Theories abound.

I must start by apologizing for the delay in posting. I was halfway through writing this thing last Sunday when the fuse box at my house exploded. I've been without power until this morning. The hotel we were staying at, in addition to some other personal matters that came up, really wasn't too conducive to blogging.

I know that it's a bit late, but here are my thoughts on the season four episode of Battlestar Galactica, Revelations. At the very least the late post means everyone who wants to should have had the chance to see it by now. If not, you can check it out online at SciFi Channel's website or at Hulu.

**Warning!**
This post contains major spoilers for the Battlestar Galactica Season 4 mid-season finale episode!

**Okay, you've been warned.**

Man, what an episode. There have been plenty of critics stating that this season of BSG has so far been slow-paced and that nothing really interesting has happened. I can only speculate that they have been watching some completely different series--perhaps the old school BSG?

Anyhoo, so, the Colonials and the renegade Cylons have found Earth. Or have they? No seriously though, they have. I really want to smack all of those people who are trying to say that there's no way this is Earth. Especially since they're basing this hypothesis solely on the fact that in the orbital shot of the planet we can't identify the familiar continents as we could in the season three finale. So what? It's Earth. I know Ron Moore likes to mess with our heads, but I just can't see any valid reason to assume this is anything but. I have two major reasons for accepting this without question:

• The constellations match those that they found in the Tomb of Athena back in season two. We know that the original twelve colonies are based on the twelve zodiac signs of Earth, and those are the twelve constellations that the fleet has been searching for even since Kobol.
• Starbuck. We’ve seen what kind of hysterics this chick is capable of. She would be throwing a royal hissy fit if they stopped outside a planet that clearly wasn't the one she had spent some time orbiting in her little Viper. I just have a hard time believing that she would fail to notice if they ended up at some completely different planet. I mean, come on.

So while these probably aren't iron-clad reasons for knowing that our heroes have found Earth, I am, given these facts, perfectly willing to accept that they have until or unless Ron Moore gives us reason to believe otherwise.

So much happened in this episode that it is difficult for me not to just focus on the last five minutes or so. But I will try to hit some of the highlights before I get to that part.

First off, there's D'Anna. With Natalie's death she's now the self-appointed leader of the Cylon rebels. She's just as ruthless as she ever was, except when it comes to Gaius. After promising Roslyn that she would reveal the final five once Roslyn had taken her to the fleet, she changes up the plan upon arrival, stating that she is going to hold all of the humans on the Base Star hostage until the four of the five who are actually in the fleet (more on that in a minute) are allowed to leave the fleet and come to the Base Star.

Obviously this is a flawed plan. For one thing you've got the fact that the leaders of the fleet are now convinced that the final five are the key to finding Earth, and you know the humans don't want to give up their ticket to their new home. Then there's the fact that three of the four don't want to go to the Base Star anyway.

Tigh, Tyrol, and Anders may not be sure of their new roles within the fleet once their true nature is revealed, but they sure as hell don't want to give up on what humanity is left to them. Tory, of course, having embraced her robot-ness long ago jumps at the chance to head on over to the Base Star and join "her people." Man, I really want bad things to happen to her. It boggles my mind that early on in season three I learned of an online BSG role playing game that was getting together and I was considering throwing in my hat to play Tory. I can't even imagine how that would have ended up going. I think her character's story arc is great, but I don't actually like her any more. Whereas, while earlier on in the season I was kind of questioning what they were doing with Tyrol, I am completely digging the place he's come to at this point. He's reached an almost Zen level of looking at things.

So, of course the fleet finds out the identities of the four revealed at the end of season three. I had been wondering if Tigh would actually be able to keep his secret from the Admiral for much longer. I am not even remotely surprised that he gave up Anders and Tyrol. His sense of duty has long since been firmly established, and he's been fighting with it all season. Once the cat was out of the bag about him, there was no reason for him not to reveal the remaining two. I also like how Anders and Tyrol were completely accepting of the fact that Tigh gave them up without a thought. They knew from the moment they found out that they couldn't keep this secret forever, and you can tell there was almost a palpable sense of relief that they didn't have to hide any more, even if that meant that their days, or more like hours, were now severely numbered.

Reactions to the revelation were fascinating for me to watch. Roslin was clearly floored to learn the truth about Tory, and her hopeful pleas to get her former aid to reason with D'Anna were very touching. Too bad Tory has turned into a raging power-hungry b*%@#. In sharp contrast to that was Baltar's highly amusing "I knew it!" wherein he quickly amended he hadn't actually known anything but had to have subconsciously suspected something. I mean, why else would he be shagging someone who didn't buy into all of his cult mumbo-jumbo? Starbuck's reaction to her husband's true nature was pleasantly surprising. We remember back in the first episode of season four when Anders stated he'd love her even if she did turn out to be a Cylon and her reaction that he was a better person than her because if she found out the same about him she'd pull out her gun and shoot him between the eyes on the spot. Instead of this self-predicted reaction, the look on her face was just floored shock. Her shock was quickly followed up by realizing that her husband was being sent to the airlock and honoring his final request to just trust him about her Viper, working to determine how it was the clue to Earth and in the end saving the lives of all three of the newly revealed Cylons aboard Galactica. I don’t think she’s by any means come to accept the fact that Anders is a Cylon, but I now have hope that she might. Then there was Admiral Adama. Poor Bill. He just finally admitted to himself how much he loved Laura, and just finally got her to admit that she loved him and BAM! He finds out his best friend and war buddy of the last thirty years is a Cylon. The man was shattered. As my husband said, he will never be the same again. His breakdown (and Lee's attempts at consoling him) was extremely well done and touching.

Another big development in this episode was D'Anna's comment that only four of the final five were in the fleet. This tidbit has sparked all kinds of debate already in the short time since the episode aired. Speculation ranges from the final Cylon being on Earth, to the final Cylon actually being Earth, to the final Cylon being someone who has died (i.e. Admiral Cane, Billy, or Kendra Shaw, etc.). D'Anna clearly knows who the final Cylon is, because we know she saw all five and he hasn't denied that she knows the faces of all five. So here are my theories as to what she meant by only four of the five are in the fleet:

• The final Cylon isn't yet activated and therefore doesn't know he/she is a Cylon, so D'Anna isn't counting that one until activation occurs.
• The final Cylon was on the Base Star already and therefore not part of the fleet. Obviously D'Anna wouldn't be telling anyone that since she was using her knowledge of the final five as leverage to stay alive and get what she wants. Also, she wouldn't need to bargain for the last Cylon to come to the Base Star since he/she was already there.
• The final Cylon is a survivor back on Caprica who didn't escape with the fleet but has since been captured, along with other humans, by the Cylons for some nefarious purpose. Or, alternately, the final Cylon was a human that didn't escape with the fleet from New Caprica and is somewhere with the other Cylons. It would explain her "I didn't know, I'm so sorry" moment from season three when she saw the faces of the final five. I know there's no real basis of fact for this last thought, but it seems at least remotely possible that the Cylons kept some of the humans around for study or experimenting, or just as prisoners. Not all of them wanted to make amends when the Sixes and Eights started pushing for peace.

I just have a really hard time believing that it could be someone who we have seen previously who has died and is therefore no longer part of the fleet. There has been too much emphasis on the fact that Cylon resurrection is no longer a possibility with the destruction of the Hub. I realize the counter argument to this is that the final Cylon would have resurrected back when they died, and therefore the destruction of the Hub wouldn't have affected them at all. But wouldn't the Cylons have noticed if someone who was clearly not one of the established seven models just woke up in one of their resurrection facilities? Would they not be completely freaking out about that? And is that even possible? It's not like the resurrection ships have bodies for the final five lying around just in case. Because then they would know who the final five were. I guess there could be a secret resurrection facility for the final five that isn't connected to the Hub, but that doesn't seem terribly feasible, since we know that a Cylon does have to be within a certain range of the facility in order to download, and it's doubtful this one is following the fleet along. Could be though I guess. Although you have to admit it hasn't even been established if the final five are/were capable of resurrection at all. So there's that to consider as well.

I am of the mind that the last Cylon most likely hasn't been activated and was on the Base Star. D’Anna would have had the chance to encounter that Cylon, therefore knowing that he/she wasn’t active yet as well as that he/she wasn’t in the fleet at the time. The other posters I’ve seen who seem to agree with me are leaning towards Helo as the missing one of the final five. Of course, that’s the easy answer to the riddle she has provided, so I am probably way off base here. That’s the beauty of the show. Two episodes ago, Natalie’s death had a lot of us thinking maybe Doc Cottle was the last one, but according to D’Anna’s claim, that leaves him out. I can’t wait to find out who it actually is. Looks like I’ll have to though.

On a brief aside, D’Anna gave me one of my favorite moments of the episode, and with all of the dark things happening; it was one of the more comedic as well. As she stepped off of the Raptor onto Galactica, many of the fleet had gathered to see her arrival. This of course included the four Cylons in hiding. I loved her little look around, catching the eye of each of them, and then announcing that she was “in contact” with the four. Beautiful. I am sure there are those out there who are taking this to mean she has some sort of psychic or electric connection with the final five, and this would explain her knowledge that there were only four in the fleet, but I don’t buy that. I’m of the opinion that the only time a Cylon is really truly connected to the other Cylons is during the downloading process, while they are still just raw data outside of a body. D’Anna certainly has come closer to retaining memories of those times, but I don’t yet believe she’s figured out a way to harness it while in a body.

All of this leads up to the fleet finding out the identities of the four Cylons revealed at the end of season three. We then get the inevitable betrayal/standoff between the humans and Cylons which is resolved by an agreement to go to Earth together. Then the fleet and the Base Star jump to Earth.

Wow. The moments of celebration we get to see throughout the fleet almost made me heartsick. I’ve learned by now that any time that many people get that happy about something on this show, the rug is about to be yanked right out from underneath them. Yank. We get pretty much the entire “main” cast taking a trip down to the planet to finally get to see their new home. The planet is, for lack of a better description, a desiccated husk. A detector aimed at a fistful of soil picked up by Admiral Adama—and don’t you think this man has had enough blows yet?—indicates that the planet is radioactive. Oh joy. The place looks like everyone’s worst fears of how World War III will leave the planet. We get a beautiful and devastating shot of the cast as they all look around and realize that their quest has ended and Earth is nothing like they hoped or even expected. There’s some interesting set decoration in this shot as well. They have landed near the ruins of a temple that resemble a building shown in the scriptures (one that Lee is seen looking at early on in the episode). In the ruins is something that very much appears to be a Christian cross. Hmm.

As you can guess, there’s all manner of speculation regarding when on Earth the fleet has landed. A lot of this hinges on what the original cycle of colonization actually might be. Did the people start at Earth and then go to Kobol and from there colonize the twelve planets? Did they start on Kobol, meaning Earth was actually discovered by the thirteenth tribe? The only people who know the answers to those questions certainly aren’t talking.

There have been some intriguing proposals put forth that all of this is happening in our distant past and that the current inhabitants of Earth are the descendents of the human fleet and Cylons. This could be an interpretation of the hybrid’s prophesy that Starbuck will bring the human race to its end. If the humans and Cylons come together to create a new race—us—then the human race as the colonists know it really will come to an end. This also makes sense in the general mythology—Ancient Greece’s pantheon could be a holdover from the gods of Kobol that were brought to Earth by the colonists.

I still tend to fall in with the belief that this is all happening in our distant future. I feel that humans left Earth to explore the universe, found Kobol and colonized it, for some reason founding their religion and culture on Ancient Greece (with space travel). Then when they decided to leave Kobol, the thirteenth tribe wasn’t just going off in some random direction but actually returning home, while the rest of humanity on that planet decided to go forth and explore some more. I think it explains a little better why the original names for the colonies were those of our constellations, as well as how the other twelve colonies knew that the thirteenth went to a planet called Earth. The scriptures are full of clues on how to find the way to Earth. I don’t know that they could contain that information if the people hadn’t already known the way there at some point. Some arguments state it can’t be future Earth because we don’t have any temples like the one the fleet lands by—but it’s not like a new religion couldn’t rise up (or an old one gain new ground, for that matter) and cause new or different temples to be built.

Either way, this is all just truly idle speculation. We won’t know until Ron shows us. I wish we didn’t have to wait until 2009, but hopefully they won’t keep us waiting too far past January. It looks like we won’t be lacking for new material in the meantime, either. I’ve been hearing talk of more webisodes to be aired on SciFi during the break. We’re also definitely getting at least one more telemovie, possibly at the end of this year. I’m sure all of these won’t give us any new or groundbreaking revelations, but they could provide some clues. I’m even actually hoping they’ll do what they did for season two and release the DVDs in two parts, one before the hiatus ends. Though I guess I can always just check out SciFi or Hulu to watch this season’s episodes again.

So there are my many thoughts on the BSG mid-season finale. I hope you’ve enjoyed them, and if not, well, feel free to share your own opinions.

So say we all.

C