Battlestar Galactica

The Fifth Cylon as a Traffic Driver

/ Adam Nash / 1 Comment

I know I posted on this topic last week, but I thought I’d add an update after the big Battlestar Galactica debut this past Friday.  Interesting to see how frak parties everywhere translated into traffic.

So far, despite the debut on Friday, it looks like my traffic may have peaked yesterday, on Saturday.  5380 hits to the blog that day, with my most popular BSG posts taking the top 5 slots for article popularity.

Why?  Check out the top 10 referring searches from Google, Yahoo, etc:

top-queries

Notice a pattern?  I’ve discovered that my blog post is the number one result in Google for the search “fifth cylon”.  At least, it is today.

Battlestar Galactica Hits My Blog Stats… Again

/ Adam Nash / 3 Comments

Can you tell that Battlestar Galactica starts its final season in just ten days?  You can if you look at my blog stats…

Blog Stats

Over 200 hits to the post “The Fifth & Last Cylon” yesterday alone.

I’m even getting referral links from O’Reilly!  Love it.

No matter how I try to diversify this blog, ever since my first Battlestar Galactica post in 2006 (which still gets comments regularly), I continue to get massive traffic at key points in each season.

The only thing I think will be greater than the excitement for the series finale is the empty realization afterward that there is, in fact, no more.

Now for the ultimate spoiler…

… I am the fifth cylon.

January 16th, 2009

Top Five Candidates for the Fifth Cylon (Potential Spoilers)

/ Adam Nash / 23 Comments

Look, don’t read this if you are worried about spoilers.  Seriously.  Why are you even reading a post about the Fifth Cylon if you aren’t curious, right?

The number of people who read my blog always surprises me.  What surprises me even more is that almost everyone who tells me this asks when I’m going to post about Battlestar Galactica again.

Since January is around the corner, it’s about time for another post.  Here we go.

First, there is a Season Four promo up on SciFi now.  If you haven’t watched it, you have to.  Now.

SyFy Portal broke a story yesterday that basically says that they’ve known the identity of the Fifth Cylon for some time.  They don’t come right out and say it, but they give a list of the “Top Five Candidates”.  I thought I’d reproduce the list here, with my own comments on their likelihood:

  • Lee Adama. Adam’s Odds = 1%. Sorry, exactly how would Adama raise a Cylon from birth and not know it?  To justify this, pretty much everyone would have to be a Cylon in one form or another.  I like this theory even less than Zak Adama… I’m giving it 1% out of respect for those who believe, and as a hedge against the remote chance of lameness on the writers’ part.
  • Felix Gaeta. Adam’s Odds = 50%. Some potential indicators that Gaeta is the one.  First, he helped the resistance, like the other four of the final five.  Seems to have always been around the one in command – either Adama or Baltar.  Sings strange music when injured, as if he is enjoying the “humanity” of pain and emotion.  Also, killed the doctor with a pen to the neck in a fairly brutal way.
  • Laura Roslin. Adam’s Odds = 4%. Sorry, I know this is a favorite for some people.  “Imagine the drama if Adama’s love interest is a Cylon!”  Maybe if Battlestar Galactica were on Lifetime I’d buy it.  But not on SciFi.  Not with this writing crew.  I’m giving it a nudge above Lee Adama because at least it puts a Cylon at the head of everything from the start, answering the question of why she was the only surviving member of the cabinet.
  • Ellen Tigh. Adam’s Odds = 20%. Not a terrible option, given that Colonel Tigh is one of the five, and the resurrection of Ellen would be an interesting cathartic moment for Saul given the murder.  Also helps explain the visualization of Number Six as Ellen, somewhat.  Problem with this answer is, well, it’s not really that interesting.
  • Cally Tyrol. Adam’s Odds = 25%. Am I the only one who was glad to see Cally die?  Really hope it’s not this one, but it adds a very strange option to the mix, since it makes their baby a product of two Cylons.  Always nice to have a Cylon hater turn out to be one.  I personally can’t imagine this as a good choice, but so many people like it, I’m bumping the odds based on crowd-sourcing.

Of course, I still like the idea of Zak Adama as the final cylon, since his ghost has been haunting the show since the beginning.  But too many people think that it can’t be a character we haven’t seen before.

Battlestar Galactica resumes on January 16th.

Enough with the Election… Battlestar Galactica Updates

/ Adam Nash / 2 Comments

Yes, I’m tired of talking about the election and the economy.

Let’s go back to one of my favorite topics: Battlestar Galactica.

We are now exactly three months from the launch of the final ten episodes.  They will start at 10pm, Friday, January 16th, and go through until the finale on March 20th.

Additional fun to look forward to:

  • The Caprica premiere movie is in production, with teaser trailer now available.  No date announced yet, but this is the movie set before the first Cylon war, tracing the story of Admiral Adama’s father.
  • Another Battlestar Galactica movie, set between Season 2 & 3, will also debut in 2009, directed by Edward Olmos, and be told from the Cylons’ point of view.

More information here on BuddyTV.

Now, quit reading if you don’t like spoilers.

It’s hard to ignore the Caprica story line and its potential impact on the concept of the Battlestar Galactica plot.  The idea that humans developed humanoid cylons earlier in the timeline is hard to rationalize with what we know now.

We have ten episodes to find out:

  • Who is the fifth cylon?
  • Why are the final five different than the other seven?
  • What does it mean that all this has happened before, and will happen again?
  • Why did they say that Adama was a Cylon?
  • What happened to Earth?
  • Which came first, Earth or Kobol?
  • Will the non-humanoid cylons rebel against the humanoid cylons?
  • What is the fate of the human/cylon hybrid children?

Any other questions?

The Last Cylon is Hungry for Redemption…

/ Adam Nash

Great comment on my original Battlestar Galactica post, from rebelsnoopy:

rebelsnoopy, on June 7th, 2008 at 1:52 am Said:

From reading peoples theories about who the last Cylon is. People always assume that whomever it is will suffer while they are seeking redemption.

Hybrid prophecy/Razor: “And the fifth, though still in the shadow yet clawing for the light, hungry for redemption, that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering”

I suggest that the last cylon wont suffer.

But that someone else in the fleet, and I really think the people in the fleet will suffer. There will be another terrible tragedy and this last Cylon will do something incredible to save the Colonial fleet. Therefore redeeming him/herself.

That is exactly right.

The last cylon isn’t hungry for redemption for something they did wrong… they are hungry for redemption for what the Cylons did by committing genocide against the 12 colonies.

My guess is that these last two episodes of the half season get us to the reveal of the fifth cylon.  I then believe that the last 10 episodes of the final season will be the story arc around Earth & resolution.

Ron Moore Confirms the Obvious: NBC Decision to Pull from iTunes Sucks

/ Adam Nash / 2 Comments

There is an extended interview with Ron Moore, writer/creator of the new Battlestar Galactica, on Wired.  Definitely worth reading.

One fun snippet:

Wired: You mentioned TiVo. Do you think you benefited from DVD box sets, TiVo timeshifting, the ability for people to go watch all of season one?

Moore: Absolutely. It’s a totally different world, and it plays to our audience. The fans of this genre traditionally lead all these technologies. The early adopters, the people who are very facile with computers and tech, and they will find the show in all these different formats. It absolutely has helped us.

Wired: Even being able to tell the non-fans, look, just go get the box set?

Moore: It’s great. That phenomenon has definitely occurred, too, where people who would not sample the show, who wouldn’t tune into something on Sci Fi Channel, much less called Battlestar Galactica, people would then press on them a DVD. They became fans. That happened a lot. People just put it on their iTunes. I bemoan the loss of NBC Universals relationship with iTunes for this show.

NBC’s decision to basically thumb their nose at their customers, their fans, around a theoretical strategic positioning on digital delivery is doomed to failure.  Not sure if the current management at NBC will get it, or whether they’ll have to be replaced (ala Disney/Pixar) to heal this one.  They have forgotten that the alternative to Apple’s rich ecosystem is widespread, DRM-free piracy.

They’ll figure it out soon enough.