April 2008

All this week I’m writing about Battlestar Galactica, the best show that most people have never seen.  The premiere of season 4, the final season is this Friday April 4th at 10:00PM on SciFi Channel.

My Favorite Character

There are so many interesting characters to choose from.  Battlestar Galactica has spent a tremendous amount of time developing characters and showing their many different sides.   But my favorite character has to be one of the most tragic of them all.  Colonel Saul Tigh.

Loyal, Drunk, Bitter, Abrasive, Honorable, Patriotic, Heroic, Cylon

Those are words that describe the tragic character of Colonel Saul Tigh.  In the Season 3 finale, Tigh learns that he’s one of the final five Cylons models.  This after a long career of hating and fighting the Cylons.  Tigh as the leader of the resistance on New Caprica, is physically tortured and loses his eye.  He then executes/poisons his beloved wife as a penalty for collaborating with the Cylons after she gives information to the Cylons to free him.

My two favorite Tigh scenes:
1. In the hanger deck, Tigh after leading the resistance on New Caprica, with all his losses and sacrifices, hearing the chant of “Adama, Adama” after the Galactica jumps back to rescue them. Tigh sacrificed nearly everything for the resistance while Adama and the Galactica jumped away to safety, but Adama gets heroic welcome as the savior.  The look in the face of Tigh as the broken old man said it all.

2. When Tigh is revealed as a Cylon.

“My name is Saul Tigh. I’m an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that’s the man I want to be. And if I die today, that’s the man I’ll be.”

The quote itself doesn’t do this scene justice.

I’m a little sad that Tigh has been revealed as a Cylon.  I was afraid that it might be one of those “jump the shark” moments.  But, I trust in Ron Moore’s vision of Battlestar Galactica and I am looking forward to seeing what happens as the show concludes.

UPDATE
From NYMag: Michael Hogan on Playing Tigh on ‘Battlestar,’ Hating Cylons, and Hearing Music in His Head

From ESPN.com: Report: A-Rod the big fish, earns more than all of Marlins team

“The Marlins? It’s amazing,” Rodriguez said. “And they still seem to find a way to be very competitive. They have a great pool of talent; they made some unbelievable trades, so they have great personnel people. To win two championships in 11 years, that’s really admirable, and I’m very proud of that organization, being from Miami.”

In the last 11 years, the Yankees with the highest payroll have won three World Series. The Florida Marlins with one of the lowest payrolls have won two.

Alex Rodriquez has won zero during the same time period.

From CNN.com: China: Tibetans planning suicide bombs

“To our knowledge the next plan of the Tibet Independence forces is to organize suicide squads to launch violent attacks,” Wu Heping, spokesman for China’s Ministry of Public Security, said at a news conference, according to a translation of his remarks by The Associated Press.

That’s real believable.  What’s next a claim? That the so-called “Tibet Independence” forces have weapons of mass destruction?

He did not provide details or evidence, and Samdhong Rinpoche, prime minister of Tibet’s exiled government, dismissed the accusation.

“We never heard (of) Tibetan independence force, such a group or people. Now, our suspicion is that the PRC (People’s Republic of China) might be staging such a violent act in the name of Tibetan people to mislead the world community,” he said in Dharamsala, India.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese government manufactured an incident.  I think they desperately want to crackdown Tibet and they think that “fighting terrorism” would give them the cover they needed from international scrutiny.

From NYTimes.com: McCain ‘Surprised’ by Iraq Developments

As he launched a tour here designed to highlight his family’s long tradition of military service, Senator John McCain said Monday that he was surprised by the latest turn of events in America’s current war in Iraq.

“Maliki decided to take on this operation without consulting the Americans,” Mr. McCain said on his campaign bus as it rolled through downtown Meridian, saying that the move showed independence but that he had expected the military to focus on Mosul.

“I just am surprised that he would take it on himself to go down and take charge of a military offensive,” he said. “I had not anticipated that he would do that.”

How can McCain be surprised by anything that goes on in Iraq.  It’s been pretty clear that the Iraqi government doesn’t listen to us.  We’ve bought time for them with our “surge”, but time and lives have been wasted as the Iraqi government is no closer to building a coalition that will hold the country together. As long as we’re there “protecting” them, no real steps towards working things out will be made.  No one wants to negotiate a settlement when they believe they can win total control in the future.  So we have two options.  Stay there for a longer, indefinite duration or start to slowly pull out and let the Iraqi government realize that total chaos will break out unless they find their own solution.
 

Battlestar Galactica Season 4- the final season begins on April 5, 10PM.  SciFi Channel is currently running a Battlestar Galactica marathon in HD that threatens to fill up my DVR.  Last night I caught Kobol’s Last Gleaming, a two parter from Season 1.  The first five minutes are some the best moments you’ll find on television. This is the first time I’ve seen it since it originally aired and it totally captivated me again.  Kobol’s Last Gleaming is only the 12th and 13th episode of season 1 and already the characters are multifaceted and the numerous plot lines are setting up events that are just taking place now.

I can not wait for Season 4 this Friday!

UPDATE: It turns out that not all the episodes are in HD.  Season 1 is all letterboxed.  I think I must have recorded Kobol’s Last Gleaming on the Universal HD channel not on SciFi Channel.