‘Battlestar Galactica’ blogging: “No Exit”
(lots of spoilers! assumes you’ve seen the episode!)
(previous: “Blood on the Scales”)
Quick catch-up on the previous two episodes before tonight’s new one...
Lots of random thoughts:
New opening bit! “This has all happened before, and it will happen again.” Do they mean again again, or by “again” do they mean the again that happened with the Cylon attack on the 12 colonies? My head hurts.
Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod: Ellen downloaded!
Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod: Daniel? The Seven? A sensitive artist type? Sounds dreee-meee...
Man, Cavil is bitter, twisted fuck, ain’t he? I mean, more so than we ever realized.
Man, there’s something weird and disturbing about fatherly Saul Tighe going goo-goo over a baby.
The fleet has a ship called Incheon Valley? Can we take this in the same way as we took the Bob Dylan song, as a stand-in for something that resonates for the colonials in the same was as the Earth references do for us?
Galactica is falling apart! “Her bones are rotten”... I predict Galen will tell the Old Man that the ship’s got one good jump left in her, and that’s that. You know, to force the fleet to finally stop and settle somewhere (and so end the story).
John Hodgman as the brain doc: he must have been in geek heaven.
So the final five came by sublight to the 12 colonies. I’m a tad confused: are we still missing a colony? Kobol? Is there still another potential home full of humans and/or skinjobs out there for the fleet to find?
“These old planets,” says Lee, “that’s not who we are anymore.” So true, and so important to get past that in order to create a new civilization...
Cavil speech about wanting to see gamma rays and feel solar wind... Someone’s been reading Vernon Vinge and Charles Stross. All of the skinjob stuff about downloading and resurrection has always incorporated concepts of the Singularity and posthumanism, but this is the most explicit explication of those concepts yet.
And hey, will the final five re-create resurrection, and if so, why not extend it to everyone? We’re down to 39,556 survivors. Not counting Cylons, of course. Shouldn’t they start counting Cylons...?
(next: “Deadlock”)
(Watch full episodes and get recaps at Sci Fi’s official site for the show.)
[buy at Amazon (Region 1)] [buy at Amazon (Region 2)]viewed at home on a small screen
rated TV14-SV
official site | IMDB
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comments
posted by Mark (Fri Feb 20 09, 8:06PM)
Vernor Vinge. And probably Greg Egan and M. John Harrison and several other folks.
And my head hurts, too. My plan is to let it all play out then rewatch it a few months later.
posted by Ken (Fri Feb 20 09, 9:42PM)
Why do I get the feeling that the final episode, or perhaps the wrap-up move, is going to start with a VERY low "survivors" count?
posted by Bmcd (Fri Feb 20 09, 10:44PM)
Whew! This was a ripping good episode! I have been watching the enhanced versions on Hulu with commentary by RDM. He is pulling out all the stops with the final episodes. I predict that EVERYONE will somehow turn out to be a Cylon... just wait and see. I'm curious to see if BGS will turn out to be a "Flying Dutchman" or they really will find some sort of planet to colonize. Hopefully a bit more human friendly that the last two planets they visited.
Still cannot figure out why Kara isn't a Cylon too. I mean she found herself dead in in Viper on Earth. This means she is a clone or a Cylon. Which is it?
posted by Ryan H (Fri Feb 20 09, 11:43PM)
I got a really Roy Batty replicant vibe off of Cavil this episode. it was excellent.
posted by Philip (Sat Feb 21 09, 12:57AM)
There were 12 colonies plus the fabled 13th tribe. Kobol was the mythical home of them all. That is all the habitable planets i remember.
An interesting question would be, how likely are they to stumble upon a new home? I guess there are probably a few calculations of how many worlds there are in the galaxy and how many of those can sustain human life (properly, not New Caprica style). My guess is a very, very small percentage. If this cycle of colonisation, AI creation and apocalypse has gone on for quite a while (by my count this is the THIRD time the AI constructs have annihilated their masters, as far as we know) then our intrepid bunch of humanity may soon be running low on potential homes.
posted by Patrick (Sat Feb 21 09, 11:09AM)
RE: "I’m a tad confused: are we still missing a colony? Kobol?"
I could be wrong, but I think the uninhabited planet they spent some time on at the end of the first season and the beginning of the second season was Kobol. It was the planet that Gaius' shuttle crashed on, and the ruins of the opera house were there. It was also where they used the arrow (that Starbuck went back to Caprica to get) in that tomb and it showed them the way to Earth. I always assumed they couldn't settle there because the Cylons already knew about it.
posted by Ryan H (Sat Feb 21 09, 11:59AM)
In the course of the series, they have also found two other uninhabited planets. New Caprica and the Algae Planet. That speaks well to their chances of finding a new world.
posted by nyjm (Sun Feb 22 09, 10:49AM)
Throughout much of this episode, part of my brain kept going: "Exposition!" This is moment in the narrative where we stop (or keep the action to a minimum) and explain what the frak has been going on.
Usually, this is the most dreadfully boring, on-the-nose part of the show where Geordie explains that the flux capacitors are malfunctioning and the Enterprise can't leave orbit for at least 26 hours, meanwhile the natives are getting restless - or some such.
But not with BSG! Wow, just compelling stuff. Cavil may be one "bitter, twisted fuck," but that's one hell of chance to expand a character. I think you hit the "posthumanism" idea on the nose there - if humans are capable of anything they put their mind to through the application reason, the in extremis conclusion brings us to entirely new ways of conceiving just what is "human." Thinking about Cavill in that way, what I find slightly odd, even irksome is the idea that why doesn't he just get off his duff and do it himself? He's a critically-thinking creature like the rest of us, with access to technology that far exceeds anything we have in real life or even what the colonials have mastered. So, what's stopping him from making a new breed of cylons? Expertise? (Does he need the final five?) He doesn't need it; he has all the time the universe.
Random thought: It's nice to see Boomer redeeming herself, once Cavill's cards are all on the table.
And that leads me back to one of the best parts of this show. Following Ellen's logic, it's not who has the bigger guns, the more nukes or even the best know-how. What really matters is who has compassion, who has the courage to display empathy and end murderous cycles of carnage. We are different; we are the same; in the quest for survival, it's all or nothing - either we find a way to all coexist, or no one will make it.
posted by kusanagi (Sun Mar 01 09, 3:12AM)
What a mindfucking episode !!!
The prodigal son Canvil that resurrect its God, and He is obiouvsly a SHE, only to open his brain and "see how like perfection inside".
Gave me chills when Dean Stockwell said that line.
This singular episode of BSG is the best bit of sci-fi since Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odissey, and I think that "the best is yet to come ..."