At Least Ten Hours To Go
I'm not sure what to make of the Battlestar Galactica mid-season finale. I know I liked it, but where do we go from here?
(SPOILERS:) It was a long wait, but we finally got some real action. The four secret cylons were revealed, (though not the fifth--I'm beginning to think the fifth will not be what we think it is) which led to the breakdown of Adama and some near airlocking by Lee. Even better, D'Anna came back to life with a bang, and finally started a real battle. Her overreaction was a bit hard to buy, in a way, but I was so pleased we finally had some Cylon versus human action I didn't care.
But the big ending was they got to Earth. Real, honest-to-goodness Earth, where the whole show has been heading. And we discovered it was (or seemed to be) our Earth, in the future, after nuclear war had destroyed it.
Okay, a chilling moment. But what happens next. Do the humans and Cylons stick together and start to rebuild? Do they check the place out looking for survivors? Do they try for another planet? Is there another green, lush planet waiting for them?
No matter what they do, the question now is what drives the plot forward. With the exception of the fifth cylon (which D'Anna knows) there are no more secrets. Everyone knows who everyone is, and the search is over. What happens next?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:41 AM
5 Comments:
Despite my dwindling hopes for the show, I was a bit disappointed in the end.
But there are still some mysteries, besides the identity of the final cylon.
1. What exactly does it mean that the final four have been to Earth?
2. What does it mean to say that the final four are Cylons? Dramatically they have made it clear that they did not "become" cylons at some recent point. Rather, we are to suppose that someone created Saul Tigh prior to the first cylon war and placed him with the humans and with fake memories. Who exactly did this?
3. What is the explanation of the Ghost Six in Baltar's head? I still think she is exactly what she claims -- an angel of God. Which leads to:
4. Are the gods, or God, actually real? Will they interfere in the show directly?
5. Is this planet really our Earth? If so, what year is it? How did a song written by a young folk singer from Minnesota get from this Earth into the heads of the final four?
6. What is the secret of Starbuck's ship? It led her to Earth even before the final four messed with it. And its clock was wrong. Could there be time-travel involved? Could they have arrived in Earth's future? Maybe if they just save the cheerleader, they can retroactively save the Earth.
7. What is the explanation of the prophecy about Kara leading them to their destruction?
8. What is the meaning of the opera house? Why are cylon-human hybrids so important?
Sadly, I suspect much of this not only won't be answered, but has been long forgotten by the writers. Just like they forgot that Cylons can't impregnate other Cylons.
There are also some plot threads that aren't "mysteries" but still need to be resolved:
a. The Centurions appear to be gearing for a revolt. If Baltar leads them, it will be a religious revolt as well.
b. There still are thousands (millions?) of Cylons back in the region of the galaxy where season one took place. Even if we assume they have 'boxed' (= killed) all the Twos, Sixes, and Eights, that still leaves thousands of Ones, Fours, and Fives. Are they going to chase down our folks?
c. Some serious interpersonal conflicts still remain. The biggest is that the Chief could discoverer that Tori killed his wife. And they probably will do something with Gaeda.
d. Will any of the characters challenge the "moral equivalence" between the humans (who are fleeing for their lives) and the Cylons (who wiped out 99.9999% of humanity)? Next time a Cylon gives some human a guilt trip because the human is trying to do something sneaky -- like not let the Cylons know the location of the last batch of humans they haven't slaughtered -- will that human say "Screw you, toaster" like in the old days, or will they just whine like Helo and everyone else does these days?
Of all those very excellent points, (d) is what bothers me the most. Remember the miniseries? Remember when Six snapped that baby's neck? Didn't that say something about cylons? The only character (I think) who has consistently rejected any kind of moral equivalence between humans and cylons is Roslin. And in the past two episodes, she has been taken to task for this.
I wasn't crazy about this past episode. The cylon-human conflict got resolved too neatly --a quick handshake between D'Anna and Lee and let's go home? The opening for the show's previous seasons always told us that the cylons have a plan but for a while now, it has sure seemed like the cylons don't have plan and, like lawrence king says, the writers might not either.
There may be plenty of cylons left, but if they won't resurrect, they're not quite the threat they were. Though now I have to ask, can they have sex that leads to babies?
I agree with Irene they resolved the hatred quickly, though the standoff came up just as quickly.
I thought the final shot was well done--I just don't know where they're going from here. It sure doesn't seem it's where they were going from the first season. I suppose we're going to explore to mysteries of Earth. It's sort of like Lost now.
Irene Done wrote:
Remember when Six snapped that baby's neck? Didn't that say something about cylons?
I suspect the writers (like so many) have watched Blade Runner a lot. I suspect they thought of the Cylons in the beginning as being totally or mostly lacking empathy...but that this is something that they have (perhaps) learned a bit over time.
Though I do think they're still clueless about guilt.
Also, borrowing from Blade Runner, I think they made their Cylons to be very all-or-nothing. (Or were they borrowing from TNG's Binars? Oh, the mental pain!) Which might contribute to their back and forth "kill all humans! No, rescue them! No, kill them all!" Whereas the human middle ground, e.g. "let's have a picnic and say bitchy things!" never enters their little toaster coil heads.
Oh, and re Starbuck's ship: it more than had a wrong clock. Wasn't it, like, totally pristine and in never-used condition?
BTW...is it racist to admit that all the Sixes look alike to me? ;-)
Cara
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