Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

[belsum]

I’ve had the disc for The Plan out from Netflix since it was first released back in November. I’m not sure why I’ve been dragging my feet on watching it. But then I started seeing Skiffy’s ads for it airing this weekend and decided I couldn’t wait anymore

Comments

[free_laddicals]

I also think it was a bit of a retcon to have him know who the Final Five were all along.

Perhaps it was, since the Final Five weren't locked in until late season three, but with regards to "The Plan" it's not really, since they pretty well established in Season 4 that the placement of the Five in the colonies and the subsequent erasure/taboo regarding knowledge of them among the remaining models was the One's responsibility all along.

I enjoyed it. It wasn't Earth shattering (heh), but it was solid, and better work than Jane Espenson had brought to BSG so far (still think she wrote the single worst episode ever in her final Season 4 outing).

[belsum]

Oh I definitely enjoyed it. But I was also at times bored and/or perplexed so I certainly can't call it solid. (Which Espenson ep are you thinking of?) I'm finding it to be very thought provoking material - partly because I'm reading Jacob's recap while eating lunch. I really am glad to have some of the underlying personalities of the other models fleshed out a bit. I hadn't gotten that Doral was so weak-willed. And I loved the image of already-crazy Leoben hiding out in the Galactica corridors, obsessing on Kara's fight transmissions.

[free_laddicals]

I believe she was the one that wrote the first episode after Boomer had brought Ellen back to Galactica - the one where Ellen inexplicably decided that the best thing would be to have the Five withdraw from the Fleet because she was punishing Saul for having a relationship with Caprica, and then Caprica lost the baby because... well, writer fiat, I guess, I wasn't too clear on the in-universe explanation.

[belsum]

I don’t know that Ellen’s actions were inexplicable. It seems to me that “punishing Saul for having a relationship with Caprica” is exactly the explanation! The baby, though, yeah. They were clear that Cylons had been unable to mate. Did they explicitly say they’d never had a single pregnancy before? It doesn’t seem so far off to me that it wouldn’t be a successful pregnancy the very first time if it’s been such a difficult thing to achieve. I keep thinking of pandas…

[kaffy_r]

I also think it was a bit of a retcon to have him know who the Final Five were all along.

Are you referring back to the episode in the S4.5 (can't think of the epi name), where Cavil and Ellen have the long and brilliant conversation after he awakens her on the Cylon ship? Because that's when, it seemed to me, he was established as actually having been the one who betrayed the final five after they first came to this cycle's metal cylons, taught them how to improve their previously bad humanlike-cylon research, and created the modern human models, including Cavil. The history established in that episode never felt like retcon to me, more like revelation.

I really adored The Plan, partly because I felt it showed us a picture of someone who not only didn't grow but actively refused to grow, because he misunderstood the idea of life. His killing of that loveless boy was, for me, the second of the dual hearts of the story: he did that deliberately because he could feel himself growing attached, and he wanted to turn from it. The other

[free_laddicals]

I loved "No Exit" (4.5) so much - maybe that's why 4.6 (the Espenson episode I mention above) is such a let down. It's a bad episode, but worse it's a bad episode following such a high point.

I've had a hard time explaining why I liked "The Plan" with other friends because it seems to me a lot of people are still not over their disappointment with the finale and thus all discussion of "The Plan" devolves into whether it did or did not "rescue" the finale (it didn't, but in my opinion, the finale didn't need rescuing). You've articulated my feelings on the movie pretty clearly.

[free_laddicals]

That should be 4.15 and 4.16, I think....

[kaffy_r]

Yeah, the farther I get from the finale, and the more I have time to think of it, the better I like it, the more correct I think the plot, writing and characterization decisions were on the part of the creative team.