Battlestar Galactica "The Woman King" Talkback (Spoilers)

[Swordfish_II]

http://library.toonzone.net/talkbacks/sc-fi.jpghttp://library.toonzone.net/talkbacks/bsg.jpg

Battlestar Galactica
314 - The Woman King

"Helo suspects a doctor is murdering his patients aboard the Galactica, and news of Baltar's impending trial sparks unrest in the fleet."

[Rook]

Heh, i forgot Six had the baltar concious thing.

possiblities:
Doctors trying to get to the cylon baby to kill it off.
Doctors one of the final five trying to get to the baby by infecting halo.
Doctors racist against sagitarrons.
Doctors had some extremely bad experiences with sag;s.
Doctors working for someone.
Doctors totally innocent and there's a third wheel.

any takers?

I dont really get the title though.

[silverwings]

And Helo continues to prove that he's the man.

In 2 episodes, he's 1-up'd the President, Adama, and Tigh. I mean, wow. :)

I love that he sticks to his guns and his morals. They haven't led him wrong yet. Perhaps now people will start taking him seriously.

[JohnCrichton]

Helo rules, but... I thought this episode was gonna be the trial of Baltar. It looks like next episode also isn't going to be pushing the plot forward any. :sad:

[DarkAngel]

First, I loved that confrontation between Helo and Tigh. The Colonel was one of the characters that most jumped out at me during the mini-series. I was disappointed when, during the first season, he didn't end up getting a lot of development or time. So this season, I was incredibly excited to see some solid screen time for him during the NC arc. And I'm so glad they haven't forgotten about, or completely wrapped up, a lot of the issues he was harboring post-NC. That was a great scene with Helo and Tigh, and I liked hearing him voice, again, his attitude over going through hell on NC, while others weren't. And man, that guy's got an edge.

Second, when Roslin said, in reference to Zarek, "I've never seen him like that", I said "We haven't been seeing him at all." I mean, where's he been? I'm still upset at his non-existent role since NC, and being robbed of the presidency by the writers. But, I am glad we got to see him again. It was incredibly brief, unfortunately, but hopefully we'll be seeing a lot more of him as we start moving closer to the trial.

With this episode's story, I liked it. Nice to see some a medical ethics issue, especially since I'm in training to be a physician. When Coddle mentioned bisphosphonate toward the end, I was like "hey, I actually know what that is!"

And I'm wondering, was Dr. Robert a reference to the Beatles song? The song was, supposedly, about a doctor who provided drugs to celebrity patients and eventually lost his medical license. Not the same thing, I know, and the name's probably just a coincidence. But it'd be a cool if one of the writers was a fan of the Fab Four.

I agree about Helo. I've been more and more impressed, the more I've seen Tahmoh Penikett on screen. He does an excellent job performance-wise, and Helo's a great character. What I want to see is more tension similar to what we saw with him and Tigh. I think they lost an opportunity to play up the Lee/Helo conflict after the failed attempt at genocide. Helo is like DS9's Bashir, a character with a very strong moral compass. On a show like BSG, with the darkness of it and so many so willing to cross certain lines, it's great to have a character like who will stand in opposition. It means conflict, and the greater the conflict, the greater the drama.

Helo was never intended to last beyond the mini-series. But on the strength of his performance, Penikett bought the character, and himself, a permanent place on the show. He deserves it. If he were to go, the show would be worse for it.

Oh, and I almost forgot: Phantom Baltar!!!!! I completely forgot about him. It was great to see that re-visited with Caprica. I'm still fascinated by that and wonder what the explanation will be (if we get one).


Solid episode. Kept me entertained. But hopefully we'll move into the trial sooner rather than later.

[The Clown Prince]

This was another good character development episode, but really wasn't needed IMO. Helo continues to turn out to be a really good character and I'm glad for his character in this episode.

But like other fans, I felt teased by the previews in thinking that this would start the Baltar trial. In a way it did, but in a very brief scene with the always good Tom Zarek.

Now that the news of a 4th season has been broke, I really feel that the rest of the series in it's 4th and hopefully 5th season will benefit from a shortened season. This way the pace of the show stays fast and interesting. The overall arc of the series will be focused more and filler episodes like these will be cut to a minimum.

The Clown Prince

[DarkAngel]

The overall arc of the series will be focused more and filler episodes like these will be cut to a minimum.
But let's remember that this is "just a tv show." To act like certain episodes are more necessary than others seems kind of ridiculous. Yes, this is a show about the fleet trying to get home. But that can be dealt with in many ways through both arcs and stand-alones.

An episode like "The Woman King" might not fit into a multi-ep arc, but what occurred within it is something that could legitimately arise out these circumstances. The same with the contamination of food seen in "The Passage." Or the danger of limited water supplies way back in season 1's "Water". These aspects are as much a reality of so many people moving across space as anything that's occured in any of the arcs.

I love this show and the characters and would like to spend as much time with them as we can. I'd rather have more episodes, than less. That's how I felt on DS9 and now, with that series complete, I look back as fondly on the non-Dominion and non-Prophets episodes, as I did on the arc based stuff. They could have given us a tighter, 5-year series that focused on the Dominion war and Sisko/Prophets storylines. I'm glad they didn't, because in 7 years we got all that plus more. Especially now, with DS9 forever over, I appreciate that we got to spend as much time with those characters as we did.

BSG can be about many things, something RDM also said about Star Trek. I want to see them have the chance to explore all the possibilities and not restrict or limit what the show is about.

[The Clown Prince]

But let's remember that this is "just a tv show." To act like certain episodes are more necessary than others seems kind of ridiculous. Yes, this is a show about the fleet trying to get home. But that can be dealt with in many ways through both arcs and stand-alones.

An episode like "The Woman King" might not fit into a multi-ep arc, but what occurred within it is something that could legitimately arise out these circumstances. The same with the contamination of food seen in "The Passage." Or the danger of limited water supplies way back in season 1's "Water". These aspects are as much a reality of so many people moving across space as anything that's occured in any of the arcs.

I love this show and the characters and would like to spend as much time with them as we can. I'd rather have more episodes, than less. That's how I felt on DS9 and now, with that series complete, I look back as fondly on the non-Dominion and non-Prophets episodes, as I did on the arc based stuff. They could have given us a tighter, 5-year series that focused on the Dominion war and Sisko/Prophets storylines. I'm glad they didn't, because in 7 years we got all that plus more. Especially now, with DS9 forever over, I appreciate that we got to spend as much time with those characters as we did.

BSG can be about many things, something RDM also said about Star Trek. I want to see them have the chance to explore all the possibilities and not restrict or limit what the show is about.

Hey, I understand your point and your opinion. :) DS9 was a great, great Trek series. I love the BSG series to death and even the filler episodes that I've ragged on I've mentioned have been better than a lot of the network stuff we get day in and day out. BUT I'm just saying that when you have a really cool story arc that your moving towards with a lot of different things in play in that arc, and then to come to a grinding hault like with The Woman King, and even though I liked it, Unfinished Business, it get's a little frustrating for me and I know a lot of other viewers feel the same way. The link in the BSG 4th season thread (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=183746) has a lot of fans feeling the same way I do. I love the character developement stories, I really do, but the comeplete slow down just drags too much for my liking.

One of my biggest questions of this series when it finally gets resolved is not about the final 5 Cylons, not about the fate of the Cylons and humans and if they will co-exist for the rest of their natural existance, but of the Earth that they will hopefully arrive to. Will it be say a present day Earth that we live in with moderate technology and no interstellar space travel? The Earth people of today I can imagine being blown away about the existance of humans living outside of Earth with advanced technology from some far away unknown galaxy.

Or will it be an Earth of far more advanced technology and much further into the future ala' Star Trek. And I hope that we actually get to see the BSG crew interact with the humans of Earth and not just arrive and hover there and not see a resolution like friggin Star Trek Voyager.

But that's just me. :) I like the slowness of the episodes at times, but not as much as we've been getting. So yes, I do welcome this 13 episode order that we are getting.

The Clown Prince

[Duke]

OK, maybe it's because I never bought the DVDs to refresh my memory, but what are Sagitarons exactly?

You know, for a second there, I really thought they had killed off Dualla. Granted, that passed during the commercial break when it was obvious Lee wasn't going to be in the scene.

[Swordfish_II]

OK, maybe it's because I never bought the DVDs to refresh my memory, but what are Sagitarons exactly?

http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Colonies_%28RDM%29#Sagittaron