Saturday, March 11, 2006

Shorter Me

In reaction to the season finale of Battlestar Galactica:

AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

The longer version is just more of that, plus some Heston-esque "You maniacs!!! You did it!!!"

Seriously. Major, major kudos to the creators for an extremely.... gutsy choice for which way to bring the story. However, I don't want to spoil it for Canadians who aren't torrenting the episodes as they air in the US (Space is a couple of months behind Sci-Fi.) Be warned, the spoilers are big ones. So seriously, don't read if you don't want to ruin the rest of the season for yourselves.

Click here for the spoilerrific goodness.

I've now watched the episode twice, once with the commentary podcast (you already knew I was a giant nerd) and I have to say the speed with which the episode moved nearly gave me whiplash. The idea of the Cylon pursuit ending so suddenly after two seasons, then having Baltar win the election, then the leap forward obviously necessitated the extra half hour for the episode.

But I really have no idea how they're going to undo this next season. Baltar has so obviously screwed things up, you kind of expect a lynching if the Cylons are eventually defeated again. Meanwhile, we've had it made clear that the Galactica and Pegasus are in no shape to actually fight for the colonists again, leaving us to wonder what exactly is going to happen next.

Obviously, this is part of the creative process, but I wonder if they've painted themselves in to a corner on this one. Part of the appeal of BSG has been that the series has occasionally flirted with implausibility, but has always been careful not to simply wave a magic wand and make problems disappear. (With the possible exception of Roslin's magical cancer cure.) The idea of crafting a plausible rescue scenario in this case seems impossible. Either that, or we're likely to get a repeat of the split storyline from season 1 - with Galactica and the fleet in one plot, with "Cylon-occupied New Caprica" in the other.

In case you haven't been keeping count, we've now met 7 Cylon models. There are 5 more to go. On that note, Dean Stockwell's little scene of two Cavils talking to Roslin and Adama was very well done. And Sharron's little bit of contempt for Helo - "They killed my daugher. Do you think I care about you?" was amazingly simple and cutting.

I love the idea of Baltar turning the office of the President in to a drug-filled grotto within a year of taking office. That, and the not-so-subtle references to Bush when Baltar says "I don't have to listen. I'm the President." or "How many attacks have there been since I was elected?"

Needless to say, I can't wait until the summer season starts.

All done.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

First, again, sorry for the spoilerific comment on my part. As you have seen though, there are plenty of surprises in store even after my spoiler.

I love the cut where Baltar slumps his head onto the desk and lifted it up...one year later. That was pretty audacious.

A prediction...I do think they're going to go the split-action route, although the main action is going to take place more on New Caprica than on galactica, and the series is goign to focus even more on Cylon-human relationships. I have a feeling that cylons are going to try to treat the humans decently (no more baby farms) but still keep them under their thumbs, and the humans are going to plot to rebell anyhow.

All this is idle speculation. I have no doubt that the writers are more or less flying by the seat of their pants.