BG-05: Gun On Ice Planet Zero

[lommel]

my favorite

The Guns of Navaronne meet the Cylon Death Machine!. it was a great ep, though i could have done without the clones aspect. If you ever get the oppurtunity to get the novel BsG 2 The Cylon Death Machine grab it, the amount of addt info and back stories are worth it!

[Eric Paddon]

There is a line uttered by Lucifer at the end of Pt. 2 that has amusingly caused a lot of confusion over its actual meaning. As he reports the failure of the plan to Baltar, Lucifer mentions that they will have to come up with an explanation for the Imperious Leader.

Some people have come away with the impression that Lucifer is giving a name to the Imperious Leader in the line which they think he says they must explain this "to Barkol to the Imperious Leader." The writer of Dynamite's "Cylon Apocalypse" comics series thought so and has Imperious Leader addressed as "Lord Barkol."

But in fact, Lucifer's line is they must find a way to explain "this DEBACLE to the Imperious Leader."

Jonathan Harris was not enunciating clearly enough it seems!

[Senmut]

Funny. The first time I saw this one, I heard and understood it to be "debacle". I thought JH's enunciation was fine. After all, he was trained in classical theater.

[Eric Paddon]

I noticed a mistake in the script that never got fixed. During Apollo's first meeting with Ravashol he says that the pulsar has "fried two of my fighters"!

It was actually three fighters destroyed by the pulsar. Bow and Shields in the beginning and then later, Killian.

[Senmut]

But since Apollo and those on the shuttle were trying like mad to avoid being shot down, would Apollo have gotten certain word of Killian's destruction?

[Eric Paddon]

Killian was in communication with the shuttle and he was destroyed before the shuttle was hit, so I think Apollo and everyone else was aware that he was gone. They certainly would have expected him to help take out the Cylon that was making a pass on them after they crashed if they believed he was still alive.

[Senmut]

But he had no certain knowledge of this. Hence, the line is acceptable.
But good catch.

[Croft2018]

When this was first broadcast it was one of my favourites; being 11.

Now I'm 53: Over the last decade or two and screening the episodes on both DVD (2003) and BD (2014) I think that it's a seriously flawed tale. Boxey has no place in this commando raid concept and should NEVER have been written in as being on the mission; a concept that annoyed me even at age 11. This being a variation on Alistair MacLean's classic The Guns of Navarone (book 1957, film 1961) it does still manage to be a lot of fun even if science and logic go out the window.

We must remember that BG was being made and written by SCFI neophytes who tended to look to more Earthbound concepts like western, war and espionage plots. The only real SCIFI concepts here that go deeper than the surface (ethnic cleansing, cloning, outer space locations, spaceships, robots, aliens, futuristic technology) are the riffs on Erich Von Daniken and his (debunked) writings on humans being influenced by aliens.

The concept that the fleet could be hearded towards a specific planet in a 3D area like outer space is daft in the extreme, or at least it would require much more thinking than the writers have done here. The other daft idea is that a single laser cannon on the surface of the planet* would pose any kind of threat firing from one fixed position out into space. The fleet would just have to bypass the planet on the far side to the gun to avoid the danger. It would've been better if the whole planet had been conceived as having a planetwide weapons grid that could fire from a thousand different positions all over the surface that reach billions and billions of kilometres out into space in a fully 3D sphere expanding in all directions.

Then have Baltar heard the fleet towards the trap with the massed forces at his disposal.

That would've worked, but the folks writing this were more used to conventional dramas and cop shows. But, as we know this script was part of the mini series concept of the show originally planned and probably suffered when everything went to series in a rush half-way through production on Saga of a Star World.

Vulpa had much more depth in the novelisation. They should also never have called the Imperious Leader "imperious" because it's not a positive term**, and the Centurians "centurian" because each one needs to be in charge of 100 soldiers. They should've established the Gold cylons as Centurions and the silver ones as basic warriors. I'd also have made them cyborgs which them explains why the Cylon ships have atmospheres. The big problem with the Cylons as is that they're boring foes in themselves as depicted despite the iconic costumes and sound effects; the Imperious Leader, Lucifer and Balter are really where the interest is; it's like being interested in the Stormtroopers in Star Wars.

BG is about the characters and that's what makes it interesting and the criminal characters in this are fun but sadly not developed enough. They really should have s h i t-canned Boxey and developed them more. The Croft-Leda dynamic was good and they could've made much more of Croft-Colonial Warriors having been a former military man.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ Out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

* Arcta ... who the **** came up with that lame name; could thay have not thought of a better one?
** = arrogant and domineering.

[Eric Paddon]

I have to agree that of all the two-parters ("Greetings From Earth" doesn't count since it aired as a two hour special even though it's the worst episode to run that long), GOIPZ over time has shown more weaknesses compared to LL and WOTG. Yes, it is a fun action ride of a story, but the element of Boxey stowing away just doesn't belong and IMO only got worked into this *because* it was shot second production wise and they were being more mindful of the need to "work the kid into the story" thinking which over time they got away from. Boxey as a character works when placed in legitimate organic story needs like in LPOTG and FIS (and even "Lost Warrior" where Apollo being mindful of Boxey is why he knows he can't be tempted by the idea of staying with Vella) but not in something like this.

I am one of those people who not being science-oriented tends to be more charitable about the lack of true hard science knowledge in these kind of shows that are more a continuation of the kind of TV writing that went back to the days of "Twlight Zone" and continued in the 60s and 70s. Many episodes of "Twlight Zone" don't stand up to hard science scrutiny in the slightest. And the shows that Galactica followed on the heels of, "Space: 1999", "Logan's Run" were hardly brilliant in those areas too so I think given the times it was written in I can be more charitable but I'll concede that GOIPZ tests my patience for the same reasons you outline (the idea that they can't just change position. Even Thurston's attempts to provide an explanation for that can only work to a small degree) not to mention the fact that if the Cylon Fleet is coming up behind them, shouldn't they be acting more quickly to get out of there at the end? And Ravashol's "We'll be ready if the Cylons come back!" declaration which also gets echoed to worse effect by Megan at the end of "Young Lords" doesn't help either. If Ravashol has other things at his disposal, what are they and why doesn't the Fleet ask for *Them* in their help? (and why isn't Ravashol willing to share them?)

That GOIPZ can still work is a testament more to the actors, editing and pacing which is often needed to compensate for deficiencies in a script.

I do give them a pass on "Imperious" Leader, because I think they were warned not to use the term "Imperial" in the slightest.

[Charybdis]

For the record, when I was a kid and pretty much still to this day, my favorite costume/characters in Star Wars were the stormtroopers!! First ever real Star Wars costume? Stormtrooper! Joining the 501st was the coolest thing...

I was 10 back in 1978, I thought all BSG was awesome! In fact, I just brought one of my copies of the entire series to my office so on downtime, I can sneak a little episode in now and then!