Talk:Season two timeline discontinuity/Archive 1

Please explain the basis for the statement:

"Shortly before Cally's release, Dr. Cottle updates Laura Roslin's prognosis, stating that she has one month to live, "at the outside". This puts her projected death at day 114."

On the DVD copy of Flight of the Phoenix on the Season 2.0 set, the order events in this episode are. 1) Cally is released from the brig, 2) Tyrol begins construction of the Blackbird. 3) Laura is given one month to live. There is no basis for the above statement unless the DVD version of this episode is somehow different to the broadcast version. --Rexpop 21:01, 4 March 2006 (CST)

Interesting. I seem to have been convinced that Cally's release constrained Laura's life span projection somehow, but I can't seem to remember my reasoning on review. The alternative, I guess, is that about two and a half months passed in between Helo and Tyrol's fight (which was the same night as Cally's party) and Roslin's diagnosis. In the intervening scenes...

• Dualla gets fried by the logic bomb and sent to Cottle
• Lee nags Tyrol about Viper 289, leading him to come up with the idea for the Blackbird.
• Tyrol starts the Blackbird project

Still, all the construction work on the blackbird takes place after Roslin's diagnosis. I can see fudging a week here at the outside, but nothing more than that. Anyone else have thoughts? --Peter Farago 21:44, 4 March 2006 (CST)

There's always the "different scenes do not take place concurrently" explanation. --Redwall 22:27, 4 March 2006 (CST)

Also the statement that all the construction work happens after the diagnosis is somewhat false as we see that Tyrol has started building at least one frame before the diagnosis. --Rexpop 12:57, 5 March 2006 (CST)

If we work backwards. 'Epiphanies' happens on Day 189. Therefore if we assume that Roslin lasts the full 30 days that means her final diagnosis comes around day 155-158.

There is enough slack for the remaining events in 'Flight of the Phoenix' to happen in the time before the arrival of the Pegasus. So the question becomes is there any reason why around 70 days (10 weeks) could not have passed between Cally's release and Roslins diagnosis ?.

The answer is difficult to come by for the reason that the episode was edited to avoid having to track the passage of time. But we have a few metrics that we can use to judge the passage of time. The main one is the progress of construction of the Blackbird.

When we first see Tyrol building the Blackbird (which is before Roslins diagnosis), he has complete plans and the first frame ready. The next time we see the Blackbird after Roslins diagnosis it has a complete airframe with some electronics installed (but no wings). Given that Tyrol is working on the Blackbird by himself and in his spare time it is not unreasonable to say that it took several weeks to get to this point so it would lead to a decent chunk of time passing before Roslins final diagnosis.

There is also scope for time to be added between Tyrol and Apollo's conversation and the beginning of Tyrol building the Blackbird. Given when he starts construction of the Blackbird he already has detailed plans, so its likey that some time has passed between deciding to build it and the actual build. It would not be unreasonable to say that putting the plans together took time a couple of weeks given that he is working part time on the project.

There is one other metric we have for judging the passage, which is Gator debugging the ships systems. He says it could takes days, and the next time we get an update on this it is after Roslins diagnosis. It's obvious that some passage of time has occurred but how long remains up for debate. But I do think that several weeks might be pushing it a little, but there is nothing to say that it didn't take this long after all a Battlestar is a big ship with lots of systems and Gator may just have been talking about just debugging the console code.

To be honest I think we are making a mountain out of a molehill. Yes the timeline goes a bit screwy in this episode, but there is nothing that flat out contradicts the statement that 'Pegasus' takes place six months after the fall of the Colonies. Similarly there is nothing that flat out proves beyond doubt that 'Flight Of The Phoenix' happened over 100 days.

In either case, this page and the timeline need to be re-edited as several of the statements made are based on the faulty premise that Roslins final diagnosis was before Cally's release. Given that this is not the case I think that the discussion on these pages needs to be changed. I would suggest that the timeline is kept fairly clear of discussion and this page state the facts and discussion for or against and then let the reader decide --Rexpop 12:51, 5 March 2006 (CST)

I think Tyrol's work on Viper 289 argues against this very strongly. We first see him inspect the craft and label it defunct prior to Cally's release. Apollo speaks to him about it, and he starts work on the Blackbird that night. I really don't think the amount of work accomplished on the Blackbird between that event (which was a few days after day 84 at most) and the airframe we see after Roslin's diagnosis can be stretched over two months. --Peter Farago 13:13, 5 March 2006 (CST)

I don't know how long it would take to build a spacecraft so don't have an accurate estimate. I suspect that it would be the same as building a modern fighter aircraft. Looking at Google I have one article (last paragraph) claiming it takes 2 years to build one F-15. Keep in mind that Tyrol is working on the Blackbird in his spare time so probably can only spend a few hours of a day working on it. Given these two facts I don't see 2 months being too outlandish. --Rexpop 13:42, 5 March 2006 (CST)

It's not outlandish at all, but what I'm trying to say is that it just doesn't fit with what we've been shown. The majority of the Blackbird's construction takes place after Roslin's diagnosis, thus, within the span of about three weeks. It seems implausible to argue that the earlier stages of construction took over twice that long. --Peter Farago 13:47, 5 March 2006 (CST)

Remember that after Roslin's diagnosis several people started helping Tyrol with the work, the key scene being when one of the engineers helped Tyrol with fitting the wing (which he was having trouble doing by himself). At this point the shot shows the airframe being complete, with cabling and electronics fitted to it some places. After this point the remainder of the deck crew start working on the ship with Tyrol, so its likely that work after the diagnosis moved far quicker than before because more people were working on the project. So I don't think its implausible to argue that with more hands and more time spent, the quicker the project would be completed. --Rexpop 14:07, 5 March 2006 (CST)

Also, note that if we do "delay" "Flight of the Phoenix" to match up with "Epiphanies", we have to explain Boomer's pregnancy advancing by about two months within the span of a week. --Peter Farago 13:21, 5 March 2006 (CST)

I'm willing to write this one off as one of the side effects of working with an actress who isn't really pregnant and the production staff trying to keep costs down by not wanting to invest money into more than one prosthetic. Many shows get this wrong so its not an uncommon mistake. --Rexpop 13:42, 5 March 2006 (CST)

I'm not. There's plenty of other evidence to indicate that they simply lost track. Sharon is still doing sit-ups in "Pegasus". By "Epiphanies", she's quite... heavy with child. --Peter Farago 13:46, 5 March 2006 (CST)

I'm not arguing that there haven't been production screw ups with the timeline. It happens all the time on TV shows. What I am arguing is that the discontinuity isn't as great as is being made out and in some cases can be accounted for (to a certain degree). --Rexpop 14:07, 5 March 2006 (CST)

No, Rexpop, it is a big discontunity. Between 2 and 3 months were simply skipped. --The Merovingian 20:27, 5 March 2006 (CST)

The 75 day gap: not important.

I think this gap that everyone is making a fuss over is much ado about nothing. As long as there is no contradictions I think it is no problem. Most of the things that are being listed as problems and discontinuity are simply delays. For example I think when it comes to Roslin's delayed journey to the death bed was simply due to perhaps to her individual constitution and it is possible that the Herbal potion she liked did work a little. She simply defied the odds for a while as what happens in real life sometimes. I am sure Cottle's studies of women in similar situation as Roslin was in and his own experience said that she would die within a certain time period, but it is not a hard and fast rule. Just because a doctor gives you three months to live it doesn't mean you will die exactly 90 days later. Odds borne out of experience say that it will happen around then, but it could be only a month later that death comes, or three months past the deadline, defying the averages. This is by no means unheard of.

As regards to Sharon's pregnancy, this just verifies my contention that there are undocumented time gaps. It is not as if we are seeing life aboard Galactica every day in real time, but only when important events takes place, so only two episodes are within the 75 day gap between Pegasus and Epiphanies, just like there was only about three episodes that covered the five months-150 days-between Collaborators and Unfinished Business. In this case one can treat Pegasus & Resurrection ship Parts I & II as one single three part episode since they obviously are so close in time; i.e. Resurrection ship Part I takes up immediately after Pegasus; Resurrection ship Part II in turn takes up immediately after Resurrection ship Part I. Now the time gap comes in between Resurrection ship Part II and Epiphanies. Why is there a time gap? Simply because nothing happened of any significance in between except that Sharon's pregnancy progressed and Laura Roslin's condition deteriorated. When the important facts of Roslin being near death is reached and Sharon almost loosing her baby via abortion happens Epiphanies documents it 72 days after the events of Resurrection ship Part II.

As for the delayed elections I think given the arrival of Pegasus and its personnel, it could be fanwanked to be said that the elections was moved back and delayed to give the new arrivals time to acclimatize and get familiar with the issues of the fleet. Then there was the crisis of command between Cain and Adama; the near civil war between Galactica and Pegasus and the death of Cain. Then there was the deteriorating condition of Roslin. Perhaps the elections were put off because of that reason. All three of these reasons together could compel a postponement to holding elections.

As noted, there are significant gaps in time between Collaborators and Unfinished Business. There are only three episodes within that five month (150 day) "gap", and two of those episodes are just a day apart, Torn & A Measure of Salvation. It is the same situation between Pegasus/Resurrection ship I & II and Epiphanies.

Simply put, the 75 day gap is a non-issue. Hunter2005 19:23, 26 December 2006 (CST)

It'll take some time to digest your comments, Hunter, but I would tend to agree. Just because we, the viewers, expect to see things happen on-screen doesn't mean that things are ALWAYS in action for the characters. Gods, give 'em a chance to breathe. --Spencerian 19:35, 26 December 2006 (CST)

I'm sorry, this is just wrong. The most logical way to explain away the discontinuity is to suppose that two months suddenly pass between the Cally scenes in the teaser of "Flight of the Phoenix" and the Roslin scenes. If this didn't leave behind any contradictions, it would be a (marginally) acceptable explanation, but it doesn't even offer that advantange. Let be briefly summarize the unresolved problems that the discontinuity leaves behind:

• Elections delayed by two months (consistantly predicted to be around month 7 in season 1, actually depicted around month 9)
• In Pegasus, when Sharon is raped, she is not visibly pregnant (consistant with the first half of the season). In "Resurrection Ship", we learn that it is six months post-holocaust and that she should be five months pregnant.

Lastly, to simply suppose that Cottle was somehow "wrong" in the diagnosis he gave in "Flight of the Phoenix" is outright fanwankery. The show takes itself seriously and invites a close reading. If it can't stand up to that level of scrutiny, we shouldn't invent explanations in an attempt to let it off the hook. --Peter Farago 15:41, 27 December 2006 (CST)

While I think that the issue isn't nearly as big as its made out to be, it's nonetheless there. Sure, the missing time can be accounted for, but contradictions are is still there. Sharon's pregnancy progression is a more practical error, but the election and Roslin's diagnosis could have been adressed in dialogue.

Personally, it doesn't affect my ejoyment of the show, but when I think about it, it's a bit weird that stuff like this happens --Serenity 15:52, 27 December 2006 (CST)

As Peter and Serenity said, the gap is there and it's not something that can be easily dismissed, at least after the fact. Does it affect the enjoyment factor? Probably not for most, but it's important to note anyway. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 16:00, 27 December 2006 (CST)