I agree with most of this take:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...NjNDIyYmY4Y2Q=
Battlestar Galactica (With Spoilers) [Jonah Goldberg]
Okay, one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand. Now, I've given you plenty of time to flee the scene and not read this for fear of spoilers in this post. However, I will write this as if you already know everything so that way, the casual reader won't see detailed explanations of what happened in the season finale, lessening the odds of spoiler contact somewhat.
So, you-know-who is back. Readers will recall that I predicted she's a Cylon. I'm no longer so sure, even as the evidence is on my side. Indeed, as some of you know there's a BSG gag reel where Katee Sackhoff even admits that she's a Cylon (I learned of this after I'd already ventured the Starbuck-is-a-Cylon theory, but it still ticked me off greatly when I saw her say it). I'm not so sure for a few reasons. First, it would require too many revisions of what we've been told about Cylons. Suddenly they'd be able to age, since we know that humans have seen younger versions of Starbuck as well as — presumably — the other members of the final five as revealed in the season ender. It makes the first two seasons into Pandora's boxes of continuity problems.
Indeed: Why make Tighe and the others Cylons unless the writers have gotten so lazy and self-indulgent that they think yanking the viewers' chains is the same thing as clever writing? We've seen so much violence — much of it implausible — to the clear lines of Cylons as evil and humans as flawed-but-good that I'm not sure the show could sustain any more erosion. Do we have to start taking the Cylon's as we find them, on a case by case basis? Is Helo going to start ranting even more about anti-cylon bigotry?
So, I am hoping that some brainwashing or some such is behind the new (hopefully faux) sleeper-Cylons. Perhaps a clue can be found in the fan-poll they advertised during the commercial break. One of the questions was whether the Dylan music was coming from a "third party." My pet theory is that there are other humans — not from the 12 colonies — out there making mischief and they've called out to Starbuck, Tighe and the others. The final four merely think they're Cylons because there's no other explanation that makes sense to them. Or maybe something else.
But it's important to say that so much commentary on BSG these days is driven by the burning desire of its fans to discount the possibility that the show hasn't jumped the shark. The logic goes something like this: X can't be happening because if X happened it would mean the show sucks, therefore the explanation must be Y.
In that vein, we need to be clear. The trial of Baltar was absurd from start to finish. It shouldn't have transpired. But the writer's clearly wrote themselves into a wall. They made Baltar into a great, complicated, and compelling villain. So they couldn't kill him off even though that would have been the only plausible result of his capture. Instead we get this absurd trial.
I liked Apollo's testimony a lot, but it was crazily implausible that A) it would be allowed B) that it would have convinced the judges one way or the other C) Apollo would even give that kind of stemwinder. I will say I loved his description of humanity as a gang on the run. Lots of wonderful philosophical discussions could use that as a launching pad.
I also adored Tighe's speech about how he is Saul Tighe, now and forever. And even if the drunk crank should discover he's a member of the race he's fought all of his life he will die a soldier. Good stuff.