GALACTICA

The episode started out well. And it seems they are leaning to making Baltar an emissary from god for the Cylons. But the Helo sabotage bit was ridiculous. I figured they would take the more realistic approach of the humans succeeding in their plan, but Baltar figures out a way to stop the disease. That would have made Baltar look like an emissary from god and given him power among the Cylons. Instead, we get the plot hole riddled idea of Helo suffocating the Cylon prisoners.

Someone once said about war "If you like to fight in the mud and your opponent likes to gouge eyes, before the war is over, you will be fighting in the mud trying to gouge each other's eyes."
 

When "Athena" said she was immune from the disease because of the baby's immune cells in her system, I was sure I knew where the episode was going. It seemed like they were going to launch the attack, and Gaius or the Cylons would use Hera to make the cure, thus proving the baby's god-given importance as the first hybrid.

I don't understand why Helo cared more than his wife. Once he found out that she wouldn't die, and especially once she gave the go-ahead ("A cylon keeps their word"), his doubts should have evaporated. This is not her family, these are not his in-laws - they are engineered clones. The majority of those affected would not even be "skin-jobs" - they would be metal machines.

The problem from the beginning was that they were referring to the Cylons as a "race." As if they had some common ancestry with Humans and were a member of the same species. This is an almost PETA-level overinclusive definition of humanity. But Cylons have no ancestry - they have no relatives, no children, no gens on which to commit genocide.

And what were Cylons doing when Helo was saving them all? Trying to shoot him out of the sky with everyone else.
 

It wasn't the humans that made the decision. It was one cylon-loving human, Helo. Also, keep in mind that if they destroy all the cylons that ends the show. How interesting is it to watch ships sail peacefully to earth? The writers had to come up with a way to preserve the cylons, and they used Helo as the tool to do it, having him speak up against using the bio-weapon. Sure, it might seem a bit, well, too "peace-nick", seeing as how the Cylons plan to destroy humans. But there ARE radical humans like that, who see peace as being their prime directive, even if it ends in their own destruction. So this didn't seem too crazy to me.

I did think that instead of just having the Cylon base ship blow up, the Galactica crew should have taken some of its technology as well as the weapon. This would make the cylons a bit fearful of the Humans for a while, causing them to keep Baltar and force him to create a cure for the virus.

Plus, the humans having the Cylon technology to study could pose an interesting dilema where they could be tempted to USE the technology, but yet not want to fall prey to creating/becoming cylon themselves.
 

I'm sorry to say I no longer watch this program.
 

You know, as a sometime reader of this blog I generally disagree with your reactions to BSG episodes, as I think you're unduly influenced by your extreme politics.

But this episode in particular stands out for condemnation. A few points:

1) Lee's plan is by no means guaranteeing the death of the Cylons: all they need to do is break contact or jump away before anyone dies.

2) Why is the Great Moral Question about whether the Cylons are "people", and not about whether the Cylons deserve to die?

I realize these are linked, but I think that there's a compelling case to be made that they are both people AND deserve to die, given that they have already committed genocide of humanity. Turnabout is fair play, no?

3) Why did Adama refuse to investigate? How can he be sure the death of the prisoners came from some principled moral stance on Helo's part and not (say) a Cylon saboteur?

4) Why the hell did the infected Simon talk? They already mentioned that the Cylons are prepared to die. We've never seen Cylons cave before: why now?

5) How did Cottle deduce the contamination was accidental if they don't have the probe?
 

Check out this comment from Jonah Goldberg at NRO:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTQ1Mzc2MjlhMzYyOWI2OTlhNGVjMjI5MGE5MjA3MGQ=


The consensus among readers seems to be that Friday's was the worst BSG episode ever. Worse than being too polemical it was just stupid. I tend to agree.
 

Saf,

1) That's why they were going to kill their Cylon prisoners. That would have guaranteed that the infected Cylons were reborn. A similar point though is that it would not have necessarily wiped out the Cylons. It might have hurt them enough to get them to stop chasing the humans.

2) I agree with you here. The Cylons are obviously sentient. The point though is that the Cylons obviously want to wipe out humanity. Therefore, equivalent force is morally justified. However, if for instance the Cylons had defeated the the humans and simply enforced some harsh terms on them, then there might be some debate.

3) That's a good point. Adama was pretty much a waste during the episode.

4) This gets to a complaint I've had ever since they have focused more on the Cylons. Cylon thinking should be alien, not just another version of human thinking. The Cylons shouldn't have caved. I thought it was lame that they were still alive.

5) Who knows the answer to that one. I don't know why they didn't bring the artifact along anyways.
 

Is Baltaar dead? Because he didn't look to good, but he was still breathing
 

It does seem strange that Adama would not want to investigate the sabotage. It is strongly hinted that both he and Laura knew that Helo did it.

Shouldn't Helo be court-marshalled?

This action would make him every bit as much of traitor as Baltar (1st season Baltar anyway). Baltar unwitting gave the Cylons access to the defense mainframe, while Helo quite deliberately ruined a mission that might have ended the Cylon threat.

Also, the last couple of episodes have left me wondering about a few of the characters.

Is Anders gone for good? Even if he won't be reconciling with Starbuck, did he just go off into the fleet to start an arena pyramid league?

Does Callie still work on the deck? Is she still injured or is she on maternity leave? Does her baby live on the Galactica?

This episode took the easy way out, but it's still better than "Black Market." And almost every episode of the original series.
 

I not sure about this episode, but i do know one thing for sure it left a lot of questions unanswered, this week it better start answering some questions
 

Where the hell is Anders? As soon as you get to like the guy, he disappears from the show- He would be an interesting example to show how a civilian (former restistance leader, etc) copes with life on the Galactica (or wherever he is). Also, I believe Kara needs him (she seems to have no friend left on Galactica)

The most active people now seem to be Helo and Sharon- nothing against them, but there used to be a time when Starbuck and Apollo were the stars and quite frankly, they were less boring than our cross-species couple. Hopefully we'll see more of Katee Sackhoff, I'm kinda worried that she'll leave the show as she obviously had less time to spend on set than in the last 2 seasons- also, her importance on the show seems to diminish as soon as Leoben is out of the picture- She is capable of more than frak with the Mountie-Cylon's mind!