So Earth has finally been revealed....

So after almost 5 years of waiting, we finally got to see the crew of Galactica make it to Earth, and surprisingly, much earlier than I think most of us expected. Of course nothing this substantial is ever given to an audience this early without a price, so with half of the final BG season still yet to be seen, was it really a surprise to anyone when Earth was revealed to not be the beautiful utopia that everyone was hoping for?

I must admit, over the last few years, I had been wondering just what kind of Earth we'd see in store for our characters on BG. Initially, I wondered if it would be much like the original series, where the crew of Galactica lands on present-day Earth, though the whole concept of that seemed a bit silly with the style of today's science-fiction. The other common theory was that perhaps they'd land during the dawn of mankind, and would be the catalyst that kicked off civilization as we know it (much like the aliens in the film STARGATE). Heck, I even toyed with the idea that maybe they'd be landing on Earth in the 1960s after the end of last season (I couldn't shake the notion that there had to be SOME reason they used "All Along the Watchtower" to bring the hidden cylons together)! Though the big Earth reveal has finally come, and shown us a planet not unlike the one Charlton Heston found himself on in the 1968 classic, PLANET OF THE APES, where mankind seems to be a distant memory.

Putting together all the pieces however, this reveal of a post-apocalyptic Earth really isn't that surprising. For Earth to be a "legend" to these people, it would only make sense that they were originally from it in a time long ago. The fact that it seems we're quickly on the way to wrecking our planet enough so that it will no longer support human life would also suggest that for our species to survive, we'd likely have to set out into space and find other planets to inhabit ourselves, so the notion of completely forgetting about Earth enough over thousands of years until it simply becomes a legend is not a far fetched one.

It will be interesting to see where they go with this "ravaged Earth" concept in the few remaining episodes to come. Are the people of Galactica truly the first ones to return to Earth in eons, or is their perhaps another civilization that is still there in hiding somewhere? Will Earth remain the end destination for our heroes, or will they take to the stars once again, doomed forever to an existence on the move in space? And for frak's sake, who IS the final cylon?!? It's painful to think that we've got over half a year until these questions will be answered for us, but let us hope that BG can go out with as much of a bang as it came in with!

For those who want my more detailed thoughts on the mid-season finale, you can view my latest Overcast, the preview and link of which you'll find below.

-Tim


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What the frak was up with Romo's cat?

Hey all,

So after two weeks we FINALLY got another episode of BG, and while it was ripe with lots of interesting dramatic bits and reveals (totally saw that "Lee as President" thing coming), there was one scene that just confused the frac outta me!

When Romo Lampkin ultimately decides that Lee is the best choice for the Presidency, he's talking to his cat, and then walks out of the room. In the very next scene, he meets with Lee in the hallway to tell him the news, then threatens to kill him, and explains to Lee he's lost faith in mankind, as evidenced by the fact that someone "killed his cat."

Now, we just saw the cat alive in the previous scene, but Romo shows Lee a bag which contains a dead cat, where Lee says "it looks like it's been dead for weeks." There's the slim possibility that this exchange could be taking place weeks after the previous exchange, but since Lee is wearing the same shirt he was when talking to his father just a few minutes earlier in the episode, this seems unlikely.

So what does this all mean? Well, my best guess is that Romo went a bit nuts, and we were seeing the ghost of his cat (which would explain Lee's comment about the empty food bowl part way through the episode). I'm not sure though, as if that was the case, the whole thing seemed to be presented in a fairly subtle way, and came off a bit strange. Anyway, as per usual, you can find my deeper comments about the episode posted in my Overcast commentary, the preview link of which you'll find below:


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