BSG - "You Can't Go Home Again"

[Fianna]

[url]http://www.sfdebris.com/videos/bsg/bsgs01e05.php[/url]

I gotta wonder if Chuck purposely chose to review this episode so soon after reviewing Voyager's "Extreme Risk". Both episodes have a ship, stuck in deep space far from supplies or reinforcements, trying to recover something that's fallen into a planet.

On BSG, what's lost down there is a human being and the fleet's best pilot, and spending more than a few hours searching for her is considered to be such an extreme waste of resources it's putting them all at risk. On Voyager, what's lost is some random probe that never has any special importance attached to it, and Voyager spends days building a brand new spaceship just to bring it back.

[Mickey_Rat15]

The thing that stretches credibility here is that Raider, even if part organic, has any controls a human would be able to use or would be using gaseous oxygen in a way that would accessible to person in its body cavity.

There is also that Tigh is good at being XO when he is not wrapped in his own head. Unfortunately CO seems to be his level of incompetence.

Chuck, a guy named Winston is outside saying he would like to have words with you on whether "Drunken Debate Master" can be a thing,

[cdrood]

The thing that stretches credibility here is that Raider, even if part organic, has any controls a human would be able to use or would be using gaseous oxygen in a way that would accessible to person in its body cavity.

There is also that Tigh is good at being XO when he is not wrapped in his own head. Unfortunately CO seems to be his level of incompetence.

Chuck, a guy named Winston is outside saying he would like to have words with you on whether "Drunken Debate Master" can be a thing,

While I can't speak to the issue of raider controls, at least with regards to the oxygen it's possible the skinjob Cylons sometimes need to ride in the raiders.

At minimum, there seems to be something of a repeated cycle of human/cylon/genocide/restart that the show eventually reveals. Whatever that "programming" is may also mean building everything with human type oxygen needs.

[Mecha82]

If you think about it Starbuck being able to figure out how to fly Cylon Raider was pretty much already showing back in season 1 that she wasn't regular human and there was something special about her before they started to reveal more about her and she started doing even more important things.

[Artabax]

Suck it common sense!
Let's sacrifice thousands of Redshirts to rescue a Named character.

We hates this trope, we hates it forever.

This trope is egregious in SG Atlantis. Named characters are in danger. Colonel Caldwell don't want to sacrifice his Whole regiment to rescue 4 people and he is presented as the Bad Guy whereas in fact Caldwell = Captain Obvious.

We don't leave our People in there is an excellent morale boost for Elite Regiments. But they never send Elites to rescue Named characters. They always send zerg rushes of Redshirts.

[Mickey_Rat15]

Suck it common sense!
Let's sacrifice thousands of Redshirts to rescue a Named character.

We hates this trope, we hates it forever.

This trope is egregious in SG Atlantis. Named characters are in danger. Colonel Caldwell don't want to sacrifice his Whole regiment to rescue 4 people and he is presented as the Bad Guy whereas in fact Caldwell = Captain Obvious.

We don't leave our People in there is an excellent morale boost for Elite Regiments. But they never send Elites to rescue Named characters. They always send zerg rushes of Redshirts.

And this case is particularly egregious because it is obvious to whole crew the CO and the CAG have a personal interest in the lost character as a (near) family member. There is plenty of evidence that the Adamas would not go to this extent this for any other pilot, for all the reasons Tigh lays out that they should not have done this for Starbuck.

And they keep doing this...especially with how Lee's command of the Pegasus ended up.

[Mickey_Rat15]

The thing that stretches credibility here is that Raider, even if part organic, has any controls a human would be able to use or would be using gaseous oxygen in a way that would accessible to person in its body cavity.

There is also that Tigh is good at being XO when he is not wrapped in his own head. Unfortunately CO seems to be his level of incompetence.

Chuck, a guy named Winston is outside saying he would like to have words with you on whether "Drunken Debate Master" can be a thing,

While I can't speak to the issue of raider controls, at least with regards to the oxygen it's possible the skinjob Cylons sometimes need to ride in the raiders.

At minimum, there seems to be something of a repeated cycle of human/cylon/genocide/restart that the show eventually reveals. Whatever that "programming" is may also mean building everything with human type oxygen needs.

That would make sesnse, except the interceptor raider does not seem to made for such duty in any way. Starbuck has to cut into its "belly" just to get inside.

The heavy raiders have the transport capabilities.

[Independent George]

And this case is particularly egregious because it is obvious to whole crew the CO and the CAG have a personal interest in the lost character as a (near) family member. There is plenty of evidence that the Adamas would not go to this extent this for any other pilot, for all the reasons Tigh lays out that they should not have done this for Starbuck.

And they keep doing this...especially with how Lee's command of the Pegasus ended up.

But isn't the whole point of these episodes that doing so is a really bad idea? I'm also not sure what you mean with regard to Lee on the Pegasus.

Lee was XO of the Pegasus when they jumped into that ambush, and he (and Starbuck) specifically advised that it was a really, really bad idea to jump the ship without recon. The implication in that episode was that the CO (I can't remember his name) was trying to establish himself with the crew and disagreed with Lee mostly to assert his authority and not have it appear the XO was running the ship. It ended badly.

Lee ordered the fleet to retreat at New Caprica, leaving the people behind on the planet because he knew the fleet had no chance against the Cylons and that a fight would be a meaningless sacrifice.

[Seaward]

And this case is particularly egregious because it is obvious to whole crew the CO and the CAG have a personal interest in the lost character as a (near) family member. There is plenty of evidence that the Adamas would not go to this extent this for any other pilot, for all the reasons Tigh lays out that they should not have done this for Starbuck.

And they keep doing this...especially with how Lee's command of the Pegasus ended up.

But isn't the whole point of these episodes that doing so is a really bad idea? I'm also not sure what you mean with regard to Lee on the Pegasus.

Lee was XO of the Pegasus when they jumped into that ambush, and he (and Starbuck) specifically advised that it was a really, really bad idea to jump the ship without recon. The implication in that episode was that the CO (I can't remember his name) was trying to establish himself with the crew and disagreed with Lee mostly to assert his authority and not have it appear the XO was running the ship. It ended badly.

Lee ordered the fleet to retreat at New Caprica, leaving the people behind on the planet because he knew the fleet had no chance against the Cylons and that a fight would be a meaningless sacrifice.

I believe they're referring to Lee jumping back to New Caprica and covering Galactica's retreat, only to ram Pegasus into a basestar and sacrifice what might just have been the Fleet's most valuable asset. There's a parallel there of doing something that a lot of people consider to be extremely stupid for what can be perceived as sentimental rather than pragmatic reasons.

[Madner Kami]

I believe they're referring to Lee jumping back to New Caprica and covering Galactica's retreat, only to ram Pegasus into a basestar and sacrifice what might just have been the Fleet's most valuable asset.

That's the crowning moment of damnation for him. He's shown as a bad commander through the episodes before, visually also underlined by him becoming quite puffy over the course of his command. Ignoring the battleplan over new Caprica, where Adama sr. specifically decided to use an understaffed Galactica for the suicidal stunt of jumping into New Caprica's atmosphere and then serve as a meat shield and decoy to cover the retreat of the civilian ships. Lee has nothing better to do, then jump the fully working Pegasus into the fray in order to save his father. He uses a fully functional battlestar, that is faster, heavier armed, better armored and which also houses facilities to replace and construct Vipers and Raptors on it's own, to save the aging, underarmed, heavily damaged Galactica with his father on board. You can't make a worse gambit and it ends with the loss of Pegasus in exchange for a barely working heap of junk. *slowclap*