GWC Re-Watch Frak Party: Scattered
Welcome to season two! It’s weekfourteen of our planned off-season re-watch of the entire “re-imagined” BSG canon, and it’s time to move on to the season two episode “Scattered.” So why not join us here for the GWC online frak party? There’s room for everyone, though you’ll have to bring your own snacks…
Feel free to jump in at any point with your comments on this week’s episode as the re-watch is by definition spoiler free. We’ll be in and out, but we’ll definitely take a look at your comments before we start next week’s podcast.
See you here all week!
Galactic Watercooler 
Modern Geek 
Save Eureka 
Eff This Week 
FitSmart
With all the CRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP that went on at the end of season 1, I remembered this first episode of season 2 being much much worse. This is just before everything falls apart, I guess.
Sol gets in a good crack about the shifty eyed Baltar (easily my favorite part of the episode), Gaeta saves/finds the fleet with his makeshift network and 5 tier firewall that holds off a Cylon system virus (I hope he remembered that when he was almost airlocked by Tigh and friends ~1.5 years later), Lee finds a way out of the brig, Laura as religious savior for the masses begins with her shared prayer with the officer holding her in the brig (with Billy looking on from the corner at a distance), Baltar back to his old tricks, you know, zombily walking with the the rest of the Raptor 1 crew, casually projecting baby cradles along the way, Crashdown keeps melting down, all while Kara gets spacejacked by Sharon… Oh, and a medic just cracked the chest of the leader of the fleet and saved his life again.
I can’t wait for this to get worse now that there are a bunch of friendly neighborhood Toasters aboard Galactica!
this is a completely unrelated comment, but audre has referenced “the big lebowski” a lot lately. as a practicing “dudeist,” i find this really far out, man. i don’t contribute regularly, but i never miss a podcast. thanks for a great show.
dharmabum: The cooler abides.
I have to give Chuck credit for turning me on to TBL a while back. It’s one of our best-quoting movies.
Just a small piece of Galactica trivia (I had mentioned it at the Philly Meet-Up) – the medic that saves Adama is actually played by Jamie Bamber’s wife Kerry.
She is the one with all of the speaking roles in Sick Bay until Cottle makes it back to the Fleet.
Raemani: AND she’s only the 2nd person on the show with a British accent!!!! Go figure! Poor Jamie…
This episode is just so intense – it’s right up there for me with “33.” Though, I do have to say that Gaeta’s soap eureka moment was a little lame…..kind of reminded me of the moment in Independence Day when what’shisname realizes they can destroy the aliens by introducing a virus into thier mainframe after he sees his father sneeze or something like that. Bars of soap….networked computer…of course! Why didn’t I see it before?!
Vipers rock.
Hybrid Master, you beat me to the punch with the comment re: the British accents. 🙂 As for the soap eureka — I dunno, the subconscious works in strange ways. I will grant you it has a vaguely Wesley Crusher-esque feel to it, although, thankfully, the technobabble is non-existent, and Gaeta actually explains it to Tigh in terms the audience can understand. (And no “souring the milk” comments, either.) And at least Gaeta has a spiffy uniform and not a fluffy sweater. 🙂
A good episode. Did I miss it, or did we never find out why Tigh got kicked out of the fleet in the flashbacks? Drinking, I presume, but it is not spelled out. It will be interesting to see how this all connects to him being a Cylon (?).
I love the line, “Welcome back to the fleet” in the flashback, because it so perfectly mirrors the main storyline of the episode: Tigh (and, granted, the rest) *literally* trying to get back into the fleet. A nice parallel structure for this episode.
This episode is a unique one. If anything it is a study of Tigh. As RDM noted in the podcast, Tigh does great in military scenarios. As to leading civil life…not so much.
One thing that hit me was the music to this. The way the story works out is through the use of fairly different soundscapes than normally present. Looking back at this knowing that Tigh is a Cylon provides some additinal meaning beyond what was perhaps the original intent to some of the music. In Blues Brothers you heard The Ride of the Valkyries when the Neo-Nazis chased the brothers for their action bit. I am just curious if those low, dark tones and the like that you hear when Galactica jumps in to face down the basestar are the Final Five equivalent.
The other thing I kept in mind was how many 20-somethings there are as characters. Of course, seeing Gaeta and Dee in the bathroom on first watching had other initial reactions. What some might see as lame in getting ideas looking at soap was initially something naughty might be hinted at happening off-stage/off-screen. As this episode is well before the start of the Lee-Dee romance it could have been a possibility at the time.
Have to just jump in and post this. Am listening to (sorry I’ll do the BSG-WC ones next!) Astronomy Cast Episode #43 and they had a question about whether someone could survive in space for a short time and they mention a season 3 episode of BSG getting it right. 🙂 They don’t mention it by name but it’s A Day in the Life where Cally & Chief get stuck in the area that is venting it’s air out a leak. Here’s a link in case anyone else wants to go have a listen:
http://www.astronomycast.com/
Hey all – a bit off topic sorry –
Dayummm I miss this site, I don’t get here as much as I want to due to insane work demands but I do still listen to the podcast every week.
Does anyone know if there are any active frak parties going on in the off season? I’m from Montreal and missed the one BSG party I had heard of but now live in Manhattan and figure there might be more activity here.
I’d love to put some faces to the (screen)names sometime.
Thanks for the podcast, guys. It’s amazing it’s as good now in the off-season as it was when we were watching new episodes.
This was a super genius move to do after months of wondering what happens to Adama. Suck it up old man, you’re gonna have to tough it out one more time because Geata frakked up the jump coordinates. Lucky for him, it was the one time in the entire series that Tigh didn’t go totally bananas on someone for a mistake.
The wounded Adama arc was a really strong one in my opinion. It let us learn a little more about Tigh and the Old Man. Their scenes together have always been some of my favorite ones of the series. “Paper shortage” bah ha haaa!!!
And that silly hair Tigh has always makes me laugh. It’s slightly more amusing than fat Lee.
I’m guessing Thigh really try to take on the role as leader and be more like Adama when the old man is out of the game. He’d go bananas on Gaeta for the mistake if he’d still be acting XO, but as the top leader he won’t do that.
I remember when I first watched this episode I felt completely nervous and upset because of how screwed up the fleet was, not just with most of it being missing for the episode, but for these next couple of episodes. With Tigh in control, (oh oh) and Roslin in the brig and Adama near dead or unconscious it just seemed wrong and I could just remember thinking that when Adama woke up it would all be ok, and then the fleet split! I’m getting ahead of myself.
Gem
ShadowGem: Yah I remember feeling that way too. The show is rare is that it lets itself dip to deep dark places that make it almost distressing to watch. Then when there is a little light and levity (cocktails on Cloud 9, say) you really relish it cause you know it prolly won’t last.
Speaking of light and levity… http://lolbots.com/?cat=7
Come on!!!! No one has said the line!!!
“Bitch stole my ride!”
Browncoat_Bryan: I remember talking to my sister about how Battlestar isn’t really that quotable, (unlike another space show which it looks like you are familar with) but that is the one line we never forget and can also quote.
Gem
OK… a few of other observations… I’m keeping them “shallow” because I’m playing with my new computer….
(1) Lee is BUFF in this one. Dude has some serious guns. I really noticed them when they were removing his cuffs.
(2) I forgot the serious Viper action in this episode.
(3) I think Tigh performed extremely well in this episode. I would have taken “Scattered” Tigh over all the other versions… except for the New Caprica version, where he was extremely bad-ass.
ShadowGem has thrown down the gauntlet, gang! 🙂 Quotable BSG:
1) Frak.
2) So say we all!
3) Good hunting.
4) All this has happened before…
5) Craaaaaaaaaaaaap.
Those are the easy ones, of course. I am sure everyone else can chime in with other good quotables.
This is a great episode. I especially like the ending-it’s so bleak. The music is perfect.
As per Mike P’s request, here are some of my favorite quotables:
Grab your gun and bring the cat in!
God loves me!
And this is from next week’s Valley of Darkness:
Headshot. Reload. Headshot.
Okay, Mike P… I’ll bite….
(6) “No more Mister Nice Gaius.”
(7) “Frakking frakked-up toaster!!!”
(8) “You’ve just lost your visitor’s pass.”
(9) “Sometimes you gotta roll the hard six.”
(10) “I got a rash.”
(11) “What do you hear?” “Nothin’ but the rain.”
(12) “I live outside the box.”
(13) “Welcome to the big leagues.”
(14) “You need me! (beat) I need you, too!! Perhaps I should have said that first.”
on your feet, nuggets!
politics is the only thing more boring than blood samples.
action stations, action stations. set condition 1 throughout the ship.
he’s lucky that’s all I bit off.
lighten up a little bit. it’s only the end of the world.
well, if you don’t mind her goo all over your face, you’re welcome to her, sir.
I’m tired of being pushed and prodded around like I’m some kind of toy. I’m not your plaything!
I don’t work for you and uh, quite frankly, I don’t have to sit any more and take this kind of abuse from either of you!…er, *you* either…either in *here*, either in there, wherever it is…
So the fate…of the entire human race depends upon my wild guess.
Quotables:
“You may call me God.”
“Um, God…sir?”
(Funny line, and also probable proof that the Colonials have some kind of awareness of a monotheistic belief system.)
“You just lost your visiting privileges.”
(I think someone already said this one, but it’s my all-time favorite.)
“Where’s your mommy?”
“Dead. Where’s yours?”
(See? We got something good outta Boxy after all. BTW, BoxytheBoxed, your James Callis and Jamie Bamber impressions were OFF THE HOOK, my friend!)
“Whoaaa…”
Gosh, I know there’s more, but now that I’m trying to think of them, nothing’s coming. Also note that Tigh is involved in three out of the above four. Gotta love ‘im.
Oh yeah! How could I forget?
“BUTTERFINGERS!”
And Roslin’s Janeway-esque order in “33”:
“Do it!”
(Sorry for the triple post.)
Wow…
Thanks the gods for public libraries or I wouldn’t have made it this far in the rewatch.
Tigh is at his best in this episode and seems to make all the correct decisions at the necessary times. No one has mentioned the deleted scenes for this episode, but they are well worth watching since they give a bit more background on Adama and Tigh’s beginnings. You can clearly see the the Tigh/Adama flashbacks as motivators for Tigh’s actions in the epi and I am sure glad they included them on the DVD–much better scenes than craaaaaaaaappy ones they gave us at the end of the episodes in season 3.
I am a bit curious as to how the cylons had such easy access to Galactica’s comps. Can’t you easily network three comps without the possibility of anyone hacking the network–just close all access to the outside? Maybe they took some dramatic licesnse with that…which BTW…the entire epi was dramatic from start to finish–Kara v. Karl, Lee v. Tigh, Tigh v. Roslin, Viper v. Raider, Galactica v. Basestar, Geata v. uber cylon comp., Tigh v. Sharon, and perhaps most interestingly Tigh v. Tigh. (Oh, and Colonial Hope v. Adama’s shot up old man body.)
Hey, great quotes, guys. How could I have forgotten Butterfingers? Shame on me. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
“Throw him out the airlock!”
“I am an instument of God.”
“Striking a Superior &$$hole.”
“I _talk_ to myself.”
“Anything I can do for you?”
“You can zip up your fly.”
“Don’t frak with me, Bill.”
“Don’t frak with me, Ellen.”
“I _talk_ to myself. Sue me, I talk to myself”
Setext? Stroogie, did you just date yourself?
OK, I guess I just did.
All you kids, just google it.
Pike–possibly, except that I didn’t even know what the term “setext” was. Is there a way to make with the _bold_ without doing that?
There’s no preview, so I haven’t tried. HTML bold. [b]BB bold[/b].
Looks like you can use HTML style tags.
Thankee, sir. I’m woefully inept at this post formatting thing. I don’t lose my place in the 1%, do I? 🙂
BTW, I was at a friend’s show at a rinky-dink little bar, and among the grafitti scrawled by visiting bands on the back wall of the stage was written: [b]”So Say We All!”[/b]
I was so geeked out.
Frak it.
LOL
Although it’s been said it still needs to be said again: “No more Mr Nice Gaius!”
One of the best parts of season 1 and a shout out to Alice Cooper.
Good eye, AKRon. I knew there was something very special in this episode. There were a lot of parallels in this episode. Come to think of it, there were a lot of pairings in the first four episodes of Season 2.
Dang, I forgot “Butterfingers”, too!!!
For me the one quote that seemed to resonate through the whole first season was Roslin saying “OK, next crisis.”
Lady Disdain: I think there’s a deleted scene, perhaps from an earlier episode, where the Chief talks to Socinus as Socinus is released from the brig, and it is implied that the Chief went to bat for Socinus and convinced TPTB to let him out early since they were short deckhands.
Quotes: Has anybody mentioned Adama’s “Keep jumping.” ? That’s a favorite of mine, although Kara’s line in this episode tops them all.
I’m actually kind of impressed that Athena can pilot a gutted Raider. Yes, she’s a Cylon, but the whole point of giving Raiders brains of their own is so Centurions and the humanoid models wouldn’t have to pilot them.
Ditto, Grypher. That line was a nicely understated but powerful moment.
And while we’re on Roslin, we gotta include: “We have to start making babies.”
And of course, Tigh’s follow-up: “Is that an order?”
Kappa: I never thought about Athena piloting the de-brained Raider before. But then, she has been guiding Helo along all this time. 😉
About Tigh getting kicked out of the Fleet. I got the impression that both Tigh and Adama had been “put on the beach” because the Fleet was drawn down after the war ended and neither of them had enough political connections to be retained. Adama onlu got back in because he married someone whos father wasa high-ranking officer. The whole process really reminded me of the way the British navy is portrayed in the Horatio Hornblower novels.
Doc, thanks for the response to my question. You have proven me wrong — apparently people *do* keep tracking the old frak party threads after the new ones have gone up! 🙂
Sorry, I don’t know if someone else pointed this out already…
Why/How does Sharon (soon to be Athena) on Caprica know all about Starbuck and how they met? As far as I know, Boomer is still alive and hasn’t downloaded, so none of the other Sharons should have her memories, right? There’s no communication between cylons until they download, I thought.
And Audra, you’re right about the “s” on cylons. The cylons are not an ethnicity like the French, they are individuals like Frenchmen (or FrenchmanZZ, if you prefer with the “s”).
Love the podcast, guys. You’re getting us through a long dry season (or long and humid for those of us in the Northeast)!