[Mefustae]

Have you been watching the show?

I believe he already answered that question:

Bayship

[jdjtcagle]

Do we really have to wait 2 weeks for the next episode!

[blowfish]

Apparently...

[IceFire]

Do we really have to wait 2 weeks for the next episode!

That sucks so much!  After the ending of the last one...

...making us wait like that.

[Rand al Thor]

TWO WEEKS! Rarrrrrrgh!

At least Faith was class. It just seemed to recapture so much of the atmosphere that made season 1 great. Though it was contrived in the extreme, the baseship jumping into the middle of the fleet without the demetrius was a great scene, really makes me want to play BTRL, streaking towards you target with transports flashing out all around.

I reckon Roslin is the final cylon. It just seems to be more and more fitting, perhaps I'm subconciously picking up on a load of subtle cues. If she's not it'll require very good writing/plotting to prevent any alternative from seeming like a cheap gag.

Just to clarify a point, didn't the Cylons say they don't make any more hybrids at one point? So no new baseships? Maybe I'm just making that up because it seems a bit ludicrous.

[Davros]

whats the current episode
ive seen upto Episode 7 - Guess What's Coming to Dinner

[MP-Ryan]

whats the current episode
ive seen upto Episode 7 - Guess What's Coming to Dinner

That's current.  Next one airs this Friday.

[Polpolion]

Okay, I've just gotten caught up to episode 7 by watching from season three episode 10 up to there over the weekend. Man, this is a good show.

----

But there are some weird things about the last episodes of season 3 (and the entire series for that matter):

1) WTH was up with the non-percussive music?

2) Exactly how did the four cylons deduce that they were cylons? From what I've seen, they just sorta went
crazy and assumed the worst.

3) What exactly is the point of the colonials going to Earth again? Was it so the Earthicans could kill all the cylons for them, or just so they could have a huge party? They seem to be getting quite chummy with the cylons for the former to be true, and the latter is just stupid.

4) Why exactly did people start worshiping Baltar during the trials again?

5) Why exactly is Hera so important to everyone? What would happen to the people if she were euthenized?

Are these things that I've just missed in the series, or are these questions that everyone is asking?

[General Battuta]

1) It was meant to represent the song all four Cylons were hearing.

2) The music served as a trigger. They are now fully aware of their Cylonness. Whether the music is a manifestation of a signal, a buried subconscious instinct, or something else, remains to be revealed.

4) He wrote a book that became extraordinarily popular, and his belief in the Cylon God struck a chord.

5) The fact that Hera is valued by the Cylons makes her valuable to the humans. Since everyone now believes in prophecy and such, they recognize that Hera clearly plays a role.

[watsisname]

3:  At the end of the miniseries Adama tries to give hope to the survivors by claiming he knows how to find the home of the 13th tribe (Earth).  It turns out later that this was a bunch of BS on Adama's part, but Rosslyn discovers the Pythian prophecy which says that a dying leader (her) will lead the remnants of humanity to Earth, and therein, salvation.  Adama ends up joining with Rosslyn on this quest, but now in season 4 we have Miss "Harbinger of the Apocalypse" Kara and some rogue Cylons who are adding a very weird situation with the whole finding Earth business.

[Polpolion]

3:  At the end of the miniseries Adama tries to give hope to the survivors by claiming he knows how to find the home of the 13th tribe (Earth).  It turns out later that this was a bunch of BS on Adama's part, but Rosslyn discovers the Pythian prophecy which says that a dying leader (her) will lead the remnants of humanity to Earth, and therein, salvation.  Adama ends up joining with Rosslyn on this quest, but now in season 4 we have Miss "Harbinger of the Apocalypse" Kara and some rogue Cylons who are adding a very weird situation with the whole finding Earth business.

So essentially all it is is a plight to strike the least bit of hope into the survivors of the fleet that they will reach Earth, even though that place may or may not harbour refuge from the cylons, which are becoming less and less of a threat as the series wears on?

A lot of BSG is starting to seem more and more like some crazy drugged up delusion. I conjecture that this entire series is actually a dream that some stoner had on Earth.

And I wish the colonials were more xenophobic. Early in the series, it seems like it really was a fight for survival, and that just one wrong move and you're in another epic battle for the existence of humanity, and everyone hates cylons. But in the later seasons, you got cylons in a civil war, you got people makin' babies with cylons; essentially they humanize cylons just enough for you to wonder what exactly the difference is, not enough for you to want the war to end and everyone be friends, but too much for you to want the fleet to just get to earth and kill all the cylons regardless of who they are.

[Dark RevenantX]

That's kinda the point, thesizzler.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, they aren't giving us any easy answers as an audience, especially with regards to our feelings towards the Cylons. And it's quite intentional.

[NGTM-1R]

Unfortunately, as he points out, it hasn't done good things for the entertainment value of the show. And honestly, they've gone about it in a rather half-assed manner. Things are getting a little surreal here. Humanizing the Cylons this much (or at least attempting to) was not necessary. And they're also quite schizophrenic about this whole "humanizing" thing. Six gunned down the council. The presidential aide lady flushed Callie out of an airlock. Tigh was rather less than concerned with human life on New Caprica. So they want the Cylons to be more human, but on the other hand, they're also rather consistantly making them seem more ruthless.

My suspension of disbelief is getting more than a little stretched.

[jdjtcagle]

pffft... Cylon hater...

[Mefustae]

Unfortunately, as he points out, it hasn't done good things for the entertainment value of the show. And honestly, they've gone about it in a rather half-assed manner. Things are getting a little surreal here. Humanizing the Cylons this much (or at least attempting to) was not necessary. And they're also quite schizophrenic about this whole "humanizing" thing. Six gunned down the council. The presidential aide lady flushed Callie out of an airlock. Tigh was rather less than concerned with human life on New Caprica. So they want the Cylons to be more human, but on the other hand, they're also rather consistantly making them seem more ruthless.

My suspension of disbelief is getting more than a little stretched.

Personally, I still feel the Cylons were at their best waaay back in season 1. Namely the episode '33'. They were a faceless force of destruction, coming after the Fleet mechanically like the machines they truly were. It was brilliant. They were an awe-inspiring foe, and deliciously foreign. It's probably because '33' is my all time favorite ep, but that depiction of the Cylons will always have a soft spot in my heart.

[perihelion]

Ok.  So, let's do a little logical deduction here.  If the final five Cylons came from Earth, just how long have there been interactions between Earth and the Cylons?  I'd have to guess that the Cylons found Earth (or Earth found the Cylons) somewhere during the 40-year interregnum.  Possibly even as early as the latter part of the first war.  Earth may have even been the instigator for Cylons attempts to make organic bodies for themselves.  Regardless, there have probably been interactions between the Cylons and Earth for some time now, even though most Cylons are unaware of it.

Does this make Earth seem like a hospitable place to you?

Another thing I've wondered about is where are the templates for the 12 Cylon models?  I've assumed up to this point that there were actual humans each model was based on.  Where are they?  Are they dead?  Are they still being used to make more copies?

[jdjtcagle]

I actually think they said that each human model was "constructed" out of the same gene pool.  They are machines... *shrug*

Maybe, the final five have absolutely nothing to do with the cylons... eh.. in the sense that they rebelled or something.

[General Battuta]

I happen to think that the Final Five came from a previous cycle -- referring to the frequently repeated mantra 'all of this has happened before, all of this will happen again'. If humanity originally came from Earth, colonized Kobol, and is now returning, then it all kinda makes sense.

There are three facts to support this view: first, the dates on the structures they find as they move towards Earth (beacon, Temple of Five) are actually getting older, second, the prophet Pythia chronicled the voyage to Earth, but somehow her records got back to the Colonies, and third, 'All Along the Watchtower', as a song, is a story told in reverse chronology.

But I might be totally wrong.

As for the depiction of the Cylons, I agree that they've gotten less intimidating, but, frankly, I'd have been frustrated if they remained enigmatic killers. They're too important, and they offer too many good storytelling opportunities, to remain opaque.

It would just be too morally easy for them to be a force of destruction. And BSG has never tried to be easy.

I believe part of the reason they seem so unstable and ruthless is because they're a young society, almost a species in adolescence. They're not used to conflict and challenge.

[WMCoolmon]

Unfortunately, as he points out, it hasn't done good things for the entertainment value of the show. And honestly, they've gone about it in a rather half-assed manner. Things are getting a little surreal here. Humanizing the Cylons this much (or at least attempting to) was not necessary. And they're also quite schizophrenic about this whole "humanizing" thing. Six gunned down the council. The presidential aide lady flushed Callie out of an airlock. Tigh was rather less than concerned with human life on New Caprica. So they want the Cylons to be more human, but on the other hand, they're also rather consistantly making them seem more ruthless.

My suspension of disbelief is getting more than a little stretched.

All of those things are perfectly natural with real life parallels, though. 'Humanizing' the Cylons doesn't have to mean that they become more empathic and caring, as the show goes on they're developing more and more human faults. It was very easy for the Cylons to justify their actions way back when they were united in purpose, didn't kill each other, and didn't interact with humans much, but as they've matured, they've been finding out that things aren't nearly so clear-cut as they seem.

Cylons have always been portrayed as rather inexperienced and anti-social, while as the series progress they've been forced to more and more reconsider their morals and judgment. While the Colonials seem to have been getting more moral and humanistic as time goes on, the Cylons have been getting less moral and more prone to violence and emotion. Compare the Cylons who were willing to dupe an entire civilization in order to massacre it with the Cylons who reconsider their plans to instigate a rebellion against their human allies for the sake of engendering trust. It's not necessarily that the Cylons have been getting portrayed as more 'human', it's that they really are getting more human by dint of being put into situations and forming relationships that they never had the opportunity nor reason to form before.

It would be very, very boring if the Cylons had remained as faceless as they were in '33'. I think the reason that so much has changed with the Cylons is because it's the last season, and because they can get away with anything - there's no reason not to try putting the Cylons in some new situation and finding out how they react if it works with the resolution (or lack thereof) of the plot.