BSG - The Ties That Bind

SO SAY WE ALL. AGAIN. Seventeen to go.

BTW, um, still SPOILERS. If you haven't seen the eps, this is not the place to be looking. Go get the DVDs and then watch the last three eps on Sci-Fi.com. We'll wait.

A pretty great episode. I'm hoping that this will be more like season 1 and something will come of this and not like season 3 where nothing would. (It's not a Lee story. Those evaporate faster than Ambrosia in vacuum.) It's been four days and I have to admit I'm still a little numb.

Cut to the chase: Go back and watch the miniseries where Wild Bill runs into his wayward deck crew who are sneaking about wanting to give him a retirement present. They are all dead.

Prosna died in the first attack on Galactica when EyesTigh had to vent the air to keep the fuel tanks from exploding.










Socinus died on Kobol. (Way to go, Crashdown.)











And now Cally. Very sad. (I didn't know her maiden name was Henderson.) I always liked Cally. A lot of people wondered at her marrying The Chief right after he broke her jaw. If he had been AWAKE when he did it I'd have been in that camp. (Now why anyone would marry STARBUCK is another matter...) I liked the two of them together. They felt a lot more solid and real than he and Boomer. One of my favorite moments in s3 was when Apollo asked Tyrol if he ever though about Boomer and he said "no", drank his drink, and walked away with a look of "viper pilots is DUMB". Other than being a toaster the Chief is a stand-up guy. Which is why he needs to tell people he's a toaster. Especially now.

She Who Is My Wife is impossible to write TV for. She knew what Cally was going to do the moment she grabbed Tyrol's keys. Then she knew what Tory was going to do the moment she got the baby. I'm fast but not that fast. (But I figured out The Prestige about an hour before she did.)

Alright, Saul. TELL PEOPLE. Tell Wild Bill. Let HIM figure it out. Galen? Your wife is dead. Why? Because one of you toasters is a might touchy about your secret and is getting into "the sensations". TELL PEOPLE. I'll hate all of you fraking skin jobs, I swear I will. Helo will no longer be my BSG punching bag. iTigh should know better. If you'd asked him a year ago to lay down his life for the fleet he'd have done it without blinking his eye. He tried to, more than once (no, not the blinking). And Athena is not only still free, still trusted, but she's off on a super-secret mission with Starbuck. Get some balance, people.

If it comes out that Tory killed Cally, and if it doesn't change Tyrol's mind BIG TIME, I give up. (I won't of course. I watched Black Market and still came back.) I want this to be the tipping point. If it turns out to be Tory vs. iTigh and Tyrol, bring it. Mind you, they did a great job of making it very possible that no-one except Tory will ever know. Cally was crazy and suicidal. I'm ok with that too, actually. (Let's just waltz past the idea that Tyrol's key wasn't on the inside of the airlock and that Tory now seems to know her way around a battlestar better than iTigh or the Chief.)

Oh, if you're going to drop an in-joke like "Weapons locker 1701-D", don't do it when the nerds are supposed to be caught in unbelievably high dramatic tension. It's distracting.

You know, I NEVER liked Tory. I used to just hate her because she replaced Billy.

Every decision made by any half-way responsible person in this fleet should begin and end with "There are 40,000 people left in the entire universe and we are being pursued by an implacable foe that will stop at nothing less than our destruction." Anything past that is details.

Which brings us to Lee and President Bush- er, Rosilyn. I had a moment of hope that Bush Derangement Syndrome had left the show for a while. No such luck. I have to admit that Laura's directive (or whatever they called it) is totally in character. Never let another Baltar trial happen. Ever. Mind you, Tom Zarek didn't want to have the trial to begin with. I LOVE seeing her and Lee knock heads though. I want to see a scene with just the two of them where they have out everything that's happened since Kobol. I want to see how much they used to adore each other.

The problem I have is that all of the rest of the Quorum and the Press (weren't they all supposed to get JOBS after Dirty Hands? And what did THEY do on New Cap?) seem totally agog at the idea of paranoia and security. FORTY THOUSAND PEOPLE LEFT. Someone snuck a NUCLEAR WEAPON onto Cloud Nine a year or so ago, remember? (Gee, THAT guy ought to go on trial.) "But what will our society turn into?" You know what? Worry about that when there are eighty thousand people left. (And why isn't anyone having babies?) This is frontier life. Go listen to Representative Adama's speech again from last season. I'd like to see how ANYONE is accepting that Roslin is President again. The only way that can be pulled off is if she is liked and trusted. (And she's a PRESIDENT, so how can THAT be?) Otherwise she just kind of waltzed in and got appointed. Again. And was Lee just appointed to 1/12th of the legislature? Because the man who argued Gaius Baltar free sure wasn't just elected. So I would think that the power structures in a rag-tag fleet such as this would be more... Fluid. So Laura resorting to legal subterfuge would be pointless and impossible to enforce.

Going off on THAT tangent: I'd like to see what the rest of the ragtag looks like. So far there have been no riots (unless they run out of food or martial law is declared, even then it seems pretty calm). People seem to be getting along pretty well for having been crammed into tiny spaceships for several years with only a short break outside for disease, starvation, and cylon occupation. So, all things considered, these people seem to be GOOD. It's not a fleet of Kara Thrace's. (Oh, sorry.) It seems pretty clear that the Galactica doesn't have marines scattered around the fleet keeping order by force. Of course, we never SEE these people. We only see the selfish and the stupid. I'd like to see more about how these people have adapted. What THEY think of their leaders. Maybe Laura's got a second honeymoon for having brought them through Caprica. Even more so for Admiral Adama. But how seriously do they take their "elected" government? 40,000 people. Some of us have worked for COMPANIES bigger than this. I can't imagine that the same government set up to manage twelve PLANETS would be as effective on this scale. Certainly not more effective. I just think that this "fourteen layers deep" legal intrigue with Laura's directive seems like overkill. Everyone in the fleet is at most only 39,999 people from the president (approximately).

Gotta say, I loved Wild Bill reading Airlock one of her trashy Raymond Chandler (IN SPACE) novels. Very sweet. Then we had the big chewing out scene about WB sending Starbuck off. I'd love to see this divide grow. She Who Is My Wife would hate that. She's the biggest Laura / Adama 'shipper out there. (Don't even get her started on Lee and Kara.) But I want to either see them have to argue to a consensus about something, or go back to something more like first season where they had to dance around each other a bit, because neither could run the fleet without the other. And I'd TOTALLY love to see the Laura was right all along. Right now she says "JUMP!" and Bill growls "whatever" and then he does it. But it's not boring and not out of character, so cool deal.

Speaking of our wayward babes, out on the less-than-rag-tag expedition ship Demetrius, Starbuck is going crazier. I don't like her. Let's just be clear on this. I have no reason to like her anymore. (But I still love iTigh. Funny, eh?) I think her crew is awesome though. What a crowd. Good grief! Can Felix get anymore bitter? Obama would be saying "Dude, lighten UP! It's not SO bad!" Who's the "unknown guy"? Should I recognize him? And if not, shouldn't he be wearing a red shirt? Or are they just going to kill Seelix to keep us guessing? HEY! Where's Hera?!? (And where's ADxA?)

And the Cylons are at war. WOW. So, did they kill off ALL of the Sixes and Eight's except for the ones on the Big G? THAT would be wild. So how long until they unbox the Three's?

A Baltar Free ep. Interesting.

I have NO idea where this is going. In a better world, RDM would. But it's great so far.

Boom boom boom.

BSG - Six of One

SO SAY WE ALL! (This post has NOT been spellchcked)

BTW, um, SPOILERS. If you haven't seen the eps, this is not the place to be looking. Go get the DVDs and then watch the last three eps on Sci-Fi.com. We'll wait.

Ok, 18 more episodes like that and I'll call BSG the greatest TV show ever. If they can keep it up I'd say that RDM and Co. have gotten a much needed breather and may have even looked back at last season and seen where they went wrong.

I mean, wow. WOW! First we have Starbuck telling Laura EVERYTHING that we (I) said when Kara showed up babbling and Laura was ignoring her. "Why am I crazy and you're not?" Then my wonderful hero, the harder than nails Laura Airlock Roslin (more later of course) says "I don't care" and still tries to shoot SB in the head. THIS is the show that I love. It's about what people DO. It's about what people CHOOSE. And it is rarely about what feels good. (They seem to be making people vaguely accountable for what has happened before. I hope this trend continues.)

I'll interrupt my gushing to note the last error that needs to be corrected. Put Airlock and NFL in scenes together again. With NFL's newfound political career (Zarek? Ha! That answers my question from last episode) this seems more likely. I want to see them toe to toe again.

Aiiieee! I just had a horrible thought, that is most likely not true. Is Lee being shuffled off the show? That send off was awful big! I'll need to go watch next week's trailer again. I'm all cold just thinking about it. I'm assuming that they're just re-writing the show on the fly (and doing a good job of it) and moving Lee into another role. But if not... Brrrrrrr.

ANYWAY, back to the gushing. After the greatest Kara / Airlock scene ever we have the greatest Wild Bill / Airlock scene ever. (I think there was a terrific Kara / Wild Bill scene in there too.) WB and Airlock get to have it out. The biggest thing that I like about this episode is that it really feels like the writer's are finally remembering stuff. (Got to go look and see who wrote this.) Laura as the dying leader. Going back to the myths that used to wander around the fleet daring people to believe in them. WB getting to admit how lost he is and how much he hates this myth stuff even when it turns out to be true.

Baltar: Is he really believing what he says these days? Is that possible? There was a podcast last year where they asked all the cast who they wanted to play other than themselves. They all said Baltar. James Callis said he wanted to play Six... So he could have scenes with Gaius Baltar. Seems RDM took this to heart. Wacky stuff. (Is it just me, or has James become a lot funnier looking since the miniseries?)

Cylons! Last season's Cylon stories were pretty boring. These are possibly more cool than the Galactica stuff!

And since BSG in 8 minutes was so cool, they've done THIS (I'm not sure how this widget thing works, find the recap):

Next up, The Ties that Bind. And then I'm caught up! (Except for Razor.)

Boom boom boom.

...the prize we sought is won

It's April 15th. Most probably think tax day. But really one of the defining days in our nation's history.

Take a moment for one of the greatest men our country has known, given to us when we needed him most. Sadly taken from us almost the moment his work was done. We will see his like again, I am sure. But we will never know until he or she is gone.

O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman

O CAPTAIN my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Wow. Bill's blogging again. Must be new TV on.

The short of it: Good solid season opener. Looks like they're laying some groundwork. Looks like Zach is a Cylon. (EyeTigh: DAMN!) (That's from the brilliant BSG in 8 minutes - posted earlier. I need it to be my error sound on my computer.)

Here's a quick rundown on the popular Tallguy character abbreviations (that I find funny at least):

• RDM: Ronald D. Moore - producer
• Wild Bill: Admiral William Adama.
• iTigh (formerly EyeTigh): Col Saul "Toaster's a Poppin'" Tigh - 'cause he's got one 'i'.
• NFL (Non-Fat Lee): Lee Adama
• Brett: This is a new one. I've decided that Sam "Toaster's a Poppin'" Anders is Brett Favre. Heh. If he gets a Cylon number he can be #4. Bwahahahahaha. Yeah, I'm running with that one.

They DON'T have a frakking plan anymore, eh? Nice that RDM finally admitted it.

Starbuck is back. And showing an alarming obliviousness, she thinks she's only been gone hours even though her hair is WAY longer. Wild Bill thinks he's got it all under control, even though this is Kara "Hey, remember the time we used half our fuel looking for you?" Thrace. I think Laura remembers. Regarding her potential toasterness Our Heroes seem to be doing enough to look good but not enough to be effective. (RDM has been hanging with TSA! ) If it were me? No way I'd trust her. But the fleet hasn't been that kind of paranoid since Kobol.

Wild Bill: He's a little lost here. Wants to be the rational man, big on security. But it's Kara. He's always in trouble there. He's going to be really bummed when Zach comes back and he's a toaster.

Laura: I'd be far more in favor of her hard as nails (where did they get all the nail polish three years after the holocaust?) attitude towards the craziness of Kara if this weren't the woman who sent same said crazy pilot in a stolen Cylon ship back to Caprica to get a museum piece. And set off a political coup in the process. Yeah, that Laura. So Kara can feel the way to Earth. You're hanging with 2 1/2 toasters in an imaginary opera house. Deal.

Hey, now that I look back on it, was that the most brilliant resolution to a seemingly unrelated plot ever? (Helo and Sharon on Cap getting picked up by Starbuck who is looking for the arrow of Apollo) Or at least close? Ahhh, that was writing. Now they would say "You know, we're just tired of it, it's not going anywhere. So they dream that they're at Woodstock and wake up on Galactica and everyone is like, Whoaaa." Love you, RDM. Mean it.

Baltar is interesting again! Still not smart (remember when he used to be smart? Like, "greatest mind of our time" smart? Like, invented a Cylon detector that he then threw away?) but at least interesting. He knows what he's accountable for. An interesting thing is that I don't think they will ever be mad at Baltar for the things he's actually done: not explaining how the colonies were attacked (he had one line about it last season: Treason implies intent), letting Boomer get past his effective Cylon screen, shooting Crashdown, and, oh yeah, GIVING A CYLON A NUKE. That last one is really problematic. I've seen the publicity shots of Baltar, so I kind of know where this story will lead. Again: interesting. At least they're giving James Callis something to chew on this year. (Other than Tricia Helfer and Lucy Lawless.)

I've dimmed a bit on iTigh's whole "That's the man I want to be!" speech. If he was all that worried about shooting the old man in the head, he'd tell people! Especially since four "people" on the fleet know that one of their viper jocks got freeze-framed by a raider. (It takes two months to train in raptors AND vipers, eh? Shiny.) The four of them are no better than Gaius fffRRRAAAAAAAkking Baltar (said with an iTigh growl).

iTigh has never been known for self-inspection. We don't know enough about Tori. #4 can be kind of squirmy. I guess the Chief has been through enough "YOU'RE A TOASTER! *WHACK*" sessions. And Cally would kick his butt more than a little. But no-one said being chrome was easy. Give it up, guys. There's less than 40,000 people left! Hey, Chief. Remember when you were keeping secrets about Boomer? How'd that work out?

So Starbuck is setting up the whole "toasters are people too" plot. She makes #4 uncomfortable with her talk of killing genocidal robots. So he can't say who he is. Awwwwww. A witch hunt isn't bad if they're actually witches! (Of the "I'll get you my pretty!" variety, not the Rosenberg type.) (Wait, that was a reference to Willow Rosenberg, friendly witch on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed for being traitors to the USA. I can see the confusion.)

NFL has a new job? Wait, who in "the government" is going to offer Lee "I sold Laura Roslyn down the river" Adama a job? Again: Remember when Lee and Laura talked to each other? One of the balls that got seriously dropped and I so miss from season 1.5. The big MOMENT in the court room would have been devastating if they had actually maintained that relationship.

Speaking of heart to hearts: Every time they lock up a toaster the toaster gets a new best friend. This time it's Laura and Six.

Six is SO much more interesting than the Six in GB's head. Although it seems GB's Six is becoming more like the real one and less May West on Acid. Maybe GB has grown. Naaahh. Again - Tricia Helfer: What a find. They hired a model and got an actress. Good on you, RDM.

I didn't want Helo thrown out the nearest airlock this week, like the traitorous hippie he is. That's always good.

Athena talking to #4 and the chief was nice. The Unknown Four (the UF?) don't know that even the Cylons don't know who they are, I guess. It'll be a mighty fine shindig all round when that comes out.

So next week we see the toasters (the ones not flying vipers) again. Hmmm. Ok. "WE'RE GOING THE WRONG WAAAAAYYYY!"

My prediction: Baltar will be the only one to make it to Earth. Maybe Baltar and Hera.

Boom boom boom.

Charlton Heston 1924-2008

There will be a lot of better writers than me writing about this in the next few days. And most of them will have at least something to do with this.



You can go look up The Ten Commandments on your own. And yes, it's people.