BSG Recap 6/6 – “The Hub”
A smaller entry than usual this week. This week, I made the usual annual trip to Alaska for the summer. Alaska is great, but the first week back has been quite busy.
Anyway – onto the episode and other BSG related stuff (spoilers, of course):
- Big news this week: Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Mission Accomplished or Mission Frakked Up? from Open Court Publishing (not to be confused with a similarly titled volume from Blackwell) comes out this week. It features two essays by me, though telling you that is something of a spoiler for the book, since five of the essays are “unattributed” (there are five contributors to the book who each wrote two essays. If you think about it for a minute, you can realize why five of us have unattributed essays in addition to our attributed essays). So, buy a copy and become smartified about philosopicalizing stuff.
Plus - I quote Clark in my essay.
- Mark Verheiden’s interviews at Comic Mix continue to be worth reading. This week, he gives details on Jake the hero of the resistance:
Jake was obviously rescued from New Caprica. As far as his previous owners, truth is we never really discussed Jake’s ownership lineage. Because I don’t want to believe Lee would steal the pooch from someone (uh oh, I smell a Boxey story!), I assume the dog was being housed somewhere in the fleet sans real owners.
There are other tidbits there as well. Some small potential spoilers, but a good discussion of why Zarek stepped aside for Lee as well.
- A BSG video game for Mobile phones?
- Apparently, the two hour season finale, a la Lost, might get expanded to three hours.
Some details in this spoilerly interview with Jaime Barber.
- Podcasts are up to “Faith.”
Now, to the episode:
* Roslin has visions during jumps. I wonder if this means a “jump” takes you outside the universe. I’m having flashbacks to Orson Scott Card’s Ender books Xenocide and Children of the Mind.
* If Helo has sex with an Eight, is it really cheating? Maybe Roslin is wrong, and he really is married to the whole line. Does Cylon law recognize marriage? This is a whole new twist on polygamy.
* Baltar comes across as rather pathetic, lonely, and desperate for attention. The way the camera ignores him in the first scene with the Hybrid was a nice touch.
* Baltar trying to convert the Cylon centurion made him seem even more desperate. I’m not really sure what to make of it.
* Did they only resurrect one D’Anna? Are all the rest boxed? Hmm – she’ll actually be the only Cylon to have no other copies of herself running around. She’ll almost be human……
* Of course, as predicted, D’Anna was lying, or at least playing mind games.
* My wife’s review: A shrug of the shoulders.
* My review: Better than last week, but since we already knew that the Hub was destroyed, nothing much was revealed this week. It was a good episode, but I feel unsatisfied. Start revealing stuff already!
Agreed with your review. It was a solid episode, and Baltar as ever is the high point, whether his pretty hilarious monodialogue with the centurion, or his confession to Roslin. My wife loved the Roslin/Adama love, and was tearful at it. It was indeed touching, but this is the final season. I want something meaty. It was good to have D’Anna back, as she seems to be the only Cylon left (besides Boomer) who actually behaves like a Cylon!
Comment by Supergenius — June 7, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
I liked it. And the Baltar/centurion stuff cracked me up. Baltar said something about them being treated like dogs, and the centurion rotated his head slightly to the side, just like a dog.
Previews for next week show them standing outside. Earth?
Comment by jjohnsen — June 8, 2008 @ 6:37 am
I don’t think destroying the hub was that big a deal. I’m sure they could rebuild it if they wanted to.
Baltar being so full of himself that he thinks he can convert a centurian… classic!
Comment by JM — June 9, 2008 @ 6:13 am
Want revelations? Apparently from the preview of next week, Tigh shouts he’s a Cylon; Tory joins the other Cylons and tries to assert power(?); and I thought they mentioned something about three of the five (Tigh, Tory, and … who?) getting together.
I agree, the pacing to finale is painfully slow.
It was delightfully ironic that after Baltar spent all that time preaching to the centurion, the toaster was blown to pieces.
Comment by Bull Moose — June 9, 2008 @ 10:33 am
Apparently from the preview of next week
And we all know how accurate the previews have been…
Comment by Ivan Wolfe — June 9, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
OK, I finally got to watch it. (Yeah, yeah. It probably says something about this season’s quality that my wife wanted to watch So You Think You Could Dance before BSG)
Anyway, it’s my favorite episode of the season. I loved Baltar in this one. I kind of liked the whole missionary work to the centurion who gets creamed. But are the centurians networked?
Like was mentioned, wouldn’t they have plans for the hub? Couldn’t they rebuild it? There’s got to be some force behind the Cylons but’s what’s weird is that the Cylons appear programmed not to inquire.
Comment by Clark — June 9, 2008 @ 11:09 pm