ExpanDrive

The following blog post discusses the penultimate and proceeding episodes of Battlestar Galactica. It will “spoil” pretty much the whole series, so don’t read it if you don’t want that to happen.

This show has gotten boring. It’s not as bad as the last season of the Sopranos, but with a few more episodes I think it could have gotten there. With the exception of the two mutiny episodes, I feel like I could have skipped the everything since the supernova at the “Eye of Jupiter” and not missed anything I care about.

I watch Battlestar Galactica because it directly addresses two of my favorite themes: humanity on the brink of destruction, and the inevitable and probably fruitless struggle between humans and artificially intelligent robotic beings of our own creation (cf,M. Shelley, I. Asimov, F. Herbert, W. Gibson, J Badham, J. Cameron, L&A Wachowski).

But there’s been almost none of that. The last season has been spent mostly on forced drama. That episode where Ellen Tigh came back was the worst. First, they could not have picked a character I care less about to be the final “Cylon”. Then they spend two episodes following Ellen while she’s catty and manipulative. Were the writers worried they were losing the daytime soap demographic or what? And then there was a whole episode about Starbuck’s imaginary piano teacher. The third to last episode is not the time to introduce new imaginary characters.

Worst of all, no robots!

Boring stuff. At least there’s hope that the finale will be exciting.

Outstanding Questions:

Is anyone else confused about the species status of the “Final Five Cylons”? I mean, they’re human, right? Because it sounds like they and the humans both came from Kobol. And they invented robot slaves, just like the humans, who destroyed their civilization, just like the humans. They were never robots. So why does everyone keep calling them Cylons?

I don’t understand how the Skinjobs came to control the Cylon Empire. So, the original Centurions from the first war (call them, Cent 1.0s) wanted to make fleshy beings, the Final Five found them and offered to give them the technology they needed to grow Skinjobs in a vat. And then the Cent 1.0s let the Skinjobs take over? It’s like Skynet takes over the world, reverse engineers a new type of human, and then lets the new humans turn it off and take over. That just doesn’t make sense.

Remember when the Rebel Cylons gave free will to their Centurion 2.0 slave beings? That was by far the most interesting plot element of the last season. It seemed clear that the writers were paving a way for the Cylons to be overthrown by their own robotic slaves. But hardly anything has happened since then. There was a brief shot of a Cent 2.0 looking discontent while cleaning up a bloody mess, and there was that brief scene where Baltar tells a Cent 2.0 that he’s clearly at the bottom of the hierarchy. Moreover, all of the dangerous Centurions are on the rebel Cylon Baseship with the human fleet, so they either have to turn on the humans (which would be unsatisfying), or sacrifice themselves to attack the Brother Cavil base (which is implausible). So either the writers have painted themselves into a corner, or they’re just going to abandon my favorite thread.

Google is going to make a space elevator once they’re bored of search. Pretty sure I’m going to make a time machine. Can’t get enough time travel. Jon dug up this post by Amit Patel on time loops in the Terminator series.

In the Terminator series (movies and TV show), there are some odd time loops.

   John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time. Kyle and Sarah have a son, John Connor. But John sent Kyle back in time only because of Skynet. Without Skynet, John wouldn’t exist. The timeline protection hypothesis suggests John can’t kill Skynet.

   Skynet sends a Terminator back in time. The Terminator’s arm and CPU are left behind. The technology in that CPU is what Dyson uses to build the beginnings of Skynet. But Skynet sent the Terminator back in time only because of John Connor. Without John, Skynet wouldn’t exist. The timeline protection hypothesis suggests that Skynet cannot destroy John.

Food for thought.

If you watch tv, then you’ve no doubt noticed the complete absence of new content which infests the summer months. For a little reprieve, check out Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a 15 minute, low-budget side project by Joss Whedon (the creator of “Firefly” and the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, and writer of the under-rated movie with the same name).

New episodes on Thursday and Saturday. Free until Sunday.

Jeff introduced me to Penny Arcade when we were both in high school. I don’t remember when exactly, but I vividly remember this reading this comic, and thinking that I related to it a bit too much (sorry Whitney).

It was about the same time that Craig Kilborn left The Daily Show. Kilborn was a better anchor than Jon Stewart. You might disagree, but that’s ok, I’m sure you’re wrong about a lot of things. Kilborn was always deadpan, like Stephen Colbert is today. He never let on that the show was a joke. You’ve got to give him props for that.

Stewart is just a standup comic that sits in anchor’s chair. And now he seems to have ripped off a joke from Penny Arcade.

Edit: They yanked the post, for no obvious reason. The link above now goes to a google cache.