It's the end of an era, not just for the show but because it was one of the few A&E TV shows to still tape in the Toronto CBC building, using the last of the once-great horde of props and costumes built by generations of CBC craftspeople. Those days are over, and they aren't coming back. (See previous posts about the closing of the Design Department, and the subsequent sell-off.)

But it makes for one hell of a yard sale!

For two days, eager staffers were invited to pick over the remains of the Farce's unique creations. There are now strange objects scattered across cubicles on every floor.

The props area had coffins, statues, a bomb, rubber chickens and more, to say nothing of rather nice chairs, lamps and picture frames. In wardrobe, you could get labcoats, capes, hockey sweaters, muumuus, a Marg Delahunty costume and about a thousand ties (which eventually sold for a buck each.) Plus everyday sweaters, suits and pants - though every pair of pants I tried on were of Roger Abbott proportions - fit me loosely at the waist but barely reached my calves. Looked like knickers.

Still, I'm a sucker for weird junk, especially if it's a part of history. In addition to the fake switches and books pictured above, here's what I walked away with:

Impules buy - for $1 - a board game called "Separatist Careers"... you can even find the original skit online on the Air Farce site.

"Just be sure to avoid the Parizeau card, or you go home a loser." Priceless! And check out the Lucien Bouchard playing piece:

And for my dollar, they threw in a free box of Lloyd Robertson Hair Rinse for News Anchors:

But the crowning purchase - at a whopping $15 - was this Greek bust:

I think it's Pericles, but I'm not sure. He's currently backfilling for our encoder, who was sick that day.

Looking through that stuff was a riot, tempered slightly by the observation that the people selling off the wardrobe collection were a soon-to-be-unemployed seamstress and a scriptwriter.

If only I had bought the fake bomb, though! That would have been... never mind.

With the conclusion of Battlestar Galactica just a week away (we're almost there!) I thought I would publish a little food for thought among the converted. If you don't watch the show, or aren't caught up, move along - we're about to go deep into nerdsville.

The following list was compiled months ago by my brilliant friend Michael Lapointe, who joins my sister and I for a weekly BSG fix when it's on air. (When it wasn't - and that was a hell of a wait, people - we've killed time with Firefly and the entire 1978 series. One more delay in season 4b and we'd have resorted to the dreaded Galactica 1980... yes, Mike even owns that.)

If you understand half of these questions, or even read half of them, you have my sympathies (and may be the fifth cylon. Or Ron Moore.)

Spoiler alert is screaming, blinking madly and belching smoke.

Battlestar Galactica’s Unanswered Questions

 

1. What exactly is the ontological status of Number Six in Baltar’s head, vice-versa, and of the Baltar Gaius encounters in Season 4?
2. What exactly is the Cylon plan? Does it change? How?
3. How has Saul Tigh been a “skin-job” Cylon for at least 30-40 years?
4. What is special or unique about the Final Five? Are they “sleeper” agents?
5. Who/what is the Cylon God? Is it actually their “human creator” reified to godhead?
6. What exactly is Kara Thrace’s destiny that Leoben refers to?
7. How did Kara return? Why is her Viper brand new?
8. When exactly did the 13^th tribe leave Kobol for Earth? When did the other 12 tribes leave? There is contradictory evidence throughout the series. Elosha claims that 3600 years ago the oracle Pythia wrote about the exile/rebirth of the human race. Billy claims that the city ruins on Kobol were abandoned 2000 years ago, then Elosha claims that this is the time the 13 tribes left. Sharon claims that the founders of the 13 colonies boarded the great ship in the Galleon Meadow and went to found the colonies, OR that they stayed behind and went to sacrifice people in the Tomb of Athena. Adama mentions that Zeus warned the 12 tribes of the blood price to be paid if they returned to Kobol; does this imply the 13^th tribe had already left? Does this also imply that civilization continued on Kobol for centuries after the exodus? This would contradict Elosha and Boomer’s statements above. Why does Athena commit suicide at the exodus of the 13 tribes according to Boomer? Billy mentions a calamity befell Kobol and Elosha quotes scripture that a “great blaze” pursed the people. But Pythia also supposedly chronicled the original journey of the 13^th tribe to Earth (complete with drawings of the Temple of Aurora from “Revelations”). Dr. Cottle’s report on the virus that kills the Cylons and found on the beacon left by the 13^th tribe was over 3000 years old, when according now to Adama, the 13^th tribe left Kobol. On the Algae planet, the Temple of Five, built by the 13^th tribe, was at least 4000 years ago which lines up with the exodus of the 13^th tribe according to Tyrol. The supernova in the Ionian Nebula occurred 4000 years ago and was witnessed by the 13^th tribe on the Algae planet. The Eye of Jupiter—a marker left by the 13^th tribe to point the way to earth is recorded in their scriptures. So the 13^th tribe may have left Kobol at least 2000, 3000, 3600, or 4000 years ago depending upon which scene you watch. Is this intentional, OR simply a very poor attempt at story continuity? Considering the importance of mythology and the cycles of time to the show’s narrative, this is not an insignificant matter. Also how is it possible that scriptures have details about Earth without members of the 13th tribe making contact with their fellow humans AFTER Earth is settled, not to mention the map of the star patterns found in the Tomb of Athena?
9. What exactly is Baltar’s destiny that Six keeps referring to?
10. What is extra special about Final Fifth Cylon? Why the last to be revealed? Why is this fifth Cylon seeking redemption according to the hybrid in Razor?
11. Why does the Razor hybrid warn that Kara Thrace is “the angel of death” and will lead humanity to its final end? OR is it Kara’s part in leading to the destruction of the Resurrection Hub that brings “death” to the Cylons that he is predicting and fears? The hybrid on the base ship that kidnaps Roslin also reports this line about Kara.
12. Why is it forbidden for the Cylons to talk about the Final Five?
13. What is the significance of the dream vision of Hera and Kobol’s Opera House shared by Roslin, Six, and Sharon?
14. What is the significance ultimately of the clash between mono- and polytheism in the series?
15. Beyond the obvious, what role does Hera have yet to play? What about Nicky? Six’s baby by Saul on the way?
16. What happened to Earth? What year/timeframe is it?
17. What exactly happened on Kobol?
18. Who/what were the gods/Lords of Kobol?
19. What happened to Boxey?
20. Are all Cylons super strong physically compared to humans?
21. What were the mysterious circumstances surrounding Ellen Tigh’s rescue and amnesia? What, if anything, was she hiding? Why does Six warn Baltar about Ellen?
22. What happened to the 1300 people on the Olympic Carrier before its destruction?
23. Is Baltar capable of “projecting” without being a Cylon?
24. On Caprica, why are some of the cities not destroyed as Helo and Sharon wander around? Were these places spared nuclear destruction in favour of biological and neutron weapons? Since the Cylons, for a time, are rebuilding the infrastructure on Caprica, does this mean their ultimate plan is to recolonize the 12 worlds for themselves?
25. Where did Shelley Godfrey (Number Six) go?
26. Why is Leoben obsessed with Kara?
27. Why does Baltar’s Cylon detector not catch Tyrol and Tigh? Or does he suppress this information? Although he seems ignorant of other Cylons, except Boomer, he blackmails her into revealing that there were 8 other Cylons in the fleet? Should we presume the 8 others do NOT include the Final Five? Who are they? Is she lying?
28. Can a Final Five be tested by the detector in any case?
29. Why and how have the Final Five been to Earth?
30. Does Baltar give up testing everyone?
31. Why does Leoben tell Roslin that “Adama” is a Cylon in “Flesh and Blood”? Could this be Lee? Zak?
32. Why are their 12 snakes, “vipers”, in Roslin’s vision similar to the one’s recorded by the oracle Pythia? What is their significance?
33. What exactly does “all this has happened before, and will happen again” mean?
34.  Why is the ephemeral Six assisting in the survival of Baltar and the human fleet?
35. Does Baltar believe Six about the Cylon God? Faking it in season 4? If not, what causes this shift?
36. Is there any importance to the Articles of Colonization being only 52 years old in “ Colonial Day”?
37. Did Zarek, Ellen, or someone else have henchman Valance killed on Cloud Nine?
38. Why does Baltar “know” the ruins of the Opera House on Kobol? Why does Six say, “Of course, you do?”
39. How is it that Baltar has/shares a vision of the future with Six—the birth of Hera?
40. What is the significance of the piano composition by Kara’s father? Why is it so similar to the music score in scenes of Cylon base ships?
41. What degree is Kara playing at madness in Season 4?
42. Why does Ellen want Tigh to be Commander so much? Power? But if she’s a Cylon?
43. What is Anders, one of the Final Five, doing left behind on Caprica?
44.  In “The Farm”, how does Simon know that Anders is an athlete and a member of the resistance?
45. Where did the Cylons go after Cavil announces that they have left the nuked colonies? Cylon home world? Where are the “greener pastures” that he refers to? What are the “other plans” that he refers to? Is this a change in the Cylon “plan”?
46. What portion of Cylon civilization pursues the Galactica and the fleet across space? Surely, not all if they have their own home world?
47. Even though in “The Hub” it is made clear that no Cylons anywhere in the universe can download, doe this make sense? Would the Cylons not have this technology on their home world and elsewhere back in the regions of space where the story began?
48. How did the Colonials “enslave” the Cylons exactly?
49. In “Razor”, how is it that the young Adama hears the hybrid’s disembodied voice and sees visions of the past when he sticks his hand into the hybrid tank?
50. Who were the prisoners aboard the Gemenese ship, the Diana, in “Razor” and what was their fate?
51. Is the promised land really Earth? OR is it just a beginning to elsewhere? Why does the hybrid in Razor use the phrase “gathered on the wings of an angel” to refer to both/either or the Colonials/Cylons?
52. What is the link between the hybrids and the Final Five? Why does the hybrid in Razor know/prophesy so much about the characters? How does he know that Kendra Shaw seeks forgiveness for her part in a military massacre?
53. Is the Razor hybrid, the Cylon god?
54. Why is Leoben chosen or self-appointed to show Kara her destiny?
55. Who is Apollo’s XO on Pegasus after Kendra Shaw dies but before Dualla takes over during their year long stint in orbit around New Caprica?
56. Why do the Cylons want Earth to be their new home?
57. Why do the Colonials presume that the deadly virus would wipe out all Cylons through Resurrection technology when it has been established that the Cylons need to have Resurrection ships in the first place because they are too far away from the Cylon home world to download?
58. Where does a valuable viper Jock like Bulldog go, never to be seen again?
59. What was the mandala-like storm? Does Kara only see it?
60. What happens to Kara in the storm in terms of her visions of her past, her mother, and her exploding Viper?
61. What is the symbolism of the mandala, and why does it reoccur in different contexts?
62. How is it that Leoben knows so much about Kara’s history?
63. Leoben claims that he is not “Leoben” in “Maelstrom”. Who/what is he?
64. Does Admiral Adama know about Apollo and Starbuck’s affair?
65. Why is Romo Lampkin a kleptomaniac?
66. What is the source of the song—“All Along the Watchtower”—in “Crossroads I and II”? Why is this music a trigger? Why does this occur at the Ionian Nebula?
67. Why is Baltar a religious cult figure in the fleet in the first place? What did he do to inspire this devotion as his manifesto is socio-political in nature? Does Baltar believe his religious B.S.? What point does he get sucked in?
68. When Roslin mentions in court that she was saved by the blood of a Cylon hybrid child, is this news to the fleet that such a birth has occurred?
69. What causes the power outage throughout the fleet at the Ionian Nebula?
70. Why are the Final Four so clueless about themselves in spite of their importance?
71. If Kara has been to Earth, why is she so vague on the details? Did she not notice that it had been destroyed? Any Earth transmissions to note while in orbit? How did she know it was Earth? Simply and crudely, by the ancient star patterns from the Kobol map?
72. Why does Kara’s head hurt every time the fleet jumps away from the Ionian Nebula?
73. Who were the original programmers of the Cylons?
74. Why did the original programmers put the Cylons at risk if they sought out the Final Five according to Cavil?
75. Why does Kara claim she had been to Earth before, as if she had never left?
76. During the Cylon Civil War, did the warring Cylon factions simply transfer to different base ships?
77. Do the Cylon model numbers have any importance? Do the 12 models correspond to the 12 Colonies?

     

            1 Cavil                         Aerilon

            2 Leoben                   Tauron

            3 D’Anna                  Gemenon

            4 Simon                     Canceron

            5 Doral                      Leonis

            6 Number Six             Virgon

            7                                  Libran

            8 Sharon                     Scorpia

            9                                  Sagittaron

            10                                Caprica

            11                                Aquaria

            12                                Picon

 

            Tigh, Tory, Anders, Tyrol

78. What will the long-term consequences of giving the Cylon Centurions the gift of reason?
79. Does Roslin suspect that Zarek is behind her being blindsided by Lee’s revelation of Classified Order 112?
80. Does Tyrol suspect that Tory had something to do with Cally’s death?
81. Why does Saul see Ellen when visiting Six? Guilt? Or part of the “plan” to impregnate her and produce a new hybrid child? Is Ellen the Fifth?
82. Do the Colonial beliefs in the gods of Earth’s classical civilizations open the possibility that humanity’s birthplace is Earth, not Kobol?
83. What does Leoben know about what happened to Kara during her two months away? Why is Kara’s part in finding Earth so convoluted? Note: Kara “dies” and disappears into a storm, reappears in the Ionian Nebula two months later claiming to have been to Earth, goes crazy on Galactica, is given the Demetrius to find her road back, finds Leoben in a Heavy Raider, who convinces her to find a damaged Basestar so that Kara can talk to its hybrid. The hybrid intimates to her to unbox D’Anna, who has seen the faces of the Final Five on the Algae planet in the hope that Final Five will reveal themselves and the route to Earth. Three of them do this unwittingly by means of mysterious music that leads them to Kara’s Viper, which now mysteriously is receiving an emergency locator signal that the Colonials can trace back to Earth.
84. Does Leoben “guess” that Anders is a Cylon on the Demetrius?
85. How is Kara “changed” into someone “new”?
86. Why does Gaeta lose his leg and sing? Significance?
87. What is God’s plan as stated by Leoben in the Raptor? Is this the same as the Cylon’s plan?
88. How does Hera have an obsessive knowledge of Six?
89. What is up with Romo Lampkin and his frakking cat in “Sine Qua Non”? Why does he pull a gun on Lee? Nervous breakdown?
90. What is it about the FTL jumps which allow Roslin to see the dead Elosha and the “future”?
91. Where is the Fifth Cylon? D’Anna claims that there are four in the fleet.
92. Is Kara’s Viper the source of the music that triggers the Final Four’s activation and that later on leads Kara to discover the signal? Why was the signal not found earlier?
93. Will Kara keep her promise and kill Anders because he is a Cylon?
94. Does the emergency locator signal originate on Earth?

 

© Michael Patrick Lapointe, PhD

    University of Toronto,

    Toronto, Canada

 

How many do you think will be answered? Comments welcome!

Here's one that came my way courtesy of CBC photo editor Robin Rowland and his blog The Garret Tree.

Newsfilm Online launched a few weeks ago, a British venture that says it has over 3,000 hours of archival news stories. Unfortunately most of it is available only to students and educators in the UK.

(This makes me double proud of the CBC Digital Archives, which has about half the total hours of content, but is completely free to everyone, everywhere. The Newsfilm, however, is downloadable.)

The stuff that is freely accessible, however, is really interesting and the quality is very good.

Check out a British Paramount newsreel about the Suez Crisis or race riots in London's Notting Hill (interesting, especially for 1958 - black reporters interview white people, and vice versa.)

Dig a little deeper and you'll find mice drinking sherry (1986), more riots (absolutely wild Reuters footage of the 1936 fascist riots, again in London), the Hindenburg Disaster (British Paramount News, 1937) and so on.

There's also an interesting collection of the early work of David Lean, who would go on to direct films such as Lawrence of Arabia. You can see some of Lean's early film editing work on political gatherings, 1930 auto racing and a Noël Coward premiere.

Subject: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? shooting at CBC Toronto

Reading on, it's about the reality show clogging up our elevators again. But I read this subject line and thought of possible answers: By calling the cops? Hiding under your desk? Wearing a bulletproof vest? Man! Maria shooting at CBC really could be dangerous!

I watch a lot of TV on mute these days - mostly when I'm trying not to wake the kids, sometimes when I just want some peace and quiet, and very rarely whilst enjoying a cold beverage at a public establishment. So I love the fact that new TVs all switch on closed captioning when they are muted, so I can follow along.

Except, of course, when the captioning seizes up, converts English into ASCII swearing (!@##$!#@$$!), scrolls too fast and nowhere near the person speaking, overlays the sports ticker or someone's face, spells last names using phonics, or translates "you guys" as "you gays". I can't imagine what the hearing disabled have to put up with.

Fortunately, Joe Clark is doing something about it, and he's here in livid colour. The brand new and admittedly garish CaptioningSucks.com is an attempt to get people talking about how bad TV captioning is, and to help develop a set of standards to make them better. It's the offspring of Joe's Open & Closed project, funded at least in part through micropatronage (see the hairless guy's "indolence" badge way down there on my sidebar.)

Check out Joe's Flickr site for some appalling examples of the myriad ways TV captioning can be made to suck. And then visit Open & Closed to see how it can be made better. @!#$!@#%%.

For a few weeks each summer, my CBC Toronto office is blessed with the sound of prepubescent girls screaming in rapture outside the Canadian Idol corral at the convention centre across the street. In addition to Kelly Clarkson brand tube tops and bristol board signs saying "Marry me Ben", there's usually a van, a tent, a PA system and a carnival barker trying to whip the girls into a lather. Until now, all that was across the street - a minor nuisance akin to the guy who plays (sic) bagpipes on Blue Jays days.

Yet now I see that signs for that wretched CTV show have crossed the No Man's Land of Front Street, and are fluttering gaily right outside the CBC building, not 15' from the front door. (Hat tip to Erich the Eagle-Eyed for noticing.)

Who the hell let that happen? Really, does nobody at CBC pay attention to advertising availabilities on our own front door? What's next, Dr. Phil recycling bins for all CBC employees? Ghost Whisper screensavers?

Haven't we complained enough about the CTV billboards across the road on John St.? Haven't I created enough ridicule to make anyone care?

I think the only thing left for me to do is audition for Canadian Idol.

Hell, I could do it just by leaning out my office window.

Credit for this one goes to Kevin, who noticed that the "silhoutte" ads for So You Think You Can Dance and Canadian Idol seem just a little too familiar.

Talk about "parroting"... Polly wants an iPod!

I told you those MP3 players would lead to unauthorized copying.

[I should point out that while these CTV billboards are my favourite target, I've crapped on CBC's too. I think the ones on our own building are pitiful, and the illegal ones are shameful. But this set of CTV ones deserve what they get. They're what's known in the industry as "fuck you" ads, there strictly to rankle the competition. And they're a waste. The panels are obscured behind tall buildings in the directions traffic comes from - you practically have to be inside the CBC building to see the whole array. And they've been stuck behind construction cranes for over a year now. It's a poor use of marketing dollars. But at least they aren't wasting tax dollars - they're wasting shareholder dollars, which I'm told somehow makes it OK.]

Dirty birdie! If only they had left up the ad for American Idol... then you could have said "Squawk! Pretty Paula!" But nobody would have believed you.

But I didn't realize its influence until yesterday, when I read this post on Collision Detection. Someone at NASA apparently likes Battlestar Galactica so much that they're styling the next moon mission after it.

Check out this animated video pimping NASA's project to return to the moon:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2fhVnTuxv4[/video]

Doesn't that look (and sound) just a little like the BSG opening? At first I thought this was a clever joke, posted on YouTube by someone who had recut the animation to look like BSG. But no, it's right there on NASA's site, on a page called A Vision for Space Exploration. You can find it on the right, under "Return to the Moon: The Journey Begins Now".

As a reference, here's the opening to Battlestar Galactica's second season:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fKAk96xkl4[/video]

Look familiar?

The similarity is particularly noticeable when the music changes to the drumming bit at the end. And at around 1:00 into the NASA video, there's a fake camera movement exactly like they use on BSG. Clive Thompson hits the nail on the head with his assessment of the similarities:

Actually, what really cracked me up was how strangely threatening the video seemed. There's all this creepy, minor-key horror-movie music, combined with bleed-in text that ominously proclaims: "We took a giant leap ... we stopped ... we're going back." Then there's a shot of a lunar vessel approaching and impassively snapping pix through its single HAL-like eye. Then boom! It's all action, with a bunch of rovers thundering across the lunar surface like beetles while launch-ships swirl overhead, all set to unsettlingly thumpy action music. It feels precisely like the trailer to the upcoming Transformers movie ... except in this case the invading, marauding aliens are us. Why, yes, we humans are returning to the moon -- because we're gonna dismantle it and SLAUGHTER ANYTHING IN OUR PATH.

"And they have a plan." Perhaps we now know where the 13th Colony is going?

I don't, as a rule. But I'd be lying if I said that, whilst flipping channels between lawyer show reruns and budget home renovations, I don't sit up and take notice of the beautiful naked people fondling each other on channel 39.

Fridays Without Borders is, in theory, Showcase's lineup of "sexy" shows.

But if "sexy" is defined as "Arousing or tending to arouse sexual desire or interest," then the word is a poor fit. These shows need a different word, one that means merely "containing much sex" - a word that is less "buy this issue of Cosmo!" and more "These chips may contain trans fats."

I'm suggesting "sexful".

You remember the debate among sticklers over "healthy" vs. "healthful"? The argument went that "healthy" means "in good health", so a meal can't very well be "healthy." So they invented "healthful" to indicate "good for you." (More sensible folk said that was nonsense.)

Anyhow, that's the sort of nuance we need here. Fridays Without Borders shows are possessing sex, but probably not conducive to sex. At least not with anyone else.

The subject matter is theoretically sexy: bikini babes, porn, bondage, one night stands, etc. But it's awfully clinical. It's like nobody involved in the process had ever actually been aroused themselves, but were told to go out and film things that were listed under "sex" in the dictionary.

The shows? Well, there's Porno Valley - interchangeable blonde porno stars reenforce your preexisting stereotypes. Sin Cities - A nerd named Grub finds the icky parts of the global village; bring sanitizer. Family Business - Seymore Butts should have stayed a Simpsons prank call. Kink - Hideous Nova Scotians have difficulty learning how to spank each other. Webdreams - After 10 episodes, we learn that running a sleazy website is almost as unintersting as running any other website.

This shouldn't come as a surprise - most of these shows are reality TV. They are to lovemaking what Survivor is to camping and The Apprentice is to doing your taxes. Theoretically applicable, mildly intriguing, but in the end you're glad you don't have to hang around with those jerks.

Even if they're sexful.

I'm not being a prude here, just let down that TV really doesn't get the difference between lurid and erotic. And it makes me ask: when was the last truly sexy (not sexful) thing you saw on TV?

----------------

Notes:

- Now that I do a web search for that word, I see that it was used on Futurama by none other than Zapp Branigan - a cartoon prototype for the jerks I was talking about. If ever there was a proof of my sexy/sexful thesis, he's it!

- I'll say this for Fridays Without Borders, though - at least I now understand Ouimet's reference to Emmanuelle 2000: Emmanuelle Pie. Eeep!