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@@Whykickamoocow And later realizing they miscalculated the second jump (too low/still in atmo), which is why the Bucket was in such poor shape before the fight even started.
Blew me away. The engineer in me, busy working out the dynamics - fighters jumping out of tubes as the mass hulk fell at (approx.) 32ft/sec/sec, while the fan in me was screaming at the pure genius of such an impressive maneuver.
On a Reddit forum I read that if this scene wasn't scifi - it was the best docudrama ever produced. That is deep in my opinion and I couldn't agree more.
Yes it was. See, I hate when attractive women die in movies, tv shows, etc. I just do. So seeing the adorable Dee paint the walls in her brain matter was...unsettling to say the least.
I watched the episode live with my closed captioning on (I couldn't turn it off) and when the music began building and it read _[All Along the Watchtower]_ I was so dumbfounded, yet so hyped to find out what was about to unfold.
Regarding Dee's death...this was immediately after they found the 13th Tribe's Earth, the whole goal of their odyssey, was a wasteland destroyed two thousand years earlier through a robotic uprising. The shock, the crushed hopes, and the absolute letdown had to lead to someone doing something drastic, and Dee was the one chosen. I can understand her thinking; for several years hope hinged on finding Earth. And when it was found, they couldn't settle there...everything must have felt like it was for naught. Of all the deaths, hers and Callie's were the hardest to handle.
I think that in a way Dee was the most optimistic of them all that they would find Earth. She was optimistic, deeply spiritual, and desperately needed something to hold onto after her civilization faced an apocalypse. She was rock solid until she wasn’t and that’s the moment when everything really started to break down.
We see Dee with Helo on the raptor coming up from Earth, and in the middle of that scene, she is holding the jacks in her hand and she just stops crying - which for me was the moment that I knew she was going to end it. It's brilliantly subtle, unless you've dealt with people fighting depression and suicidal idealation.
i read somewhere that she was from the colony that was very spiritual..that believed in the prophecy..and getting to know that the prophecy that was the background of your whole life was false..broke her...
Im late to this party but want to know something hilariously terrible? When the episode with Dee's death aired on television, after the shot, it immediately cuts to commercials and the FIRST commercial is exploding tomato soup cans. (idk if the commercials were universal or localized but it was an emotional rollercoaster)
I never managed to latch onto any character throughout the whole show so I never really missed anyone when they died. Tho that scene was still shocking.
one funny scene i like is when a Six and Baltar are defending an entry point, they end up seeing their ghostly counterparts....."I do?", "you can see them?"
The Galactica's last FTL jump in the series finale was one of the saddest moments, especially when Colonel Tigh says "She's broke her back. She'll never jump again." When you think of all of the hits she took throughout the series, including nukes, the Galactica breaking her back hits you pretty hard.
Its why you CLOSE THE PODS before jumping; structural integrity is a bitch. Also, pour one out for the poor Viper pilot that got bucked out of the flight pod when the back broke...
When starbuck finds her dead body on Earth. Blew my mind! I've watched this series four times now and it still holds up as one of the best television series for me. The goosebumps are real. The relationships that build throughout are real. How Adama is cold and cut off from both Lee and Roslin in the beginning, to him being willing to sacrifice the entire fleet for them. I was so surprised to find that few of the actors received proper recognition for their great work, especially James Callis, who could go from making me hate Guais Baltar to sympathizing with him, to loving him within the span of minutes. His scenes with Roslin and Caprica 6 were always special. This show is so underappreciated by so many but I think that's what makes it all the more special for those who connect with it.
I thought it was quite possibly one of the greatest shows ever! I’m not really even a fan of this genre, my ex boyfriend made me watch it and I was dreading it! I was hooked instantly!
I thought of this one right away as well. You're left with a "What the Frack" is she??? I wonder if the writers really knew or they made this one up as they went along. The saddest moment is when she disappears on Lee. Did she really exist at all?
It was like an even better version of Babylon 5. Space opera, all of humanity rests in the balance, an impossible uphill battle, all on a limited run TV show. Also, not afraid to kill of main characters. Nobody is safe.
Dee was like a bat to the soul. Her chat with Gaeta just before when he says "You're glowing". Remember too it was THE turning point for the entire story. Adama deciding that fighting the Cylons wasn't worth any more loss so to find common ground and work with them. and Felix and Zereks attempted mutiny and subsequent deaths.
And they did their research- a good number of people who commit suicide get their stuff in order, have one last good night/day/adventure, and then do it. (Watching that scene actually "caught" a friend before they were gonna...)
@@Sephiroth144 Indeed. I can say from personal experience that a feeling of contentment can be one of the most dangerous emotions when depressed, the false clarity and urge to "leave on a good note" rather than slide back down can be far harder to fight than anything more obvious. That scene hit me like a hammer blow because I recognised her reasoning and how terrifyingly accurate it was.
IMO one of the biggest twists in all of SciFi was when they showed what became of Caprica Six after the nuke attack, and she woke in the KY bath; and there was ghost of Baltar that only she could see. I can't believe that didn't make this list. All along we thought Six was some sort of Cylon apparition to help/control Baltar, and then we find out it works both ways.
@@gateauxq4604 The producers really struck gold with Tricia Helfer, a literal Victoria's Secret Angel with real acting chops. Six in all her iterations is a rich and wonderful character.
@@Arroway2357 She does an amazing job as Edi in the Mass Effect games too (particularly the third one). And by pretty much every account I've heard she's supposed to be a great person off camera too. Some people are just annoyingly perfect in that way...lol
ye... I hated that episode and episodes like it. Galactica has no filler episodes in the most technical sense. When nothing plot relevant happens all episode until the last 5 mins. Billy dying totally fit the bill for a BSG filler episode. What a way to go 😅
Yes this is that good, but do yourself a favour and watch Babylon 5. Season 1 is slow going, but it is so worth it. As sci-fi goes, B5 is the pinnnacle.
Currently rewatching this with my Grandma who missed it when it was airing and, man, she's loving it. I forgot how much I loved the Adama/Roslin dynamic. I've seen people complain about the end but it's never really bothered me. I just wish the final season didn't feel so rushed. I know Moore didn't want to stretch it out for ratings but it really could've used a fifth season before settling down into Earth.
I think the simple critizim with the end of this series is the line "god did it in the end" as least George R R martin seems to think so as he already told us how much he hates that concept but even then the allogorical representation and spirtual religious tones of the series i think really gave it something that goes even beyond a character drama and made things more interseting and mysterious with its lore. The whole scientific meaning at the end of which all this time they were 150 million years in the past was also pretty mind blowing. BSG really was Poetry in motion, it was a masterpiece that perhaps was a bit to ambitious but all in all the series lended it self well as a whole I think.
@@Artimes. To be fair, its not "God did it". Its more like "Something did it". The series blatantly says that "something" does not like to be called God. So....its "something" but you just do not know what it is. As for Martin....its going to be quite rich of him if he does indeed wish to have the 3 eyed raven in power at the end of his Song of Ice and Fire. Its pretty much the very same thing, just, in Game of Thrones, the God which wins is named during the story. The 3 eyed raven pretty much acts like a God, together with powers to explore the past and future.
I forgot about that. This reminds me of The Magicians. The crops in Fillory worked by magic and Elliot had to reveal that he grew up on a farm and showed them how to grow crops the regular way, when crop magic stopped working.
The one twist (sorta) I will always remember is Rosalin giving the order to abandon the non-FTL ships in the mini-series. My heart just sank on that one. I was a devout fan from then on.
@@danielmitchell6940 Don't get me wrong, Mary McDonnell is a great actress but I will admit some of her roles either don't fit her or the reverse somehow and comes off as a little underdeveloped. Whether that's her or a fault of writers is anyone's guess. In my opinion her part in BSG was something that I just became accustomed to and eventually respected. Playing a teacher thrust into some sort of dying chosen leader in an opening pilot is rather difficult enough. When such a new character is in a show being immediately compared to its predecessor only compounds the matter. All things considered, she did pretty well by shows end.
@@danielmitchell6940 i mean i felt that way with all characters. The morality in BSG is barbaric. The class inequality, the firing squad, raping prisinors. I'm glad they blew up Caprica if this is what they were like 😅 Kinda why I could never latch onto anyone. They were all so alien to me. If I met any of them in real life I'd stay far away from them. 😆
That was the grabber for me too. It was the right choice. It was the only choice. But you felt it when other ship captains radioed in hoping she burns in Hell. And then later for good measure, just when you thought they were done kicking your heart in the nuts, Roslyn is informed that the little girl she met earlier on the greenhouse ship died because it had no FTL. There was nothing at all she could do with the immense outrage, hatred, sadness, and self-loathing this brought.
I'm getting emotional just watching this. It might be time for a rewatch of the series. I might even include Caprica in that too. 🤷♂️ I was one of the ones that actually enjoyed that one. 🤷♂️
Just finished rewatching a month ago. BSG still holds on strong (some CGI didn't age well, but who gives a shit with that plot) but Caprica dissapointed me even more than the 1st time. It had potential, but it tried too hard to drop in as many references to BSG as possible whether it made sense or not.
I know what your feeling and i understand the kind of pull this show has and I am also having that issue of watching it so many times over that I just can't get enough of it. But if you want to watch something new or different, I would recommend Star trek DS9 which Ronald D. Moore was also heavly involved with, OR expanse seems to be a really interesting show that I am currently watching now. Its hard to let go of BSG but man we have to if we are going to broaden our horizons a bit. There are still some solid space drama's and scifi series you may find you really enjoy.
Helena Cain (Michelle Forbes) - such a great character! Her anger, hatred, and coldness was a perfect embodiment of what the Cylons felt the human race embodied. She did what she had to do to ensure the survival of the Pegasus and at the same time acted in a manner the Cylons believed was a character trait of all humans - the inability to truly forgive - an example of why the human race would never meet with Cylons on equal terms and work toward peace.
Billy and Dee were both sad losses as characters, enjoyed both of them (and Billy assuming Rosalin’s role staying in the Fleet during New Caprica arc would have made an interesting side story in Lee and Bill’s struggle over a rescue). But as someone who loves this series, Ellen returning as the last Cylon model was a surprise after Saul executed her for treason.
5:00 I heard an interview with the science advisor for the show. When he was asked about this scene he said, no, something like that simply would never work, no matter what. But he said they should do it anyway. There was a detail that they added on the advice of the advisor, and that was the blast of air that strikes the colony just after the Galactica jumped away. He pointed out that such a mass falling through the atmosphere would pull a mass of air behind it. That mass of air would continue falling to strike the ground with quite a lot of force. This same thing happened to the Titanic stern. The bow of the ship sank almost vertically, but the stern sank flat. When it came to a stop on the sea floor the column of water pulled down behind it struck the ship with enough force to utterly smash it. This scene is still one of the coolest ever seen on TV.
Thats wrong, the stern of the titanic wasnt smashed by a column of water. The reason the stern is in much worse contidion is that the stern wasnt fully flooded like the bow, so it imploded on the way down when the water pressure rised, also unlike the bow, the stern spiraled down what put a lot more stress to the stucture and ripped parts off and because of the spiraling down, the stern hit the ground much later than the bow. Did your column of water took a coffee brake on the way down, to wait for the stern?
Debateable; after all, when the Galactica jumps, it creates a vacuum, which would seemingly absorb some of the pressure wake. Likewise, we see a decent air pressure wave hit the ground, whereas the Galactica jump vacuum should've been pulling the dust and such upwards.
Nobody saw the identities of the final Cylons coming because the writers didn't decide who they were until earlier that season. They might as well have thrown darts at a cast list.
Tory Foster: “Hey, we all capable of making mistakes.” Colonel Tigh: “yeah, yeah; your forgiven.”😂 as the final five were putting their hands in to unite their minds to complete a deal with the Galactica crew. That’s when her secret gets exposed to Galen for killing Cally. That was classic my favorite, but the Dee suicide was unexpected. Great video, thank you for sharing.
The First Earth revelation was actually 2 twists in one. You forgot to mention that while there, Starbuck and Leoban come across the remains of a destroyed viper with the long decayed remains of a pilot wearing Starbucks dog-tags. What was a travesty was that even though they were allowed to wrap up the series because it was being cancelled (I believe it was meant to be 5-6 seasons rather than 4), they didn’t explain the significance of Starbuck and how she was alive despite her blatant death. She just disappeared while Lee was talking about what he was going to do now they’d found “our” prehistoric Earth as if she was a ghost.
She was a tool of the God(s), returned to complete her mission. Mission done, yoink! (Or she's Batman- seriously, Lee turns around, and she disappeared, she was the best at everything, died but got better- that's totally Batman.)
I think that whole "angel" angle was in a way sort of a -ripoff- tribute to the last few storylines of the old _Battlestar:GALATICA_ series, in particular the "Experiment in Terra". The "angels" in the new show were those "Beings of Light" from the old.
Ron Moore decided to end the series with Season 4 because I think he was scared that the network was going to can it before they could finish the story. He made it clear that Season 3 ended with the beginning of the final act, anyway.
Battlestar Galactica is hands down my favorite television show and one of my favorite works of fiction. One amazing touch was the technological choices: nothing was more fantastical than it needed to be. Sentient robots? FTL drives? Okay, fine. But you're getting bullets and missiles. You're getting "two in the chest" and its bloody aftermath. You're getting "Radiological Alarm! Brace for contact!" instead of lasers.
The outcome of Gaeta's mutiny, actually being killed was a bit shocking to me. I kept thinking that at least He would be saved. When it didn't happen, I was a little shocked!
nah, this show made it quite clear what happens to traitors. I was more curious what would happen to that one guard that was escorting Adama. Did Adama forgive him? 🤔 We will never know 😅
I'm kinda surprised the ending, with them finding our Earth 150 thousand years ago and everybody now days is half Cylon wasn't on the list. To be honest I've always believed something like this really happened.
I was surprised that Caprica wasn't embraced by the BSG audience. I found the storyline of how the Cylons came to be...so humanly predictable. Yes it had some unnecessary melodrama, but it also had incredible potential to become a minimum 3-season core series in the BSG universe.
I gave up on it quickly just because they were dragging everthing out far too slowly. Good ideas, good actors, great characters, but bad pacing. Also, it followed after the first series sort of burnt out its brilliance. I am sad about that.
I'll always concede that the first half was flawed. It did feel like they were dragging all the plot points so they could climax at the mid-season finale point, causing everything to feel very drawn out. But then Jane Espenson stepped down as showrunner and I believer it was Drew Z. Greenberg who stepped up and the second half was such a marked improvement. The stories moved at a much faster pace without also seemingly rushed. He wrapped up some plot threads and built some new ones that were so promising. Of course, Syfy were eager to dump it because when they brought it back from hiatus (months earlier than originally planned after fans' outcries), they aired only 3 of the latter 9 episodes before deciding to can it. (They announced it after airing the fourth, but I remember it didn't include a trailer for the fifth, meaning they had already made up their minds before it even aired.)
For me a big problem was so much time spent on the non-Cylon stuff. I don't remember the show that well, but I recall a crime sub-story and a Matrix-like VR sub-story that just seemed to drag and not connect very well to the premise of the show being about how the Cylons came to be. The show was finally getting pretty good by the end but it was too late.
I rewatched this recently completely forgot what happened to Dee. When the Dee episode came on and that moment happened, I had to turn the TV off. It took a full 6 months before I could watch the final episodes. That one hit hard...
The Dee one hit me hard. My cousin killed himself out of the blue one day. Still don't know exactly why because he seemed to have everything going for him and didn't show any signs of depression. The note he left was also extremely vague. As someone who had and still has depression even it shocked and surprised me. None of us had any idea and then one day he was gone. No real explanation, no sense to it, just here one day and gone the next.
The nature of Kara's return; the nature of the Battlestar Pegasus, a fondly remembered addition from the original show (in great part due to Lloyd Bridges); Tom Zarek. All great plot twists.
This Sci-fi TV show was one of the best ever ! The performance of James Olmos, Katie sackhoff and Mary McDonnell and james callis ofc was really amazing! Also, the Adama manoeuvre was SUUUUCHH epic coolness I still have goosebumps thinking at how cool that scene is!
HOW DO YOU NOT INCLUDE THE FINAL SCENE OF THE SHOW IN THIS LIST?! It still haunts me to this day as the audience finds out this entire series is 150,000 years in the past... and the entire point of the show is to warn us of AI because "all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again"
There is a lot of theories on Dee’s death. I think everyone saw a part of what she was dealing with. For me I saw that after all of the death and destruction, she wanted just one perfect moment to leave on. Dee had a romantic date with Apollo and she wanted that happy experience to be the last one she experienced. It reminded me of the scene in Soylent Green where Edward G Robinson went to a gov center commit suicide and saw video of earth before he died and they turned his body into food
Lots of theories by people who don't understand mental health and feel the need to invent a convoluted explanation. She was depressed and had no support and was sufficiently competent that everyone thought she had it together while everyone else was falling apart, and she had a moment of happiness with no hope that it could ever last or return, and decided she was content with that being the arc of her story, rather than one that returned to what seemed to her of a future of struggle to no purpose or joy. Lee never had any true idea just how cruel he was to her or how deeply he hurt her by never seeing beyond his own needs and wants. She didn't just want to be happy with him, she wanted to be able to trust that happiness wasn't going to be taken away again, and he could never give her that... or was even aware that he needed to. He crushed her spirit and ability to fight. It was some of the most brutally accurate writing on the show.
Did anyone expect the writers to forget about “the plan” we are told the cylons have from the get-go, and then have to throw together a feature special to address it? That still cracks me up. And my poster of Kara Thrace still has pride of place on my wall 😋
I distinctly remember listening to one of the podcasts that Moore et al did alongside the first airing of an episode, and they discussed the "Final Five" and how they only became a thing after the writers realised that the fanbase was putting huge effort into speculation - they were never meant to be a thing, there were going to be other models which were revealed and were nothing special, but the fan speculation made the writers rethink everything. Probably why the plan thing was quietly forgotten about in the series... That was the biggest disappointment for me in the show - one of the major plot points didnt exist until the writers followed the fanbase :( Makes you wonder what the original ending to it all was going to be.
Oh, they had a plan- it was the same as Bender's: Kill all the humans. Then some schmucks didn't quite get the job done, so they started changing shit.
Watched an interview with Moore, he said when the show first started marketing wanted to put in the opening recaps "and they have a plan". Moore said what the hell they don't have a plan outside of killing humans. Market guys said so what no one will question it, it sounds cool..Marketing wanted in there. He said in the interview that it wasn't a thing until near the end of the series that fans were getting upset that there wasn't a revealed plan. Hey what do I know I'm 18 years late to the party, on my second watch through though.
Have you ever seen Babylon 5? The series got a huge jump in fans after BSG ended. B5 has this level of writing but its a longer, drawn out story that covers 5 years and a bunch of TV movies. Because it was network television, and 10 years older, it is not as dark as BSG was, and the story has a lot more tangents in it. The creator JMS wanted sci-fi that was realistic but showed that peoples will always be flawed no matter how advanced they are technologically.
Learning that the first earth was ecologically dead was brilliant! The fleet jumps to our sun's solar system, which is confirmed to be the correct location of earth. Everyone is jubilant. Bear McCreary's triumphant musical piece, "Diaspora Oratorio" underscores the joyous mood. In the next scene, Adama is on earth and is picking up a handful of dirt (as Roslin had predicted) only it is radioactive! Fantastic ending to the first half of the fourth season.
It seems unlikely the entire planet would be dangerously radioactive after 2,000 years. Even in the Chernobyl exclusion zone there are areas much less contaminated than the rest. The most dangerous isotopes in the zone have half lives around 30 years (Cs-137, Sr-90) or 8 days (I-131) so they'd be pretty much gone in 2,000 years. Wildlife is thriving in the zone's (nearly) human-free environment.
Yes, unbelievably fantastic ending to the first half of the fourth season. I think of the black female officer (I forgot her name) who committed suicide.
Not necessarily a twist, but just an awesome moment that I think really captured how great the show was was at the very end when they played Jimi's version of All Along the Watchtower, as if to suggest the Cylon influence remains even in our world, going back to the whole 'whats happened before will happen again' theme - was amazing.
I believe the song was itself supposed to exist outside either Human or Cylon, but almost part of the Cycle; after all, the Final 4/5ths heard the song, but didn't compose it. (And I'm pretty sure its on the background at some point in The Farm- or maybe they just meant to do that)
@@Sephiroth144 I was never clear about the specific origin of the song - I'd assumed it was meant to evoke the idea of artificial intelligence evolving to the point of creative and abstract thought. That the producers used such a recognizable song in this context however I think makes more sense in your interpretation, and that it may suggest a link between human and cylon that goes beyond simply creator-creation, and maybe hinting at something more universal - like the idea of the manifestation of the soul as something that is born of struggle and endeavor, which both humanity and cylon share.
@@SJReid82 Or, perhaps, to show a continuity of the oversoul; certain themes and ideas, as well as the overarching events, would repeat- albeit in altered versions thereof.
Yeah, in the end pretty much everyone was either a Cylon or dead. It stopped being a twist after a while. At least it didn't go on and on and on kicking us while we were down like The Walking Dead. You just stop caring after a while.
That BSG was legit cool! Best of all, it was a show about humanity, what makes us human. I literally cried when Dee killed herself. That was so shocking and heartbreaking... Worth noting, too, it was the shock and despair cuz of the First Earth that pushed her over the edge, it wasn't a "she showed no signs" struggle. She WAS struggling, pinned ALL her hopes on that Earth- and when it was found to be what it was... it was too much for her to bear anymore.
Dee's twist was a heartbreaker - but it was telegraphed. Remember when she was crying in the Raptor, coming up from the surface of Earth, and they told her to take it easy? That wasn't calm that came over her. That was a look of cold, terminal despair. Actress Kandyse McClure and the showrunners nailed it - you knew she'd fallen through the floor.
It was a pretty big twist when they finally found our planet at the end and decided to call it Earth. The destruction of the Pegasus was a much cooler twist on the destruction of the Pegasus in the original series.
It was a great twist, since in the season finale before they had found Earth and it was a post nuclear wasteland. The show had ended at that point and I remember everyone on the internet suggesting it was OUR EARTH in the near future. The twist to make it a different planet, and them calling this new planet they found "Earth" then saying it was 150,000 years in the past was great! I remember reading the forums right after this and it got all the fans talking. Half LOVED this twist, half thought it was a bad "ancient aliens" twist, which is rather bizarre since the entire theme of the original BSG WAS that Earth IS the 13th tribe of Kobol. And that is canon to the original series
Adding to the list: Starbuck finds her own body on the Earth Starbuck learns and then plays the Melody - one which has New Earth coordinates encoded All that Epic had happened 150000 years ago in our timeline
Indeed! Gaeta’s character and its development throughout the series was very interesting: the one person who always wants to do the right thing, disillusioned by what doing the right thing costs him and ultimately destroyed. They don’t write them like that anymore.
@@FutureAlien The ironic thing is, he does the right thing in the end - tells the CIC crew to hold weapons (after threatening the baseship and fleet) and the Marines to stand down rather than fight a pointless fight. He knew that was his death sentence, but he didn't want to see more pointless killing just because Zarek demanded it.
9:45 - That was a perfect opportunity to add the clip of Adama saying at the very end of the show "But does it all have to happen again?" considering the revelations discussed were all pretty wrecking to begin with. :)
