Ep 11 - Colonial Day

[Blade Runner]

10 or 11?

[Crashdown]

Despite some admitted problems, I have to say that I did enjoy the episode quite a lot, possibly more than last week's to be honest

Anyway, a couple of minor points/questions.

I thought it was a great Baltar ep; even though it was just a little thing, I was highly amused when we first saw him in the council chamber or whatever it was, sitting with his head on his arms, half asleep.

Second thing, when we saw Boomer dancing with Gaeta, am I right in thinking Tyrol was in the background for a moment? If so, who was he dancing with, or was it no one that we recognised? Or did I not even see Boomer dancing with Gaeta and I in fact suffered a colossal brain spasm during the end part of the episode and make things up?

[ernestborg9]

Crashdown said:

Despite some admitted problems, I have to say that I did enjoy the episode quite a lot, possibly more than last week's to be honest

Anyway, a couple of minor points/questions.

I thought it was a great Baltar ep; even though it was just a little thing, I was highly amused when we first saw him in the council chamber or whatever it was, sitting with his head on his arms, half asleep.

With due respect to Richard Hatch - who again made Tom Zarek very believable - Baltar's scenes were the only things that really lit-up the main arc of this ep. The "Oh, GOD I'm bored!" (singular use deliberate ) in the Quorum chamber was excellent. As was his statement that he's going to give Playa Palacios an "exclusive" after Roslin's chat with him in the toilet.

Second thing, when we saw Boomer dancing with Gaeta, am I right in thinking Tyrol was in the background for a moment? If so, who was he dancing with, or was it no one that we recognised? Or did I not even see Boomer dancing with Gaeta and I in fact suffered a colossal brain spasm during the end part of the episode and make things up?

No,you're not doing a "Gaius" (going loopy) Boomer was with Gaeta, and you did see Tyrol, who appeared to be with Crashdown's potential new squeeze, Ensign Davis (so you'd better have words with him ).

Interesting to see Baltar get an "excuse me" in on Lee Adama and end up dancing with Thrace. After their last "get together" in "Flesh and Bone", it's a wonder Thrace would want to get within a barge pole's reach of Baltar, let alone hold hands in a dance with him. After all, she could never be sure of where hands hands had last been....

[Blade Runner]

Great episode for the development of the story arc, I'm not into the political side of things and I really dont like the Tom zarek thing, he's well creepy

[Elen]

I honestly didn't think that any series could get this bad. Absolutely horrible episode.

Despite the previous episode's few glaring problems the contrast between these two episodes is so great that one wouldn't believe that they are from the same series.

Looking forward to next week's ep as it'll certainly be better. Time to go back to bed and dream some more of someone shooting Baltar's head into a bloody pulp.

All in all, bad week in series, bsg, lost, atlantis, all sucked.

[EstoniaKat]

This was my least favorite episode of the season. Not that it was bad (it was still more intriguing than 95% of Enterprise eps to me), but it doesn't didn't have much going for it.

In my mind, the B-plot with Helo was much more intriguing, and was the part I wanted more of. "Bug out!" would have been my reaction. Talk about rockin' your world.

Baltar had some nice moments, as did Zarek, although his line: "I shaved very close this morning in anticipation of being slapped by you" was a direct ripoff of a line from the 1969 movie Patton, and believe me, George C. Scott was a hell of a lot better with it.

Who assasinated the assassin? Who knows? Who cares? The story seems to suggest Ellen's behind it, but she's such an unlikable little harpy that i can't get interested. Every other character turns into a cypher of themselves when she's in the scene.

[Crashdown]

ernestborg9 said:

No,you're not doing a "Gaius" (going loopy) Boomer was with Gaeta, and you did see Tyrol, who appeared to be with Crashdown's potential new squeeze, Ensign Davis (so you'd better have words with him ).

*gasp* I am not a happy bunny

[MHall]

IMO, it was a great episode. The tension was great, especially in Starbuck and Apollo's fight scene and the Caprica subplot. James Callis brought his acting of Baltar up a notch by bringing his twitchiness down a notch. Ironically, now that Baltar is less twitchy, this is the first time that I was struck by a now obvious comparison between James Callis and that great twitchy actor, Jeff Goldblum. Also Richard Hatch again put in an outstanding performance. There is something about how he talks in a calm voice and makes his eyes go like the Puss in Boots from Shrek 2 that is creepy and makes me believe he is a baby Hitler or worse, because you know he is a powder keg behind that facade.

The story was big and messy, being politics, and thus was difficult to wrap up in one episode - and also difficult to anticipate to set it up properly in previous episodes. A lot of the criticisms in this thread are valid, but I still like the episode. I think the writers were probably a bit overwhelmed by the scale of the web they had to weave here. Internal Six really was starved for lines in this episode... maybe they were listening to feedback from early episodes... but I like Internal Six's chats with Baltar and don't want to see her starved ever again.

I am having a hard time understanding some of the dialog. What was the last line said in the rain by Helo when plotting their "assault"? And what was the line by Six after the "young girls at parties attracted to power" line?

My biggest complaint of all is where they choose the commercial breaks. This is a problem in every episode but particularly in this one. The problem is not the commercial breaks, per se, but the pacing and where the scenes end. You shouldn't have a really tense action scene, which gets resolved in an instant, and then in the next instant you slap up the BSG 75 screen and that's it. It's like sex without afterplay or exercise without a cooldown or audience applause the very instant a symphony is done. The viewer needs time to assimilate what happened and return to a relaxed mental state, and we can't do that when the BSG 75 screen comes up and tears us out of the story. I think they should strive for better pacing, even if it means less story in each episode.

And maybe there needs to be something other than "BSG 75" for the "breaker", because I find it really jarring... Maybe just a black screen with Six saying "aaaaahhh" (like when Starbuck slammed Baltar), Adama saying "Stand by!", Starbuck saying "Bring in the cat!", and so on, one per break. Or what about morphing the last scene into a picture of the BSG 75 logo? Or else a transitional wipe and then sort sort of moving logo?

[ernestborg9]

MHall said:

I am having a hard time understanding some of the dialog. What was the last line said in the rain by Helo when plotting their "assault"?

Helo The Telmont (?) Building's still standing. That's Delphi all right. Now all we have to do is wait until dark, infiltrate the most heavily fortified military hub on this planet, and if the Cylons haven't completely wasted the space port, steal a ship, locate Galactica and fly to her without getting shot down.
Valerii Is that all?

They then discuss Helo's idea of human clones, and he concludes the discussion by stating:

Helo: Whatever they are, they're not human. No human could do the things they've done: kill billions of innocent people. They've gotta be frakkin' Cylons. Just like the rest of 'em.

And what was the line by Six after the "young girls at parties attracted to power" line?

Baltar: Politics is the only thing more boring than blood samples. All those interminable speeches, all that really pomp-
Six: ...Parties full of young women...drawn to men of power.
Baltar: Well, when the people call, you must serve

My biggest complaint of all is where they choose the commercial breaks. This is a problem in every episode but particularly in this one. The problem is not the commercial breaks, per se, but the pacing and where the scenes end. You shouldn't have a really tense action scene, which gets resolved in an instant, and then in the next instant you slap up the BSG 75 screen and that's it. It's like sex without afterplay or exercise without a cooldown or audience applause the very instant a symphony is done. The viewer needs time to assimilate what happened and return to a relaxed mental state, and we can't do that when the BSG 75 screen comes up and tears us out of the story. I think they should strive for better pacing, even if it means less story in each episode.

BSG is structured for the US market. This means the show is structured around a set number of commercial breaks (usually 4).

Sky traditionally only have 3 commerical breaks in their imported shows. Breaks generally occurring around 6-8 minutes into a programme, then around the 20-22 minutes mark and finally around 6 minutes before the end of the show. This means the programmes are re-cut to fit the Sky One commerical slots, thus upsetting the pace of the episode.

And maybe there needs to be something other than "BSG 75" for the "breaker", because I find it really jarring... Maybe just a black screen with Six saying "aaaaahhh" (like when Starbuck slammed Baltar), Adama saying "Stand by!", Starbuck saying "Bring in the cat!", and so on, one per break. Or what about morphing the last scene into a picture of the BSG 75 logo? Or else a transitional wipe and then sort sort of moving logo?

Personally the static logo and fade-out works fine for me.

[MHall]

Thanks for the dialog transcription!

[waerth]

I would rather not see people posting urls to bt sites. Please exchange them through PM.

Yes I am downloading also, but with the number of bt sites that got taken down recently that I get my files from I hate to propagate their existance on public boards.

W

[Xenu]

Please, do NOT post links to BT sites, nor ask or advise about places to download episodes on the board; this is stated in the rules; all such links & posts will be removed.

[Spassvogel]

I don't quite understand the rancor...agreed that Wallace Gray coming out of nowhere was kinda dumb (and the radio program setup was cheesy too), but all of the rest of the intrigue is very effective. Zarek's two-facedness is brilliantly played for one, and also you can almost feel the nasty side bubbling around in there.

Heck, by mentioning Valens at all, he was as much as admitting that he had arranged for Valens to bring in the gun to kill Roslin.

This was a setup episode, obviously, but I still think they made it interesting. I don't think Batlar becoming VP was telegraphed at all. It didn't occur to me until the shot of Roslin listening to his press conference. Usually I incur the wrath of my wife because I can guess the endings to movies. (The Village was one...about 5 minutes after the credits I was like....you know, I'll bet....) Hehe.

Spass

[ladyrheena]

Yeah, Gray's appearance was kinda convenient. It'd have been a bit better if we'd at least heard his name mentioned like, ONCE in an earlier episode.

I will say I think this was the poorest ep thus far, but IMHO that by no means makes it rubbish. Certainly it was more of the political intrigue than the butt-whopping of "Hand of God" but there were some great character moments. Baltar without a doubt stole the show but I must admit, I melted into little adoring puddles right at the end when Adama invites Rosalin to dance. The old man is just to DARN CUTE. And of course the rampant lack-of-clothage on Apollo's part in the locker room wasn't all bad either. ;D
My two main complaints are firstly an inquiry as to why Starbuck seems to be doing EVERYTHING- I mean, she's a pilot, a flight instructor, a security guard, an investigator, an interrogator, and now even a proverbial blonde bombshell! Is there anything this girl CAN'T do? Okay, not so much a complaint as an observation, because she's still my fav character, but still, can't help wondering...oh, and the other thing is Zarek. I don't like Zarek. He scares me. Please make him go away.

On a completely different note, though, memo to Helo on Caprica: DING DONG! Glad they've finally started to actually DO something with that arc. Gonna be some really juicy stuff coming up, methinks.

Can't believe there are only two more episodes to go...

[lollywit]

I'm with you Spass... from having watched a copious amout of Films and TV over the years I get a feel for where a story is going... except for this show!

Episode after episode has me going "didn't see that coming" which I LOVE (although it is quite strange!!)