BSG 3.20: Continuity is Hard

[wrog]

If you really have written yourself into a corner, just go ahead and do the frigging Bobby-Ewing-steps-out-of-the-shower scene already.

We won't mind. Honest.

I could perhaps accept for now that they think they're Cylons.

But if it actually turns out that they are Cylons in the same sense as Sharon, Six, et al -- which, I might remind, is pretty much the only official sense right now in which one can be a Cylon, solarbird's Cylons for Workgroups vs. Cylons NT vs. Cylons Vista being still just a theory at this point — well,... sorry, but we'd be solidly in Retcon Territory then:

Remember the pilot?

Remember Ragnarok Station and the wonky radiation that was eating away at Leoben and Doral?
Really eating away at them?
As in hair-falling-out-ants-crawling-up-my-insides-oh-my-god-get-me-out-of-here eating away at them?

Remember how Tigh and Tyrol were both there?
... on screen a fair amount of the time actually Doing Stuff...
... on the station itself?

Did we see them similarly deteriorating in that sequence?

No?

Busted.

Comments

[wrog]

Yes one can handwave. I'm sure we can come up with weird-ass explanations for anything; it's the fact that we have to that matters. If they'd laid the groundwork properly, there'd be no need for an explanation; it would be obvious at the moment of revelation.
So,
Retcon

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I think the legitimate objection here is that the reveal was so sudden. I think they could easily have spent more time dropping hints leading up to the reveal, without spoiling the surprise. But instead they spent time on a series of episodes that did nothing to advance the central plot, including several with Tyrol that could have laid more groundwork. That's a legitimate gripe. But it's still not a serious indictment of the show as a whole.

On the other hand, their cylon activation was like a switch going off in their heads, so I'm not sure how anything could have been foreshadowed in their actions. The Seven don't know who the Five are, so there's no way the cylons could have been used to drop hints. Once you establish that there are five hidden cylons in the fleet somewhere that no one knows about, who won't be revealed until a switch in their head goes off, it's kind of hard to do any specific foreshadowing. And they did plenty of general foreshadowing of this eventuality. So I think they played it about as well as they could, aside from the pacing of that 3-4 episode stretch of episodes leading up to Maelstrom.

[wrog]

The Seven know that there are Five.
And it's been established that cyclons can have all kinds of wonky hidden programming that they don't themselves know about, so there are all sorts of ways the cylons could have been used to drop hints.

Not that they have to go that particular route, but they have to go by some route.

How serious an indictment this is in light of the fact that all TV shows suck I can't say, but it's still a
Retcon

[firni.livejournal.com]

George Lucas is now shouting "ONE OF US! ONE OF US!"