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Battlestar Galactica
"Sometimes a Great Notion"
TV episode
Written by David Weddle & Bradley Thompson
Directed by Michael Nankin
Original air date: January 16, 2009
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Where go the remnants of humanity
when their hopes and dreams for Earth turn to dust?
Read the summary of the episode at the Battlestar Wiki
Didja Know?
The opening titles show the fleet at a population of 39,651,
down 14 from the previous episode
"Revelations", without explanation. One death in that
episode was the
Galactica crewman who was spaced by D'Anna aboard the rebel
baseship. The others are unexplained, though possibly suicides
in the fleet after Earth was found to be an uninhabitable
radioactive wasteland at the end of
"Revelations" (though only the landing parties seem to know
about the condition of Earth at the beginning of this episode;
the fleet itself learns of it officially through an announcement
by Apollo in front of the Quorum). It is implied in our current episode that
virtually everyone in the fleet has become despondent after this
discovery and some even suicidal.
Dee commits suicide in this episode, but is
seemingly not one of the 14 deaths above, as Apollo is seen to
erase the "1" from the "39,651" on the
population board in the president's office on Colonial One
near the end of the episode.
The title of this episode,
"Sometimes a Great Notion", is borrowed either from the 1964 Ken
Kesey novel of the same name or from the lyric the novel derived
its title from, in the 1933 song "Goodnight, Irene" by Lead Belly
(Huddie William Ledbetter, 1888-1949):
Sometimes I lives in the country
Sometimes I lives in the town
Sometimes I haves a great notion
To jump into the river an' drown
This episode runs 3.5-4 minutes longer than the average BSG
episode.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this episode
Colonel Tigh
Baltar
Sam Anders
Dee (dies in this episode)
Apollo
President Roslin
Helo
Admiral Adama
D'Anna Biers
Starbuck
Leoben Conoy
Tory Foster
Specialist Figurski
Hardball
Athena
Hera
Specialist Tyrol
Caprica Six
Number Eight
Number Six
Lt. Gaeta
Ellen Tigh (in photo and vision only)
Bill Adama's uncle (mentioned only, deceased)
Lt. Hoshi
Specialist Marcie Brasko
John Cavil (mentioned only)
Didja Notice?
Although the preamble plays at the beginning of this episode,
the main titles do not. I guess the producers wanted to use that
extra 30 seconds for story this time.
Baltar's study of the ground and ruins of Earth indicate a
nuclear war occurred about 2000 years ago, leaving the water and
food chain contaminated. The rebel Cylon teams discover the same
thing.
At 9:00 on the Blu-ray, human/Cylon teams investigating the
ruins on Earth find the head of a Centurion-variant, indicating
Earth human(oids) may have developed their own version of Cylons
that rebelled against them, leading to war and nuclear
annihilation.
During the flashback visions Tyrol and the others have about
their past on Earth, depicted are numerous humanoids who all look
different from each other. Since the "current-time" human and
Cylon investigations of the planet indicate that the humanoid
skeletons found on the planet are all Cylon, these Cylons must
have had much more than just twelve humanoid models. Also, these
humanoid Cylons, unlike their current counterparts, were
apparently capable of producing children.
When he finds the broken remains of a guitar on Earth, Anders
begins singing the lyrics of "All Along the Watchtower", the
song that four of the Final Five Cylons in the human fleet heard
in "Crossroads" Part 2. His
flashback here indicated he used to play guitar in his life on
Earth. Did he also write that song? Or was it a song he borrowed
from someone else? According to Ron Moore's audio commentary for
this episode, the scene was meant to suggest that he wrote it on
Earth 2,000 years ago.
At 31:48 on the Blu-ray, a couple of people appear to be marking
the walls of the Galactica corridor with the bird-like
symbol of the cult of Baltar.
At 32:00 on the Blu-ray, as Admiral Adama stalks down the
corridor with a pistol in his hand, notice that the pilot
sitting on the steps on the right-hand side cautiously moves his
hand to his own holstered sidearm! It seems he was a bit worried
the old man was about to go on a shooting spree!
The pistol that Adama pulls out of the locker in Colonel Tigh's
quarters is a Vektor CP1.
Adama tells Tigh of an uncle who had a farm that he would visit
in the summers as a kid. Adama's father, Joseph Adama, had just
one brother, Sam (seen in episodes of
Caprica), who would
have been Bill Adama's uncle. Sam, as depicted in
Caprica,
did not live on a farm at the time and doesn't seem like the
type to start, but who knows? It's also possible that the uncle
was on his mother Evelyn's side. Yet another possibility is that
that it was an uncle by marriage into the family, possibly even
Larry, the man who was Sam's husband.
When Starbuck walks in on Apollo in the president's office, she
has a gauze bandage on her neck for unexplained reasons.
According to Ron Moore's audio commentary for this episode, a
scene was cut where she suffered an injury from a tree branch or
something while looking for the source of the Colonial signal on Earth's
surface.
Starbuck apparently reports that she lost the
Colonial signal she had detected while on the surface of Earth.
Of course, we the viewers saw that it led to the crash site of
her original Viper 8757-NC which contained her own corpse. It
seems she doesn't want anyone to know about that, now unsure
herself of what she is (though Leoben was there with her to see the
corpse).
It seems she may have been about to tell Apollo the
truth about what she found, saying, "I need to talk. I've
got to tell somebody," but is then told by Apollo about
Dee's suicide, which most likely forestalled any other
conversation between them for the moment.
At 40:02 on the Blu-ray, someone has spray-painted "FRAK EARTH"
on a
Galactica bulkhead.
Lt. Hoshi is assigned Dee's former position as communications
officer in CIC.
Returning to CIC with Tigh, Adama orders Lt. Gaeta to find the
closest G, F, or K-Class star system. These star types are the
same classifications used by astronomers in the real world to
designate stars believed most likely able to have systems
bearing life.
At 41:39 on the Blu-ray, Apollo goes through a box of
Dee's personal effects. It looks as if the labeling on
the box originally had the name "Dualla D." on it and
was altered to make the second "D" look like an "A".
Dualla was nicknamed "Dee" based on the first letter of
her last name; her actual first name, not frequently
used on the show, was Anastasia. |
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At the end of the episode, Colonel Tigh walks out into the
ocean. Was he going to commit suicide by allowing himself to be
pulled out to sea to drown as hinted at by Adama's story of the
foxes pulled out to sea on Caprica and by Tigh's conversation
with D'Anna just prior (D'Anna: "Don't you ever want to stop
fighting it, Colonel? Hmm? Don't you just want to stop all of
this?" Tigh: "And just ride the tide out to sea.")
Fortunately, he sees a vision of his wife Ellen in the water as
he walks out from the shore and he realizes both she and himself
lived on Earth 2,000 years ago...meaning Ellen is the last of the
Final Five...and may have been resurrected.
In Tigh's flashback to life on Earth, we hear that both he and
Ellen had their same first names as they do now. The last name
is not revealed.
Notes from the deleted scenes on the
Blu-ray release
Helo and Athena attend a gathering of the cult of Baltar to
listen to him speak.
Unanswered Questions
What happens to D'Anna after this episode? She chooses to stay
behind on the wasteland Earth and is not seen again.
Ellen Tigh was tested by Baltar with the Cylon detector he'd
made in "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down". He
seemed to say at the time that her result was "green" (human).
Did Baltar's test fail to detect that Ellen was Cylon? Or was
his remark just part of his decision that it was easier if
everyone's test was green (as he did with Boomer's test in
"Flesh and Bone")?