Not since halfway through season two of Alias (the "post Super Bowl" episode) has a show been so completely turned on its head as Battlestar Galactica was tonight.
I was already pretty deeply into the episode. There was the mystery of why the Cylons really decided to withdraw. (Could "Caprica Six" and "Galactica Sharon" really have made so large an impact so quickly?) Then Dean Stockwell's character was revealed as a Cylon (as many expected after last week), thus opening the door to him to make future appearances. Then there was the provocative issue of Roslin attempting to steal the election. Then the shock of Baltar actually being sworn in as president. All that would have been more than enough to leave me speechless. But then, those three deceptively simple words...
One Year Later.
80's 'stached Olmos. Gaeta as chief of staff. Tyrol and Cally, a couple. Married Starbuck.
Can't... breathe...
And of course, the final, big cliffhanger. "Invasion 2.0" begins. Wow.
Unfortunately, as the small teaser after the episode confirmed, the SciFi Channel announced this week that Battlestar Galactica will not be returning in late July, as many anticipated. No, it's not coming back until October. Apparently, they decided the show was ready to compete with the "big boys" or something. No airing when the major networks are in reruns for BSG, it gets to run fall-to-spring just like the non-cable series do.
Which means we now have seven months to wait for more episodes. Hell, that's more than half the time they skipped over in telling tonight's story!
Somehow, Adama bleeding out on the table for four months seems like nothing compared to what we're in for now...
9 comments:
While all three Sci-Fi Friday shows had excellent cliffhangers (and the Atlantis one I didn't see coming), BSG's will have the longest-term impact.
I mean it took, what, seven episodes to get things "back to normal" in season two after Adamo was shot? I guess there is no more "back to normal" in this show, huh?
And raise you hands if you want President Rosalyn back in the top spot - at least she was never stupid enough to fall into this Cylon trap.
Now the long seven-month walk through Mordor begins...
I applaud the cylon trap and pray for its success. Death to the meat bags!
(Still rooting for the cylons)
Also...what happened between Starbuck and Apollo?
You failed to mention the nuke. That was an overwhelming moment, so much so that it knocked out the "space veritae" camera. From the subtitle after "One Year Later," it seems around 10,000 souls were lost to the nuke. My wife wondered if Baltar were more upset to lose a physical Six than all those Colonials. I'm sure it's the former, but he must also be thinking that he did the same thing to humanity twice. Wait, make that thrice with the ending.
it's like they are all different characters now. teacher Roslyn, union boss Chief (with Cally!), housewife Starbuck(?), jobless Tigh, just about anybody not named Adama is playing another role.
the important people not shown in the new world were Zarek and Helo's Boomer. next season's wild cards?
though I do feel kinda robbed of the bridging episodes. I'm sure anything important will be flash-backed. but I hope it's not in a 2378-hours-earlier kinda way :-P
the year-jump was stunning (has any other show done that?!)
but they just might have ruined the fast-forward plot device for the Helo-Boomer baby if they want to do a 10-years-later thing...
the best(worst?) part about the cliffhanger is that it leaves us with a huge question of "what the frak are they gunna do to get out of THIS!?" and there is no denying the answer as "I have no frakking idea! they're all frakked!"
ooooh {slump} it's gunna be a long wait
the mole
No, I think there will be no "going back," really. I thought so watching it the first time, and since I first posted about the finale, I've gone back and listened to creator Ronald Moore's podcast commentary. No, they definitely mean business -- this is not a dream, an hallucination, or any other similar sci-fi cliche. (And good. It had better not be. BSG doesn't do that.)
I suppose the root of "what happened to Starbuck and Apollo" must have had something to do with the Apollo-Starbuck-Anders scene we saw about halfway through the episode. But there's probably more to it than that, which I suppose will be revealed next season.
After all, there are plenty of particulars we didn't get. When and how did Tigh and Starbuck become friends? What happened to "Helo's Boomer" and Zarek (as the Mole pointed out)?
Ah yes... the nuke. Don't know how I overlooked that, but yes, it was a great moment. I would expect some of the missing population in New Caprica City is due to the skeleton crews still being posted aboard the Battlestars and other ships we saw jumping away at episode's in. Still, that can't likely account for all that many people.
Alias jumped two years as its second season finale cliffhanger. And came back rockin' at first with similarly neat shifts in the lives of the main characters. Unfortunately, the season was all downhill from there, and Alias never really returned to its greatness.
I'm hopeful Battlestar Galactica will be able to avoid a similar fate.
BSG can avoid Alias' fate if the writers know what the hell they're doing.
Woah...
Just Woah...
First of all, All hail the ability to download this on iTunes... otherwise, this person (In Japan) would have had to wait a markedly long time to see that last episode, and even longer to see Season 3...
THIS is entertainment... the last line from Starbuck was perfect... absolutely perfect. This is not Star Trek in any way...
Wow...
---Guy (In Japan)
One of the guys that I work with was bitching that "nothing happened in that episode". As we stared at him and pointed out incident after incident that was just huge, he kept calling us liars.
Only after a long and bizarre conversation did we all realize that he didn't realize it was a 90 minute episode. He got up and turned off the set after 60 minutes.
Whoops. :)
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