NuBSG Frackin' Review Thread

Something that gets overlooked a lot for the series and for this especially is how powerful and informative the music is. The scenes here and in Kobol's Last Gleaming in the opera house are so powerful and filled with wonder because of the music.

Bear McCreary also did Eureka, Defiance, Terminator: Sarah Conner Chronicles, Outlander, and Marvel: Agents of Shield, Europa Report, and 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Yeah, he's very good.

I'm going to get back to this eventually, but Narcos came back on Netflix and now South Park and American Horror Story have started and Screem Queens starts soon and Survivor. I'll try to find time this weekend to do another review.

This seems like a perfect opportunity to mention that the Cylons are lurking among us. The recently opened airport in Turkmenistan:

"I'm trying to save your baby!"

02 x 08 "Final Cut"

Population 47, 853

Galactica:
This episode introduces Lucy Lawless as D' Anna Biers who turns out to be a Cylon. She poses as a news reporter and has a "camera man" with her. In order to restore moral and confidence in the fleet, Adama and Roslin allow her to do an expose on the Galactica. At the same time, Colonel Tigh is recieving death threats because of his action in Command while Adama was out. This resolves itself peacefully. Also, Sharon is having problems with her baby, which D' Anna films and sends back to the Cylon fleet. As it turns out, this whole thing was just a recon mission in which the Cylons find out Sharon is pregnant.

Verdict:
This one is not bad, it touches on some issues that were present during the Iraq war and some that still resonate today. It starts off with your typical scumbag reporter who's trying to sell a narrative, but ultimately it shows the fleet working hard to save lives. It comes off pretty patriotic, in my opinion.

"Alright here's the deal, we are going to build a fighter."

02 x 09 "Flight of the Phoenix"

Population 47, 853

Galactica:
On board the Galactica there's a Cylon virus that will be followed by an attack on the fleet, but Adama seeks the help of Sharon who's a prisoner on board. Meanwhile, Chief is working on personal feelings and a personal project and decides to build a fighter. At first, everyone is reluctant, but over time, they help him with it. Sharon kills the virus and sends a virus to the Cylons which causes them to be set adrift and they are destroyed. Chief finishes his project and ends up building a stealth fighter that Starbuck successfully test flies.

Verdict:
This is a good episode because it deals with Chief's grief over Boomer and Helo's reintegration into the crew. It also touches on the idea of just not giving up, even when the chips are down.

"I don't know what to say, this is a miracle."

02 x 10 "Pegasus"

Population 47, 605

Galactica:
Since there Isn't much to watch for the time being, I decided to return to BSG for a bit. So this episode brings on the beginning of a shit storm when the Battlestar Pegasus arrives. Pegasus is headed by Admiral Kane who takes over command of the fleet and is an instant bitch. Her and Adama do not hit it off well at all.

Verdict:
This is part of a story line I liked very much, but boy was I glad when Kane bit the dust. They did a good job of making me hate her. This also is the introduction of Caprica Six who has been tortured on the Pegasus.

"We're all friendlies, so let's just be friendly."

02 x 11 "Resurrection Ship pt. 1"

Population 47, 604

Galactica:
This too is a good episode. Adama and Kane are about to fire each other while Starbuck is doing an unauthorized recon mission which is successful. Meanwhile Baltar is charged with getting information from Six, but Six wants to die. Turns out the recon Starbuck did was on a resurrection ship that if it gets too far away, the Cylons can't download into another copy when they die. In other words, they stay dead. Lastly, Roslin wants Adama to assassinate Kane. He's reluctant at first, but finds out that she's been basically a tyrant the whole time. He sets up a way for Starbuck to kill her after the mission. Kane also has a mission to kill Adama

Verdict:
What I really liked about this episode was the juxtaposition between Adama's plan to kill Kane and Kane's plan to kill Adama. They both know something's up and want to take the other one out.

"It's not enough to survive, one has to be worthy of surviving."

02 x 12 "Resurrection Ship pt. 2"

Population 47, 604

Galactica:
In this episode, the mission to destroy the Resurrection Ship is successful. Adama stands down his order to Kill Kane and Kane does the same, but Six escapes and kills Kane. This one was a huge space battle, @Dayton would be proud.

Verdict:
Yet again, this season is going very well.

Well it's been quite a while and with tons of shows out there I'm once again not sure I'll be able to keep this up, but I've decided to return to my review of NuBSG.

"I will not lead mankind to it's destruction."

02 x 13 "Epiphanies"

Population 49,598

Okay, either I got the population wrong from the last episode or the population increased, I'm not sure.

Galactica:
Just to remind everyone where we are at, Rosylin's in the hospital and there are flashbacks to her time on Caprica. In the flashbacks we see her starting to remember seeing Baltar and Six together. There's a question of killing Helo and Sharon's baby. Head Six confronts Baltar on preventing the forced abortion. Meanwhile there are people on board who want peace with the Cylons who are sabotaging missions. In the meantime Baltar is working on a solution to save the Cylon baby. as it turns out, he has found that the blood of the hybrid can cure Rosylin's caner and it does. As a result the baby is spared. Rosylin then negotiates with the people who want to make peace their leader being Six. A spokesman assures Rosylin that there will be no more violence. Little does she know Six is behind the movement. The episode concludes with Head Six manipulating Baltar into giving Six the nuclear warhead he aquired from Adama some episodes previous.

This episode sows the seeds of what's to come later on with New Caprica. It's decent, but little action and more about politics. Thankfully Sharon gets to keep her baby.

Verdict:
It's not horrible, but certainly not as strong as the previous one. Since I'm not doing half marks I'll just give it a lower rating.

"It doesn't make us right Colonel, just a lot of people wrong."

02x14 "Black Market"

Population 49,597

Pretty self explanatory here. There's a black market among the fleet and a Pimp/gangster is controlling it. The problem here is that the black market is disrupting essential supplies and the Commander of the Pegasus is working with the gangster dude. Unfortunately he gets greedy and gets killed. Lee is assigned with dealing with the situation. Ultimately he kills the gangster dude and establishes rules with the rest of the black market guys and allows them to continue. This episode deals with some backstory information and character development for Lee and acknowledges that in any society there will always be some criminal element. Lee informs Roslyn that he will monitor them and should any more violence occur, they will be dealt with.

Verdict:
This is pretty much a filler episode, nothing spectacular and no real action in this. As a matter of fact, it's been a while since there's been a Cylon attack. I give it the same rating as the previous episode.

It's sooooo fucking bad. It's like the script was written by someone who hadn't watched the show. Oh, and I felt like there were way too many kidnapped child slaves for such a tiny fleet. How many cannibals/pedophiles were there out there? How did non one notice that many kids going missing?

Population increase due to the Peg joining the fleet?

Probably. It wouldn’t take much for me to go back and look.

A couple of total conversions of freespace 2 that are standalone that nbsg fans think open freespace supports 5.1 audio too.
http://diaspora.hard-light.net/
https://www.wcsaga.com/

Yeah it’s not really that good of an episode and the backstory with the prostitute was pretty dumb. I should have given it a lower rating, but I was ready to go to bed so I rushed through the review.

Peacock is free for me right now and apparently Netflix no longer has BSG. Everything else costs money. Since I have some free time and there's not much else on tv that I'm interested in, I figure it's time to revisit an old friend.

" I am hung up on a dead guy and it's pissing me off!"
02 x 15 "Scar"

Population 49,593 I guess the population jump is from the Pegasus. I never went back and looked.

Cat's back after her incident where she was hopped up on drugs. Starbuck is all crybaby over Anders and leaving him behind. They're out on a hunting trip looking for Scar, the Cylon raider that Starbuck encountered earlier. The mission is to protect a mining operation. The episode is told in flashbacks leading up to a confrontation with Scar. It also centers around a pissing match between Starbuck and Cat with Cat questioning Starbuck's leadership. In this instance Cat is right to question her leadership because her head isn't in the game, but instead focused on Anders. She's also drinking too much. The mission end up being successful, Cat takes out Scar and Starbuck realizes that she's got something to live for and that Anders might still be alive.

This episode was pretty decent. It doesn't really advance the story much, but it gives us a look into Starbuck's soul. Usually she's a loud mouth hot shot, but in this episode we see another side of her. It isn't the first time and It won't be the last.

One interesting aspect about this episode is before the mission, Starbuck is talking with Boomer and she mentions that the raiders would get resurrected every time they died. They would retain their memories and that would help them out in combat. One of the most obvious examples of this is video games. The movie Edge of Tomorrow dealt with this as well, but of course you had to start over where you left off. Now the resurrection ship is gone and any Cylon that dies stays dead. Anyway, I thought this was interesting and probably could have been explored as an episode.

"Bill, it's a machine."

02 x 16 "Sacrifice"

Population 49,590

There's a women, the ever so lovely Dana Delaney,who's basically leaking information about the Cylons throughout the fleet. Naturally, Adama isn't happy about it. Billy has proposed to D and she turns him down. Of course she has a thing for Apollo as well. Billy finds out about D and Lee.On Cloud Nine the woman takes hostages. Apollo, D, Billy, and Ellen are among the hostages, but Apollo is hiding in the bathroom trying to come up with a rescue plan. Starbuck is there as well, but not at the club where hostages are being held. The woman wants Adama to turn over Boomer. Starbuck and a couple other marines are sent to take care of the situation. The o2 is going down and the woman demands someone come to repair it. Enter Starbuck and a shootout goes down and Lee is hit. Billy and D are trying to save Lee. It's a pretty awkward moment because of course Billy was in love with D. Billy ends up sacrificing himself to save D and the marines bust in and save the day.

When I first watched this episode, it was a tearjerker. I was invested in Billy and D's relationship. He had been with Roslyn from the begining and as she points out, is the only family she has left.

One dynamic that continues in this episode is the question of whether Adama can truly trust Boomer. The question is brought up throughout the episode and in the end, Adama is not willing to sacrifice her.

This is not a bad episode, but it's not great. The thing about this show is it's the early days of serialized television. If it were made today, I'd imagine some episodes, like this one, would be cut or wouldn't even exist. That being said, I'd say it's definitely better than "Black Market."

"Don't Let Me Fail a Second Time"

02 x 17 "The Captain's Hand"

Population 49,584

A month has passed since Lee was shot and Lee and D are still a thing. On board the Galactica a stow away arrives in a crate, it's a pregnant woman asking for Doc Cottle. On board the Pegasus two Raptors on a training mission has gone missing. Lee is promoted to Major and Starbuck is pissed because she wasn't made aware of the situation because Gardner doesn't trust non Pegasus crew.The stow away is from Geminon and is seeking an abortion. Abortion is frowned upon on Geminon and so the woman seeks asylum. Starbuck has a theory on what happened to the Raptors, but Gardner is being a dick. Apollo and Starbuck theorize that they were chasing down a fake distress call that could be a trap. Apollo expresses his concern, but Dickhead wants to proceed with a rescue mission anyway. Meanwhile Roslyn effectively bans abortions. Captain Dickhead disobeys Adama and jumps to rescue the Raptors, but As it turns out, Apollo and Starbuck were right and it was a trap. Captain Dickhead is clearly over his head. Dickhead leaves Lee in charge as he attempts to make repairs in the engine room. Dickhead ends up saving the ship, but loses his life in the process. Lee is placed in command of Pegasus. The episode ends with Baltar announcing his candidacy as President. Of course this comes at the wishes of head six.

This episode finally moves the story along and puts Lee in charge of the Pegasus. The plot thickens with Baltar running for president. This also deals with abortion. At the time and still to this day it's a hot topic. I know the writers are not conservatives, but they do present a dilemma for Roslyn. She supports the rights of women to chose what to do with their bodies, but as Adama points out, the fact that the population needs to grow for the human race to survive. Baltar reiterates this by saying that in twelve years the human race will be extinct. Obviously in the real world we don't face extinction yet, but this episodes explores tough issues that haunt us today. In a lot of ways this show reminds me of Star Trek because it tackles such issues. Because of that, I'll rank this one a little higher.

"They have to consider that maybe the slaughter of mankind was a mistake."
02 x 18 "Downloaded"

Population 49,579

We flashback to Caprica before the fall. We see what happened to six after the attack on Caprica. She's downloaded into another body where she sees Baltar in her head just like Batlar sees six in his head. Then we see another Sharon after she shot Adama. Then we flash forward to present day on Caprica and the Cylons are rebuilding. The new six, now called Caprica six is charged with dealing with the new Sharon. She's having a hard time readjusting to her new life on Caprica. Head Baltar is helping Caprica six. Meanwhile we find out that Anders and crew are still alive and are plotting an attack on the Cylons. On board Galactica, Boomer is having her baby. They name her Hera. Anders goes ahead with his plan and sets off a bomb in the apartment building where Sharon lives, Caprica six, Sharon and D'Anna end up in the rubble along with Anders. They decide to take Anders in for interrogation. On Galactica, Roslyn decides that Hera shouldn't be raised by Boomer.They tell Helo and Boomer that the baby died, but really she was adopted. On Caprica Caprica six and Sharon turn on D'Anna with guidance by head Baltar. They kill D'Anna and let Anders go.

This episode sees a change in thinking for the Cylons. Caprica six and Sharon don't share in their hatred for mankind and both learned to love a human. You start to see a theme here, a narrative so to speak. Love connects us all and god's love will unite us. The introduction of Head Baltar is interesting as well. It gives the audience a sense that something else is at play here and we have to abandon the idea that it's all in their head and that they are just crazy. All of this will play out later of course, but this is a change in behavior for certain.

"Pay attention, you're about to win the election."

02 x 19 "Lay Down Your Burdens pt.1"

Population 49,579

Baltar and Roslyn are preparing for a presidential debate. Chief Tyrol is having some kind of episode and ends up beating the shit out of Cally. As a result, he has to go see a priest. Meanwhile the fleet is preparing for a jump to Caprica to rescue the survivors with the help of Sharon. Needless to say, it's a dangerous. In the first jump one of the Raptors gets lost and end up finding a habital planet. While chief is talking to the priest he reveals that he's been having the same dream about him committing suicide. Meanwhile Baltar is being pushed by head six and Zerek to make an issue out of settling on this newly found planet. The thing is the planet is kind of rough.Head six an Zerek believe this to be an issue that could win Baltar the presidency.Chief and the priest continue their conversation and it's at this point that they hint that Chief may be a Cylon. On Caprica they finally meet back up with Anders. This reunion is short lived as the Cylons attack them.

This episode is the first part of a two parter. what I like about it is it begins to set up what will eventually becomes the final five. Also, I like the politics of it.

A few things I forgot to mention. After Billy died, he was replaced by Tory Foster, this will become important later. The Priest that Chief is speaking with is named Brother Cavil. This too will become important later.

"You try and steal this election, you'll die inside."
02 x 20 "Lay Down Your Burdens pt. 2"

Population 49,550

Caprica:
Huge fire fight on Caprica which ends abruptly. They aren't quite sure whats going on. Suddenly another Brother Cavil shows up. Yeah, he's a Cylon. He's been with the resistance this whole time.

Galactica:
Starbuck returns successful and brings back the survivors. Cavil reveals that he's a Cylon and Starbuck tells Adama that the Cylon occupation on Caprica is over. Sharon is thrown back in the brig for not revealing Cavil is a Cylon. Starbuck and Anders reunite. Cavil reveals that the Cylons have been influenced by Caprica Six and Boomer and now pursue a peace with humanity. Meanwhile the votes are coming in. Basically theirs some shenanigans going on and some election rigging on Roslin's behalf. Colonel Tigh is pretty much behind it. Gaeta finds out and informs Adama. Adama confronts Roslyn and she admits she was in on it. Adama convinces Roslin to not go ahead with trying to rig the election and Baltar becomes president. Baltar orders the fleet to New Caprica. The six that was hiding out among the fleet blows up Coud Nine. Fast foward several months Baltar basically sucks as President. New Caprica is a shit hole and Gaeta is Baltar's right hand man.

Meawhile, Adama is sporting a mustache and not much Cylon activity for a long time and Adama has decided to stay on Galactica and sends Tigh to New Caprica.

At this point the population has dropped significantly.

Population 39,192

New Caprica:
Starbuck and Anders are married now. Chief and Cally are also married and Cally is pregnant. Chief is the president of a workers union and is organizing a strike. Roslin is running a school.

Pegasus:
Lee is in command of the Pegasus. Starbuck calls him for help because Anders is sick and needs medication. All of the sudden D sees something on DRADIS, it's the Cylons. Unfortunately the fleet has to kleave because they aren't prepared for an attack.

New Caprica:
The Cylons show up and Baltar surrenders. The Cylons occupy New Caprica.

So there you have it, the end of season two. It only took a little less than four years to finish. This episode is the set up for what I believe is the best season of the series. From what I remember,the stuff with New Caprica really makes the show. I didn't start watching this show back when it first aired until about half way through the third season. It's kind of ironic because I did the same thing with Breaking Bad and The Americans and I love those two shows as well. I'll try to keep these reviews going because I just want to finally finish this series, but I'm going to stop right here and get back to it in a bit. Season three should be good.