Cowboy Pete Mutinies against Battlestar

47 comments on “Cowboy Pete Mutinies against Battlestar”

1. OT: Looking at the schedule for NY Comic-Con, on Friday afternoon they have you listed as a panelist for the IDW 10th Anniversary at 3:15 and at that very same time a panelist on Marvel’s X-Teams. So is there like a rift in the space time continuum that allows you to be at two places at once?

2. OT: Looking at the schedule for NY Comic-Con, on Friday afternoon they have you listed as a panelist for the IDW 10th Anniversary at 3:15 and at that very same time a panelist on Marvel’s X-Teams. So is there like a rift in the space time continuum that allows you to be at two places at once?

3. Not to give away PAD’s secret, but there’s a reason he does Jamie Madrox so well….

4. This show is just so frakking good. I really do not know how it will end up.
   With the revelation of the final five, I think the “Caprica” prequel series could be a lot more interesting than I originally thought.

5. I couldn’t agree more on BSG, esp. what you say about Gaeta. And I’m always glad when a character (Lee, this time, to Tigh) reminds the others that the Cylons did nuke 12 planets not so very long ago! I too sympathize with so many different viewpoints on the show.

6. She will drop you like a bad habit

   Oh, that’s not true. Kara doesn’t drop bad habits. She keeps accumulating them like notches on a gun.

   So say we all.

   Amen

7. It wasn’t until I saw this post that I remembered “I haven’t watched the new BG yet!!”

   Just finished it, and I agree with you. After all, you’re talking about an alliance with a race that you have been at war with for generations, and that was responsible for wiping out several BILLION (I assume, on Caprica and the colonies) people.

   I can see how Felix feels, and I do feel sorry for him, because I really don’t think he’s going to make it to the last episode the way things are going (even if Adama is merciful for whatever reason, I see Kara killing him on principal [or maybe even Six or Athena for threatening their children]).

8. I sort of have to force myself to acknowledge that Gaeta and the rest don’t have the insight the audience does, having actually seen the Cylon Civil War, the destruction of the Resurrection Hub, and the reality of the split between the Significant Seven and the Final Five. Indeed, to build support for his cause, Zarek has specifically downplayed the Colonials’ already second-hand knowledge of those events, speaking as if Adama/Roslin (dámņ, now I’m doing it) is proposing a bygones-be-bygones buddy-buddy relationship with all of Cylondom. He isn’t even bothering to explain away the end of Cylon resurrection as some kind of trick, or the standoff over the Final Five as a grand feint to lull the Colonials into a false sense of security, he’s just saying, “They’re Cylons. End of story.” The fact is, the Rebel Baseship is probably in more danger from the orthodox Cylons than the humans are, at this point.

   Even keeping all that in mind, though, I can’t muster any sympathy for the mutineers. So, Earth turned out not to be the Promised Land that they hoped. The fact that they found the Atlantis of the Twelve Colonies at all is impressive. Never mind that Adama and Roslin kept the survivors alive for four years, despite the survivors’ own wishes at some points (need I remind anyone who got them off New Caprica?) Do they really think they would’ve been better off if Zarek had been in charge from day one?

9. I guess I’m just missing something. BSG is really hit or miss for me these days. I just keep crossing my fingers for the President to die (now that she can’t be a Cylon and even slightly interesting)…

   I know, I’m a bad person.

   That being said, I’m really eager to see how things wrap up – intentionally finite TV is really good when it works.

10. Dude! Just start watching 15 minutes after the start so you can still skip the ads but have the least possible pause before all the BSG goodness commences!

11. I’ve actually been more and more disappointed with the last few episodes of Galactica. I agree with all the individual points that PAD makes, I can see both sides of the issue, Starbuck is kicking ášš, the relationships are well done.

    It still feels like filler to me. For the entire length of the show they’ve had a goal: getting to Earth. It started out as just a trick to keep everyone’s hopes up, but the goal was built up bigger and bigger until they were all heading towards Earth.

    Now they have no goal. I don’t mind that Earth was a bust, that was a great moment. I just have no idea where the show is going. They seem to be in the third act of the series, but they’re not barreling towards a conclusion and they’re not answering the giant pile of questions they’ve built up. I would have enjoyed this stuff a season or two ago, but with it happening within the last half of the last season, it feels like wheel spinning.

12. At this rate he show’s gonna end with Athena, Helo, and Hera alone in a Raptor.

13. The problem I have with BSG is that, while generally well executed, just about everything with the Cylons long ago went into X-Filesish “We’ve been making this up as we go, and the result is a mass of idiocy and contradictions that makes no sense” territory. And a recent Chicago Tribune interview with Moore pretty much confirmed the making it up as they go part. He stated that the whole concept of the Final Five didn’t happen until third season, and until after Deanna spoke to them, they had no idea who the final one was.

    The whole “And they have a plan” bit was incredibly irritating to me, since it was clear they didn’t have one, at least anything coherent. Also, as a former AI type, their basic set up makes no sense; why only 12 models? If you can do that wide a variety of gender, race, physical attributes, you can do any number. Why the fetish with reproduction with humans…and which can only happen if there’s wuv, twue wuv, between them. How can a Cylon be undetectable from a human when one can cut open its wrist and plug in a fiber optic cable and start controlling devices? Or have enhanced strength. Or have some method of autotransmitting huge amounts of data to the Resurrection Ship, either in a burst on death or a constant stream of updates? Etc.

    I want to like BSG a lot more than I do. But the bad aspects of just about everything with the Cylons and the huge emphasis on what amounts to mysticism as a “get out of plot free” card and influence in a supposedly hard sf show drives me up the wall.

14. The whole “And they have a plan” bit was incredibly irritating to me, since it was clear they didn’t have one, at least anything coherent.

    Personally I would love it if at some point in the opening crawl it said, “And they have a plan” followed by, “It just wasn’t a very GOOD plan.”

    PAD

15. We can’t wait. Short of being out of town and not having access to Sci-Fi Channel, we have to be there at 10 PM Friday to watch the dámņëd thing, and suffer through the commercials.

    If you invest in a Slingbox, that won’t be an excuse either.

    BTW, any chance of a roundup of SMALLVILLE? This season has been stellar.

16. Even keeping all that in mind, though, I can’t muster any sympathy for the mutineers. So, Earth turned out not to be the Promised Land that they hoped. The fact that they found the Atlantis of the Twelve Colonies at all is impressive. Never mind that Adama and Roslin kept the survivors alive for four years, despite the survivors’ own wishes at some points (need I remind anyone who got them off New Caprica?) Do they really think they would’ve been better off if Zarek had been in charge from day one?

    What I find interesting about the mutineers is that almost to the last, their actions are not motivated by reasonable concerns but rather bitterness and petty complaints. (The former Pegasus officer who seems more annoyed that he didn’t get his chance to rape Athena comes to mind, as does Anders’ teammate whose primary motivation seems to be that Anders’ turned down her advances.)

    BTW, was there any revealed significance to the one civilian’s witness of Zarek’s murder of the mechanic, or not yet?

17. Sasha, that’s a good point that a lot of the mutineers are doing it for the wrong reasons. However, some of them have been screwed over so much, it’s understandable that they’re not objective.

    Gaeta is the epitome of that. He’s the most reasonable, upstanding member of the mutineers, but his life has really sucked beyond sucking lately. If I were him, I’d probably take off my fake leg and beat Starbuck with it every time I saw her.

18. “Gaeta is the epitome of that. He’s the most reasonable, upstanding member of the mutineers, but his life has really sucked beyond sucking lately. If I were him, I’d probably take off my fake leg and beat Starbuck with it every time I saw her.”

    Yeah, and it is interesting that the characters that most people wrote off as boring and useless (like Gaeta) are now the ones who have snapped or become the darker sides of the coin. But the interesting thing with how they’ve built their character arcs is that, rather than an out of the blue action that you can’t figure out even with repeated viewings, you can look back and see everything that built to it and why it made sense.

19. Ackerman sci-fi, horror collection up for sale
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090204/ap_en_ot/ackerman_memorabilia

    Yes, I know not much to do with Battlestar Galactica, but this just depresses the hëll out of me. A lifetime of collected memories, reduced to a couple hours of auction. I guess it could be worse, they could be doing it on EBay.

    Hey, PAD, did you know/work with Forrest?

20. Also, as a former AI type, their basic set up makes no sense; why only 12 models? If you can do that wide a variety of gender, race, physical attributes, you can do any number.

    Apparently they can have more models than just the twelve. The entire 13th colony were cylons. When Tyrol had his flashback in the marketplace did you see all the different models? I think the final five cylons were hidden from the other models because they didn’t want history to repeat itself like it did on “Earth.” and hid them in the human population on New Caprica. But somehow they were able to figure it out with the other seven. But that doesn’t make sense either because the final five are 2000 years old models. Head is swimming now, think I will stop. But yeah, they did have more models…didn’t they?

21. You should try to just wait until 10:10 or 10:15. Maybe prepare some snacks or something. Then you start watching and catch up by the end of the eppisode having watched no comercials.

22. You should try to just wait until 10:10 or 10:15. Maybe prepare some snacks or something. Then you start watching and catch up by the end of the eppisode having watched no comercials.

23. sory about the multiple posts.

24. One thing really irritated me about that last episode: Adama and Tigh’s “last stand” defending the president so she could escape. Except, it really wasn’t necessary. They could have stood on the raptor, as the hatch was closing, and held off anyone that was trying to open the door into the secondary bay, and then gotten away with the president. This is when letting the needs of the script outweigh the logic of the situation (or the personalities of the characters) really shows up; it made no sense, not even if you ignore the audience’s viewpoint.

25. One thing really irritated me about that last episode: Adama and Tigh’s “last stand” defending the president so she could escape. Except, it really wasn’t necessary. They could have stood on the raptor, as the hatch was closing, and held off anyone that was trying to open the door into the secondary bay, and then gotten away with the president. This is when letting the needs of the script outweigh the logic of the situation (or the personalities of the characters) really shows up; it made no sense, not even if you ignore the audience’s viewpoint.

    That’s one way to look at it, but try it like this:

    Even though staying behind was arguably beyonds stupid, Adama was simply emotionally incapable of fleeing the Galactica and leaving (and any loyal crew) it in the hands of mutineers. That sounds exactly like William Adama in my mind. Taking it a step further, Tigh didn’t even have to ask Adama about any of this. He knew what Adama was doing and why and what their chances were, but he stayed…because he wasn’t capable of leaving the Old Man behind.

26. Yeah, just to follow up on the above…there’s no way that Bill Adama would abandon his ship. None. Remember when Adama looked at Gaeta and said, “When you put on that uniform, you took an oath to defend this ship and its people.” For Adama to take Gaeta to task for his act of violent defiance, only to abandon ship with Roslin at the first opportunity, would have been hypocrisy and would have perhaps strengthened the argument of Gaeta and the mutineers.

    As for Tigh, he’s every bit as loyal to Adama as Adama is to his ship and its people. He’s not going to turn tail and run.

    I think BSG is as awesome as ever. Yes, the show has evolved over its life. It’s less of an action show this season (last week’s episode notwithstanding) and more of a political and character drama, but it continues to go places and explore things in a way that I find fascinating, shocking, and breathtaking. I love it.

27. This is when letting the needs of the script outweigh the logic of the situation (or the personalities of the characters) really shows up; it made no sense, not even if you ignore the audience’s viewpoint.

    See, I had the exact opposite reaction. I’m watching that sequence and thinking that it’s completely out of character if Adama leaves Galactica. There’s no way he runs from the mutineers. No way. None. Zero. He retreats long enough to get the President clear and then he faces off against the mutineers and basically says, “Take your best shot, you áššhølëš, because you’re not chasing me off my ship.” Bill Adama would rather die fighting than survive fleeing. And you bet your ášš that Saul is right by his side.

    PAD

28. I agree totally Peter. If Felix had wanted Adama dead, he could have accomplished that in the CIC. An alive Adama signals a change in command, not a mutiny, to the other ships.

    Adama is using tactics, such as when they escaped from the guards. Wait until the right moment, then strike hard and definite. I’m sure the marines going into the cargo hold tossed in a “flash-bang” instead of a explosive gernade. They want Adama alive.

29. BTW, was there any revealed significance to the one civilian’s witness of Zarek’s murder of the mechanic, or not yet?

    She was one of the women who absconded with Baltar after his trial, and went running to him. So he and his followers were able to start preping for the mutiny, as we saw. They just, as usual for Baltar, assumed it was all about coming for him.

30. I don’t have quite the same problem as Peter. I’m part of the “I want to like BSG more than I do” crowd and thus once Dollhouse begins to air, BSG will be relegated to the “watch when able” category but just as a suggestion… We always start watching shows we can’t wait to watch 15 minutes into it. Then you just fast forward through all the commercials… 🙂

31. To David Hunt, Michael Cravens, and Pad, all of whom made the same point: thank you. Now that final scene makes sense to me, and you are right: Bill Adama would never abandon Galactica to the mutineers, and Saul would never abandon the Old Man.

32. I was a little surprised that when Adama told Tigh to get on the Raptor, Tigh said no, and that was it. I guess I was just used to the TV cliche, where there’d be a token argument, or even just an acknowledgement on Adama’s part.

    And I have a feeling that Zarek really would’ve tried to take down Baltar. He was scared of what Baltar knew back during the trial, and now that Baltar owns the Fleet’s bully pulpit, Zarek is probably even more sure that Baltar will be a threat to his new regime unless he’s dead. Moreover, it wasn’t Baltar’s idea to run. Tyrol told him to, having doubtless figuring out that since whoever was running the mutiny had it in for the Cylons, they’d probably want Baltar dead, specifically, and it’d be better for everyone if he was off the ship so no innocent people would be caught in the crossfire.

33. I love BSG. I don’t care at all that the producers didn’t have every single plot element mapped out before the show started shooting. I think they’ve demonstrated the ability to tell compelling stories week after week.

    I had no idea where the story would go with the discovery that Earth was slag. The direction it has gone seems very ogranic to me, not forced at all. If billions of people were actually reduced to about 40,000, forced to flee in cramped ships, and pursued at every turn by their own creations intent on killing them, having their one hope dashed would certainly push more than a few of them over the edge. Dee, Gaeta, many of the mutineers, it all makes sense, and is actually pretty scary how quickly order and civility can decay into terror and violence.

    The thing that strikes me as ironic is that, with the overriding fear being extinction at the hand of the cylons, the actions of the mutineers will likely result in the biggest loss of human life since New Caprica. Probably more than that.

    At the same time, the show can’t end with just a revolution story. They have a significant amount of mystery to wrap up and explain, and provide a final resolution that I think should be a message of future hope.

34. BSG hangs together better than some of you gave it credit for. If you look at the show as a whole, there’s a consistent exploration of the darker side of faith. The Cylons’ unshakable faith in the One True God led them to commit genocide. Baltar’s entire “ministry” is merely a way of rationalizing away his guilt over unwittingly helping the Cylons wipe on most of the colonists. The revelation of earth being uninhabitable fits right in perfectly: Roslin’s faith in her visions, Starbuck’s faith in her instincts, and Adama’s faith in both of them, led the fleet to a planet that cannot support them.

    Also, I think some of you are being too harsh on the mutineers. Step back from the details for a moment and look at the big picture: because of the Cylons, the human race consists of less than 40,000 people and falling. The human race is in danger of extinction because of the Cylons, who violated a truce because supposedly the humans couldn’t be trusted to live in peace. Asking the remaining colonists to trust the Cylons? That’s a hëll of a request. Roslin and Adama should’ve realized they couldn’t simply cram this one down everyone’s throats.

    I’m on the edge of my seat with this one. Really, the entire series has been building up to this in one way or another.

    Slightly off-topic: PAD, I’m surprised you watch Psych. Mind you, that’s not a criticism: I enjoy the show as well. I love the concept of an extremely observant guy fooling the cops into believing he’s a psychic; Sean’s relationship with his father and with Gus; and Sean’s witty repartee (very Peter Parker-like).

    On the other hand, the writing is often littered with major plot holes and lousy pacing. Me, I can overlook it. I woulda thought stuff like that might drive a good professional writer like yourself a little crazy, though. I guess I woulda thought wrong.

    Again, it’s not a criticism: I like the show too!

35. Here in South Jersey, I have Comcast with the On-Demand service and I have to say, they solve a lot of these dilemnas. A lot of shows like Galactica, CSI, NCIS, Leverage, Mad Men, True Blood with very limited commercials.

    I expect Cavil’s still-bad guys Cylons to show up and blast a few of the ships that didn’t get the FTL upgrades.

36. “Bill Adama would rather die fighting than survive fleeing. And you bet your ášš that Saul is right by his side.”

    That’s certainly true, but it’s also sound tactics. As Sully will tell you, the captain is always the last person to leave the ship because that’s his job. A civilian authority like the president can leave and return because the rules are different for them, but the military relies on respect for the chain of command to make things work. Gaeta is mutinying because he’s lost that respect and doesn’t trust his superior officers. If Adama retreated to the Cylon baseship and deserted his ship while it was in peril, it would have been tantamount to admitting that Gaeta was right and he doesn’t deserve his command. Which would have made it impossible to regain control of the fleet later. (History is full of examples of generals who left their troops behind on the battlefield and lost everything because of it.)

    If he stays and dies doing his duty, then his sacrifice gains heroic status with those left on board and undermines Gaeta’s authority. (Imprisoning a superior officer for dereliction of duty is one thing; killing him in a firefight is totally different.) Plus it gives Roslin a legal excuse to use deadly force against the mutineers, up to and including shoving everyone involved out of an airlock. (Which she probably will.)

37. Thanks to those who’ve explained the “last stand” – I didn’t think it made much sense when I watched it, because the soldiers outside the hatch weren’t any threat to the Raptor, but I understand it now.

    However, I do have one question: who was flying the Raptor? Athena is presumably still in the brig, but none of the other 8s should be wearing a colonial uniform.

38. Has Baltar talked to Head 6 since they got to earth? I don’t remember her showing up yet. I wonder if his realization about the fact that he is running away all the time plus no head 6 equals Baltar finally becoming a responsible adult.

39. My younger son, who is fifteen, couldn’t understand why Adama remained behind when the raptor carrying Roslyn left.

    It took me a moment. “It’s his ship,” I said. It’s Bill Adama’s Galactica, just like it’s Jim Kirk’s Enterprise, and neither would let someone just take his ship from him.”

40. However, I do have one question: who was flying the Raptor? Athena is presumably still in the brig, but none of the other 8s should be wearing a colonial uniform.

    She wasn’t. She was wearing one of the black cylon flight suits.

41. It took me a moment. “It’s his ship,” I said. It’s Bill Adama’s Galactica, just like it’s Jim Kirk’s Enterprise, and neither would let someone just take his ship from him.”

    Now Picard, on the other hand…

    PAD

42. I have mixed feelings about how Galactica is playing out, but the last two episodes have done much to redeem the show, IMHO. But here’s my underlying question: Why don’t they just go back to Kobol? Seems like that was a nice, habitable planet that they had to scurry away from because the Cylons were hot on their tail. But with half the Cylons now on their side and the remainder in disarray–and where are they again? I can’t remember–why don’t the Colonialists head back the way they came?

43. But here’s my underlying question: Why don’t they just go back to Kobol? Seems like that was a nice, habitable planet that they had to scurry away from because the Cylons were hot on their tail. But with half the Cylons now on their side and the remainder in disarray–and where are they again? I can’t remember–why don’t the Colonialists head back the way they came?

    I figure that it’s called “advancing the plot” or maybe they figure that on the way back they might run into the other Cylons again.

    By the way for those that don’t have Sci-Fi channel, Comcast has the show on On-Demand almost right at midnight the same night & it’s available on hulu.com usually the next day.

44. Well, aside from the fact that the Orthodox Cylons still know where Kobol is and probably have left behind some sort of probe to let them know if anything shows up, and the fact that Kobol has an apparently all-too-real curse saying that any return would exact a price in blood, Kobol is two years of hard traveling away. Considerably less, if they ever actually install those Cylon FTLs, but, still. Adama probably wants someplace closer, both for the obvious reasons of fatigue and limited fuel and food, and because the Orthodox Cylons seemed to lose track of the Fleet after the start of the Civil War, and going anywhere that isn’t on the straight line from the Colonies to Kobol to Earth they’ve been following will make them much, much harder to find.

45. I saw there that you also watch Psych. I love that show. That and monk are very cool. Why can’t you get sci-fi? I thought everyone carried sci-fi.

    Joe V.

46. Personally I would love it if at some point in the opening crawl it said, “And they have a plan” followed by, “It just wasn’t a very GOOD plan.”

    My wife’s version is, “And they had a Plan. But that one didn’t work out, so they came up with another Plan. That didn’t pan out either. Now they’re playing it by Ear.”

    You realize, of course, that if Roslin hadn’t checked out for so long after Earth, the mutiny never would have happened. She would have stalled Bill until she could sell the upgrade plan to the rest of the Fleet. (It’s a good plan; their resources have to be running low by now, and they’re going to have to survey at least six stars within 15 lightyears by the criteria Adama gave Gaeta, assuming their Earth is our Earth. Jumping three times as far would help a lot.) No Adama insistence on installing despite the people means no massive grievance for Tom Zarek to seize on; no Zarek involvement means Gaeta just sits there feeling sorry for himself, as he has for so long.

    Incidentally, for a little more insight into why Felix chose the path he did, check out the webisodes, under the collective title “The Face of the Enemy”.

47. I just have to say this.

    The moment I heard John Hodgeman’s voice, I knew he was screwed. Brilliant casting.

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