I knew this season would be bad for character deaths when they killed Ellen Tigh in Exodus (by the Gods that scene brought a tear to my eye and I hated that woman). Then they killed Kat, who I had grown to like as a foil for Starbuck. I liked Starbuck a lot. Katee Sackhoff did a good job as portraying a very messed up person who happened to be one of the best pilots the fleet had left. Another thing I liked was the recognition in this episdoe that if they weren't in such a desperate situation NONE of the pilots would still be flying.
A couple of things stand out for me, and I hope it's not just me reading too much into the situation. While this Battlestar is a remake and not totally like the original series, they have carried over so many elements that I'm hoping I saw one more in this episode. Let's look back at things that are similar between the two shows first, and I'm just going off of plain memory here. There were twelve battlestars, one for each of the colonies, built at the beginning of the Cylon War. A devastating suprirse attack by the Cylons destroys the twelve colonies and one lone battlestar survives to lead a rag-tag fleet of civilian ships to their last, great hope: Earth.
Gaius Baltar, a genius human, betrays humanity and allows the Cylon attack to succeed.
Along the way they meet up with another surviving battlestar, the Pegasus. Despite conflict between the commanders of the Pegasus and Galactica, the two ships carry off a surprise attack against the Cylons. Meanwhile, conflict between military and civilian leadership in the fleet causes problems for all ther survivors.
Now, how these common elements actually played out are vastly different, but at their core they are very similar. Ron Moore and company have done a wonderful job updating these plot elements to a more modern, and gripping storyline. I pray, I hope that they've done that now. What storyline am I talking about? Well, let's take a couple of samples from Maelstrom.
1. Starbuck to Leoben in dream sequence: You're not Leoben.
Leoben: No, I'm not. I just appeared to you this way.
Starbuck: Who are you?
Leoben: I'm a guide, sent to show you the way to what lies beyond (or something like that).
2. As Starbuck's viper plummets to the hard deck for the planet, several eery flashes of white light fill her cabin and visor, washing everything out for a few seconds.
3. Following Starbuck down, for a split second we see a view out of Apollo's cockpit of Starbuck's Mk II viper and a Cylon Heavy Raider flying in front of her.
Now, take these things together, and I think that maybe, just maybe, it's not Starbuck's a Cylon. Does any fan of the original remember John and the ship of lights? Remember how John and the others appeared as people known...maybe the 'cylon heavy raider' is a projection to make their ship look like something familiar to the colonials just as 'John' appears to Starbuck as Leoben because Leoben is familiar and in a very sick, twisted way looked upon as a 'guide' by Starbuck.
Now, I didn't really like the ship of lights and "John" in the original...but if RDM and company do something as cool as the rest of their reimagining, well it might we worth it.
Judge signing off here...
I'll see your Picard manuever and raise you with an Adama Maneuver. Battlestar jumping into a planet's atmosphere kicks your butt every time!
Topic: BSG season 3.0 spoilers thread. (Read 43884 times)