Category: TV Sci-Fi (Page 66 of 81)

All right, in the interest of full disclosure, I wasn’t a huge fan of this episode. It sort of dragged and not a whole lot happened with respect to the big picture. After last week’s cliffhanger, we didn’t get any new information about what happened to Roslin, but just like the rest of the fleet, they wanted to keep us in the dark.

Sandy Blonde Number Six died on the operating table, and Athena’s assault on her fueled all sorts of speculation about why the basestar jumped away. With the President gone, the quorum was all in a tizzy, and since Admiral Adama won’t recognize the VP’s authority, Lee decides to call on Romo Lampkin and his dead cat to sift through possible interim replacements for Roslin. I knew something was up with the cat when it got so much screen time; it’s strange how so many people in the fleet see friends, relatives and pets after they die.

Anyway, was anyone really surprised when Romo identified Lee as the only possible replacement for Roslin? We’ve been talking about that probability here for weeks.

However, I am intrigued by the whole Tigh-knocking-up-Platinum-Blonde-Number-Six storyline since both parties are Cylons and they are not supposed to be able to reproduce. Maybe the final five can reproduce… hmmm. Anyway, I find it quite disturbing when they switch between PB Number Six and Ellen. Tigh’s wife always bothered me, so when she pops up it gives me a bit of a jolt.

So Lee is the new President and his dad gives up his command so that he can… sit in a raptor in the middle of nowhere? I guess that the idea is that the fleet moves on while he waits for the basestar to return. I’ll admit that I’m touched by the affection that he has for Roslin, though I question the wisdom of this course of action. He usually makes good decisions, so I’m sure he’ll stumble upon the missing basestar somehow.

But where does the fleet have to go? Last I heard, the plan was to form a truce with the Cylons so that the final five could lead the fleet to Earth. So did the fleet just jump to some random coordinates to protect themselves in case the truce is off?

**POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT**

I typically don’t watch the “scenes from next week,” but I’ve started to lately since a reader generally comments on them. This week’s scenes contained a (possible) doozy of a spoiler, so stop reading now if you don’t want to ruin the surprise.

The Cylons will apparently revive D’Anna next week, and in a preview clip she tells Roslin, “You know about the five remaining Cylons. But do you know that you’re one of them?”

Now, truth be told, I don’t believe that Roslin is the fifth and even if she were, I don’t think the creators would drop that bomb in the “next week” preview. But the clip seemingly revealed the identity of the fifth, so I wanted to be very careful with that information so as to not ruin the surprise for anyone.

(By the way, I think the fact that they showed that clip – or edited that way – pretty much confirms that she is not the fifth. But, then again, they could be doing some super-devious reverse psychology on me.)

Politically speaking, a lot happened in this episode. After the Demetrius’ failure to jump along with the basestar, there were a few pretty tense moments until Tigh stepped in and averted disaster. This allowed with the Cylon rebels to negotiate with the fleet to cooperate in an attack on the resurrection hub.

But the two parties (understandably) can’t trust each other, so a double double-cross is set into motion. That’s going to have to wait, however, because as soon as the hybrid was plugged back in, she forced the basestar to jump to parts unknown (with Roslin, Baltar and *I think* Starbuck in tow). I’m surprised that the skinjobs didn’t foresee the possibility that the hybrid would wig out once she was back online.

Anyway, the creators are making a big deal about Gaeta, his lost leg and his (rather annoying) singing. I couldn’t make out what he was singing at the end of the episode, just after the basestar jumped away. Are they preparing us for Gaeta being the fifth cylon? And why don’t they get the Threes back online so the identities of the final five can be revealed?

That was a very cool sequence with Athena and the intercut shots of the opera house with her search for Hera. You know anytime they get those drum beats going in the background that they’re trying to amp up the tension, and it worked. It was interesting that Athena asked Tyrol to take Hera away from the situation, and that she felt so threatened by that particular Six. Considering that it was that Six that was driving the agreement with the humans, it’s entirely possible that the alliance is broken due to Athena’s actions.

On a side note, it occurred to me that whatever version of Earth the fleet eventually finds will probably be in the future. Otherwise, the inclusion of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” won’t make any sense. The four new skinjobs were singing the song as they discovered the truth about themselves, which makes sense considering that the rebels believe that the final five have been to Earth.

After some time on the Sci-Fi Channel’s backburner, Ronald D. Moore’s “Caprica,” a spin-off to “Battlestar Galactica,” has been cast. They’re starting with a two-hour pilot, and I guess they’re going from there.

From its IMDB page…

Two families, the Graystones and the Adamas, live together on a peaceful planet known as Caprica, where a startling breakthrough in artificial intelligence brings about unforeseen consequences. A spin-off of the Sci Fi Channel series “Battlestar Galactica” set 50 years prior to the events of that show.

Was originally pitched to NBC/Universal by Remi Aubuchon as an independent series with no connection to the “Battlestar Galactica” (2004) franchise. NBC/Universal read the pilot (an allegorical story about slavery with robots) and suggested Aubuchon meet with Ronald D. Moore and David Eick (who were considering a Battlestar Galactica spin-off series at the time). Aubuchon, Moore and Eick met and within a couple of months the “Caprica” series was born.

Esai Morales (“Jericho,” “NYPD Blue”) will play Joseph Adama, the father of Will Adama. Morales is inherently watchable and should provide a great cornerstone for the series. Paula Malcomson (who played Trixie on “Deadwood”) will play a surgeon who is also a double agent, while Eric Stoltz (“Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Mask,” “Pulp Fiction”) will play a wealthy computer engineer whose work will give birth to the Cylons. I’m fans of both Malcomson and Stoltz as well, so I’m pretty pumped about this cast.