BattleStar Galactica:Season 3.0--12/1/06--Arc 8

[Alaric_Prympax]

Also if memory serves correctly did not the Original BSG have boxing as a regular passtime of the crew. I seem to remember the Dirk Starbuck in head gear? Thus making this show a nod to the original.

In TOS Starbuck and Apollo were the best Pyramid team in the RTF and they wore protective padding in that sport. I don't recall boxing in TOS but I could be wrong.

 

[Storm Raven]

Here are the persons "reasons":

10. Show co-creators Ron Moore and David Eick are both developing multiple other projects. Moore is working on BSG prequel show Caprica, and Eick is working on both Bionic Woman and Them.

9. Crucial subplots, such as the fate of Sharon and Helo's hybrid baby, are left dangling for more than three episodes.

8. Rather than developing characters via personal transformation, character development is charted via hair length, presence/absence of beards, and weight gain/loss.

7. The only way the writers imagine they can showcase Edward James Olmos' considerable acting talents is via long-winded speeches.

6. Cylon threesomes.

5. Too much intimacy with the mysterious Cylon enemy in their SM dungeon ship makes them seem campy rather than scary.

4. Entire episodes are clumsily devoted to single-word social issues like "torture" and "genocide."

3. Eick promises next season will bring more flashback-heavy episodes that focus on romantic entanglements and/or childhood trauma.

2. A retcon turns Adama into the cause of the Cylons' attack on the twelve colonies, thus making him both improbably important and too much of a bastard.

1. Boxing is used as a thin excuse for an episode that could have been written (better) by shippers.

I have a big issue with #4. Not to be political, but given the policies enacted by Congress and the Executive Branch, not enough is probably being done on these subjects at all. Major props to any show, that does anything with these difficult topics.

Also if memory serves correctly did not the Original BSG have boxing as a regular passtime of the crew. I seem to remember the Dirk Starbuck in head gear? Thus making this show a nod to the original.

I like the scenes from the Cylon ship, makes them seem more alien. Cylons are a young, smart but emotionally inexperienced race. Reminds me of the Cyclops Polyphemus from The Odyssey. Do you pity Polyphemus because of his limited and unpredictable nature, or do you put Polyphemus down like a rabid dog because of it.

Not only those problems with the "reasons", but some of them are simply wrong. #2 is just wrong. Adama blamed himself for the attack on the colonies, bt the episode makes it clear that his blame was misplaced. Which makes #2 just factually inaccurate.

I also found the boxing aspect of the episode good. Why? Because it is the sort of thing that some military groups do. To blow off steam, they have physical contests, usually quite rough. Tackle football. Full contact hockey games. Boxing. And so on. It makes the crew of the Galactica seem more like a real military crew, because they have ideas about how to have fun that are congruent with the ideas of members of a lot of real world military organizations.

 

[DonTadow]

Here are the persons "reasons":

10. Show co-creators Ron Moore and David Eick are both developing multiple other projects. Moore is working on BSG prequel show Caprica, and Eick is working on both Bionic Woman and Them.

9. Crucial subplots, such as the fate of Sharon and Helo's hybrid baby, are left dangling for more than three episodes.

8. Rather than developing characters via personal transformation, character development is charted via hair length, presence/absence of beards, and weight gain/loss.

7. The only way the writers imagine they can showcase Edward James Olmos' considerable acting talents is via long-winded speeches.

6. Cylon threesomes.

5. Too much intimacy with the mysterious Cylon enemy in their SM dungeon ship makes them seem campy rather than scary.

4. Entire episodes are clumsily devoted to single-word social issues like "torture" and "genocide."

3. Eick promises next season will bring more flashback-heavy episodes that focus on romantic entanglements and/or childhood trauma.

2. A retcon turns Adama into the cause of the Cylons' attack on the twelve colonies, thus making him both improbably important and too much of a bastard.

1. Boxing is used as a thin excuse for an episode that could have been written (better) by shippers.

I have a big issue with #4. Not to be political, but given the policies enacted by Congress and the Executive Branch, not enough is probably being done on these subjects at all. Major props to any show, that does anything with these difficult topics.

Also if memory serves correctly did not the Original BSG have boxing as a regular passtime of the crew. I seem to remember the Dirk Starbuck in head gear? Thus making this show a nod to the original.

I like the scenes from the Cylon ship, makes them seem more alien. Cylons are a young, smart but emotionally inexperienced race. Reminds me of the Cyclops Polyphemus from The Odyssey. Do you pity Polyphemus because of his limited and unpredictable nature, or do you put Polyphemus down like a rabid dog because of it.

10. When have these guys not been working on other things. Guess what I"m doing now? Checking out woot, writing up a review, performing a data merge and commenting on this. Amazing how people can multitask.

9. Err what other crucial subplots. these are not packaged shows where one does not have anything to do with the other. This is a series, where development happens over time. In what episode recently did the baby fit in at all?

8. Odd considering your number 9 seems to be upset that the story develops at a moderate pace? Characters on this show do develop. The physical differences is important so people can visually see if they are in the past or presence. Has little to do with character development. Personally I thought this was a brilliant director mood. It really makes me realize that this is the past.

7. IF everytime he opened his mouth it was a long 5 minute speech, you'd have that leg to stand on, but he does some good acting on the show with dialogue between characters.

6, Do you want charachter development or not? I think that was a good scene to show the non-monogomy culture of the cylons.

5. If by campy you mean like real beings and not just monsters then yes. Have you been wathcing hte last two seasons. The writers do a good job of making the cylons more than just your run of the mill bad guys of the week. It's probably what makes it a good show.

4. I guess at this point I dont think this is the show for you. Part of the meet of the show is how they lace the themes into hte episodes. And then youre descrption is off. IN each of these episodes there are multiple things going on. Your mind just goes to the dominate theme.

3. Ok do you want charachter development or do you not?

2. Watching that episode, if thats what you walked away with you missed something in between the lines. More than likely that was not the single incident that caused the war. There were lots of things, that just one of many missions.

1. Ok, so rewriter that episode. Personally I thought it was a good way to flashback as opposed to waht you probably wanted was the type of flashback episode you'd see on friends.

Maybe you should look into lighter shows. I hear Friends and Senfield are on at 7 p.m.

 

[Mallus]

I finally watched it last night...

A moving story of love, complete with hitting. As good as any episode this season, and to be perfectly clear, that's meant as a compliment.

Lacking in spaceship-porn, but plenty full of character development and the kind of drama that doesn't require armies clashing by night or imminent genocide.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I am a little worried about No. 10 - if Eik and/or Moore leave the show, then I think the quality of the show will go down.

However, the rest of the list is wrong or thing I consider to be merits. The Cylon Threesome thing was strange, even more strange considering it was Diana who tortured Baltar and then got in the sack with him, but the oddness was the point.

Looks like I'm gonna miss the mid-season cliff hanger. Frak.

 

[LightPhoenix]

A moving story of love, complete with hitting.

I just want to say, I love this line. Good call Mallus.

 

[Sir Brennen]

The Cylon Threesome thing was strange, even more strange considering it was Diana who tortured Baltar and then got in the sack with him, but the oddness was the point..

She got in the sack with him as a result of mistaking his declarations of love for Head-Six to be meant for her. Actually, an interesting counterpoint to Starbuck and Apollo's New Cap flashback, shouting their love in the woods. Both ended up resulting in a degree of deception, whether of self or others.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

A moving story of love, complete with hitting...

Don't forget the boot to the head.

 

[wingsandsword]

My responses to that little list of 10 complaints. . .

10. I really doubt that either one will completely step out of the picture. The moment Caprica was announced, we knew that production would have to be split, but to say this far off that it will fall apart because the creators have other projects is really pushing it.

9. On a show with this many plots and subplots, not every one is going to get full attention all the time. If they were dropped and never returned to, that's bad, but saying three episodes passed without "x" subplot coming up isn't much.

8. No, they had lots of character transformations, but changes in appearance is a good way to show the audience somebody has changed quickly. When you see pudgy, fat Apollo, you know he's let himself go and get soft, which frames his behavior that shows it too. When you see scruffy Tigh, you know he's not exactly in tip-top shape either, but instead of going soft, Tigh has gone too bitter and you know at a glance.

7. No, Adama gets lots of great lines, and lots of great scenes. They do use a few longwinded speeches, but the moving epic speech is pretty typical of the genre. (If you want a show that tended to use them too often, look at Babylon 5, great show, but every character was ready to drop an epic speech at the drop of a hat it seemed).

6. So the Cylons aren't monogamous, that's a reason not to like the show, your biomechanical aliens have a different sexual ethos than humans?

5. To me, those scenes show that the Cylons have a culture, albeit one alien and bizarre to humans, like emotionally immature sentient machines that looked at human culture and both try to emulate it and improve upon it without fully realizing what they were changing?

4. I take a real exception to #4. If he thinks that's heavy handed social issue shows, he apparently never watched Voyager or Enterprise. Star Trek got to be the king of moralizing, preachy transparent current-events analogy. However, when Star Trek did it, it was pretty much always visiting a Planet Of The Week that was undergoing a painfully transparent analogy of some 20th century social issue that Earth dealt with, the characters would outright say Earth dealt with it, we would be told what the Enlightened Federation Answer is, but because of the almighty and holy Prime Directive (the official religion of the Federation) they must condemn people to suffer injustice on other worlds because to do otherwise would "interference". Then the starship Enterprise/Defiant/Voyager would zoom on by and never return and everything that happened would never be mentioned again and promptly forgotten in time for next episode.

Instead, on Battlestar Galactica, it's the main characters who go through these issues. We aren't preached at with who is "right", we see both sides at the same time. The Good Guys are pushed into a corner and have to resort to suicide bombing and hiding weapons in places of worship during an occupation. The Good Guys justify torturing prisoners by saying they aren't really people or that the information they have is so vital it justifies it. The Good Guys nearly go to a civil war over the limits of the power of the military in a time of war. Decisions they make have consequences that follow them across the series, and people don't forget what you did.

3. Oh, heaven forbid that characters have romantic relationships when there are only fortysomethousand people left alive, and they know that procreation is the only way the human race can survive.

2. If you watch the episode, it was more of Adama thinking he was responsible. Yes, he did something that broke the treaty, but the episode also implies it was one of many missions that did this, the Colonials already knew that the Cylons were making a heavy buildup, and Roslin points out he is being way too hard on himself. If that was the real cause of the attack, instead of his own guilt, wouldn't any of the Cylons who met Adama ever mention it?

1. I thought that episode was a creative way to have a character heavy episode that established a lot of what happened when they jumped a year ahead in the timeline. Not every episode is about Galactica slugging it out with Basestars and blowing the frack out of Cylons.

 

[dragonlordofpoondari]

puh-leeze. Nothing's worse than Black Market.

Black market is pretty bad, but Scar is a a dark void of remarkable suckyness.