Battlestar Wiki - User contributions [en]

Podcast:He That Believeth In Me

2011-04-17T00:30:16Z

Dal: Transcribed up to 20:30

{{Podcast Data
|special=
|title= He That Believeth In Me
|season= 4
|episode= 1
|download link= http://media.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/403/bsg_ep403_FULL.mp3
|local=
|posted date= 2008-05-06
|transcribed by= [[User:Catrope|Catrope]]
|verified by=
|length= 43:43
|finished=
|verified=
|scotch= [http://www.themacallan.com/macallanPortfolio/fineOak/17yo/ Macallan Fine Oak 17]
|smokes=
|wordoftheweek=
|rdm= Y
|mrsron=
}}

== Teaser ==
Hello, and welcome to the podcast, I'm [[Ronald D. Moore]], the executive producer and developer of [[Re-imagined Series|the new ''Battlestar Galactica'']], and I'm here to welcome you to the first podcast of [[Season 4|season four]]. We're here to talk about episode 403, "[[He That Believeth In Me]]". You'll find that I will be continually referring to numbers that make no sense to all of you, (laughs) as I discuss the season in this and subsequent podcasts, because essentially— it's not as complicated as it sounds, it's actually— "[[Razor]]" were filmed as the first— were filmed at the beginning of the fourth season and we count "Razor" as episodes one and two, "He That Believeth In Me" is essentially number three to us. And so, internally there's a— I'm used to referring to these episodes by that nomenclature, so I'm— I always call this episode three. So. I think, therefore, what you want is another bit of ''Galactica'' arcane of— for all of you. 

Anyway, at the end of [[Crossroads, Part II|"Crossroads" number two]], we found ourselves in an interesting position here with [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]] and the rest of the [[The Fleet (RDM)|Fleet]]. And, of course, being ''Battlestar Galactica'', we didn't really have a solid idea of exactly how we were gonna pick up season four. This storyline, as you're seeing, is reviewed there with Baltar, we did have some conversations about where that was going, we had some general ideas of how we were gonna play the [[Final Four]] into the fourth season, and we knew [[Kara Thrace|Kara]] was coming back, obviously. And it felt like the puzzle pieces were in place, we felt like we were at a good place in terms of the narrative and where we were all going, and it didn't feel like we really had to continue to break out exactly what the season opener was as we continued to work on the finale of [[Season 3|season three]]. (coughs) Excuse me. In retrospect, I think that that was wise, to provide a freshness to when we got down to actually breaking these episode— this episode and subsequent stories in the fourth season. We did talk, pretty early on, about the fact that season four would open with a direct pickup from last year, that we would essentially come straight back into the moment that we left, that [[Lee Adama|Lee]] is still out there with Kara, and the audience has been given a taste that there really is an [[Earth (RDM)|Earth]] out there someplace.

I think there was a moment, actually, where [[Michael Rymer]] started to call. I think I was standing outside the sound stage in [[w:Vancouver|Vancouver]] with Michael Rymer at some point in the filming of "Crossroads" two, and I think we were discussing— I think we might've been shooting some of the Starbuck scenes. Maybe— it might've been one of the alternates where Kara was— I think I mentioned this on [[Podcast:Crossroads, Part II|that podcast for "Crossroads" two]], but essentially there was a sequence where Lee came back to his quarters to get his [[flight suit]], as he was answering the call to [[action stations]], and Kara was ''in'' his quarters. And we were gonna— we had a way of going out on the third season where Kara was actually in his quarters, as opposed to outer space. And what Rymer pointed out, which I though was interesting, was that if we went out on the idea that she was in his quarters, we can also play it— maybe she's a ghost, or maybe she's one of the [[Virtual beings|head people]] like [[Head-Six]] and [[Head-Baltar|Head-Bal]]— y'know, and what you will see is Head-Baltar into [[Six of One|the next episode]]. And I was intrigued by that, and Lee, maybe, would see Kara and no one else would, and that she sort of appeared to him, and she would be one of those beings into the fourth season. And it was intriguing, but ultimately it felt like it— y'know, we would lose too much from the show, that you really wanted Starbuck back, and we needed Starbuck back, and she was part of the fabric of the show. And— y'know, the fact that she— we had killed her and that she had died was itself shocking enough. And it— there was something more to be played by the fact that she was literally resurrected, I mean resurrection is a recurring theme in the show, obviously with the [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylons]], and life, and the quest for mortality, and the notions of [[God (RDM)|God]] and all that are sprinkled throughout the series. So to have a character who had been literally resurrected and was actually walking among us clearly would have a great deal of symbolism, a great deal of meaning, it would at least resonate in the show in terms of what we'd established.

This moment is really quite good. The amazing thing to me is that this is one of the scenes that I nearly cut over and over again, I kept thinking that we've played this before, I'm referring to [[Saul Tigh|Saul]]'s shooting [[William Adama|Adama]] right in the eye, it's a quick pop and he really does shoot him right in the eye, which I love. We talked about this in the room, it was structured, it was in the story and it was in the— it was in all drafts of the script, and yet some part of me always kept wanting to cut it and feeling like "No, they're gonna see this coming, they're never gonna buy it, and it— y'know, we've played it before". I was really wrong, because when he shot it, when he got in and actually shot this piece of Tigh shooting him, and then that camera pan and then the look on Saul's face, and slowing the action down a little bit and coming back around, and Adama is still there, and it ''feels'' like it's in one take. It's not, it's— there's actually a cut in there, if you look at it closely, but it's really done well, it's very seamless, it's really nicely done, it's nicely paced, it's a really— a nice touch that Michael has there. He's very good at those little cinematic moments and really— it's quite a daft gag he did.

This beat with [[Samuel Anders|Anders]] and [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]], there was a little moment where we were gonna have Anders demanding that they cut his cast off. If you recall, Anders fell off a [[Viper (RDM)|Viper]] in [[The Son Also Rises|a previous episode]] in— late in the third season, and there was a beat here where he still had the cast on, and he whipped out a knife or something, and had somebody cut it off, or he was gonna cut it off, and myself, I can't really recall which it was. But we kind of dropped that for the— as the scene went on, and it just— it didn't feel necessary, and it was like something else that was gonna slow down the action, so we just went "Ah, fuck it, the audience will— the audience will swing with us on this".

Oh, I didn't— by the way, the scotch tonight is [http://www.themacallan.com/macallanPortfolio/fineOak/17yo/ Macallan Fine Oak 17], the kids and [[Terry Dresbach|Mrs Ron]] are downstairs, so the smoking lamp is, unfortunately, out.

[[Battle of the Ionian Nebula|This battle sequence]] is remarkable (laughs). It's especially remarkable to me, 'cause of— y'know, at this point in the run of the show, the battle sequences— I keep getting to a point where I feel like "Well, OK, we've really shot a lot of battle sequences, we're not really gonna be able to top ourselves, so this won't be that great. But let's give it a shot and try and come up with some interesting pieces." And I tell [[David Eick|David]] or [[Bradley Thompson|Bradley]], and David or Bradley go off and they think about it and they come up with these little great set pieces, and ideas that are happening in the battle, and they go through all the pilot talk and making it work. And I always approached it a bit sceptically, that— y'know, this time it's not gonna be that exciting and this time it's— you're not— it feels like "Oh, it's the fourth year, we've seen the Cylons and the Vipers quite— fight quite a few times, what's new under the sun to any of this?" And then the pre-vis starts coming in, and [[Gary Hutzel]]— his team pre-visualize all these sequences, and I start seeing it, and I start "What's going on? This is kind of cool." And then su— there comes a point in the process you see it shot by shot by shot, and you keep seeing all this stuff and it keeps getting refined, and then at some point it just takes off and it becomes really elegant and quite— (laughs) and quite lovely to watch, and that's where we are. This is one of the best battle sequences we've ever done, which is really great.

There was a moment that was cut here, the teaser for this episode used to end on Anders getting [[Diana Seelix|Seelix]] in his sights, in his gun sights, and the ques— it went out on him frozen with his finger over the trigger, and the question was "Oh, has [[Final Five|his Cylon nature]] kicked in and he's now going to blow Seelix out of the sky?" But with that— the teaser was trunc— was simplified and condensed in Michael's cut, and all that went away, which I think was very very smart.

We worked over this sequence in visual effects quite a bit in post, exactly what they're doing and where I don't— at points in the early pre-vis of it I felt that you couldn't understand who was chasing who, and I kept setting it back, and I kept simplifying out some of the more complex moves so that you could follow the basic story of Seelix and Anders. You see, that shot right there where the Viper's trailing the [[Cylon Raider (RDM)|Raider]] that's tra— going after Anders, we worked on a lot.

Now this scene— this is great. I love this scene. This was also one of the scenes that— I was in the editing bay and beating up my visual effects guys over and over again. They delivered a different sequence, they surprised me, they delivered a sequence here where instead of this one Raider that sees Anders and pulls around and goes, they delivered a sequence where there was this Raider came— that Raider came ''right'' up on Anders's Viper, flipped over, and was hovering right over his cockpit, the Cylon eye was just a couple of feet from Anders's literal eye outside the canopy. And then, while that was happening four other Raiders came up, two on each side of Anders's nose, and came up— if you can imagine lifting their arms, almost like little angels, I mean four of them, two on each side coming up. And then, when the red eye stopped, the first one peeled off and the others all went down together, and it was very much like a ballet, it was a really interesting idea, the choreography— it was literally choreography— of it was quite beautiful, it was a sequence that I hadn't really seen anybody do, and I hated it. (laughs) I just hated it, and I told Gary that there was no way— I thought he'd lost his mind. I called him from the car, and went "What are you going?!" And he said "No, we're just— we're trying something." And I said "I know, you guys are trying something, I like it, I like it, but it's not the show, it's not the show, it's not show." So then they did— they took a second crack at it and they still kept trying to talk me into it periodically. And I know that there's— the sequence is out there and I think it should definitely be included on the DVD. So if you're listening to this on the DVD, I hope you can go and find it in the deleted scenes section. Because it just wasn't the show, I mean the show lives in this docu style, a [[Naturalistic science fiction|naturalistic idea]], and that was so stylized, that it was just— it went over the top for me. And where— but what we have, I think, is still pretty stylized, that moment of him— of slowing down time, of their— of the Raider seeing Anders, and Anders's frozen face, and the tiny little red pop on the eye, all of that, I think it— you're still— you've left the documentary template, and you're outside of that now, you're not playing in a naturalistic key, you're intentionally hyping some— making something a little more hyper-real. 

== Act 1 ==
And act one. I was happy that they didn't destroy completely [[Space Park|the ring ship]], I've gotten quite fond of it, although it's a— in some ways it's the great— the one that got away from me. 'Cause when [[Gary Hutzel|Gary]] first proposed the big ring ship, we talked about the interior of it and the interior of it is literally— y'know ring existence, they're all living on the outside hull of that ship in a big, spinning gravity sensor, very [[w:2001: A Space Odyssey|2001]]. And I always wanted to go in there, I always thought "Oh, we gotta find a way to play sequences where you go in that ring ship and you can see the horizon curving away from you and you're in this big middle." And of course we never came close to having anything but a (unintelligible) that might do it, so whenever I see it, I wanna blow it up. But this time I actually said "Let's not blow the whole thing up, let's just take out part of the ring."

Now, this section here— the stuff with [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]]— we tend to call this Baltar's lair, and I think it is actually scripted that way, it's "Interior Baltar's lair". We talked about the idea that he would have acolytes and followers during the trial of— during the "[[Crossroads, Part I|Crossroads]]" trial. I mean, we played a lot of that earl— we didn't play a lot of that, we tried to lay a lot of groundwork for that towards the end of the [[Season 3|third season]], where he was getting letters in [[brig|jail]], his [[My Triumphs, My Mistakes|manifesto]] was [[Alan Hughes|getting out there]] in the [[The Fleet (RDM)|Fleet]]. This is a guy who has an idea of [[Cult of Baltar|monotheism]], it's all these notions that were— that he was floating out to the civilians. And it felt like "Well, these are desperate people, and how do you slice it? Four years have gone by, they're back out in space after the [[New Caprica]] disaster, like is bleak for a lot of people in this Fleet. And no matter what people said about Gaius Baltar, once he was [[Crossroads, Part II|acquitted]], it was almost like that alone was the hand of [[God (RDM)|God]] reaching down and saving this man, and mayb— and that there would definitely be the people in a population like this that would flock to him." I mean, I absolutely believe that, and given this number of people in the Fleet, there's gonna be somebody who's gonna be listening to Gaius Baltar, and so it's— it doesn't take too much more to say that there is acolytes, and there's people— we talked a lot about the [[w:Charles Manson|Manson]] trial, the fa— the people that— the women that would go to the Manson trial whether it's night strangler or— no, the hillside strangler, rather, and there were always these women that seemed to show up and were drawn in by strange, psychotic, charismatic figures, so— Baltar's not even one of them, sorry, [[James Callis|James]], if you're listening, I'm not really comparing you to Charles Manson, but there's a bit of it there.

This notion we talked about quite a bit, but— y'know, that [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]]— to her no time has passed. I think in the first draft, I think we actually didn't talk ab— we didn't play this scene in the first draft. She came aboard and there was reaction, and then we cut ahead into [[William Adama|Adama]]'s quarters, the scene— y'know, after they've gone through it a few times and talked about things. But I really felt that one of the first things you had to understand was the ''she''— from her perspective, basically no time has passed. A few hours have gone by since [[Maelstrom|the time that we saw her die]], and you had to understand that to be inside her head when she first showed up aboard ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]''.

There was this scene that was cut, I'm trying to remember if it was shot, I don't believe it was shot. There was a scene where Kara goes back to her quarters, to her junior officer's quarters, she had one of the bunks. And she goes in there, and that's where [[Samuel Anders|Sam]] is staying, and she like ripped his name off a locker and said "it didn't take you guys long", they'd already (unintelligible) up her things. And somebody else made some comment about the fact that Anders and [[Tory Foster|Tory]] were getting it on, and it was in Starbuck's bunk, I think, and she wasn't too pleased about that, she was kinda pissed, but— I remember feeling like it— I wasn't quite sure if she'd really be that pissed if Anders were sleeping with Tory given [[Unfinished Business|her whole history]] of sleeping with [[Lee Adama|other people]], but I think more than that, it didn't feel like a necessary scene, and there's always— we're fighting huge time issues as we do on every single one of these ships. Ah, am I saying "one of these ''ships''"? Every single one of these ''shows''.

I can tell you that— at the beginning, I pulled off a document here that was like a listing of the first four episodes and beyond for [[Season 4|season four]]. This document was written in March, this is dated March 5th, 2007. So episode one, in a nutshell, it says: "Kara faces doubts about who she is, the [[Final Four]] worry about their loyalties, Lee leaves the military for good, Baltar begins his role as a religious leader." In depth, it says: "[[Cylon (RDM)|Cylon]] [[Basestar (RDM)|baseships]] battle ''Galactica'' and the Fleet, unable to [[FTL|jump]] away, facing annihilation, ''Galactica'' prevails while the Cylons' [[Heavy Raider]]s mysteriously retreat. Kara's miraculous return with knowledge about how to reach [[Earth (RDM)|Earth]] sparks [[w:Trojan Horse|Trojan]] suspicion. Unable to reconcile her gut feelings of who she thinks she is with mounting evidence to contrary, Kara grabs her weapon, bolts from confinement, ominously seeks out the most powerful man alive: ''Adama''!" Whoo. "[[Saul Tigh|Tigh]], Anders, [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]] and Tory secretly meet. Inner conflict: one of them, should they reveal who they are, are they capable of doing harm, uneasy agreement is reached. One: keep their identity secret. Two: keep watching each other. Three: discover who is the fifth of the Final Five, Kara being the obvious candidate. Four: use Tory to get close to Baltar, who has Cylon Final Five knowledge having been with [[D'Anna]] at the [[Temple of Five|Temple]]. Baltar, who's not guilty, is a walking pariah. Reluctantly seeks refuge among monotheistic (unintelligible) cult. [[Head-Six]] convinces Baltar to embrace the cult, become their leader. Baltar's religious stock rises radically when he performs a miracle of [[Derrick|the comatose boy]]. Baltar on the road to believing in himself as the vessel of the one true God. Lee's fundamental joy and belief in Kara galvanizes belief in himself, second chance as a life out of uniform. He tells Adama he's through with flying." That is, like I said, dated in March, that's where we— structurally, what we wanted the first episode to be about. We approached it as— this season was very different because it's the last season, and we knew, going into it, that we were gonna structure it as long, long story. I just said that from the beginning, it was— y'know, I gave up any pretense of trying to say that this season was gonna be about anything other than one long story, with all these characters, and where they had been, and getting to Earth. As a result, we never really talked about "we need to do a Baltar episode" or "we need to do a Lee episode" or "we need to do an action episode", we just told the story. So we— when we stepped back from it, started to say "OK, structure the ''overall'' story", then all the pieces started to line up for us. And as a result you could spin out a fairly brief— that's like a one-page— not even a one-page description of episode one, by its constituent parts, we were really just describing what the structure of that episode is without really even giving you an APNC— a narrative, there's no really— there's several narratives within the description, there's no real overarching that carries you through. But it's surprising— y'know, when you watch the episode, I think you do feel a sense of narrative, I think you feel that— y'know, I think that Kara, if you had to pick one, Kara's probably the A-story in this episode, her coming back and the repercussions of her coming back and how it affects all the people around her and what they do about her, and ultimately where the episode ends, with her and [[Laura Roslin|Laura]], it is her A-story.

You got— I love— you gotta love Baltar, I mean, how can you not love Baltar? It certainly, a lot of people go out of their way to find ways of loving Baltar.

The viper, a couple of scenes ago Kara's viper came back and it was pristine and that was a plot point we discussed at a great detail. We kept going back and forth about how, y'know, what the secrets the viper had or did not have. What they could find and what they could not find in it. It comes up, you'll see that we will return to said pristine viper again later in the season where it'll play an interesting and pivotal role in where we're going and you have your first real spoiler.

I'm trying to recall— there was a different version of this scene, I believe, when we were breaking it— when we were writing this story. But I think  that the idea was always that Laura was really going to put her feet to the fire on this and everyone else was kind of hunting for reasons to believe her, but that Laura really wasn't going to give her the time of day, and Laura just was not going to believe this, going out the door. She's come back, the only way she can come back is that she's a Cylon. And it's hard to come up with another rational explanation for what she is. And the great thing was to sort of put Laura and Adama going at this from opposite place— opposite— looking at this from opposite directions. That you know, Adama, the pronounced atheist and pragmatic man who's been busting Laura Roslin's chops for quite a while about the Pythian prophecies, about visions and all that. He gets to a place where he wants to believe Kara, he wants to believe this dead woman, this seemingly dead woman is the real deal. And that Laura was the one who was pragmatically pushing and trying not to believe any of this hocus pocus kind of stuff,  which hearkens back of course to You Can't Go Home Again in the first season where we saw Adama's, how far he was willing to—

Oh, I'm sorry, I jumped ahead when I was talking about the pristine Viper. It's right here actually. 

== Act 2 ==

== Act 3 ==

== Act 4 ==

{{Podcast list (RDM Season 4)}}

Sometimes a Great Notion

2011-03-18T01:56:49Z

Dal: /* Analysis */ Typo

{{Episode Data
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| title= Sometimes a Great Notion
| season= 4
| episode=11
| forumthread=2307
| extra='''Season 4.5 Premiere'''
| guests=
| writer=[[David Weddle]]<br/>[[Bradley Thompson]]
| story=
| director= [[Michael Nankin]]
| production=413
| rating= 1.6<ref>{{cite_web|url=http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/01/20/battlestar-galactica-returns-with-double-digit-gains/11149|title='Battlestar Galactica Returns With Double Digit-Gains|date=20 January 2009|accessdate=27 January 2009|last=|first=|format=|language=}}</ref>/2,112,000<ref>{{cite_web|url=http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/01/21/wwe-raw-cinderella-icarly-and-monk-lead-weekly-cable-viewing/11185|title='Updated:WWE RAW, Cinderella, iCarly and Monk lead weekly cable viewing'|date=21 January 2009|accessdate=17 February 2009|last=|first=|format=|language=}}</ref>
| US airdate=January 16, 2009 <ref>http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=2&id=61270</ref>
| CAN airdate=January 16, 2009 <ref>http://www.spacecast.com/bsg/</ref>
| UK airdate=January 20, 2009 <ref>TV guide in ScifiNow Magazine and Sky Magazine.</ref>
| dvd={{flag|US|notext=Y}} {{Season 4.5 NTSC DVD release date}}
| podcast=Y
| oldpopulation= 39665
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| prev=[[Revelations]]
| next=[[The Face of the Enemy]]
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== Overview ==
:''[[Kara Thrace]] learns that the dire predictions of the Cylon [[Hybrid]] might be correct, and a devastating discovery plunges the [[The Fleet (RDM)|Fleet]] into chaos and despair.''

== Summary ==

===Act 1===
* The leaders and central staff of both [[The Fleet (RDM)|the Fleet]] and the rebel [[Basestar (RDM)|baseship]] wander about aimlessly on the planet [[Earth (RDM)|Earth]], whose surface has been utterly destroyed in a nuclear conflagration for some time. [[Saul Tigh]] stands on a desolate beach, staring out at the ruins of buildings, their mangled shortened skeletons jutting up from the lands ahead in jagged spires. [[Gaius Baltar]] and [[Samuel Anders]] stand about the ruins in confusion, as does [[Anastasia Dualla]], who stoops at the water's edge to mournfully examine it.
* [[Lee Adama]] grimaces as he looks about the dead landscape as [[Laura Roslin]] picks up a short rounded prickly plant, the only visible life found on the world.
* [[Helo]] reports to Admiral [[William Adama|Adama]]: Other scouts report in from around the planet. The destruction is the same all over. No signs of human life and no responses to any hails. [[D'anna Biers]] confirms her rebel [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylon]] scouts have had the same findings.
* The Final Four Cylons accompany the senior Colonial scouting team.
* [[Kara Thrace]] stands on the surface holding her Viper's Colonial emergency locator beacon, with a [[Leoben]], trying to home in on the signal only it can read, the signal that lead them to this world. The signal of the transmitting beacon is fading from a low battery. Leoben believes it must have been transmitting for a long time.
* Baltar has a team confirming that the radiation from the holocaust has embedded itself in the plant life and water chain. Helo gives a more detailed version of Baltar's findings: the planet was nuked over 2,000 years prior. Adama directs that all be instructed not to ingest the water and plants. Caprica-Six remains on the surface until early in Act 2, and digs in the dirt.
* Roslin quips, "It's perfect. We traded one nuked civilization for another." Adama orders his [[Raptor]] to leave.
* Dualla finds a watch in the dusty soil, and some children's jacks. She is near a breakdown as their Raptor returns to ''[[Galactica]]''.
* The [[hangar deck]] is filled with people, anxious for any news on the new world. But Roslin, typically someone who can manage to say anything in the darkest times, can only mutter to Adama, "Get me out of here." Lee Adama tries to placate the crowd's confusion and questions, shouting that the news will be revealed in due time.

===Act 2===

* Kara Thrace and Leoben continue to narrow in on the Colonial signal when she finds the beacon: a standard issue ''Colonial'' device used for all aircraft, part of their [[Avionics|inertial navigation system]].
* Leoben finds some wreckage and reads off the number on its charred skin: "757-NC." Kara immediately becomes agitated. "The number on my [[Viper Mark II|ship]] is [[Viper 8757|8757-NC]]," she says--referring to the Viper that she flew back to the Fleet after she was [[Maelstrom|apparently killed]].
* On ''Galactica'', the Agathon family plays together happily as Dualla comes over to babysit little [[Hera Agathon]]. While Dualla says to the Agathons that she "looks forward" to spending time with the child, she later tells young Agathon as her parents leave, " You have no idea what's happened, do you? Today's just another day."
* On the planet, amidst some seemingly human skeletons dug up, [[Caprica-Six]] and others find something very unexpected: the remains of a head of what is obviously a type of Cylon Centurion, similar to the old [[Cylon Centurion Model 0005|original model]] from the [[First Cylon War]], but clearly not the same.
* Aboard ''Galactica'' in Baltar's lab, Caprica-Six confirms that other Centurion helmets were found with about 250 skeletons from four sites around the planet as well. A [[Number Eight]] confirms that, while the Centurion design is similar, they have never seen this design before.
* Roslin notes that, apparently, the [[Thirteenth Tribe (RDM)|Thirteenth Tribe]] created their own Cylons (paralleling [[Graystone Industries]]' production for the [[Twelve Colonies of Kobol]] two millenia later). Lee Adama completes her sentence: Like on the Colonies, these Cylons also rebelled against their masters.
*Baltar notes that they dug deeper to test the skeletons themselves. The astonishing fact, confirmed by his Caprica-Six, is that the every one of the skeletons themselves are also [[Humanoid Cylons|humanoid Cylons]]. ''The Thirteenth Tribe were Cylons''.
* After the meeting, Lee Adama asks Roslin what she will say to the [[Quorum of Twelve (RDM)|Quorum]]. But a visibly disheartened Roslin has nothing to say at all. Admiral Adama tells his son to "carry the ball" for Roslin.
*As the admiral and Roslin leave, Tigh asks to speak to his friend, but the scene is unclear if Adama stops to listen.
*Back on the planet, [[Galen Tyrol]] is attracted to a fragment of wall. As he gets closer, he hears echoes of ghosts saying things like "Fresh fruit, get your fresh fruit!" He sees a human silhouette on the wall, looking as if it were painted there. Surrounding the silhouette is weathered writing, barely readable. Tyrol touches the silhouette--and is thrown into a vision of the world as it once was, and Tyrol as he once was, wearing glasses and a sportcoat as he passes through a bustling marketplace of open carts of fruit and flowers and other goods. He stops to buy an avacado himself then continues walking. A massively bright flash of light appears as Tyrol shields his eyes--
* Tyrol stumbles back, falling to the ground.
* Elsewhere, Kara Thrace questions that, if her Viper is scattered about this planet, then who flew it here, and how did she herself get back to ''Galactica''. Leoben cautions her, telling her, "[[#Noteworthy_Dialogue|You might not like what you find.]]" Thrace is perturbed by his words as Leoben has been, typically, very optimistic in his words to her in the past. She questions if the news would be more disturbing to her, or to Leoben himself.
* In the [[ready room]], Lee Adama stands in thought as Dualla appears, asking him why he hasn't boarded a readied Raptor for his Quorum briefing on ''[[Colonial One]]''. Adama laments the many pilots that had once sat here, many of them lost forever over a dead dream. He doesn't want their sacrifice to be meaningless.
* Dualla tells him that his expression reminds her of what he looked like when his father said that he would [[Exodus, Part I|execute the New Caprica rescue with ''Galactica'' alone.]] When he wonders what to say to the Quorum, Dualla tells him to tell the truth. "If anyone can give them a reason to go on, it's you. Apollo." As he leaves, hesitant, he asks her to meet him for a drink later. She accepts.
* Kara Thrace finds a large piece of wreckage, overturned. She and Leoben turn it over. It's a Viper cockpit, the burnt remains of its pilot still helmeted, still inside. Cautiously, she lifts the head to find it had blonde hair...''her'' hair. Thrace retches.
* As tears well up, she reaches inside the [[flight suit]] of the body to pull out the [[dog tags]]. In clear letters, the tags read "K. THRACE." A ring, her wedding band, is also attached to the chain. Leoben steps back in fear as Thrace asks for an explanation. "I--I don't have one," he says. She recalls what the [[Hybrid]] said, that she would be the "harbinger of death." She yells to the Leoben as he walks away, unable to answer her question, "If that's me sitting there, then what am I?!"

===Act 3===
* [[Samuel Anders]] finds the remains of a stringed instrument, probably a guitar. He holds the neck piece, placing his fingers on it as if to play as he recalls a song: [[The Music|"So let us not talk falsely now, 'cause the hour is getting late."]] He drops the neck and runs to find Tyrol, sitting placidly by the wall and the vision. They both share their visions, both realizing they lived there, in that area, once. Anders recalls that he played that song for a woman he loved. They are joined by [[Tory Foster]], who also recalls that he played that song for [[Final Five|all of us]].
* "That was me," Tyrol says, pointing to the flash-silhouette on the wall.
* Anders angrily questions the paradox. Why they were all still alive? How did they come to the Colonies, to believe they were human? "Two thousand years is a long time to forget!" he says.

* In Admiral Adama's quarters, Laura Roslin sits on the floor. She has set fire to one of the pages of the [[Sacred Scrolls]], specifically, the Pythian Prophecy, turning successive pages to burn each into ash, one by one.
* Adama arrives to ask Roslin to help figure out a way to shore up the Fleet's quickly sagging morale. She is passive. He tells her that she'd missed her [[doloxan]] treatment. Roslin "didn't feel like it," she says, refusing to reschedule. "You just gonna...lie down and quit?" Adama asks. She laments that he took her advice to leave their Colonial solar system, of all the men and women who had died for what appears to be a fruitless series of visions.

* In the twilight, Kara Thrace creates a funeral pyre, burning the corpse of herself found in the wreckage, sitting alone as the flames consume it.

* Lee Adama and Dualla come back from her date as he humorously (and drunkenly) recalls his report to the Quorum. "We are no longer enslaved to the ramblings of Pythia, no longer pecking at the bread crumbs of the Thirteenth Tribe...We are now free to go where we want to go, be who we want to be." Dualla smiles back warmly as they kiss. They stop kissing mutually both stopping from it getting further. Dualla bids Lee goodbye and enters her quarters. Inside, [[Felix Gaeta]] watches her as she hums. "You're glowing," he says with slight amazement. Then he makes a comment on how Earth is a waste of a planet. Dualla chides him for bringing up the subject. "I want to hold on to this feeling for as long as I can." She looks at a childhood picture of herself in her opened locker, taking off her pendant. "She has no idea what she has ahead of her," she says of her younger self. Gaeta leaves as Dualla stops humming briefly looking at him leave in the mirror, then resumes humming. She looks at a cameo of her parents and then calmly places her wedding ring on the locker hook.
* Without any hesitation at all, Dualla pulls out a sidearm from her locker, places it against her temple, and fires.
* [[Diana Seelix]] arrives inside first, with Gaeta not far behind. Both are aghast at the sight of Dualla's body, blood pooling around her hands. They call for medics repeatedly in fear and distress as the scene ends.

===Act 4===

* Lee Adama stands by the shrouded body of Anastasia Dualla in the ship's morgue as his father enters. "She kissed me goodnight 45 minutes ago, and there was joy in her eyes. So tell me why would she do this?" Lee asks. The admiral's stony face melts into a drunken expression. "I don't frakkin' know," he slurs out, taking out a bottle of alcohol to offer to Lee, who refuses it. Anger rising in his face, Lee leaves, passing by Gaeta outside without a word.
* Inside, Admiral Adama looks under the shroud momentarily, covers Dualla's body, as he cries, holding her head, asking to himself, "What did you do?" He kisses the body, saying, "I let you down. I let everybody down."

* Adama comes out into a corridor, demands a sidearm from one of the [[marines]] standing there. Adama storms down a corridor as other stand or sit expressionless. Two men are fist-fighting, crossing Adama's path. He ignores them as he heads to Saul Tigh's quarters.
* "Sit down, Cylon," Adama says angrily after pulling out Tigh's sidearm, arms it and drops it on a table. Adama pours both of them a drink, but Tigh slowly pushes it away.
* Tigh tries to apologize about his revelation of being a Cylon, but Adama is beyond angry. "Is that how it worked? They program you to be my friend? Emulate all the qualities I respect. Tell me jokes...and I laugh at them."
* Tigh counters that he wanted, chose to be his friend. Adama throws insult after insult about [[Ellen Tigh]], angering Tigh to pick up the sidearm to shoot his friend. "Do it! Or I'll do it myself!" Adama says, pointing his own sidearm to his temple.

===Act 5===

* Tigh's gun is pointed at Adama's forehead, but he hesitates pulling the trigger. Adama goads him, "Go on," but Tigh realizes, returning Adama's insult as he rips out the gun's magazine and safes the weapon. "I'm sorry, Bill, but this is the one time I can't help you." Adama drops his gun and reaches for a bottle, but Tigh tries to stop him.
* Adama drinks from a glass anyway as he speaks of his uncle as a kid in the summers spent there, of foxes that would attack his henhouses, of the dog hunts that chased down the foxes at night, forming into a team, forcing the foxes toward the river. Half of the foxes would fight, the others would try to cross the river. But some of them would turn with the current, swimming away into the sea. "Because they wanted to drown," Tigh adds. "Maybe. Or maybe they were just... tired."

* Tigh, uncharacteristically, becomes the sober one giving the other a dressing-down, telling Adama that he can't be like the foxes lost to the sea, reminding him that he is the commander and Tigh is still the XO of the ship, that killing himself would not help himself, or the ship.

* In the presidential office aboard ''Colonial One'', Lee Adama slowly wipes away a numeral "1" from the [[Survivor count|census]] board as Kara Thrace arrives. At some point on the surface, she sustained a laceration on the front-right quadrant of her neck.<ref>According to Ronald D. Moore's commentary podcast, the dressing was blood-soaked when filmed, and was distracting when viewed - particularly given that her sustainable of the injury is not noticeable to the viewer (including himself). Accordingly, the blood was digitally removed in post-production, leaving a pristine white dressing.</ref> Kara had officially reported that she lost the signal, but needs to confide in him about something. Before she does, Lee tells her the news about Dualla. Both can only wonder why Dee killed herself. Kara presumably decides not to tell Lee about her discovery.

* Adama passes by more passive crewman and some graffiti: "Frak Earth", sprayed on the wall as he heads to [[CIC]], where he meets up with Colonel Tigh wearing his service uniform and rank insignia for the first time since being granted amnesty by then-Acting President Lee Adama. Ordering Lt. [[Hoshi]] to Dualla's old communications station, Adama directs Gaeta to find any nearby stars compatible with habitable planets, and Hoshi to invite the rebel Cylons to their next destination. Adama addresses the Fleet, telling them that, while Earth is no longer a choice, he will find them a new home. "This is a promise I intend to keep."

* Saul Tigh, still in service uniform, organizes the evacuation of the survey crews on Earth in preparation for their search for a new home. On the beach, he greets [[D'Anna Biers]]. She doesn't want to leave, deciding to stay behind, believing that the cycle of life will keep going on as dreadfully as before. "...and it beats the hell out of being out there with [[Cavil]]. Gonna die in the cold and the dark when Cavil catches up with us." Tigh tries to give encouragement, but Biers asks if he ever wanted to just give up, reminding him of Adama's story of the penned-in foxes.

* Tigh thereupon begins to walk into the bay. Chest-deep in water, he continues down. Hearing faint screams, he reaches down and lifts a mangled post box hatch from his apartment building's lobby two thousand years ago. Holding it, he has a vision of the end of his former life. He wears a civilian business suit, his face is clean shaven but bloodied, and he has both of his eyes. A voice calls out, "Saul!" from the floor in front of the post boxes. There he finds Ellen, trapped under debris he cannot move. His present-day self thrashes about in the bay while remembering his past self frantically pulling the lighter debris from around Ellen. As more bombs detonate, Ellen delivers a prophecy: "Saul, it's okay. Everything's in place. We'll be reborn... again. Together."

* The vision fades as Tigh realizes the truth. "Ellen... Ellen! You're the [[Final Five|fifth!]]"

== Notes ==

* [[Katee Sackhoff]] noted that this episode could have served as the series finale had the [[WGA strike]] gone longer.<ref name="roadrunner">{{cite_web|url=http://roadrunnerdm.livejournal.com/84288.html|title=Roadrunner - Newsdump from Burbank convention|date=19 November 2007|accessdate=20 November 2007|last=|first=|format=|language=}}</ref> However, the strike ended with sufficient time for production to resume; the previous episode was aired as the mid-season finale, with this episode airing in the first quarter of 2009.
* The scenes were among the last shot and were shot during the crew's shut down party due to the [[WGA strike|2008 Writers Strike]], so Sackhoff was unable to attend.<ref name="roadrunner"/>
*The title of the episode comes from the novel ''[[w:Sometimes a Great Notion (novel)|Sometimes a Great Notion]]'' by [[w:Ken Kesey|Ken Kesey]], which itself quotes the blues song "[[w:Goodnight, Irene|Goodnight, Irene]]". In the song, the singer contemplates suicide: "Sometimes I get a great notion / to jump in the river and drown."<ref name="chicagotribune">{{cite web|url=http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/01/final-fifth-cylon-ellen-tigh-battlestar-galactica-dualla-dee-.html|title=Chicago Tribune: 'Battlestar Galactica's' Ron Moore addresses the shocking developments of 'Sometimes a Great Notion'|date=17 January 2009|accessdate=19 January 2009|last=Ryan|first=Maureen|format=|language}}</ref>
*The last Cylon is finally revealed in a vision Colonel Tigh has of the past: it is his dead wife, Ellen Tigh.
*While "[[The Face of the Enemy]]" webisodes were released before "Sometimes a Great Notion", they actually take place several days after it.
*According to Moore in his podcast, his wife [[Terry Dresbach|Terry]] believed that Dualla was the Fifth Cylon right up until she shot herself. She had long ago stopped reading show scripts beforehand.
*The alarms sounding after the nuclear attack during Tigh's flashback are identical to the two-tone, randomly-overlapping red alert klaxon heard on battlestars in the original series.

== Analysis ==
*The Cylons have testing methods which can distinguish between human and Cylon remains.
*The Thirteenth Tribe Cylons were apparently all unique models and included children, based on the jacks found by Dualla, which fittingly resemble baseships.
*Saul Tigh also had the first name "Saul" in his past life.
*The destroyed city serving as the "home base" for the Colonials and Cylons remains unnamed, however when Col. Tigh wades into the water, what appears to be the pedestal of the State of Liberty atop the former Fort Wood can be seen in the distance to the right of Tigh's back. This lends further credence to the speculation originating with "[[Revelations]]" that they are in the vicinity of New York City, and adds to the two episodes' homage and references to ''The Planet of the Apes'' which ends with Col. Taylor's discovery of the statue's damaged upper portion. Coincidentally, Fort Wood's shape is known as a "star fort".
*Dee's decision to spend her final hours with Lee is in keeping with her deleted engagement scene in "[[Unfinished Business]]". In accepting Lee's marriage proposal, Dee acknowledged that the marriage would not survive Lee's continued feelings toward Kara Thrace, and that the Cylons would likely find and kill them all anyway; nevertheless, she wanted to spend what little time she could with him and happy. Her suicide echoes sentiments she expressed to Apollo in a deleted scene in "Black Market," in which she implied the despair and uncertainty of current events was almost too much to bear and that she sometimes wishes she would have been killed in the attacks on the colonies, and thus not have to deal with it anymore.
*The episode (including the final scene of the preceding episode, "[[The Hub]]") include extensive homages to the final act of ''The Planet of the Apes'':
**Astronauts discover a post-apocolyptic Earth; the view of which bore striking resemblance to New York City.
**Leoben warns Kara, "You might not like what you find," quoting verbatim Dr Zaius' admonition to Col. Taylor.
**Kara has been declared "the harbinger of death", a description of man from the apes' sacred scrolls carried by Dr Zaius and read by Dr Cornelius.
**A central character, Dr Gaius Baltar, has been a scientific, religious and political leader; his forename is nearly identical to Dr Zaius who was the apes' scientific, religious and political leader.
**Cylon Galen assists human astronauts in their survey of post-apocolyptic Earth, just as chimpanzee Galen did in the ''Planet of the Apes'' television series.

== Questions ==

=== Answered Questions ===

==== The Thirteenth Tribe and the "Final Five" ====
*What was the source of the nuclear attacks on Earth? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*How did the Final Five come to be living in the Twelve Colonies 2000 years after their deaths on Earth, without their memories and unaware of being Cylons? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*How will the Cylons in Cavil's faction respond to the discovery of the identities of the Final Five? ([[No Exit|Partial answer]])
*What similarities and differences exist between the method by which the Final Five were reborn and the Significant Seven's process of [[Resurrection (RDM)|resurrection]]? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Did the Thirteenth Tribe Cylons have any influence on the development of the Significant Seven 2000 years later, or was it mere parallel evolution? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*How did the Significant Seven come to be aware of the existence, though not the identities, of the Final Five? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Are there other survivors of the Thirteenth Tribe besides the Final Five? ([[No Exit|Possible answer]])
*Does the presence of children among the Thirteenth Tribe indicate that they reproduced among themselves? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*If the Thirteenth Tribe reproduced biologically, did the Final Five have Cylon parents, grandparents or other ancestors on Earth? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Given the speculation following "[[Revelations]]" that the survey site at the end of that episode and the start of this, was in Brooklyn, with the remains of the Brooklyn Bridge in the background; and given that the writers paid an homage to ''Planet of the Apes'' with Leoben's Dr. Zaius quote; is the thick, stubby structure in the background toward which Colonel Tigh wades at the episode's end, the pedestal on Liberty Island? ([[Daybreak, Part II|Answer]])

==== Ellen Tigh ====
*Was Ellen Tigh able to resurrect after her death in "[[Exodus, Part II]]"? If so, is she with the Cavil faction? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Did Ellen Tigh resurrect between the events of the [[Miniseries]] and [[Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down]]? If so, how did she get aboard ''[[Rising Star]]''? ([[The Plan|Answer]])
*Was Ellen Tigh aware of her Cylon identity? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Was Ellen Tigh the one who [[D'Anna Biers]] apologized to in [[Rapture|her vision?]] ([[Sometimes a Great Notion#Official Statements|Answer]])

==== Kara Thrace ====
*What is Kara Thrace? ([[Islanded in a Stream of Stars|Partial Answer]])
*Was the corpse found in the field that of the "real" Kara Thrace? If so, how and when did her Viper crash on Earth? And how did so much of her Viper and body remain relatively intact after seemingly being completely disintegrated in the gas giant? ([[Islanded in a Stream of Stars|Answer]])
*Why does Thrace keep the dog tags and wedding ring found on the body? ([[Islanded in a Stream of Stars|Possible answer]])
*Will Thrace or Conoy tell anyone about their discovery? How will others respond to this information? ([[Someone to Watch Over Me|Answer #1]], [[Islanded in a Stream of Stars|Answer #2]])
*Will Tigh reveal Ellen's status as the final Cylon? How will others react? ([[A Disquiet Follows My Soul|Answer]])

==== The Cylons ====
*With D'Anna Biers remaining behind on Earth, who will take over as the leader of the rebel Cylon faction? ([[Someone to Watch Over Me|Answer]])
*Will [[D'Anna Biers]] stay on Earth? ([[Sometimes a Great Notion#Official Statements|Answer]])
*Were the Thirteenth Tribe Cylons generally aware of Cylon resurrection/reincarnation, and the cyclical nature of Cylon life, or was Ellen Tigh unusually prophetic? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Three refers to "the bones of [her] ancestors", yet no Significant Seven models are depicted in either flashback scene, and early Colonial Cylons (Graystone' creations and [[Cylon Centurion Model 0005|Centurion Model 0005]]s) were created two millenia after Earth's destruction. What is the lineage of the Significant Seven? ([[No Exit|Partial answer]])

=== Unanswered Questions ===

*Did Baltar's Cylon detector successfully identify Ellen Tigh in "[[Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down]]"? If so, did Baltar withhold that information from D'Anna Biers during their search for the Final Five? If he did tell her could this have been what she meant when she told him "you were right" in [[Rapture]]? If he didn't, what were his reasons?
**On that note, were ''any'' of the Final Five successfully identified as Cylons?
*Does Tigh retain the mailbox hatch from his apartment building, and does Anders retain the guitar neck which he had dropped?
*How was dead Thrace's hair left unburned while her facial flesh was charred beyond recognition?
*Are the visions/memories experienced by the Final Five on Earth perfectly accurate?
*Did human/Cylon hybrids ever occur when the two races cohabited Kobol, or is Hera the first of her kind in all of history?
*Did Anders originally write "[[The Music|All Along the Watchtower]]", or did he merely cover it?
*Were the robot life forms of Kobol called Cylons, a term invented by Daniel Graystone, or by an equivalent name native to their era? Did the thirteenth tribe refer to themselves as human or "Cylon"?
*Is the uncle with the farm that Admiral Adama mentions [[Sam Adama]] or a maternal uncle?

== Official Statements ==
*[http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/01/final-fifth-cylon-ellen-tigh-battlestar-galactica-dualla-dee-.html#more Chicago Tribune interview with Ronald D. Moore:]
*Ronald D. Moore has confirmed that Dualla is dead and that Ellen Tigh is in fact the Final Cylon.
*Moore indicates that Ellen Tigh was the Cylon whom D'Anna apologized to in "[[Rapture]]".
*In his podcast commentary to "Sometimes a Great Notion", Ronald D. Moore confirmed that [[D'Anna Biers]] stays on Earth and that her story has ended.
**Also in his podcast Moore says that Kara Thrace did actually die when her Viper was destroyed, not some trick.
** Moore states that there was an intention in the Director's Cut (but dropped) to subtly imply that Anders wrote "All Along The Watch Tower" himself, and not as in reality, Bob Dylan.
**Moore admits that the scene just before Dualla's suicide was intended as an emotional "sucker punch" to imply that Lee and Dualla were perhaps going to get back together.
**Moore said Admiral Adama used the actual real life [[Wikipedia:Star#Classification|star system classifications of F, G, and K]] when he orders Gaeta to search for appropriate star systems that could support human life. These are indeed considered by real-world astronomers to be the most likely candidates for life-bearing planets; the Sun itself is type G.

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==

*'''Leoben Conoy echos to Dr. Zaius' final caution to Col. Taylor at the end of ''The Planet of the Apes'':'' "You might not like what you find." Like Taylor, Kara Thrace is a time-traveling<ref>To her, her disappearance and reappearance were brief; to everyone else's perspective, she was gone weeks.</ref> military astronaut surveying post-apocalyptic Earth (possibly also in the outskirts of New York City), and the "harbinger of death."

*''Saul Tigh upon seeing Ellen Tigh in a flashback on Earth:''
: "Ellen - You're the Fifth!"

*''After finding her body, Kara Thrace shouts to Leoben Conoy:''
: "What am I?!"

*''Laura Roslin's assessment of Earth:''
: "It's perfect. We traded one nuked civilization for another."

== Guest Stars ==

* [[Lucy Lawless]] as [[Number Three (Downloaded copy)|D'Anna Biers]]
* [[Callum Keith Rennie]] as [[Number Two]] / [[Leoben Conoy]]
* [[Rekha Sharma]] as [[Tory Foster]]
* [[Kate Vernon]] as [[Ellen Tigh]]
* [[Brad Dryborough]] as Lieutenant [[Louis Hoshi]]
* [[Alexandra Thomas]] as [[Hera Agathon]]
* [[Don Thompson]] as Specialist [[Anthony Figurski]]
* [[Sonja Bennett]] as Specialist [[Marcie Brasko]]
* [[Jennifer Halley]] as Ensign [[Diana Seelix]]

== References ==
<div style="font-size:85%"><references/></div>

{{Episode list (RDM season 4)}}

[[Category:Episodes directed by Michael Nankin]]
[[Category:Episodes written by Bradley Thompson]]
[[Category:Episodes written by David Weddle]]

[[de:Die Strömung erledigt den Rest]]

Sometimes a Great Notion

2011-03-18T01:45:05Z

Dal: /* Notes */ Typo

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| image=Sometimes A Great Notion Promo 026.JPG
| title= Sometimes a Great Notion
| season= 4
| episode=11
| forumthread=2307
| extra='''Season 4.5 Premiere'''
| guests=
| writer=[[David Weddle]]<br/>[[Bradley Thompson]]
| story=
| director= [[Michael Nankin]]
| production=413
| rating= 1.6<ref>{{cite_web|url=http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/01/20/battlestar-galactica-returns-with-double-digit-gains/11149|title='Battlestar Galactica Returns With Double Digit-Gains|date=20 January 2009|accessdate=27 January 2009|last=|first=|format=|language=}}</ref>/2,112,000<ref>{{cite_web|url=http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/01/21/wwe-raw-cinderella-icarly-and-monk-lead-weekly-cable-viewing/11185|title='Updated:WWE RAW, Cinderella, iCarly and Monk lead weekly cable viewing'|date=21 January 2009|accessdate=17 February 2009|last=|first=|format=|language=}}</ref>
| US airdate=January 16, 2009 <ref>http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=2&id=61270</ref>
| CAN airdate=January 16, 2009 <ref>http://www.spacecast.com/bsg/</ref>
| UK airdate=January 20, 2009 <ref>TV guide in ScifiNow Magazine and Sky Magazine.</ref>
| dvd={{flag|US|notext=Y}} {{Season 4.5 NTSC DVD release date}}
| podcast=Y
| oldpopulation= 39665
| population= 39651
| prev=[[Revelations]]
| next=[[The Face of the Enemy]]
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== Overview ==
:''[[Kara Thrace]] learns that the dire predictions of the Cylon [[Hybrid]] might be correct, and a devastating discovery plunges the [[The Fleet (RDM)|Fleet]] into chaos and despair.''

== Summary ==

===Act 1===
* The leaders and central staff of both [[The Fleet (RDM)|the Fleet]] and the rebel [[Basestar (RDM)|baseship]] wander about aimlessly on the planet [[Earth (RDM)|Earth]], whose surface has been utterly destroyed in a nuclear conflagration for some time. [[Saul Tigh]] stands on a desolate beach, staring out at the ruins of buildings, their mangled shortened skeletons jutting up from the lands ahead in jagged spires. [[Gaius Baltar]] and [[Samuel Anders]] stand about the ruins in confusion, as does [[Anastasia Dualla]], who stoops at the water's edge to mournfully examine it.
* [[Lee Adama]] grimaces as he looks about the dead landscape as [[Laura Roslin]] picks up a short rounded prickly plant, the only visible life found on the world.
* [[Helo]] reports to Admiral [[William Adama|Adama]]: Other scouts report in from around the planet. The destruction is the same all over. No signs of human life and no responses to any hails. [[D'anna Biers]] confirms her rebel [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylon]] scouts have had the same findings.
* The Final Four Cylons accompany the senior Colonial scouting team.
* [[Kara Thrace]] stands on the surface holding her Viper's Colonial emergency locator beacon, with a [[Leoben]], trying to home in on the signal only it can read, the signal that lead them to this world. The signal of the transmitting beacon is fading from a low battery. Leoben believes it must have been transmitting for a long time.
* Baltar has a team confirming that the radiation from the holocaust has embedded itself in the plant life and water chain. Helo gives a more detailed version of Baltar's findings: the planet was nuked over 2,000 years prior. Adama directs that all be instructed not to ingest the water and plants. Caprica-Six remains on the surface until early in Act 2, and digs in the dirt.
* Roslin quips, "It's perfect. We traded one nuked civilization for another." Adama orders his [[Raptor]] to leave.
* Dualla finds a watch in the dusty soil, and some children's jacks. She is near a breakdown as their Raptor returns to ''[[Galactica]]''.
* The [[hangar deck]] is filled with people, anxious for any news on the new world. But Roslin, typically someone who can manage to say anything in the darkest times, can only mutter to Adama, "Get me out of here." Lee Adama tries to placate the crowd's confusion and questions, shouting that the news will be revealed in due time.

===Act 2===

* Kara Thrace and Leoben continue to narrow in on the Colonial signal when she finds the beacon: a standard issue ''Colonial'' device used for all aircraft, part of their [[Avionics|inertial navigation system]].
* Leoben finds some wreckage and reads off the number on its charred skin: "757-NC." Kara immediately becomes agitated. "The number on my [[Viper Mark II|ship]] is [[Viper 8757|8757-NC]]," she says--referring to the Viper that she flew back to the Fleet after she was [[Maelstrom|apparently killed]].
* On ''Galactica'', the Agathon family plays together happily as Dualla comes over to babysit little [[Hera Agathon]]. While Dualla says to the Agathons that she "looks forward" to spending time with the child, she later tells young Agathon as her parents leave, " You have no idea what's happened, do you? Today's just another day."
* On the planet, amidst some seemingly human skeletons dug up, [[Caprica-Six]] and others find something very unexpected: the remains of a head of what is obviously a type of Cylon Centurion, similar to the old [[Cylon Centurion Model 0005|original model]] from the [[First Cylon War]], but clearly not the same.
* Aboard ''Galactica'' in Baltar's lab, Caprica-Six confirms that other Centurion helmets were found with about 250 skeletons from four sites around the planet as well. A [[Number Eight]] confirms that, while the Centurion design is similar, they have never seen this design before.
* Roslin notes that, apparently, the [[Thirteenth Tribe (RDM)|Thirteenth Tribe]] created their own Cylons (paralleling [[Graystone Industries]]' production for the [[Twelve Colonies of Kobol]] two millenia later). Lee Adama completes her sentence: Like on the Colonies, these Cylons also rebelled against their masters.
*Baltar notes that they dug deeper to test the skeletons themselves. The astonishing fact, confirmed by his Caprica-Six, is that the every one of the skeletons themselves are also [[Humanoid Cylons|humanoid Cylons]]. ''The Thirteenth Tribe were Cylons''.
* After the meeting, Lee Adama asks Roslin what she will say to the [[Quorum of Twelve (RDM)|Quorum]]. But a visibly disheartened Roslin has nothing to say at all. Admiral Adama tells his son to "carry the ball" for Roslin.
*As the admiral and Roslin leave, Tigh asks to speak to his friend, but the scene is unclear if Adama stops to listen.
*Back on the planet, [[Galen Tyrol]] is attracted to a fragment of wall. As he gets closer, he hears echoes of ghosts saying things like "Fresh fruit, get your fresh fruit!" He sees a human silhouette on the wall, looking as if it were painted there. Surrounding the silhouette is weathered writing, barely readable. Tyrol touches the silhouette--and is thrown into a vision of the world as it once was, and Tyrol as he once was, wearing glasses and a sportcoat as he passes through a bustling marketplace of open carts of fruit and flowers and other goods. He stops to buy an avacado himself then continues walking. A massively bright flash of light appears as Tyrol shields his eyes--
* Tyrol stumbles back, falling to the ground.
* Elsewhere, Kara Thrace questions that, if her Viper is scattered about this planet, then who flew it here, and how did she herself get back to ''Galactica''. Leoben cautions her, telling her, "[[#Noteworthy_Dialogue|You might not like what you find.]]" Thrace is perturbed by his words as Leoben has been, typically, very optimistic in his words to her in the past. She questions if the news would be more disturbing to her, or to Leoben himself.
* In the [[ready room]], Lee Adama stands in thought as Dualla appears, asking him why he hasn't boarded a readied Raptor for his Quorum briefing on ''[[Colonial One]]''. Adama laments the many pilots that had once sat here, many of them lost forever over a dead dream. He doesn't want their sacrifice to be meaningless.
* Dualla tells him that his expression reminds her of what he looked like when his father said that he would [[Exodus, Part I|execute the New Caprica rescue with ''Galactica'' alone.]] When he wonders what to say to the Quorum, Dualla tells him to tell the truth. "If anyone can give them a reason to go on, it's you. Apollo." As he leaves, hesitant, he asks her to meet him for a drink later. She accepts.
* Kara Thrace finds a large piece of wreckage, overturned. She and Leoben turn it over. It's a Viper cockpit, the burnt remains of its pilot still helmeted, still inside. Cautiously, she lifts the head to find it had blonde hair...''her'' hair. Thrace retches.
* As tears well up, she reaches inside the [[flight suit]] of the body to pull out the [[dog tags]]. In clear letters, the tags read "K. THRACE." A ring, her wedding band, is also attached to the chain. Leoben steps back in fear as Thrace asks for an explanation. "I--I don't have one," he says. She recalls what the [[Hybrid]] said, that she would be the "harbinger of death." She yells to the Leoben as he walks away, unable to answer her question, "If that's me sitting there, then what am I?!"

===Act 3===
* [[Samuel Anders]] finds the remains of a stringed instrument, probably a guitar. He holds the neck piece, placing his fingers on it as if to play as he recalls a song: [[The Music|"So let us not talk falsely now, 'cause the hour is getting late."]] He drops the neck and runs to find Tyrol, sitting placidly by the wall and the vision. They both share their visions, both realizing they lived there, in that area, once. Anders recalls that he played that song for a woman he loved. They are joined by [[Tory Foster]], who also recalls that he played that song for [[Final Five|all of us]].
* "That was me," Tyrol says, pointing to the flash-silhouette on the wall.
* Anders angrily questions the paradox. Why they were all still alive? How did they come to the Colonies, to believe they were human? "Two thousand years is a long time to forget!" he says.

* In Admiral Adama's quarters, Laura Roslin sits on the floor. She has set fire to one of the pages of the [[Sacred Scrolls]], specifically, the Pythian Prophecy, turning successive pages to burn each into ash, one by one.
* Adama arrives to ask Roslin to help figure out a way to shore up the Fleet's quickly sagging morale. She is passive. He tells her that she'd missed her [[doloxan]] treatment. Roslin "didn't feel like it," she says, refusing to reschedule. "You just gonna...lie down and quit?" Adama asks. She laments that he took her advice to leave their Colonial solar system, of all the men and women who had died for what appears to be a fruitless series of visions.

* In the twilight, Kara Thrace creates a funeral pyre, burning the corpse of herself found in the wreckage, sitting alone as the flames consume it.

* Lee Adama and Dualla come back from her date as he humorously (and drunkenly) recalls his report to the Quorum. "We are no longer enslaved to the ramblings of Pythia, no longer pecking at the bread crumbs of the Thirteenth Tribe...We are now free to go where we want to go, be who we want to be." Dualla smiles back warmly as they kiss. They stop kissing mutually both stopping from it getting further. Dualla bids Lee goodbye and enters her quarters. Inside, [[Felix Gaeta]] watches her as she hums. "You're glowing," he says with slight amazement. Then he makes a comment on how Earth is a waste of a planet. Dualla chides him for bringing up the subject. "I want to hold on to this feeling for as long as I can." She looks at a childhood picture of herself in her opened locker, taking off her pendant. "She has no idea what she has ahead of her," she says of her younger self. Gaeta leaves as Dualla stops humming briefly looking at him leave in the mirror, then resumes humming. She looks at a cameo of her parents and then calmly places her wedding ring on the locker hook.
* Without any hesitation at all, Dualla pulls out a sidearm from her locker, places it against her temple, and fires.
* [[Diana Seelix]] arrives inside first, with Gaeta not far behind. Both are aghast at the sight of Dualla's body, blood pooling around her hands. They call for medics repeatedly in fear and distress as the scene ends.

===Act 4===

* Lee Adama stands by the shrouded body of Anastasia Dualla in the ship's morgue as his father enters. "She kissed me goodnight 45 minutes ago, and there was joy in her eyes. So tell me why would she do this?" Lee asks. The admiral's stony face melts into a drunken expression. "I don't frakkin' know," he slurs out, taking out a bottle of alcohol to offer to Lee, who refuses it. Anger rising in his face, Lee leaves, passing by Gaeta outside without a word.
* Inside, Admiral Adama looks under the shroud momentarily, covers Dualla's body, as he cries, holding her head, asking to himself, "What did you do?" He kisses the body, saying, "I let you down. I let everybody down."

* Adama comes out into a corridor, demands a sidearm from one of the [[marines]] standing there. Adama storms down a corridor as other stand or sit expressionless. Two men are fist-fighting, crossing Adama's path. He ignores them as he heads to Saul Tigh's quarters.
* "Sit down, Cylon," Adama says angrily after pulling out Tigh's sidearm, arms it and drops it on a table. Adama pours both of them a drink, but Tigh slowly pushes it away.
* Tigh tries to apologize about his revelation of being a Cylon, but Adama is beyond angry. "Is that how it worked? They program you to be my friend? Emulate all the qualities I respect. Tell me jokes...and I laugh at them."
* Tigh counters that he wanted, chose to be his friend. Adama throws insult after insult about [[Ellen Tigh]], angering Tigh to pick up the sidearm to shoot his friend. "Do it! Or I'll do it myself!" Adama says, pointing his own sidearm to his temple.

===Act 5===

* Tigh's gun is pointed at Adama's forehead, but he hesitates pulling the trigger. Adama goads him, "Go on," but Tigh realizes, returning Adama's insult as he rips out the gun's magazine and safes the weapon. "I'm sorry, Bill, but this is the one time I can't help you." Adama drops his gun and reaches for a bottle, but Tigh tries to stop him.
* Adama drinks from a glass anyway as he speaks of his uncle as a kid in the summers spent there, of foxes that would attack his henhouses, of the dog hunts that chased down the foxes at night, forming into a team, forcing the foxes toward the river. Half of the foxes would fight, the others would try to cross the river. But some of them would turn with the current, swimming away into the sea. "Because they wanted to drown," Tigh adds. "Maybe. Or maybe they were just... tired."

* Tigh, uncharacteristically, becomes the sober one giving the other a dressing-down, telling Adama that he can't be like the foxes lost to the sea, reminding him that he is the commander and Tigh is still the XO of the ship, that killing himself would not help himself, or the ship.

* In the presidential office aboard ''Colonial One'', Lee Adama slowly wipes away a numeral "1" from the [[Survivor count|census]] board as Kara Thrace arrives. At some point on the surface, she sustained a laceration on the front-right quadrant of her neck.<ref>According to Ronald D. Moore's commentary podcast, the dressing was blood-soaked when filmed, and was distracting when viewed - particularly given that her sustainable of the injury is not noticeable to the viewer (including himself). Accordingly, the blood was digitally removed in post-production, leaving a pristine white dressing.</ref> Kara had officially reported that she lost the signal, but needs to confide in him about something. Before she does, Lee tells her the news about Dualla. Both can only wonder why Dee killed herself. Kara presumably decides not to tell Lee about her discovery.

* Adama passes by more passive crewman and some graffiti: "Frak Earth", sprayed on the wall as he heads to [[CIC]], where he meets up with Colonel Tigh wearing his service uniform and rank insignia for the first time since being granted amnesty by then-Acting President Lee Adama. Ordering Lt. [[Hoshi]] to Dualla's old communications station, Adama directs Gaeta to find any nearby stars compatible with habitable planets, and Hoshi to invite the rebel Cylons to their next destination. Adama addresses the Fleet, telling them that, while Earth is no longer a choice, he will find them a new home. "This is a promise I intend to keep."

* Saul Tigh, still in service uniform, organizes the evacuation of the survey crews on Earth in preparation for their search for a new home. On the beach, he greets [[D'Anna Biers]]. She doesn't want to leave, deciding to stay behind, believing that the cycle of life will keep going on as dreadfully as before. "...and it beats the hell out of being out there with [[Cavil]]. Gonna die in the cold and the dark when Cavil catches up with us." Tigh tries to give encouragement, but Biers asks if he ever wanted to just give up, reminding him of Adama's story of the penned-in foxes.

* Tigh thereupon begins to walk into the bay. Chest-deep in water, he continues down. Hearing faint screams, he reaches down and lifts a mangled post box hatch from his apartment building's lobby two thousand years ago. Holding it, he has a vision of the end of his former life. He wears a civilian business suit, his face is clean shaven but bloodied, and he has both of his eyes. A voice calls out, "Saul!" from the floor in front of the post boxes. There he finds Ellen, trapped under debris he cannot move. His present-day self thrashes about in the bay while remembering his past self frantically pulling the lighter debris from around Ellen. As more bombs detonate, Ellen delivers a prophecy: "Saul, it's okay. Everything's in place. We'll be reborn... again. Together."

* The vision fades as Tigh realizes the truth. "Ellen... Ellen! You're the [[Final Five|fifth!]]"

== Notes ==

* [[Katee Sackhoff]] noted that this episode could have served as the series finale had the [[WGA strike]] gone longer.<ref name="roadrunner">{{cite_web|url=http://roadrunnerdm.livejournal.com/84288.html|title=Roadrunner - Newsdump from Burbank convention|date=19 November 2007|accessdate=20 November 2007|last=|first=|format=|language=}}</ref> However, the strike ended with sufficient time for production to resume; the previous episode was aired as the mid-season finale, with this episode airing in the first quarter of 2009.
* The scenes were among the last shot and were shot during the crew's shut down party due to the [[WGA strike|2008 Writers Strike]], so Sackhoff was unable to attend.<ref name="roadrunner"/>
*The title of the episode comes from the novel ''[[w:Sometimes a Great Notion (novel)|Sometimes a Great Notion]]'' by [[w:Ken Kesey|Ken Kesey]], which itself quotes the blues song "[[w:Goodnight, Irene|Goodnight, Irene]]". In the song, the singer contemplates suicide: "Sometimes I get a great notion / to jump in the river and drown."<ref name="chicagotribune">{{cite web|url=http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/01/final-fifth-cylon-ellen-tigh-battlestar-galactica-dualla-dee-.html|title=Chicago Tribune: 'Battlestar Galactica's' Ron Moore addresses the shocking developments of 'Sometimes a Great Notion'|date=17 January 2009|accessdate=19 January 2009|last=Ryan|first=Maureen|format=|language}}</ref>
*The last Cylon is finally revealed in a vision Colonel Tigh has of the past: it is his dead wife, Ellen Tigh.
*While "[[The Face of the Enemy]]" webisodes were released before "Sometimes a Great Notion", they actually take place several days after it.
*According to Moore in his podcast, his wife [[Terry Dresbach|Terry]] believed that Dualla was the Fifth Cylon right up until she shot herself. She had long ago stopped reading show scripts beforehand.
*The alarms sounding after the nuclear attack during Tigh's flashback are identical to the two-tone, randomly-overlapping red alert klaxon heard on battlestars in the original series.

== Analysis ==
*The Cylons have testing methods which can distinguish between human and Cylon remains.
*The Thirteenth Tribe Cylons were apparently all unique models and included children, based on the jacks found by Dualla, which fittingly resemble baseships.
*Saul Tigh also had the first name "Saul" in his past life.
*The destroyed city serving as the "home base" for the Colonials and Cylons remains unnamed, however when Col. Tigh wades into the water, what appears to be the pedestal of the State of Liberty atop the former Fort Wood can be seen in the distance to the right of Tigh's back. This lends further credence to the speculation originating with "[[Revelations]]" that they are in the vicinity of New York City, and adds to the two episodes' homage and references to ''The Planet of the Apes'' which ends with Col. Taylor's discovery of the statue's damaged upper portion. Coincidentally, Fort Wood's shape is known as a "star fort".
*Dee's decision to spend her final hours with Lee is in keeping with her deleted engagement scene in "[[Unfinished Business]]". In accepting Lee's marriage proposal, Dee acknowledged that the marriage would not survive Lee's continued feelings toward Kara Thrace, and that the Cylons would likely find and kill them all anyway; nevertheless, she wanted to spend what little time she could with him and happy. Her suicide echoes sentiments she expressed to Apollo in a deleted scene in "Black Market," in which she implied the despair and uncertainty of current events was almost too much to bear and that she sometimes wishes she would have been killed in the attacks on the colonies, and thus not have to deal with it anymore.
*The episode (including the final scene of the preceding episode, "The Hub]]") include extensive homages to the final act of ''The Planet of the Apes'':
**Astronauts discover a post-apocolyptic Earth; the view of which bore striking resemblance to New York City.
**Leoben warns Kara, "You might not like what you find," quoting verbatim Dr Zaius' admonition to Col. Taylor.
**Kara has been declared "the harbinger of death", a description of man from the apes' sacred scrolls carried by Dr Zaius and read by Dr Cornelius.
**A central character, Dr Gaius Baltar, has been a scientific, religious and political leader; his forename is nearly identical to Dr Zaius who was the apes' scientific, religious and political leader.
**Cylon Galen assists human astronauts in their survey of post-apocolyptic Earth, just as chimpanzee Galen did in the ''Planet of the Apes'' television series.

== Questions ==

=== Answered Questions ===

==== The Thirteenth Tribe and the "Final Five" ====
*What was the source of the nuclear attacks on Earth? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*How did the Final Five come to be living in the Twelve Colonies 2000 years after their deaths on Earth, without their memories and unaware of being Cylons? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*How will the Cylons in Cavil's faction respond to the discovery of the identities of the Final Five? ([[No Exit|Partial answer]])
*What similarities and differences exist between the method by which the Final Five were reborn and the Significant Seven's process of [[Resurrection (RDM)|resurrection]]? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Did the Thirteenth Tribe Cylons have any influence on the development of the Significant Seven 2000 years later, or was it mere parallel evolution? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*How did the Significant Seven come to be aware of the existence, though not the identities, of the Final Five? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Are there other survivors of the Thirteenth Tribe besides the Final Five? ([[No Exit|Possible answer]])
*Does the presence of children among the Thirteenth Tribe indicate that they reproduced among themselves? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*If the Thirteenth Tribe reproduced biologically, did the Final Five have Cylon parents, grandparents or other ancestors on Earth? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Given the speculation following "[[Revelations]]" that the survey site at the end of that episode and the start of this, was in Brooklyn, with the remains of the Brooklyn Bridge in the background; and given that the writers paid an homage to ''Planet of the Apes'' with Leoben's Dr. Zaius quote; is the thick, stubby structure in the background toward which Colonel Tigh wades at the episode's end, the pedestal on Liberty Island? ([[Daybreak, Part II|Answer]])

==== Ellen Tigh ====
*Was Ellen Tigh able to resurrect after her death in "[[Exodus, Part II]]"? If so, is she with the Cavil faction? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Did Ellen Tigh resurrect between the events of the [[Miniseries]] and [[Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down]]? If so, how did she get aboard ''[[Rising Star]]''? ([[The Plan|Answer]])
*Was Ellen Tigh aware of her Cylon identity? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Was Ellen Tigh the one who [[D'Anna Biers]] apologized to in [[Rapture|her vision?]] ([[Sometimes a Great Notion#Official Statements|Answer]])

==== Kara Thrace ====
*What is Kara Thrace? ([[Islanded in a Stream of Stars|Partial Answer]])
*Was the corpse found in the field that of the "real" Kara Thrace? If so, how and when did her Viper crash on Earth? And how did so much of her Viper and body remain relatively intact after seemingly being completely disintegrated in the gas giant? ([[Islanded in a Stream of Stars|Answer]])
*Why does Thrace keep the dog tags and wedding ring found on the body? ([[Islanded in a Stream of Stars|Possible answer]])
*Will Thrace or Conoy tell anyone about their discovery? How will others respond to this information? ([[Someone to Watch Over Me|Answer #1]], [[Islanded in a Stream of Stars|Answer #2]])
*Will Tigh reveal Ellen's status as the final Cylon? How will others react? ([[A Disquiet Follows My Soul|Answer]])

==== The Cylons ====
*With D'Anna Biers remaining behind on Earth, who will take over as the leader of the rebel Cylon faction? ([[Someone to Watch Over Me|Answer]])
*Will [[D'Anna Biers]] stay on Earth? ([[Sometimes a Great Notion#Official Statements|Answer]])
*Were the Thirteenth Tribe Cylons generally aware of Cylon resurrection/reincarnation, and the cyclical nature of Cylon life, or was Ellen Tigh unusually prophetic? ([[No Exit|Answer]])
*Three refers to "the bones of [her] ancestors", yet no Significant Seven models are depicted in either flashback scene, and early Colonial Cylons (Graystone' creations and [[Cylon Centurion Model 0005|Centurion Model 0005]]s) were created two millenia after Earth's destruction. What is the lineage of the Significant Seven? ([[No Exit|Partial answer]])

=== Unanswered Questions ===

*Did Baltar's Cylon detector successfully identify Ellen Tigh in "[[Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down]]"? If so, did Baltar withhold that information from D'Anna Biers during their search for the Final Five? If he did tell her could this have been what she meant when she told him "you were right" in [[Rapture]]? If he didn't, what were his reasons?
**On that note, were ''any'' of the Final Five successfully identified as Cylons?
*Does Tigh retain the mailbox hatch from his apartment building, and does Anders retain the guitar neck which he had dropped?
*How was dead Thrace's hair left unburned while her facial flesh was charred beyond recognition?
*Are the visions/memories experienced by the Final Five on Earth perfectly accurate?
*Did human/Cylon hybrids ever occur when the two races cohabited Kobol, or is Hera the first of her kind in all of history?
*Did Anders originally write "[[The Music|All Along the Watchtower]]", or did he merely cover it?
*Were the robot life forms of Kobol called Cylons, a term invented by Daniel Graystone, or by an equivalent name native to their era? Did the thirteenth tribe refer to themselves as human or "Cylon"?
*Is the uncle with the farm that Admiral Adama mentions [[Sam Adama]] or a maternal uncle?

== Official Statements ==
*[http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/01/final-fifth-cylon-ellen-tigh-battlestar-galactica-dualla-dee-.html#more Chicago Tribune interview with Ronald D. Moore:]
*Ronald D. Moore has confirmed that Dualla is dead and that Ellen Tigh is in fact the Final Cylon.
*Moore indicates that Ellen Tigh was the Cylon whom D'Anna apologized to in "[[Rapture]]".
*In his podcast commentary to "Sometimes a Great Notion", Ronald D. Moore confirmed that [[D'Anna Biers]] stays on Earth and that her story has ended.
**Also in his podcast Moore says that Kara Thrace did actually die when her Viper was destroyed, not some trick.
** Moore states that there was an intention in the Director's Cut (but dropped) to subtly imply that Anders wrote "All Along The Watch Tower" himself, and not as in reality, Bob Dylan.
**Moore admits that the scene just before Dualla's suicide was intended as an emotional "sucker punch" to imply that Lee and Dualla were perhaps going to get back together.
**Moore said Admiral Adama used the actual real life [[Wikipedia:Star#Classification|star system classifications of F, G, and K]] when he orders Gaeta to search for appropriate star systems that could support human life. These are indeed considered by real-world astronomers to be the most likely candidates for life-bearing planets; the Sun itself is type G.

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==

*'''Leoben Conoy echos to Dr. Zaius' final caution to Col. Taylor at the end of ''The Planet of the Apes'':'' "You might not like what you find." Like Taylor, Kara Thrace is a time-traveling<ref>To her, her disappearance and reappearance were brief; to everyone else's perspective, she was gone weeks.</ref> military astronaut surveying post-apocalyptic Earth (possibly also in the outskirts of New York City), and the "harbinger of death."

*''Saul Tigh upon seeing Ellen Tigh in a flashback on Earth:''
: "Ellen - You're the Fifth!"

*''After finding her body, Kara Thrace shouts to Leoben Conoy:''
: "What am I?!"

*''Laura Roslin's assessment of Earth:''
: "It's perfect. We traded one nuked civilization for another."

== Guest Stars ==

* [[Lucy Lawless]] as [[Number Three (Downloaded copy)|D'Anna Biers]]
* [[Callum Keith Rennie]] as [[Number Two]] / [[Leoben Conoy]]
* [[Rekha Sharma]] as [[Tory Foster]]
* [[Kate Vernon]] as [[Ellen Tigh]]
* [[Brad Dryborough]] as Lieutenant [[Louis Hoshi]]
* [[Alexandra Thomas]] as [[Hera Agathon]]
* [[Don Thompson]] as Specialist [[Anthony Figurski]]
* [[Sonja Bennett]] as Specialist [[Marcie Brasko]]
* [[Jennifer Halley]] as Ensign [[Diana Seelix]]

== References ==
<div style="font-size:85%"><references/></div>

{{Episode list (RDM season 4)}}

[[Category:Episodes directed by Michael Nankin]]
[[Category:Episodes written by Bradley Thompson]]
[[Category:Episodes written by David Weddle]]

[[de:Die Strömung erledigt den Rest]]