People seem eager to discuss BSG, so much so that they’re putting spoilers/ruiners on the Larsen thread. This is grossly unfair to people who may be reading along about Larsen and suddenly find themselves staring right at the identity of the final Cylon. The design of this blog makes it impossible for people to refrain from seeing such information if they’re just cruising along on a particular thread. Please refrain from that practice.
If you want to discuss BSG, as a courtesy I’m providing this space. I’m not discussing it yet because, honestly, I’m still processing it.
PAD
UPDATED: Okay. I’ve processed it. Comments below the cut line
It was a hëll of an episode. The series has moved so far away from the simple notion of Humans vs. Cylons that it’s almost impossible to take it all in. Cylons were the missing 13th tribe? They settled on Earth and were mingling with humans thousands of years ago? Were they somehow responsible for the final nuclear holocaust that wiped out all life? Does it even make any sense? The Cylons were created by man. How far back? THAT far back? I had the impression that the skin jobs were a more recent development; so how did they wind up on earth thousands of years ago? Did they fall through a time warp or what?
We now know the identity of the final Cylon (which this space pegged as 200 to 1 odds last year.) Originally I considered the notion to be a tad repetitive considering the revelation of Tigh’s status. But with this added notion of essentially lost soul mates, separated by 2000 years and now by his own hand, it takes on huge dimensions. Will he now spend the remaining nine episodes trying to find another version of her? Is she gone forever, thus guaranteeing that the Cylons will never, ever be complete?
And I’m left wondering whether there still isn’t some Cylon over-intelligence involved in all this. They are, after all, still machines. So who programmed them?
As for D’s suicide, as shocking as it was, it also made sense. First she’s in mute shock; then she’s suddenly upbeat. That should have been a warning right there.
Overall I thought it was pretty powerful.
• 
My only thought was, “but, but, but…you killed her!”
I was still shakened by the suicide.
First.
Yeah the suicide came out of no where. Very intense episode.
But when they revealed the fith Cylon all I could think was what the frak are you fraking serious? We’re suposed to believe she’s the fifth?!?!?!?!?
Peter, thanks for the space.
Trying to avoid spoilers, here’s my thoughts about BSG last night.
1. The suicide took me as a complete surprise.
2. The identitiy of the final Cylon at this moment is only speculation upon the part of the guesser.
3. As a long time sci-fi fan, we have no confirmation as to which Earth they found.
4. What if it was Starbuck’s crash landing that triggered the war? When it happened, each country could have thought the other fired first and retaliated, thus unfortunately nuking the planet in the process.
5. Ten specific models could “download”, but is reincarnation (if that is what truly happened) only available for the final five? If so, then what happened to Starbuck? Deanna said when she came looking for them that the BSG only had 4, so that rules Starbuck and all the others onboard out.
6. Until the end of the final episode, I am not taking everything presented at the moment as established fact, because I am still in doubt as to 3 of the BSG crew being Cylons to begin with.
7. But whatever does happen, it will certainly be an interesting ride.
The suicide made me think that she was the fifth. After all, it would allow them to come back dramatically and start explaining the point of the final five. Perhaps it was done that way on purpose, as another red herring like Starbuck.
I think having Helen be the fifth is going to be built up a bit by this idea that they’re not just cylons, they’re cylons from 2000 years ago. Maybe they’ve been reborn into every generation of humans and in their previous lives they were the scientists who created the current cylons.
I have to admit, this episode made things feel more convoluted. They found a society that was wiped out thousands of years ago. That society was made up of cylons, cylons that looked human down to their bones. This is despite the fact that human form cylons had only been invented in the colonies since the last war. I really hope they have a better explanation for that than just “time is a wheel.”
4. What if it was Starbuck’s crash landing that triggered the war? When it happened, each country could have thought the other fired first and retaliated, thus unfortunately nuking the planet in the process.
—
I think her crash happened recently. The corpse was not 2,000 years old, but only a few months. Even the grass around the ship was still bent.
One reason to reveal so much in the first episode back was so we’d have time to explore what it all means in the next 10 hours of show… and we do! Patience! The “fun” is in the journey.
Mark Verheiden
My comments:
1. The suicide didn’t come out of nowhere, at least not for me. The sudden change from being totally distraught on the planet’s surface, and then seemingly happy and normal again, set off an alarm in my head. When she said something about “not wanting this feeling to end”, and hung up her wedding ring, I knew it was coming.
2. If I am remembering correctly, didn’t D’Anna walk up to one of the final five in her vision in the temple, and say “I am so sorry”? If so, it makes sense that it was Ellen Tigh, since I believe she was already dead at that point (it was well after New Caprica.)
3. However, I have a lot of problems with the whole idea of the final five having been from Earth over 2000 years ago. But I’ll wait and see how they ‘splain it to us.
4. I do think Ellen is the final cylon to be revealed; not only does she say to Saul in his flashback “the arrangements have been made; we’ll be together” (paraphrased), but also, in the previews for next week, they say “Now that the final cylon has been revealed…”
5. We’re not sure what to make of Starbuck finding her downed craft and dead body.
For what it’s worth, Galactica creator Ron Moore confirmed in an interview published today at ChicagoTribune.com that the final Cylon is, in fact, who Tigh believes it to be. And he previously confirmed that the other four of the five who believe themselves to be Cylons are correct. (I hadn’t really bought it until I heard it from Moore.)
A very good episode, I thought. The suicide was shocking, but understandable under the circumstances, and the behavior leading up to that was quite consistant with how people often behave before killing themselves, when they know their worries will soon be over.
And I’m fairly certain time travel doesn’t play a major role in this story.
Yeah, I don’t see time travel, alternate universes, or any other sci-fi tropes entering the show. They’ve already got enough to sort through with robots and reincarnation.
Once upon a time, somebody on this site hypothesized that Starbuck was a hybrid; Tigh being her father. It looks like that somebody was on the right track.
I still believe the last cylon will be reveled as R. Daniel Olivaw…lol
So Earth is in fact not only a mess, but it’s completely unlivable.
Kind of an interesting twist. Why move the goalposts when you can blow them up instead? While they’re setting up to go elsewhere, I don’t think that we’re leaving Earth yet. Something is pulling strings and causing things to happen. I can’t see it just being a celestial alarm clock.
The people of Earth not only had their own version of the Toasters, but they were a race of skin jobs?
Okay… That threw me for a major loop. If BSG does nothing else, it throws curveballs like mad. I’d been thinking that the finding of Earth would result in the skin jobs and humans settling down and, after millions of years of intermarriage and evolution, becoming us or the BSG crew finding a broken Earth that we, the Thirteenth Colony, messed up and then the skin jobs and humans starting a new Earth civilization on the ashes of ours.
But the Thirteenth Colony being Cyclons?!? And being skin jobs to boot?!? And they blew themselves to hëll 2000 years ago?!? How the hëll does that even work?!?
I’m sorry, but they better come up with one hëll of a rabbit to pull out of their hat to explain this one and have it really make sense. Am I the only one who immediately had timeline issues with that revelation?
She killed herself?!?
I can understand the character’s motivation for such an act and the way that she did the act, but it still caught me and the wife totally flatfooted. Forget the other revelations from last night. This was the biggest WTF!!! moment we had with the episode.
Helen is the last skin job?
Kind of a let down. But as I said in my other post (Sorry.) I’m not sure that it’s not a red hearing. Tigh isn’t exactly the most stable guy and never has been. With everything else that’s landed on him lately I’m not sure if his vision and decision as to what that vision means is the truth or just him trying to find something to hold onto right now.
Hey, he has guilt issues because killed his wife and he’s had visions of her when with a skin job. You think that maybe he might see this vision as “the truth” so that he can convince himself that he can get Helen back?
What the hëll is Starbuck?
She’s dead and rotting on Earth, she’s not a Cylon and she has no idea that she’s anything other than herself. Even her constant shadow freaked out when they found the remains of her viper with her still in it.
I don’t know. I’ll wait for things to unfold like everyone else, but right now I’m getting this sick feeling that some of the mysteries being built will end out the show as unexplained mysteries that mankind can never explain. There’s stuff going on that feels like any explanation can’t make sense and the final answers will be of the enigmatic, maybe sorta variety.
Mark Verheiden: “One reason to reveal so much in the first episode back was so we’d have time to explore what it all means in the next 10 hours of show… and we do! Patience! The “fun” is in the journey.”
Mark, I’ve loved your work for years now and think you’ve hit some of the balls way, way, way out of the park before. However I have to say that right now I hate you.
Make us wait like this and tease us!!!
May well fed birds bless your car repeatedly for this.
Goodman: “For what it’s worth, Galactica creator Ron Moore confirmed in an interview published today at ChicagoTribune.com that the final Cylon is, in fact, who Tigh believes it to be.”
Well, so much for my red hearing hopes…
Red hearing? What’s that? The ability to hear communists coming from a distance?
PAD
You’re swelling his head with that…
Give a guy a break, PAD. A super bug flu and a z-pack doesn’t always make for the best spell checking or proof reading.
“Red hearing? What’s that? The ability to hear communists coming from a distance?”
The ability of red heads to hear you talking about them from across the room so that they an order that extra drink to throw in your face before you come over to their table and try last years bad pick up line.
Here’s the trib link that was mentioned above.
Add http://
featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/01/final-fifth-cylon-ellen-tigh-battlestar-galactica-dualla-dee-.html
The suicide was especially hard on the audience at the Bagdad Theater Pub here in Portland; the place has permission to show the final episodes live each Friday. Take the unexpected and blow it up to movie screen size, and OH MY DEAR GOD is the (very understandable) result. Wow.
I’ve only barely seen BSG, and I was impressed with the episode.
They’re not on Earth, or at least our Earth.
In the episode Starbuck came back, we saw our Earth, with North America front and center.
So far, on this radioactive Earth, we kept seeing a planet, but no visible continents.
Our Earth is still out there to be found.
Jeff, whether or not it is “our” Earth, it’s the only Earth they’re going to find. One of the creators of the show said so in the interview Jerry just linked to. As far as the show is concerned, they’ve found Earth.
I have theory that explains everything:
Man evolves on Earth
Man creates Artificial Intelligence
AI evolves to the point where they can create living copies of humans (aka Skin Jobs)
War between Man and AI, planet Earth becomes unable to support life.
Survivors from both sides sign a peace treaty and began to generate offspring in the form of Human/AI Hybrids.
Hybrids decide to leave Earth for “greener pastures”
Hybrids find a new planet, they call it Kobol
Hybrids, now called Lords of Kobol decide that this new humanity isn’t ready to learn about their Human/AI ancestry so they erase all evidences of Earth and create a creation Myth based on Kobol
Tragedy/Natural Disaster in Kobol forces a new Exodus, Hybrids/Lords of Kobol use this opportunity to insert the notion of Earth in the collective folk lore.
The Twelve Colonies are estabelished.
The Colonist create an AI.
All of this happened before and will happen again.
I was wondering when/if someone would bring up the Lords of Kobol.
It was an interesting two-part adventure from the original version, but when/if that idea makes a more phsical presence in this version remains to be seen.
I’m not sure that Helen is the last Cylon. All we really know is that Tigh believes she is and he’s an alcoholic old coot.
Vaughan, it’s her. Ron Moore confirmed it in the interview that Jerry linked to. He said that they hadn’t made the decision when they killed her, but he knew it was her by the end of season 3.
I think her crash happened recently. The corpse was not 2,000 years old, but only a few months. Even the grass around the ship was still bent.
OTOH, after a nuclear devestation and 2000 years sitting on a humid beach the jacks and pocket watch/locket (not sure which it was) were still shiny and rust-free.
OTOH, after a nuclear devestation and 2000 years sitting on a humid beach the jacks and pocket watch/locket (not sure which it was) were still shiny and rust-free.
Well, most things that aren’t iron are likely to be rust free….
Anyone else bothered by Roslyn’s actions (or complete lack thereof) after returning to Galactic from Earth?
Struck me as the absolute WORST thing she could have done. Lead everyone to the promised land, joyously announce you’ve arrived, then return from the surface obviously shaken but say absolutely nothing. Just rush off with “You’ll be told stuff at the appropriate juncture” brush offs.
Can’t think of anything more guaranteed to kill morale, start horrendous rumors and lead to mob action.
Gold doesn’t react with anything. It doesn’t even tarnish. So the pocket watch makes sense. I don’t know about the jacks, I guess they were made of future-metal.
But the Thirteenth Colony being Cyclons?!? And being skin jobs to boot?!? And they blew themselves to hëll 2000 years ago?!? How the hëll does that even work?!?
Well, it turns out that there was a great war between two sides. But now it turns out that the souls of Minbari Cylons are being reborn in humans.
sigh That’s what I get for not using the preview button. Thought my [strike][/strike] tags would cross out Minbari…
Gold doesn’t react with anything. It doesn’t even tarnish. So the pocket watch makes sense.
Ah. Didn’t realize every piece of the thing was solid gold….
Sean D. Martin: Ah. Didn’t realize every piece of the thing was solid gold….
It didn’t have to be. All we saw of it was the empty case. Even the case had a fairly sizable hole in the top.
hulu.com/watch/53330/battlestar-galactica-sometimes-a-great-notion#s-p1-so-i0
4:30 into it if you want to check.
By the way, despite my joke about “future metal”, there are actually several metals and alloys that don’t corrode.
I have to agree last night’s episode was fantastic – it did a great job satiating a hunger for more BSG that we’ve been enduring for months. Add to this the fact that both “Revelations” and “Sometimes A Great Notion” were meant to be seen one week after the other, and you can’t help but be impressed with the level of storytelling this series is creating.
I’ve written my own review of this episode on my blog so I’ll leave it to anyone who’s interested to read my thoughts there. What I will say is that if they give us more scenes like the one between Adama and Roslyn and especially more scenes between Adama and Tigh, I will be one happy Colonial.
Sigh, only nine more weeks. Whatever are we to do after that. 🙂
much like Jesus, Starbuck died and then was reborn. She died to show us the way to Earth. She is a god now and her mission is to help humans and cyclons understand their joint role in the universe.
In the 1970’s and 80s Battlestar they found Earth, but they had not found peace with the cylons and therefore did not reach enlightenment. The gods rebooted the universe to give it another try with the 2004 series.
I predict that in the final episode humanity and cyclons will still be at each others throats and the last scenes will be be Starbuck ending everything and suddenly a new Battlestar reboots with new actors.
Those who never learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Hows that for crazy?
What the FRAC?
Ok, I was blown away by the suicide. In hindsight, it should not have been so surprising. I always liked her though. 🙁
When I saw Starbuck come back in the shiny new ship, I immediately thought of that two-parter from the original series. I look forward to hearing this story.
Is it possible that the Cylons created an entire new Earth and based it on the real Earth?
And how many years do you think it would take for the cylons on Earth(when it got nuked)to transfer to a new body in Caprica?
It was a hëll of an episode. I kinda got the impression that the 13th tribe were cylons and not humans, but then some kind of a nuclear holocaust forced the survivors to leave. Perhaps the original humans were the cylons and they created man and in turn with man and then man creates the more robot cylon who in turn experiment with humans. A strange cycle of life type of thing. I mean at this point there isn’t enough information
From Youtube, the Canadian airing of the suicide scene and the “worst commercial placement ever.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW2_2ihIuzI&feature=channel_page
I wasn’t let down my the Ellen reveal at all. D’anna already revealed it wasn’t someone with the fleet, so it pretty much had to be someone who was already dead or someone completely out of left field. I think it has a lot of potential to move Tigh forward as a character.
I had the impression that the skin jobs were a more recent development; so how did they wind up on earth thousands of years ago?
Well, you know what they say, all of this has happened before…
My theory had been that the Cylons had found the Resurrection Hub (or some essential part the Hub was built around) during or soon after the first war against the humans, it having been abandoned in space by the Thirteenth Tribe or the Lords of Kobol, or the Cylon God, or whatever other external intelligence is guiding events. They used what was in it to start or complete their attempts to evolve past being simple centurions (what we saw in Razor with their frankenstein experiments to build the first Hybrid). Maybe they got all of the information on how to make synthetic humans from the Hub, or maybe just the downloading ability, but it was vital to the creation of the twelve models we know and love, and they still didn’t understand it well enough to build another one once the first Hub was destroyed.
It was important to me in puzzling that out that the Cylons were still made by the Colonials, and that the humanoid Cylons were still made by the mechanical ones. Maybe the Resurrection Hub was actually an ark of some kind for the thirteenth tribe, what the original Ellen was referring to in the flashback at the end of this episode when she said they’d be able to come back, and the Cylons just used it to create their own evolved form without knowing or caring what it was for, arbitrarily picking twelve individuals from it as being a representative sample of a complete human society, and just by dumb luck stumbling on five who were intimately involved with their attempt to save themselves and wouldn’t go along with the modern Cylons’ plan and the expense of their own.
Of course, all of this still doesn’t answer why there were unique but recognizable centurions in the rubble, built two millennia before that glowing red cyclopean eye was even a figment beginning to speculate on Daniel Graystone’s mind. I’m not even sure if I’d prefer it to be an outright connection, or just artistic license to make the parallels more clear.
Well, they made a point of showing the outline of North America when Starbuck announced she found Earth at the end of Season 3. Now that they’ve arrived at Earth, they’re (deliberately?) not showing any continents when the planet is shown on-screen. The 13th Tribe’s “Earth” may be a barren wasteland, but our Earth may still be out there somewhere. And I wouldn’t put it past Ron Moore to mislead us on that point. After all, he removed Katee Sackhoff from the show’s credits after Starbuck died, and lead interviewers to believe that she was gone from the show.
In my ophinon it adds nothing that Helen is the last Cylon, it only affects Tigh. I was hoping it was Baltar’s lawyer, that way we could have had the last Cylon whispering in Lee’s ear and the show would be a on a tighrope.
As for D, I liked her a lot and am sorry she’s gone.
I would like it if someone would explain the technology behind the Cylons and how they solved the problems they encountered in “Razor” in order the make the skin-jobs.
All and all great acting by the cast.
I agree this WAS painful. I continued to wait for one of the major leaders to step up to the plate, and other than a brief rousing (off-camera) speach from Lee Adama, it was crushing to see Bill, Laura, Leobin, Kara, etc. all in a sense of utter defeat. Writing genius, though. Forces you into the perspective of the characters nicely.
So I guess the webisodes happen at some point AFTER this episode, huh? Looked somewhat as if Earth was no longer the central fleet location, but after the beginning of the human/cylon alliance. And I love that Gaeda’s boyfriend is seen in the main series as of this episode.
I know this isn’t a new question by any stretch, but if Baltar ISN’T the final cylon, I wonder if we’ll ever get a more concrete sense of why/how he continues to get advice from the spectral 6?
You know they keep saying that all this has happened before and will happen again…
What if the orginal BSG was what happened before?
And now it is happening again?
Did anyone else notice that it was only the final 5 that had visions of earths past, and actually picked up items and had a response to them when they were there, and yet Dee is the only alleged non-cylon to be shown picking up an item and having an emotional response to it?
>In my ophinon it adds nothing that Helen(sic) is the last Cylon, it only affects Tigh.
Actually, Ellen being the final Cylon is a disaster for the fleet. Ellen is a woman who only cares about herself and (sometimes) her husband. Her last attempt to save Saul put Laura in front of a firing squad. Adama has noted she brings out the worst in Tigh. Remember her drunkenly singing “Adama doesn’t know where Earth is” as she walked down the hall early in the series?
Really, you’d be hard pressed to think of someone who’d be a bigger disaster for the fleet. Even Admiral Cain at least took the welfare of her crew seriously (and I’m no fan of her).
Not to upset Alexander Burns or any one else, but when she came on board, didn’t D’anna (Deanna?) only comment that 4 out of 5 were already onboard the BSG without a word as to who/where Number 5 was. That leaves everyone else in the fleet AND everyone who was still a prisoner onboard the basestar at the time as suspects.
And I see from some of the other posts that I am not the only one to think of the multiple earths theory of sci-fi.
But as I said in my first post on this thread, whatever happens, it will certainly be an interesting ride.
BTW, once in a former thread, I asked a question which nobody answered to. So, I think I’ll repost it here: In the mini-series, Adama received a message telling him that there were only twelve models of Cylons. Was it ever revealed who sent it to him? (no spoiler, please, just yes or no).
Lee – as I recall, her exact words were that only 4 were among the fleet. At the time, yeah, I thought this might mean that the fifth was already aboard the basestar.
But by the end of all the hostage mess, I was convinced it wasn’t any of them. D’anna would have said something by then and revealed it.
Why would you think Helen was lost? She was killed while the resurrection ship still existed, so I’m presuming she’s still alive somewhere. After all, she was already suspected of being a Cylon and being resurrected back when she was first introduced in the series.
So what do you think “Kara” is? Is she the original in a new body. I am absolutey convinced that was the original Kara “Starbuck” Thrace’s body “Kara found”. So is the current “Kara” the original’s mind in a new cylon body or cloned body? Or is the real Kara dead and we are just dealing with a clone?
My money is on a fake body being in that crashed viper. All we saw was a skeleton with blonde hair.
The main thing that makes me doubt that theory is that it’s too mundane. After all the robots and reincarnation someone saying, “I faked your death to screw with your head” doesn’t seem like it would have much punch.
Micah, I’m thinking that the five have something separate from the Resurrection ships. After all, the identities of the final five were unknown to the Cylons. If someone they didn’t recognize suddenly showed up on the Resurrection ship, I think that would cause quite a stir. Plus, we already know that these Cylons age, so they might be reborn differently.
But how they revive is just one of many mysteries they may or may not answer. I’m really hoping they do answer all this stuff. If they don’t explain how there’s a Six in Baltaar’s head and a Baltaar in Caprica Six’s head, I’ll be very disappointed.