Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 - The end is near!
 

Anyone catch all ten webisodes?

Can't wait for the series to come back! Jan. 16! Woohoo! Final ten episodes of the entire series, simply can't wait.

I am SO with you on this. I'm drooling and dreaming about it in my sleep.

Eeek... gotta watch the webisodes!

I knew I forgot something!

Very much looking forward to the new season.

IS last season available to watch online (for free, I am cheap)? Even being home all of last season I missed most of it. :(

Me too. Thanks for the reminder!

How do the webisodes fit in? Is it something that really should be watched before the shows start up again?

We bought Season 1 last Summer and are currently in Season 3. We're trying to catch up and should catch up within the next month.

I'm wondering the same thing. I haven't watched any of them yet.

I just watched the webisodes, and I'd recommend watching them. They have a cliffhanger that hints at something that may occur during Season 4.5. It may help understand the actions of someone during the season. Probably not essential, but perhaps more explanatory.

Also makes Baltar look a lot better in his Presidency, in Episode 9 of the webisodes (and if you missed the line he whispered in Gaeta's ear while in prison, its in the Writer Commentary for Ep 9).

Great episode ... not that I understand it. The fifth is Ty's former wife?

Well Frak Me! Ellen is the 5th... so what is Starbuck?! Obviously she died and came back.

Damn. Just damn. The scene between Tigh and Adama was pure brilliance. And Dee... wow.

Holy frackin' hell. I was on the edge of my seat until the very end. Typical of the series to off a character in a sudden and surprising way to keep you off balance and worried about what's coming next.

I don't know what to make of Ellen. Unless this pays off in a big way, I'm going to be horribly disappointed. It just seems like such a cop out.

We've been led to believe that D'Anna knows who the fifth Cylon is, and when she demanded the fleet turnover the Cylons at the end of the first half of season four, the only demanded four -- since she knew Ellen wasn't with the fleet.

So is Ellen still alive? And what the hell is Starbuck?

Well, it is true that D'Anna did say that the 5th Cylon wasn't with the fleet (I saw it a few eps back in the replay of S4.0 Sci-Fi was having) and only asked for 4. So is appears perhaps Ellen will come back at some point?

The Starbuck funeral pyre was great. What was the deal with whacking off Dee (sp?) anyway. Was there a storyline there that I missed?

I think it was just showing the hopelessness probably a good deal of the fleet was feeling. That an Adama's reaction. Needed someone known to provoke such a reaction in the Old Man.

So the webisodes are something different from what you can download on Xbox Live? I just watched 7 two-minute shows about Bill Adama during the first Cylon war.

For the BSG fans at FOF, here's a link to Sci-Fi BSG forum on last nights episode. Glad to see I'm not the only one confused.
S4E13 - Sometimes a Great Notion - Rate and Discuss - SCI FI FORUMS

I had predicted, and indeed convinced most of my friends that watched the show, that Ellen was the 5th. So that was no big shock.

I felt the Dee thing was done just to be shocking. She was not suicidal in the least at that moment, no matter how much she wanted that feeling to continue forever. That was just absurd.

The Starback thing on the other hand? Loved that. Definitely can't wait to see what explanation they come up with for that. When Leobon is freaked out, especially in relation to something having to do with Starbuck, you know things are frakked up.

Stole this from the Season 4 thread, to avoid splitting the discussion. Don't forget that the Cylons on Earth have been dead a long long time. For all we know they had long killed off the humans on the planet. My initial reaction was the same as yours, that the show is stating we're all Cylons, but my brother pointed out that this might not be true. Thematically, it does seem to work, but honestly I would view this as another cheapening of the show.

One of the things that has made BSG great, I feel, is that they didn't make stuff up to further the plot. Unlike in Star Trek there wasn't some thingamajig that conveniently shows up to help things along. It seems like with the 13th tribe being Cylons, and the Starbuck resurrection bit, that they've fallen outside of the reality they've created.

I didn't find it absurd. She was close to losing it in the Raptor after visiting Earth and seeing what a desolate wasteland it was. Everyone was in despair because that was the place where they were supposed to be safe and where they were supposed to meet other humans to save the human race. She lost the land, the idea that other humans were out there, and a chance to get away from her past hurts in one fell swoop. She already had gone down the path of trying to have a relationship with Lee and that ended in nothing but misery for her since he is hung up on Starbuck. I think towards the end of the date when she didn't invite him in, she realized that she couldn't go down that road again and realized with the promise of earth gone, there was nothing else for her. Sometimes, suicidal families will say that people appear the most happy right before they kill themselves. This suicide surprised me, but I didn't find it absurd.

This is a very important point and very true. I've read (sorry no citation) that this euphoria right near the actual act is due to the realization that they're actually goin to end it and the relief it gives them emotionally is almost like a drug induced high. They're finally able to feel happy again because they finally found the end of the pain and have accepted it.

Even though the creators have admitted that they've made up things on the spot? ;)

I mean stuff like "If we adjust the flux capcitor to .016 we just might be able to break this forcefield".

I don't know how the 13th tribe being Cylon or Starbuck resurrecting does that. It seems to fit into the narrative they have built. I mean, doesn't the 13th tribe being Cylon seem to fit into those guesses (that have been going on forever) that everyone is a Cylon?

at the very least it muddies the waters so that they can really shock everyone with the real answers later on in the show?

Of course, I guess one can posit that the war between the Gods on old Kobol may have been a war against humans and Cylons and at the end of it, all the survivors left on 13 colony ships, one being Cylon, but in all the intervening time the truth about the 13th tribe being Cylon was forgotten.

Of course then, it seems, the Cylons created their own Cylons, who rebelled against them and turned the planet into a nuked hellhole.

This has all happened before, etc.

So instead of being randomly introduced to move the story along, it seems like something that fits perfectly into the story arc.

Maureen Ryan, the Chicago Tribune's television critic and huge BSG fan, has an interview with Ron Moore plus info from the writers and directors of the episode. Definitely worth checking out:
'Battlestar Galactica's' Ron Moore addresses the shocking developments of 'Sometimes a Great Notion' | The Watcher

Great read, Barkeep. I also agree with ISiddiqui's assessment of where it's all going. I honestly wonder if the "Final 5" were the ones who instigated the trip to find the original 12 colonies, and once they found them, built the seeds of the Cylons amongst the colonies and then gave themselves amnesia (to be awoken later, if necessary).

I think the Lee point is a good one - she didn't invite him in; she knows where this is going (all this has happened before. :D)

Thanks for the find. I agree, great read.

I've read elsewhere that Moore et. al. viewed this last episode "Sometimes a Great Notion" as a potential series finale if the Writers' Strike lasted too long.

That would have been depressing. Not only is the episode depressing in itself, but if the series had ended like this with so many questions still unanswered....

All of which I think points to two things as the series starts to wrap up:

1. Moore isn't afraid to end darkly. We could be in for a very unhappy ending.

2. I wonder how many of the big questions really will be resolved.

Also, I'm not sure if that's "Earth", to be honest. Moore's response in the Tribune interview is very lawyerly. The only thing he says categorically is that the 13th tribe called it Earth.

Lastly, based on the previews, does anyone think the next episode will be mostly intra-fleet political suck?

I hope the next episode finally pushes through with what happens after the webisodes. They really built a strong subplot in the webisodes that might make for a major story arc for the next few episodes.

I love this show.

I love spoilers. We have three more episodes in Season 3 to go and then it's on to Season 4. We'll be caught up in a couple weeks.

Funny thing is that we just watched Starbuck die last night in Season 3.

I wouldn't ever come into this thread when I was catching up on Season 2 and 3.

Yeah, really...

Slower episode tonight, but one setting up a LOT of future danger (next week looks explosive, and super fun). Once again Zarek tries to exploit "democracy" to aggrandize for himself. Gaeta falls right into place.

Wonder when/if Roslin snaps out of this. I'm guessing Zarek won't last long in the government. Maybe setting it up for President Adama quicker than I thought they were going do it.

An okay episode. A letdown when compared to the season premiere. Hate the religious themes.

The mutiny of the supply ship was really weak. What and where was it supposed to go and do?

Next week's show does look exciting.

The tillium (sp?) miners haven't shown themselves to be the brightest people in the past.

What religious themes are you talking about this week? One Baltar speech? Personally I really like the religious themes and how they influence the politics and conflict with each other.

I thought there could have been more to this episode. It was a bit slow moving but on the upside it does seem to be setting the stage for fireworks down the road. This was just such a slow episode compared to the rollercoaster from last week.

Interesting to see Gaeta throw in with Zarek. So until Six has her baby, looks like Hera is the only one of her kind. I'm wondering what the "first" full Cylon baby will mean.

I loved this episode; Kara and Baltar are interesting; the president makes me want to shoot her. This was more classic BSG, rather than just "whaa whaa religious philosophy whaa whaa".

I was under the impression that the tyllium miners were more-or-less acting on Zarek's suggestion/request.

Well, they had to be receptive to the idea at first, I'd imagine.

I love the slow burn. Should be a fun ride to the end.

Remember Zarek is the VP, if your the captain of a ship and the VP tells you something, you listen, Yes?

I hope to god they flush Zarek out an airlock. He's one of the few characters I truly have come to despise in this show. I'm terribly disappointed in the change in Geata. His leg issue apparently brought up a lot of repressed hatred. Though I did enjoy the scene with Kara. Talk about flipping the roles around.

Was definitely not as big a "WOW" episode as last week but it definitely sets up some juicy stuff to come.


Just a thought from the back of my brain:

What if everyone IS the same....and the war on Kobol wasn't between two different races, but two differing "Nations"?

HUmans from some country called "Humana" or something and Cylons likewise from a country named as such?
Its all fuzzy atm, but does that make any sense to anyone else?

Actually, his hatred came via what transpired in the webisodes.

Can't help it. I also read the last few pages of a book sometime about the middle of it too. We're catching up and should be caught up by next episode. We watched the first two episodes after Razor last night.

By the way, is it just me or is there a lot of drinking and whoring every episode?

Hell, there's been that since the start of the new series.

What else is there to do on a tin can out in space. :)