Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Space promo for 415 The Oath




OMG no, not Lee! Noooooooo!

36 comments:

radii said...

mah preshuss cylons is 'bout to put a big 'ol metal foot up yer ass soljer! Whyn't tern round en look!

Anonymous said...

I can't help but think another character is going to die in this episode. Just a feeling, not a spoiler.

Anonymous said...

Can anyone piece together who's on what side? Specifically, who's grabbing Starbuck and yelling at her halfway through? And who is Helo knocking out?

Anonymous said...

this episode looks like it could be a season finale or something, and we still have like 7 episodes after this!!

God i cant WAIT to see the final episodes and am not going to be too sad because i have 4 seasons and a couple of movies to re-watch, which will stick with me for years.

Anonymous said...

I really don't think they'll auf Lee before Helo or Gaeta. Don't worry.

My money's on Anders.

Anonymous said...

"auf"? LULZ

Anonymous said...

Sorry, years of watching Project Runway.

radii said...

Heidi: Vy dun't u tell me vat is zis u ave your Cylon model vearing?

Project Runway Contestant: Well, I wanted something flowing and bright to offset the hard metal of these Centurion models, so I picked this floral chiffon with attaches at the wrists but doesn't interfere with their hands going to weapons mode.

Michael Koors: I dunnno ... I mean, isn't this look dated? Haven't we seen this a millllllion times? Everyone goes for the contrast of textures with metal robots!

Guest Judge Darlek: Exterminate!

Michael Koors: You know, Heidi, in this case I have to agree.

radii said...

The WhooziWhatzit of Battlestar Good Guys and Bad Guys:

Right now everyone is a good and everyone is a bad guy because they might ALL be Cylons and the show is all about Moral Ambiguity so characters are morphing from sweet, nerdy loyal dweebs to tyrants (Gaeta); to soulful, thoughtful leaders from sullen drunks (Tigh); to nurturing mothers from baby-killers (Caprica Six); from overly earnest stalwart to moral day-trader (Lee); to messianic wannabe prophets from fame-whoring scientific genius (Baltar); from terse, no-nonsense politician become prophetess to devil-may-care free spirit (Roslin); from loyal workaday man-of-the-people to embittered robot leader (Tyrol); and on it goes ...

It looks like we're gonna get the Good Guy/Bad Guy Battlestar Mosh-Pit with all kinds of people caught in the crossfire and deciding on-the-fly who's side they're on ... look for a big drop in that number on the dry-erase board

Eric H said...

@ Radii, you forgot Nina: "Look, I know you have a strong point of view and you are a very accomplished designer. But frankly, week after week all you show is us the same Cylon models. We need to know you can do more than the same seven looks. I'm just not seeing enough range here."

Brace yourselves, kittens. It's gonna be a bit of a bloodbath from here on out. Chin up: if they're all some sorta Cylon, maybes they'll resurrect. Or something. Sigh.

Anonymous said...

Glad I'm not the only PR addict that is also a scifi nerd. Well, me and Grant Imahara.

BSG really is starting to resemble a reality show where you know someone is getting it every week. I'm pretty sure the whiteboard is going to figure prominently in the last 8 epis.

ProgGrrl said...

OK, I really never expected you guys to go all PR on us in here... :-)

::pride of fandom::

Anonymous said...

proggrrl, I'm pretty sure I first heard of you and your blog over on PRGays.Oh, and thanks for turning me on to Mad Men, the actual best show on tv.

Anonymous said...

The actual best show on television is BSG :)
Mad Men is pretty awesome as well, though.

Anonymous said...

Jon Hamm is even prettier than Michael Trucco.

ProgGrrl said...

PRGays? Never even HEARD OF IT! ::denial::

Wanna see something great: videos of Hamm looking like the world's most edible dork, over here. ::drool::

Greg said...

I have no idea what's going to happen. But I can't imagine it's going to turn out well for helo and sharon. Opera House prophecy and all.

But GOD I so want Gaeta the Backstabber (on so many levels ) to end up with a nice ol' shotgun blast to the head, and to see Zarek get an old school beatdown before getting hung. I have always hated these self righteous, stupid, jerks.

I mean the Cylons aren't all that and a bag of chips, but to see Gaeta devoted to the guy who signed his death sentence? WhatEVER, GAEta...

ProgGrrl said...

"I mean the Cylons aren't all that and a bag of chips, but to see Gaeta devoted to the guy who signed his death sentence? WhatEVER, GAEta..."

Oh yeah...I forgot about that. Hahahahaha. One assumes Gaeta doesn't know about that? Y/N?

That Gaeta...dude CANNOT catch a break. Seriously.

Anonymous said...

"I love to bake." OMG. Thanks for the vid!!

I just don't get the Gaeta hate. Dude is betrayed, angry, grieving and addicted to pain meds. Plus he's a character on BSG where the One True God, RDM, loves to torture his creations.

Baltar and Zarek are the real (human) villians in this piece. Gaeta is still just an idealist who continually backs the wrong horse.

Anonymous said...

On one of the clips it looked as though Roslin was in a Raptor (at 0:16) and there seemed to be some smoke??

I have a bad feeling about this...

Anonymous said...

Greg said:
But GOD I so want Gaeta the Backstabber


Gaeta & Zarek are doing what Lee should have done a long time ago.

In season 1, Lee Adama warned Adama/Roslin:
" I swore an oath to defend the articles. If you're telling me we're throwing out the law, then I'm not a Captain, you're not a Commander and you are not the President. And I don't owe either of you a damned explanation for anything.

According to the "articles", democracy ruled the Colonies. Not Adama or the Admirals.

Last episode, democracy decided that Cylons had no right to board ships without the Captain's permission.

While Adama preserved an oath to his Cylon buddies...he didn't see fit to defend his oath to Colonial democracy.

According to Lee own words, Adama is no longer in command, & the rebellion doesn't owe anyone "a damned explanation for anything".

Sic Semper Tyrannis

___________


Anonymous asked:
Can anyone piece together who's on what side?


No imagination on the writers part.

Every major character is opposed to Gaeta's uprising.
Only minor & faceless characters support Gaeta.

Pro-Cylon (all major characters):
- Adama
- Lee
- Kara
- Roslin
- Helo
- Baltar
- Romo
- Tyrol, Tigh, Anders, Athena etc.

Anti-Cylon (all minor characters):
- Gaeta
- Zarek
- Nacho
- Nurse
- Some marines
- Sons of Ares (Connors)

___________


Anonymous asked:
Specifically, who's grabbing Starbuck and yelling at her halfway through? And who is Helo knocking out?


No one grabs Starbuck.
It's Anders who gets grabbed & hooded.

Adama yells at Starbuck & pushes her.

Helo doesn't punch.
He gets punched.

Anonymous said...

I agree that legally, Zarek & Gaeta are in the right, but as an audience member, I realize that the alliance idea carries some weight as well. What's wrong is that Laura & Bill & Lee have all checked out of the political process and just want to rule by martial law. If Lee would only reinstall the pair that he seemed to have grown in Revelations, and present a few ideas to the quorum and the people, they could have avoided bloodshed.

I also agree that the audience is being manipulated into seeing Gaeta as a baddie, when he clearly is not. Zarek, otoh, is really only out for himself. He just happens to have the law on his side on this one. He isn't any better than Adama, as he himself says, but that's hardly a ringing endorsement.

Anonymous said...

Howie Mandel will be guest-starring in episode 20.

Anonymous said...

And another thing...I just don't get why the tyllium ship thing happened at all. Why would the cylons try to install FTL drives there before their conditions had been met? Their citizenship was still up in the air at best, yet there they were trying to board a RTF ship. Huh?

ProgGrrl said...

I though Zarek was behind the whole tyllium ship thing...it had nothing to do with the cylons offering their better FTL tech in exchange for citizenship.

radii said...

ever see those Maypole dances kids do in the British Isles sometimes (or better yet, rent the original The Wicker Man ['73] and see it there in its true pagan glory) where they interweave their strands between the other kids as they wrap the pole with what ends up a woven tapestry? Well the BSG writers have attempted to do that with their story threads for the finish but it seems a couple of kids (plotlines) got out-of-sync and the pattern is a bit disjointed now ... could end up a mess or maybe they pull it off and it looks spectacular

Anonymous said...

I thought they jumped away because they were being boarded by cylons. They called Zarek because the law of refusal that the quorum had enacted was being violated, and he advised them to jump. But perhaps I need to watch it again.

In any case, the whole thing is being rushed. I don't quite understand why it's so important to use cylon technology, especially since the one baseship they have required a Colonial raptor's FTL drives just to get to the fleet. When and how did the cylons fix their own FTL drives, let alone have the resources to upgrade every ship in the RTF? And would the Colonial ships need hybrids now to jump their ships?

I really don't think this storyline was well thought out.

ProgGrrl said...

IDK, they've had a few weeks now to fix their FTL drive on the wounded baseship. Totally doable. I've only seen the ep once so I'm missing some of the details obviously.

Anonymous said...

Ashoka, I don't think that's Lee's position anymore. Remember his speech during Baltar's trial?

We make our own laws now; our own justice. And we've been pretty creative in finding ways to let people off the hook for everything from theft to murder. And we've had to be, because...because we're not a civilization anymore. We are a gang, and we are on the run, and we have to fight to survive. We have to break rules. We have to bend laws. We have to improvise.

I think most of the main characters are on the Cylon Alliance side not because the showrunners are uncreative, but because the experiences they've had throughout the series have sort of all led them to the position Lee laid out in that speech. But the average grunt worker or soldier, as well as the average fleet member, was so far from all that action that they are really still in the position the main characters had been in at the very beginning of the series: terrified of all Cylons, expecting the Articles of Colonization to actually mean something, and still seeing in an Us vs. Them mentality.

What's ironic is that Gaeta should know better by now, and I think Zarek does know better.

Anonymous said...

"No imagination on the writers part.

Every major character is opposed to Gaeta's uprising.
Only minor & faceless characters support Gaeta."

Obviously Tyrol, Tigh, Anders, Athena, etc. will be pro-cylon, considering they are cylons. Baltar, Helo, and Kara are either in love with or married to Cylons. It has nothing to do with being a major character, but more to do with character history.

Anonymous said...

I think the matter doesn't concern the oath to democracy anymore.

The last time Adama respected the said democracy and the choice of the people about their president, he must have regret following his ideal and bitterly -very bitterly-. It cost him Pegasus and more than 6 000 souls.

Add Lee speech about creating your own rules, and I think you can get the picture here.

Adama isn't willing anymore to respect the democraty at the detriment of what he thinks it's the better for the future. His Oath is to protect humanity and brings them home... Not playing old rules..

Adama is seing the Big Picture upgrade (teh cylon can help after all the death...) and leave the hatred behind.

Mark Sonntag said...

My money is on Anders being bumped off. It can't be Lee because of footage that we see in one of the extra features on the Season 4 dvd showing Adama in a ruined CIC calling to Apollo over the radio.

Anonymous said...

For those of you who responded...
I think many of you missed the point.

Someone called Gaeta a "traitor".
The implication being that Gaeta was betraying his original oath to the Colonials.

My S1 quote wasn't about Lee-worship. It to make clear WHAT Gaeta's ORIGINAL OATH actually was.

That original oath, as explained by Lee, gave them their ranks & arms. It made it quite clear that their purpose was to act on BEHALF of Colonial democracy. Not against it.

I was just pointing out...
Who is Gaeta betraying?

Yes, he maybe betraying Ayatollah Adama's Iranian-style democracy.

But he's not betraying his oath to Colonial democracy. He's the only person lifting a finger to defend it.

___


However, let me point out that I agree with many of you.

Only the "Adama Gang" are making convincing arguments (more speed, power, HO! HO! HO!). They're portrayed as upstanding & rational. I'm not surprised 99% of the audience sides with them.

Meanwhile, Gaeta & Zarek are portrayed as bitter & corrupt. They never made the calm & rational arguments against Tyrol's proposal:
http://forums.scifi.com/index.php?showtopic=2322932

It's yet another example of writers bias on display.

It can't be that noble & pragmatic people would disagree with the "Adama Gang".

It always has to be some kind of crazy, like Cain/Jahee/Garner/Sesha/Phalen/Bulldog etc.

Anonymous said...

To Ashoka Raza.

I can see what you want to tell. There are a lot of strong conviction both sides.

Even yours is largely sided with the anti-alliance. It's clear because you refer to Adama with near insulting terms.

I think the episode did a good job not showing an evil side and a good side.

Both factions are valid arguments and both factions handled the situation the wrong way.

You can dismiss Adama history here, and the way the last time he imposed the rules and the play of democraty, this very respect paid him and Colonial in a painful way. Add he doesn't trust and doesn't want to deal with Zarek...


But,I'm from a country that was at odds and at war with another country during more than one thousand years. I'm really happy that somewhere and sometimes there were people who can let hatred behind to end thses wars...

For me, even if the way to handle the situation is very poorly done (thanks to Lee ADama, when it was the time to go after Roslin he could do that, and now, pff...)I do think Adama he seing the big picture and he is right (upgrade, alliance, restrat, leave hatred behind). Becsaue Hate and mistrust lead to conflicts.

Thsi cycle has to end.

The Oath was more to protect the people than to follow rule and even a pseudo-leader who is betraying..(Zarek encouraging treason and deloyalty is betrayal)

When I made my Oath, it was done to my country first and its people, not to a person. ANd as ranking officer I do have a duty to loyalty to my people.

One question.

So, according to your view, Adama is worth airlocking ?

Anonymous said...

laet-v said: The Oath was more to protect the people than to follow rule and even a pseudo-leader

That's wrong, on both a factual & moral basis.

On a factual basis, Lee said that the oath called on the military to respect & protect Colonial laws. Since those laws were created by the Quorum, Adama cannot violate them. Adama's been in violation of his oath ever since he made that corrupt deal with Roslin ("it's a military decision").

On a moral basis, you're calling for tyranny. When democracy does something you don't like...you can ignore it & take power by force.

Julius Caesar & Sadaam Hussein send you their regards!

___________


laet-v said: "I think the episode did a good job not showing an evil side and a good side."

It clearly did not.

On the one hand, we had angry & shady characters like Gaeta & Zarek.
On the other hand, we had cool & good-guy characters like Helo & Adama.

Gaeta was mean & bitter. He blamed Starbuck for his missing leg. And in the webisodes, he was angry because ONE CYLON lied to him.
Zarek was too shady. He made a vague speech about freedom, without a proper explanation. Then the show portrayed him as a corrupt politician.

Meanwhile, Helo/Lee/Bill were allowed to make rational & clear arguments about the benefits to the fleet. None of them were tainted by hate or devious intentions.

Is this fair or balanced?

FOX NEWS sends their regards!

____________


laet-v asked: "So, according to your view, Adama is worth airlocking?"

No.
Given his actions, he should be arrested. If he resists, force is justifiable.

But if captured, he should get a trial. Lee can try to set another tyrant free.

Ramsey Clark sends his regards!

Anonymous said...

Ashoka: I know there are quite a few (vocal) people who have developed some dislike for Gaeta/Zarek now, but imho, both parties, Gaeta/Zarek and Adama/Roslin/Lee&co. have been portrayed rather balanced in terms of good & bad.

As an audience member I absolutely get where Gaeta and Zarek are coming from and I absolutely see the mistakes Adama & co. are making. There is no black and white on this show and all those people who think of Gaeta/Zarek is the evil force, have apparently not made an effort to understand their intentions. But it certainly was portrayed well on the show.