OT: Season 3 BSG

[AgentZero]

Well, I finally got around to watching the finale, and it was a fair sight better than I expected. I'm not too bothered by the whole gasp They're Cylons! thing, because, well I'm just not. A lot of the other Cylons seemed to have no inkling that they were Cylons right up until they did something crazy, or were confronted with incontrovertable proof, so why should these lot be any different? Because a lot of time has gone by? Cylons like Boomer would have been 'under cover' for the better part of a decade, going through pilot training, serving aboard the Galactica, etc, so what's another 2-3 years on top of that?
Sure, it sniffs a little of jumping the shark, but I'm willing to go along with it.

More importantly, is it me or are shows getting shorter these days? I don't mean the actual episodes, but rather the seasons. When I was in school, most shows started around the same time as school (ie: mid-September) and ran til nearly the end of the school year (late May/early June). But now all the shows seem to be wrapping up before April. That's only a five month season! We'll spend longer waiting for a new season than we did watching the old one. Just doesn't seem right to me.

[Will]

I dunno. I seem to remember there being around 24 episodes in a standard season, usually with 1-3 weeks in the middle taken off (such as during Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.). Which is still about half the year. But I'm seeing 12 and 20 as far more common numbers now.

[Raapys]

The standard was about 22, wasn't it? I only remember X-files as regularly having 24 about each season. The new shows rarely have more than twenty, it appears.

About them being Cylons, we still don't know if that means they're actually on team with the other Cylons, though. Or something else entirely. So I think it can be an interesting plot avenue. I'm wondering more about how they're going to explain the return of Starbuck.

[MasterChiToes]

Don't the previously known Cylons number 2 through 8? Wouldn't that leave 4 of the final five #9-#12 and the final one as #1?
Maybe the word "final" in final five refers to the final five Cylons from Kobol... and not just the final five of twelve models.

Anyway, I think Cylon #1 is the key to whether this new direction becomes interesting or just change for change sake.

[Azselendor]

Actually, only a couple of the cylons numbers are known.
http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Humanoid_Cylon

As for TV shows, seasons on most series used to be 24-26 episodes per year. That was during the 80's and 90's, but that's been sliding down where the number of episodes per series. It seems they've linked it to the show's performance now. Some shows only get picked up for 10-13 episodes per season, others can pull 20-22 episodes.

It's all about the budget. the 13 episode half seasons or pilot seasons most networks jump for is actually a hold over from the 80's when new series would get a pickup for 13 episodes and if it did well in the ratings for the first 7, the network would order an additional 13 for a full season. But if they didn't, the network would have 13-hours of filler material during their off seasons.

[GuyOfDoom]

It also comes from the fact that more and more and more TV time is being wasted with advertisements and thus they have less time to actually show you what you are actually watching the TV for.

[Hunpecked]

#1 is Patrick McGoohan. (My entry in the monthly "Most Obscure Reference" contest.)

As utterly gimmicky, out-of-your-***, and shark-jumpy as it is, making Tigh a Cylon at least explains D'Anna's apology to the Cylon-of-Light: "Forgive me" as in, "Gee, sorry we gouged out your eyeball!"

Of course that doesn't explain how Tigh, who fought in the war before the toasters "evolved" into human form, could be a Cylon at all, let alone one of the "final" five. Unless he was replaced, of course, and that would imply the Cylons could download human minds (see below), which they apparently didn't do on New Caprica. It also implies the Cylons can't tell humans and Cylons apart any more than humans can.

That also explains why the Cylons aren't interested in the Chief's baby, not knowing he's a Cylon. However, that raises the question of Cylon reproduction again; if "love" is the missing ingredient, and since both Sharon 1 and the Chief have been shown to have it, and even did the nasty together pre-series, then why wouldn't they be capable of reproducing?

Never mind. The show is so full of plot holes that another makes no difference.

I agree with AT's thoughts way back in November that Baltar is probably a Cylon, and perhaps the #1 Cylon. Computers do what they're told, no more & no less, so (in the real world, anyway) if even "sentient" robots rebel, they've been subverted by a human. That human may have started the rebellion, designed the humanoid Cylons, and then achieved immortality by transferring his mind to the "Baltar" model. The Caprica Six in his head may be #1's way of guiding his "clone".

As for next season, I predict the "Space Faeries" who resurrected Kara (did anyone on this board really think she was dead?) lured the Cylon ships to the nebula, caused the power outage (which hit the Cylons, too), and will now destroy them easily since their jump drives also have to "spin up" again, just like the Colonials'.

Either that, or Kara was found by Lorien, from Babylon 5:

Kara: "Hi, Lee."
Lee: "I thought you were dead."
Kara: "I was dead. I'm better now."

This show belongs on Comedy Central.

[Atrocities]

Well now that we have started down this road where we know who the four of the final five cylons are, we'll have to wait and see how RDM explains this. I for one have mixed feelings about this. I think they took what could have been a great series and muddled it down with way to much nonsense and sudo-mystical self absorbing drama that really has no meaning and is seldom ever explained.

The whole cylon god thing has been replaced by these five mystical cylon types who we now know. Like I said before, this entire series is one giant "lets make it up as we go" fiasco. But like a car wreck on the free, we all slow down to watch. It not like any of us have anything better to do.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Atrocities said:It not like any of us have anything better to do.

Yeah, it's not like there isn't some sort of, oh, I don't know, way to write down the things we speak. I think I'll invent that. Maybe call them 'letters' and 'words'. Organize them into what I'll call 'sentences' and 'paragraphs'. Will need some 'symbols' to help...I'll call them 'puncuation'.
I'll probably 'write' them down on...Oh, say, cloth made from shredded trees and rags. Call it 'paper'. Will need some way of organizing them...Perhaps rectangular 'pages', glues into a holder called a 'book'.

My, this all sounds like a good idea. How come no-one thought of it before?

(Sorry, I'm naturally snarky and it has to come out somehow... )

[Atrocities]

Narf, are you feeling ok?