in which I finally read the TV Tropes page for BSG, and realize why I never did
So, this has been on my mental to-do list for weeks. But I finally got around to reading the BSG TV Tropes page. Reading some of these things is making cry again. I'd feel really stupid and emotional if I didn't know of at least one male who has the same reactions. But not to the same characters. Here are some of my favorites:
Camp Straight: Something about Lee and Kara's relationship comes across as strangely Ho Yay for some viewers, despite them being a man and a woman. Their Punch Punch Kiss antics sometimes feel like they could have easily been two Manly Gay men suffering from Belligerent Sexual Tension, if not for the fact that one of them is female (though notably, a Tomboy). Perhaps it's residual since in the original version, said female character was a man.
Doing It for the Art: The production of "Someone to Watch Over Me" went to ridiculous lengths in order to realistically depict a man playing and composing music on an old and beat-up piano. Having a basic knowledge of how to play a piano was a casting requirement for Dreilide Thrace - this enabled the crew to film from any angle without having to hide the actors' hands or use a "stunt performer." Because the prop piano was intentionally left out of tune and due to the specific acoustics of the set, any re-creation of the sound in post-production would've sounded incredibly different (and thus rather fake). As a result, composer Bear McCreary sampled every note on the prop so that he could later duplicate the sound of that exact piano in that exact room. Once they actually arrived at post-production, it was pointed out that production recordings of the prop piano were in mono, while any music re-created would be in stereo. What did Bear McCreary do? He rerecorded every piece of music played by the actors down to the last note, syncing his recordings with the actors' exact hand movements at the same time. The final product is just simply amazing.
Double Standard: Best aversion of this trope I've ever seen when Starbuck punches Lee, and he throws a haymaker right back at her with no hesitation.
Fake American: Jamie Bamber, who plays Lee/Apollo, is British (though his father is American and he claims to have been raised partly in Detroit). Most of the cast, though, are Canadians, so they sound almost like Americans. However, Canadian English occasionally creeps in, such as Tricia Helfer's pronunciation of "resources" as "ree-zources." At the end of Final Cut, Lucy Lawless, who otherwise used her natural Kiwi accent, affected a Canadian/American accent for the Number Three in the cinema.) One could disagree with them being fake Americans as none of the characters are "American" (or even Earthican).
Word Of God (on the Razor commentary) says that Jamie Bamber only did the accent because it would have been too weird for him to have a different accent from his screen father, since he already doesn't look anything like him.
Fan Nickname: President Roslin is Madame Airlock for her penchant of throwing people out of them.
Hello Boys: The miniseries/pilot does this quite blatantly with arguably the sexiest member of the cast, Tricia Helfer. In the first scene she walks in with a skin-tight red dress, and passionately kisses a man. A few scenes later, she walks into Gaius Baltar's apartment wearing a see-through black dress with sexy black lingere showing through it. The next shot is her making out with Baltar, during which she discards her top entirely (though filmed from behind) and has sex with him. Helfer continued playing Ms. Fanservice in various ways for several more episodes as Head Six.
This is extremely unsurprising, given that Helfer was in fact a very successful fashion model (who also worked for Victoria's Secret) for about a decade before becoming an actress.
Eternal Recurrence
Battlestar Galactica is an example. The Colonial scriptures talk about the cycle of time as a story told again and again throughout eternity, though with different players. Similar "death, exodus, and rebirth" events have occurred on Kobol, the Thirteenth Colony, and the Twelve Colonies, and could still happen in the future.
According to half-joking speculation by Olmos, it does happen again. It's called Blade Runner. The end of the series actually renders this completely plausible.
Honor Before Reason: Helo, to the point where he's pretty much the Anthropomorphic Personification of a conscience.
Knight in Sour Armor: Lee Adama becomes this over the course of the series.
(Suddenly, my unwavering love for Lee is brought into sharper focus. I love pretty much every character in this trope.)
The Main Characters Do Everything: Partially justified, since there are fewer people left. However the fleet does have around 50,000 people, and the galactica has a few thousand of those, and yet it seems that everything of importance gets handled by one of the main characters.
Apollo is the chief culprit, often fulfilling any one of the following jobs: Fighter Pilot, SWAT/Commando, Ship Commander, Politician, and President. In some episodes, he'll be up to three or four of these simultaneously.
Thrace comes up as one herself. She is not only the best fighter pilot, but also called on as an expert sniper, an interrogator, and security manager.
Which can lead to some interesting arguments, as the only difference between Thrace and the original Starbuck (and several thousand other similar characters in all forms of fiction) is the name and her gender. People seem to complain less about the male versions...
Meaningful Name:
Adama, which is derived from the name Adam which means "human".
Kara Thrace, which sounds similar to "carry the race", which is exactly what she does in the series finale. Thrace is also a region of Greece, whose ancient peoples were said to be descended from the son of Ares.
Helo's full name [Karl Agathon] is a deliberate allusion to the Greek phrase, kalon k'agathon, which means "the good and beautiful" or "the noble" [i.e., the ideal].
Anders means Man ( or Android).
Gina's last name is revealed to be Inviere. It's Old Gemenese [in-show] and Romanian [out-of-show] for Resurrection, etc.
The last name of Natalie, the Number Six Cylon who forms an Enemy Mine alliance with the Colonials, is revealed to be 'Faust'.
Cavil, however, is derived from Old English ca-feld, "field where jackdaws or crows are seen", so it's a place-name as a surname. A Cavil is also an irrelevant quip in conversation.
Anastasia means "resurrection", which is quite ironic, as Dee kills herself and isn't a Cylon, so it sticks.
The Kara one. Oh gods.
Multiple Reference Pun: In the series finale, Starbuck and Apollo's assault/rescue teams meet up on the enemy spaceship after getting separated. When Apollo asks where Starbuck was, she says, "Stopped for coffee." We should be surprised that the writers didn't try this one much earlier in the series.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Pretty much the theme of series to include most every character and humanity in general.
Nice job killing your wife aka the Final Cylon on New Caprica, Saul Tigh.
She got better.
Nice job building a monster (actually, an army of him) who tried to wipe out humanity and is only two Cylon models away from qualifying as an Omnicidal Maniac, Final Five.
Nice job waking up and beating the woman who loves you into a pulp, Tyrol.
Nice job helping Boomer kidnap a little girl, Tyrol.
Nice job killing Tory on the spot and losing Resurrection technology and the deal with Cavil's faction, Tyrol.
Nice job planting the only people who could rebuild Resurrection for you in human society without the benefit of their memories, Cavil.
Nice job wasting the Pegasus, Lee.
Whilst saving the rest of humanity and at the cost of two Basestars, give him some credit.
Not to mention that they had to preserve Galactica, otherwise there's no show.
Previously On Battlestar Galactica... : Often with the voice of someone who dies in the episode.
Omg this is so right and I think I realized it earlier but never connected the dots. I usually am like "yay! the person who said it will be a major focus of this episode!" and that's trufax.
Prophecy Twist: Two of them: Kara Thrace is "the harbinger of death and will lead them all to their end." She helps destroy the Cylons' resurrection capability, making them all mortal individuals; she also plays a hand in destroying Cavil's Cylon Colony and leads everyone to (our) Earth, ending Human-Cylon hostility and blending the separate races of Colonial-humans, Human-Cylons, and Earth-humans into modern humans. Laura Roslin is "the dying leader who will find "promised land" but die before setting foot on it." She reaches both Earths (and walks on them), but on our Earth she dies during a sight-seeing flight, thus dying before reaching the spot where Adama builds the cabin he promised her.
Alternately, Galactica is the dying leader who doesn't make it to earth.
Alternately^2, Kara Thrace is the 'dying leader who will find the "promised land" but die before setting foot on it': technically speaking, we are all dying from the moment of conception, an officer in the military is a leader, she dies before returning as an Angel Unaware, and it is her jump coordinates that lead the fleet to Earth. (which she sets foot upon after her death)
Oh gods, again the Kara one. I have a fixation.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: They're generally more disciplined than your average Bunch (or at least feel the consequences of lacking discipline more often), but they're pretty much exactly what you expect when the one ship to escape the Cylons does so on the day of its planned decomissioning - a Commander too honest for politics, an XO known for his drinking problems, an ace pilot whose free time is spent alternatively drinking, brawling, frakking or taunting (unless she's in the brig), an engineer fraternizing with another pilot and several other assorted characters. The new President of the Twelve Colonies is chosen pretty much the same way: The one who was inconsequential enough to not miss anything important when being away to hold that decommissioning ceremony.
Ramming Always Works
The Pegasus manages to knock out two basestars in the Battle of New Caprica by doing this.
To be fair, you'd expect nothing less from such a mother fraking awesome ship.
Galactica also does this in the Grand Finale in order to punch a hole in the colony for her assault teams to board.
Really, the propensity for ramming enemies with huge phallic-looking ships must be genetic.
And my dad lol'ed hard.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Starbuck and Apollo, respectively. Tigh and Adama, also respectively.
Space Opera: With its own Space Opera House.
I'm almost tempted to learn how to write and play music just so I can write a literal space opera.
Sure, Why Not?: After stumbling across a fanfic that teased with the idea of a Helo/Racetrack pairing, the actress portraying the Raptor pilot decided to incorporate the unrequited feelings for Helo and the jealousy towards his wife into her character's backstory.
Leah Cairns, I think I love you. This makes it Racetrack jealous over Helo jealous over Tyrol and Boomer.
Theme Naming: Completely unintentional, but: The names of the Final Five all have prominent T sounds in them: Saul and Ellen Tigh, Galen Tyrol, Tory Foster, and Samuel T. Anders.
Oh frak me. And this is now my unintentional and immediate reaction to everything like this:
Thirteen Is Unlucky: Twelve tribes of man who founded the Twelve Colonies... plus one that "got lost" and inspired the survivors to go on a wild goose chase IN SPACE! to find a planet called Earth. Twelve human-Cylons... plus a dead one named Daniel who may or may not be Starbuck's dad.
Daniel is not Starbuck's dad- Word of God is "Daniel's" entire existance was done to explain how the Sharons could be #8... which was itself due to Grace Park picking to be "8's".
Ok, see, like this here. I maintain forever that Kara Thrace is half Cylon. THAT IS THE ONLY REASONABLE IN-UNIVERSE EXPLANATION FOR HALF OF THE SHIT THEY MADE UP. I mean, really? When "word of god" answers in a boring out-of-universe way? COP OUT. That's fine that it's the actual reason, but the story continuity in-universe must make sense too. And Kara certainly doesn't unless something like this is behind it.
Throw It In: Edward James Olmos contributed a ton of these through ad libbing, particularly one memorable scene were in a fit of grief and rage over Starbuck's death he destroys the model ship Adama had been repairing for the past three years. This was a case of Truth in Television because Olmos himself was genuinely upset and angry over Katee Sackhoff's departure from the cast (or so he believed). The ship was a loaner from a maritime museum and was worth over $100,000, unbeknownst to him. Luckily, it was insured.
Hot holy frak.
Thrown Out The Airlock: This show is the reason the word "airlock" is now a verb and Laura Roslin's Fanon nickname is Madame Airlock.
True Companions: Dysfunctional as it is. Adama and Roslin are clearly Team Dad and Team Mom. So much so that Mom'n'Dad is the ship name and has been since season 1.
Verbal Tic: Whenever you hear Gaius Baltar say "Quite frankly," he's asspulling like a madman.
A Wizard Did It: God was behind it all. Yes, that God.
You know it doesn't like that name...
Silly me. Silly, silly me...
This is where I call bullshit. This series was far too rich, deep, powerful, intriguing, moving, and really essentially life-changing to just throw your hands in the air and say "OH WELL IT WAS ALL GOD." There is no such message. If I wanted to watch Christian fiction, I would have. What I was watching was a gutsy, intelligent, controversial science fiction show that often took on relevant and recent political issues and never backed down from hard moral questions. To end it all by just saying "GOD DID IT! KTHXBAI!" If that's truly all this was about then I'd like to say "fuck this show." But I can't ignore how amazing it is just because taking Head!Six at the face value of her words (Head!Six, people! GET REAL) goes against my fundamental beliefs. I do love the finale, but it also feels like the writer's were like "fuck, wrap this shit up. I don't care how. PLAY THE RELIGIOUS CARD!" I just don't see myself able to take Baltar as a prophet seriously. I severely distrust anything Head!Six says. And I don't think that boiling down a complex show to having one "true" philosophical message is really what we should be getting out of this. Is there a god or not? Are there multiple gods? Is everything just a coincidence? Is there some other form of life out there toying with us--be it god or some sort of alien? Are Laura Roslin's visions really from the gods, who truly once existed, to actually lead peoples with their prophecy? Or is she just high as a kite? And if so, do the Lords of Kobol exist or is that the monotheistic god acting through the dominant divine avatars?
BUT REALLY WHAT THE FUCK IS KARA THRACE?
My favorite religious message from this show: "The Gods shall lift those who lift each other." In conjunction with Baltar's message of "everyone being perfect" and "having a divine spark" that leaves us with a message of humanism and self-sufficiency that I can get wholeheartedly behind, no matter what superstitious coating you have to put on it for people to swallow. The fact that the show abandons that message to try for plot closure and still fails to achieve that closure is what pisses me off most about the finale. Then again, I personally didn't read any sort of monotheistic religious message in the show itself. I saw it as questioning religions, religious faith, the way that humans turn to religion, etc. And so to see all these Tropers just blatantly taking things like this as fact? That makes me a little more than unhappy.
Also: if you want my answer to the BSG religious question? Bob Dylan is god. That's the only plausible conclusion you can draw from the series.
Also also: I would rather have had the first Earth be our Earth. And I would rather that Kara Thrace's coordinates took the Fleet to a new inhabitable planet, not our Earth. That would be a lot nicer for me. It also would make the classic rock references make a hell of a lot more sense.
And one final random note: the fact that Katee Sackhoff got a tattoo of a cross on her back during the filming of this show makes me lose a little respect for her. For one, that's a bit disrespectful to your job. For another, it just sticks in my craw. When, oddly, the fact that Starbuck is religious doesn't bother me at all. It fits with her character. But real-life monotheistic devotion of the actor who plays her? That makes me sad.
I know why I never wanted to go to the page. This show is so open-ended, particularly in regards to my favorite character, that I don't like the style things are written in for this on TV Tropes. They take various "word of god" comments and suppositions as completely fact, when I'm still trying to let my brain wrap itself around Kara Thrace. And I don't buy half the things the TV Tropes folks are taking as given.
Camp Straight: Something about Lee and Kara's relationship comes across as strangely Ho Yay for some viewers, despite them being a man and a woman. Their Punch Punch Kiss antics sometimes feel like they could have easily been two Manly Gay men suffering from Belligerent Sexual Tension, if not for the fact that one of them is female (though notably, a Tomboy). Perhaps it's residual since in the original version, said female character was a man.
Doing It for the Art: The production of "Someone to Watch Over Me" went to ridiculous lengths in order to realistically depict a man playing and composing music on an old and beat-up piano. Having a basic knowledge of how to play a piano was a casting requirement for Dreilide Thrace - this enabled the crew to film from any angle without having to hide the actors' hands or use a "stunt performer." Because the prop piano was intentionally left out of tune and due to the specific acoustics of the set, any re-creation of the sound in post-production would've sounded incredibly different (and thus rather fake). As a result, composer Bear McCreary sampled every note on the prop so that he could later duplicate the sound of that exact piano in that exact room. Once they actually arrived at post-production, it was pointed out that production recordings of the prop piano were in mono, while any music re-created would be in stereo. What did Bear McCreary do? He rerecorded every piece of music played by the actors down to the last note, syncing his recordings with the actors' exact hand movements at the same time. The final product is just simply amazing.
Double Standard: Best aversion of this trope I've ever seen when Starbuck punches Lee, and he throws a haymaker right back at her with no hesitation.
Fake American: Jamie Bamber, who plays Lee/Apollo, is British (though his father is American and he claims to have been raised partly in Detroit). Most of the cast, though, are Canadians, so they sound almost like Americans. However, Canadian English occasionally creeps in, such as Tricia Helfer's pronunciation of "resources" as "ree-zources." At the end of Final Cut, Lucy Lawless, who otherwise used her natural Kiwi accent, affected a Canadian/American accent for the Number Three in the cinema.) One could disagree with them being fake Americans as none of the characters are "American" (or even Earthican).
Word Of God (on the Razor commentary) says that Jamie Bamber only did the accent because it would have been too weird for him to have a different accent from his screen father, since he already doesn't look anything like him.
Fan Nickname: President Roslin is Madame Airlock for her penchant of throwing people out of them.
Hello Boys: The miniseries/pilot does this quite blatantly with arguably the sexiest member of the cast, Tricia Helfer. In the first scene she walks in with a skin-tight red dress, and passionately kisses a man. A few scenes later, she walks into Gaius Baltar's apartment wearing a see-through black dress with sexy black lingere showing through it. The next shot is her making out with Baltar, during which she discards her top entirely (though filmed from behind) and has sex with him. Helfer continued playing Ms. Fanservice in various ways for several more episodes as Head Six.
This is extremely unsurprising, given that Helfer was in fact a very successful fashion model (who also worked for Victoria's Secret) for about a decade before becoming an actress.
Eternal Recurrence
Battlestar Galactica is an example. The Colonial scriptures talk about the cycle of time as a story told again and again throughout eternity, though with different players. Similar "death, exodus, and rebirth" events have occurred on Kobol, the Thirteenth Colony, and the Twelve Colonies, and could still happen in the future.
According to half-joking speculation by Olmos, it does happen again. It's called Blade Runner. The end of the series actually renders this completely plausible.
Honor Before Reason: Helo, to the point where he's pretty much the Anthropomorphic Personification of a conscience.
Knight in Sour Armor: Lee Adama becomes this over the course of the series.
(Suddenly, my unwavering love for Lee is brought into sharper focus. I love pretty much every character in this trope.)
The Main Characters Do Everything: Partially justified, since there are fewer people left. However the fleet does have around 50,000 people, and the galactica has a few thousand of those, and yet it seems that everything of importance gets handled by one of the main characters.
Apollo is the chief culprit, often fulfilling any one of the following jobs: Fighter Pilot, SWAT/Commando, Ship Commander, Politician, and President. In some episodes, he'll be up to three or four of these simultaneously.
Thrace comes up as one herself. She is not only the best fighter pilot, but also called on as an expert sniper, an interrogator, and security manager.
Which can lead to some interesting arguments, as the only difference between Thrace and the original Starbuck (and several thousand other similar characters in all forms of fiction) is the name and her gender. People seem to complain less about the male versions...
Meaningful Name:
Adama, which is derived from the name Adam which means "human".
Kara Thrace, which sounds similar to "carry the race", which is exactly what she does in the series finale. Thrace is also a region of Greece, whose ancient peoples were said to be descended from the son of Ares.
Helo's full name [Karl Agathon] is a deliberate allusion to the Greek phrase, kalon k'agathon, which means "the good and beautiful" or "the noble" [i.e., the ideal].
Anders means Man ( or Android).
Gina's last name is revealed to be Inviere. It's Old Gemenese [in-show] and Romanian [out-of-show] for Resurrection, etc.
The last name of Natalie, the Number Six Cylon who forms an Enemy Mine alliance with the Colonials, is revealed to be 'Faust'.
Cavil, however, is derived from Old English ca-feld, "field where jackdaws or crows are seen", so it's a place-name as a surname. A Cavil is also an irrelevant quip in conversation.
Anastasia means "resurrection", which is quite ironic, as Dee kills herself and isn't a Cylon, so it sticks.
The Kara one. Oh gods.
Multiple Reference Pun: In the series finale, Starbuck and Apollo's assault/rescue teams meet up on the enemy spaceship after getting separated. When Apollo asks where Starbuck was, she says, "Stopped for coffee." We should be surprised that the writers didn't try this one much earlier in the series.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Pretty much the theme of series to include most every character and humanity in general.
Nice job killing your wife aka the Final Cylon on New Caprica, Saul Tigh.
She got better.
Nice job building a monster (actually, an army of him) who tried to wipe out humanity and is only two Cylon models away from qualifying as an Omnicidal Maniac, Final Five.
Nice job waking up and beating the woman who loves you into a pulp, Tyrol.
Nice job helping Boomer kidnap a little girl, Tyrol.
Nice job killing Tory on the spot and losing Resurrection technology and the deal with Cavil's faction, Tyrol.
Nice job planting the only people who could rebuild Resurrection for you in human society without the benefit of their memories, Cavil.
Nice job wasting the Pegasus, Lee.
Whilst saving the rest of humanity and at the cost of two Basestars, give him some credit.
Not to mention that they had to preserve Galactica, otherwise there's no show.
Previously On Battlestar Galactica... : Often with the voice of someone who dies in the episode.
Omg this is so right and I think I realized it earlier but never connected the dots. I usually am like "yay! the person who said it will be a major focus of this episode!" and that's trufax.
Prophecy Twist: Two of them: Kara Thrace is "the harbinger of death and will lead them all to their end." She helps destroy the Cylons' resurrection capability, making them all mortal individuals; she also plays a hand in destroying Cavil's Cylon Colony and leads everyone to (our) Earth, ending Human-Cylon hostility and blending the separate races of Colonial-humans, Human-Cylons, and Earth-humans into modern humans. Laura Roslin is "the dying leader who will find "promised land" but die before setting foot on it." She reaches both Earths (and walks on them), but on our Earth she dies during a sight-seeing flight, thus dying before reaching the spot where Adama builds the cabin he promised her.
Alternately, Galactica is the dying leader who doesn't make it to earth.
Alternately^2, Kara Thrace is the 'dying leader who will find the "promised land" but die before setting foot on it': technically speaking, we are all dying from the moment of conception, an officer in the military is a leader, she dies before returning as an Angel Unaware, and it is her jump coordinates that lead the fleet to Earth. (which she sets foot upon after her death)
Oh gods, again the Kara one. I have a fixation.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: They're generally more disciplined than your average Bunch (or at least feel the consequences of lacking discipline more often), but they're pretty much exactly what you expect when the one ship to escape the Cylons does so on the day of its planned decomissioning - a Commander too honest for politics, an XO known for his drinking problems, an ace pilot whose free time is spent alternatively drinking, brawling, frakking or taunting (unless she's in the brig), an engineer fraternizing with another pilot and several other assorted characters. The new President of the Twelve Colonies is chosen pretty much the same way: The one who was inconsequential enough to not miss anything important when being away to hold that decommissioning ceremony.
Ramming Always Works
The Pegasus manages to knock out two basestars in the Battle of New Caprica by doing this.
To be fair, you'd expect nothing less from such a mother fraking awesome ship.
Galactica also does this in the Grand Finale in order to punch a hole in the colony for her assault teams to board.
Really, the propensity for ramming enemies with huge phallic-looking ships must be genetic.
And my dad lol'ed hard.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Starbuck and Apollo, respectively. Tigh and Adama, also respectively.
Space Opera: With its own Space Opera House.
I'm almost tempted to learn how to write and play music just so I can write a literal space opera.
Sure, Why Not?: After stumbling across a fanfic that teased with the idea of a Helo/Racetrack pairing, the actress portraying the Raptor pilot decided to incorporate the unrequited feelings for Helo and the jealousy towards his wife into her character's backstory.
Leah Cairns, I think I love you. This makes it Racetrack jealous over Helo jealous over Tyrol and Boomer.
Theme Naming: Completely unintentional, but: The names of the Final Five all have prominent T sounds in them: Saul and Ellen Tigh, Galen Tyrol, Tory Foster, and Samuel T. Anders.
Oh frak me. And this is now my unintentional and immediate reaction to everything like this:
Thirteen Is Unlucky: Twelve tribes of man who founded the Twelve Colonies... plus one that "got lost" and inspired the survivors to go on a wild goose chase IN SPACE! to find a planet called Earth. Twelve human-Cylons... plus a dead one named Daniel who may or may not be Starbuck's dad.
Daniel is not Starbuck's dad- Word of God is "Daniel's" entire existance was done to explain how the Sharons could be #8... which was itself due to Grace Park picking to be "8's".
Ok, see, like this here. I maintain forever that Kara Thrace is half Cylon. THAT IS THE ONLY REASONABLE IN-UNIVERSE EXPLANATION FOR HALF OF THE SHIT THEY MADE UP. I mean, really? When "word of god" answers in a boring out-of-universe way? COP OUT. That's fine that it's the actual reason, but the story continuity in-universe must make sense too. And Kara certainly doesn't unless something like this is behind it.
Throw It In: Edward James Olmos contributed a ton of these through ad libbing, particularly one memorable scene were in a fit of grief and rage over Starbuck's death he destroys the model ship Adama had been repairing for the past three years. This was a case of Truth in Television because Olmos himself was genuinely upset and angry over Katee Sackhoff's departure from the cast (or so he believed). The ship was a loaner from a maritime museum and was worth over $100,000, unbeknownst to him. Luckily, it was insured.
Hot holy frak.
Thrown Out The Airlock: This show is the reason the word "airlock" is now a verb and Laura Roslin's Fanon nickname is Madame Airlock.
True Companions: Dysfunctional as it is. Adama and Roslin are clearly Team Dad and Team Mom. So much so that Mom'n'Dad is the ship name and has been since season 1.
Verbal Tic: Whenever you hear Gaius Baltar say "Quite frankly," he's asspulling like a madman.
A Wizard Did It: God was behind it all. Yes, that God.
You know it doesn't like that name...
Silly me. Silly, silly me...
This is where I call bullshit. This series was far too rich, deep, powerful, intriguing, moving, and really essentially life-changing to just throw your hands in the air and say "OH WELL IT WAS ALL GOD." There is no such message. If I wanted to watch Christian fiction, I would have. What I was watching was a gutsy, intelligent, controversial science fiction show that often took on relevant and recent political issues and never backed down from hard moral questions. To end it all by just saying "GOD DID IT! KTHXBAI!" If that's truly all this was about then I'd like to say "fuck this show." But I can't ignore how amazing it is just because taking Head!Six at the face value of her words (Head!Six, people! GET REAL) goes against my fundamental beliefs. I do love the finale, but it also feels like the writer's were like "fuck, wrap this shit up. I don't care how. PLAY THE RELIGIOUS CARD!" I just don't see myself able to take Baltar as a prophet seriously. I severely distrust anything Head!Six says. And I don't think that boiling down a complex show to having one "true" philosophical message is really what we should be getting out of this. Is there a god or not? Are there multiple gods? Is everything just a coincidence? Is there some other form of life out there toying with us--be it god or some sort of alien? Are Laura Roslin's visions really from the gods, who truly once existed, to actually lead peoples with their prophecy? Or is she just high as a kite? And if so, do the Lords of Kobol exist or is that the monotheistic god acting through the dominant divine avatars?
BUT REALLY WHAT THE FUCK IS KARA THRACE?
My favorite religious message from this show: "The Gods shall lift those who lift each other." In conjunction with Baltar's message of "everyone being perfect" and "having a divine spark" that leaves us with a message of humanism and self-sufficiency that I can get wholeheartedly behind, no matter what superstitious coating you have to put on it for people to swallow. The fact that the show abandons that message to try for plot closure and still fails to achieve that closure is what pisses me off most about the finale. Then again, I personally didn't read any sort of monotheistic religious message in the show itself. I saw it as questioning religions, religious faith, the way that humans turn to religion, etc. And so to see all these Tropers just blatantly taking things like this as fact? That makes me a little more than unhappy.
Also: if you want my answer to the BSG religious question? Bob Dylan is god. That's the only plausible conclusion you can draw from the series.
Also also: I would rather have had the first Earth be our Earth. And I would rather that Kara Thrace's coordinates took the Fleet to a new inhabitable planet, not our Earth. That would be a lot nicer for me. It also would make the classic rock references make a hell of a lot more sense.
And one final random note: the fact that Katee Sackhoff got a tattoo of a cross on her back during the filming of this show makes me lose a little respect for her. For one, that's a bit disrespectful to your job. For another, it just sticks in my craw. When, oddly, the fact that Starbuck is religious doesn't bother me at all. It fits with her character. But real-life monotheistic devotion of the actor who plays her? That makes me sad.
I know why I never wanted to go to the page. This show is so open-ended, particularly in regards to my favorite character, that I don't like the style things are written in for this on TV Tropes. They take various "word of god" comments and suppositions as completely fact, when I'm still trying to let my brain wrap itself around Kara Thrace. And I don't buy half the things the TV Tropes folks are taking as given.