Posts Tagged ‘ Battlestar Galactica ’

What I want is the complete Babylon 5 series 1-5…and it just so happens to be on sale today for $100.

Yes, I know. I suckered you in with a video of Londo then made a sales pitch. Sorry.

It’s funny, but I’ve always been torn on B5. There’s a lot of it that I love – the overarching Shadow war, the break from Earth, Delenn, G’kar and Londo (possibly the two best characters in science fiction; sorry, Star Trek and BSG) – but there’s also a lot I don’t.

Their standalone episodes are amongst the worse that science fiction has ever produced. You thought the BSG boxing episode was bad? Wait till Garibaldi gets in the ring.

Some plotlines drag on interminably and simply aren’t that interesting anyway – like the doctor’s walkabout.

Some of the cast are truly, truly awful (yes, I’m looking at you, Jason Carter) – but fortunately these are offset by some barnstorming performances from the likes of Peter Jurasik, the late Andreas Katsulas, Stephen Furst, Jerry Doyle, Bill Mumy and Mira Furlan.

Most damningly, the show – almost every episode of which, incredibly, was written by series creator J.M. Straczynski – suffers from two leads (Michael O’Hare in season one, Bruce Boxleitner after that) who are either painfully wooden or overly bombastic, depending on if they have an emotional scene to play or one of JMS’ speeches to deliver.

Ah yes, the speeches. You thought those season seven Buffy speeches got repetitive? You ain’t seen nothing till you’ve seen Bruce Boxleitner bluster his way through four or five ‘this is where we make a stand’ speeches.

And yet….and yet, Babylon 5 comes together really, really well in spite of the rough patches and as I said, G’Kar (the late Andreas Katsulas) and Londo (Peter Jurasik) against all odds become the shining points of the series. So much so that I’m actually going to paste some more clips in here…

I wish I had the time to sit and watch the show through again but, alas, it’s unlikely to happen any time soon.
Ah, well.

Ok, I liked the Peter Milligan-penned Human Target book a lot, and though this obviously veers a lot from that (being as having Chance look different every episode would be TV suicide), it looks like a fun action show.

Mark Valley looks great in this – and having Chi McBride and Jackie Earl Haley doesn’t hurt. Nor does Tricia Helfer (even if it looks like it’s just for the pilot)…

Newsarama reports on a Variety story about Marvel creating a stable of writers for it’s movie projects, and drops a few hints about some potential future projects:

Gathering of scribes will help Marvel come up with creative ways to launch its lesser-known properties, such as Black Panther, Cable, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Nighthawk and Vision.

Some interesting names there…and if I could play casting advocate for just one moment…

Black Panther‘s easy; he’s already doing the animated series, he’s tough as nails and he’s got the bearing to be regal while kicking your ass: Djimon Hounsou -

Cable needs an older actor who can do gritty – somehow, I don’t think Clint Eastwood would be available, but I’d settle for BSG‘s Michael Hogan:

Doctor Strange is a tough one. You need someone who can project authority, be otherworldly and have a nice line in dry humor. Or, you know, be Johnny Depp:

Iron Fist‘s another tough one. A caucasian martial arts star that can act? I’d stick with the guy who’s been linked to the role for the past seven years, Ray Park. And I’d shell out for acting lessons and a vocal coach.

Nighthawk‘s a little difficult. You want someone who can play a cocky young business man who aspires to being a hero. How about FNL‘s Scott Porter?

And finally, the Vision. Well, if you want someone to play wooden one name springs to mind instantly…

Right now I’m sat on an airplane on its way to New York. I just finished watching the final episodes of Battlestar Galactica and I wanted to get my thoughts down before they were diluted. I’ll run through and add images when I finally post this, but in the meantime please excuse me if this is a little rambling or stream-of-consciousness.

Wow.

That’s probably a little broad, so I should expand a little.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a series finale that wrapped things up so perfectly. Could I have done without the ‘150,000 Years Later’ coda and the awkward Ron Moore cameo? Maybe to the first, absolutely to the second, but that’s a small price to pay for the message it imparted, and an even smaller price to pay when you consider what had come before.

I wasn’t certain, on viewing the first part of the finale, what purpose the flashbacks would serve but in showing us who these characters were before we met them, we really understood how far they’ve come in the past five years.

Running through the episodes…

The big battle was an impressive tour-de-force (bonus points for just slamming the Galactica into the colony!) where you got the feeling that any of the characters could die at any moment. The fact that they didn’t – Racetrack aside – left me feeling a little cheated, but more than happy. I’d rather that each of them got the endings they got rather than going out in a blaze of glory.

Boomer’s final change of heart came too late to save herself and it was fitting that it was Athena that pulled the trigger. I’m still not convinced that Boomer deserved it – yes, she’d done some terrible things, but who amongst these characters hadn’t? Boomer, of all of them, was searching for a home after she found out about her true nature. With her final choice being to repay Adama’s favor, she showed that in the end, she finally found one.

I loved the way the human-allied Cylons moved; beckoning and indicating the plans in an almost human-like way; having them slugging it out with the old-school Centurions was a treat as well.

The Opera House dreams played perfectly into the pitched battle, with Baltar and Caprica Six playing not the roles of villains, but heroes. I love that this was revisited and wrapped up so nicely into the middle of the battle, right down to the Final Five looking down on them.

The truce with the Cylons was perfectly executed – and to have it being Baltar, of all people, who got through to Cavil was a touch of genius. For a moment, for just one moment, you think that maybe it’ll end without any further bloodshed – and then the Chief finds out about Tori’s murder of Callie. Ironically, the very cold-blooded Cylon-ness that she adopted is what ultimately dooms her and the remaining isolationists of her race.

That final shoot-out in CIC, which was satisfying enough, what with putting down a Simon and a Doral – was capped off by Cavil’s final “Frak!”, with him choosing to go out by his own hand, perfectly in character.

It’s also fitting that it was the hand of fate – or God, if you will – that brought the final barrage of nukes down on the Cylons’ heads. Would it have been more satisfying to stay and see the Cylon colony exploding, Death Star-like, to reassure us that they were no longer a threat? Or to settle the nagging question of what happened to the other baseships out there?

Perhaps, but then this show has never been about answering questions, has it?

Besides, we had more important things to do, like let Kara save the day by finally realizing there really was some kind of way out of there.

And was it really any kind of surprise that the Galactica’s final jump would take them home?

And that brings us to the ending. The final goodbye to these characters that we’ve met over the years. From relatively minor ones like Hoshi, Doc Kottle and Rollo Lampkin (although you could argue some of their importance) right through to the leads and even the Cylon Centurions, the last thirty minutes was, for me at least, the perfect ending to the show.

Leoben grinning as he considers being part of the building of a new race for whatever time the Cylons have left.

Sam Anders, for a few brief moments, gets to be one with perfection (and oh, the music as he does!).

Galen Tyrol, always looking for a family and love, only to have it taken away or betray him time and again, decides to live out his days alone.

Saul and Ellen Tigh finally get to be together and make the home they never had.

Lee Adama, ever the explorer, finally gets to do it without the constraints of uniform, office or expectation.

Helo, Athena and Hera live happily ever after.

Gaius Baltar returns to his roots as a farmer, finally redeemed, with Caprica – his one true love – at his side. It’s funny, but I’ve always had the impression that Baltar was a man constantly on the run from himself – but at the end, I think he finally stopped running.

Then there’s Kara Thrace. We never really did find out how she came back – at least not the details – but I think we know as much as we need to know. Baltar was right; sometimes, angels come in mysterious guises. Sometimes you don’t get the answers you want, but the answers you need.

Finally, there was Bill Adama and Laura Roslin. Looking at those flashbacks, they were both lost before the fall on Caprica. Their struggle to lead these people gave them a reason to not just live, but to thrive and grow – and to have them together in Laura’s final moments, to have them flying low over the wildlife of Africa as they looked for a new home, brought a lump to my throat.

And that final shot of Adama, sitting next to Laura’s grave, looking out across the plains – was truly the end of the journey.

The coda, as I said, was a little overdone for me. A little on-the-nose. But I can live with it, if only to see that the Six and Baltar from, respectively, Baltar and Caprica’s heads live on.

Angels come in mysterious shapes and forms.

Ron Moore, according to the BSG Special that aired last week, had an epiphany about the series finale one night during the plotting of it. The next morning he came into the writers’ room and, on the whiteboard, wrote: ‘It’s the characters, stupid.’

He was right.

I could talk more about this. I’ve already talked too much. But let me just end by saying that I honestly doubt that we’ll see a show like this again. Some things have never happened before, and never happen again.

Screencaps Via

I’ve clearly fallen off the weekly blogging wagon for BSG (and Lost for that matter) but the final three hours are upon us. Annoyingly, I’m out tonight and I’m in the UK next Friday so I won’t be watching either episode live…so I guess I’ll just be avoiding the internet until I can watch them.

But anyway, I’ve said before that for a show where the mythology has been developed on the fly, I’ve always felt that it hangs together remarkably well. That’s not to say that there aren’t times that I want to make some kind of timeline to work out who knew who or what when, but overall it works.

That said, I think the show has made some missteps too, and there have been a few clunky episodes – including last week’s – that seem kind of indulgent and aimless.

Still, the end is nigh and there are some answers I want! Some I think we’ll get, some I don’t…

What’s the deal with the Six in Baltar’s head (and vice versa)?

Was the missing, artistic Cylon Daniel actually Starbuck’s musical father Dreilide Thrace – making her the first hybrid and explaining why she’s been painting the Eye of Jupiter since she was a kid?


What was the deal with Kobol and that Opera House again?

How was Starbuck (and her ship, for that matter) resurrected?

Is there any difference between Cylons and Humans at all once all’s said and done? Especially as the Five (and Starbuck and Hera) know Bob Dylan – are Cylons the original Humans?

Why did Cavil de-age the Five before sending them back, with false memories, to live with humans? I mean, other than to frak with their heads when the truth came out?

Will Chief Tyrol ever catch a break?

So many more questions raise their head…and I guess that some answers at least are coming.

Something occurred to me while watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica – but it related to the previous episode and it’s many revelations; specifically to Starbuck’s gruesome (and puzzling) discovery: her corpse.

I couldn’t work out how Starbuck – not one of the twelve Cylon models – could have been resurrected in a new body with all her memories.

And then it occurred to me: she’s a Cylon.

A new Cylon, a 13th model. She wasn’t a Cylon all along, but now she is.

Here’s my thinking: during the Chief’s flashbacks to life on Earth, we caught glimpses of people who didn’t match up to the twelve Cylon models (confirmed by Ron Moore here):

Also, it’s final-Cylon Ellen (apparently returning later in the season) who tells flashback-Tigh that the equipment is ready and they’ll be together, suggesting that she at least knows how the rebirth technology works.

I think there may be an Ellen still on Earth, and when she found Starbuck, she somehow dropped her into a brand-spanking new body, recreated her ship, and sent her on her way with a set of missing memories? After all, someone set that beacon running to bring the Galactica back.

So now we have a brand new 13th Cylon – Starbuck. And that kind of ties in with what I thought about Cylons and humans being interchangeable somehow.

That make any sense at all?

Caps from Galactica BBS

Well. She wasn’t even on the list, was she?

I have to say that the more I think about it, the more Ellen Tigh as the final Cylon makes sense – and that’s all the more impressive for Ron Moore’s admitting that the writers not only didn’t have the identities of the Final Five locked down all along, but didn’t have the concept and mythology behind the Final Five until partway through season three!

Unlike Heroes, which quite often seems to manufacture plot-twists out of some random generator (“Let’s have character X go bad this week! Oh, and characters Y and Z never have any screen time together – let’s get them on a road trip!”), BSG‘s writers have actually managed to construct a compelling and coherent mythology on the fly.

The big reveal aside, the big news in last week’s episode was the suicide of one of the supporting characters who had been with the show since day one. It was a bold choice, and makes sense when you consider Moore’s reasoning behind Dualla’s actions:

If they’re going to get to Earth and Earth is ashes, that felt like it has to have a huge impact on all these characters. There had to be a cost. There had to be a price somebody paid for that discovery. Not everybody could take that. Not everyone could just say, “OK, that didn’t work out, let’s go on to next week’s episode.”

It felt like somebody would just say, “No, I’m done. I just want to find a little moment of time where I can feel good about myself one last time, then I’m finished with this long nightmare.” And that seemed like that would be Dualla.

…unfortunately, it was . The job doesn’t mean anything — what does the job mean at that point? There’s no career, it’s just getting through the next day. So what she had is to get to Earth. And she got to Earth and it turned out to be nothing. So it felt like, she’s done. It’s over with.

…she’s going to compartmentalize and get the job done and be an officer and do what she needs to do. And then when she couldn’t do that at all… I mean, she could, to have that date with Lee, but then she was done. For someone like that to just end it, that’s very unsettling.

She just said, “My story ends here. I end here.” It gave her a measure of control, it gave her a measure of decision, she was able to say, “My life is going to end at this point.”

Great episode, and as unrelentingly depressing as ever. Battlestar‘s back. Enjoy it while you can.

Oh, one last thing – something occurred to me with Baltar’s revelation that the Earth’s former occupants were Cylons; what if what we’ve been referring to as Cylons all through the show are actually the original humans who simply developed the technology to transfer their consciousness into other bodies, and built their own Cylons later? Those Cylons then evolved, revolted and split into what we know as the humans of the twelve colonies. They then later built their own Cylons, the toasters, who were picked back up by the original humans (ie the twelve Cylon models) when they revolted themselves?

This has all happened before, after all…

I was going to post something about comic characters as Presidents, but I see Newsarama beat me to it.

Bastards.

So I thought I could make some reference to other fictional Presidents, you know, like Battlestar Galactica‘s Laura Roslin…

…or 24‘s David Palmer (I seem to remember that when he was first introduced as running for office in 24‘s first season, there were a number of critics who said having a black man in the role was unrealistic and that was only in 2001)…

But instead, I’ll just hope President Obama doesn’t turn out like one fictional President…

…and does turn out like another.

Okay, enough with the politics.

We finally got around to watching the half-season finale of Battlestar Galactica (Revelations) a few days ago – which may as well be the season finale if the final half isn’t going to be shown until 2009.

Anyway, it delivered big time. I’ve mentioned before that this season has been dragging a little, but this stepped up in a major way.

The sheer number of, er, revelations in the episode was huge….

The fifth Cylon isn’t in the fleet (assuming D’Anna was telling the truth) which means either s/he’s amongst the humans that were on the Cylon baseship at that stage – including Roslin, Adama, Baltar and Helo – or s/he is somewhere else entirely…like, say, on Earth setting a homing signal for Starbuck’s rebuilt viper to lock in on. That viper had to be built by someone, right?

Tori was first to jump ship to the Cylon side – no surprise given that she’s been the most accepting of her nature, right down to blasting moaning Callie out of an airlock. Her admission to Roslin and Baltar wasn’t too dramatic as Tori was never that well developed prior to her ‘outing’, but it was made watchable by Baltar’s ‘I knew there was something!’ mutterings as he realised that out of four known female Cylon models, he’d managed to bag three of them.

You can almost see him making plans to snag himself an 8 before it’s all over.

Then there was Tigh’s confession to Adama that he was one of the final five – now that was drama-filled. Michael Hogan and Edward James Olmos are standout actors in this cast and it showed in this scene. Hogan’s been great all season and here Tigh finally faced what he is – and Adama asked the questions that viewers have been asking all along – like how a Cylon loses his hair.

It was seriously good stuff, and having Tigh willing to sacrifice himself – and, as it turned out, Tyrol and Anders – to save the humans places him firmly on the ‘right’ side.

Tyrol and Anders’ arrest was another great moment. From Tyrol’s resigned ‘eh, what you going to do?’ shrug to Anders’ confession to Starbuck, it was just right.

It was good to see Apollo step up to command – he was pretty presidential this episode, even if he did regress at the end to old pilot Apollo, stripping off, jumping on the table and whooping like a drunk teenager.

He’s not the only one celebrating – there’s much hugging and kissing, but it’s the reactions of the Tigh, Tyrol and Anders that interest me most. Tigh’s back on the bottle – presumably narked that the secret’s out and he didn’t get spaced. Anders looks to be seeking acceptance from Starbuck (at least she hasn’t shot him yet), while Tyrol cradles his son – the second human-Cylon hybrid – and seems, finally, to be coming to terms with things.

Then there’s Earth…

Nuclear wasteland much?

I can’t be the only one who wasn’t especially surprised by this right? The running mantra through the series has been “All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again” – essentially the belief in eternal return (and is similar to the first line in Disney’s version of Peter Pan), that cycles in exisnetence mean that the same events recur. Apollo was the only one to buck the trend by offering an honest partnership with the Cylons in this episode.

Never the less, the theme exists. Earth is the fabled home of the thirteenth tribe and the origins of the twelve colonies – and to see it devastated like this brings back memories of the Cylon’s devastation of the twelve colonies…so is it unreasonable to suggest that the devastation here is the result of a Cylon/human war that took place before the twelve colonies fled Earth?

In other words, were the twelve colonies founded by the survivors of Earth – so basically the equivalent of the current BSG fleet a few thousand years removed?

And that thirteenth tribe…could they the Cylons?

You see, I never really ‘got’ how the robotic Cylons managed to leave the twelve colonies for 40 years and come back with flesh and blood ‘skin jobs’ running the show. It seems too short a time for the Cylons to have evolved like that…so I think perhaps – perhaps – that the skin Cylons were originally evolved from Earth Cylons, and that they recognized kindred spirits in the exiled robotic colony-Cylons and hooked up with them following the first colonial Cylon War. So maybe the skin Cylons, like the humans, originate from Earth.

I mean someone had to set a homing beacon on Earth to activate the homer in Starbuck’s shuttle. Someone had to send Starbuck back in the rebuilt shuttle. Someone apparently isn’t in the fleet – and I’m positing that that someone is the twelfth and final Cylon. If that final Cylon is on Earth, maybe s/he has been on Earth for thousands of years waiting for the return of humans and Cylons together – because now the cycle has been broken and lasting peace can be worked at.

And could there be something even deeper at work? The creators have said that the final five Cylons do not have numbers…so where’s number 7? Could there be a thirteenth Cylon around – or is the missing number 7 somehow related to humanity?

It’s anyone’s guess at this point (well, except for everyone working on the show who knows how everything ends) but it is fun to speculate, right?

Images from Cyn City Cinema Blend

I haven’t been that active on posting on this season’s Battlestar Galactica because there’s simply not that much to say. I still think the show is one of TV’s best written and best acted dramas but…well, there’s not a lot going on.

Sure, you had Starbuck going all Ahab (only with Earth in place of a big white whale) and you had the four newly revealed Cylons skulking about, and if that had been the focus of the series it would have made for compelling television – but instead we’ve also had a terminally ill President Roslin hogging the screen, the dullness of the fleet’s political council, Baltar preaching and too much of Adama in his bathrobe (when clearly, only Baltar should be wearing a bathrobe).

To be honest it’s all been a little dull.

Maybe I preferred earlier seasons because I watched them on DVD, so we weren’t tuning in weekly and the slower episodes were often followed by plot-moving episodes.

Anyway, one interesting aspect of the current season relates back to the ‘new’ Cylons and their reactions to the news that they’re frakking toasters. While Tyrol has had trouble with his newfound position – especially after his wife’s death – Tori has embraced it and, interestingly, has so far been the only one to show enhanced Cylon strength. Anders, meanwhile, seems to be coming to the conclusion that at the end of the day there isn’t much difference between Cylon and human – but it’s Tigh that interests me the most.

Saul Tigh has probably been the most interesting and complex character on the show since the beginning. His alcoholism, his relationship with his scheming wife, his loyalty, his bravery and his sheer bad-assery and shit-headedness have all made for compelling viewing; having him confront the fact that he’s what he’s been fighting against has been great to watch and having him seek answers with the imprisoned Caprica Six feels oddly right.

Then there’s the new wrinkle: Caprica Six is, apparently pregnant – by Tigh. Now…the whole point behind the Athena-Helo experiment back on Caprica was to conceive a Cylon child because Cylons couldn’t reproduce. So how does this change things?

Could Caprica’s visions not, in fact, be about Athena’s daughter Hera but about her own child? Or, if the final five are indeed Cylon Gods, does that make Caprica Six’s unborn child divine?

It’s difficult to know where this is going – and I’m not sure we’re going to get any answers in the next two episodes before the series goes off-air until (maybe) 2009.

There is another option – that Caprica isn’t pregnant at all and Doc Cottle is lying. But why would he…unless he has a secret of his own like, I don’t know, being the last Cylon. I don’t find that particularly likely but it seems to be a prevalent theory here and there these days.

Either way, I hope that tonight’s Deanna-unboxing episode moves things forward a bit.

We’ve been through the obvious suspects for the last Cylon this past week – Adama, Roslin, Apollo, Gaeta, Helo, Starbuck, Dualla, Zarek and Gaius – but what if its someone, or something else entirely?

Could it be one of the Sixes (specifically Caprica Six), evolved into more than your average Cylon due to her link with Gaius? After all she is in an awfully messianic pose here…

Could it be Gaius himself, not because he is physically a Cylon, but because he’s in a Cylon state of mind thanks to his connection with Six – so he’s essentially evolved into a Cylon?

Could it be Cally Tyrol, and that’s why there isn’t a big deal about her child being a hybrid? Although wouldn’t that lead to a bigger deal about her child being a full Cylon child?

Or could it be someone we’ve never seen before?

I think this last one is unlikely – unless its someone that’s been referred to and hinted at…like, say, Starbuck’s father*. This would go a long way towards explaining Leoben’s fascination with Starbuck and her apparent role in prophecies.

And who better to play this final Cylon than the man himself?

That’s right**!

Casting Dirk Benedict as the final Cylon – and Starbuck’s father – smells of WIN!

And hey, the man has faked not knowing what a Cylon is before…

*I am obliged to say at this point that my better half is responsible for this theory and when I mentioned it earlier without crediting her, I got in a whole heap of trouble.

**While having Dirk Benedict as the final Cylon was my idea, having him be Starbuck’s father was – once again – my wife’s. Sigh.

Is there anyone more likely to be a Cylon than Gaius Baltar? Maybe…maybe not.

Pros

Betrayed human race twice already.

Has Cylon in his head.

Messiah complex.

Cons

One betrayal was inadvertent and really just for sex, the other was the lesser of two evils (live in near-slavery or be wiped out).

To be fair, there is also a Six out there with a Gaius in her head.

It seems mostly to be other people that convince Baltar of the messiah thing. He mostly wants to get hammered in his bathrobe.

Likelihood

7/10

Higher if it involves getting drunk and having lots of sex.

Tom Zarek is different things to different people: revolutionary, president, criminal, terrorist, hero, politician – Zarek has been them all at some point. Would adding ‘Cylon’ to the list really be that hard for the current vice-president?

Pros

Zarek may be a sound advisor but everything he does has an ulterior motive. What if his ulterior motives have ulterior motives?

He’s in a prime position of power should something happen to President Roslin.

He’s already proven himself to be ruthless when necessary.

Cons

In his short tenure as President, Zarek appointed The Circle, a secret tribunal that executed Cylon collaborators – almost including Felix Gaeta. But then, look who made up that group…

He rallied against occupation on New Caprica, being imprisoned and almost executed for his trouble. But then, look who else fought the Cylons there…

Likelihood

7/10

Non-story point: I’m pretty sure that it would geek-out a lot of people to have the original Apollo be the final Cylon…

Dualla lost her family in the Cylon attacks, but since then has risen through the ranks of the fleet. She also embarked on an ill-fated romance with Roslin’s aide Billy, and married Apollo – even if he always ended up running back to Starbuck…

Pros

Always loyal, no-one would suspect Dualla of being a Cylon…and looking at the other four of the Final Five, that seems to be a pretty good theme.

She has no surviving family to speak of – nobody to verify that she is who she says she is.

Cons

This isn’t an in-story reason…but I think that if there’s a big reveal of who the final Cylon is, it will have to be a bigger character than Dualla – either someone we know a lot better, someone who’s more integral to the fleet, or something along those lines. No offence, but Dualla is none of those.

Likelihood

4/10

Starbuck seems to be a figure of great importance – from her return to Caprica to enable Roslin to find Earth, to Cylon Leoben’s obsession with her, to her apparent death and return to life…something seems to keep putting Starbuck firmly in the centre of humanity’s destiny…

Pros

She died. And then came back to life. Sounds pretty Cylon-like to me.

She has cultivated close relationships with Adama and Roslin, and has also become deeply emotionally entwined with both of Adama’s sons Zak and Apollo – not to mention her husband Sam Anders (who has, er, Cylon issues of his own). Along the way she’s shown some pretty deep levels of duplicity. But she has contacts all over the fleet – of course, whether they believe her to be human now that she’s back from the dead is anyone’s guess.

Kara’s always been a wildcard, hard-drinking and fist-fighting. What if her sunny disposition is as a result of underlying knowledge that she is what she hates?

Leoben’s fascination with her has to stem from somewhere, right?

According to the prototype human-hybrid Cylon in Razor,

“Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end, she is the herald of the
apocalypse, the harbinger of death; they must not follow her.”

That doesn’t sound too promising…

Cons

It’s a bit too easy, isn’t it? Aside from that, though, I can’t really see any reason why Starbuck wouldn’t be a Cylon…except that I think her role is something else entirely.

Even so….

Likelihood

9/10 (although I’d put it closer to 4/10 purely from gut feelings)

Karl ‘Helo’ Agathon has had a tough time of it; marooned on Caprica, he fell in love with his co-pilot Sharon Valerii – unaware that she was actually a Cylon. On their return to Galactica, they both faced persecution and although they eventually overcame that, rejoined the fleet and married, their daughter Hera was hidden in the fleet by Roslin, and they believed her to be dead. Since then, Helo has ‘killed’ his wife to allow her to rescue their daughter, disobeyed orders and bounced up and down the command chain, replacing both Tigh and Apollo at different times. He currently serves as Galactica’s XO.

Pros
Helo’s allegiance to his wife and daughter has caused him to disobey orders more than once -including sabotaging a plan that would have caused the death of the Cylon race as he believed it to be immoral.

Cons
Sharon’s initial reason for seducing Helo was to participate in a human/Cylon breeding program.

Their daughter Hera appears to be the first human/Cylon offspring, and almost a religious figure for Six and D’Anna Biers – and as a result it seems unlikely that Helo is a Cylon…unless of course Hera is actually the first Cylon/Cylon offspring….

Likelihood
2/10

Felix Gaeta, helmsman of the Galactica is no stranger to switching sides. His loyalty to then-President Gaius Baltar during the Cylon occupation of New Caprica led him to be accused of war crimes by a vigilante-esque commission, and only the revelation that he was working as a double agent within Baltar’s administration saved his life.

Yes, Gaeta is no stranger to duplicity…

Pros
Like I said, Gaeta is no stranger to duplicity – and if he isn’t aware that he’s a Cylon maybe that’s just his Cylon nature poking through.

He’s in the perfect position to lead the fleet to the Cylons – all he needs to do is reprogram some jump co-ordinates…

Cons
He’s really not that big a character that this would be an interesting twist (okay, that’s not really an in-story reason, but I honestly couldn’t think of any).

Likelihood
7/10

One thing that was pointed out to me – which applies to Gaeta – is that if the final Cylon was in the fleet they should have heard the music at the end of season 3. Thing is…what if the music was only meant to reach four of the Final Five? What if the final Cylon will only be revealed at a key point…or what if they actually know what they are and have all along?

Lee ‘Apollo’ Adama is a decorated pilot, a leader, an example. Who better to lead the human race to their end?

Pros

Apollo is perfectly placed to betray the humans – and any odd decisions that he makes…well, it won’t be the first time that he’s swum against the stream.

He’s shown a tendency to buck authority…especially his father’s…

Cons

…but mentioning that, surely his father would have noticed if his son was a Cylon? That alone makes this an unlikely option.

Likelihood

Laura Roslin has been through a lot the past few years – having the presidency thrust upon her during her people’s greatest crisis (to put it mildly), suffering from cancer, being cured, relapsing and, oh yeah, having visions that make her a prophet and appear to be guiding her – and the fleet following the Battlestar Galactica – to Earth.

But could she be the final Cylon?

Pros

Just like Adama, as a high-profile human leader, nobody would expect her to be the final Cylon.

Her summary execution of other Cylons – like Leoben – puts her firmly in the anti-Cylon camp…but how permanent is death for a Cylon anyway? Could her treatment of Cylons just be a ruse?

Her visions could simply be a way of putting one over on humanity – or be her Cylon programming trying to break the surface of her human personality.

Cons


Can Cylons get cancer?

Given her position in the Caprican Government, it’s likely that Roslin went through pretty rigorous security checks – and if the Cylons don’t know who she is, how could they have faked her history to the required degree to cheat those checks?

Likelihood

6/10

Battlestar Galactica‘s fourth season kicks off next Friday on Sci Fi.