Slag

Well, that was sad. For a minute I thought maybe the whole "rest of the season" thing was just a red herring and I was actually watching the series finale. But the found a way to write another chapter, even if it is a somewhat dark one.

The scene between Adama and Tigh was fantastic.

Now, now we wait until early 2009. No Lost, No BSG, No Top Chef, I think I may cancel the cable for a while.

"Jump!"

So you're watching a fairly middle of the road BSG episode and then, salvaging the entire episode in the last 10 seconds they plug in the hybrid and she says "jump!" and they're gone, poof - like when Boomer capped Adama, I bet you weren't expecting that.

Then a week later you're watching another middle of the road BSG and afterward you read a blog post where they talk about all of the mile wide plot holes there were and you're all like "hey this guy's got a point - how did Starbuck get back to being CAG?" And maybe "In what universe does Lee get appointed President of the Colonies?"

Then continuing that line of thought you say to yourself, gee, and why didn't they just pull the plug on the hybrid and make a reciprocal jump?

And then, like Ripley with Newt, you've made a clean spot and you have to do the whole thing. So you're remembering the excellent sequence the prior week when the Base Star jumped in and nearly collided with all these other ships, and quietly you start to wonder, hey, how is it that the Galactica fleet ships don't collide with each other every time they make a jump. It doesn't look very organized.

But now you've done it. Speculation like that will lead you to stat to question why all the planets on Stargate or Star Trek speak English. And then your head will start to hurt. There must be a sci-fi writer's rule about introducing a problem as a problem that usually they just ignore as a problem - can't make post jump collisions a problem without their always having been a problem.

Now I guess in this case you could argue something along the lines of that the jump calculations take into account the size of the vessel and the space it is jumping into and since they were using a Raptor computer to jump a Base Star that whatever the allowances are for volume of space there were would be off by an order of magnitude.

Geek... geek... geek...

All season on BSG it has felt to me like they are laboring through piles and piles of exposition in order to get us properly lined up for the end. This is the sort of maneuvering that lets Cara come back to CAG, makes Apollo the President, and makes Adama turn his ship over to his XO moments after their having a fistfight over Tigh's fracking a cylon. Maybe these guys should have taken a cue from the people over at Lost and given themselves two seasons to wrap things up so they could take their time (although even with the full extra season Lost feels a little bit the same, but you have to grant them that as they have a few more things to resolve).

Or maybe they did it just fine. Not like I am going to stop watching. Admiral Tigh, gods.

BSG Update

Well They Could Have Promoted That Better

Battlestar Screening - November 12

Pile-O-Books

I've fallen way behind on the book reviews (reviews in general actually - but the movie and TV shows don't physically pile up on my desk). So here's some catch up by way of a more capsule format:

Light - M. John Harrison
Ok, I will admit it, I bought this book because it has a cat on the cover. The graphic is clean and interesting and the copy on the back says something about self-aware, intelligent spacecraft and so I thought I'd give it a go. It trys to be this sort of epic scale story of humanity reaching for the stars. I guess it succeeds, but in the end I cared very little for any of the people, really didn't understand why they were doing what they did, and then to boot the worlds they moved in were fairly unengaging. There was sex and violence that didn't so much contribute, really much that seemed just for the sake of itself. It's an ok summer read, but there are lots of those.

The Cylons' Secret - Craig Shaw Gardner
I figured I'd give a Battlestar novel a chance. I've liked most of the Trek, Star Wars, and Doctor Who books I've read. This one makes it self out to be in the universe of the current TV series. If it is, it is only on deep, deep background. The only common characters are Tigh and Adama, and the story takes place prior to Adama getting his first command. So that was fairly disappointing. Overall the story is ok, a tale of a cut off research station where humans and mech Cylons have learned to live together and then the fallout of their being discovered once again. Again, fairly solid summer reading, but truthfully nothing to blog the whole internet about.

Bloodlines- Karen Travis/Betrayal - Aaron Allston
These two pretty much hang together. Yes, Val, I am one of those people with these books. These are the first two of the "Legacy of the Force" series. We're 40 years post A New Hope here. The storys center around Jacen Solo (that's Han and Leia's older son for those without a scorecard). These don't have the depth of the Thrawn books, and they don't have the pace of the X-Wing stories, but they stand on their own and are faithful and respectful to the rest of the panopticon. There's a bunch of good stuff surrounding Boba Fett's family and people. Fett is a great character, and 99% of that is from what was written after the movies. Probably the hardest thing to grasp in these books are that Luke, Mara, Han, & Leia are now in their late 50's. Try as I might, I just can't picture them that old - and based on some of the physical things they do I think the author's might have the same issue.

Allegiance - Timothy Zahn
I have really thoroughly enjoyed each Timothy Zahn Star Wars novel. That is true of this one as well, all though I had some trouble getting on board with the basic premise. This book is pre-Battle of Yavin, during the Empire. At some point someone must have been involved in a conversation where they came up with the idea that the stormtroopers weren't evil, it was the emperor. So some of the troopers must have been stand up guys. This book is about a group of stormies who desert and become vigilante do-gooders. Just a real high diameter pill to swallow at the outset, but if you can supend your disbelief into siding with stormtroopers then this book will impress. (I never had any problem liking Thrawn, Pealleon, older and younger Fel, and Mara - even Fett. I wonder why I can't really picture white hatted stormtroopers.)

High Profile & Spare Change - Robert Parker
Someone once said of Iasaac Asimov's prolific publishing: "that's not writing, that's typing!" I wonder what they would say about Robert Parker. I think he has four novels coming out this year. Take that JK, Parker coulda wrapped up Harry Potter in two years. This is a Jesse Stone and a Sonny Randal. But really they're all Spensers, just cop Spenser and chick Spenser, and that's fine with me. I think maybe Parker has gotten the investigative process down almost too well. They always say that its really just dogged and waiting. Sometimes reading these books you get the feeling the crime is just a wall falling over in slow motion. Also, I think this is more in the recent books than the earlier ones but it seems like the "who" is always fairly clear pretty early. The books have become more about being able to prove it, or finding out the "why." Since Parker started writing Sonny Randal I have been waiting for the Grand Unifying Parker Book, for the story with Spenser, Jesse, and Sonny - not to mention Quirk, Belson, Joe Broz, Ritchie, Susan, Rita, Hawk, Spike, Healy and the rest of the regulars. Jesse and Sonny get together in High Profile and I was thrilled. So much so that when they talk about the disposition of that affair in Spare Change I was sad all over again. Both books are a good read, solid Parker.

I'm Out of the Loop

Looks like we're playing a little loose with the chronology. Fine with me. I love Michelle Forbes.

Unhappy

E! News - Frak No! Battlestar Preps Final Voyage - Edward James Olmos: "The brain trust behind Sci Fi Channel's Battlestar Galactica on Friday announced plans to wrap up the critically acclaimed cult series after its upcoming fourth season."

Continued in 2008

You know, I really had trouble enjoying BSG tonight because I knew it was the season finale and in a sort of Sopranos move the next season doesn't begin for quite some time.

Still, it was nice to see Cara again. I'm feeling more and more on target about my Lords of Cobol prediction. It's all going to be all right. Yup, that's what she would say.

Kudos to Stevie for hitting the nail on the head:

I'm on my way home from the office for the BSG season finale.
Want to go on record with predictions and see what happens?
Here's mine:
Tigh, Anders and Tory are cylons
The song is "all along the watchtower"
Baltar is acquitted.

And then I got a couple in my answer...

It isn’t Anders voice saying “we’re all cylons,” it’s the chief...
I think they will only give four out of five...

I too picked Tory as a Cylon last week. Maybe we should write TV instead of lawyering and professoring. Maybe not.

I'm ok with the Cylon sleepers. If I could live with Boomer I can live with these four, although Tigh is a bit of a stretch. But seeing as how they didn't know, maybe it doesn't so much matter. There's always the possibility that they actually aren't Cylons too. Nothing that they've experienced is particularly tied to being a Cylon, just sort of about being unbalanced. Maybe they're also being called by the Gods and they've just interpreted it incorrectly.

The music was a nice plot device, but I was jarred a little by the implementation - especially with it being an actual, contemporary song. It just didn't seem to fit for someone on the show to be quoting Dylan lyrics. But then, in an earlier season they made a Seinfeld joke and I thought it was cool, so maybe my opinion isn't totally formed in this area.

They had to acquit Baltar otherwise there was really no place to go. I don't think anyone in the fleet could have hid him if he had been guilty and I don't think anyone would buy him going back with the Cylons - unless he did turn out to be one of the five which at the moment seems improbable. I was thinking maybe they'd weasel out with a mistrial, but this conclusion is better. And with him being spirited away they probably have a good mechanism to keep him involved. All in all fairly clever.

I hope Adama voting for Baltar's acquittal is enough to cool the jets on the blossoming flirtation between him and the President. Really I can do without that plot.

They gave us a doozey of a season cliffhanger. Giant Cylon fleet, Lee re-upping, cylon Sleepers, the President, Boomer, and Six sharing dreams, Gaius being hidden, Cara coming back with a way to Earth (and possibly the "bright white light" aliens from the original series) - all things too look forward to.



Look forward to until 2008. Geez. Like my good friend Bender would say: "Bite my shiny metal ass!"