#5: The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, Parts 1&2

[Croft2014]

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

Now I'm 51: 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.

* Arcta ... who the F U C K came up with that lame name; could thay have not thought of a better one?

[Cylon-Knight]

Besides the logistics of "ship trapped in space" - yeah, what?! heehee - as noted above
...Lots of cool new Colonial costume variations and equipment in this one. And Vulpa!
Get a slight peak into the Colonial culture. Pretty surprising they still have a prison in effect, given the fact their entire culture is all but totally wiped away by the Cylon onslaught. Just happened to have criminals in a handy ship, staffed with police, ready to flee from destruction? I guess it could have been a transport ship and they were lucky to be on the way from one prison to another?


My favorite part is the Centurion patrol in the snow. SHHHHH be quiet!
Centurion at the end pauses, silence, eye sound is all you can hear, did it hear our heroes?! ... eeeeeeeek

[Croft2014]

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.

* = arrogant and domineering.

[Cylon-Knight]

Oh, I'll have to get the novel somewhere. Sounds very cool.

Doesn't "Imperious" Leader make sense given the loose cannon that it is the best of the worst from the I.L. Series?

Lucifer states he and the leader are of the same I.L. Series. Whichever I.L. Series makes the best-underhanded ploy to become the leader, is the leader. Seems Cylon authority is directly related to how imperious they can be. YIKES.

[johnnybear]

Lucifer spoke those lines in his best Dr.Smith too! I wonder if old Zachary had been on Cylon at the time of their rising like Iblis had been as well?
JB