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Rewatch - already a day late. heh. Well, there you go. At least I did it though.
I did start with the Razor flashbacks - at least the ones I could find easily, since I discovered I didn't have them as a separate file as I thought. But I found them today, so I'll talk about them with the other 'extras' for tomorrow.
A little about my first experience watching the show. I watched when it first aired, and as a childhood fan of OldSkool I was ... a bit nervous. I realized it could be updated and improved, plus I was at least somewhat familiar with RDM's work on Star Trek so I knew he had the experience, so rebooting it as such didn't bother me. Making Starbuck a woman was fine (Apollo was my favorite in Old Skool - had they switched that instead, I might have been more dubious, but as it was, I didn't mind). Eliminating Athena as Adama's daughter - of course, I had no idea that there would eventually be an Athena was less fine. Making Boomer female and Asian was awesome. Making Tigh white was the change I disliked the most - both Boomer and Tigh were black in Classic, and suddenly there were none. It still bothers me a bit, tbh - I do love Michael Hogan and I think he did a fabulous job, but yeah. Anyway.
So it was with a bit of trepidation that I watched it. And I remember liking it, but the funny thing is I don't really remember much more than that because my son was born later that week. :) I have watched it again, once, since, but even that was several years ago. So here we go from the beginning, a bit of liveblog as I watch.
We open with armistice Station! with Charlie Conner's ... um, uncle.
HellooArmistice!Six -- when she walks in it reminds me of that bit in the "What the frak video" -- "and some of them even look like models." hmm. maybe I should start a drinking game of drinking whenever a Cylon is onscreen - I'll probably be pretty drunk halfway through so that's probably not a good idea.
"Are you alive?" Which brings us to one of the over-riding themes of the show and the reason I love it so much: what is life, what is death, and living versus survival.
Kara in the hall! hm.. not a fan of her weedwacker haircut in the mini, I confess. And the 'what do you hear?" -- which actually gets a callback toward the end, which I'd forgotten about.
Doral the tour guide in TEAL. I love how he wears both his colors in this. he's a switcher that Doral.
Captain Kelly! I'd forgotten he was in this so early.
I do love this long tracking shot at the beginning, especially the part going through the cic. It may be our best look at the set the whole show - they certainly wanted to get their money's worth out of showing it off.
Chief and Cally looking like babies. AwWW. STAY PRECIOUS YOU TWO OMG. MAYBE IT WILL TURN OUT BETTER THIS TIME
Okay, neither of those boys in the picture the deck gang give to Adama look like they'd grow up to be Jamie. Sorry, props department.
BOOMER and HELO. and the card game of Oncoming Doom. and striking a superior asshole. hee. But Kara, you're kind of an asshole too, just FYI.
ha, I think the background of the doctor's office with Laura might be Justin's apartment building in FL.
The broadcaster mentions a pyramid game on Gemenon - and yet the Bucs are in high-altitude training. I'll assume the game they mention on Gemenon is some sort of exhibition/off-season league. *handwave*
Still think it's hilarious how Ron SO regretted the red spine thing later. "NO YOU CAN'T REALLY SEE IT WE WERE KIDDING LOL."
(I have to admit it's not my favorite thing either, since it introduces issues so I usually ignore it; because seriously, Chief never saw it with Boomer? Gaius NEVER saw it with Caprica in TWO YEARS of having sex? there are other positions, not to mention reflective surfaces... so no, I don't believe that the spines actually glow. And I believe the Five do it even less. I come from Stargate fandom, where canon is ever-malleable over time. This isn't a problem to pretend this never happened).
aw, lee there you are. You know, now I remember why I thought you were a dick. SO RUDE TO CHIEF.
"LIEUTEANT THRACE will be replaced in the slot by LIEUTENANT ANDERS." I'm SORRY YOU WERE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THERE'S NO DESTINY? (or name recycling, but y'know, same thing. lol)
wow, this scene with Lee and Bill is even more uncomfortable than I remembered.
The moment when Gaius learns the truth about the Cylons with Caprica is still stunning in its perfection.
hm, that's an interesting little moment I never noticed before. When Bill's giving his terrible retirement speech and he mentions the bit about why humanity's worth saving - Doral shifts and looks interested for a moment. heh. Still the worst speech ever. lol. I love how everyone's like "wtf? is that all? what the hell was that?"
hee, Saul burning a photo of someone who vaguely looks like Ellen, but is not Kate Vernon.
The main attack sequence and Adama's big 'we are at war' speech and the "fight" when the entire squadron of vipers gets taken out by TWO raiders -- STILL AMAZING
Doral - you and your "who died and put you in charge' to Laura is so adorable especially BECAUSE YOU ARE A CYLON. It is kind of funny that he runs to Lee to try to make him take charge instead of Laura though. I suppose it makes sense if we figure he's just trying to set humans at odds against each other, but the strategy there is still a bit obtuse when you know what he is, and that he knows.
This scene with Boomer and Helo on Caprica is, for those who don't know, a callback to a similar scene in OldSkool when Adama and Apollo go land on Caprica to find his wife/Apollo's mom. The house is destroyed, and then people come pouring over the ridge to try to escape in their shuttle. Apollo desperately wants dad to get the hell out but Adama refuses.
anyway, it is certainly Helo's Big Damn Hero moment. (even if it's particularly ironic that he gives it up for Baltar, of course. And first appearance of Red.) bye, Helo - see you in '33' actually alive!
The pilot of Colonial One is a good guy to have in a crisis. Laura was lucky he was there, really -- cool head, reasonable, bit of a sense of humor. Kind of shipping him and Laura, tbh.
aw, the part where it looks like colonial One and Lee all went explodey.
THEN THE JUMP TO RAGNAR. and they have cool fx and it's a Big Deal that they're jumping. and hee, they all applaud, like WOO WE'RE NOT ALL DEAD. lol. They totally lose that later, but it's so cute the first time.
Crazy!Ragnar Leoben. lol.
While obv they didn't know originally what Red was, so a lot of her interactions are (ahem) red herrings, it's interesting that the first thing she says "I can exist only in your head without being a hallucination." That's pretty much what I think she is. She's manifesting herself in his subconscious - an external manipulation of his internal mind.
On Ragnar, it's interesting to try to pinpoint exactly when Bill starts getting suspicious -- I think he's generally suspicious when leo has no obvious ship that brought him there (he claims it's on the other side of the station, but I think Bill doesn't believe he's alone). That suspicion gets a bit allayed when he hears Leo's a supposed arms dealer - but then he purports not to know about the war, which has to be fishy for an arms dealer not to have word outside, even if they're on the edge of the system and out of easy contact. Then Leo's sick, and it's weird, since apparently this area is fine for humans. And then Leo has to go and blow it talking about the attacks being retribution, which I'm pretty sure is when Bill twigged to it completely. (especially when we add in the experiments he saw in Razor as a young man) But it does make me wonder how ANY Leoben worked undercover in the Colonies without being totally obvious. heh.
Hm, once the Rag-tag Fleet with Colonial One gets scanned by the Raiders and they realize the Cylons are coming - it's interesting that Doral is the voice of "you can't sacrifice all those people who can't escape." (which seriously, everything he does, while it makes sense from a Cylon point of view is pretty darn clever. Pity the miniseries is pretty much the last time Doral gets to be smart and interesting).
The radiation affecting the Cylons on Ragnar doesn't really make sense with them trying to settle the Colonies after nuking it. While there are different types, Leoben and Doral both succumbed in less than a day -- that's an extreme vulnerability to some kind of space phenomenon that they then supposedly aren't affected by fallout in the Colonies. Actually I find both kind of bullshit since, as the doc says both in this and Cottle with Sharon - the Cylons are biologically identical with things like lymphatic systems, except for some molecular structures. Not to mention, every single person died on old!Earth, including the Five's former bodies, so radiation/fallout were just as lethal for them, even if the Five made the subsequent bodies a bit less vulnerable. Anyway, the show was always trying to have its cake and eat it too with the Cylons about how human (and not) they are physiologically. (really, being able to have a fertile hybrid baby? while that's not the only definition of a species anymore, it means Colonial Humans and Cylons aren't very different at all).
Speaking of babies... "And they're going to have to start having babies." LOL. I still love the way Bill blurts that out while watching Dee and Billy. It is funny to me how adamant Bill tries to be at first about going back to fight - it's like he knows even then that it's futile; he just needs a moment to admit it.
There are many times (and I'm sure there'll be many more) when off-hand references to Cylons will be funny, especially at Tigh and Tyrol's expense, but so far my favorite has to be when Bill is going on about how Earth is going to be their new home and "the cylons will never find them." LOLOLOL. THAT IS THE BEST OF ALL IRONIC MOMENTS. I mean, count the ways that statement is SO ENTIRELY WRONG: (a) it's a cylon world, so even if none of the rest of it happened they'd still be at least descended from Cylons, though more human, when the Fleet got there, (b) the Cylons came from there, (c) the present-day Cylons know where it is (or at least Cavil certainly does even if everyone else has forgotten), and (d) your ship is riddled with spies, Bill, even not counting the Five, so the Cylons are along for the ride.
The part with Doral I still find a bit iffy though -- Did Gaius really just get lucky? he was looking for a scapegoat, not really an actual Cylon. Did he do real tests and find out or was that a lie?
Finally, that last bit with the Eight. I STILL LOVE IT TO LITTLE BITTY PIECES. Okay, in hindsight it breaks my heart a little, because I know where it goes with Boomer, and I'm a bit forever sad that we never hear 'by your command'' again, but still. AWESOME.
Tomorrow will be all the 'extra bits" relating to the attacks -- Razor flashbacks, the first part of The Plan dealing with the attacks, and the part of Downloaded that deals with Caprica's resurrection.
Hope you had fun. It was fun for me to go back and revisit!
Feel free to comment on anything regarding the miniseries that you want to - what I mentioned, what I didn't. It's not a recap as such, so I skip over a lot.
I did start with the Razor flashbacks - at least the ones I could find easily, since I discovered I didn't have them as a separate file as I thought. But I found them today, so I'll talk about them with the other 'extras' for tomorrow.
A little about my first experience watching the show. I watched when it first aired, and as a childhood fan of OldSkool I was ... a bit nervous. I realized it could be updated and improved, plus I was at least somewhat familiar with RDM's work on Star Trek so I knew he had the experience, so rebooting it as such didn't bother me. Making Starbuck a woman was fine (Apollo was my favorite in Old Skool - had they switched that instead, I might have been more dubious, but as it was, I didn't mind). Eliminating Athena as Adama's daughter - of course, I had no idea that there would eventually be an Athena was less fine. Making Boomer female and Asian was awesome. Making Tigh white was the change I disliked the most - both Boomer and Tigh were black in Classic, and suddenly there were none. It still bothers me a bit, tbh - I do love Michael Hogan and I think he did a fabulous job, but yeah. Anyway.
So it was with a bit of trepidation that I watched it. And I remember liking it, but the funny thing is I don't really remember much more than that because my son was born later that week. :) I have watched it again, once, since, but even that was several years ago. So here we go from the beginning, a bit of liveblog as I watch.
We open with armistice Station! with Charlie Conner's ... um, uncle.
HellooArmistice!Six -- when she walks in it reminds me of that bit in the "What the frak video" -- "and some of them even look like models." hmm. maybe I should start a drinking game of drinking whenever a Cylon is onscreen - I'll probably be pretty drunk halfway through so that's probably not a good idea.
"Are you alive?" Which brings us to one of the over-riding themes of the show and the reason I love it so much: what is life, what is death, and living versus survival.
Kara in the hall! hm.. not a fan of her weedwacker haircut in the mini, I confess. And the 'what do you hear?" -- which actually gets a callback toward the end, which I'd forgotten about.
Doral the tour guide in TEAL. I love how he wears both his colors in this. he's a switcher that Doral.
Captain Kelly! I'd forgotten he was in this so early.
I do love this long tracking shot at the beginning, especially the part going through the cic. It may be our best look at the set the whole show - they certainly wanted to get their money's worth out of showing it off.
Chief and Cally looking like babies. AwWW. STAY PRECIOUS YOU TWO OMG. MAYBE IT WILL TURN OUT BETTER THIS TIME
Okay, neither of those boys in the picture the deck gang give to Adama look like they'd grow up to be Jamie. Sorry, props department.
BOOMER and HELO. and the card game of Oncoming Doom. and striking a superior asshole. hee. But Kara, you're kind of an asshole too, just FYI.
ha, I think the background of the doctor's office with Laura might be Justin's apartment building in FL.
The broadcaster mentions a pyramid game on Gemenon - and yet the Bucs are in high-altitude training. I'll assume the game they mention on Gemenon is some sort of exhibition/off-season league. *handwave*
Still think it's hilarious how Ron SO regretted the red spine thing later. "NO YOU CAN'T REALLY SEE IT WE WERE KIDDING LOL."
(I have to admit it's not my favorite thing either, since it introduces issues so I usually ignore it; because seriously, Chief never saw it with Boomer? Gaius NEVER saw it with Caprica in TWO YEARS of having sex? there are other positions, not to mention reflective surfaces... so no, I don't believe that the spines actually glow. And I believe the Five do it even less. I come from Stargate fandom, where canon is ever-malleable over time. This isn't a problem to pretend this never happened).
aw, lee there you are. You know, now I remember why I thought you were a dick. SO RUDE TO CHIEF.
"LIEUTEANT THRACE will be replaced in the slot by LIEUTENANT ANDERS." I'm SORRY YOU WERE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THERE'S NO DESTINY? (or name recycling, but y'know, same thing. lol)
wow, this scene with Lee and Bill is even more uncomfortable than I remembered.
The moment when Gaius learns the truth about the Cylons with Caprica is still stunning in its perfection.
hm, that's an interesting little moment I never noticed before. When Bill's giving his terrible retirement speech and he mentions the bit about why humanity's worth saving - Doral shifts and looks interested for a moment. heh. Still the worst speech ever. lol. I love how everyone's like "wtf? is that all? what the hell was that?"
hee, Saul burning a photo of someone who vaguely looks like Ellen, but is not Kate Vernon.
The main attack sequence and Adama's big 'we are at war' speech and the "fight" when the entire squadron of vipers gets taken out by TWO raiders -- STILL AMAZING
Doral - you and your "who died and put you in charge' to Laura is so adorable especially BECAUSE YOU ARE A CYLON. It is kind of funny that he runs to Lee to try to make him take charge instead of Laura though. I suppose it makes sense if we figure he's just trying to set humans at odds against each other, but the strategy there is still a bit obtuse when you know what he is, and that he knows.
This scene with Boomer and Helo on Caprica is, for those who don't know, a callback to a similar scene in OldSkool when Adama and Apollo go land on Caprica to find his wife/Apollo's mom. The house is destroyed, and then people come pouring over the ridge to try to escape in their shuttle. Apollo desperately wants dad to get the hell out but Adama refuses.
anyway, it is certainly Helo's Big Damn Hero moment. (even if it's particularly ironic that he gives it up for Baltar, of course. And first appearance of Red.) bye, Helo - see you in '33' actually alive!
The pilot of Colonial One is a good guy to have in a crisis. Laura was lucky he was there, really -- cool head, reasonable, bit of a sense of humor. Kind of shipping him and Laura, tbh.
aw, the part where it looks like colonial One and Lee all went explodey.
THEN THE JUMP TO RAGNAR. and they have cool fx and it's a Big Deal that they're jumping. and hee, they all applaud, like WOO WE'RE NOT ALL DEAD. lol. They totally lose that later, but it's so cute the first time.
Crazy!Ragnar Leoben. lol.
While obv they didn't know originally what Red was, so a lot of her interactions are (ahem) red herrings, it's interesting that the first thing she says "I can exist only in your head without being a hallucination." That's pretty much what I think she is. She's manifesting herself in his subconscious - an external manipulation of his internal mind.
On Ragnar, it's interesting to try to pinpoint exactly when Bill starts getting suspicious -- I think he's generally suspicious when leo has no obvious ship that brought him there (he claims it's on the other side of the station, but I think Bill doesn't believe he's alone). That suspicion gets a bit allayed when he hears Leo's a supposed arms dealer - but then he purports not to know about the war, which has to be fishy for an arms dealer not to have word outside, even if they're on the edge of the system and out of easy contact. Then Leo's sick, and it's weird, since apparently this area is fine for humans. And then Leo has to go and blow it talking about the attacks being retribution, which I'm pretty sure is when Bill twigged to it completely. (especially when we add in the experiments he saw in Razor as a young man) But it does make me wonder how ANY Leoben worked undercover in the Colonies without being totally obvious. heh.
Hm, once the Rag-tag Fleet with Colonial One gets scanned by the Raiders and they realize the Cylons are coming - it's interesting that Doral is the voice of "you can't sacrifice all those people who can't escape." (which seriously, everything he does, while it makes sense from a Cylon point of view is pretty darn clever. Pity the miniseries is pretty much the last time Doral gets to be smart and interesting).
The radiation affecting the Cylons on Ragnar doesn't really make sense with them trying to settle the Colonies after nuking it. While there are different types, Leoben and Doral both succumbed in less than a day -- that's an extreme vulnerability to some kind of space phenomenon that they then supposedly aren't affected by fallout in the Colonies. Actually I find both kind of bullshit since, as the doc says both in this and Cottle with Sharon - the Cylons are biologically identical with things like lymphatic systems, except for some molecular structures. Not to mention, every single person died on old!Earth, including the Five's former bodies, so radiation/fallout were just as lethal for them, even if the Five made the subsequent bodies a bit less vulnerable. Anyway, the show was always trying to have its cake and eat it too with the Cylons about how human (and not) they are physiologically. (really, being able to have a fertile hybrid baby? while that's not the only definition of a species anymore, it means Colonial Humans and Cylons aren't very different at all).
Speaking of babies... "And they're going to have to start having babies." LOL. I still love the way Bill blurts that out while watching Dee and Billy. It is funny to me how adamant Bill tries to be at first about going back to fight - it's like he knows even then that it's futile; he just needs a moment to admit it.
There are many times (and I'm sure there'll be many more) when off-hand references to Cylons will be funny, especially at Tigh and Tyrol's expense, but so far my favorite has to be when Bill is going on about how Earth is going to be their new home and "the cylons will never find them." LOLOLOL. THAT IS THE BEST OF ALL IRONIC MOMENTS. I mean, count the ways that statement is SO ENTIRELY WRONG: (a) it's a cylon world, so even if none of the rest of it happened they'd still be at least descended from Cylons, though more human, when the Fleet got there, (b) the Cylons came from there, (c) the present-day Cylons know where it is (or at least Cavil certainly does even if everyone else has forgotten), and (d) your ship is riddled with spies, Bill, even not counting the Five, so the Cylons are along for the ride.
The part with Doral I still find a bit iffy though -- Did Gaius really just get lucky? he was looking for a scapegoat, not really an actual Cylon. Did he do real tests and find out or was that a lie?
Finally, that last bit with the Eight. I STILL LOVE IT TO LITTLE BITTY PIECES. Okay, in hindsight it breaks my heart a little, because I know where it goes with Boomer, and I'm a bit forever sad that we never hear 'by your command'' again, but still. AWESOME.
Tomorrow will be all the 'extra bits" relating to the attacks -- Razor flashbacks, the first part of The Plan dealing with the attacks, and the part of Downloaded that deals with Caprica's resurrection.
Hope you had fun. It was fun for me to go back and revisit!
Feel free to comment on anything regarding the miniseries that you want to - what I mentioned, what I didn't. It's not a recap as such, so I skip over a lot.