Comments on: Battlestar Galactica Season Ender

By: DougLathrop

DougLathrop — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 01:25:14 +0000

I didn’t have any problem with how the “war heroes” arc played out. It seems clear to me that the Six and Eight from “Downloaded” are the ones accepting Baltar’s surrender. The human-appearing Cylons seem to be networked somehow–empathically, if not telepathically–and as such, any strong doubts or paradoxical beliefs felt by the war heroes might spread quite rapidly to all the Cylons, or a large number of them. Perhaps this was why the Three model on Caprica wanted the war heroes “boxed” so badly–because of the danger that their unorthodox individual thoughts might infect the rest of the collective.

Based on what we saw in the finale, here’s what I think happens: The war heroes, having escaped being boxed, infect the rest of the Cylons with their doubts and questions. The Cylons then withdraw from the Colonies and declare a truce with humanity so that they can resolve this dilemma. A year passes, during which time the Cylons (or perhaps just one faction of them) have devised a new purpose based on their original one: to serve humans. By “serve,” however, they really mean conquer and control; in their view, since humans are so self-destructive, the only true way to “serve” is to protect humanity from itself.

Regardless, being a human on BSG still sucks.

(Insert “To Serve Man–it’s a COOKBOOK!” joke here.)

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 14:30:19 +0000

The potential for a major rift among Cylons has been slowly implanted over the past season. Each new model displays more spirituality and conscience; the contacts that Sixes and Eights had with humans enhanced those qualities. The “metallic” Cylons seem incapable of moral development without them. I was disappointed that the conflicts seeded in “Downloaded” were resolved so quickly (or perhaps they were not.) However, I am not convinced that such a rift would directly benefit the New Capricans. It would likely be reactionary: a revolt against the policy of the “war heroes”–ending occupation and resuming the extermination of humanity. The question is, would the Cylon-soldiers, accustomed to hunting down humans, accept a different role? Would a genocidaire take up the final solution himself?

By: david

david — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 06:10:00 +0000

The last few episodes of season 2 pretty much ruined BSG for me. I was completely hooked by the show during season 1 and the first part of season 2, but something about those last few episodes caused me to lose interest. Here’s a list of complaints:

1. The relationship between the Chief and Sharon suited the show’s purposes well enough, and I think their chemistry was more interesting and believable than the Helo/Sharon chemistry. The scenes where Helo complains about loving a robot are laughable. I can imagine the Chief’s character pulling off scenes like that more effectively.

2. “Downloaded” was just absurd. It felt like the writers of that episode hadn’t really been paying attention to the previous shows. For example, it made no sense that Caprica Six had such a well-developed conscience in “Downloaded,” given that she killed a baby in the miniseries for fun. (This point was made by someone else on the web, but I can’t remember where.)

3. Sometimes the Cylons seem Borg-like, as though each individual Cylon is uttlerly selfless and acts solely to further mysterious Cylon goals. This implies a sort-of inhuman psychology, since humans are essentially selfish (as the show seemed to say early on). Other times it seems like the Cylons care about themselves and their loved ones just as much as any human. I’m not complaining about this tension; actually, I think it’s a cool feature of the writers’ picture of the Cylons. But it takes some skill to pull this kind of thing off. For one thing, you have to call attention to the contradiction; you have to explore it. You can’t just do one episode where the Cylons are selfless and Borg-like, and then do another episode where the Cylons are greedy and human-like. That just makes it seem like you’re confused about what you’re doing.

There are more things that I’ve grown to dislike about the show, but I won’t list them here. All that said, though, I agree that the season ender was very cool, and I could be won back to the show.

By: cgbrooke

cgbrooke — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 22:27:09 +0000

I thought it was great, too, Tim, and my first thought (with 6 & 8 being 2 of the 3 “leaders” of the invasion fleet) was that these were the “peace now,” war heroes Cylons as well.

I don’t think that the premise will get as elaborate or as interesting as I might like, but I’ve consistently been happy with the writers’ willingness to keep the characters complicated. I think that, to a degree, they were blind-sided by the relative success of the show–I don’t think they had a multi-year “Cylon plan” in mind, and maybe some of the 2nd season’s weaknesses reflect that.

At the same time, I think the season-enders, in addition to being really fascinating on their own, planted some really interesting seeds for season 3–I’m not yet convinced that Tyrol is human, for instance, now that we know that Cavell (Dean Stockwell) was the C’s resident philosopher/psychoanalyst/priest model. I’m really intrigued by the idea that humanity is somehow a pathology that the C’s are struggling with.

Good, good stuff.
cgb