BattleStar Galactica:Season 3.5--3/25/07--Arc 20 (Season Conclusion)

[catsclaw227]

Come on. Anything Hendricks is classic, and makes sense to me since it's pretty trippy at the end there.

Actually the song was written by Bob Dylan, but I personally prefer the Hendrix version the most.

I really liked Apollo's speech when he was ordered to testify. Classic, and it must've made everyone squirm.

 

[Volaran]

Fantastic episode. I'm still digesting it, though.

On the use of "All Along the Watchtower" at the end, this seems to have had its genesis back in season 1. Here's the transcript for the podcast to Kobol's Last Gleaming Part II.

http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Podcast:Kobol's_Last_Gleaming,_Part_II

The relevent part is at the end of Act 2 and Beginning of Act 3. I'll post it here as well. Giving spoiler tags on the off chance that any of the rest of this idea is used, though I think it unlikely.

Originally by Ron Moore:

Spoiler

Here on Kobol, as I said earlier, there was originally the two temples. There was the temple on Kobol and the temple on Caprica. And the temple on Kobol storyline always had Baltar going into the temple and discovering something huge and amazing and ending the season on a revelation. In the first draft of "Kobol's Last Gleaming", he went into the temple and Six took him towards some subterranean passage, and it was very dark, and she said, "This is as far as I go." And he says, "What?" And she makes him go further and he's just finds himself walking in a void, a black void, and doesn't know where it's leading. And at the end of that he comes into a room and he hears music and it's a recognizable Earth-tune, to the audience and to him. It was Jimi Hendrix was playing, actually, and he goes, "God, I recognize that." And then somebody- or somebody s- a voice says, "You recognize that?" And he says, "Yes." And he turns and it's Dirk Benedict. (Laughs.) And Dirk Benedict said, "Hi. I'm God." And you just cut. We just cut out on that.


Just to continue that thought about Kobol and it was Dirk Benedict, and he said, "Hi. I'm God." And they shake hands and that was- we were gonna cut, and that was gonna be the end of that whole storyline and at the episode. I liked it. I thought it was wacky. I didn't quite know what it meant. I thought- I was looking for a surprise. Something interesting that fed into the mythos of the show and also to the audience and something that would really be unexpected and different and, frankly I didn't know what the hell I meant. I didn't know, was he lying? Is it true? It threw a lot of puzzle pieces up in the air in an unexpected way which, to me, was a reason to try to do it and see if it worked. And by and large the reaction ran the gamut from, "Huh?" to "That's really wild and cool!" And ultimately in a discussion with the network, I think it was Mark Stern, who's our production executive at the network, just said, "You know what? You don't need this. You really don't need to go this far. It seems like you're pushing- it's pushing too far. It's winking at the audience for the first time and you haven't done that." And I said, "You know what? You're right." He was right. It was a misstep. But you have to be willing to take chances on the page because that's where you'd wanna take your chances. You wanna like risk things and do the unexpected moment on the page and see if it works, and in this case it was an idea that didn't work. So I just dumped it. Then it became a question about, "Ok. What do you see on the- in the interior of the temple?" We were still talking about a temple. And that went through a few iterations, which I'll come back to in a minute.

I agree with his thoughts that it probably would have been too much there, but I really liked the way the music was used here. It seemed mysterious to me, but not out of place. I bought into it.

Edit: And linked from the Sci-fi BSG forums, here is a post-finale interview with Ron Moore.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07085/770732-352.stm

 

[Arnwyn]

I have a really hard time believing that those 4 are cylons - otherwise there'd be yet another human/cylon hybrid...

And then that stuff about "Hera's importance" (yeah, whatever) would make even less sense.

I'm not as amazed as a lot of folks I guess.. some of the wrap up felt rushed to me - they could have expanded it and dropped some of the mid-season filler eps. Honestly not left salivating for more at this point. Maybe I'll come back, depends on what I'm doing in a year or so.

Same with me.

To me, the finale of Season 3 was fitting with the rest of Season 3 - disappointing, predictable (c'mon, who didn't see Starbuck returning [sadly, as I hate her character], and Baltar getting a 'not guilty' verdict?), and unimpressive.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

So who were the cylons revealed to be?

 

[Mr. Patient]

I mostly hated it. That was surely among the worst-conceived and worst-written trials ever on TV. IANAL, but even I realized how utterly absurd all the proceedings were. And every bit of the episode -- the outcome of the trial, Adama's vote to acquit, the four "Cylons," the return of Starbuck -- was utterly predictable, up until All Along the Watchtower, which was admittedly shocking. That may be mad genius, or simply preposterous, but it was at least interesting.

 

[Mr. Patient]

So who were the cylons revealed to be?

Tyrol, Tigh, Tory, and Sam Anders. I don't think they are actually Cylons, myself, but they think they are.

 

[Gunslinger]

Anders and Tory I could easily see as cylons, they doesn't have much of a verifiable past before the invasion. Tigh seems fairly unlikely given how long he's served in the military and known Admiral Adama. If Tyrol was really a cylon that would his child with Cally was also a hybrid just like Hera.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Tigh seems fairly unlikely given how long he's served in the military and known Admiral Adama. If Tyrol was really a cylon that would his child with Cally was also a hybrid just like Hera.

I thought the same thing, but in the interview with Ron Moore (from Volaran's link above) he does not equivocate and confirms they are Cylons. He specifically confirms there are two Cylon-Human hybrids. He talks about that, and how the characters attempting to come to terms with being Cylons and learn how it is possible, will be important story archs for next season.

So much for my radio-signals-hitting-the-hull theory.

Kara may be the Fifth Cylon.

The Ship-Of-Light Aliens - assuming the story goes in that direction - may have been meddling in Colonial/Cylon history for some time now, and are responsible for the relationship of the Final Five to the rest of the Cylons.

But I think time may be running out for both Cylons and Humans, as per the song. And I think the humans may the "joker" and the Cylons the "thief." If that is the case, then perhaps the "watchtower" is Earth.

The wind has begun to howl...

Unfortunately, for the next nine months we're gonna have to put up with businessmen drinking our wine before the joker and the thief get to the walls and we get some new frakking episodes.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Over at the SciFi Boards, there is a thread where people insist they saw a big, honking ship that belonged to neither the Colonials or the Cylons.

http://forums.scifi.com/index.php?showtopic=2269638

 

[Sir Brennen]

Over at the SciFi Boards, there is a thread where people insist they saw a big, honking ship that belonged to neither the Colonials or the Cylons.

I think it was a weather ballon. Or maybe swamp gas.

(Actually, I'm with the "reflections of the cockpit instrument panel" theory.)