The network insisted that this was too depressing for American watchers and said it should be more uplifting.
Apart from an expression of stunned disbelief and a weakening of my American-TV-related vow not to bitch about Baltar's accent, there's really no way to respond to that.
Volunteering to say "I think I could be a Cylon, please arrest me" would truly be superhuman.
Yep, although it does make the Cylon-sleeper-agents idea a little puzzling in terms of efficiency - wouldn't a Boomer who knew she was a Cylon be able to cause a lot more damage without any risk of turning herself over to the authorities (or telling Tyrol about what's happening)? It seems odd. On the other hand, a lot of the stuff the Cylons are doing seems odd right now.
Secondly, I take it you assume he (the original Baltar) died in the blast and the one currently running around is a copy who doesn't know he's a Cylon.
At the very least, he would have needed some serious patching up after the explosion if it was as serious as it looked - and presumably if Six is telling the truth about planting some kind of chip in his head so he could see her, this is when it would have been done. Which means they wouldn't necessarily need to make a Cylon copy from scratch, but... if human-looking Cylons are physically (almost) identical to humans anyway, and can also believe that they are humans, and the only thing which defines them as Cylons is that Cylons created them and Cylons can control them, then even an almost-dead-but-patched-up-by-Cylons Baltar wouldn't be much less of a Cylon than the Boomer on Galactica, would he? (Except, of course, that the Cylons aren't actually controlling him in a physical sense, but that's some pretty strong influence.)
True about the original Baltar's role, though. I remember him vaguely (although I think his swivelling chair was about as interesting as he was), but not why/how he sold out humanity. The Cylons needed him to think like a human because they could only think like robots, or something, right? If I'm remembering that correctly - I get the impression that trying to predict the storylines in this version by looking back at the original is not generally going to be a good plan, but anyway - then the reason the Cylons need Baltar is the interesting point here, because if that's got anything to do with the difference between thinking like a Cylon and thinking like a human, then having that difference already confused by Cylons who believe they're human means that the Cylons wouldn't need Baltar to be entirely human in order to have him think like one (or act like one, or betray humanity as one, or whatever they're after here). Er, if that makes any sense.
Moreover, what would be the emotional impact of "oh, Baltar is a sleeper agent"? Zilch.
Fair point. I'd agree that there has to be at least one other sleeper agent on the Galactica among the people we've seen already, although since they completely surprised me with Boomer I'll probably guess wrong on who it might be. Tyrol, maybe? He's definitely helping Boomer by covering her tracks, whether he's a Cylon or not...
no subject
Apart from an expression of stunned disbelief and a weakening of my American-TV-related vow not to bitch about Baltar's accent, there's really no way to respond to that.
Volunteering to say "I think I could be a Cylon, please arrest me" would truly be superhuman.
Yep, although it does make the Cylon-sleeper-agents idea a little puzzling in terms of efficiency - wouldn't a Boomer who knew she was a Cylon be able to cause a lot more damage without any risk of turning herself over to the authorities (or telling Tyrol about what's happening)? It seems odd. On the other hand, a lot of the stuff the Cylons are doing seems odd right now.
Secondly, I take it you assume he (the original Baltar) died in the blast and the one currently running around is a copy who doesn't know he's a Cylon.
At the very least, he would have needed some serious patching up after the explosion if it was as serious as it looked - and presumably if Six is telling the truth about planting some kind of chip in his head so he could see her, this is when it would have been done. Which means they wouldn't necessarily need to make a Cylon copy from scratch, but... if human-looking Cylons are physically (almost) identical to humans anyway, and can also believe that they are humans, and the only thing which defines them as Cylons is that Cylons created them and Cylons can control them, then even an almost-dead-but-patched-up-by-Cylons Baltar wouldn't be much less of a Cylon than the Boomer on Galactica, would he? (Except, of course, that the Cylons aren't actually controlling him in a physical sense, but that's some pretty strong influence.)
True about the original Baltar's role, though. I remember him vaguely (although I think his swivelling chair was about as interesting as he was), but not why/how he sold out humanity. The Cylons needed him to think like a human because they could only think like robots, or something, right? If I'm remembering that correctly - I get the impression that trying to predict the storylines in this version by looking back at the original is not generally going to be a good plan, but anyway - then the reason the Cylons need Baltar is the interesting point here, because if that's got anything to do with the difference between thinking like a Cylon and thinking like a human, then having that difference already confused by Cylons who believe they're human means that the Cylons wouldn't need Baltar to be entirely human in order to have him think like one (or act like one, or betray humanity as one, or whatever they're after here). Er, if that makes any sense.
Moreover, what would be the emotional impact of "oh, Baltar is a sleeper agent"? Zilch.
Fair point. I'd agree that there has to be at least one other sleeper agent on the Galactica among the people we've seen already, although since they completely surprised me with Boomer I'll probably guess wrong on who it might be. Tyrol, maybe? He's definitely helping Boomer by covering her tracks, whether he's a Cylon or not...