Lost Planet of the Gods - just a discussion

[Hope It Is The Grog]

We mustn't ever forget that it was Baltar who betrayed the entire human race to The Cylons to begin with! Later on I think after he had been threatened with death by The Imperious Leader, he probably would like to have seen The Galactica destroy them and leave him in control of his colony or planet that we never learned anything about! I wonder if he's still living in that tiny shuttle with short range communication equipment on an icy derelict planet at the edge of the galaxy still waiting for Lucifer to pick him up? I suppose it depends on what order you watch the episodes I guess?
JB

True. But because there was only one season, they are so many ways the show could have gone!

Maybe the humans needed someone on the inside of the Cylon Empire, like a spy. Maybe the appearance of complete betrayal was the only way to save humanity. Maybe Baltar counted on Adama not believing him and knew he would be skeptical of anything Baltar said concerning the Cylons. It was established in the show that if Apollo and Adama had not been so skeptical of the Cylons, and Baltar's, motives, the humans would have been completely annihilated. What if there was a side of Baltar that counted on that and he really was trying to save humanity, while making the Imperious Leader think he was a conniving weasel who only thought of himself? Maybe all the times the Galactica got away from him, or Adama outsmarted him, he wanted it to happen.

And I don't think Lucifer would have saved him.

[johnnybear]

You don't think that Lucifer would have rescued Baltar? Then that means he's still out there on that planet and I'm sure his supplies would have run out by now...
JB

[Specter]

Nobody said Baltar was left on an icy planet. Adama said they would leave him on a "habitable" planet, from which I would infer he could grow, gather, or hunt his own food.

And I don't think Lucifer would have had any interest in finding and saving Baltar, since we learned as early as Lost Planet of the Gods that he had designs on commanding a base star himself.

[Specter]

Since “Lost Planet of the Gods” has so much going on in it, one thing that’s easy to overlook is the theme of Apollo’s spiritual rebirth. There’s really no hint of that story thread in Part 1, and it’s just barely crammed into the nooks and crannies of Part 2.

We do manage to learn that Apollo is apparently a “practical” skeptic who’s not at all impressed by the ancient writings that he thinks have “beguiled” his father, and that he believes the fleet was led to Kobol by “a burned-out star, nothing more.” But it’s not until Serina’s death scene that we learn he was also a skeptic about the existence of an afterlife. When he says they will “have an eternity,” Serina asks if he actually believes that, and that’s when he says she has “convinced” him of the immortality of the spirit.

This transformation is put to immediate use when Apollo has to reassure Boxey that Serina’s spirit and love will be with them forever, but also down the road, in later episodes, we find Apollo doing things like reminding Boxey to say his prayers and confronting Count Iblis over Sheba’s soul. So it’s a lasting change in his character that unfortunately gets short shrift in the episode where it happens.

I wonder also how they would have handled Apollo’s subsequent transition into a hedonist that was planned for Season 2. Would that transformation have been as sketchy and abrupt as this one?

[johnnybear]

I always wondered why the final scene of the TV Movie with Baltar having been spared by the incoming Imperious Leader was always cut? I first saw the film on Thames TV, and in which it was split into three parts with the third leaving Baltar shocked by Lucifer's appearance and little else. This was continued and completed in the first part of Lost Planet of The Gods while Central TV showed the third part in summer of 1983 and they cut even more of the final scene with Baltar not even seeing Lucifer coming clearly into the Leader's command centre!!! Adverts are even worse today and consume more time of our favourite shows but I'm glad that we got the full and final thing as seen on the great DVDs!!!
JB