Last year, the BSG writers were in such a hurry for something to happen that they skipped ahead an entire year. Just zipped right past and cut to the chase.
This year, we got an episode so perfunctory and bland that nothing actually happened at all. That's what happens when you set up as your central conflict a situation in which nothing is at stake. That was the gist of Lee Adama's "testimony": There was no point in convicting Baltar, because at the end of the day, it just didn't matter one way or the other.
If Baltar's trial had been tied to larger issues in the show, if he had information that would help or hurt the fleet, if the Cylons were after him, if he knew who the final five were, it would have been different. Conversely, if Gaeta's perjury had been motivated by some deep dark secret, that would have deepened the plot. But instead it was all superficial scapegoating with Lee conveniently providing an out.
Other moments of non-brilliance:
- Weaving "All Along the Watchtower" into the story was an embarrassment. I cringed with every line. Should we expect "Knocking On Heaven's Door" in season 4?
- The Opera House dream sequences didn't go anywhere and since they're "dream sequences" there's no reason for us to believe that they will.
- Tigh, Anders, Chief, and Tory are not Cylons. Trying to make us think they might be is stupid.
- Kara Thrace's "surprise return" was not a surprise and just proved what lying liars the writers were in "Maelstrom." Lying liars!
- Wow, Earth, it really does exist.
- January 2008? Seriously? By then, who will even remember this show ever existed?
- The Cylons have been developing psychic abilities and testing them with sporadic success which explains the Head-Six as well as the shared dreams and the broadcasting of the song. This also explains Kara seeing Leoben, and Lee seeing Kara.
- The Cylons are using this ability to manipulate the fleet in the search for Earth.
- Tigh and friends are not Cylons.
- The original Cylons came from Earth and settled the Twelve Colonies. Over time they forgot their origins and built new Cylons.
- The BSG universe takes place in the far future. "All Along the Watchtower" is a cultural memory of the Cylon's long lost Earth origins. It comes from the collective unconscious.
- That was not our Starbuck we saw but a Cylon avatar.
- Starbuck, Baltar, and others may be hybrids like Hera that the Cylons were not aware of.
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Update
Ronald D. Moore confirms Tigh and the others are in fact Cylons. Other spoilerish info can be found in an interview in the Post-Gazette Journal.
