Battlestar Galactica: “He That Believeth In Me”
The first episode of the fourth and, unfortunately, final season of Battlestar Galactica finally aired on Friday. After a year of anticipation we finally get to find out what’s up with the final five cylons and whether or not Starbuck is alive. In case you missed it, here’s what happened in the episode, “He That Believeth in Me.”
Warning: Spoiler Alert! Also, Battlestar Jargon alert!
The episode starts off with Lee Adama and Starbuck sitting in their vipers chatting about how Starbuck’s been to Earth. They cut their conversation short to fight off the frakkin’ cylons that managed to find the few ships containing what’s left of the human race. During the battle, Anders finds himself face to face with a raider which scans him and sets of a red switch in his eyes. Immediately after Anders is scanned, all the raiders fly back to their base ships and jump away from a sure kill.
In the midst of all of the confusion, Gaius Baltar is smuggled to an unused compartment in Galactica by a bunch of his sympathizers. He continues having visions of Six, who gives him hope and talks to him about God. Gaius does what he does best and womanizes and questions the existence of God. However, after meeting a dying child he prays for God to take his life rather than the child’s. He’s later attacked by a man whose son died on New Caprica. During the attack Six appears to Gaius and asks if he meant what he said about sparing the child’s life for his own. He says yes and both Gaius and the child live, as a sympathizer saves Gaius and the child survives his fever.
Four of the final five cylons, Colonel Tigh, Chief Tyrol, Anders and Tory, discuss how they’re going to deal with being cylons. Colonel Tigh, who has already imagined killing Admiral Adama, ignores the larger conflict of being the thing he hates the most and vows that he can never be programmed to kill humans.
After docking on Galactica, Starbuck is met with doubtful faces wherever she goes and the only person who believes that she’s been to Earth is Lee. Adama, however, is more cautious in believing that Starbuck is really alive or even human. As Adama leads the fleet per Roslin’s orders, Starbuck insists they’re going the wrong way and with each jump she loses her “feel” for Earth. Her frustration boils over when even she considers if she’s a cylon, beats up her guards, barges into the President’s barracks and holds her at gunpoint. To be continued…
Overall the episode was a letdown. After a year of suspense to see if Colonel Tigh was going to lose another eye from the pent up anger of finding out he’s a cylon, all we got were troubled glances between the four newly-revealed cylons. The only interesting part of the episode was Anders’ confrontation with the raider. Starbuck’s plot didn’t get enough attention and Gaius’ plot was slightly confusing. Does he really believe in God? Do Gaius’ sympathizers really believe in him? I’m hoping that next week’s episode will be better put together. Perhaps there was too much to deal with in the first episode.
Quotation of the week: “I did it, boss. I found Earth.” –Kara “Starbuck” Trace.
Next week: Apparently, all will be revealed. The Seven talk about the final five being in the colonial fleet with the humans. Brother Cavil is accused of lobotomizing the raiders, which leads to cylon-on-cylon fighting. There’s a final scene of Starbuck lying on the floor screaming that her connection to Earth is getting weaker and that the fleet is heading the wrong way.
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I too, was disappointed…. And altho they can write anything they want, nobody is gonna convince me, after all this time, that Gaius is nothing but a worthless asshole…..
Cyborg
Mike Sartor
April 6, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Don’t forget that the writers for the new series found their inspiration from the original comparatively awful first series. Much has changed but the storyline is basically the same. In the original series, the survivors found earth with the help of beings so advanced they had god-like powers. That may explain what happened to Starbuck, and may indicate how the series will end. Closer to home, I suspect that the whole “12 human cylon models” plot line will reveal that there is a third kind of cylon – a ruling class – that has been stage managing the whole thing simply to push the humans to find earth so the cylons can eliminate all of humanity once and for all. The “12 models” are nothing more than a tool to help get that done and were created solely for that purpose.
Paul Nicholas Boylan
April 6, 2008 at 8:28 pm
“Unfortunately” the final season? Please. Nothing unfortunate about it. What started out to be a fantastic sci-fi series ‘jumped the shark’ shortly after the first year. Sci-Fi fans are tired of the love stories embedded in the last season and they are looking for some good, hard-core blowing up of robots and special effects with a plot. This series has disappointed many fans, but most of them (us) still watch it with the hope that it will return to the basics..we’ve been holding out for 2 years now and to be quite honest, nobody would miss it if it never returned for this last season. It’s too bad to as they really have some good characters/actors. The secondary plots simply blow chunks.
CanyonHawk
April 6, 2008 at 8:40 pm
That was so bad.. I feel terrible for the actors. Come back from the writers stike, Too this? They scan his eye and split? Stupid!!! What if he was on one of the ships they destroyed? Why didnt they scan him on the planet? Bet you anything. Those new cylons are the leaders of the whole frackin thing…. DUH!!! Should have spent more money on writers.. Insted of using the old story’s of stargate and the original Battlestar Galactica. I really want to like this show! I love SiFi… BUT if you don’t do it rite. We won’t see other stuff!!! So get your act together.
Have them go to to a minor system, Land Fix the ships. Do co op Battles on the planet. Against the old Cylons that where left there from the wars. Maybe crashed there. They (humans) reprogram some of them. Have a small battle. That the humans win!! Learn How to overide there systems tempararily. (Till Baltar joins the Cylons and Overides it!) So when we do win. It seems real. Not out of nowhere!
Rick
April 6, 2008 at 8:41 pm
In the very first episode of this series, Baltar was vaporized in a nuclear explosion, while looking across the lake with #6 (Tricia Helfer). So how did he come back to life if he isn’t a Cylon regeneration?
Paradise Driver
April 6, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I agree with Rick. Do something! Have them win a battle! Instead of out tricking them all the time. Reprogram them, For a change. They are software. Regardless of how advanced. Humans can hack anything. Then Baltar can have a reason for joining them. That way they need him. They meet a advanced race. Like them or so. Get reinforcments. Put some fear into them (Cylons). That would make it more fun. For all of us. People don’t like cowards. And that is what most of them are. Some of them are becoming. Man bites back. We refuse to stay down. We find away.
SoCal
April 6, 2008 at 8:53 pm
The Galacticans find earth and find the humans are humans, but were damned and see with their eyes closed and hear voices. They use lucifer and his damning to attack each others bodies, what happened to the ‘human’ cylons, which is the answer for all humans; to be a cylon, ‘a computer’ to stop lucifer and his damning of humans. So, the Galacticans are transforming into cylons in preparation for going to earth and concluding what the cylons already know, being a ‘robot computer’ is the only way to beat lucifer and stay ‘human.’ The God cylons know all this and are being nice to the humans as they evolve into something that cannot be affected by lucifer. The cylons goal was always to destroy the humans because they are a disease, luciferians. The God cylons have decided they may continue to exist as cylons; robot computers. The cylons aren’t nice and that’s because Satan invented them to conquer lucifer, who is damning humans to become what he is, non human. This is humans being reborn, but the birth is like lucifer using when a human is reborn at church; he assumes them again. Satan’s cylon birthing of what humans were is being reborn without lucifer being able to defeat a rebirth. Of course that is Satan and not jesus, but Jesus was the last battle against lucifer, which he lost and was raised by lucifer and reborn. Satan has compromised that damning into a rebirth the human can with at. A cylon that was once a damned luciferian human. This was what a human was before lucifer’s damning, basically ‘a computer’ who’s robot body couldn’t be attacked by lucifer. Lucifer can’t attack a cylon body and the perfection of what humans once were is, in fact, a cylon.
The God cylons have found a way for humans to continue to exist much like they were before lucifer damned them. This was not Stan’s order, the cylons’ creator, so there may be some problems when Satan damns the cylons for not following orders and has anything human destroyed as a luciferian, a disease that needs to be ceased.
Fresh Dominion
April 6, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Fresh Dominion….you need to lay off the weed.
CanyonHawk
April 6, 2008 at 9:01 pm
OH. Baltar knows all this and will decide to follow Satan’s order. This is actually what God wants.
Fresh Dominion
April 6, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Dude you are so far gone. You must have mentioned, The scum of the universe 20 times. WOW!!! You must be a sientolagistedddd. Wich is okay. There is always some truth, To all lies!
I just think they should write a better story. It’s on the SIFI Channel not the WE. Come on! One thing I will say. BattleStar Galactica Has THE best actors on TV. Thats the truth. And maybe the only thing saving this show!!!!!
SoCal
April 6, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I disagree with the best line. It was from Starbuck but it was when she said to Anders, “Well, you are a better person than I am, because if I found out you were a Cylon, I’d shoot you between the eyes.” (Or something to that effect).
I totally disagree that BSG needs more “space battles.” Seeing that they are not likely to kill off a major character in a battle sequence, all the fights are just special effects with CGI spaceships blowing up.
The story is what matters and the writers have and continue to make interesting comments on our society.
It wasn’t the best episode but a good one to setup everything for what will come.
Blue Cleric
April 6, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I thought the first episode of season 4 was pretty decent; they had a lot to do with developing the particular details so that the story could continue on, so I expected more to the plot, but its just beginning. What about the little boy who recovered from viral encephalitis of the brain?… When he recovered, he sat there silently smiling in that sinister kinda way that you see in those horror movies when a child is possessed by a demon… and you can see Head 6 in the background smiling at his evil smile and looking on with interest. Which brings me to my theory… that perhaps this child has been “taken over” by a virus of the brain, possibly at the behest or direction of the Cylon God, it could be an incarnation of the Cylon God- or of the first hybrid from razor. Head 6 asks Gaius “do you think i’d bring you all this way just to let it end here?” and she’s previously told Gaius that he’s the Chosen one and out of all of humanity he was selected for her mission… I get the feeling that he’s being set up as another body for the Cylon God to take over at the right moment (why not before now though?), or as a sacrifice of some sorts, or because he’s a reincarnation of another being, or maybe his implant, or whatever it is that projects Head Six into his waking consciousness, is integral in the tracking of the fleet or the final plans of this guiding entity that they call “God” which is more likely just an infinitely more powerful being… There’s one attempt to put it into words. Oh- and Starbuck???? Could be a clone from “The Farm”… towards what purpose, we shall see.. We have seen several “daydreaming” sequences with several individual characters, and since the cylons have hooked up humans (hybrids) to serve as their basestar cpu’s, so as a parting thought I’ll draw a link here between certain cylon abilities (projection, for example, or Roslin sharing a dream with Cylons) by saying there may be a parallel between cylon abilities and human abilities- that humans have but may not even be aware of… After all, the computer technology is based on something, and apparently, humans are better CPU’s!
Night Nightly
April 6, 2008 at 9:54 pm
The problem with the effeminate directors and producers of these series is they will not let the writers envision their original script. The directors in HoHoWood are so afraid to make any movie where guys get in ships, kick some butt, blow up some aliens (as another previous poster stated) and get the girl in the end. Come on, give us a break and for once, eat a rare steak, drink a beer and smoke an after dinner cigar to get your testosterone flowing again! Grow some nads and make a good tv show for once.
Typical Hollywood Cast: Apply any script/situation to this
In-charge guy: Although ethnically cast, acts like typical white politician. Be on the lookout for the moment in the show where he is questioned about his ‘toughness’ and shows his teeth. It never comes to physical blows and is usually a let down. (I would love to see Edward James Olmos go all Montoya Santana on a guy).
Show’s Tough-guy: Usually female with somewhat of a physical build, but not so buff (like scary Vasquez in Aliens) to keep the drooling geeks/nerds from buying life sized posters of her or blogging about her hotness.
Show’s Awesome Soldier: Again, ethnically cast, stoic (look up if your morons) with some goofy ‘alien language’ that sounds like your gagging on a bar of chocolate. Can have many rubber prosthetics to make skinny guy look imposing (think Warf). Usually prefers some traditional/archaic hand to hand weapon when fighting breaks out.
Show’s White-guy: Doubts his choices, or makes all the wrong decisions AKA Mr Apology. Often causing disaster but redeems himself through some sacrifice later (If the cast thinks of him as a ‘good guy’ this means he died doing it). Sometimes ends up being ‘Shows Bitch’
Comic Relief: If humanoid, usually a white guy (played with typical ‘impression’ of stuffy English guy), however in sci-fi show he could be robot or horrible CGI cutesy animal.
Show’s Bitch: ALWAYS a white guy, usually played by some smarmy actor with greased down hair. Always in the way, causing trouble and grief for the cast (think Dr Smith from Lost in Space). Sometimes doubles as ‘Comic Relief’.
Fred Sanford
April 6, 2008 at 10:02 pm
I don’t know what all the whining is about. I thought it was a good show. And it’s free on top of everything else.
Norm.
Norm
April 6, 2008 at 11:12 pm
When they reach earth they discover the Cylons have infiltrated the MSM.
Thirteen
April 10, 2008 at 12:51 pm
this last episode, they really had a chance to swing back into the right mode of the series. but of course, the writers blew it AGAIN!!! What the heck are they doing? Adama should have thrown Starbuck out of the airlock and the camera’s should have shown a nice splat when that happened.
Next comment: I am getting SOOOOOOO tired of ‘Frack” it is spent and over-used. Writers: slow it down on the usage. the same thing happened to “Deadwood” when every word coming outr of their mouth was another cuss word. it really loses its effect and becomes simply old.
CanyonHawk
April 13, 2008 at 2:11 pm