Found this on the AICN talkbacks

I agree. I hope the finale was rushed because they have something grand planned for the second half of the season.

I thought it was awesome, best ep of the season bar none. Tense and exciting. I can't believe people here weren't into it... for shame!

"Be careful of what you wish for, you just may get it." By finding Earth, one that has been ravaged through apocalyptic events and laid to waste, the BSG writers have thrown a collective curveball to its fans, who thought the last season would find the gang making steady progress to Earth, along the way of having to deal with Cylon civil war, the end to Cylon resurrection, the introduction of primal Cylon skin-jobs playing hide-n-seek, thus a handful of dramatic devices buoying the bulk of the first half of season 4.

Now, how do humans and Cylons live together if they decide to settle on Earth and rebuild and repopulate (perhaps other locations have less radioactivity at the ground level for improved habitability). Or do they go looking for another planet to host them all? Will humans and Cylon battle for dominance (do genocidical dictates return to promote the cleansing either "race")?

I suppose the bigger philosophical questions that are raised deal with sentience, and the fight to sustain it wherever it can be supported. Using these rather unthinkable developments (Cylon civil war - borne of human nature infiltrating the Cylon survival instincts, and the relative ease of the final 5 to infiltrate the human societal framework in the fleet) from each side, somehow both sides have come together to support each race's fight for survival in a truce benefiting both sides, rather than accepting the null proposition of mutually assured destruction of their races if they acted otherwise.

Now we have a half season to explore the questions of trust and survival between 2 warring races, and are the needs to sustain life and produce progeny enough to provide a socio-politico fabric where humans and Cylons continue to meld and blend until the union of man/machine is both commonplace and necessary for the next step in their progression for survival in light of limited resources (extending a metaphorical mirror to reflect the current day climate between the various races and countries on earth)?

if you check google earth for the area around the brooklyn bridge, you won't see anything with a dome. at first i thought it might have been ellis island they landed at. why a temple by the bridge?

Just a shot in the dark but I'm guessing it was supposed to be the Temple Lee and Kara were looking at in the book that was supposed to be on Earth.
I liked it, I didn't love it. The POTA ending is tired, but I'm willing to go with it. I am excited to see where they go from here though as with the exception of who the the final cylon is, we don't really have any big questions to get answered so they could end up really throwing us a curve ball in those last episodes.

but why the temple by the bridge

and if the final 5 have been to earth before why is earth destroyed? did they blow up earth? and why the secret?

why not? There may be something behind the location but my guess is putting it there was just an easy way to juxtapose the nuclear wasteland with being NYC.

Dagnabit! I've been very hard on this season so far and as this episode was coming to an end I said that if they landed on Earth and it wasn't all nuked to sh*t I was going to finally give up and not watch the rest of the upcoming episodes. So now they've trapped me again.

When was that? Only Anders was shown out of his quarters after the handshake, and he could've been under guard.

But even if they weren't locked away, I think Tigh coming forward with an admission of what he is and even telling Adama to put him in the airlock, confirmed that he's as loyal as Athena.

Translation: He may be an idiot, but he's our village idiot.

Just wanted to chime in that this was easily my favorite episode of the season. It wasn't perfect, but so much closer to what I came to expect from BSG.
How long do we have to wait to see this to completion now?

I see two possible paths the story can take through the end of S4:

- The rest of the Cylons (the one's on the other side of the civil war) show up and demand to reproduce with the seed-and-egg-bearing Humans, or
- The Humans and the Rebel Cylons encounter Cloverfield, which is the real reason why NYC was fubar.

You are right, let me restate:

Why are the four allowed to be doing they would normally be doing and not locked up in the brig? They are Cylons. Networked machines connected to other machines. They can be switched on and given nefarious commands. Athena should not be allowed to roam.

And oh yeah, Romo pulling a gun on Lee was stupid.

Step 1. Humans grow and prosper on Earth.
Step 2. Humans get nuked.
Step 3. Remnants of human race fly out to space, land on Kobol.
Step 4. Humans grow and prosper on Kobol and, later, the 12 colonies.
Step 5. Humans get nuked.
Step 6. Remnants of human race fly out to space, land on Earth.
Step 7. Repeat Step 1.

AKA, the circle of life.

Damn. What a waste of a trip. Earth is nuked.
Ashame we have to wait 6 months now.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....stars-fin.html

As "Battlestar Galactica" gets ready to air its mid-season finale on Friday, there are two bits of good news to share regarding the show.

According to well-informed sources, it’s almost certain that at least one “Battlestar Galactica” TV movie will be made this year.

Here’s even better news: Up to two hours may be added to “Battlestar’s” final run of episodes.

You heard that right: The last leg of the show’s final season could expand to 12 hours, instead of the originally planned 10 hours.

As he discussed here, the show’s executive producer, Ronald D. Moore, wrote "Battlestar's" final episode, which could be up to three hours long (a wild guess here: Sci Fi probably wouldn’t air the whole thing in one night). Mary McDonnell described her reaction to the script this way: It filled her with "an incredible feeling of adrenaline,” she told Ain't It Cool News. “It made me understand the entire saga, and made me excited for all of you.”

UPDATE: Here's a statement from from a Sci Fi spokesman: "As written by Ron, the phenomenal finale script extends beyond the time alotted for the episode. We're exploring how to shoot the extra footage as Ron has envisioned and written it."

As for when the final part of Season 4 will air, Moore has told TV Guide that it’s probably going to be in 2009. (Update: EOnline.com reports that the president of Sci Fi has said the last episodes will begin airing in the "first quarter" of 2009.)

egarding the “Battlestar” TV movie, as "Razor" did, it will probably air on Sci Fi first then be released on DVD within days (the preceding sentence was updated with new information from a Sci Fi rep). There’s no word on who will be in the movie, what it will be about and when it will air. All of that is still to be determined.

In a previous story, I’d reported that up to three films were being considered. Whether the other two “Battlestar” TV movies will get made is an open question at this point, but it is possible, according to my sources and according to Galactica Sitrep (which also has wall-to-wall coverage of Wednesday’s screening of the mid-season finale at Los Angeles’ Cinerama Dome).

The episode seemed rushed towards the latter half, but still was better than nearly the entire season combined.

Something I'm still not quite understanding is what the point of the final 5 (minus 1) being "sleeper" agents on Galactica was. Boomer was there to shoot Adama, Six got the codes to start the attack, etc. The 4 we know were there to just mill about, get caught, and tell Starbuck to look at a Viper? And if they knew all along where earth was, who programmed them to know that? The cylons certainly seemed as out of the loop as anyone in regards to where earth was, so they didn't know where it was any more than the humans did (other than in the old texts), so what was the point of the 4 revealed cylons being cylons?

i agree w/ that. I'm thinking we'll probably get an expanded episode once this hits DVD.

hell, the reactions of the crew to who the final 4 were could've been fodder for at least a full episode or 2.

I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the statue of liberty

Oh, well. I guess the cylons and the colonials now get to fight with post apocalyptic humans Mad Max Style. Series finale in Thunderdome?

And did anyone else see Cheif smiling in the background of the big reveal? Priceless

They're probably only adding two more episodes to stretch it out into 2 more years of 6 episode seasons.

there are bits in the Bible that suggest that Lucifer isn't evil and just doesn't agree with God all the time. With all the Biblical connections i'm guessing the Final 5 are like the fallen angels who were expelled from Heaven.

the attack on the colonies is the expulsion from Eden, the apple was the making of the cyclon by making new life and coming to Earth is when it says in Genesis that Adam had to till the hard earth and so forth after settling down with Eve.

I think I have it figured out. The original 5 cylons were the remnants of the cylons created by the tribe on Earth. The devastation was probably the result of a war by machines (think terminator). These 5 models were probably found by another race and activated, planted with the colonies. (most likely the beings of light angle from the original series being responsible for that in this one)

This would explain why the cylons didn't know who the final 5 were (key word final) and the final 5 when activated didn't know themselves until someone (beings of light) sent the signal to make them aware.