TVSquad

I'm a huge fan of Ron Moore and his crew (Deep Space Nine was the best Star Trek series) so I am fully confident that the major story lines will reach their fruition (unlike other shows **cough** Lost **cough**). As a viewer, that allows me to watch these "filler episodes" and appreciate the depth they add to the characters on the show. Would I like there to be some plot advancement? Sure. But I think the pacing is good for the show and I am confident I will be satisfied at the series' end.

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"Random thought: Something I missed in an earlier episode that was shown in the "previously on" portion of tonight's episode -- Tyrol's mother was an oracle. I just found it as an interesting point when thinking back to when Chief miraculously located that temple within the mountain a few episodes back."

Cheif explained that about his mother (I thought it was father) in that episode when he found the Temple.

Anywas it was a fine episode except for one part. The president mensioned something about "people working for 2 years" or something close to that. It's been about two years since they left Caprica. In one of the earlier episodes didn't someone say they had enough fuel for a few years yet 2 2.5 years later they are low?

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@Jake

I totally agree, DS9 was the best of the Trek shows. It built an intricate web of characters, backstory, plot and mythology, and it managed to pay it all of in the end.

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@david04

since then, havn't they met a new battlestar and settled on a planet, then blown up a battlestar as well as lost Cloud 9?
Lots has happened. things change.

A good episode. a better one out of the crop of throwaway episodes. better than the Helo-Gemenon one.

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Ha..Ha..Ha..Ha

Ahh..ha..ha..ha..ha

ha, ha, ha...whew!

Ahh, ha, ha, HA, HA

HA, HA, HA, HA, he-whooo!

Best show on television...

HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!HA!

lmfao

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"Then again, Adama certainly established his authority by coming down so strongly at the start."

That was the entire point. He had no choice but to make certain that Tyrol would bow to military authority.

Remember, it was the deck hands that Adama was talking about. They are military and cannot EVER be allowed to strike like that. Once Adama re-established the military pecking order, it was easy to give a concession - the meeting with Roslin. It was the right thing to do after all - as was maintaining absolute military authority over his troops and making sure they would follow lawful orders without question.

Don't forget, Galactica is at war. What did Lee Adama say last week? It doesn't matter that they haven't seen the Cylons in 49 days. The only number that matters is one. It only takes one day to change that streak. You can't run a military battleship with personnel who think they can hold a strike.

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Yeah I don't mind the filler episodes, necessarily, and I like some of the ideas this episode brought up... but labor disputes and Baltar's Communist MeinKampfesto book... that really doesn't make for exciting tv.

http://popculturejunk.blogspot.com/

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I understood that Baltar was just hand-scribbling his 'zine and then the lawyer and other supporters with printing and distributing it.

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i personally loved the episode. i think getting the insight on the characters and their emotions is what truly makes this such an amazing show. i mean, if we didn't care about the characters, why would we give a crap about their journey or whether or not they live or die? Building blocks people...

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I thought tonight was a superb episode... Not just a 'decent filler' or a 'hold me off till next week' affair, but a well acted (Callis' Baltar had what was probably my favorite scene of his ever), well written, well placed episode.

Imagine if you will, what these people would be going through. Working in the conditions that they're working in for the length of time with no real or imagined hope for a change? Imagine that you're the President of such a society, who cannot truly change things the way that they really need to be changed...

I thought that tonight's episode was a brilliant commentary on class structure. I am truly sorry for those that couldn't see or appreciate it. I'm not sure what people want? People hate Starpollo. People hate Helo (Ok, so do I, but that's another story), people hate this, people hate that. People want things that drive the story. A good story is one where we're informed about the players. You don't think tonight's episode will inform Baltar's trial and the end of the season a great deal?

I was going to use this spot to really highlight and rebut Tom's penetrating commentary, but I decided I had better things to do.

malren: I agree, its completely different issue having members of the military strike. Unfortunately, its what it took to really break through to the president.

Again, I loved this episode, and I'm sorry that you didn't.

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I totally agree that James Callis is an amazing actor, he really brings Baltar to life.
I also agree that DS9 was by far the best Trek show. It really had me yearning for more and i was devastated when they cancelled it.
These are some very talented people creating classics!

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I didn't think this was a filler episode at all. My definition of filler episodes on BSG are ones that stop everything to focus on one or two characters. I believe character is revealed on BSG through actions, and I don't see the need to bother with specific episodes about Character X. You learn about Starbuck by seeing how she deals with life ... you learn about the President by seeing how she does her job.

But I don't need a clear "advance the narrative" to raise an episode above filler. In this episode, we learned about a lot of characters who are barely mentioned ... and, in a meta-commentary, their usual absence was part of the theme of the episode. We learned in a new way how important chain of command is to the Admiral, we were reminded that on New Caprica, Roslin was just a school teacher (her reminder to Chief about the union was perfect). I can't see how all of this was filler. The class differences between the various colonies, filler? It's as important as the political themes, religious themes, military themes ... it just rarely gets mentioned.

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Re: amount of fuel

I don't think it was that they were running out of the tillium, it was that the workers had stopped refining it for use so they could repair the poor state of the ship. When the first guy was arrested, they hid the pressure cap-a-ma-thingys to ensure they wouldn't have to start refining again.

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Yeah it was a filler episode, but it was a better than average filler episode. The tension between the classes was expertly portrayed and made for a much better drama than I expected. A couple of things did annoy me though. Did we have to have so many long shots of the workers? They're dirty and sad and overworked-we get that. Also, what exactly is a Caprican (sp?) accent? Baltar's British accent? He's about the only one on the ship who talks with that type of accent, so is he the only Caprican around? Also, when he did his true accent, didn't he sound a bit like Russell Crowe?

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I don't understand why the internet has hate so much on the slow, non-main storyline episodes. Not every show has to be Alias or 24, guys. It's nice to have thoughtful character studies as well as action-packed war stories.

That said, there probably have been a few too many of these in the last two months. But this episode was pretty good. As everyone else said, that Baltar scene where he explains his accent was fantastic. The only problem is that I do think it does wrap up a little too nicely considering how dramatic a strike would be on the fleet.

As for Baltar's book, I believe they said something like he was writing them and passing the notes to his lawyer. He wasn't typing it up in the cell.

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BSG receives praise from people when it forces people to think about the real world in one way or the other. We're living through a time where the divide between rich and poor is getting larger all the time. This show is brilliant because it can bring this up in a way that possible parallels the real world, without drawing any firm conclusions. That's up to the viewers.

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I liked this episode too...It pulled me in and I wanted to see how it was going to unfold instead of rolling my eyes, like the past couple made me to.

I still think that if they were going to do this episode, then they never should have had Chief Tyrol and Adama box in the ring so Tyrol would re-learn his hard work ethic....it kind of flies in the face of this one.

Oh well, I liked it nonetheless. Cally is quite the instigating wifey, isn't she?

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Micheal if they were living on a planet and not jumping all the time then wouldn't they use less fuel?

Matthew, they said in the episode that they only had enough left for 2 more jumps of all the fleet. So they seem low.

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I'm torn on this episode. On the one hand, as a pure stand-alone episode, it was great. Taken by itself, it was fantastic.

But I can't do that. This show has a limited number of episodes, and it really infuriates me when they step away from the main story (in this case, for the third week in a row) to tell a meaningless character study. We'll never hear about this union again. We MAY hear about Baltar's book again.

What makes these throwaway episodes so pointless is that it would be SO easy to set up these things several episodes in advance and actually tie them into the overall story. How hard would it have been to have Baltar request some writing implements a few episodes back, or give a mention as to how the fleet is running short on fuel, or at least drop hints about the class structure? Then when this episode comes, it doesn't feel like it's just been created out of thin air.

The last few episodes have that "out of thin air" feel to them. Oh, guess what? There's an epidemic. Oh, guess what? Everyone hates the Saggitarons. Oh, guess what? A former pilot (and friend of Adama) has been held by the Cylons for a few years, and here he is! (this one goes back to earlier in the season, obviously).

The best positive example of this in action is the whole Jammer storyline from the first few episodes this season. His little treason arc (and Gaeta's)was sprinkled throughout the first eps, and in the webisodes, so by the time "Collaborators" aired, it was the logical conclusion to those events. If they had created a treason character out of thin air for that episode, it would have been way too convenient.

Contrary to the opinion of the maniacal laughter guy from earlier, when this show is on its game, it IS the best show on TV. The first five episodes of this season were brilliant. The last ten, MEH, with some of them among the worst of the entire series (I'm talking to you, "The Passage" and "Hero")

Hopefully they can pull it all back together over the remainder of the season.

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Of the three 'filler' episodes we've had so far, this was by the far the best. Honestly, I don't mind the filler, because I think it's interesting to see the characters when they're not anxiously 'fighting for their lives'.

I've actually been curious previously about whole they were going to handle a situation like this-- and train a new generation of citizens for important jobs. I think this was a great look at class structure and the fine line between a democracy and an aristocracy.

It didn't surprise me that Adama was so harsh-- he is trying to keep a civilization alive and they are at war even tho we've seen nary a cylon in several weeks. Of course, at times I wanted to throttle him and Roslin for not being a little more understanding. But I was happy in the end when Roslin and Tyrol sat down and were hammering out ways to make things better.

My favorite part of the episode was when Adama told Roslin she could always sleep in one of his beds. Very cute. And Seelix starting her Viper training-- yay!

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