Battlestar Galactica

[Darth Wagtaros]

So, what is Starbuck?

A man.

It'd be really funny if the end had Dirk Benedict waking up and going, "wow what a weird dream".

I'd like that ending.  It would mean they had something in mind.

For a regular TV series, one that was episodic in nature, this 'its about the characters' crap would be OK.  In this one? It's about the plot.  THE PLOT.  WHERE ARE THEY GOING.  WHERE HAVE THEY BEEN.  What the fuck is up with an attitude like that? He sounds like a world class jackass.  You can't twist the plot so it resembles a bowl of spaghetti knotted up and then blow it all off with a laugh and say any sort of definitive resolution is noy only unnecessary but irrelevant. 

[Tamas]

BSG ended after New Caprica.

[Ideologue]

I'm going through the DVDs, and boy howdy, the New Caprica arc did suck.

If you didn't think the rescue from New Caprica was awesome you might want to get tested for BRAIN CANCER.

Yeah, I thought it was awesome when Fat Lee flew his fat Pegasus through a basestar, and the Galactica's atmospheric launch of Vipers was sweet-ass sweet.

Unfortunately, the premise of the arc was retarded.  The premise is that the Cylons want to maintain law and order on New Caprica, when there is absolutely no reason for them to do so.  We're told the Cylons have decided, via majority rule, to unilaterally suspend hostilities against the humans and try to be nice to them.  They go about this by conquering them, throwing them in prison, ripping out their eyes and fucking their wives.

I wrote this rant/review elsewhere... see no reason to repeat myself unnecessarily when copy and paste works just as well, so here's the larger part of it with some minor editing...

Okay, firstly, firstly, Mustache Bill. The only way this could have been better is if Saul had grown one too, angrily growling, "You said it'd be like a vacation from ourselves!" Squaring off with Mustache Bill is Fat Lee. I actually liked this part because it made me laugh.

Then we see New Caprica. It's been a year. I'm anticipating what kind of civilization they've brought to this brave new world... oh, it's a bunch of tents. They've been here a year, and they're all still living in the tents they brought with them 365 days ago. Well, all right, maybe there aren't any building materials... hey, wait a minute, are those fucking trees?

But fine, it's squalid and that's what they were going for. Whatever.

Then the Cylons show up. Four months pass, they still haven't built a single house. Except for the one Creepy Leoben built for Kara Thrace. Yeah, I knew Cavil was going to be a weird fixated guy. I didn't know I'd get to hear about old person swirlgasms, but Dean Stockwell makes it entertaining. What I didn't realize is that Leoben was going to emotionally torture Starbuck for no obvious reason and force her to make out with him. I'm sure we can all agree mindlessly cruel and really a little boring is a great improvement over interesting and mysterious [e.g., S1's Flesh and Bone].

But Mindless Cruelty is the name of the New Caprican game. We're made to understand that the Cylons have reconsidered their genocidal rage against the human race and have unilaterally declared the end of the war. Now they want to be friends with the humans and open a "new era in human-Cylon relations."

If the Cylons have really reached a consensus around Boomer and Caprica Six that the human beings are worth letting live and worth being friends, why enslave them?

Maybe the Cylons are secretly fearful of a resurgent human race--and if this is true it is paranoid to the point of idiocy. The Cylons apparently beat the humans the first time when they had the resources of a dozen planets and billions of people. The Cylons nearly wiped them out the second time when they had the resources of a dozen planets and billions of people and ample time to prepare. Good Lord, the New Capricans can't even build houses, they're not building a fleet to come after you!

But if they are truly fearful, why bother with the charade of friendship? Kill them all, or just silently observe, and if they become a threat, then kill them.

However, it appears what the writers wanted were Snideley Whiplash and his Centurions to roll into what may only charitably be described as a town and spur a bunch of humans to suicide bombing, and ye olde "escalating cycle of violence."

This is the thing: you can't escalate violence against an immortal.  Why do the Cylons even give a shit that the humans are greeting their hand of friendship with a smack? Okay, preliminarily, you had to have seen that coming. Secondly, they are not doing you any real harm.

Even if you walk into their settlement, and they kill you, so what? You download, you walk right back into the settlement, and try to pick up where you left off. Continue until they get tired of killing you. Another plus to this approach is that you've provided the entire human race enough meat for the coming winter, and eventually they're going to appreciate this.

Even John Cavil, a.k.a. Whiplash, and Aaron Doral, Snideley Junior, can grok this, can't they? Hell, in Lay Down Your Burdens, one of the Cavils makes it abundantly clear that he doesn't care what they do to him! Why does he care now? So Cavil and Doral are chewing scenery like it's somehow urgent that they quell the human revolt. "If we don't send a message that the gloves are off, the humans will... uh, they will... hm. They can't blow up our basestars. They can hurt us but they can never kill us. If we're actually careful, we can't even be hurt--we could probably try to open a dialogue with the human raceby the newfangled invention of 'radio,' and leave the face-to-face talks to idealistic volunteers like Caprica and Boomer who got us into this mess in the first place, while we chill on the basestar. Well, although this is the rational sort of thing you would expect from machines, we are the Big Evil... we'd better go execute some people (publicly!) because it says we do, right here in the script."

This is what really makes no sense: if the Cylon majority voted to be nice to the humans in the first place, why in Cylon God's name are the Caprica Six and Boomer partisans allowing Cavil and Doral to taint their olive branch with fucking cyanide?

So we get a lot of the Mindless Cruelty from our Cylon buddies, but let's not forget we get Reactionary Monsterism from our humans. It didn't really bug me that some or even most people blamed Baltar, but it bugged me that everyone was ridiculous enough in their thinking that they reviled him an adjunct to the devil himself. Getting pissed at Baltar for signing prepared documents while a gun is pointed at his head is as pointless as getting pissed at say, Cally, for not getting herself splattered all over her baby while resisting arrest. They're about equally "traitorous." You know what, Gaeta [who makes a trenchant comment toward Baltar using his position to obtain fucktoys]? Maybe if you and your bloodthirsty friends weren't so busy making nuisances of yourselves and turning all the eligibles into meatloaf, you'd get laid too.

I don't even want to go into how characters I liked (and do still like, particularly if I ignore the NC arc) suddenly became sociopathic killers of their own species when they decided it would be a good idea to kill as many New Caprica cops as possible. You're right, Saul, the only people who deserve to survive are the ones who keep trying to kill the immortal enemy and only succeed in killing humans who are scared, hopeless, and brutalized.

So in closing, I'll ask three questions. Was it well-dialogued, well-acted, entertaining drama? Sure. Did it make a lick of sense? No. Was the premise so ludicrous and under-nuanced that it ultimately undermined all the good dialogue, good acting, and entertainment--even the admittedly bitchin' Galactica airdrop and Pegasus ramming scenes? Yes, unfortunately, it was.

Everything that comes before and after New Caprica, for all its inconsistencies, is better than that insipidly plotted arc.

[Scipio]

A shit sandwich may be better than shit stew, but in the end, you're still a shiteater.

[viper37]

I liked the episode.

I would have said it was a great episode, if it had been done in season 3, or earlier this year.

But now, all those flashback, only 2hrs away from the series finale?  Bullshit.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

I've been thinking about this and I think the real reason that we have all these Flashbacks now and all this Caprica stuff... it's setting up the next series which is set on Caprica and called such when The Admiral was just a kid. Huge scenes of a big Caprican city... daily life.

That's what the whole thing is about: these guys (Ronald Moore et al) keeping their sweet jobs.

[I Killed Kenny]

Like I said before... Fuck plot holes, I simply love this series...

[Josquius]

I've been thinking about this and I think the real reason that we have all these Flashbacks now and all this Caprica stuff... it's setting up the next series which is set on Caprica and called such when The Admiral was just a kid. Huge scenes of a big Caprican city... daily life.

That's what the whole thing is about: these guys (Ronald Moore et al) keeping their sweet jobs.

My thoughts too.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Like I said before... Fuck plot holes, I simply love this series...

You are the reason that Portugal is still stuck in the 16th Century.

[I Killed Kenny]

Like I said before... Fuck plot holes, I simply love this series...

You are the reason that Portugal is still stuck in the 16th Century.

uh uh

[Darth Wagtaros]

Like I said before... Fuck plot holes, I simply love this series...

You are the reason that Portugal is still stuck in the 16th Century.

uh uh

Oh, who am I kidding, we all love you our Eggplant mascot.

[Ed Anger]

Speak for yourself Wags.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Speak for yourself Wags.

Mew.

[Ed Anger]

Speak for yourself Wags.

Mew.

Boomer is a black man.

[crazy canuck]

Grallon, make sure you are sitting down.

I liked the last episode.  They really got back on track.  I look forward to the final two hours now.