Lost: You guys are gonna have to start this one without me; due to a basketball pre-emption I haven’t gotten to see this week’s two episodes yet.
Invasion: Okay, some of the loose threads aren’t dangling as loosely as we thought. It appears that Tom Underlay is slowly restaffing the sheriff’s department with the possessed/supplanted “hurricane survivors.” This doesn’t bode well. There were a few points in this episode where I started to feel like Jesse’s life expectancy may not stretch past the end of the season. If nothing else, Tom is too damned clever for him – he’s managed to get Rose and Kira to turn against Jesse a little. This whole running thread of Tom-as-master-manipulator is so nebulous without knowing exactly what it is he holds over everyone. As for Larkin – she’s going to walk right into trouble if she takes what she now knows and tries to report it on the news, given that her boss is one of the possessed. I know I’ve criticized Shaun Cassidy for recycling elements of American Gothic (creepy deep south setting, creepy sheriff who seems to be answering to the devil himself, complex family politics), but I’ve got to give him kudos for, if nothing else, interweaving the characters’ relationships with the advancement of the plotline in such an integral way. Compared to Lost, Invasion’s plotline is now a runaway train thundering down the tracks.
Stargate SG-1: Sliders SG-1: Yesterday’s Enterprise! Okay, I’m joking there. Actually, a pretty fun little episode, and I thought it was an inventive way to point up why what’s happening on Atlantis does actually affect Earth. And it doesn’t hurt that it tied back to one of my favorite season 2 episodes. Some light-hearted non-arc fun that still lets us know what the heck is going on.
Stargate Atlantis: Or, this week, Stargate Atlantis: The Musical. I actually loved this episode – best one so far this season, by a vast margin. It’s interesting how both of this week’s Stargates referred fairly heavily to one another. Not necessarily “crossover” episodes, where SG-1’s plot bleeds directly into Atlantis or vice-versa, but episodes that embrace the whole franchise. That’s kinda neat. Topically, this episode dealt with some areas of national security and military ethics that I haven’t seen the Stargate franchise touch in a long time. The build-up of Kavanagh as the potential mad bomber (since it’s Stargate, can he be the Unas-bomber? okay, okay, never mind…) was quite well done and dovetailed with what’s been established about him in previous episodes, so much so that I never saw the real perp coming – in fact, it almost had the effect of making that revelation a little bit of a “where the hell did that come from!?” I wonder if this is the end of Caldwell as a semi-regular.
Battlestar Galactica: Compared to the Pegasus trilogy, tonight’s episode was almost a tone poem. Quite a few surprises about Roslin’s background, and almost undoubtedly the beginnings of Baltar turning toward the kind of unabashed treachery that the original version of the character was noted for. (And then some.) The Cylon sympathizers’ movement kinda came outta nowhere (seems to be a good night for that too), but that trail leads back to where Baltar’s hiding Gina. The utterly bizarre deus ex machina (quite literally) that got Roslin back on her feet was…well…kinda convenient. But it also really muddies the water as far as the relationship between humans and Cylons – if word of her miracle cure gets out, that’ll only fuel the sympathizers’ fire on the one hand, and have people questioning whether or not Roslin has somehow been “taken over” on the other. Oy vey. With the whole fleet primed for that kind of paranoia, neither is a good option. Of course, handing a nuke over to a Cylon ain’t either.
Am I the only person waiting on the edge of his seat to see the first Sci-Fi Channel Doctor Who promo?
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Well,I thought tonights BSG episode was awesome! Perhaps some of the events were convenient but I still thought it was well done. I had a lot of questions last week and I was surprised that most of them were answered with tonight’s episode. I was expecting them to let the unanswered questions stay unanswered for weeks. When they answered them with the very next episode I was surprised and quite pleased.
It will probably be a while before I fully digest what happened in that episode. For shows like BSG, I just absorb the shows as they happen and don’t do any critical analysis until long after the episode is over. That process is not by design it just the way I notice how I watch some TV shows.
Anyway, let’s talk about Stargate: SG-1. It was a fun and entertaining episode. I liked it. I also liked seeing Dr. Frasier again even though she was from a different universe. I was hoping she would stick around but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I was also hoping for a few more comic moments. One scene I was hoping to see happen was when we had a room full of Carters. One of the scientist guys who had a crush on Carter would walk in the room and ask “Do I have a chance with any ONE of you Carters?” And then all the Carters would shake their head no. 🙂
What would a room full of Teal’cs say? Indeed.
I dug SG-1 – enjoyable stuff, and the whole “whose universe is worth saving” questions is an interesting one. Gateworld has excerpts of deleted scenes if anyone’s interested. I liked Sam’s “Yup.” And the concept of 18 of them working together.
Galactica left me flat. I was expecting the deus ex machina, and y’know, keep Roslin on the show, by all means. But I just never got why they suddenly felt they needed to destroy the baby. How exactly are “blood anomalies” a threat?
My current bet – that nuke takes out Pegasus at some point.
I think Pegasus is going to stick around a little bit longer than that, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the nuke take out the Cloud Nine or the Rising Star or one of the “major minor ships” like that.
By the way, I still chuckle at the holdover of the Cloud Nine design from BSG:TOS, which was itself an adaptation of the ship model from the 1971 movie Silent Running. Talk about a design lifetime.
On the baby: it could just be that they were being overly cautious about preserving the one living Cylon prisoner they have, seeing as she’s come in kinda handy before. I am glad, however, that it was merely a plot point, and the objections came from the characters’ own viewpoints, rather than it being a rehash of Roe v. Wade or somesuch; if you recall, the second season premiere of ST:TNG had a similar premise, with Worf advising that Troi’s mystery baby be aborted for her safety and that of the ship, but the middle part of the episode (which I otherwise enjoyed) bogged down into something very 20th century. I was glad to not see that here.
Though Friday was, if I’m not mistaken, either the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, or the eve of the anniversary. Kinda strange, really.
A bit longer than what? I didn’t say when I think Pegasus would be taken out. 🙂 (If I had to guess, I’d say some time in the last two eps of the season.)
I just have a hard time thinking they would want to permanently give up the idea of Galactica as the last battlestar, to say nothing of the fact that Pegasus is a much better ship that takes away the “ship on the edge of retirement” element.
They expressed absolutely no concern about Sharon’s well-being in the episode, and acted like blood anomalies were some kind of direct threat to the fleet.
I also think that Roslin was unusually tone deaf in her letter to Baltar, but what the heck.
Y’know, even before the preview for next week gave me the impression that this might come up as soon as the next episode, I got to wondering – if there’s a movement for peace with the Cylons among the Colonials, might there not also be a more hawkish organized civilian movement that feels like Cain and the Pegasus crew were doing the right thing with their less touchy-feely approach?
I guess we’ll see. What do you mean by “tone deaf”? That it didn’t sound like something she’d write? One thing to consider is that it seems like Baltar gave up on actually reading the letter for himself – he was dancing around the room with a disturbing degree of glee and let Six do the honors.
Roslin was only tone deaf in her letter if she seriously thought that letter would have the intended effect: make Baltar a better president. The lettter was dead on in spurring Baltar into action, but it was not the action Roslin hoped for.
Using the baby’s blood to cure Roslin may have been a cheap deus ex machina trick but it solved a problem for the writers. Roslins cancer served it purpose. She convinced people she was the leader mentioned in prophecy and it also led her to make decisions she might not have normally made. If they didn’t cure the cancer then they would have been forced to get rid of the Roslin character and the writers obviously did not want to do that (Baltar as presdient? Yech.). I would argue that the baby blood solution is not the deus ex machina we think it is as it will create more problems than it solved. This cure will muddy the line between Cylons and humans even further. Her cure might be political dynamite. When word gets out on how she was cured it may give her Cylon loving opponents fuel to strengthen a drive to negotiate with the Cylons for peace.
When you compare this show with another show in the original BSG showcasing people who wanted to negotiate with the Cylons, I think you’ll find how much of a better job the writers of the new series are doing. In the original series the peace-lovers were headed by a slothful senator (excellentally portrayed by Ray Milland) who dismissed the danger of the Cylons. The group in the new series may be just as naive and unrealistic in their motives but we also see that may be because they’ve been infiltrated by Cylons and other radicals. This opens up all sorts of possibilities in stories and shows a political faction that will affect many future episodes. The original BSG? The idea of a peace-loving political party was wiped out in one episode.
Anyway, despite some of the flaws and the general lack of interest by some viewers, I think this episode was awesome. Mostly because it created a whole new set of possibilities. Roslin remembers seeing Baltar making out with a Cylon before the attack. OMG. Radical politcal groups infiltrated by Cylons (how many other groups have been infiltrated?). OMG. Cylon blood in Roslins body. OMG. Roslin had a romantic fling with the former president. Interesting (but not quite an OMG). A nuclear bomb in the hands of a Cylon. OMG.
The new series likes to draw upon the old series for inspiration and so I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the following things happen in this series: Baltar exiled and put in command of a Cylon Basestar. A self-proclaimed prophet claiming he can save the humans if they worship him (hopefully they’ll name him something other than Count Iblis). Encounters with humans from outside the twelve colonies but not from Earth (hopefully we won’t be seeing any space-Nazis). The hijacking of a civilian ship.
Interesting times ahead.
ubikuberalles hit what I was meaning in terms of tone-deaf. Roslin’s people skills are supposed to be one of her great strengths, as shown by the flashbacks in this ep. But her letter was almost calculated to get Baltar to ignore not only any recommendations she made, but her legacy in office.
Since Six doesn’t physically exist, I’m assuming that her holding the letter was either a dramatic device or a flub.
Or…maybe the letter didn’t exist. I mean, we do know a letter was written and handed over to Baltar, but what if that wasn’t the one?
Eh, maybe I’m gettin’ a little too Twin Peaks there.
Nah, you’re not too Twin Peaks, yet. If I see a dwarf talking backwards in a dream then I’ll agree with you. 🙂
Well, I just meant that if that theory had been the case, they would’ve shown us – i.e. panned over while Six was finishing reading the “fake” letter so we could see that the real deal is, in fact, sitting unsealed somewhere.
I was fast-forwarding through my tape last night to grab credits, etc., when a thought occurred to me about Friday’s SG-1 episode: at least in basic premise, it bore a strong resemblance to Parallels, one of my few favorites among the last season of ST:TNG, the one where reality changes around Worf everything a subspace whatsit does some kinda warp field……thingy. And later in the episode, all these Enterprises start appearing with various fascinating alternate scenarios: Riker in command since Picard was killed in the Borg incident, a Monty Python-bearded Riker in screaming hysterics because the Enterprise is the only thing left that the Borg haven’t assimilated, a Cardassian on the bridge helping the crew fight the evil Bajorans, and so on and so forth.
Parallels was the very first thing I thought of when I started seeing multiple Carters, Teal’cs and so on.* Great minds think alike I guess. Literary works on the topic also come to mind (“The Coming of the Quantum Cats”, “Alternities” and others) but few of them have multiple instances of the same person face each other (or even share the same room).
*My mind goes off on wierd tangents all the time. When I thought about a room full of multiple Teal’cs, the following joke came into my head: “What’s more dangerous than a room full of angry Teal’cs?”** This, of course throws me way off track and I forget that I’m still watching the show.
**The answer, of course, is: “An angry Teal’c with a key!” 🙂
Another thought about mythology that could be carried over from BSG:TOS – I just don’t see how the new Galactica can ever hope to compete with an episode about Fred Astaire being Starbuck’s dad. 😀
Have Ray Bolger dress up as a robot! 😀
The good news is that they can’t do Space Nazis, because Enterprise locked down the Space Nazi franchise for a few years with their last season premiere. 😛
Oh, great. That means the crappy western episode option is still open. @_@ On the plus side Boomer and Starbuck in cowboy boots would look HOT! 😛
Doh! I just realized I blew the straight line of my joke! It is supposed to say: “What’s more dangerous than a locked room full of angry Teal’cs?
The punch line doesn’t make sense if I don’t include the word locked in the opening line. D’oh!