!
I’m going to die if i have to watch the lee and D stuff
@Pol Hey if a planet can be a Green Lantern I see why not!
Maybe they somehow travelled into their own future?
wonder who is in the suit?
oh shit
Haha – my digital cable froze right when she lifted the head up… WHAT HAPPENED??
oh crap
Wow, this is mindblowing!
WTF? Oh that Cylon Kara is with is the guy from Californication. I didn’t realize that!
@connor…blond haired corpse…Starbuck’s tags
This same thing has happened to me more than once. It’s useful when you need to make duplicate keys or double your pocket money.
What a tweest
Warehouse 13?
Warehouse 13 is where they stored the Ark at the end of Indiana Jones!
Damn! Leoben has NEVER been that unsure/surprised about anything. That was a pretty good scene…
Are Lee and Dualla going to get back together? Ugh…
so, are they on some sort of metaphysical parallel planet…or is that really the real Starbuck, dead and crunchy.
Soooo, my bullshit fake spoiler’s looking pretty good, huh?
If I was Tigh I’d be looking for other me’s to get a replacement eye.
@Paul: Nooooo! The eye-patch is the best thing that ever happened to this show, and possibly any show ever.
play that axe!
"Now I can play Rock Band"
Cylon’s love their psychadelic rock.
the chief is depressed because he never got his avocado
book burner!
Hmm… Anders could have used another take on that scene.
Is that an official book-burning dais?
Wow… just good tv.
I think they are all cylons who’ve just forgotten
Maybe they’re all Skrulls.
I…don’t think that’s how fire works….
escaped their cyclon uprising to found the colonies….forgot…created new cyclons….we’re killed when their cyclons rose up
So is Roselyn still dying of cancer. She and cancer have a real Ross/Rachel kinda thing going on.
There aren’t enough funeral pyres these days.
really? I’m thinkin’ the body is important evidence….and she is burining it
@captainprimate – there is some weight to that theory "Its all happened before….."
dude, thats a bad idea
gaeda is lookin’ rather pale and sickly
Gaeta does not look good. He looks pale.
I forgot Gata (sp?) had his leg cut…
Whoa! Didn’t see that coming
WHOA
WTF?
WHAT!
wtf!!!!!
I literally just spit up my drink.
…wtfQ!@#
Score Lee’s wife killed herself
HOLY!!!!
Holy frak!! I can honestly say I did not see that coming.
I was in the middle of typing "If Dualla’s not the fifth Cylon they really want to make us think she is" when that happened.
Wow.
Well time for bed…guess I’ll just blow dry my hair fir….
that was completely nexpected. Does that mean she was a cylon? Did Gaeda do something to her (they had a weird look as he was walking out)?
Oooh a trailer for Push, or what I like to pretend is X-Factor the movie.
Maybe she had an itch.
@PaulMontgomery In her brain?
It’s those deep, under the skin itches that really get to you.
We don’t fully understand the ways of the brain.
@Conor was thinking about typeing that when it happened.
@CaptianPrimate I think it’s due to Cabin Fevor. Couldn’t handle the let down of Earth being what it is.
BSG – the show that delights in torturing its characters
oop…the admiral is at the bottle again
"I don’t want your dad germs."
Adama drunkenly slurring "I don’t frakkin’ know" just made me laugh.
Haha! "I don’t fraken know"
That was a nice way to cut the tension.
seriously, for a hard boiled miliary man…the admiral is a bit of a crybaby
christ, the whole ship has gone batshit insane
Okay, I get it – someone unleashed the anti-life equation on the ship.
Oh Snap!
ooooihhhhh crap!
Is Robert Kirkman behind this? I turn away for a second and major characters get whacked from out of nowhere.
oh crap…the admiral wants to play the drinking game with guns
"A machine that fraks or does frak modify…nevermind."
"they couldn’t possible program me to put up with your emo shit"
How come the new 4 cylons never have any clones walking around?
"Real blood in his main vein"
sponsored by cyclon bbq wings
Jesus H, can it get any more intense? Looks like doom and despair is the name of the game thus far.
ok that was slightly intense
@CaptainPrimate: I think after all they’ve been through – what with the holocaust of humanity and the stress of constantly being on the run from killer robots for years on end – a little emotion is more than understandable.
Christ, we’re already 45 minutes in? Feels more like 14.
I drink this whisky in honor of Lt. Dualla. Gods damn it.
@Jarrett: They are special, even among cylons.
Paul is right, this episode has FLOWN by.
It’d be funny if they’d ran out of real liquor and were drinking Bahama Mamas out of coconuts. It’d add new dimension to that scene.
I want a full size Viper!
45 minutes and they are STILL in the Savage Land? Christ.
Sorry for all the Secret Invasion jokes tonight, I watched this weeks video episode like 2 hours ago.
@Paul I was just thinking the same thing.
AT THE PASADENE CONVENTION CENTER! EVERYTHING MUST GO!
@Jarrett maybe they are different somehow…or they are some of the original cylons (from the nuked planet) and not the 2nd generation cyclons (whose copies are everywhere)
@Paul That’s what she said
Tigh is the most grizzled man on TV… unless Adam Schiff ever returns to LAW & ORDER.
Ok, I want a snarling Adama holding a gun to his head as my desktop wallpaper. That shit will scare me into productivity.
when the auction advert came on, my wife turned to me and said "If I come hope one day and you are sitting in a full sized viper in the front yard playing colonial pilot, I’m divorcing you"
@Conor so true. Tigh got that title on the back of Lenny Brisco though.
"But you could only put one fox on the raft at a time and you can’t leave two foxes with one chicken on either side of the river and…"
@CaptainPrimate: Read between the lines – that means you better buy two of them.
Most depressing white board ever? I think so.
now we have to change the number board
@connor…his and hers vipers?
You can’t stop the signal!
@CaptainPrimate: Yes. You can roleplay Apollo, she can be Starbuck.
thats it, I oficially want a t-shirt that says "Frak Earth"
Frack Earth – Ha!
@conor you’ve never seen the whiteboard I use to tell children they’re parents don’t love each other anymore.
"FRAK EARTH" hahahaha
Methinks there is going to be a major disciplinary problem on that ship soon.
who the hell is Hoshi?
Going to miss this show when it’s gone. The only one I can live blog too. Also The elevators closeing to end a scene is to ER as the walk behind shot is to BSG.
there is somehting seriously wrong with Gaeda
so they are going to find a new earth now?
random cremember "Christ, the admiral is giving one of his inspirational speeches, I think I’m just gonna go kill myself now"
more talk of cycles
Where the frak are all the Cockroaches? Aren’t they supose to survive this shit? Shouldn’t they have takeover?
does that mean Ellen is the last cylon?
OMG the slutty wife is the 12th cylon?
what!>>>???
well, he just answered my question
WHOA!
I had a feeling that the Fifth was already dead.
Yet another twist I didn’t see coming.
Daaamn. Pretty damn good episode, IMO.
Alright, so…Cylons are a human contingency plan?
I’m still suspicious of Gaeda
that was odd
another civil war??
why??
Hmm… it looks like they are leaving Earth… which is kind of bizarre, but I’ll go with it.
pretty good episode….BSG is back baby!
Only nine more episodes. Fuck. Er, I mean Frak.
Almost too many twists to be believed.
though, I wish we could have a little less political intrigue and a little more sci-fi blowy stuff up
So is Elllen the last cylon? Cuz I refuse I believe that until someone else confirms it.
@CaptainPrimate: BSG has always been mostly about the political intrigue.
we’ve had lots and lots of politcs….I just want to see some shit get blowed up in space for a bit
Don’t know how I feel about that reveal,..
@connor I know…I’m not saying the political intrigue and interpersonal drama isn’t great stuff….it just gets a little tiring sometimes
it was okay…..this show jumped the shark 2 seasons ago
I figure I watched the train start to wreck I let it finish befor I turn away
@captainprimate: go rewatch Babylon 5 season 4. Every time I need space blowing up stuff – sorry, took the sympathetic drunk thing too far – I just watch that one where the Alliance retakes earth. When Sherridan order the Agamemnon into that defense platform….aw fuck, er frak, I’m crying again.
@RobAbsten….don’t get me wrong, Babylon 5 was a lot of fun. But its nothing like BSG
@KnightFlight: I’ll go ahead and disagree. I think the show has been fantastic almost all the way through.
well folks – it was fun….same time/place next week?
@KnightFlight I have to agree with @connor. BSG is the best thing to happen to sci-fi in years.
Hmm, I felt like I was watching Emmy tryouts. Lots of scene chewing.
I was expecting Admiral Cain to be the 5th.
Somehow Earth is key to resurrection. Does this mean we actually haven’t seen the last of Dee? Starbuck has led them all to destruction…only to be born again.
night folks ..i need to go process all of that …good gods I love that show
Best show on teevee.
Period
The series ends with another nuclear war, and out of the ashes the Cylons are reborn, and take off to the stars to create new colonies, and perpetuate the cycle that Xena kept referring to. Wouldn’t surprise me.
@connor the last two seasons have ben a cycle of gloom
I just haven’t felt there was a real direction for the show… the sad part it started out great
just too many logical flaws in the story
for those who are interested, some great possibilities here: http://io9.com/5128659/our-favorite-bsg-fan-theories
apropos of nothing – it’t the alcohol, see – that chick on the cover of Darker than Black – you know, the banner ad currently gracing this page – she looks an awful lot like a girl I used to date. She’s living with some dude who writes reviews for comicsbulletin now.
Actually, she was then too, but that’s another story. I think I’ll go to bed now.
@KnightFlight I kinda get what you are saying and that lack of direction makes me wonder if they can end it well.
Still, I think BSG has been compelling all the way through and is one of the best shows on television.
What would have been awesome is if while they were walking on the beach Charleton Heston and a cave chick rode up on a horse.
@DrkN I thought it was the best show on television as well for a while there
the show just lost its way
Hey knightflight, what way was it on? The series starts off with 99 percent plus of the human race dying off. First episode, 1000 people on the Olympic Carrier are sacrificed – nearly 2% of known humanity. Cylons are identified as being sleeper agents from the beginning. Key characters start to die 2 or 3 episodes in. When all of humanity is reduced to a refugee fleet with a population about the size of the Penn State student body, that’s pretty bleak.
I believe Ron Moore whenhe says this was where it was going all along. I’f’n you think it’s lost it’s way, why dost thou watch? especially if it did so two seasons and three years ago?
Off to bed. Goodnight, iFanboy, you Glorious Bastards.
Don’t want to put words in his mouth but perhaps he feels that the show the last couple of seasons has focused less on the survival of these characters and more on the overall mythology of the show. Personally I dig it but I can see why people would think it’s gone a little haywire.
I think the one thing I took away from that is that after a really tense scene where a major character surprisingly takes their own life…if you cut to a bucket of chicken really quickly, I won’t want to eat them. That’s a marketing lesson to be learned right there.
This blew my face off. I’m so ready for these next nine episodes. Holy goodness.
i gotta say i think battlestar is one of those rare shows where each season is better then the previous one, at least so far. The season 3 finale just blew my mind into tiny tiny pieces.
one question about tonights episode, So, according to BSG everyone on earth is a Cylon?
*Runs out of his house screaming: Toasters! We’re all Toasters!*
An so my on-again/off-again relationship continues with BSG. I really enjoyed this episode, but was let down by the reveal. It’s an oft-guessed choice.
And I think we’re slowly going to find out that the original series won’t technically be out of continuity. I think the show will end with everyone dying but the 12 Cylons and then they set out on their own, each going to a different planet. And the actual show will end 2000 years in the future with another attack on another Caprica.
I was saddened by the lack of my favorite character, Helo. One wonders why he wasn’t on the bridge in the last scene?
I will say, I feel the show has jumped quite a number of sharks in its time. From Mark Verheiden cribbing the idea of One Year Later for BSG (apparently, while it was never stated, he did tell someone he "heard" the idea being tossed around at DC) to the most recent reveal. Alas.
Ah I wish I lived on the west coast so I could live blog with you guys.
I loved this episodes, there were so many twists and turns and they revealed way more than I thought they would. I’m very intrigued with what’s going on with Kara and the situation of Dee’s death but I think the idea that the 13th colony was filled with Cylon is one of the most promising turns in the series and I’m excited to see where that goes. I was a little disappointed with Helen being the final cylon but we’ll see where it goes.
I also need to take the time to say thank you to ifanboy. I finally started watching after listening to one of the year end podcasts and it instantly became one of my favorite shows. So Ron, Josh and Conor……thanks!
straight from the mouth of Kandyse McClure (actress who plays Dee) – the suicide wasn’t some ploy and she aint coming back:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/01/dualla-speaks-about-last-nights-battlestar-episode.php
I don’t think there was inappropriate scene chewing because you’re talking about an utter loss of hope. After the destruction of your world, most likely including just about all your friends and family, you set out into space just because you have nowhere else to go. All the time, you’re chased by the enemy who, you later learn, has infiltrated your fleet. Then you cling to the hope that a mythical lost colony actually exists. More people die. Then more, all in the cause of finding this lost colony. After so much is lost, all myth falls away and you hang everything on the notion that the hell will stop when you reach this place. Religious markers seem to point the way so the journey takes on a religious fervor. It’s like the gods want you there. And then you get there and it’s so radioactive that you can’t stay. And then you learn it wasn’t even a human colony. It was Cylons all along. All hope is gone. Consider all that, and they probably didn’t go far enough. There would be mass murder/suicides with parents shooting children.
Apollo’s OS speech gave them something to cling to again but plenty would say it’s just his father’s old speech polished up.
I never felt the identity of the 12th Cylon would be a big deal, despite opening credits. It’s more about what the 12th would do. The bigger mystery is what is Starbuck? Who had the resources to build her a new, pristine ship and a new her for that matter? Those people have some resources. (Maybe it was subterranean Morlocks)
Holy crap?! Missed it last night, just watched it now. Holy crap. If Ellen is the 5th cyclon what the hell does that make Kara?
Harbinger of doom?
Wow… Just WOW!!! This episode completely floored me, flawless television… scratch that, flawless storytelling for any medium.
They so had me thinking Dualla was the 5th from the first half, as she was featured so much after not much screen time in previous episodes. I was convinced, I had it down, they weren’t fooling me… then they hit my senses with a sledgehammer from left field…
The scene where Kara cremated her own body literally give me chills, creepy and sad at the same time…
You know, it’s been away for so long I kind of forgot television could be this good. There’s plenty of other great shows on, But Battlestar is in a league of it’s own. The hiatus was irritating, but it looks like Ron Moore and company have spent that extra time fine-tuning these last episodes into wonderfully crafted little gems…
It’s a testament to how good this episode was when, after being desperate to find out for so long, the revealing of Ellen as the 5th actually wasn’t the biggest shock they had up their sleeve.
It’s been a while since I’ve really cared about or followed the big myth-arc of the show, and this episode didn’t change any of that. But it did bring what I really love about BSG, and what keeps me coming back even when I’m not wild about the story — the small character moments, like the portrayal of Dee up to her suicide (which I saw coming but which still hurt, like it should have, and she’s not even a character I’ve particularly cared about). Bamber was great in the tipsy scene with her — having him recount the speech he gave in that offhanded faux-cynical manner worked a lot better than showing yet another earnest speech would have, I think. And the scene with Tigh and Adama was also awesome; I love that this show lets it’s old-dudes emote as much as the young pretty ones.
Overall, I really like this setup for the rest of the season — you get to the promised land, it isn’t what you thought, now what do you do? I’ll be interested in how this question gets answered.
@ohcaroline – Totally forgot about Lee drunkenly repeating his speech, yet another great moment.
The big reveal was kind of out left-field and while initially disappointing, I’m really interested to see where they go with it. Dee’s suicide took my breath away. It’s been a little while since this show has had one of those moments that reminds you why this is one of the best shows on television. Also, the thing to remember about "BSG" is that it’s never about how the season starts, but how the season ends.
BSG is back & it’s as awesome as ever. With all those twists & turns it made me think of Lost, but the difference here is that all these things will be explained!
I don’t buy the ending. For some odd reason I still don’t think we really know who the final Cylon is. If Cylons can age my guess is that Ellen is an aged Six, hence their relationship in early season 4. If she really is the last, I’m let down.
@ jstump, the creators confirmed in a interview that Ellen is indeed the final cylon.
We have no idea what Ellen as the final cylon means yet. It could have ramifications that we never saw coming. It’s way too early to judge.
It wouldn’t be the first time that creators said something to throw us off. Very true that we don’t know the ramifications. I’m curious to see what happens with the rest of the season.
I work Friday nights so I waited to download this on iTunes, and i sat at work tonight in the backroom, completely ignoring my duties and watching this on my iPod. I also would be dissappointed if Ellen Tigh was the fifth cylon, but I seriously doubt that they would give up that secret this early in the final batch of episodes. I like @jstumps idea that she’s an aged Six. When this is all said and done though, I want to see a timeline of events, cuz for some reason, I feel like they’re counting on people forgetting certain things that have been said and done that might conflict with whats happening now. If the humans built the cylons originally, and the cylons developed the skin jobs on their own, how were there skin jobs that long ago on Earth? Was it a seperate race that developed cylons and skin jobs seperately (kinda like how Aztecs and Egyptians developed similar systems of numbers and math at the same time with no contact with each other, pyramids too?), even though they said that all the bodies on Earth were cylon? Did humans first exist on Earth, build cylons, leave Earth to the cylons (who then nuked Earth and stuff) to go colonize the other colonies, and did they completely forget about that, build cylons again, and then the skin jobs found the toasters and organized the destruction of Caprica and the other colonies, forgetting that 5 of their models survived? I can see how the humans might block a lot of that from their collective consciousness, but wouldn’t the skin jobs have records of them leaving Earth? My mind is (obviously) racing with questions!!!
@eyun – you mean "re-cremated her body". It was already pretty fried when she found it…
I love that my favorite show had an episode named for my favorite book.
Also, I think everyone can agree that the phrase ‘This has all happened before, this will all happen again’ is going to play a major role in the progression of these last few eps. I think the key to the finale is that the human/cylon alliance will need to break this cycle.
could it be that everyone is a cylon. my mom saw this episode before i did and she was thinking that everyone is a cylon because how could it be that kara was on earth and was dead and is still alive an all and how could ellen have survived the the bombing. that would make them both cylons and the other cylons said that there is only one cylon left. soooo im gonna have tot go with my mom on this one and say that everyone is a cylon.
pure conjecture: the earth cylons (the five) left the planet somehow after it was devasted )maybe they haf bodies off-world?)and were found by the cylons of the colonies. inspired by the five, the cylons worked to recreate them by kidnapping humans and kind of reverse-engineered a biological robot ( more artificial than the earth ones, since they have the input jacks in their arms and the instant message/telepathy) while the five erased there memories and hid in human culture which was more familiar to them than the robotic society of colonial cylons.
ofcourse that would make the earth cylons 2,000 years old…