12 thoughts on “BSGcast: Blood & Chrome 7 & 8”

1. A bit of a needed breather before the action resumes.

   You KNEW that Husker and Becca were going to get it on! Young, hot shot pilot and a mysterious engineer? Oh, hell yeah! It was her idea (watch her set out the bedding!), yet led Husker on to think it was his. Just how may other scalps does Cougar have, I wonder. (You frakkin’ go, girl!)

   Coker playing the piano. Reminded me a little of a young Billy Joel. Bottles on the piano… Just going with the music… I was half expecting him to be playing the same tune Kara played that woke up the Final Five. That would have been cheesy, but fun.

   The upgraded Cylons! Between the original Toasters and the updated machines from BSG. Logical evolution. Interesting that they feel pain. Just like the baseship was in between the original twin saucers and the double-Y pattern of BSG.

   Now, were the Cylons creating hybred lower torsos or studying human ones to see how they work. That would explain the near freezing temperatures – it kept the experimental meat fresh. And how STUPID was Becca for letting out a sigh of relief with the Cylon still in the room?! Of COURSE it was gonna hear her!

   And then Husker beating the Cylon into submission with a metal pipe was priceless! Sparks flying. Circuits shorting. All good stuff.

   Props to Coker for looking out for Adama. If nothing else, I like to think that Coker still realizes that its his job to keep Husker from doing something STUPID and getting them both killed. He’s watching out for his pilot.

   The one dog tag was fascinating, though! Was the 3D barcode creating a computer virus to infect the Cylons? Was it changing their programming? Was it saying that Becca was the one that gave the Cylons feelings and emotions? Who knows. Will we EVER know?

   So ready for the next episode!

2. Seems like they took out all the character development from a half season of BSG and just left the action scenes. Maybe when you rely on CGI you feel you should maximize its use as much as possible. No sets to linger in and have the characters interact without some external threat. This whole story could have been stretch out for 6-7 episodes and maybe we care about what the doctor’s name was. I still like it for what it is but a little more depth could have made it better.

   The dogtag was interesting. A callback to Anders with the raider maybe. Is she a cylon in the zoe sense? The storyboard artwork shows a half human cylon at some point so maybe that’s the doctor later. Or is she human with a mission to set up the truce that we know is coming.

   What’s the deal with the piano? Do cylons play the piano? Not sure why we needed the callback to Kara and her father. And if we find out coker changes his name to dradle thrice that would just be lazy writing. Kara’s mom could show up though since she was a marine in the war but her dad would be silly.

3. Coker should totally have hit the “Kara Remembers Motif” before leaving that piano.

4. I agree that Beka is a Zoe type cylon seen at the end of Caprica – metal with skin over her.

5. @ Daniel & Pavlov: Why do you think that Becka is a skin job? Sorry – circumstances beyond my control prevented me from seeing much of “Caprica” shortly after the series started. Would love an explanation!

   Coker playing the piano was just a side story. It simply set up the conversation where Coker figured out that Husker had sex with Becka. (Of course, if Becka WAS a prototype skin job, that would explain why Husker would regret having sex with her…)

6. After seeing the brief glimpses of the next episodes, I’m a little afraid of the Finale, especially when thinking of the other Finales that preceded it. BSG’s was a bit weak-sauce letdown being that it rewrote its own history while concluding on a “high note”, only to shift to our present day where they could bombard us with the axiom of the series (“All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again”) on last, not so subtle time. Whereas, Caprica’s “The Shape of Things to Come” was actually exciting because even though you know what’s going to happen in the timeline, it, unintentionally, built up what could’ve been–either another season or in this case another series.

   I’m mean, it will either be a predictable let down (which, by the way, I hope it is not) or it will be something were not expecting and leave us wanting more, but SyFy being SyFy (and not Sci-Fi) it might not happen.

   I’m sorry to be a downer, but I was actually excited for this when it was first announced after the demise of Caprica. When I heard it was being converted into a Web Series, I honestly thought they frakked it up.

   Yet, looking back at these past few weeks, even though I was disappointed that it didn’t become a full-series, I do have to say I like the compact format, not the web-episode format, but rather it being a one-shot season, akin to the Mini-Series that Sci-Fi use to produce. I think if SyFy were to do that instead of trying to develop blow-out, drawn out series, we could see more from within the BSG universe (as well as other shows). I mean, I would like to see other story lines within the BSG cannon that doesn’t necessarily follow the Adama’s, Graystone’s or Thrace’s.

7. @Shauna Marie – the last episodes of Caprica, Zoe (the first cylon who was also physical and virtual) was assured by her father and mother, Daniel and Amanda Greystone, that they would do everything they can to bring her back into the physical world from the virtual world. In the last scenes of the last episode, they show Zoe in a resurrection tub resurrecting but with a metal body that is enveloped in skin. Zoe becomes the first hybrid skin job – skin on metal; rather than the full skin jobs in BSG where their entire bodies were biological with no metal components.

   It is apparent that the cylons in B&C are experimenting with organics and inserting cylon technology into organics, like the snake in the webisode 6. This is the transitional stage where the cylons are trying to develop fully skin jobs (no metal components). In webisode 7 and 8, Beka discovers frozen body parts (which Toth states were spare parts). This is akin to what happened in the Razor flashbacks where Adama actually senses the hybrid on the ice planet. Those Razor flashbacks occurs two years after the B&C webisode (since B&C in in the 10th year of the war and Razor flackbacks are in the 12th year).

   Anyway, as mentioned by a Pavlov, the scanning of Beka by the cylon was a call back to when Anders (a full skin job) was scanned by a raider in the episode “He that believeth in me” where the Raider scans Anders, whose eye flickers red, and the Raider determines that Anders is a Cylon. As a result the Raider does not kill Anders and the rest of the Raiders abruptly abort their attack on the Fleet. In the webisode, Beka is found by a Cylon and is scanned and her dog tag flickers, which presumably identified her as a cylon, which is why the Cylon did not kill her. Ergo, she must be a cylon.

   SPOILER ALERT- DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED.
   The pre-production photos show a female cylon human hybrid in a similar snow hotel setting as webisodes 7&8. So it is likely that Beka (the only female character left) is that hybrid cylon.

   http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vKkO-Vg3VbQ/TRSIOJNoEJI/AAAAAAAABPY/UP9q1HcpMkE/s1600/BattlestarBloodandChrome1220102-1.jpg

8. Thank you, Daniel!

9. Did anyone notice that Adama kills a cylon in episode 8 exactly how he killed it in the Razor flashback by beating it to death with a metal pipe.

10. I noticed the same thing, Daniel. The upgraded Cylons seem much more prone to electrical arching than the Centurions of Razor. Did you notice the mouth pieces moving on the new Cylons? It was akin to a ‘creature’ lickin’ its chops before the final kill. Could it also have been an experimental communication method?

    The screaming the Cylon did would suggest a much higher cognitive/emotional function than the earlier Centurions. More aware of its surroundings. Did these Cylons ‘resurrect’ in some fashion – anticipating the future?

    Potential SPOILER!
    I took a look at the image link, Daniel. The Cylon seems to have take off its skin suit. Or, the Cylon could be getting ready to skin Becka and use that as its skin. There is almost a look of pain and fear on the body which is why I so speculate.

11. The mouth piece moving on the Cylon reminded me of the alien in Predator. I wasn’t sure if it was communication or not or extra sensory perception.

    When I heard the cylon screaming, it reminded me of the BSG episode Scar where Athena states that Raiders resurrect and the resurrection process is painful. Perhaps, they always felt pain in BSG but it was not highlighted as much. Alternatively, we know that Cavil implanted inhibitors in the mechanical cylons. Perhaps, the inhibitors also inhibited pain, because if the mechanical cylons felt pain, they would likely overthrow the skin jobs. I remember Cavil stating that the inhibitors were implanted so that there would not be any revolt by the mechanical cylons.

    When I looked at the picture, I thought the person being dragged was Coker. However, the lips look red so it could be Beka.

12. Those of us who want B&C to become a series need to do something more then just watch it several times on youtube…
    Family guy got renewed twice after strong DVD sales, Firefly got a movie the same way.

    ANYONE SEE A CONNECTION HERE?!

    Syfy needs to feel that B&C is potentially profitable, that’s the only way…