June 27, 2013

Well, I lied a bit about Battlestar Galactica. I ended up staying up until 2AM watching the last few episodes of the series. And then I laid in bed until at least 3AM trying to process it all. Having watched all 75 episodes in eight days, it is kind of hard to believe it is over. It is like reading a really good book and getting entirely sucked into that world, and then having to come back to the real world when you finish the last chapter. Granted, I just finished the series last night, I am still trying to come to grips with it all.

Overall, I would have to say I liked how the series wrapped up. So now I'm going to get into spoilers. The finally found Earth. Or New Earth. Technically they already discovered Earth, which is where their ancestors were from, but it had been devastated by a nuclear strike from the Cylons, just like they did on Caprica. They mentioned throughout the series how they cycle just kept repeating itself, the Cylons rising up against their human creators and obliterating them with nuclear weapons.

So in the final episodes they find New Earth, which is actually our Earth but 150,000 years ago, and they come across our ancestors. In the episode they watch them from afar but they are still tribesman without a written language and they never show any direct interaction. After settling on New Earth, they use Sam (one of the first five Cylons who has become a hybrid) to fly the entire fleet of ships into the Sun. That seemed a bit excessive. They still had some small Raptors (at least one) on the planet but no other means to go back into space. I can't imagine going from a space traveling civilization to an earthbound one. I would have at least left the ships in orbit. We know it works out in the end because the human race goes on to thrive but still. Also, rather than establishing a large city with the 30,000 survivors (like they have every other time), they decide to break the cycle and split people into smaller groups and spread them across the planet. I guess this makes for an easy explanation for how and why there are people all over the world now. My favorite part of the last episodes was when they flashed back to the characters on Caprica before its destruction. They had done a little of that previously but this was the first time we got a better look at who some of the main characters were before everything changed. The very end of the episode, where they go to the invisible versions of Baltar and Caprica 6 in present-day Earth, felt a bit tacked on (and the post-production voiceover for them because they didn't pick up their voices during filming was pretty bad). They showed a National Geographic where a skeleton had been found that seemed to be the Eve to the current human race, and I think it is supposed to be Hera. So we are to believe that the Twelve Colonies landed here 150,000 years ago, and the only evidence of their existence is a skeleton bridging the gap between Homo sapiens and previous versions. None of their technology.

As for the characters, I think my favorite supporting character was the grumpy old doctor who smoked and acted like he didn't care when he actually did. My second favorite was probably the lawyer who eventually became the president, at least for a bit. I think Edward James Olmos was a perfect casting choice for Adama. I think that he was most similar to the original character than any other actor in the new series. Adama did things every now and then that I didn't agree with but overall he was a badass, even if he did cry a lot in the last season.

The President grew on me but that was helped by the fact that she was dying. Like I mentioned in a previous entry, I liked her better when she was dying. I would have preferred another miracle with Cylon blood to get rid of her cancer but apparently that only works once. The saddest part about her dying was the fact that it left Adama alone. He had given his whole life to the military and then the protection of the last remnants of the human race, and then when he finally got the chance to settle down, and found someone he loved and could settle down with, she dies. In the last episode Adama and the President are lying together, looking at herds of animals, when the President starts to have trouble breathing and Adama asks her if she wants to take a closer look. So he puts her in the Raptor and when Lee and Kara come over it becomes apparent that this is a one-way trip because they start saying their tearful goodbyes. When they take off they fly around for awhile and the president dies and I figured Adama would crash the Raptor with both of them still in it. Instead he lands it in a place perfect for the cabin they talked about building. Later they show him sitting next to her grave telling her that he had laid out the floorplan for the cabin. I guess we are to assume that he plans on leading the life of a hermit, talking to the dead President.

Going back to Lee and Kara, the star-crossed lovers of the series, Lee asks her what she is going to do now. She says that her destiny is complete and she didn't have anything left to do. When she asks Lee what he wants to do he starts telling her how he wants to go out and explore, climb mountains and cross oceans. When he turns around, Kara has disappeared. Earlier in the series, Kara's Viper explodes in front of Lee and months later she appears again, in a brand new Viper, thinking that she had only been gone for a few hours and that she had found Earth. When the fleet eventually finds Earth, thanks to a tracking beacon and the new Viper, Kara discovers that the tracking beacon is from her old Viper, that was crashed into Earth, with her dead body still inside. She spends the rest of the series trying to figure out who or what she really is. I want to look up theories online but I am assuming she was some sort of angel. She obviously physically returned after her Viper exploded because she had interactions with people (unlike the piano player) but she wasn't necessarily human, because she just blinked away after finally leading the fleet to New Earth. Leaving Lee all alone, just like his father. I also think Kara could possibly related to Daniel in some way, the Cylon who was artistic and permanently boxed. Maybe her dad was actually Daniel (ignoring that Cylons being able to procreate is rare). Kara had been painting the way to Earth since she was a kid and the song she figured out that got them to New Earth was the same song that unlocked the final five. I think it is easier to go with her being an Angel but that makes it harder to explain all the childhood stuff. Unless her destiny was set from the beginning.

I liked that Saul and Ellen ended up together, and that Athena, Helo, and Hera remained a complete family. And that Caprica 6 and Baltar ended up together. That made more sense than Caprica 6 and Saul because Saul tended to see Caprica 6 as Ellen. Which makes sense when we find out that Saul and Ellen were originally married thousands of years ago, when they both knew they were Cylons, and that they ended up together when they believed they were humans and weren't aware of their previous life. And the downfall of Caprica and the flight across the universe began because Baltar was seduced and fell for Caprica 6. And they were each others invisible friend/conscience/angel/whatever.

As for Baltar, he was probably the character that infuriated me and entertained me the most. He could be such a pansy and a pushover and the only thing he ever really cared about was his own self-interest and well-being. Every time you thought he was doing something good, he messed it up. Until the end, sort of, when he decided to go on the rescue mission for Hera. I think he was sick of the harem but I also think he saw it as a chance to come back a hero if he survived. Luckily it didn't turn out like that and he went off to live happily ever after with Caprica 6.

The characters I felt sorriest for were Tyrol and Gaeta. Tyrol fell in love with Boomer, a Cylon, before he (or she) knew that she wasn't human. Then she went active and shot Adama and Tyrol's reality was destroyed. But he still loved her and he was torn apart once again when Cally shot and killed Boomer. Then he beats the hell out of Cally in his sleep but eventually marries her and has a kid with her (or so he thought because it ended up being Hot Dog's). And even though he decides later that he settled for Cally and still loved Boomer, he is destroyed when Cally dies. Then Boomer comes back into the picture, and now that he is a Cylon, makes him believe that they can have a life together. But she is just manipulating him so she can steal Hera. And although Boomer kind of does the right thing at the end by returning Hera to Athena, she will always be flawed and Athena kills her. So Tyrol is left with no one. And then discovers when the final five are about to give the formula for resurrection to the "bad" Cylons, that the former presidential aide (who I never liked because she immediately embraced being a machine and a bastard when she discovered she was one of the final five) killed Cally. This caused Tyrol to break the data flow with the resurrection formula and kill the presidential aide. Good riddance. And it was probably even better because that caused the "bad" Cylons to believe the resurrection formula was a trick which lead to all of them being killed and the Cylon colony destroyed. In the episode I watched on Netflix, we last see Tyrol sitting in the CIC, staring off into the distance. In the regular episode it is explained that he goes off to live on his own, on an island. And apparently the show creator later made it canon that Tyrol settled in Scotland and became a king. Which makes sense because he was the union leader and good at organizing people.

Gaeta was an idealist and a good man, helping out the rebels on New Caprica, but I don't think he ever recovered from actually being on the bad side with Baltar, and it all went downhill when his leg was amputated. And the tipping point was when Dee committed suicide. He decides to stand up for what he believes is right but it is misguided and then he collaborates with Zarek (played by the actor who played Apollo in the original series) who is worse than Baltar when it comes to wanting power and doing anything to get it. It was sad because Gaeta was so intelligent and had so much potential but then it all crumbled away.

And going back for a second, the most surprising and unexpected death in the entire series had to be Dee's suicide. She came back from having a nice evening out with Lee (her estranged husband), talked to Gaeta, was incredibly happy, and then she put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. Going out on top I guess. She was sweet and innocent and married Lee because she loved him even though she knew he loved Kara more. Then her hopes were dashed when they reached Earth and it was a nuclear wasteland and I think it all became too much for her to handle.

I think that is all that has been floating around in my head since last night about the show. I did get tired of all the drama and just wanted to shake people and tell them to stop, but the show kept me engaged and I got completely wrapped up in that world. It is kind of disappointing coming out of it to a world without realistic human machines or Faster Than Light space travel. It is a series I need to look into buying or hope that I can rent it and copy it, without running into scratched discs. I can easily see myself watching the series again. It will be different knowing who all the Cylons are and how certain characters will progress but I think it will still be interesting.

Keeping with the theme of TV shows, Doctor Who. I finished up with Donna Noble yesterday and it was sad because she is my favorite. When I first watched her series I found it incredibly depressing that she had gone on all these wonderful adventures and done great things across time and the universe, but was doomed never to remember any of it because if she did, she would burn up. Now, however, I think she was kind of lucky. All the other companions remember and it is brought up by the Dalek dude that the Doctor's true nature is represented by his friends and companions because they have all taken up arms and are fighters. Rose fell in love with the Doctor and lived a dangerous life trying to get back to him. Martha pined over the Doctor (annoyingly) and ended up defending the Earth by working for the military and almost blowing the Earth up to keep the Daleks from winning. Mickey became a fighter. Rose's mom fought. Captain Jack joined Torchwood. Harriet Jones shot first and asked questions later, and was eventually killed by Daleks. Sara Jane spent her life tracking down suspicious things. And Donna would have turned out the same way but I don't think that would have been for the best. She did the investigative thing in the beginning to meet the Doctor again but she really just wanted to travel, not get involved with saving the Earth or tracking down aliens. She wanted to travel with the Doctor for the rest of her life and she couldn't do that, so in a way it was more humane to wipe the memories completely, allowing her to go on and lead a productive life, not caught up in what could have been.

Moving on, at work today I typed up everything that precedes this sentence. I was in the mood to ramble and empty my head. I also continued work on my cross stitch and made it to the final two David Tennant episodes of Doctor Who, not counting the episode I am missing (Planet Of The Dead, I think). I could have finished the fourth series but I got sidetracked by actual work at work. Same goes for my cross stitch. I only managed to finish the last border and get a tiny start on the first letter. My job-related work involved adding new trailers and ads to all the movies and transferring movies for tomorrow. There was a new tech there today fixing the sound problem in one of the auditoriums and I liked him better than the usual guy. He seems like he used to be a teacher because he explained everything he was doing so I actually learned some stuff today. He managed to come up with a temporary solution for the sound issue but then another theater went down. This, I learned, was caused by a bad ignitor, indicated by the fact that the bulb wasn't making the usual clicking sound (the ignitor sparking) that it usually makes when the bulb strikes. So one theater was fixed and another went down, leaving us par for the day.

After work I ate the second half of my Chipotle burrito and then much more successfully gave one of the cats her pill. Yesterday my mom put butter on the pill like the vet told her to make the pill go down easier. This is great in theory but every time I had the opportunity to drop the pill in Ella's mouth the pill would stick to my finger. Today, no butter, and I probably got the pill in her mouth in less than a couple minutes. The nice thing is that Ella starts to constantly meow, opening her mouth long enough for me to get my fingers in and hold her mouth open and drop the pill in. It is easier than giving a cat liquid medicine through a syringe and a million times easier than trying to feed a rat liquid food through a syringe.

I went and got gas before seeing the new volunteer kid and that delay allowed me to see an amazing display of justice or karma or whatever else. Near the edge of town a truck went by me going well over 40mph, then cut in front of me and slowed down to 30mph as we went by a cop who had someone pulled over. Then he sped up again. Just outside of town, going up over a hill and then back down to get to the highway, I would say he was going close to 70mph in a 50mph zone. And then a cop pulled him. It was great. And weird, because I had just been thinking about him needing to be pulled over.

The visit went well itself with the new volunteer kid went well. We started by dropping off a couple job applications. The first to KFC, which lead us on a bit of an adventure just trying to find it. I'm not sure how he got the job application because he didn't know where the restaurant was, but we eventually found it. Thankfully the second job application was for Sonic. After he turned it in we sat there and talked about credit cards and credit scores and debt and all that for awhile before actually ordering drinks and continuing our conversation. He ended up getting the raspberry cherry limeade I got last week and I got a blackberry cherry limeade. They either made two drinks with raspberry or blackberry tastes pretty much the same, because it tasted what I remember last week. Not a bad thing because the raspberry cherry limeade is now my favorite, but interesting.

The sky was really dark in town before I left for the visit and it caught up to me on the way back. Before I could get off the interstate I joined a 15mph caravan with all our hazard lights flashing. I found that the flashing lights were much easier to tell distance by than regular taillights. As soon as I made it to the off ramp for the highway I pulled over to the shoulder with several other cars and parked for several minutes because I could barely make out the hood of my car. There were a lot of cars driving by and I feel safe to say they were all idiots. The rain eventually cleared up enough to start again and I made it onto the highway before it picked up again. Not quite as bad as it was before, and the sky was lighter, but for awhile I slowed down to 30mph and put my hazard lights back on. It took me quite a bit longer to get home but I made it home safely and I didn't have to pee so I wasn't in any hurry.

I spent the rest of my night catching up on YouTube videos and looking at random things on the internet. I was tempted to watch something on Netflix but I want to hold off on that until this cable billing cycle is over because of hitting the bandwidth limit. YouTube videos take up a lot less bandwidth and I fell a bit behind with the massive Battlestar Galactica marathon. Speaking of, once again, I want to go see if I can start renting the series tomorrow so I can listen to the DVD commentaries. I am still thinking about that show a lot.