3.08: Hero

[Urien]

This is the only TV series I make an effort to see.

But after last nights episode (in the US), I am beginning to worry. I hope they have an end point and it doesn't just plod along with series being made just because it's popular. I would hate it to be cancelled before the end.

 

[Carolyn Hill]

Re: Season 3 general discussion, with spoilers

Andrew, you're saying that you didn't like the episode "Hero"? Why? It did feel more like a standalone episode than others so far this season, but I liked it: it gave Olmos lots of screentime and filled in his backstory, it jolted Tighe out of his funk, and it presented interestingly ironic questions about what prompted the Cylons to attack.

 

[Urien]

Re: Season 3 general discussion, with spoilers

No I enjoyed it. I should have been clearer. I just got a vague apprehension, which you hit on the head, its stand alone nature.

Many series that have started off great, for reasons of commercial greed, have continued long past their sell by date. This was the first instance, where I felt the series might be getting caught up in its own gears.

The central narrative drive of this series is very clear, finding Earth. I worry that if it goes on too long it will jump the shark, decline in quality and we will never see the end. It might get cancelled before they ever reach earth.

 

[steve12553]

Re: Season 3 general discussion, with spoilers

I could be really interesting, should they find Earth, to find our when they find Earth. Are they are ancestors or our decendents? In the original series, they came back to our present but the new series is definitely not obligated to dou so.

 

[Urien]

Re: Season 3 general discussion, with spoilers

Yes I've been thinking about that. I suspect that they are our ancestors, along with the cylons. I think they'll probably have a terrible battle at the end and the survivors have to make the best of it. Then 100,000-200,000 years later we find the abandoned 12 colonies and it starts all over again.

 

[ScottSF]

Re: Season 3 general discussion, with spoilers

A

Hmmm, time to play “if I wrote the show.” Actually I wouldn’t know what to do but here’s one choice to kick around. They are our descendants. Some benevolent gas giant aliens in Jupiter were observing humans and the dug us, good day time drama, art music and all that. They observe that there’s a chance that we may not make it as a species so they abduct a bunch of humans, ancient Romans being the majority and plop us down on other planets that they have no use for to give us more chances at living, also ‘cause it’s fun to watch civilizations grow like a Sim Civilization game. Maybe because of less disastrous setbacks like plagues or less fundamentalist religions holding back progress, they are more technologically advanced than us so they get to earth in the present day. Or the benevolent aliens gave them enough hints for them to develop interstellar drives. So I guess in that situation they are descendants of Earth, a branch of the family tree.

B

It’s harder to make it work the other way because their gods are specifically Roman aren’t they? And the roman gods came from the Greek ones. I was thinking it could work if human compatible aliens landed on earth (name Romulus and Rumus?) and founded Rome? Oooh what if the Ennead was really the story of the first to find Earth but later generations revised it to make sense and oh this is something Troy was really on another planet so both the Iliad and Odyssey are interstellar stories. Yeah, maybe the Greek/Roman gods were just people from advanced worlds meddling with humans for fun or just out of carelessness. It’s a much trickier premise this way. This way they are not quite our ancestors but their ancestry may have bred with ours. This would be a much harder story to write and if I wrote it I’m sure I would leave lots of holes so I would want to chose something more like choice A.

C.

The survivors Land on Earth in Ancient times and because of their exploits become legends then gods. Or the Cylons become gods. Or Muffet and Boxie save the day and to this day humans celebrate with boxes of muffins. (if you don’t know who Muffet and Boxie are check the Old BSG) I used to have a Muffet action figure. I remember holding it when I was going to see the first Chris Reves Superman Movie. I think I’m tangenting

But I’m not a writer. . . yet.

writers are creative people (and some are not) so there's any number of resolutions to the earth problem that I probably didn't even get close to. But it was fun!

 

[Dave]

Re: Season 3 general discussion, with spoilers

Andrew, you're saying that you didn't like the episode "Hero"? Why?

I didn't like it and I can tell you why.

I didn't like it's retconning the history already seen back in the mini-series. If that was the back-story for Adama, then it should have been written in then, not trotted out now. I was under the impression Adama was on the Galactica 'museum' ship in retirement, now it appears that it was more a punishment. And the fact that it was all the humans fault anyway - that strikes me as an another allegorical reference to the American involvement in Iraq - something that is beginning to become tedious on this show - can they not think of something else for a change? Roslin does go on to say that the matter was both any body's and everybody's fault.

Secondly, Adama should never even have let Bulldog back on the ship. When I saw the damaged Cylon raider pursued by two others, I immediately thought it was an elaborate Cylon Trojan Horse. I didn't need Starbuck to investigate firing patterns to conclude that. All it needed was for Bulldog to be a Cylon and the raider to be filled with explosive and bye bye Galactica. End of story! It seems that Adama was led by his guilt and conscience rather than sense. Whatever he did wrong in the past, he was very lucky that there was no bomb.

Thirdly, that whole Cylon plan was far to elaborate. If the intention was for Bulldog to kill Adama, then it could have gone wrong many times before it actually did. And they needed to know a great deal about how Adama and Bulldog would react to have any confidence in pulling it off. Why would they rely on such a complicated plan when a Cylon raider packed with explosive would have worked much more easily?

 

[paranoid marvin]

I never look for allegorical references in tv shows - I guess they've been there since the days of MASH (maybe before?) It's just too much like hard work - I like to watch programmes for what they are

I didn't like the way that the original series blamed everything on the Cylons - they were a race bred to be slaves , who gained their independance and felt pretty cheesed off with their former masters - and who can blame them?

Every opportunity the humans get to kill/torture Cylons they do so ,they are even prepared to commit genocide by wiping out their entire race , veen though they are aware that there are probably some good Cyclons with the bad

No attempt is ever made to make peace - unlike the Cyclons , who , though misguided , tried to settle with the humans at the beginning of S.3 .They did have the opportunity to wipe them all out - but didn't.And one must assume that if the roles had been reveresed , then Adama would have had no hesitation in doing so.

The humans aren't the good guys - the Cylons aren't the bad guys . There is no black and white , just shades of grey