All this has happened before...

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