[Lucky]

So I'm 3/4ths of the way through BSG and its a solid viewing. I mostly like it. But the thing is that I have a real issue with Sci-Fi and how difficult it is to rationalize stuff like all aliens looking human and alien cultures speaking English, even if I completely understand why they're necessary things for production's sake. So even though I'm enjoying this there's a whole ton of little shit that annoys me, and here's where I shall catalogue the ones that stand out.

Most of these will be inconsequential but there are some spoilers, including the very first one which managed to be so weird that it inspired me to post about it.

- Is Bob Dylon a cylon? "All Along the Watchtower" is the song that triggers cylons to realize who they are? What the fuck?! Bear in mind I JUST saw this so if it makes sense and we find out that Bob Dylon IS the final cylon then I haven't gotten there yet and I'll complain about it then.

- A "coup d'etat"? So what you're saying is that not only did English naturally develop almost 100% identically on an alien culture that split from Earth thousands of years before the language was formed... but French developed too? So who the fuck is speaking French since I haven't heard anyone from the 12 Colonies speak French through 3 seasons?

- How come a show that is based strongly in the idea of "monotheism vs polytheism" and which goes out of its way to realize that the humans should be saying "gods damn" instead of "god damn" since they're polytheistic... how come they also say "hell" in their slang? Where the hell did "hell" come from in a culture that seems devoid of the Christian and Germanic Pagan roots of that word in our culture? I mean, the concept should exist, sure, but shouldn't they be saying "Go to Tartarus!" or something, seeing as how their religion is essentially Greek in origin?

- There's a million similarities between Earth and the 12 Colonies bothering me such as the shared idea of Democracy, ideas from the US constitution like "the right to avoid incriminating yourself" and "the freedom of the press", "marines" and "jarheads", the entire military structure being almost identical right down to exact ranks, "cancer" and diseases sharing identical names even when you choose to occasionally make up a name for something like morphine. A lot of these might well be rationalized or explained by the shared origin of the two cultures and the sketchy timeline, as in I'm not sure how much of "our" history is supposed to be part of "their" history, but obviously at least most events prior to 0 AD should exist since it seems like a split probably happened sometime before the spread of Judaism but after the strong presence of Greek/Roman religion. Granted, I'm probably exposing a lot of my own ignorance to theology or history here as its been a decade since I've studied them any more than casually watching a documentary or reading a Wikipedia page, but still. It kinda bugs me.

And half of me is expecting this all to be explained by some crazy revelation in S4, but seeing as how I haven't watched S4 its bothering me now. And I can't go around and do google searches because even though I'd bet there's entire websites devoted to analyzing this stuff I can't read any of them without risking stumbling upon spoilers for stuff I have yet to see.

[Lucky]

I'll give you a positive nitpick, though. I love how the number of survivors in the opening credits changes just about every episode based on who has died. I have no idea how accurate it is and it they make sure to do exactly when a baby is born or someone dies. I only really notice it when the number jumps, which does tend to coincide with major losses shown on screen. But I noticed that sometime in S2 or S3 and got a real kick out of it.

[OpTard]

i'd really love to discuss these things with you, lucky, but you really need to/should finish the series first. not that the necessarily explain EVERYTHING, but i don't feel comfortable discussing any of it without risking spoilers.

but on your general sci-fi nitpicks, i will say i completely disagree with your problem with all aliens looking human. i'll explain further later, but right now i gotta go take a shit.

later.

[Lucky]

Well its not an issue with a show like this, obviously. The aliens ARE humans. Same with a show like Stargate where the story is that people were taken from Earth and spread across the galaxy, or that humans evolved from one race of beings that helped orchestrate evolution around the universe. And then there's a bunch of other alien species to justify the idea that, hey, everyone doesn't look the same, just the species/races that came from the same place.

Honestly its probably less of a problem than I think it is because must sci-fi I can think of either uses the same idea of a split from the human race or the advancement of Earth (Firefly for example) and/or throws in a bunch of other alien species that pass the idea off (Star Trek; Star Wars). Of course I'm not a Sci Fi fan so my knowledge is pretty limited, its just something that on its face bugs me, but really might just exist more in theory.

I'm understanding of the basic idea that makeup costs money and looks like crap, so making everyone human makes sense. Plus the audience that wants to look at Henson created aliens and wacky makeup is relatively small and I'm not in it, so its probably a crowd pleasing thing too as I rather just watch a bunch of humans. So really, my problem might be largely theoretical because I'm actually perfectly ok with as long as you explain it logically enough, and I'll keep an open definition of "logic" when watching a show about aliens and space travel. Its just the situation when the alien's just human for no reason that bugs me, as I seem to recall happening in a lot of the old time Star Trek or Twilight Zone stuff I saw. But obviously that's budgets and technology and its kind of nitpicky and asshole of me to get on it or judge the genre for it.

But yeah, I figured a lot of my BSG stuff was "finish watching before we can discuss it" and I do plan to keep watching. I just figured, hey, this is all I have to judge the show on at this stage so if its bothering me than it would have just bothered me more if I had been watching it over 3+ years instead of 2 weeks. But I'll revisit it when I'm actually finished.

[ALL CAPS]

A lot of your questions won't be answered, because, just like people do with LOST, you're choosing to focus on really REALLY unimportant stuff. Not to be an ass, but Lucky, you're totally missing the point and over thinking the show.

Most of your nitpicks have to do with the problem of language. Try this, it's what I do when watching a sci-fi show dealing with "alien" races: Pretend that they're speaking a completely different language and that it's been translated as best as it could be so that we can understand it. "Cancer" is called cancer, because it's cancer. All of the gods have different names, but because they are gods of similar domains, they've been renamed so that we get what they mean. Work with the show a little bit.

As for the cultural stuff, all I can say is, "all of this has happened before, and it will all happen again".

[Lucky]

Feb 5, 2010 20:16:09 GMT -5 ALL CAPS said:

A lot of your questions won't be answered, because, just like people do with LOST, you're choosing to focus on really REALLY unimportant stuff. Not to be an ass, but Lucky, you're totally missing the point and over thinking the show.

Sure, but isn't that what nitpicking is?

I really am trying to put most of this stuff in the right context. Its minor and insignificant details that irk me but really shouldn't factor into the overall show. And they don't really. I enjoy the show despite them.

But when the Vice President quotes the Gettysburg Address there's really no way I can avoid rolling my eyes and thinking less of the writers for using a cheap and completely illogical* trick. And sometimes I find it more therapeutic to just express these nitpicks out loud and to someone and be an over thinking idiot for a day until I get over it, because the alternative for me is to sit on it and let it fester until I end up holding it against a pretty enjoyable show.

*Illogical until I get to the end of the show and some crazy ass swerve is revealed like this is actually hundreds of thousands of years in the future and every piece of human history happened to these people because they actually split from Earth in the 21st or 22nd Century and this is now the 51st Century where they still recite the Gettysburg Address because the History Channel is actually really popular on Caprica.

[OpTard]

so my "people looking human" thing comes down to this. it makes way more sense to me that intelligent alien beings would be human than them being bug creatures or reptilians or whatever they might be.

there's life on earth and not life on mars or venus. earth has certain conditions that makes it able to sustain life. mars and venus do not have those conditions. to me, the most sensible idea is to think that any life sustaining planet in the universe will have those same conditions as earth. why should purple people with six arms who breath nitrogen be more believable than humans breathing oxygen, when all our experience and scientific evidence at hand shows that it's oxygen that is breathable. why is insectoid or reptilian aliens be more believable when we have no evidence of any insects or reptiles being intelligent beings. hell, even when you take size into account bug reptiles (i.e. dinosaurs) weren't intelligent. there's scientific reasons for everything from our shape to our color.

to me, the most believable rendition of alien life would be one that is almost, if not, identical to our own situation on this planet, allowing for maybe small evolutionary differences. green plant life/photosynthesis, mammals, reptiles, birds, fish. a yellow sun, oxygen based atmosphere, the major intelligent beings being humanoid. everything i know about life and science tells me that's what's necessary for life to exist, so WHY wouldn't that be true throughout the universe?

why do you, lucky, think these conditions are an isolated incident in our solar system, and other solar systems would follow completely different laws of science causing different versions of life?

[Stu]

I was about to post "if the planet's like earth, then the aliens could reasonably be humanoid", but Optard said it in a more detailed manner. It probably may not that be that simple in real life, but it's something a layman could buy and it's way less contrived than some other explanations. Though if there's one thing I don't like about a lot of space opera, it's making humans such a big deal. Like in Star Trek, they're the ones who set up the Federation, they're the ones who have the Q shitting themselves that they'll evolve to rival them, they're always the most famous captains etc. despite being one of the later species to develop warp technology, who are less physically and mentally endowed than some other species. Doctor Who does this as well, as The Doctor seems to spend 70% of his time on this one single planet and steps in to save it's inhabitants countless times, while simultaneously telling anyone who'll listen how awesome they are, which gets displayed when they go to the future and it's during an era of "The Great Bountifull Human Empire" across the universe, or it's a major incident in human future history, or it's the dying days of the universe, and we're one of the two species who survived till that point. I mean, come on! We should more realistically be at least massive underdogs, not almost always the ones who make the difference.

[ALL CAPS]

And all of that sounds great, but there's nothing in evolution that says that huminoid form is a requirement for intelligence. It is likely that intelligence within our particular evolutionary tree is a result of the biological condition of being human (stereoscopic vision, opposable digits, complex brain, etc...) but not necessarily the only means to that end. We have a sample size of 1. Just because that's how it happened to happen here, it in no way infers that it will happen that way everywhere biological processes arise. Heck, we don't even know if exobiological beings would be DNA-based creatures. And even if they were, depending on environment, population sizes and the amount of time these organisms have had to evolve, there's no telling which way their trees would branch. It's just as likely, if not more so, that they would have branched in completely different ways very early on. It seeming "logical" that aliens would look like humans because aliens are smart and humans are smart is simply a bias towards the human species. You're creating them in our own image. The idea has become popular because it's easier, cheaper, lazier, and more practical to imagine or create humanoid aliens than really really weird ones. Everything after that is just rationalization.

[OpTard]

and everything after that is just imagination. and non-DNA based creatures? come on. you say i assume it would be DNA based creature because that's all i know, and to that i say EXACTLY. science doesn't change just cuz you a few light years away. physics doesn't change. everything we know about this planet, and the other planets in this solar system, tells me what conditions are life sustaining and what conditions aren't. and they tell me what kind of life those conditions produce. and they tell me what life is, what makes up a living being.

you may think it's more close minded of me to think other life in the universe is on a planet with similar, if not identical conditions as our own (because that's what's required to sustain life) and to think the life produced on that planet is similar to our own (because that's the type of life those conditions produce). but at least they're any scientific evidence at all of my theory. us. and not just humans but all manner of creatures on earth. to assume anything else is reality is pure imagination. (and i already conceded some level of evolutionary difference, average height of a species, weird klingon foreheads, number of fingers, etc.)

i'm not discounting anything as impossible. and i love a good kooky alien in a movie. but as far as looking at humanoid aliens and thinking it's not believable or lazy, personally i think it's the opposite.

[ALL CAPS]

Point me to absolute scientific definition of "life" and I'll agree with you. We haven't even figured out the parameters for what constitutes life on THIS planet, and you want to limit it on other planets? You keep on saying "life" when you really mean "life as we know it." You don't see the difference, but to someone who is seriously studying the possibility, the difference is very important.

I get what you're saying, and I agree that it doesn't bother me. I'm just saying that your justification is factually inaccurate. Physics being the same everywhere has nothing to do with the possibilities that life could evolve in other ways. It isn't "pure imagination" in the sense that it's just a bunch of guys sitting around in a room dreaming up bullshit because it's weird and different and they think a plastic bug fish is neat lookin'. They're looking at what we KNOW about physics, chemistry, biology, etc and figuring out where those things could allow for the possibility of life arising in other ways. Until we discover a new type of life form, of course it's all hypothetical, but it's just as ridiculous to assume that whatever life we find will end up looking pretty much like us.

Oh, and check this out: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry

[OpTard]

and that's my point. it's all hypothetical. and as i said, i'm not discounting the possibility of other types of life, i just find it a LOT less ridiculous (as you put it) to defer to the known than to defer to the hypothetical. the known is more believable than the hypothetical. and yes, my while point is that when i say "life" i do mean "life as we know it." because life as we know it exists. we know it exists which makes it possible to exist elsewhere.

lets not forget that life elsewhere just existing is a hypothetical. maybe we're the freak of nature just by being here. maybe our being not too close and not too far was a freak accident. maybe the breathable gases in our atmosphere are a freak accident. maybe it's just the all-of-the-above that's the freak accident. we really have no idea what the hell is out there. so really whether someone makes alien human or makes them jabba the hut (and this is something lucky should remember so that these things stop bothering him) NONE OF THEM ARE WRONG. it's all just a fucking guess. we each have differing opinions of what's more likely. you think you're right because people like the cast of big bang theory will sit around and say "well what if their environment was like this, then they'd evolve like this, leading to this totally different life form." and you defer to them because they're scientists. i think i'm right because i look at what's it front of me and i say "well, i know this is possible, because i'm looking at it. all my experience says anything other than this results in lifelessness." and i defer to that because it's right in front of me. but i'm not gonna argue that either are wrong because as you said, one theory is just as unproven as the other.

but if you're gonna ask for absolute proof or definition of anything, then i'm just gonna ask for absolute proof or definition of anything else. so really, stalemate. booyah.

[salmonjunkie]

Quite frankly, if I was a producer of a TV series that had to work within a budget and make sure my show is accessible to a broad amount of viewers (human beings), I'd make as many of the main characters humanoid as possible, because why spend all that money on makeup and CGI to make them look like bug people just to make them that?
And it's probably a lot easier, cost effective, and inviting to have my actors speaking in a language that the viewers of my TV show are watching, rather than have them all speak in a different made up language with subtitles just to make them all more alien.

Also, I agree with Zig on this current debate.

Lastly, BSG was on the top 3 or 5 of my favorite TV series of all time. And I'm not really a big Sci-Fi fan.

[Lucky]

I'm a little boozy so I don't think I can get too deep into that... and truth be told I'm not a science guy and I don't know much about space or science beyond what I took in basic high school courses and one semester of advanced physics that the teacher basically let us cheat our ways through. But I'm pretty sure I agree with angst and I just don't think because of the one example we have here of intelligent life that it means its the only way. I might be missing a basic science fact but I also don't see why life has to breath oxygen because it does on Earth. And I understand the basic idea of "this is what we know so this is what I go on" but that seems like a weird stance to take when we're talking about science FICTION that covers so many purely hypothetical and fantastic ideas rooted in untested or just plain make believe science. Again, I don't know because I'm not a science guy but is faster than light travel possible to us in even a legitimate theoretical sense? We don't have spaceships so surely even if we have the science to support the building of battleships, "raptors", or "vipers" its at least somewhat hypothetical, right? And to the best of my knowledge we don't have giant robots with their own intelligence who can evolve into near perfect humans who can "reincarnate" themselves into new bodies and keep sentient spaceships as pets. So why are we capable of accepting that stuff but not that intelligent life might evolve from amphibians who can breath under water or whatever?

I mean you ARE basically saying that you like that the show shares the idea of "intelligent life" as "human" when it comes to the "skinjobs", but aren't you ignoring that they also define the Centurions and Raiders as sentient and intelligent life with free will, the ability to reason, and even religion?


What I really came here for was that I burned through a bunch of episodes the last couple of days and am only a few episodes short of done. And obviously the "Earth was filled with cylones" thing kinda answers my "All Along the Watchtower" complaint (because it turns out Bob Dylan WAS a cylon) and the timeline has been cleared up a bit with Earth being wiped out 2000 years before the 12 Colonies were meaning Earth only split 1000 years before its destruction so if I assume some shared history then a lot of the stuff would have been shared on "Kobol" or whatever was the original home of human and cylon. And if I assume that "Earth" history and culture is fairly similar to real Earth history and culture then it actually probably rationalizes a lot of the similarities in military systems, political systems, or even language that might actually be able to be rooted back 1000 years or so.

So now when I say "How the hell do they have pianos?" I can quickly come back with "Well, if it was only 1000 years or so similar stringed instruments probably existed back then so its not too much of a leap that another culture would evolve it into the piano in the same way 'we' did."

But what I really came here to say was that I'm annoyed because after now seeing that Starbuck was taught "All Along the Watchtower" by her father who regarded music as his heart and soul and the incredibly disappointing reveal of the 12th cylon as Ellen led to the reveal of a 13th cylon, an artist named Daniel... I'm now pretty much certain that Dean Stockwell didn't kill Daniel but rather sent him to live among the humans like the "Final Five" and he is Kara's father, making Kara, not Hera, the first hybrid human/cylon. And apparently that means she can reincarnate or something, as I guess maybe Hera will kick it and they'll find her on Earth in a forgotten bath tub or something.

But because I'm watching this years after it aired I can't say all of that without (a) wondering if this was all just blatantly obvious to everyone like it seems to me or if I'm actually kind of astute, (b) getting it right and being able to take no outward pride in that because no one knows that I haven't already watched the episode that reveals that or read the Wikipedia entry, or (c) risking terrible embarrassment if its just a cockamamie theory that doesn't pan out and I acted like I was so smart and knew what was coming.

But I'm convinced that's where we're going to finish up, and while I'm still mostly enjoying this once I realized the 12 cylons were revealed and Earth was in sight mid way through the season I really wanted to finish this new set of story swerves up. And while I really enjoyed a brief foray into an entertaining mutiny story that speaks to more of what I liked from S1-2 with the action stuff then the tricky sci-fi/mystery stuff I'm annoyed that with the Superbowl tomorrow I probably won't finish up till Tuesday or Wednesday and I'm going to spend days wanting to just end the story and see all my theories and questions get answered, proven, debunked, or ignored.

Also, between this and Lost I really think I've learned I don't really like the whole "twisting swerve mystery tour" TV stuff that seems key in Sci Fi these days. Just like I preferred the comparatively saner early seasons of Lost largely routed in character development and adventure with broad mysteries advancing the plot I definitely preferred BSG when it was largely about characters and action scenes with broad mysteries rather than the mysterious cylons and prophecies and curiously reincarnated humans and religious debate show it is. Just like Lost that stuff was there in the beginning and the other stuff is still around but I feel like the balance shifted on both shows and the fact that I seem less interested in both after the balance shifts tells me something about my tastes.

[Lucky]

Feb 7, 2010 4:39:46 GMT -5 salmonjunkie said:

Quite frankly, if I was a producer of a TV series that had to work within a budget and make sure my show is accessible to a broad amount of viewers (human beings), I'd make as many of the main characters humanoid as possible, because why spend all that money on makeup and CGI to make them look like bug people just to make them that?
And it's probably a lot easier, cost effective, and inviting to have my actors speaking in a language that the viewers of my TV show are watching, rather than have them all speak in a different made up language with subtitles just to make them all more alien.

That's exactly what I mean when I say I understand why it makes sense from a production stand point. And the truth is I don't want lots of bad makeup, special effects, and subtitles for made up languages just to make the story more "realistic" at the cost of making it less accessible. But that reasoning sort of takes me out of the story when I'm posed with a situation that directly makes me wonder how it can make sense in their world.

[ALL CAPS]

Feb 7, 2010 0:19:50 GMT -5 OpTard said:

but if you're gonna ask for absolute proof or definition of anything, then i'm just gonna ask for absolute proof or definition of anything else. so really, stalemate. booyah.

It's not a stalemate because scientists know what they're talking about and you don't. Their hypotheses have more value than your guesses. All guesses aren't created equal. I can look at all of the evidence in front of me that tells me that comic book readers don't know shit about real science based on what they write on message boards, but I'd be wrong. I'm sure there are a few out there who do. Just not in this conversation. Your "experiences" don't equal truth or a greater probability any more than the experiences of people who see ghosts or UFOs. Your sample size of 1 has no direct validity when it comes to predicting the specific biology of an unknown organism. It isn't a direct correlation. You can THINK it is all you want, but it isn't one.

Booyah. BOOYAH!

I'll grant that it's a total crapshoot and that until someone observes alien life we can't know for sure. But yes, I will definitely default to the position of someone who studies, theorizes and scientifically predicts over someone who casually observes and then floats an uneducated guess.

Alien intelligent life most likely won't be humanoid.

[OpTard]

and yet my sample size of 1 is still greater than your sample size of 0

[Habs]

Just here on Earth, they discover new lifeforms in places where we thought for certain that life could not be supported. Deep underwater near volcano-type phenomenons, in volcanos where we thought it was way to hot to support life. Granted it's not intelligent life, but it's life where we thought only a few years ago life would be impossible.

[ALL CAPS]

Very good Ziggy, 1 IS bigger than 0. Here's some juice, go take a nap.

It isn't YOUR sample size of 1. Science takes it into account too. They just don't take it as the ONLY thing into account.

What you're doing is saying that because you see what life is here, you can extrapolate how life will develop elsewhere. You're defining a pattern. But in order to identify a pattern you need a sample size of at least two. A sample size of 1 or 0 is practically speaking the same thing, useless.

Unless you have more data. What science does is attempt to make predictions based on things other than trite suppositions. They actually look at data and conditions and try to figure out HOW different life might arise instead of just supposing it. They're using other data points to make their extrapolations. You're trying to make it seem like a simple leap of logic. It isn't.

But believe whatever you want. You're still wrong.

[ALL CAPS]

Feb 8, 2010 12:03:04 GMT -5 Habs said:

Just here on Earth, they discover new lifeforms in places where we thought for certain that life could not be supported. Deep underwater near volcano-type phenomenons, in volcanos where we thought it was way to hot to support life. Granted it's not intelligent life, but it's life where we thought only a few years ago life would be impossible.

Exactly. When NASA first started to explore the planets, they had all kinds of ideas about how the geology of these planets and moons would shape up. These ideas were based solely on the knowledge they could garner from the way the Earth behaved. Once they got there, they realized that they had to start rethinking how these things can work. That happens in every discipline of science... medicine, biology, astronomy... there's no reason not to expect the same thing when it comes to exobiology.

There's just been so much popular culture like comics, movies, TV that have continued the idea, for many practical reasons, that intelligent aliens will be humanoid. The reality is that there's no practical reason to believe that they would be.

[Lucky]

Ok, I wasn't supposed to be home at all last night or today but plans changed so I got the chance to do my afternoon work in the morning and finish watching this afternoon. And I think I might have hated the end of this series. I think anyone who read my earlier nitpicks can figure out why. An advanced civilization chooses to lobotomize itself and leave their family and friends out of some silly believe that if they do so it might end violence? You got 40,000+ humans and cylons to agree to that? And "Earth" wasn't Earth but in reality all of this happened hundreds of thousands of years before and civilization evolved in the exact same fashion anyway? So "Earth" was a giant lame red herring that just HAPPENED to share a ton of similarities in land formations, atmosphere, moon and sun, and stars and planets around it? And the imaginary friends really WERE "angels of God" only "he" doesn't like being called that? And what the fuck was up with Starbuck?! Did I miss something or did they not even bother addressing that? And was there ANY point to introducing the 13th cylon model? And what about all that stuff about how Hera was connected to Starbuck and all? That was all just hand waving angel shit that made her color the notes of All Along the Watchtower? And wait... "everything has happened before and will happen again" also applies to pop music?! Or is Dylan just God? ARGH!

I enjoyed the series well enough but if I ever go back and watch it I'm pretty sure I'm not going to watch S4. I think I'm sure of that. Next time I'll probably just stop once they get off New Caprica. After that the show just fucking loses me. God damn, that finale annoys me the more I think about it.

[Lucky]

You know what kind of pisses me off too? The whole "cylons slipped into human society" thing.

- Did they EVER explain how Tigh aged 30 years before Adama's eyes? I know Adama mentioned it as a reason to not believe he was a cylon but then did it ever get explained how Tigh is now the same age as he was when his first cylon body died? Dean Stockwell had the no how to genetic engineer a body that would start 30 years younger and age yet he can't find a way to genetically engineer himself a younger body?

- How did all of these cylons pass military vetting? Tigh, Chief, Boomer. All of these people were officers in the military so it was never an issue that they didn't have real social security numbers (or the BSG equivalent) or real childhoods or any past history? Is it THAT easy to falsify documents that you can just implant high ranking military officers like Tigh?

- How is it that Anders was a Hall of Fame quality sports superstar and yet the media never noticed that he had no amateur experience in the game they could find, no background they could root out, and no real tangible past to speak of? I'd ignore this and just assume sports media isn't as invasive in BSG's universe as it is in our except that they did introduce the idea of a sports journalist in that last episode doing a profile on him.

These things just bug me. I was willing to buy into the idea that the cylons got into the Colonies' defenses because Baltar let them in. That seems like a logical enough end around. And I guess was willing to accept that ONE cylon slipped into the military ranks as a pretty insignificant pilot stationed on a decommissioned ship. But then they introduce a couple of more including a Colonel who once worked majorly dangerous and important black ops assignments that may or may not have restarted the Cylon War. It feels really hastily tossed together and I'm not that surprised as I now read stuff that suggests the writers of the show only came up with the "Final Five" episodes before revealing them.

[Stu]

Has anyone else been watching Caprica, btw? I think it's pretty decent, though I think we didn't really need much more than the pilot to explain how we got to the first Cylon war.

[Lucky]

I watched the first couple of episodes after I was done with BSG. It wasn't terrible or anything but wasn't all that good either. I've now got the last two weeks on my Hulu and I'll get around to them eventually, I guess. But there wasn't much to the show to really make me want to go back each week from what I saw.

And I know its not really supposed to be some kind of direct link into BSG but the timing feels really far off when I'm willing to bet 90% of the audience is waiting for the start of a war (or the preceding elements of that war) that won't come for like 12 years or something. Unless they make some big jump forward at some stage.

[Stu]

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