Monday, January 12, 2009

Webisode 10 (Hulu & YouTube) - Open Thread

The final webisode is up.

This is also an open thread to discuss the entire webisode series. Knock yerselves out...but keep our spoiler policy in mind please. I'll be posting my thoughts a bit later today here in the comments.





Plus, Webisode 9 with Writer Commentary:


By the way if you still need to watch all 10 webisodes, follow our tagged posts to see all the links.

21 comments:

Greg said...

I "Cheated" and watched this on Amazon.com...still it is a heck of an end to a heck of a series...

from this series, what I got was that a) Felix is an idealist, and those are the people who get the most upset when they realize things are not ideal - i.e. like when he was going to shoot baltar on New Caprica after working for him and b) the Cylons aren't any different than they were before, as witnessed by Gaeta-8's indifference to life and willingness to murder all the others to save herself (and gaeta).

it's also clear they're setting up a final conflict of sorts, and once again Felix is going to be playing multiple sides. I can't decide if he's as honest as he says/thinks, or if he's as shady as one of the cylons....

Grant Gould said...

I gotta admit, I thought this was the weakest of the webisode series.. I enjoyed the "Young Adama" and "Resistance" ones a lot more.

But it was still quality stuff.. All of the actors did a great job I thought.

Can't wait for friday! :)

autumnmist said...

I disagree with Greg about point b... all we know from this is that Gaeta-Eight does not hold the lives of others (human or Cylon) in particularly high regard. This tells us nothing about the other cylons.

I think that this is simply setting up the Fall of Gaeta which will be sad and heartbreaking for us fans because for a long time, he was the pure, idealist in the show. The Powers That Be have been setting this up ever since he lied during Baltar's trial. Losing his leg followed by this incident will tip him over the edge.

Freek said...

I'm guessing he goes to talk to Zarek to destroy the alliance. Then Zarek goes to far hence the shot in the trailer.

Michael J Mahoney said...

I think that 1) This 8 seems to be a radical departure from the rest of the line... Most of the 8's are not this callous and conniving.

2) I find it significant that apparently within six days of the discovery of earth, Tigh is back in CIC as XO, especially in light of the clue on SciFi with him and Adama. Now, maybe this was a matter of convienience for the producers of the webisodes, but it will still have to jive with what happens in the series.

One will have to wonder if there will be any ramifications to the fact that Felix went into a Raptor with a bunch of people and was the only one to come out alive.

The Avatar of Blue! said...

Michael Mahoney said: "2) I find it significant that apparently within six days of the discovery of earth, Tigh is back in CIC as XO, especially in light of the clue on SciFi with him and Adama. Now, maybe this was a matter of convienience for the producers of the webisodes, but it will still have to jive with what happens in the series."

Well, is it was said in the last aired episode, Acting President Adama granted all of the Cylons an amnesty, so he'd be free to return to his normal duties afterward.

Anonymous said...

Here's what I don't get. Where is the fleet going? Why does Ty say that cylon equipment is keeping the fleet going...going where? Am I missing something? Did they not find earth? Have they left or been chased away?

Captain Incredible said...

Why would the Eight be so keen to keep Gaeta alive if she held human life in such small regard?

Why is he so important?

Is this a Leoben/Kara thing, or a Raider/Anders thing, maybe?

I found it here, by the way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkNAzJDYxF0

Anonymous said...

I have a nasty feeling we are reading too much into things based on these webisodes.

Methinks that our Dearest Jane wrote them in what can only be described as splendid isolation. To her they are a little play she has put together at the behest of SciFi where she can show how wonderfully she can craft 10 act mini-dramas.

Take the Tigh/Gaeta scene in Webisode 10. We're all thinking about the whys and wherefores of this, yet all it boils down to is the principle character, Gaeta, getting a debrief from an authority figure (meant to be the Old Man, but as EJO was awol filming/directing we have Col Tigh). A nice dramatic round-off to the story. A little rewrite to customise the dialogue for Tigh (Gaeta's comment about Tigh being a cylon and wanting to talk to Adama instead etc) and there you are.

I really don't think we can read anything more into it than that. No doubt season 4.5 (already in the can when this was being written) will show us the whole aftermath of Tigh's outing and if/how/why he keeps his lapel pins, along with all those other burning questions these 10 episodes touched on... like why are we away from Earth already!

Let's not forget that in Jane's bizarre take on continuity we've had the War Room all of a sudden become the CIC, Cylons holidaying in the fleet, and an attempt to have Raptor pilots no longer wear helmets in flight anymore just because she thinks it gets in the way of her storytelling.

I really don't think she's given much thought as to how anything in the Webisodes plays out in the general BSG storyline as it progresses from season 4.0 to 4.5, so in that spirit neither should we.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous
The fleet isn't going anywhere but it's important to remember that Earth is just as irradiated as Caprica is. No one is going to be setting up camp on the surface unless they have the facilities to mass produce anti-radiation drugs.

When Tigh talks about cylon tech enabling the fleet to keep going he means that it enables them to continue to keep life support functioning and maintain their orbit.

Although you're right that we don't actually see Earth. Maybe it's a case of forgetfulness or wrong angles or it could be that the fleet is jumping to avoid Cavil. In any case the webisodes take place after "Sometimes a Great Notion" (see last para) so who knows what's happened.

@JimmyB
The cylons weren't holidaying in the fleet - Geata was the only one on holidays - everyone else was being transferred for unknown reasons. Given that Tigh remarks that the fleet is being held together by cylon technology the cylons could easily be specialists being transferred around the fleet. The use of the wardroom as the CIC probably has more to do with sets being pulled down around their ears and he simultaneous shooting of The Plan than any continuity glitch. I also think it would be reasonable for Raptor pilots not expecting combat and lost in space to remove their helmets, if only because of discomfort.

As for the whole Tigh thing it helps if you remember that this is set after at least part, and probably all of, "Sometimes a Great Notion". You can tell this by the first "X days after the discovery of Earth" chyron, the presence of Tigh on the Battlestar and Sci Fi's sneak preview footage which shows that "Sometimes" picks up directly after the "Revelations" cliff-hanger.

byibzhin said...

What do you all suppose Jane means by "if the relationship had been with Narcho it would have continued, but as it's with Hoshi, it ends here"? Does this mean we won't be seeing Hoshi in 4.5? It did sound like Gaeta was saying goodbye to Hoshi as he went off on his mission, whatever it was.

ProgGrrl said...

OK lemme throw in here too --

I really enjoyed this series – it’s especially potent when you sit and watch all ten in a row. Haven’t listened to Jane’s commentary tracks yet.

This was a great, self-contained murder mystery that unravels into more rich Gaeta backstory and even more importantly, a fascinating new wrench in the works as we move forward. A high point for me was the Eight's speech about how you can use hope and faith to ignore the death around you, and your own complicity in it (something any Earthbound First Worlder should always consider). Also really enjoyed Gaeta's final exchange to Tigh. Where oh where, is that going to lead us, one wonders...

This takes place nine days after the discovery of "Earth" from Revelations. I assume we need to keep that in mind as the final 10 move forward.

From the perspective of someone who's heard most of the podcasts: this is a neat save as far as "recycling" the Baltar/Gaeta plot line that caused Baltar to whisper in Gaeta's ear during that flashback. If you recall RDM's descriptions of that during season 3, that plot line was discarded during the making of the previous season. But here they've used it to jump back and give Gaeta some more backstory...and sow some extra seeds of paranoia as we move forward into 4.5...

And once again, in case you’re not yet clear: you just can't trust those frakkin' fickle EIGHTS. ;)

@alex: that’s a very good question. Is Hoshi about to die? Is Gaeta about to cross a line that Hoshi won’t cross that separates them for good?

Anonymous said...

I am hoping for the best: that these "plays" penned by Jane Buffyson are just an artless, misbegotten, er, "Plan" to keep us BSG fans on the hook. To the contrary, the cheap production values, the boilerplate dialogue and the actors sleepwalking through space Ed Wood-style made me wish I'd never watched these three minute trainwrecks). But judging by her commentary and her ham-fisted portrayal of poor Mister Gaeta, she's single-handely dumped the biggest spoiler in spoiler history. For someone who professes so much love for this show, Espensen sure as frak has a funny way of showing it.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous Who Hates Jane Espenson: Jeez, tell us how you REALLY feel buddy.

"Jane Buffyson"? Seriously?

Ed Wood style? The actors suck too?

You're one of those folks who likes to keep watching stuff you don't like, just so you can sit in the cheap seats throwing rotten vegetables. Aren't you.

Anonymous said...

With a target that big, who can resist?

Anonymous said...

I loved these webisodes. I thought they were better than "The Resistance", which provided a lot of important backstory, but were far less entertaining in my opinion. I loved the Hoshi / Gaeta thing, and the reveal of what Gaius whispered in Gaeta's ear. The murder mystery didn't work as well, but it was nice to have more Gaeta backstory. I also figured out that the webisodes take place later in the season than "Sometimes a Great Notion", but that didn't upset me at all; it just made me want to see the rest of the season more. And what an interesting ending webisode - what does that mean? I can't wait to find out!

I also really enjoyed the Jane Espenson commentaries. The time she took to share with us the behind the scenes information was well spent and more than what we get in a lot of commentaries, where the commentators have forgotten what they were doing at the time and hardly speak at all. I liked hearing about how and why they chose certain actors and settings. I liked knowing that these webisodes, along with the movie "The Plan" were filmed after the series and that the sets were being torn down around them. It made me appreciate these efforts even more. They really worked on all this BSG related entertainment until the last second so that we could have answers, and I'm grateful.

And obviously I'm not the same Anonymous person who spoke above. lol

ProgGrrl said...

You guys are really quite entertaining. We will definitely be doing open threads every Friday this season.

Anonymous said...

These webisodes are the best so far, in any case better than the badass Adama vs. Machine in free fall thing.
Season 4 of BSG is already full of inconsistencies (kinda inevitable if you don't choose your cylons from the start), the webisodes don't add a lot to it.
But one thing I don't understand: Why did Gaeta become upset hearing "I know what your 8 did", when he in fact didn't know or realize what that was until this moment in the raptor?

Anonymous said...

The video is removed, any other place non US people can view the last part?

Unknown said...

Maybe it had more to do with Baltar knowing about Gaeta's collaboration with the Eight than anything else.

Or maybe it was one of those things where Gaeta knew it deep down inside but didn't get true confirmation until this moment.

I dig these webisodes simply because it does a great deal to take care of story issues that, frankly, probably aren't dealt with in the final ten episodes. Is he/isn't he on Gaeta's sexuality, the Baltar/Gaeta exchange from season three...I like that they took the time to fill in the holes somehow, even if it wasn't in the main show.

As far as webisodes go...I'm for 'em. "Resistance" was good but kind of a drag to get through, and the "Razor" webisodes were good, but I can't really dig them because a.) some of the continuity always bugged me (and plus, free-fall Cylon fight - meh) and b.) the first time I saw 'em was when they were totally and unnecessarily shoehorned into Razor, so yeah.

9 pm can't come fast enough.

Anonymous said...

Wake up and smell the webisodes! They stinketh!