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So the end begins!

 

Tonight on Clone Wars was Liberty on Ryloth. And of course, there was liberty on Ryloth. There was even liberty for the ugly alien kids. Despite the spoiler in the title (which is why "The Empire Strikes Back" was named "The Empire Strikes Back" and not "Darth Vader is Really Luke's Father"), it was a pretty good episode. Lots of Mace Windu in action, with someone doing a pretty good imitation of Samuel L. Jackson's voice. It made for a nice break from Anakin and Obi-Wan and Anakin's Tween Padawan. Next week is the season finale, with some galactic bad dude named Cad Bane (reminds me a little of David Carradine for some reason - but not Robert Carradine, although that might be funnier), who even in the 30 second preview looks to be more formidable than General Grievous ever was.

 

Also tonight was the first hour of the end of Battlestar Galactica. Next week - the two hour finale.

I actually got a little teary-eyed when Rosalin walked into the hangar bay and Adama took her arm. That was a very powerful moment. It was also pretty cool seeing flashbacks to remind us of these people's lives before the Cylons attacked. I actually found myself rooting for Baltar at one point - hoping he'd find the strength to cross over the red line and redeem himself for once in his life. It was interesting to see that Six had more compassion for his dad than he did. Good stuff there. It served to reinforce that at its core, Battlestar has been about the characters. Sure, we all want to know what's going on with all of this music, and Starbuck and the final five and Hera... but its the characters that make the rest of it so compelling.

I may need to pop up some extra popcorn next week.

Agreed, was a good episode. Had some friends over to watch it, they're coming back next week.

 

After the show I introduced them to Prototype This, new episodes are airing again. Caught a brief glimpse of Joe's head printed on a circuit board

I'll have to watch Prototype This. I never caught it the first time around, and usually I really like the "let's build some cool stuff" type shows (Mythbusters, Junkyard Wars, etc.). But Smash Lab (which was awful) had been on just prior to that, so I wasn't quite willing to give Discovery the benefit of the doubt - or another hour of my time. Plus, I didn't know Joe was on it, otherwise I would have watched it for sure.

You'll want to set your DVR - Discovery's schedule only shows 2 episodes left, and they aren't repeating them multiple times.

Thanks - I'll do that. Maybe they'll show up on Discovery HD Theater at some point.

I liked it. Looks like my theory, comment #13, was right after all. Not sure what to make of Starbuck's last scene...

I liked it. Looks like my theory, comment #13, was right after all. Not sure what to make of Starbuck's last scene...

Looks like my theories about

Earth in comments 14 and 17

were right, too.

 

I just finished watching the two-hour Battlestar finale, and I'm actually exhausted.

 

Very, very satisfying conclusion. It's interesting, that in interviews about the finale, Ron Moore kept coming back to "it's (about) the characters, stupid!", and this really was faithful to that.

 

A few notes (major spoilers):

 

The battle was incredible. "Ramming speed!!" (Well, he never said that. But should have.)

Vintage Cylons rock! In last week's episode, you could see vintage Cylon Raiders, too.

Note to dead Cylon scientist guy: it's apparently not all about mathematics.

I totally forgot about Tory killing Cally. But someone else didn't. I was wondering what she eluded to before they joined up.

Cavil's death was excellent.

A little deus ex machina moment there when Racetrack fires off the nukes. Normally, that would be a "give me a break" moment, but in light of Baltar's speech in the CIC... it really fits.

I liked the return of Head Baltar with Head Six. They made a great pair. They should go out on the road together and do a nightclub act.

I wonder where they would have ended up if Starbuck had punched in some other song instead? Like, "Theme from The Monkees". "Here we come... walkin' down the street..."

As soon as they flew over that gray moonscape, I knew what the next shot was going to be. That was imminently satisfying, and I think, intentional on their part to tip it off like that, just seconds before the reveal.

The final sendoff for the Galactica was really cool. It was nice hearing the original series' theme there.

I was rooting for Baltar again. He finally stepped up! His final scene where he comes to terms with being raised on a farm was amazing - a lifetime of regret pouring up to the surface all at once. It's great to see his character so redeemed. There has always been a sympathetic note in his character, but it's always been hard to tell if or when it's ever been genuine.

I choked up a bunch of times during the final hour. Especially with Laura. Powerful, emotional stuff. Kudos to Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos.

I was fine with Starbuck's final scene. If everything is spelled out, what's there left to think about? Remember how Midichlorians ruined The Force?

No flying motorcycles. Bummer. But flying around in the Raptor was close enough.

So they found Hera's bones in the future. I was kind of hoping they'd found a Viper. But I guess that would be a little silly.

The end shots of the dancing plastic robots didn't work so much for me. It seemed a little lightweight. Minor quibble though.

 

 

Overall - great action, characters, humor, emotion, resolution... a fantastic ending, to an amazing series. I just need to rest up so I can watch all three hours again.

 

The Watcher blog has been updated with some excellent interviews about the finale.

 

(A side note - the finale runs over 2 hours 11 minutes. So if you're setting you VCR/DVR for it, make sure to account for the extra time. AT&T's U-Verse automatically sent out the correct time to my DVR so I didn't miss a thing. Another reason I'm well-rid of cable.)

 

 

Oh yeah, there was a Clone Wars season finale tonight. It's on the DVR. I'll get to it later. I'm sure it was... typical.

So I watched the season (not series) finale of The Clone Wars: Hostage Crisis.

 

Apparently, since General Grevievieous is such a weak villain, all of the battle droids are painfully stupid, Asajj Ventress is a no-show, Jango Fett got his head chopped off, and Boba is still trying to pry his dead skull out of his helmet so he can use it, they've decided they needed to come up with someone else for the Jedi to fight. So they came up with Cad Bane.

 

Oooo!! He must be a cad! And the bane of the Jedi Knights! Get it?

 

Well, it's a better name than "Anakin", that's for sure.

 

As far as villains go, he does pretty well. He's relatively smart. Ruthless. Cunning. And doesn't surround himself with too many stupid people. And he lies, too. And shoots unarmed people in the back when they don't do what he says. So bonus points for that. I think he's based more than a little bit on Clint Eastwood. He kind of looks all squinty like Clint.

 

And he has a nice hat. I'm guessing he's from the Southwest somewhere, because his hat would block out a lot of sun. Or maybe he just has sensitive skin. Although a good lotion would generally take care of that. So maybe the hat is more of an accouterment. Something of a trademark, or fashion statement, if you will.

 

Anyway, he breaks into the Senate building (which really doesn't seem all that hard... have they never heard of security cameras?), and holds a bunch of Senators captive in a... Hostage Crisis!!

 

Bet you didn't see that coming.

 

Of course, one of them is Padme Amidala. Anakin is visiting her, and to prove his love to her, he lets her hang onto his lightsaber.

 

I am not making that up.

 

Read into it what you will.

 

So anyway, when it comes time for him to rescue her, he doesn't have his lightsaber. Of course, this makes things more difficult, and he ends up being caught instead.

 

Where do the villains take him? Why, right to where the Senators (and his lightsaber) are, naturally. He's unconscious, handcuffed, and they drag him all the way over to this other room to keep him, rather than just putting a blaster to his head and being done with him.

 

Like I said... "relatively" smart.

 

Anyway, Cad gets his demands met (Ziro the Hutt - who reminds me a bit of Truman Capote - gets released from prison for some reason), and leaves unscathed. Anakin wakes up just in time to save the Senators from getting blown up. Not exactly a good week for Annie, or Ani, or however you spell his name, and Cad Bane lives to fight another day. Or rather, next season.

 

Overall, it was a pretty good episode. Cad Bane is definitely a step-up in terms of having a credible villain for the series. No cliff-hanger though, which was disappointing, and it's really hard to judge an episode like this in the wake of the Battlestar Galactica series finale. But in the context of The Clone Wars, it's above-average.

 

Well, that wraps up season one of The Clone Wars. I'd say it's worth checking out a half-an-hour at a time, if you've got some time to kill. It's definitely better to DVR it if you can, so you can skip the commercials and only spend about 20 minutes per episode on it. Visually, it's a step up from most TV animation, and an admirable investment on Lucas' part to put something like this on the air. Animation-wise, they still need some help. I don't expect feature-quality animation, but c'mon... at least get the walks to look right.

 

See you next season!

Did you catch last week's CSI episode, A Space Oddity(online episode)? They did a nice homage to Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. Kate Vernon is a guest star and there are cameos by Ron Moore, Grace Parks and Rekha Sharma. Joshua Cox, of Babylon 5, was also in it. That Tribune blog has a couple entries about it - Space is the place for a diverting episode of 'CSI' and More on 'CSI's' sci-fi flavored 'A Space Oddity'.

 

Also saw a new series on Discovery, Doing DaVinci. 4-guy show like Prototype This, but instead of coming up with new ideas they're building things based on Leonardo da Vinci's designs. Interesting show, they built the tank in the first episode, though the dynamic between the 4 guys pales in comparison to the gang on Prototype This. Before this show I had no idea that Leonard da Vinci came up with the idea for ball bearings.

Didn't see CSI. I almost never watch network TV anymore.

 

I've seen the promos for Doing DaVinci, but haven't seen that yet either. Need to set the DVR for that one.

It's worth watching that CSI episode online (link in prior reply).

 

They built the siege ladder for the second DDV episode. While interesting, the dynamic still isn't there and Alan Bovinett, the engineer, announced he was leaving the show at the end of the episode. Not sure what to make of that.

Well, just when I thought I was done with Season 1 of The Clone Wars... what pops up on my DVR, but another episode!

 

It was a repeat ("Ambush"), but my DVR is set to only record new episodes, so what gives?

 

Well, it turns out it was a recycled episode. They're re-running the first season as "Decoded" episodes.

 

So what's that mean?

 

Well, remember Pop-up Video? Same thing. But with The Clone Wars.

 

So now while you're watching the episode, little captions (supposedly from some of the characters) will pop-up, and tell you some painfully obvious fact, or utterly useless bit of trivia about what's happening. I suppose for those so inclined, this could be the makings of some sort of drinking game, but I can't say it really adds any value to the show for me. I'd rather write my own snarky commentary about what's been going on in the episodes, thank you very much.

 

Maybe I should do just that.

 

And put it in a blog or something.

 

 

Nah.