Video from Canada

SevorTB provides the Canadian promo for Deadlock.

By the way, The Battlestar Wiki has a good run down of the full BSG historical timeline, now incorporating what we've learned about the 13th colony and the final 5.

Three Hours for Daybreak

As we've noted before, the finale of Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak" will run the length of 3 episodes, as confirmed by Cinemablend and TV Squad, part one will air on March 13th, with the final 2 hours airing together on March 20th.

Someday this war's gonna end...

--Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore.

The Existentialism of No Exit Reviews

The House Next Door:

No Exit,” written by Ryan Mottesheard and directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton, both newcomers to the BSG writing and directing game, is ALL infodump. It’s like one, long episode of those two characters sitting around and talking about why things are the way they are. Surprisingly enough, it works much, much better than this sort of thing has any right to work.

Tim Goodman:

Who knew that a bullet in the brain could release so much info. Nice, Sam. I had all but written him off as irrelevant and publicly wished that "BSG" had taken a more realistic twist by having him go down hard as a casualty of war - random shot to the head/neck, no big speeches, just death. It's what happens. Let the others tell the story. Well, now I'm glad that didn't happen. It would have been stark and cool and unexpected, but having Sammy Boy flap his gums so much about what he remembered from way back was a lot of fun. To wit: The Final Five all punched the clock together. Just like "The Office," only not. Tyrol and Tory, sitting in a tree...OK, that was childish. But those two? Really? Hmmmm. I loved how Tyrol - now officially back to "Chief" thanks to Adama - kind of chuckled at the thought and Tory looked like she threw up in her mouth. The heretofore mysterious 7th Cylon is named Daniel (in the Lion's Den?) and as Ellen squares off with her "son" Cavil (oh, yeah, that too) we learn Daniel was a sensitive boy and evil Cavil basically neutered the line. He's a bastard, that 1. Boxing up and killing off and yelling and - hey, don't talk to your mother like that!

Alan Sepinwall:

Now, there's almost no point in analyzing "No Exit" as an episode of drama. There are dramatic moments in it (Sam's seizure, Boomer helping Ellen escape), but it's largely an info-dump -- or, as Mo Ryan put it, a download directly into each viewers' brain -- so that we can stop asking many of our questions(*) and start pondering the philosophical and practical implications of all this knowledge.

Other reviews and recaps from: Onion A.V. Club, Entertainment Weekly, L.A. Times, Show Patrol, io9, North By Northwestern, Buddy TV, TV Squad, Hitfix, Matt & Nat's BSG Cast, IGN, Mike Murphy of the Press Democrat, Richard Vine in The Guardian, Cinemablend, John Keegan for MediaBlvd, Jim Connelly recaps No Exit, with a flowchart, Kelly West for Cinemablend wonders about Number Seven, Daniel. In The Huffington Post, Mike Ragogna laments the looming end of BSG, and Sam J. Miller has a 25 word review of No Exit.

Geek Sugar has a No Exit quiz.

ATROPOS.EXE lays out the backstory of No Exit.

No Exit and Dollhouse were hits on iTunes.

Edited to add: Televisionary gets to the bottom of the BSG-Sartre connection.

Situation Report

A ton of interviews and news items....

Richard Huff of The Daily News spoke to Kate Vernon. Rick Bentley of McClatchy Newspapers talked to Vernon and Ron Moore.

Tahmoh Penikett has been doing lots of press to promote BSG's final eps, and the debut of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. He talked to Timeout Chicago, Zap2It, and the Boston Herald.

Kat Angus of Canwest News Service interviewed Katee Sackhoff about the end of BSG and the beginning of Lost and Found. (And Starbuck makes a top ten list.)

Jamie Bamber reflects on the end of BSG and promotional photos of his work on Law And Order: London are online via pu5h1n6_da15135 of the BSG LJ blog.

Aaron Douglas spoke to io9 about the final 5 cylons, and the the endgame for the series. (No spoilers.)

Kandyse McClure talked to MediaBlvd Magazine about her end on Battlestar Galactica, and her new work on Children of the Corn, and other projects.

Galactica TV has recent interviews with Grace Park, Jane Espenson, Nicki Clyne and Micheal Tayles.

Dean Stockwell is scheduled to appear at the upcoming Leap Back Quantum Leap Convention in Los Angeles, California, March 27-29, 2009 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Quantum Leap.

Other news and notes: Kevin Smith mentioned BSG at a talk at Ohio State University... Battlestar Galactica leads in shout-outs on other TV shows (like The Office.) ...Dvice's Steampunk Cylon contest continues... Viper cars, and bento boxes...

Upcoming comic books continue the story of BSG and Cylon history, in Ghosts and Cylon War.

Paley Fest Info.

The PaleyFest unveiled their lineup for this years events:

The Paley Center for Media will present the twenty-sixth annual William S. Paley Television Festival (PaleyFest09) from April 10 to 23, 2009, at the historic Cinerama Dome at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood with a special closing night presentation at The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills on April 24. This year's Festival will feature three PaleyFest "firsts"—the first festival event to honor new media property, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog; the first public PaleyFest event held at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills, the special closing night presentation celebrating Swingtown; and the first to premiere the last three unseen episodes of Pushing Daisies.

Battlestar Galactica/Caprica
Evening Sponsor: Microsoft Zune
Monday, April 20 at 7:00 p.m.
In Person: David Eick (Executive Producer), Ronald D. Moore (Executive Producer). Additional panelists to be announced.

Scenes from Deadlock

Video from SevorTB and Michael Ausiello Entertainment Weekly.

Answers

Mo Ryan has posted BSG writers Ryan Mottesheard's and Jane Espenson's, answers to readers questions about No Exit.

No Exit (Hulu)

No Exit on Hulu:


No Exit recap:


The intro from No Exit:

Cylon Intrigue

The new David Eick video blog explores the nature of Cylons and the real development of Posthumans is pondered.

From Jimmy Kimmel Live, Tricia Helfer:

Promo for Deadlock

Preview of the next episode, Deadlock:


Via SevorTB.

Bear McCreary interviews the final five Cylons, part one, of two part interview series with the actors, Aaron Douglas, Michael Trucco, and Rekha Sharma. Next week Bear will post his interview with Michael Hogan and Kate Vernon.

Open Thread: #417 No Exit

Please read our spoiler policy before you post on the open threads.

Past 4.5 open threads can be found in the index on our blogroll rightside column. If you know of other fun sites or forums that are having lively non-spoilery episode discussions, please feel free to post links here as well.

Episode 417: No Exit
Written by Ryan Mottesheard
Directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton

Mo Ryan of the Chicago Tribune reports:

After the episode airs tonight, I will post my thoughts on "No Exit." I'll also post some of the burning questions that I was left with after the episode ended.

But here's where you come in -- I'd like to hear your burning questions too.

Ryan Mottesheard, a writer for "Battlestar Galactica," and Jane Espenson, a co-executive producer on the Sci Fi show, have kindly agreed to answer our questions about "No Exit." I will post that interview Sunday evening.

Here's how it will work. Once my "No Exit" post is up, you may leave your questions in the comment area on that post. It would help if you put your questions in the first part of your comment, preceded by the word "QUESTION" in all caps.

You may also email your questions to me at my Tribune email address, moryan@tribune.com. Please put the words "Battlestar question" in the subject line, if you would be so kind.

So, after you watch No Exit, head over to The Watcher to leave your questions there.


Photos via dryope

Mark Verheiden on Writing

On his blog, BSG co-exec producer Mark Verheiden reveals some insights into the process of writing for Battlestar Galactica:

There's been some discussion in the ether about how shows evolve, occasionally punctuated with the criticism that the writers and producers are "making it up as they go." That meme strikes me as bizarre. Of course we make it up as we go, that's what writing is all about. In the case of BSG we always had a destination in mind, but there was plenty of room for inspiration and mid-course correction, based on a myriad of factors.

A small case in point occurred during the breaking and writing of the episodes "Oath" and "Blood On The Scales." While writing the script for "The Oath", it struck me that it might be interesting/dramatic if one of our main characters suffered a dramatic set-back in the course of the mutiny. The moment wasn't in the outline, but as I was writing I considered adding a beat where Col. Tigh was shot and badly wounded during the scene when he and Adama confront the Marines escorting them to the brig.

Sometimes on BSG you could just give this sort of thing a try, but blasting a character like Tigh had ramifications for other episodes (obviously), so I checked in with Ron Moore before actually doing it. He understood the impulse to up the tension and to create even more stakes for Adama, but he felt Tigh had been through so much (eyeball gouged out, poisoned own wife, discovered he was a Cylon) that shooting him would have been overkill. But the idea of having one of the final five seriously wounded? That idea stuck...

And so poor Samuel T. Anders wound up being "shot in the cabeza" (as the scene was described in the writer's room) in "Blood On The Scales." And that plot development... well, now we're getting into spoilers for episodes that haven't aired yet.

Read Mark's full post on how stories evolved on BSG.

Mark also notes that the film that he wrote, MY NAME IS BRUCE is now available on DVD and Blu-ray, so check it out.

Clip from No Exit + Helfer Info.

h/t SevorTB.

Also of note: Tricia Helfer is scheduled to appear on Friday's Jimmy Kimmel Live, Friday the 13th at 12:05 a.m. on ABC. (Thanks for the tip, jenforthewin.)

Aloha

Hello frakheads...as I am departing for Hawaii today for a week vacation, just wanted to pop over and say that I probably won't be seeing the show right away tomorrow. (::gasp::) And I probably won't be here for all the chatting on the open thread. Logan will handle it.

Below are a few things I just had to share on my way out of the continent.

A very special, unofficial SciFi Grrl-Powered Friday Block starts tomorrow -- an ethereal 6-week period (from now through the end of BSG's airdates, sigh) that includes the following shows back-to-back every Friday night:

8:00 p.m. - TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES (Fox), featuring BSG expats Toni Graphia, Stephanie Jacobsen, and BSG fanboy Josh Friedman (showrunner). Their spines don't glow, but this show has got some pretty tremendous femmebots.

9:00 p.m. - DOLLHOUSE (Fox), featuring BSG expats Jane Espenson, Tahmoh Penikett, and Mark Sheppard (who apparently will appear as soon as the second episode), and BSG fanboy Joss Whedon (co-creator). Programmable ladies? We know our programmable ladies over here at Sitrep.

10:00 p.m. - BSG. If you still haven't had your fill of women with guns, emo lawmen, ethically-challenged scientists, badassery, living on the edge of armageddon, and robot powerplays by the time our show has ended at 11 tonight...well...I really don't know what to do for you.


Frak me...am I dreaming this?




The SciFi.com schedulebot has what seems to be the final schedule for the season finale on March 20th. Apparently the rest of BSG's air dates are happening just as fans had hoped, with no breaks from now to the end:

Feb 13
417: No Exit
[Also note SciFi is running a marathon of all season 4.0 eps beginning at 8am tomorrow morning.]

Feb 20
418: Deadlock

Feb 27
419: Someone to Watch Over Me

March 6
420: Islanded In A Stream Of Stars

March 13
421: Daybreak Part 1

March 20
422: Daybreak Parts 2 & 3

Enjoy the ride.

TVWeek: What shows on TV do you have to watch?
Joss Whedon: “Battlestar Galactica” is back on, so, you know, life is worth living again.

Salon: Along with "Buffy" expat Eliza Dushku, you have "Battlestar Galactica" star Tahmoh Penikett in "Dollhouse." Are you a Galactica obsessive? 

Joss Whedon: Um, I think obsessive is too light a word. I absolutely adore it. It's my favorite show ever. Come on, it's "The West Wing" with space battles. It covers all of my needs. I watch their storytelling and go, "Oh, so that's how it's done. Fuck."

Videos

What if BSG had been a '80's sitcom:

By Erin Murray of the Picture Review.

And Adalla001 of BSG Pilots provides an homage to Gaius Baltar:

Blood. Scales. Reviews.

For Time James Poniewozik writes:

Who Felix Gaeta is, and what this two-part story showed him to be, speaks to some of the things that make BSG so great. The show could have made him Zarek's craven toady or a slimy power-grabber, but we see—even while sharing Adama's revulsion for him—that he's finally a principled man too.

He may be morally weak (as we saw on New Caprica as well), he may be misguided, and he may be out of hiss depth, but he carries out his coup out of a genuine feeling that the fleet has gone wrong. And unlike his co-conspirator, it's important to him to do it in (as he sees it) the right way, getting justice rather than just grabbing power. Thus he insists on a trial, and thus he recoils when he realizes what Zarek has done to the Quorum.

And yet, rather than take the expected easy way out—having Gaeta see the error of his ways and turn on Zarek, redeeming himself at last—he sticks to his guns. He would rather fail than do things Zarek's way (he would probably have succeeded if he had done things Zarek's way), but that doesn't mean he stops believing in his original goal. Instead, he goes down, faces the firing squad and—in a final moment worthy of Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities—looks down at his leg and experiences one last second feeling whole and painless before he dies.

Richard Vine writing for The Guardian reviews The Oath and Blood on the Scales:

There's a definite sense that without the promise of Earth, there's little left to hold them together, that the same gnawing sense of the impossible bleakness and blankness of space that pushed Dualla over the edge has left them without anything but fear and hate to hold on to...

...Kelly's line about the Battlestar being "a helluva ship once" is beautifully affecting, suggesting that for many in the mutiny, it's simply that the journey has gone too far for them, that they can't understand who to back now that there's a Cylon ship bang in the middle of the colonial fleet.

Even minor characters like Kelly get to have convincing emotional journeys on BSG. He was third in command of the ship, tried to blow up Baltar and Romo Lampkin during Baltar's trial and here spends the episode wrestling with his conscience after the political bloodbath, eventually turning on the turncoats and backing up Lee and the gang.

Instead of a final meal, Gaeta gets a last smoke with Baltar. After all this time faking religious insight, he's now assumed, however inadvertently, some of the aura of a priest hearing a last confession – with Gaeta's "please, no religion" line only serving to drive home the irony, and how far these two have come together. Gaeta's reflections on his life is both proud and sad, the last words from a man who can see how far he came – and how far he didn't. "I discovered science and thought I was really, really good at it, until I met you …" The broken, half-smile on Zarek's face as he nods to Gaeta before Adama turns his firing squad on them is the perfect epitaph for their half-arsed coup, but for once, it's Baltar who offers the show's most moving line: "I know who you are Felix. I know who you are."

How does Edward James Olmos get his voice so low? It's like he speaks through a THX sub-woofer. When he throws down his Admiral's pins and growls at Gaeta, "Admiral? Admiral? You're the Admiral now, so you call up Roslin and make her laugh…" you can feel the whole ship rumble. He's just as terrifying when he doesn't speak, staring out the mutineers, daring them to maintain their ill-thought out position.

Alan Sepinwall:

There's a part of me that watches an episode like "Blood on the Scales" -- which managed to be even more moving and shocking and bad-ass than last week's "The Oath," which I didn't think was possible -- and recognizes that so much of what makes it brilliant is only possible because the show is coming to an end and the writers can throw caution to the wind. But there's a part of me that watches an episode like this and despairs at the thought of a TV universe without "Battlestar Galactica," because... well, you almost don't need me to tell you why this one was brilliant, do you?

But, really, I could pick out so many moments from this hour as illustrative of the show's greatness.

What about Baltar's confession to his latest Six conquest that he always runs away, and that maybe he's tired of it? I'm a little disappointed to get confirmation that Baltar was faking it the entire time with the cult, but James Callis sold me on Gaius' reversion to form, and then on his attempt to break his familiar pattern.

What about Tigh and Adama's bromantic moment after Lee and Saul saved Bill from the firing squad? Bill and Saul's exchange -- "They told me you were dead." "For a while, I was." -- is the sort of thing you might hear from reunited lovers at the end of some '50s melodrama, but Edward James Olmos and Michael Hogan made it entirely about the respect, trust, and, yes, love that these two comrades-in-arms share.

What about the image of Adama leading an ever-gathering army of supporters through the decks of the ship, until they overran Gaeta's people in the CIC like a swarm? No speeches necessary at that point; the image of the crowd, and the resolve on Olmos' face, was all that was needed to generate still more goose bumps.

And what about virtually every Gaeta moment throughout the hour, but particularly his final coffee with Baltar? As others have said, Gaeta was the perfect man to lead this failed coup, because of where he'd been when the miniseries began, and all the betrayals that we'd seen him suffer, and Alessandro Juliani did a masterful job of making you understand, if not agree with, Felix's point of view, even as he freed Zarek, enabled the Pegasus goons to arrest and terrorize Helo's family, ordered the death of both Adama and Roslin, etc. And how frakking brilliant was he in that coffee scene? Michael Angeli, who wrote this episode, told Mo Ryan that he hoped that scene would briefly fool people into thinking that Felix would get a pass for it all. I was never fooled, and, in fact, the scene worked much better for how obvious Juliani made it that Felix knew he was going to die soon, and how at peace he was with it.

Tim Goodman for the San Francisco Chronicle:

With six episodes left, things are tight alright. But here's what I like about "Blood On the Scales." There was resolution. The deepening evil of Zarek (the craving for absolute power) pushed him to wanton murder and created even more friction with the treacherous Gaeta, whose mutiny-leading gets ever-more complicated as events fray. And they did fray, thanks in large part to Lee, Starbuck and - best of all - Tyrol. I know there's lots to ponder over when considering exactly how bad Gaeta is (was there good there? Is being conflicted in the face of being evil an admirable trait that changes the opinions of others? If you do what you believe in, does that make you worthy of reconsideration, a reduction in the harsh judgment, even if what you believed to be right was actually wrong?) but I think the Tyrol storyline was more nuanced. Here's a guy SERIOUSLY conflicted, who doesn't truly know who or what he is, where his motivation and loyalties rest. But he reacts in this episode based on the pre-Cylon knowledge. He acts to help friends. To save the ship. And I love his minor ode to the good times aboard the good ship Galactica that ultimately saves his ass and allows him to stop the jump, buying time to save Adama and Tigh and even Roslin. That's hard to undervalue.

Todd VanDerWerff The House Next Door:

...As this episode went on, it managed to accumulate a certain power and a certain horror all its own. Despite the predictability of the moment, Adama marching through the ship and gathering supporters at every turn, only to overwhelm the CIC with his new army was a surprisingly poignant moment, trading in all of the goodwill we have for the old man and the folks who stayed steadfast at his side, including Tigh (Michael Hogan) and his son, Lee (Jamie Bamber). The Adama/Lee relationship has often felt more strained that it probably should be, as if the producers have always felt that Olmos’ and Bamber’s easygoing chemistry needed some fairly rote father issues tossed into the mix, but seeing the two reunited in episodes like this one and “The Oath” still packs a somewhat primal power.


The best work of the episode, on both the part of the actor and the writers, goes to Gaeta, though, who is given a somewhat predictable arc of having regrets but manages to make it somehow eerily redemptive—a redemption arc for a character who didn’t really need one, arrived at through having the character carry out very grave sins. Juliani plays Gaeta’s growing guilty conscience mostly silent, framed in tight close-ups by Rose, who seems to trust the actor’s face (Juliani doesn’t let him down, for the most part). Gaeta’s been waiting for a redemption for quite some time now, and he’s been acting out in some very interesting ways to get there, from leaving secrets to the New Caprica resistance to stabbing Baltar in the neck to perjuring himself to make sure Baltar would be executed (didn’t work), and that most of his attempts to win that redemption have come through doing very bad things is one of the show’s more sly commentaries on the natures of sacrifice and heroism.

Gaeta’s attempt to win redemption through the mutiny are unfounded, he suddenly realizes, but he tries to keep up the pretenses, tossing together a sham trial for Adama and trying to spare more bloodshed before his actions finally catch up with him. The resigned look on Gaeta’s face as Adama returns to seize control of the ship says it all, even as he realizes it will mean his end. The final two scenes, featuring Gaeta discussing his long-ago dreams of being an architect (fond of restaurants shaped like food) and then facing down a firing squad, suddenly realizing that the pain in his missing leg has disappeared (a bit writerly as a psychological device, but it worked so well here that I’ll allow it), an instant before he dies, were both intensely moving, and that’s saying something for a character who was a little ill-defined in the build-up to this arc. The best kind of character development on TV is that which throws seemingly disconnected actions by a character in the past into a new kind of relief, and these moments clarified much of Gaeta’s arc in Seasons Three and Four.

Brad Trechak for TV Squad:

Despite knowing how Gaeta and Zarek's treachery was going to end, it was still interesting to see how it got there. You could see control slowly slipping through the fingers of the two men. Zarek was an ignorant, arrogant nutjob with only a tenuous grasp of reality, but Gaeta struck me more as a good officer who went through some bad times but at his core was still decent and honorable (and kudos to Alessandro Juliani for pulling that off convincingly. Another winner of my own personal Emmys). When Baltar met with him, it took me a moment to realize that it was for his last rites. I also liked how his itching stopped the moment before he and Zarek were executed, as if his conscience were cleared.

Jevon Phillips in the L.A. Times writes:

The insurgency, and Gaeta's misguided attempt at justice, was a great way to reignite the fires that were a bit dormant at the cores of a lot of the characters. Roslin's leadership, Adama's toughness, Baltar's instability, Tigh's loyalty, Zarek's shiftiness, Tyrol's resourcefulness and Lee's soldiering and devotion to his dad were all qualities that caused us to follow this show unflinchingly.

Other recaps and reviews from Kelly West for Cinema Blend, Adam B. Vary in Entertainment Weekly, Jim Connelly for Screen Junkies, 411Mania, Sam J. Miller's 25 Word Review, Zap2It, Science Fiction Stuff, a recap quiz from Geek Sugar, Mania.com, Hitfix, i09 and Buddy TV.

There Will Be Blood on the Scales

Enhanced with Ron Moore's commentary.

Olmos Gives Back

Actor Edward James Olmos talks about his 40 years in the film industry, about being a Latino actor, the success of Battlestar Galactica and the importance of giving back to communities, on the Dec. 26, 2008 program of "Conversations" on KCTS, PBS channel 9 in Seattle, Washington.


From the Columbia Missourian:

Actor Edward James Olmos of “Battlestar Galactica” and “Miami Vice” fame will speak on March 10 at Columbia College Located in Columbia, Missouri as a part of the Schiffman Lecture Series.

His lecture, titled “Ethics in Hollywood,” will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Launer Auditorium and will be free and open to the public.“

This year, we asked about the moral responsibility that a filmmaker has to society,” said Anthony Alioto, professor and Schiffman Endowed Chair in ethics, philosophy and religious studies at Columbia College. “Given the profound influence of movies in our society, including such things as values, we looked for a speaker who not only acted but also directed and produced, and was a community activist outside the profession.”

Olmos has garnered numerous honors for his work, including a Tony Award nomination for his performance in the musical play "Zoot Suit", an Oscar nomination for his role in the film "Stand and Deliver," and a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination for HBO’s documentary "The Burning Season."

Aside from his successful acting career, Olmos has actively participated in giving back to the community.

Olmos is also involved in a number of humanitarian organizations. He is a U.S. Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, a national spokesperson for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and the executive director of the Lives in Hazard Education Project, a national program that works to prevent gangs.

Also, Edward James Olmos was in Salinas, California recently to help raise money for the Boys and Girls Club:


Eddie also had been in Washington D.C. for the inaugural:


Another Farmers Insurance ad:


Concluding this Olmos homage:

Helfer on Bonnie Hunt Show

[If you're interested in reading more about Tricia's off-the-grid home-building project, see TriciaGreen.com.]

Helfer on Chuck