BattleStar Galactica:Season 3.5--3/04/07--Arc 16

[jhallum]

I'm pretty ambivalent as to the episode right now. If she's gone, and they don't explain anything, it sucked. But if they explain something, and it makes sense, I'm all for it.

After reading one of the interviews over at Circus Maximus, it sounds like something is forthcoming on that front, though, during the last three eps. Hopefully it's something good.

 

[Kaodi]

While most of the episode seemed extremely contrived, Adama's wasting his model ship did at least seem like a realistic reaction. Poor model ship. That moment did seem to evoke that compound feeling of both loathing and exhulting at its destruction. I wonder if there is some kind of foreshadowing in this, if the Galactica is going to be wasted at the moment its mission is complete...

 

[Sir Brennen]

The thing that makes me think we'll see her again was Leoben's talk about her finally finding out what lies between life and death... the same thing which D'Anna was exploring when she was having the Centurian kill her repeatedly.

I don't think she's a cylon herself, though, due to all the things the cylons have done to her. Being one of the five? Maybe, especially with D'Anna apology to the Five she looked at the face of.

And in the article about Sackoff looking for work, well, it sounds like she's just wanting to line up another BSG hiatus project. The fact that she's still keeping mum about whether she's permanently gone from the series makes me think she's not.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

She'll be back at some point.

If she comes back as a Cylon, I think it will be the most obvious plot twist ever, but not necessarily the worst.

I would rather see her come back as a ghost, vision, apparition, dream or some such than pop up as a Cylon. They did that will Athena, and doing it again - even with Kara as "one of the final five" - would have a been there, done that feel.

But what is her fate on the other side of death?

 

[Gunslinger]

I actually think it would make a perfect non-twist (fakeout?) for Starbuck to really have gone off the deep end and killed herself, for good, as a direct result of all the emotional trauma she's been through. I saw her as an Icarus-figure, she just burned too bright to remain among the living for too long and flew a little too close to the metaphorical sun. Tragic, but it loses its dramatic value if she comes back in some capacity.

 

[Mistwell]

I am having a hard time understanding some reactions here.

First, she is not dead. I don't know how much more they could have hit us over the head with that. They showed her hand on the ejection bar. They had Not-Leoban, a being who took the form of Leoban but who said he was no Leoban, telling her he was there to guide her down the path BETWEEN life and death. They had her set up as "special", and her mother and her having a conversation that the thing her mom was preparing her for all of her life was coming up (and the thing wasn't "prepare to die all your life", it was clearly something else, something that made her "special").

And then we have the frakken original Battlestar Galactica episodes from long ago, where an angelic race of beings (the Seraph) come to assist the Galactica, in episodes like "The Return of Starbuck". and in an unfilmed but scripted future episode called the Wheel of Fire (sound familiar anyone?), where "Starbuck is eventually rescued from the planet by the inhabitants of the Ship of Lights and became one of them."

I was not disappointed at all by this episode. It was clearly set up quick some time ago in the first season, when Starbuck was first guided to the arrow by some mystical force. She isn't dead, this isn't some contract issue with the actor, this is part of the normal plot that tracks all the way back to the 1970s scripts that had almost this exact same stuff happen.

What is everyone freaking out over?

 

[Truth Seeker]

I would like to add, the makeup artist's job was subtle and brilliant...the close up shots on her face, while she talked with Apollo (in the hangar deck), showed the lack of sleep she not getting.

At this point...she was already bodering between reality and illusional interpertations. Of what was around her.

And visual effects for the Viper flights...was as always...outstanding.

 

[Truth Seeker]

This will probably cause some arguement...but Mistwell, I watched it twice, twice...the canopy was NOT released. And trust me, I know well enough about jet fighter ejection system.

As for dealing with it...let them suffer.

I am having a hard time understanding some reactions here.

First, she is not dead. I don't know how much more they could have hit us over the head with that. They showed her hand on the ejection bar. They had Not-Leoban, a being who took the form of Leoban but who said he was no Leoban, telling her he was there to guide her down the path BETWEEN life and death. They had her set up as "special", and her mother and her having a conversation that the thing her mom was preparing her for all of her life was coming up (and the thing wasn't "prepare to die all your life", it was clearly something else, something that made her "special").

And then we have the frakken original Battlestar Galactica episodes from long ago, where an angelic race of beings (the Seraph) come to assist the Galactica, in episodes like "The Return of Starbuck". and in an unfilmed but scripted future episode called the Wheel of Fire (sound familiar anyone?), where "Starbuck is eventually rescued from the planet by the inhabitants of the Ship of Lights and became one of them."

I was not disappointed at all by this episode. It was clearly set up quick some time ago in the first season, when Starbuck was first guided to the arrow by some mystical force. She isn't dead, this isn't some contract issue with the actor, this is part of the normal plot that tracks all the way back to the 1970s scripts that had almost this exact same stuff happen.

What is everyone freaking out over?

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

And then we have the frakken original Battlestar Galactica episodes from long ago, where an angelic race of beings (the Seraph) come to assist the Galactica...

Funny, but I had forgotten all of that. you make a good case for a long story-line and a return of some kind next year. And don't forget Iblis.

I still suspect she is dead, but that won't stop them (Seraph or show producers) from bringing her back. I just don't want it to be as a Cylon. I will be disappointed if she is one of the final five, because that will be a cop out.

...showed the lack of sleep she not getting.

Lack of sleep not getting... Not getting lack of sleep... Does that mean she was sleeping? Or perhaps had become narcoleptic?

 

[wingsandsword]

I think they are setting up a "Beings of Light" plotline here.

New BSG has just as many mystical/religious aspects as the original, and they've created parallels of most of the more memorable BSG episodes and plot twists (The Hand of God, discovering Kobol, finding Pegasus and Cain), except the whole "War of the Gods" storyarc with angelic ascended beings guiding Galactica and a "fallen angel" trying to mislead them.

Being evasive about whether or not she's going to be back on Galactica just makes it seem like she's going to be back and quietly telegraph that. If she was really dead as a doornail, you'd think she'd be saying she wouldn't be back.

Really being one of the "Final Five" would be a terrible cop-out, lame in the near-infinite. Appearing to die only to be saved at the last moment by a divine being (Lords of Kobol, the One God of the Cylons appearing as Leoben, something else?) and showing her enlightenment and letting her help Galactica find Earth would fit a lot more in the mythic themes of BSG and be another parallel between the two incarnations of BSG.