Battlestar Galactica, episode 6: "Litmus"

Praetorian

Tazzle wrote:

You have to get ecksor/other admin, to enable poll editing on your forum.

Thanks tazzle, will do.

telemachus

Johnny Storm wrote:

I also thought it was way too derivative of ST:tng "The Drumhead". Only the Trek ep was better IMHO. The Sargent-at-arms all of a sudden becomes a nazi trying to screw Adama and all her colleauges - that wasn't believeable. In fact it also wasn't believeable that the tribuneral only took one day as we all know only too well.

I read her sudden belligerence toward Adama as a concealed resentment at being left out of the loop in regards the cylons human form, it seemed as if she were trying to shift the blame away from lax security (which she was in charge of, along with the small arms used previously to blow the water tanks) towards a commander she was bitter at for putting her in an untenable position in her view (fitting in with the random techs "everyone for themself" theme)

RuggieBear

telemachus wrote:

I read her sudden belligerence toward Adama as a concealed resentment at being left out of the loop in regards the cylons human form, it seemed as if she were trying to shift the blame away from lax security (which she was in charge of, along with the small arms used previously to blow the water tanks) towards a commander she was bitter at for putting her in an untenable position in her view (fitting in with the random techs "everyone for themself" theme)

I was thinking along those lines myself.....

Praetorian

Thanks to the Cloud for granting me the power to rig polls!

I've removed some of the votes as requested.

Fenster

Hey...why are there suddenly 20 votes for "I'd rather watch Andromeda!"?!

secret_squirrel

telemachus wrote:

I read her sudden belligerence toward Adama as a concealed resentment at being left out of the loop in regards the cylons human form, it seemed as if she were trying to shift the blame away from lax security (which she was in charge of, along with the small arms used previously to blow the water tanks) towards a commander she was bitter at for putting her in an untenable position in her view (fitting in with the random techs "everyone for themself" theme)

Me too!

Only just watched the ep on video - marked it down as another excellent ep. I must say though that have completely lost the ability to objectively view this program - I cant remember any sci-fi series that consistently delivers quality drama and acting like this one does. The only ones that come close are B5 and odd episodes of STNG and STDS9. The drumhead springs to mind for me too. However what raises BSG over ST for example is that they arent afraid to be all dark and nasty - even the DS9 characters only had the odd nasty moment - loved Adama's evil pragmatism at the end too...perfect ending.
Attempting to be a little objective - I dont thing the last two storylines have been the best - but they have been redemed by the quality of the performances and the sheer drama they manage to generate.

TBH I didnt miss Apollo at all in this ep - its nice to have a break from him - I dont think there was much need for Starbucks appearance either tbh.

More dark hints that BaltarSix is playing her own game too...

Oh and where does the line start so I can queue for a bitchslapping from Six? - hubba hubba.

Stark

So many beautiful people. That's what really drives us to like the show. We pretend that's not our main motivation though so we make up stuff like "oh and lot's more adama pouting, very good" so our one-track minds aren't too obvious

c0y0te

I'm quite surprised this ep is getting 'amazing' voting, rather than just 'okay'...still, that's democracy at work for ya

c0y0te

Sooner or Later

I gave it a "Great" rating. Like most people I was a bit disappointed with the witchunt scenes, an idea which seems to have been done to death. But it was saved by the scene with Baltar and Six, the Caprica plot finally beginning to get moving and the bit where Adama turned nasty in the end.

Belisarius

I only just got a chance to see it now on sky one mix.
I have to say despite being fairly low-fi I enjoyed it though a few things are pissing me off,Such as despite having just being informed of another species-threatening cylon peril and the fact that boomer had been wandering around with heavy duty explosives only a few episodes ago ,the chief failed to join the dots only touching on it towards the end. In fact the very idea of this web of lies just for a bit of nookie is kind of annoying too .By stonewalling the tribunal they were putting the fleet at risk in a very serious way. While i think that self motivation is a refreshing change from the boy scout attitudes of something like star trek. I think the gravity of the situation would compelled me to fess up

Beyond that I think its getting a tad repetitive. I dont know how many dramatic shilloette shots of the cylons watching yer man on capricra you can have before you actually get noticed....

Praetorian

Belisarius wrote:

I only just got a chance to see it now on sky one mix.
I have to say despite being fairly low-fi I enjoyed it though a few things are pissing me off,Such as despite having just being informed of another species-threatening cylon peril and the fact that boomer had been wandering around with heavy duty explosives only a few episodes ago ,the chief failed to join the dots only touching on it towards the end. In fact the very idea of this web of lies just for a bit of nookie is kind of annoying too .By stonewalling the tribunal they were putting the fleet at risk in a very serious way. While i think that self motivation is a refreshing change from the boy scout attitudes of something like star trek. I think the gravity of the situation would compelled me to fess up

Beyond that I think its getting a tad repetitive. I dont know how many dramatic shilloette shots of the cylons watching yer man on capricra you can have before you actually get noticed....

Love can be blinding!

c0y0te

The next ep looks interesting and is focused on our frieds Baltar and 6.. so hopefully with lots of screentime together the episode will be a lot better than the last two.

c0y0te

TheWolf

c0y0te wrote:

Security my Ass!; so - we have a military ship, fleeing cylons, on constant 24/7 CAP (Combat Air Patrol), having dealt with a prison riot and AWARE that cylons look like humans... and some git is able to walk through checkpoints WIRED FOR BOOM without being noticed? Please.. pull the other one, it's got semtex attached to it. :mad:
c0y0te

Good review as always c0y0te, but just a quick note on this bit. The fleet at the start of the ep didnt know cylons looked like people, it hadnt been revealed yet. And yer man didnt come over with the explosives, he got it from the arms locker (which Boomer left open) so he was already past the checkpoints. The only reason he was found out was Adama and the XO had come across the same model before

madmorphy

I only just got a chance to see it now on sky one mix.
I have to say despite being fairly low-fi I enjoyed it though a few things are pissing me off,Such as despite having just being informed of another species-threatening cylon peril and the fact that boomer had been wandering around with heavy duty explosives only a few episodes ago ,the chief failed to join the dots only touching on it towards the end. In fact the very idea of this web of lies just for a bit of nookie is kind of annoying too .By stonewalling the tribunal they were putting the fleet at risk in a very serious way. While i think that self motivation is a refreshing change from the boy scout attitudes of something like star trek. I think the gravity of the situation would compelled me to fess up.

I thought the very same thing myself,is the chief thick or what ?No one,especially a soldier would put the whole ship at risk for a bird.Boomer had a box of warheads 2 weeks ago these were used to blow the watertanks on the ship and then the primed bomb on the recon ship. 2+2=4

c0y0te

Thewolf,

Regarding the boyo coming onboard with explosives - you are absolutely correct. My bad :rolleyes:

However.. my point is still valid, in that where as the genreal melee didn't know cylons were human like as yet, the command staff did, and they knew exactly what one of them looked like (otherwise how else would tigh recognise him).. so its not unreasonable to assume that his photo would be at every single checkpoint on the ship as if he were just another terrorist suspect etc.

It just seemed to damn easy for a known bady guy to waltz in and blow the place apart - all for the sake of moving on the story to the point where the 'secret' is out and the witchhunt begins.

But - well spotted regarding my mistake. Guess I was too tired when I wrote that original reivew:)

c0y0te

Fenster

Until Doral turned up on the Galactica packing explosives, Adama and co. had no reason to suspect there was more than one of each Cylon, so that would explain why they didn't watch for him.

c0y0te

You know something Fenster.. you are absolutely right :eek: . I actually thought they did know, but of course the only thing they knew from the mini series is that there were '12 models', but not that there were multiple copies of each model.

I stand corrected (and updated!). Thanks for spotting that.

Note to self... must try harder in reviews to be more accurate!!

c0y0te

The_Bullman

I realy enjoyed this episode, much like the others really.

A few things are bugging me though.

On caprica, how doesn't helo spot the obvious cylons standin around, It's startin to drive me crazy :mad:

Another thing that's a little odd to me. At the president's press conference, there's a huge amount of media there. Where did they all come from? There isn't all that many people left, surely there's no need for so many people to report the same news

secret_squirrel

Coz reporters are like cockroaches??

Guaranteed to survive the end of the world!

irishman_abroad

Yeah I was thinking the same thing bout the reporters but I suppose you could explain it by saying theres one reporter per ship. I thought it a bit suspect though. I think its more a tip of the hat to the usual american presidential way of doing things tho meself.

Johnny Storm

c0y0te wrote:

of course the only thing they knew from the mini series is that there were '12 models', c0y0te

FMI - who wrote the little note in the mini-series stating that there are 12 models?

c0y0te

I think the author of that note about the 12 models has yet to be revealed, although it makes sense that Baltar would be the one to do it, since he is the only one I know who was told about the 12 models (by our beautiful friend 6) prior to Adama hearing about it via the note.

Still.. not 100% sure on that yet:)

c0y0te

Johnny Storm

It seemed to me that the only person who would know there were 12 models would be a Cylon...

c0y0te

Indeed... and it was a cylon (6 to be precise) in the mini-series who told Baltar that there were 12 models.

c0y0te

Nukem

The_Bullman wrote:

Another thing that's a little odd to me. At the president's press conference, there's a huge amount of media there. Where did they all come from? There isn't all that many people left, surely there's no need for so many people to report the same news

Thought there was mostly Press on that transport from when they went to the Galatica to see the new Museum,think thats right