"you'll be so blanged out"

blanged?

[www.urbandictionary.com]

even in the context of the sentence the exact meaning is a bit obscure.

I can't believe IO9 keeps spoiling BSG. I mean, what if you didn't know the Chief shaved his head?
All joking aside, isn't it only natural they all go a little coocoo? They are trapped in such a confined space and under constant traumatic stress.
And Anders kicking the crap out of Leobed made this episode tolerable. Clearly a "filler" leading to bigger events to come.

I'm looking forward to next week.

*spoilerish?* It looks like Gaeta gets kneecapped by anders. Nice. Gaetas been a tool ever seen he perjured last season.

we also see Kara on a cylon base ship in the previews already so the episode cliffhanger wasn't hung for long.

Great to see Callum Keith Rennie (Leoben) again, one of my fav supporting actors, and a great character.

Just a few things, wasn't quite the crew that busted in on Leo and Kara, was Anders and 2 guards behind him (you know... Kara's husband), which made it all the worse (for Leoben).

Plus, Tyrol didn't punch Baltar, he tried to choke him :)

I didn't find it too surprising that Anders listened and even considered Leoben's proposal about joining or visiting the cylon basestar, and it seemed he was the only one on Kara's side (be it cause he's foolishly in love, or agreeing to Leoben's proposal).
Anyway, not too surpising since, he'd probobly like to know more about himself as a closet cylon by checking out the family.

I didn't make a Taxi Driver connection. Tyrol reminded me more of Vincent D'Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket.

@WordMan: Think he cried "butterfingers" when he was hit? Man, i loved when Baltar said that at the trial.
I also thought it was Helo at first, but after watching it a few times I think it is Gaeta. Oh, and if they kill Helo I'm going to quit this show!

@extracrispy: Haha, right on, I was half expecting him to go "I *am*... in a world... of shit" at any part in the episode :)

Guys! I read the recaps to see what I might have missed in the episode, not to get spoilers for the next one! No no talk about who gets shot where, and who ends up where please!
(or am I the only one refusing to watch previews of the episodes, and feels this way?)

Does anyone else find the Athena character to be a little odd at this point?

I think they're all acting odd. Which I think can be summed up as cabin fever. I'm thinking mass suicide is a possibility.

I thought this was a terrible episode. They somehow made a mutiny boring, Leoben boring, a cylon raider exploding... boring.

It was boring.

@Jeff-Minor: Well, the rest are just acting stressed, but I am talking about the Athena character throughout this whole season.

@darundal: Think the writer's are having a hard time placing her on a side in this season, should she keep her "I'm pretty much a human now, death to all Cylons" stance, or go with the "I miss my old family a bit too, would be nice to hook up with the other sharon's... the six's are cool too... the Leoben's we can work on..."

@darundal:

Everyone is feeling a little odd to me. And not from a plot-perspective either, I get the feeling a lot of the actors don't know what to do with their characters anymore.

Seems like BSG's usual mid-season slump has come really early this year.

Completely useless random comment here about the heat. In space, heat is way more of a problem than cold. Space isn't cold or hot. It's a vacuum so there is nothing to be cold or hot.

Surrounded by vacuum means that there is nothing to carry away heat. If you generate it, you have to live with it. Like living in a thermos bottle.

So, yeah, I could see the inside of a crappy old broken down tug boat getting a little warm.

While it's true that this season has been filled with "creepy" or "yucky" moments (including Baltar's growing fondness for sermons) I think this is all exactly as it should be.

That is, these people are under tremendous stress, they've suffered the destruction of their civilization; they're clinging for dear life to its decaying remnants. A few have discovered they're not what they thought they were. Various forms of madness or near-madness are understandable responses.

Even the Cylons who, on the face of it, appeared to be triumphant, are suffering a crisis of meaning.

Now, as audience members, we're getting fidgety: we want to see and hear less of weepy, preachy Baltar, we want Starbuck to be tough and decisive, we want battle plans and clear movement.

However, considering the conditions the characters are enduring these are unreasonable expectations.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that BSG's final arc is remarkably brave for a television series. The audience's discomfort is being courted, we're invited to go along with these people on a dangerous journey.

Not just physically dangerous -- space battles and so forth -- but profoundly dangerous to their sanity.

Of course, we find it "creepy"; it is creepy. What else could it be?

That episode was terrible. Nothing happened. They could have done everything in the 5 minute intro sequence then moved on to the next episode where it seems events of actual consequence happen.

@darundal: I agree completely. You'd think she'd have been even vaguely interested in knowing what was going on with the Cylons, or even which side Sharon was on.

And another week goes by with no mention of baby Hera.

If you love Starbuck and her crazy routine, this episode was for you. If that whole thing annoys you, as it does me, this episode was tough to get through.

If you've been to grad school, you know at least a handful of people just like Starbuck who let their eccentricity masquerade as intelligence.

You rolled a +1 with the Language Poetry reference. I thought the same thing when I first heard the hybrid -- surely she's a fan of Lyn Hejinian and Clark Coolidge.

"There is no there there, Number 6. End of line."

@Ryan H: I like to boil water with my Vacuumatic frozen water vapor extractor.

Of the three Starbucks we have seen -- sexy gender-role-defying Starbuck, yelling Starbuck wracked with guilt and anger, crazy religious Starbuck -- I am starting to miss the first one.

On another note, did anyone else notice that the Orion constellation made several more cameos this time around, when starbuck first saw the raider it is smack in the middle of it. That's kind of hard to chock up to the editor didn't notice.

@Rasselas: Seconded. I really hate what they're doing to Starbuck. They really need to fix her character, and but quick.

I could have done with a little less Baltar, definitely. We're gearing up for the denouement of this story, so many character loose ends have to be tied up now. A lot of viewers just don't seem to be "getting" these recent episodes, possibly b/c the pacing is slower than what we're used to. Character work doesn't often include much action, but it sets up the final action of the story. A couple things I noticed that no one has mentioned yet:

* I don't know what was up with Baltar's PJs, but his robe was a royal purple, which might be significant.

* Baltar has now won over 2 of the Final Four. Will Tigh and Anders follow suit or will the F4 be split apart along religious lines?

* In the next episode, I can see the hybrid outing Anders to Starbuck.

* Details from the prediction of the hybrid from Razor are starting to pan out.

@Paganmoon: You probably are the only one who feels this way. Previews are part of the hype machine that makes us look forward to next week. They also lead to possible discussion about our speculations for the next week, so they're completely fair game.

@Spoony Bard: Starbuck going nutso after being given this kind of knowledge is very much in keeping with the hero's journey.

"the guy out doing recon with her" = Hot Dog.

hey, he's got an action figure, he must be important.

I know life would be "cooler", or whatever neo-slang-word-of-the-moment you want to substitute, if every movie and show was nothing but gunfire and blowups, but some of us enjoy the development of complex characters.

@Seth L: Recall that when this was all filmed, the show had just been announced that it was canceled, no more episodes after this season. My guess is that it's pretty hard to stay motivated for a show that you know has no future.

Really worries me about the LAST ten episodes, which they're filming now. . . senioritis kills.

Not crazy about the episode, but I'm hoping it leads to a huge a payoff (and hopefully we see earth a little earlier than the finale). I love the idea of the Demetrius, but agree that the execution was off. Still betting there's some sort of ship of lights reference coming up...

This show is bring me to a slow boil.
And not in a good way.

You may call the characters "creepy". I say "meandering and pointless".

And just what the hell is Adama doing during all this?

You can still radiate heat in space. Those things on the ISS that look like crumpled solar panels are heat radiators.

Was anybody else really disappointed that virtually every plot development in this episode was spoiled in last week's preview trailer? In thirty seconds, the trailer showed Leoben arriving, his raider blowing up (and killing someone), and nearly the whole mutiny. Aside from Tyrol's new dome and his handshake with Baltar, that was it. And I'm not blaming Sci-Fi's promotions unit -- it's just that this was yet another episode where nothing happened.

I can only hope these are the "strike" episodes, and that things will get better soon, because if you ask me, BSG seems to be heading towards DS9-season-7 levels of plot stagnation. If they take an entire episode to play intramural pyramid sometime in the next few weeks, I'm done.

Actually a key problem with space travel would be disposing of waste heat. Without a medium (atmosphere) heat would bleed away from the ship VERY slowly, causing it to build up inside the vessel.

And now that I posted I see this was already mentioned. As far as heat radiators go, maybe this garbage barge doesn't have very good ones?

Does Leoben know Anders is one of the final 5? I didn't see/hear the Anders-talking-to-Leoben scene as I was standing in the next room where I couldnt hear anything, but the look on Anders face looked like he thinks Leoben knows.

Battlestar is quite the yawn-fest indeed these days.

I think what they need are more mini-cliffhangers like they do on LOST - And intersecting plots that leave you in suspense

Like "Oh nos! Ty is gonna rape the captured six model!" and then "Oh nos! Adama is shooting nukes at a basestar - will Galactica survive?"

And then you cut back and forth between that and Starbuck screwing some guy with her alien tentacles

Blammo! Show saved.

Now I know why when I saw the Chief at Comic con, his head was shaved. Man! they film these things far in advance. He was leaner in perosn as well. Is the weight change Tyrol or Aaron Douglas?

I couldn't figure out why this episode ended with a "To be continued..."

It's an ongoing, long arc focused series. Every frakkin' epidsode is "to be continued..."

But whatever.

Enjoyed, would, frankly be a stretch for this episode. The should have stopped after season 2.

@tuacker: There were no explicit clues that Leoben knew this, although there were the usual veiled hints.

I think that a good measure for a battlerstar episode is how long it takes people on battlestar wiki to write the entry for the episode.

This one was mediocre, and there was only a bit of work done on it by sunday.

The better episodes have articles done on saturday morning.

@Daveinva: The show was not cancelled. Ron Moore announced in the third season that the fourth season would be the last. He didn't want the series to go on "Wagon Training" indefintely. The break that occurred was due to the writer's strike and production halting mid-way through the final season.

I thought this was a great episode. I really enjoyed watching Starbuck and Tyrol both try and reconcile what was happening to them. Also, re: the Razor hybrid's prediction: we all thought the "they" in "She is the harbinger of the apocalypse. They should not follow her." referred to humanity. I now think the hybrid was addressing his children, the Cylons. Thus if the cylons ally with the humans via Starbuck, it will be the downfall of those cylons.

@sensenet: The Hybrid in Razor specifically said Kara is the harbinger of death, and that she would lead HUMANITY to its end.

@Ryan H: Actually, wrong. Freshmen physics majors are taught about black-body radiation. All object above absolute zero radiate their heat away in one form of EM radiation or another. It's called entropy, and is why (unless it collapses back in on itself due to excess gravitational mass) the universe will probably die in a cold, cold winter where entropy has stolen all possible energy from all possible systems.
So. No. A ship must heat, and most especially insulate, itself - or freeze.

@darundal: Yes I ave noticed it too. Athena is acting weird. Or rather, she's acting like she isn't a Cylon at all, and while that's weird, it's even weirder that the rest of the crew seems to have forgotten it as well. WTF?

@idoru345: Creepy is fine. Great really, because you're right about the pressure cooker that is all of the remains of humanity, bottled up on what, 25 ships? BUT. This episode was BORING, BORING, BORING. I absolutely worship this show, but I'm telling you, it was TOO much soap opera tonight -- you know, that most thing about soap operas, right? That you can watch for a whole hour and not a single plot line experiences actual advancement? THAT is a waste of my time. They'd better get with it, and shortly.

@Velireon: The entire rest of the Demetrius crew hasn't forgotten. The diminutive pilot with dark hair who thinks Starbuck is a Cylon (I call him 'Shorty') snapped at Helo when Helo originally nixed the idea of a mutiny. "Figures you'd defend a Cylon," referring to Athena. That got him a pistol whipping by Helo, who's nearly two feet taller than Shorty.

Is it just my imagination, or is every, single, fracking character on this show going insane?

One thing worth noting about the last episode, is that there are now representatives of 7 Cylon models, each of which are either unique and un-ressurectable or on their way to being so, in the human fleet. Wonder where that's leading...

I liked that both Anders and Starbuck refrained from killing Leoben when he told them that there was no resurrection ship in range. I guess killing cylons can be "murder" too, sometimes.

"language" poets, as opposed to "meat" poets

I think it makes perfect sense that everybody is going crazy at this point, and I actually don't mind that as character development goes. I really feel like the main problem with this episode was that we focused too much on three characters who were going through roughly the same mental degeneration. We needed a good counterpoint: Adama being sane, for example, or Helo and Sharon and Anders (the non-crazy Demetrius crew) making plans and dealing with Leoben.

"Hey Cylon, you talking to me?"

Id pay good money to see that, actually...

You know, it occurs to me that the problem with this season so far isn't the plotlines themselves, but rather the pacing. All of the storylines we've been seeing are (hopefully) important to the show's overall development, but taken individually, no one of them is strong enough to hold up the show on its own.

Unfortunately, rather than keeping all these different plotlines going at the same time, the show's producers have taken to showing us "one-and-a-half" stories per episode this season. As a result, several ongoing plots are completely absent from one episode to the next: Roslin, Adama, Lee, and (let's face it) Tigh were MIA this week, while Starbuck and the renegade Cylons were nowhere to be seen last week, and so on since the second episode.

This is something that could have been fixed with better intercutting. For example: by leaving Saul's situation hanging for what looks like two weeks (or more), the producers are effectively telling us "nothing to see here". Rather than ratcheting up the suspense, they're encouraging us to lose interest in him. I don't think that's deliberate.

I can only imagine that they meant to intercut the arcs better, but the strike prevented them from working on it. Hopefully things will tighten up as production resumes, because it would be a shame for a decent show like this to fall apart at the end.