Confessions of a Battlestar Galactica Virgin - Page 2

Don't worry, I've seen all of season 4.

It was a good episode. Bill Adama tries to introduce the six to Baltar, who just ignores her. When he finally gets it he just says "you can see her ?!!!" over and over.

I was actually referring to the scene where Baltar confronts the soldiers that want to stop his religious march and after being beaten down his body is being forced by an unseen Six. At least unseen for all the humans except Baltar. Or do I remember that wrong?

No, you got that right as far as I recall. I remember being pretty surprised myself when I saw that.

Me too. Of course, I can't imagine they'd tell us otherwise - they want us watching.

It's like this interview I read with Megan Fox talking up Transformers 2: "[Bay] is really gonna up the ante in this one. He's definitely topping the first movie." What else was he planning on doing? Reel it back in? Maybe a more character-based installment?

I know it's natural they'd say just that, but I'm too invested in the characters and the story to accept that the show will leave me unsatisfied. Fingers crossed.

Science fiction has the luxury of examining controversial subjects that would never get aired as a "normal" drama. The episodes under Cylon occupation are a prime example.

Refugee Camps, Collaboration, Bombings, executions, torture - all in the " shaky-cam night vision" style of TV news - it's all relevant to today's world. It gets under the radar by saying " Oh , its all in the future on another planet and no one minds.

The "Razor" special was fantastic for linking the original to the present. just the sight of the original cylons was a "Yee-ha" moment! The original series was so different in tone to the new one - yet they squared the circle and brought it into continuity.

As someone who loves the mythos behind shows it was great to see Richard Hatch reappearing in the new series. Plus he's another one of those BSG characters who is a hero/villain.

I "discovered" BSG in the local video store one day. "Man" I thought "this is probablly really cheesy. Ah, what the hell". Rented the miniseries then went through the entire first season. I can't think of a time I've been this surprised (pleasantly) by a tv show.

To me, BSG is the only and most effective "processing" of 911 in popular culture. I like Speilberg's War of the Worlds but the 911 imagery felt forced and ham fisted. Have not seen the Greengrass movie and have no desire to. And I've seen the video of the planes going into the WTC once. BSG "re-imagines" and references that event in a way that I can take without being offended or rolling my eyes.

I"m surprised by some on this thread who were put off by the various "visions" various characters have. The explanation does not need to be supernatural: the BSG crew and Cylons could be being manipulated by aliens, highly evolved Humans or Cylons, etc. I do feel the Head Six kind of appears and vanishes with no logic.

What I most like about the series is how the characters have evolved over the seasons. These characters are on a journey, and I think the writers have put a huge burden on themselves to live up to their build up.

Watching BSG has also made me more aware that a series likes this really needs everyone involved to be putting out theie best. As one point of comparison, I used to love Babylon 5, but repeated viewing have made the poor acting, SFX, and wildly inconsistent writing stadn out more and more, to the point where I no longer enjoy watching it. BSG has some weak episodes, but the actors (almost all the actors) sell their characters so well, the production design is almost always spot on, the SFX are great etc. Definetly stands up to repeat viewings.

I watched the mini-series and '33' and I'm not sure what all the frackin' fuss is about, yet. I'll give it a couple more episodes but at this point, I'm not really diggin' it.

At it's core, it's a very interesting subject for a show. On the surface it's got some pretty distracting dialogue and poor performances. Olmos is fun to watch, several others too. Starbuck annoys me. Why the writer's thought it would be a good idea to use the word 'frack' instead of some other means of similar expression is beyond me, but it takes me out of the show everytime, as petty as that may sound. If any of the characters in Lost started dropping Frack-bombs, I don't think I could take the show seriously.

I don't want to be so quick to judge, especially given all of the great feedback the show's received, but I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I might. I'm not a fan of sci-fi to begin with. My friend is, loves BSG and convinced me that it's way more than a Star-Trekish show. I can see that's probably the case, but it's still not doing much for me.

Goddamn it this show is fucking terrible I don't care what your interests are I just turned the channel to an episode and heard meaningless jargon spat by every character without the campy charm of some ancient Star Trek episode...it's fucking terrible, christ, as everything is so generically science fiction in it and not interesting at all unless you really really love science fiction...

I have a question. I had watched everything up through halfway through season 3 and got bored. I am now starting all over from the beginning. When do I need to watch Razor? After season 3? 2?

Apparently Razor, at least the majority of it, takes place between 2.17 and 2.19.

I'm aware of that, but should I watch it after those episodes?

It was aired between Season 3 and Season 4 so I'd watch it then, nothing too spoilery but it touches on stuff we've discovered in Season 2.

I might be misremembering something but I think if you watch it chronologically in the timeframe indicated above you should be safe from spoilers.
But since you have seen it already up to the middle of the third season there is nothing left to be spoiled for you.
And I think it might tie better into the story of the Pegasus in terms of flow.

"Frak" was a word that was created in the original BSG show; they just carried it over to the new one. I for one find it to be a good alternative that can be used in polite company, mainly because they can't decide if they should be offended or not since it isn't a real word.

...and a troll rears his ugly head.

Just watched the first disc of Season 2.0:

-I find it funny that the two characters I dislike the most are the two I'm always most fascinated with: Saul Tigh and Gaius Baltar.

-Lee is really the audience identification character, every nagging debate I have in my own head about whether Adama or Roslin is right is being fought out on screen through him.

-I like the theory that Zak Adama is the final Cylon.

Is the extended version of "Pegasus" that important to watch or can I skip it? I'm thinking if people survived the rest of the season by seeing the broadcast version that I'll be ok but it keeps nagging at me.

It gets worse. One of the reasons I probably never got back into Season 4.

It's not all bad, but Season 3 is king of filler episodes. That combined with the long wait between Seasons was probably why I stopped watching. I'll finish it someday.

The beginning couple of episodes of S3 are pretty damn awesome. But yeah, the middle really drags with filler.

I think that if it had kept to a cable season run of like 13 episodes it would have been better.

So am I the only one who's really into Season 3? The New Caprica arc, the two parter on the basestar involving the virus, the boxing episode, the algae planet, Maelstrom, Crossroads, I can go on.

Season 2.5 for me is the low point. I basically tuned out after the Resurrection Ship with the exception of the first major Cylon-centered episode. Even the finale was rather unimpressive, I felt it tried to cover too much ground and ended up losing track of quite a few interesting elements to say nothing of how angry I was at the cliffhanger.

EDIT: It's not perfect, it does fall into problematic territory near the end, but the overall quality of the episodes however standalone they are is much higher than normal to me.

I liked New Caprica, and the algae planet was at least plot rellevant. But, stuff like the boxing episode was just done poorly in my opinion.

It plays better on DVD when I watched it in a shorter amount of time though.

That was the way I watched it so that might have contributed to it.

I think the boxing episode has been wrongly singled out as the focus of everyone's problems with the season. It's actually really good and has tons of great character work in my humble opinion.

I think it was different when you had to wait a week to watch a new episode. It got kind of frustrating to get excited for the next episode, think something interesting is going to happen, then wind up with something like the boxing episode. Which maybe has two scenes in the hour that advance the plot in some way. The rest is just redundant character stuff.

Perhaps it plays better when you're watching the episodes in a short period of time.

It will be interesting to watch Season 4.5, my first on a week by week basis, and see how it compares to watching them on DVD.

Me too, but I don't see the final run being subject to the same kind of filler material that would bloat the middle of prior seasons.

Why the fuck are you even watching this show, seriously?

Umm, I was referring to one episode. And if you could read, I said I stopped watching after the third. Still, the show is good enough for the most part. I'll probably finish it when it's all done and out on DVD.

Battlestar was never really Lost or a mystery of the week kind of show, it always worked best when it showed how this fuck up of a crew were dealing with being the last of their kind and constantly hunted. To decry an episode for not advancing the plot and focusing too much on characters is outright retarded.

The show was fairly balanced between it's character development and pushing the plot forward, until Season 3. That's when I started having a problem with it.

Season 1 really doesn't have all that much plot progression.

Well, at least it kept the tension.

To add: It didn't need to push the plot forward at the beginning to keep the show interesting. Once the show lost the initial tension caused by being chased by the Cylons, and generally wondering what the hell was going to happen in the plots/subplots (Helo on Earth, the coup, etc.), it needed to rely more on consistently pushing the plot forward while developing the characters. They accomplished this in S2, in my mind. In S3 there were certainly some good episodes, but it felt mostly like they were dragging their feet to hold off revealing the final five as long as possible.

Ironic. Using the word redemption and Baltar. Please finish up to season 4.5 and let's discuss further.

Just finished Season 3 last night, and I agree with those who felt like there was filler here and there but this is the only scripted television show that I'm watching on the regular right now, and even the filler eps are generally well done, so I didn't mind.

But I'm not sure about the big reveal at the end of Season 3. Without getting spoilery, it sort of undoes a lot of the care I've invested in several characters. If Season 4 takes this "twist" and runs with it I could see it validating the whole thing but since I'm avoiding spoilers as best I can and the little I'm hearing about Season 4 isn't glowing, I am having doubts...

I dropped X-Files at the right time (after the first movie) and by skipping all the rest I'm left with fond memories and no bitter aftertaste. Maybe I should leave BSG well enough alone after Crossroads.

If you thought the fillers were good-to-ok, you'll have no problem at all with Season 4.

Season 4 does just fine in condensed form. It has fewer small arcs, but the big arc is still strong.

Glad to hear some good word on Season 4, I've been hoping I can still look forward to seeing it through. Season 4.0 drops on dvd Jan. 6, I think.

I will say that the mythology in this kind of show always seems to unravel given enough time but I'll give Ron Moore & co. credit, although we're three seasons in and I still have NO idea whether the cylons "have a plan," what that plan might be, what exactly is the deal with Starbuck, etc., etc., at least it still seems possible that they'll tie it all into a satisfactory conclusion. Hope springs eternal...

After watching S4 part one, I have to say the cylon's plan has changed dramatically over the last two seasons, I think originally they just wanted to annihilate humanity, then became fixed on showing humans the way to god, then they started struggling with their own definitions of god, started debating with each other about their connection to humanity and god and forgot about their original plan, now, I think they're just as lost as the humans, the only goal they have now is the truth about the final five.

Four episodes into Season 4. Liking it quite a bit. He That Believeth in Me and Six of One was a really good two parter. The Ties That Bind was a great episode (although as a guy who has an enormous crush on Cally it was very difficult) even though it was the most punishing of so far a very oppressive season. Escape Velocity had some good ideas and I liked most of the Tigh/Six stuff but in the end I thought it came up a bit short (I'm looking at that learning through pain/Six beating the shit out of Tigh scene).

I'm a little disappointed at the Demetrius stuff so far though. I'm hoping they'll deliver on that in future episodes.

I started feeling it in Season Three but it's official now: I think the Cylon stuff may be my favorite scenes in the show. It's not like the human stuff is bad but so far I'm far more interested in seeing the Cylons go to war with one another than a Quorum meeting.

The show had to get under the Cylon's skin in order to evolve. And it's been great for the most part. One of the most memorable TV villains ever.

The Demetrius stuff plays out well, it just seems like its spinning its wheels getting there. Although I suppose that's part of the point-- nothing in Kara's quest is going the way she planned, until...

Wait, Lampkin's a problem? He's awesome!

I'm dreading it too. There's a reason I've never been a big TV guy, because I don't want to keep up with it bit by bit week after week. That's why I usually wait till everything's on DVD. But hey, I'll make it work. The show's worth it.

For all you lucky Bastards that can get this channel Universal HD will be running a Marathon of BSG Season 4. Seems like the perfect refresher for the final episodes. Here's the schedule of the episodes they'll be running:

Sunday January 4th

7:00pm EST Episode 401 "He That Believeth in Me"
8:00pm EST Episode 402 "Six of One"
9:00pm EST Episode 403 "The Ties That Bind"
10:00pm EST Episode 404 "Escape Velocity"
11:00pm EST Episdoe 405 "The Road Less Traveled"

Sunday January 11th

7:00pm EST Episode 406 "Faith"
8:00pm EST Episode 407 "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?"
9:00pm EST Episode 408 "Sine Qua Non"
10:00pm EST Episode 409 "The Hub"
11:00pm EST Episdoe 410 "Revelations"

Alan Sepinwall recently transcribed and posted an interview from last July with Ron Moore. Interesting stuff.