Since I'm going to be stuck at work ANYWAY

[trinityvixen]

Ugh, the boss just Does Not Get It. Giving me two-and-a-half hours of work at FOUR is not okay. I am totally coming in late tomorrow.

*

But since I'm here: HOLY SHIT BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

It's amazing how apathetic I was to season three and yet totally psyched-out-of-nowhere I was for season four to start. It hit me about a week before the premiere, and suddenly I caught myself just STARING at the ads on the side of Pandagon and willing time to move faster. (The fact that it started up so close to my birthday makes the waiting all the more painful.)

So, BSG:

Biggest flip-out moment of all, by far, was Anders staring down the Raider and triggering it to leave. SO AWESOME. Because Sam is absolutely adorably adorable; most definitely not an asshole (which puts him in the minority on this show); insanely cute trying to fly a viper (so weird!); and HOLY FRAK HE IS A CYLON.

I needed that moment. I needed it because no matter what the creators have said or what appeared to be the case last season, there's still some part of me that completely balks at the reveal of the four of the Final Five. It's not even Tigh that does it, what with his being strangely old and having been around during the last cylon war. It's the Chief being a cylon that kills me. The heart of the show is a robot. My mind, blown! Some part of me is still going, "Not the Chief. Not Chief Tyrol, surely." "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley," says the show. THE CHIEF IS A CYLON TOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!?!?!?!?!

Yeah, a little freaked, can you tell? Because now it's proven. Aiya. So freaked I can't care about Starbuck being alive. In fact, in comparison, I could care less. Except for that awful exchange she and Anders have as she starts to question whether her miraculous return might not have intervening hands on it. She's so sure she's not a cylon or a trap or anything wrong, but if you fly in the face of overwhelming sanity, you start to crack. And Anders is sitting there trying to do his job--he's sorta a less sex-potty version of Six (LESS?) crossed with a less whiny Eight--and love and comfort her from a position of authority on the subject of her totally not being a cylon. AND SHE THREATENS TO SHOOT HIM. IN THE FACE. IF HE IS A CYLON. (WHICH HE TOTALLY IS.)

And then she whacks him across the face when he doesn't jump to join her "Let's threaten the President with a shooting in the face until she does what I say" plan. I'm with TWoP's Jacob on this: it's so crazy, it HAS to be Starbuck. Even D'Anna--if she weren't in a box--would look at this plan and go, "No, thanks, I'll just take my pills."

In general, though, they need to get the LONG, SIGNIFICANT LOOKS BETWEEN THE SECRET CYLONS shots out of their system. One, two episodes of that at most before I start to get annoyed. I get it. O-to-the-M-and-the-G, Adama, Roslin, et al. are talking about the cylons' crazy plotting WHILE CYLONS ARE STANDING RIGHT THERE. We get it, m'kay? Let's get to the confessions--Tigh will go to his grave before he'll tell Daddy Adama that he's a toaster (apparently, according to viridian, Michael Hogan would have preferred to go to his grave having not played a cylon), but Anders and the Chief are kinda suckers and they will totally spill the beans to someone. My money is on Anders cracking first or being outed first by virtue of generally being more open about feelings and stuff and more overtly traumatized by being a robot than anyone else seems to be. I want to see the Chief talk to his wife, especially. Talk about trauma.

Also, I'd find it hilarious if Adama made some comment about how nice it is that Tigh is checking out other women, completely misreading the looks passing between him and Tory. Things of that nature should happen to amuse me seeing as Ellen Tigh is no longer around to do it and all scenes involving Baltar have become ridiculous to an unfunny degree.

And this is not a spoiler, this is me taking bets, feel free to answer in comments: First of the final four to be outed...? When will that happen (mid-season, next episode, last)? Last cylon is...?

(I answer myself: Anders, mid-season, and the last cylon is freakin' Doc Cottle because that would be megawesome.)

Comments

[anomilygrace.livejournal.com]

(apparently, according to [info]viridian, Michael Hogan would have preferred to go to his grave having not played a cylon)

Not just Michael Hogan. At Dragon*Con last August, Aaron Douglas was pretty vocal about the fact he'd been startled and upset that Chief was a cylon.

I loved the Anders/Raider (new OTP!) moment too, but I was shocked none of the Colonials picked up on what I thought was the obvious conclusion - the cylons can't destroy the Fleet until they have Hera.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Aaron Douglas was pretty vocal about the fact he'd been startled and upset that Chief was a cylon.

I'm betting a lot of it comes from being annoyed that they didn't always know. It's really annoying for an actor not to have that sort of information to work with from the beginning to know how to structure their performance. I have to wonder, though, given how vehement both have been about it, if there isn't something going on in the production that is giving them a case of the grumps about this decision.

but I was shocked none of the Colonials picked up on what I thought was the obvious conclusion - the cylons can't destroy the Fleet until they have Hera.

Perhaps that explains the shift in plan to purposefully target the fleet ships. Usually, it seems that Galactica takes the pounding (the thought being that taking out the war horse leaves the peasantry unguarded and easy pickings). This time, they went equally for the civilian fleet and the split firepower. I'm assuming it was to cripple Galactica but not really hurt it so they could then take Hera.

There's also the distinct possibility that Caprica and Athena have mentioned that Boomer was willing to kill Hera, indicating that perhaps the cylons had shifted in their interests vis a vis Hera. (Given how frequently they change plans, this is not an entirely unreasonable assumption to have on the part of the (mostly) humans.)

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Okay, my speculations (which you can kill me for later if they turn out to be retroactive spoilers:)

1. I agree with you on Anders, because I feel like he might let it slip to Kara. He seems the most likely to crack.

2. I think just past mid-season. Not the last episode, but not til about ep 6 or 7.

3. I still say Bill Adama, though I would be happy with any number of people. Laura Roslin would be interesting, Doc Cottle would be AWESOME. I just think it's Adama because in my personal canon, Leoben doesn't lie as often as we think, and he originally told Roslin that Adama was a Cylon.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Re #3: I think Leoben is lying. I think that, though he is out there in Crazy Forest, not seeing the trees, he's not exactly blazing a trail to the final five, either. Otherwise, he'd be boxed. And, I suspect, a good deal of his hostility towards D'Anna may be that he wasn't able to leap frog headlong into crazy like she was. (Or, maybe, just because she did it first.)

But I don't think he's more special than the others that he could ID a fiver ahead of time so far. In fact, it served its purpose to lie to Roslin at the time and kept her and Adama at odds. As we've seen, they're pretty scary when they work together. And Leoben has lied about lots of things if he felt it would suit his needs (like pretending the little blonde girl was Kara's baby). He obfuscates about things he is telling the truth about, like her destiny and the direction of humanity (and probably, with Tigh being a cylon, that stuff about it all happening before...). But he outright lies when he's being more robot-y.

But yes, Doc Cottle would be awesome. He's someone we've seen enough and has been memorable enough that he could come out of nowhere as a cylon and be fabulous. Especially since he's got this fuck-it-all, you-people-are-all-stupid-even-if-you're-robots attitude. He's treated cylons and people alike and I could almost believe that he's never not been aware that he's a cylon and he's having a freakin' ball watching the humans stumble about, the cylons frak things up, and the new cylons go "OMG WE ARE ROBOTZ."

[viridian.livejournal.com]

LOL now I am all on board the Cottle's a Cylon train. That's hysterical.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Just picture it. ACTION!

Adama: Athena and that Six know who the last cylon is!
Roslin: TO THE PRESIDENTMOBILE

::VRROOOOMING:: They end up in sick bay. Doc Cottle is sitting there smoking (of course)

Cottle: Amazing. It took you four years of 'Patch up this,' 'feed me these drugs, it's totally for medicinal purposes,' for you to actually get that I'm the only guy who's ever put his hands in cylon guts and fixed them and to ask yourself why that was? Ever stop to wonder why hasn't humanity stupided itself out of existence?

Cottle points to himself.

Cottle: Yo.

[fairest.livejournal.com]

I know I pined about this already, but I'd love it to bits if it turned out that the last Cylon was patterned on an actual, living human. It would let Daddy Adama be the last cylon while keeping our *specific* Daddy Adama human.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Like I told you, there's stuff in Razor that wouldn't make that impossible. I'm wondering how much of that is actually important. It was on Sci-Fi Channel, but it really didn't change events much.

[decidedly.livejournal.com]

The Anders/Raider moment was just - just - M and I both screamed at the TV, our minds were so awesomely blown. That may be my single most favoritest moment on this show EVAR. AND YAY I GET TO USE THE ANDERS ICON!

And I'm totally with you on a few points, not the least of which is the surplus of lingering toaster glances. Oy.

I accidentally read a tidbit of NON-information that pretty much sunk my theory on who the last Cylon is. At this point I know who it's NOT, which makes figuring out who it IS that much more nerve-wracking. But I have my theories. You'll be happy to know the husband is totally with you on Doc Cottle. But if you view the show as a chessboard, there are three people placed rather strategically in the scheme of things. As a coworker and I discussed today, quite a few of the outed Cylons have either trauma or religious overtones to their background, and have somehow aligned themselves - unwittingly or no - with major figures. So that leaves me with one logical conclusion. Well, as I said before, three, but I think one may just be too obvious, another's been out of the picture for a while, and the last is the one I'm leaning towards.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm actively looking for a decent animated icon of that moment because it was, well, momentous. YAY FOR ANDERSES ICONS.

I think I might know the tidbit to which you refer, vis a vis the last of the five. (Does it have to do with the "Last Supper" picture?) It made too much sense (and was too easy) for Starbuck to have been it, though I would prefer it were a woman for all that I'm behind Doc Cottle 100%. (Said as much upthread, but basically I could totally believe the one truly anonymous cylon is a grumpy doctor who thinks everyone--robot, human, humans who are robots--is stupid.)

In terms of the strategic placement = cylon, I'm curious as to what you come up with. (Please don't say Gaeta. He's another I really enjoy for how human he is. Dee, maybe, but they'd have to do a lot of work to make me like her enough to let her be a cylon. I like Tory better, and Tory is barely ever onscreen or allowed to speak.) Because really you don't get anyone more strategically placed than the two main character-secret-cylons. Tigh, for obvious reasons, but Tyrol just as much if not more. Tyrol oversees a lot, has a lot of responsibilities (and access) aboard Galactica. He's also the Fleet-wide union leader and rep on the ship. He has power. It's interesting how such a throwaway episode as the one where he assumed that role suddenly becomes much more important.

I'd like it to be a woman, though, only because it should be in a gender-neutral society, but I suppose the patriarchical structure of the cylon religion does provide for a slight bias in favor of males. It's just that there are only four female cylons. Another dude leaves it at four, but another woman would bring it closer to equal. This is not to say the female cylons aren't obviously the most powerful and influential among the cylon. I mean, Cavill seems to be important, Doral is pretty sneaky, but come on. Even other cylons don't want to be friends with the Leobens. (A Leoben's only friend is the hybrid that jumps the basestars.) And Simon is just never even acknowledged (except for the gimme episode that introduced him). But still, numbers are important, too.

Speaking of, I wonder if we'll ever understand that rubric?

[teneda.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna have to guess Billy boy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Keikeya

And his reveal will be the next to last ep.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Good guess, but I'd say not. I'm almost positive that it was meant that it should have been Billy, and that would have been devastating. However, when he was killed off, Tory took over his role and was the cylon. I doubt Billy is the cylon. He's been entirely out of the picture for over a season.

I also doubt that, regardless of whom, the reveal of the last cylon will take place before end of season. Just because he/she will have some answers that the other four of the Final Five do not and will need time to deliver them and for the ensemble to react.