Agreement on Roslin and Adama. My wife remarked "What is she, schizophrenic?" I was thinking bipolar. And I just know that the whole Tyrol-Adama relationship will go right back to hunky-dory next episode, which is insane considering that Adama just threatened to shoot his wife.

If Baltar has a lawyer for a trial by his peers, then the information is at least semi-public.

The whole Roslin going dictator is, I think, not a matter of the writers forgetting her character, it is a matter of Roslin forgetting what she stood for, and why. New Caprica changed her, in a not good way.

Adama being friendly with Chief after threatening to shoot his wife: seems rather military to me. Rules are, you mutiny, you die. He must have gone in there with orders to offer Tyrol one last chance (and that chance probably only due to the fact that the Tyllium production had beeen restarted and the Galactica crew were actually available to do their jobs in an emergency), since Tyrol backed down, he got his last chance. It is likely that both Adama and Tyrol knew full well that his order to execute the mutineer could (and in some ways, should) stand. He was really doing the Chief a favor by letting Callie live.

I worry about Roslin's future, if she keeps feeling a need to clamp down on people. She seems to sometimes know where she came from, with Baltar's trial and the forming of the Union, but she lost something that made her capital H human on New Caprica, and it is interesting to see how that loss plays out in the fleet, even if it makes her a bit icky.

That's not the case at all. I read somewhere that RDM actually asked for thirteen episodes because he feels it's difficult too write 20 episodes and have all of them to be top-class. In the two season we've had 20 episodes we've ended up with episodes like 'Black Market' and last weeks 'A Day in the Life'. If you have 13 episodes it's a lot easier to keep everything A+ and not stretch it out into these lackluster episodes.

As for this episode, I really loved how they showed us another side of the fleet. So far it's been the heroic actions of Starbuck, the intricacies of Adama vs Roslin politics and the actionpacked fight against the Cylons. This time they showed us how most people have it (although I hope not everyone is that dirty) and the problems they faced.

I agree on the slightly schizophrenic behavior of Adama, but I feel that, as Atras said, you mutiny, you die. It wasn't his direct feelings, but him following the rules. There should be some consequences of Papa Bear threatening to kill Chiefs wife.

And the ending was one of the most satisfactory endings so far on the show. Just had a great feeling the last few minutes. Seeing Starbuck back as drill sergeant was awesome and seeing how Tyrol treated Seelix was actually touching. Only the ending of 'Flight of the Pheonix' has been better as far as I'm concerned.

"People call me Starbuck. You may refer to me as God." Starbuck - Act of Contrition. Hope we see more of her

That goes back to my problem with The Occupation to begin with. They are very schizo about what The Occupation meant. On the one hand it caused people to change immensely. To become jaded, to become completely different characters. Then, meanwhile, major facts about that period of time have been seemingly forgotten. I don't think that's complex writing. I think that's sloppy writing.

I liked that episode. I'll agree that there were character continuity problems, but the episode just made the world of BSG more fleshed out. I think I just really like it when a show shows the good guys as bad guys because the world ain't black and white and I don't want my TV shows to be that way either.

I was put off by the refinery, to me it looked like they were just moving sand around.

Good points, I didn't really consider their isolation as much as that. Obviously Baltar couldn't care less about the actual working conditions and 'the plight of the people', but he has no problems playing off their needs for his own purpose. After all, that's what he does best.

True, but that doesn't explain 'previously about to be executed on Baltar's orders' Cally's buy-in, though I suppose there can be a case made for the character's lack of intelligence.

But more importantly, why is there a book to begin with? All of the show's and Katerin's points about why the workers would strike are still very valid, there really was no need to introduce that plot point. It's like a planning session went:

'So what do we need in a show about labor?'

'Dirt.'

'Yeah. And?'

'Cheers....fists. Machines.'

'Go on.'

'Pamphlets. Labor leaders. Manifestos?'

'Yeah, all right, cool. We need some sort of scheming demagogue...oh! Hey Callis, want to chew some more scenery? Baltar was a farm boy! What kind of accents can you do?'

Another case of them shaping the characters around what they want to do for any given episode. Their tendency to do that more and more lately is really, really hurting the show for me.

Anyone who could forget that she was saved from a death squad by a guy who sounds like Jammer, is about the same build as Jammer, and wears Jammer's clothes underneath his Brute Squad vest - that, perhaps, she may have been saved by Jammer himself - is easily capable of forgetting that it was Baltar who signed her death warrant. The show has established time and time again that Cally is an idiot. It's amazing she's able to dress herself in the morning; with that memory, she should be wrapped in a shawl, fourteen pairs of socks, and some tinsel.

I have no good answer to that other than to say that there's a historical precedent for it, that similar strikes and revolutions in the past were started with similar pamphlets. It's not that the ideas weren't there beforehand. It's just that somebody needed to vocalize them first.

As an aside: I want to know about the logistics of book-making aboard the fleet. Really, what kind of ship was it that had a printing press on board when the Cylons first struck? There doesn't seem to be any logical reason for a printing press to be aboard a ship, unless it was in storage, but then, why put a printing press in storage on a ship, and not in an attic or a warehouse somewhere? And where are they getting the paper and ink from? Logistics are probably the only thing that bothered me about Baltar's Book.

I really enjoyed the episode as just an episode of TV. I was interested in the plot and the characters and the way the good scenes were done, and of course the Chief, but I realized that the show is becoming Trek with its long sections of basically off-topic episodes between plot driving ones (Im referring mostly to DS9 and Voyager. Next Generation had basically no over-arching plot, ever). This season, if you add them all up its going to be close to half the episodes. It makes next year's choice to do far fewer episodes make a lot of sense. I sort of doubt Moore is any happier with this season than we are. I hope they can come up with something better to end the season on than just 'The Trial' too. I frankly have very little interest in where that is going.

Add an oven mitt = That's Hot.