Battlestar Galactica 2/03/2006 (S02E15) "Scar"

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Am I the only person who did a double-take when Caine appointed Kara the Pegasus CAG? Not that she did not have the right instincts and strategic ability (although she needed Apollo's help to plan the attack on the resurrection ship), but it seemed to me that she was too much of a loose cannon for such a high-pressure gig.

Maybe that's why I saw her mini-breakdown coming.

Also, the new Cylon tactic of picking off pilots one-by-one, represents a whole new kind of stress and terror. I thought the writers did a good job of making that clear.

 

Bingo! Give that man a cigar.

 

What he said.

With the Apollo storyline I thought that one was out of the blue. This one with Starbuck, not so much. She's a Maverick, out of control, reckless and redundant. At any rate this should be a natural progression for the character to cope with the one upmanship present in the viper pilots. She is still the best pilot in the fleet as she went toe to toe with scar and lived. All kat did was shoot him down after being handed him on a platter. This Starbuck episode at least made some sense due to the fact that it drew on things we've seen.

 

Same here. Kind of a buzz kill coming in here actually, I was so excited after seeing this episode. Until I learned that it sucked.

 

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I have a question. Since the Cylons are Machines or computers if you will. Then how come they still can't be "Rebron" after they die. isn't there still a copy of the Orgianl "OS" somewhere? Sure they might not have the new files from the one that died

 

I guess that is the problem though...The ones that know that they will no longer resurrect are not willing to take the same chances with their own oblivion. For the cylons to behave the way they used to, you would have to convince them it's no big deal to die, or at least that their cause is worth the risk. The "new files" are presumably new consciousnesses. The old ones, and their experience, will die and be replaced by fresh but new minds. Assuming they have enough hardware to put them into...

 

Make sure you always test your backups!

 

I agree the flashback is getting old. I understood why they did it last week, although I didn't think it worked as well as they'd hoped. This time it worked better but it's getting pretty dated as a concept.

However, I really liked the episode. Yes, sure, some thing jumped out that maybe hadn't had a really solid foundation laid down. There are a lot of characters in the show and different shows focus on different ones; I guess I give them some license and infer that these things are happening while Apollo is out looking for black marketeers or whatever.

Here's what I liked about it: Starbuck grows a lot in this episode. When she confronts Kat she sees a bit of herself in Kat. Why was Starbuck such a hotshot? Yes, obviously a lot of skill but also (as she says herself later) she just didn't care so she took insane chances. Kat is like that. Starbuck sees it. She realizes that, in the grand scheme of things, having the top gun mug is not really all that important. She sees it's something she doesn't need anymore, but that Kat needs it. She's growing into the role of an officer; top gun is for the regular pilots: it's something they care a lot about, but a CAG or flight officer, etc. has to worry about more than that. They have to care about their people. And Starbuck is becoming bigger than just a gunner's reputation.

 

I like this view on the "top gun" mug scene. I took it differently, but after reading this, it makes a lot more sense to me why she would be willing to swallow her pride and give it up. At the time, it felt a little out of character to me.

 

I don't understand why some folks characterize those who've posted cogent criticims of the lack of character setup in the story arc as "haters". I don't have a problem with non-linear storytelling and like another poster I loved the original concept of "Boomtown" telling the same story from different viewpoints. I'd have no objection were BSG's writers doing this to show heretofore unrevealed character traits.

BSG can recover its excellence if the writers work harder and like the Cylons "have a plan".

 

Based on the ubiquitous commercials for BSG on sci-fi, I'm assuming that everything will change if that baby is ever born. Or maybe nothing will change and they are just teasing us. Jerks!

 

This really was similar to the "Space Above and Beyond" episode. At one point, someone even says to Starbuck that she is so drunk she can hardly stand. I expected her to say, "The viper is flown from the seated position." Of course, the "tank" who said that is now playing Buchanan on 24.

I thought the over the top excessiveness of Starbuck's drinking should have been foreshadowed for an episode or two before having it play center screen. We should have been reminded of her relationship with the guy on Caprica once or twice since she got back for me to believe she has been pinning for him all this time.

I thought that Helo's comment that "they" were at bingo fuel, were too far away for her to get to them, and that there was nothing she could have done: their deaths were not her fault, would have been better left unsaid. Starbuck knew all this. She was frustrated that the Cylons would have been smart enough to have done this. Their tactics are greatly improving.

 

Yeah, I'm not a hater. I'm a lover. It's just that, in my opinion, in the past few weeeks BG has dropped from by far the best show on television to one of the very best shows on television. And that makes me sad and disappointed, irrational as it may be. Call me greedy! I want the great BG back. But I'll settle for the very good BG if I must.

 

When I said "haters" it was in jest, and I even admitted that the "haters" made some good points.

 

Of course they do...they say so in every ep opening sequence ...oh, you mean the writers!

 

They probably do have older backups on the cylon home world but I suspect it'd be like the difference between a backup of yourself when you were 10 vs one made last week. The younger one just wouldn't be 'you.' Too much time has passed. Also wouldn't be able to do your job, drive, etc.

 

Too many new peripherals and no drivers loaded!

 

Okay, this is going to be a mistake, because I'm expecting more consistency from BSG than I should, but here goes ...

The Sharon on BSG now seems to know everything the other Sharon knew. I assumed that was because when a spylon dies, all the other spylons know what she knows (why this communication would only be possible at death is a bit hard to figure out, but whatever).

So when scar has died before, wouldn't all the raiders know what it knew? Wouldn't they all be equally good? Maybe the reincarnated scar would be fraked off more, but that would seem to be a tactical disadvantage.

Okay, the raiders just work differently, problem solved. But when the rules change every week, it is hard to keep up.

 

Why do you assume that? I haven't seen anything that suggests it.

 

Sharon seems to break the standard with what we've been told. Assuming that the pregnancy of Sharon can't be transplanted to another spylon, the Sharon with Helo and the Sharon on Galactica shouldn't have the same memories since they were both functioning at the same time. I believe the reference from six was that you wake up in a new body. The inference is that the new body wouldn't have been active prior to that. If that is the case why does Helo's Sharon remember everything she did with the chief?

Granted we don't really know everything and it's just as likely that memories could be shunted to other bodies, or perhaps all the bodies of a certain model. It certainly doesn't explain scar, unless it was consciouous while Starbuck was piloting it and it learned from her and then repaired instead of being reincarnated. It certainly had the look of a ship that had been through alot.