Galactica is the one ship equipped to survive the Cylon attack and lead the rag-tag fleet to Earth. And this one ship has a Final Five member as XO and another as viper engineer. It also has a regular Cylon as a viper pilot. The goverment expedition to Galactica has a final five member on the Education Minister’s staff, and a regular Cylon as PR agent. One member of the final five is on Caprica, and will be one of the very few survivors of the war out of millions or billions. And another member of the Final Five is unknown, but seems very likely to be either a Galactica Officer or Education Ministry staff. Baltar, under outside (apparently Cylon but who knows) influence is the only adult human to get off Caprica to Galactica at first, Anders and his crew are the only others.

The regular Cylons we can explain. There were many copies scattered around the colonies ready to act as needed, though they could not have put too many copies into the military without it being noticed. The F5 are much harder to explain. It seems highly likely that the escape of Galactica and Roslin’s team was a planned event, planned many years in advance. (Especially if Roslin or either Adama turn out to be the #1 Cylon.)  read more »

The most poignant line, I think, in Crossroads is Tigh’s. “What about Ellen?” A switch has gone off in Tigh’s head, pouring in repressed knowledge and memories, and he knows he is a Cylon.

And he thinks, “my gods, I killed my own wife for being a Cylon collaborator, yet I’m a Cylon!”

It’s hard to imagine this, since we humans don’t normally find floods of repressed memories suddenly flooding our brains. And Tigh is very confused here of course, as are the rest.  read more »

Fans of the show often ask, “what will Earth be like when they find it?” Ronald Moore always refuses to answer that question, and at times he suggests he has not even fully decided what form it will take. However, there is a fairly strong case to be made that, unlike the original, this show is set many thousands of years in our future, and that Kobol is a colony of Earth, not the other way around as told in the colonial mythology. There probably never was a 13th tribe that went to Earth. Instead, that story is a myth to cover the reality.  read more »

We’re given a new mystery at the end of season 3 with Starbuck’s return. That she would return was beyond doubt. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a major character die in circumstances anything like her supposed death and not come back. However, the real clincher was, ironically, that they took her name off the credits. Regulars on TV shows get contracts that require they be paid for every episode, whether they appear or not, and that they be credited for every episode, whether they appear or not. In order to take her name off — to fool the fans — they would have had to get her permission. Had she been really, most sincerely dead, that wouldn’t have been asked for.

There was some debate at first as to whether she was just a vision for Apollo, but Moore has confirmed she’s “real” and not just in his mind, and even more that she actually “died” in the maelstrom and has returned. Now we also must wonder about the heavy raider she chased to her death. That raider never showed up on Dradis while she showed up and then vanished. The audience saw the raider from Apollo’s PoV, suggesting it was real, but Apollo himself didn’t see it — either because it was real, but not visible to him, or he just didn’t notice it. But he sees Starbuck.  read more »