As for your question of Daniel being Starbuck’s father, I think another reason it might be unlikely is that we already met Starbuck’s mother, and that was already one traumatic parent syndrome: to give her another would just be melodramatic overkill.

@ Yazmin – I have to say that the idea that Daniel was Kara’s father doesn’t work for me purely from a dramatic storytelling point. Allow me to elaborate – at the end of Season 3, when it was revealed that Tyrol, Anders, Tigh, and Tori were four of the Final Five Cylons, it was a major mind frak because it completely shook our impressions of who these characters are, if not casting a new light on what the implications are from their prior actions. The other important fact is that we were emotionally engaged with these characters in the sense that we’d been following their characters’ ups and downs and the various personal crises or issues they encountered. As a result of this, we had some emotional investment in what became of these characters. Now, remember how much debate there was on who the Final Cylon was – we all had our own ideas of who it could be and naturally, we all hand-picked characters who we’d been introduced to and who would have a palpable impact on both the series’ characters and the overall storyline (my choice for the Final Cylon was Admiral Cain. The implications that all these people on the Pegasus had fostered such hatred in the Cylons in large part due to their leader, who ended up being revealed to be a Cylon herself, would have been fascinating. I also theorized that we’d find out that it was Cylon Cain who orchestrated Starbuck’s return. How would that be for a mind frak? But I digress).

That’s why I have a problem with Daniel being Kara’s dad – our only connection to this character is his familial relationship to Starbuck. As we’ve never met the character before, his significance on his own is rather limited since we have no emotional connection to the character. It’s not enough for him to be valuable because of the consequences his true nature would have on Starbuck since she’s already a mess as is and such a revelation is unlikely to create any new character dynamics of note. That’s why ultimately I think the only role the Daniel character should really serve is to shed some light on John/Cavil’s internal drive against his creators since at this point, it’s a little too late for them to attempt to introduce a new character that we should be expected to have an emotional attachment to. It would also be an oversimplification for why Starbuck’s been such a fragmented character instead of something more meaningful and internal. It’s akin to people who insist on faulting the behaviour of their parents for their inability to be social functioning individuals. After a point, we all need to take responsibility for ourselves and passing off Kara’s behaviour as being a subconscious artifact of her dad’s true lineage wouldn’t be any less satisfying than if they had made her this unknown Daniel model.

Myles – And just like that, we’re back on the same page

@Myles – Of course. As if there could have been any doubt on that.

Seriously though, you brought up a very good point here, Myles, in regards to Anders. I completely agree with you that Anders has become a rather useless character since the return from Demetrius and I think your idea of his having these revelations spread out would have been much more dramatically interesting – if used judiciously of course as I wouldn’t care for him to become some variant of the Oracle of Delphi. Given his now vegetative state, I think we’ve seen the completion of his use in this series remaining storyline, which adds to the frustration of how this information was proffered since it does make it feel more like they were just dumping off information instead of creating a story. I know that a lot of fans have been eager to get these answers, but given the build-up toward finding them, this method of delivery really takes the wind out of this build-up.

And speaking of becoming more and more useless, I have to add that Tori’s presence is also becoming tiresome like Anders. Watching that scene in sickbay when Anders reveals that Tori and Tyrol were madly in love on Cylon Earth being met with snickers and chortles and Tori’s only response was just to stare in muted fashion effectively sums up her character’s inability lately to provide any momentum to the series. With the impending re-introduction of Boomer into the fleet, I think that will become even more evident since we’ll now have someone else playing the ‘my loyalty is now with my Cylon brethren’ card that Tori played at the start of this season.

I agree with you that one looming eventuality is the need to redefine what it means to be Cylon and what it means to be human, much as how Lee said they couldn’t rely on their old allegiances to planets now long gone. However, I hope that we don’t have a touchy-feeling “Can’t we all just get along?” finality to this series since I think it needs to be more open-ended, where the question can’t really be answered since as much as they now share similar biological (ability to reproduce) and neurochemical (emotional responses) functions, as John/Cavil pointed out, how they interact and/or perceive existence around them plays a big part in how they define themselves. And I don’t think these two traits are enough to imply that the gap between these two identities of Cylon and human can be so easily bridged.

I’ll be stopping by your blog to read your review and share my thoughts there as well.

@Sandy B – You’re right that the Centurions had succeeded in making hybrids, but remember in this episode, Ellen made it clear that they weren’t successful in making human hybrids. So my thinking is that the hybrids they were successful in making were the Cylon Raiders like Scar. For me, it’s a natural assumption to see the Centurions creating the Raiders first as their attempt to create a machine-biological hybrid since that’s what they’re familiar with, both in terms of functionality and behaviour. Remember how Boomer was treating Starbuck’s salvaged Raider like it was a pet? That for me reinforces this idea that they would have started with creating the Raiders and it was only when the Final Five came along that they were able to create the human hybrids, complete with naturalistic human behaviour responses – including as John/Cavill pointed out, the desire to sleep – which the Centurions wouldn’t have the ability to program due to a lack of knowledge of such concepts.

Although the basestar Cylon hybrids are non-interactive, it’s clear that they are not only essential, but almost revered by the other Cylons. Why would that be the case, unless perhaps this is what became of the Daniel model? I suppose we’ll find out one way or the other depending on how necessary or vital this detail is to the future storylines.

Wow, a huge reply. But that’s only because of some wonderful, engaging comments. Thank you to all three of you for sharing your thoughts.

Note: not bad. There are some fundamentally fascinating things there, as you laid out and as I laid out in my own review, but it just felt like the show dumping them out. This was especially frustrating after we went through the mutiny, which I felt moved too quickly without giving the philosophical underpinnings of the mutiny time to settle. There, I felt the subtle moments deserved more time outside of the plot, but here there was not plot: just a lot of conversations, a lot of revelations, and a lot of confusion. It’s important, all of it, but I really wish that we could have had some of this interspersed even over the last four episodes, if not further into the season. Anders has been useless since the Demetrius got back, so why not put him in this state earlier and have it tease out over time?

One thing I will contend with you on, though, is Starbuck.

But having her become a Cylon would be an even greater let down because of the obvious cop-out it presents – that the reason why Starbuck could never be grounded was because she wasn’t human and subconsciously knew it.

I don’t think the episode played to this at all, as long as you connect the dots between the two sides. The whole point is that “human” is becoming relative: you don’t need to BE human to feel human under Ellen’s philosophy, allowing Tigh and Caprica to bond over their child and allowing for even the skinjobs who were programmed to be less human to start relating to humanity in important ways (See: Athena). At the same time, you have someone like Baltar who can take on qualities of the Cylon religion and identity, perhaps losing part of his humanity but gaining something else.

(On that note, Baltar’s conversation with the Centurion about God and belief systems in 4.0 now makes more sense considering that the toasters were the source of monotheism).

I think that Starbuck’s search for identity is almost a red herring: the point isn’t which side of the binary she sits on, but rather where on the non-linear path between human and Cylon that she sits. If she is in fact Daniel, that doesn’t change who Starbuck is: her path is certainly more complicated than the Final Five or someone like Boomer, but I think the basic principles (someone who has been human for so long discovering they are something else) are more or less the same. But now that even the Cylons are clearly concerned with what it means to be more or less human, and Galactica is becoming part Cylon, I hope that we can finally start to get rid of this binary and move these two destinies together into one.

Which is what I wanted all through the mutiny arc, and what in this highly Cylon-centric exposition dump of an episode was still missing. Fingers crossed for it all being perfect setup for some great episodes in the back end.

For what it’s worth, while this episode was a lot of information, I expect they’ve set us up well for a what I hope to be a great rollercoaster ride to come.