Battlestar of souls

* WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. Don’t read this entry unless you’ve seen last night’s episode of Battlestar Galactica.

* Your BSG must-read of the day: The Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan has assembled a series of lengthy interviews with head honcho Ron Moore, writers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, and director Michael Nankin about last night’s episode. One thing they bring up again and again is that everyone involved believed the episode, the last to be filmed before the writers’ strike shut down production, would be the last BSG episode ever, and consciously gave their all with that in mind. Just make sure to watch out when Ryan chimes in with her thoughts at the end of the piece, because she throws in a major, major spoiler for The Shield out of the blue.

* SciFi Wire interviews Kandyse “Dualla” McClure about her final episode, while the LA Times speaks with Kate Vernon about her return as Ellen Tigh and the reveal of Ellen’s status as the Final Cylon.

* The House Next Door’s Todd VanDerWerff returns to resume his strong weekly recap/reviews of the series.

* Jim Henley has my favorite take on last night’s big Final Cylon reveal: in essence, “It’s so crazy it just might work!” I’ve never been much for the “Who are the Final Five?” mythology mystery, but I have to say that solving it this way really impressed me. First of all, I can’t imagine very many people had “Ellen Tigh” in their Final Cylon office pool–any of the major, obvious candidates would have felt anticlimactic, but this was a genuine and welcome curveball. Secondly, it makes Michael “Col. Tigh” Hogan the emotional lynchpin of the remainder of the mythology, a decision akin to how the producers of Lost decided to center their show around Michael Emerson, i.e. a brilliant one. I sure am glad, however, that the “next week on BSG” promo spelled out who exactly was the Final Cylon, because otherwise the Ellen/Starbuck debate would be raging right now.

* Finally, both Variety and the LA Times have tons of interviews and features on the show. While away the hours.

13 Responses to Battlestar of souls

  1. Tom Spurgeon says:

    They killed the prettiest one. Female division, anyway.

  2. I thought the same thing about Cally the last time they killed off a long-suffering wife.

  3. Jim Treacher says:

    Seemed like they made an effort to make Dualla extra-beautiful right before she did it. Just to make it hurt more.

    I always wondered if Ellen was a Cylon. Balthar did that dumb Cylon test on her and claimed she wasn’t one, but we never actually saw the results. Now Tigh is going to be even more fucked up, which will be awesome.

  4. You’re pretty sharp, then, man. Nice work.

    I never really knew what to make of Baltar’s Cylon test. At first it seemed that we were supposed to think of it as legit, even if he wasn’t, but I feel like later they said it was always a sham.

  5. Jim Treacher says:

    I’m starting to wonder if they’re ALL Cylons. Holy crap: Maybe WE’RE all Cylons!

  6. I think that’s the idea! Us, I mean, since we’re on Earth. I’m not sure about the rest of the Colonials (Colonists?), though. I kind of doubt it because then all this business about the “final” Cylon is bullroar.

  7. Kiel Phegley says:

    I don’t know. How could Baltar and the rest tell the skeletons on earth were Cylon skeletons? Did they establish at some point some big physical difference. Plus, a little bit of explanation on how the humans “created” the Cylons would be nice, just so these kinds of things weren’t distracting me from the drama at hand.

  8. Rickey Purdin says:

    I don’t like Ellen being the last Cylon. It may be because I’ve lived with this secret as a secret for so long that being a secret was what made it something I liked. Or it may be that I just hate Ellen. Either way, I’m holding on to hope that the actual final Cylon has yet to be revealed.

    Sigh.

  9. Kiel: I think they did establish a difference, yeah. But it wasn’t something Baltar’s test actually tested for. Meanwhile, the humans just created the Centurion-type Cylons, as far as we know; the idea was that when the Cylons retreated, they ended up developing the skinjobs off on their own (after the experiments that led to the Hybrids). Obviously that chronology needs to be revised somewhat now–so stay tuned for Caprica, airing this fall, or something!

    Rickey: Ellen is totally confirmed as the final Cylon. Again, I like it. Any of the main characters would have felt too obvious to me.

  10. Jim Treacher says:

    Yeah, this is the kind of thing that almost makes me want to buy up all the box sets and watch the whole damn thing all over again. I wonder how much of this they’ve been intending this whole time? I wonder how well it fits?

  11. Click that Maureen Ryan link, Jim–Ron Moore talks about exactly when they came up with some of these new developments. It’s interesting how easy I find it to treat these kinds of things like they were part of a plan from the get-go even though that’s frequently not the case. There’s an important part of Twin Peaks’s finale that works much the same way, where you can devise a “master plan” for the fiction but the writers really just came up with on the fly. I’ve found that I really don’t care–if it works within the fiction, it works.

  12. Rickey Purdin says:

    I dunno that I’d prefer someone from the main cast as much as someone who I can wrap my head around more than Ellen. But, fuck it…why am I fighting this?!

    Also, it’s interesting cause I feel like choosing someone not obvious like Ellen cheapens it. Maybe as much as you think choosing someone obvious would cheapen it? Bluh.

  13. Carnival of Battlestar

    * First, this seems like as good a place as any to collect the links to all my Battlestar Galactica posts for this final half-season. * Episode 4.5.1: Sometimes a Great Notion * Episode 4.5.2: A Disquiet Follows My Soul…

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