BSG Preview: “Guess What’s Coming To Dinner”

This week’s episode of Battlestar Galactica, “Guess What’s Coming To Dinner," has got a lot of Cylon intrigue to deal with…as the title suggests. We got video clips, plus another video Q&A, Caprica casting news and more.

 

Airing tonight, May 16th at 10 PM (9 Central)

“Guess What’s Coming to Dinner” [Season 4 Ep. 7]
Synopsis: President Roslin faces challenges as the Colonials plot with Cylon rebels to destroy a Resurrection Hub.

TV Spot


(YouTube)

Sneak Peek

Watch first 10 minutes online
SciFi.com streams 10 minute sneak peeks starting every hour, on the hour, between 9AM and 4PM Eastern (CLICK TO WATCH). Also recent episodes of BSG are available online (ad supported) at SciFi.com and Hulu.com

Battlestar news of the week:
Video Q&A Michael Hogan (Col. Tigh)

BSG Effects blogging
Battlestar (and former Trek) effects artist Adam ‘Mojo’ Lebowitz has started a new blog where he shows off, and talks about a lot of his effects work. In one of the more interesting posts, he examines the new CGI BSG-TOS Cylons, created for Razor, here is one image comparing the two. See his blog for more (and more here too). 


Is it love?

Stoltz joins Caprica
Another well known actor has joined the cast of the BSG prequel, Caprica. Eric Stoltz has signed on to play Daniel Graystone, a wealthy computer engineer who, after an emotionally crippling family tragedy, uses his technological wizardry to forever change the future of Caprica. Also added to the cast was Alessandra Toressani, who will play Daniel’s daughter, Zoe. [THR]


Stoltz headed to “Caprica”

Didn’t Nana look great?
Last week’s episode featured DS9’s Nana Visitor, and actually through most of the episode she looked pretty bad. But she was dying so she had an excuse, and in her last scene she did look great.


Visitor visits with Roslin on BSG

Frakkin’ Links

A NOTE ON COMMENTS
The comments section below is for the majority of Trek fans who are also BSG fans. It is to discuss the series, the week’s episode and anything else related to the preview article above. If you are not a fan of the show, then why are you even reading this far down into this post? There are plenty of Trek stories so just move on. Any flaming of BSG will be considered trolling. If you have issues with this site having one BSG column a week, then make a note in the site feedback page.

 

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BSG is really shaping up well this season.I thought that Nana Visitor played her part so well.Roll on the rest of the season.

Frakkin’ cool cylon design link. I have purchased all the episodes on DVD and have Razor just waiting, unopened for viewing after the wife and I finish season three. The pictures and article in the link have me completely stoked for it. I am decidedly in the camp that thinks that season four is great and I love last weeks episode. This week looks equally great. I say great a lot when it comes to this series.

My only complaints are splitting the season up from June to January. Hate it. And the lack of decent Galactica collectibles. Titaniums were OK. Too small. The resin statues are way overpriced and have quality issues from what I have come to learn from people who have bought them. C’mon DST, Hasbro, JL. Somebody get to making an affordable Galactica collectible. A model, anything. There’s money to be made off us suckers. Well, at least me.

Okay, I’m cool with reading about BSG here … but when you start using the acronym “TOS” to refer to original Galactica, it sprains my head :)

“Guess who’s coming to dinner.”

Whenever I see that phrase, I hear Walter Koenig’s voice in the back of my head.

Oh wait. That’s “Guess *what’s* coming to dinner?”

My bad.

Alas this column is actually not for mutual fans of BSG and Trek it is only for US citizens who are mutual fans of BSG & Trek as the video library can only be streamed within USA ;(

#4 same here!!!!

Every time I see Nana Visitor I wonder what is wrong with her nose!

#6 – There’s no world outside of US, didn’t you know?

All those violators of the internet neutrality will surely burn in hell. Meanwhile, go rent yourself a VPN. :-)

Definitely have to give props to Nana Visitor for last week. That performance was downright amazing.

#6 – Regardless of the streaming access, the column IS for EVERYBODY! Issues with the streaming content should be taken up with the source of the streaming content which is usually scifi.com. They are forced to place regional restrictions on the materials until such time as the current episodes make it overseas. Anthony has no control over that.

I get Hulu stuff regularly here in Sweden off of YouTube, but the streams from TM.COM are always off-limits. I really want to see the previews because I’ll go buy the shows.

Sci-Fi Channel Office weekly meeting:

CEO: Well, all. Just wanted to have our weekly update. Let’s start with Marketing.

Marketing Drone: We’re successfully streaming BSG preview content via Hulu to almost 400 million people in North America.

CEO: Is that the audience, or the total population?

Marketing Drone: Ummm, it’s the population, sir.

CEO: “What about the other 5.6 billion?”

Marketing Drone: “Do you mean…people, sir?

CEO: “Yes…Are you saying that Marketing doesn’t know the population of the Earth?”

Silence

CEO: What are we doing for the 500 million people who live in the 27 member states of the EU (plus Norway)? BSG has been available on Region 2 there for a long time. There are 1.2 billion people in China, and almost a billion in India plus 160 million in Russia. How are the streaming previews going in these countries? How about Australasia? The Middle East?”

Marketing Drone: “Mmmm, sir, you’ll have to ask the London office…?”

CEO: “We don’t have a frigging London Office!

Marketing Drone: “Sir, we’re streaming the previews via HULU to websites for Trekkies and Star-Wars-Heads.”

CEO: “You mean we’re paying to have previews streamed to sites frequented by our core North American audience!?”

Silence

CEO: “Why do we pay to stream BSG preview content only to loyal consumers of the product!?”

Silence

CEO: “I’M SICK OF THE SILENCE! WHY?”

Silence

Marketing Drone: “Sir? Umm, perhaps I, ahh, could explain Nielsen’s demographic matrix., and break down the household num…”

BAMMM!

CEO shoots Marketing Drone.

CEO: “Ladies and Gentlemen: We have a brand. It’s called Battlestar Galactica. It’s sh*t-hot with geeks here in America. There are lots of ’em, and we make money hand over first on it. Get it out to the rest of the world! Now!”

Jane from HR: “Sir? You killed the Marketing guy. I am here from HR and Ted is representing Finance and IT. Anything else you’d like us to do today?”

THE END

The cylon pics are awesome. Thanks!

Thanks for all the great BSG stuff! I can hardly wait for tonight’s episode, and I’m loving that title (like others, I also heard Walter Koenig’s voice when I saw it for the first time, even with the clever twist).

I agree, Nana Visitor did an amazing job last week — it was SO nice to see her. She and Mary McDonnell knocked their scenes out of the park. Please, someone needs to wrap up an Emmy and hand it to Mary. :-)

In all fairness, the purpose behind the streaming videos above is to drum up excitement for Season 4. If Season 4 hasn’t yet arrived in a specific region/country, then they’d be holding back on these until such time as it is. Otherwise, the marketing guys would feel they’d blown the momentum.

#2 its very annoying that they split up the season the way they have, I just want to findsd out all the answers, By the way something to consider with regard to the 5th Cylon, thinking out loud here. What if the 5th cylon is on Earth? maybe that is where the transmission that activated in the 4 came from or theres went transmissions but downloads, Maybe thats waht really happened to Tigh,Tyrol,Anders and Tory, the 4 were possbily down loaded into them from somewhere presumably Earth?

Another possibility for earth being the origin point again ties into the phrase “I has happened before and it will happen again. What if there are no real humans left at all, what if Earth were where the final five originated,On earth mankind created machines who rebelled, and slaughtered them all, the machines over time forgot they were machines and then went to the stars and founded kobol , again they created their race of machines who in turn wiped them out took their place thought and like them forgot they were machines, they in turn founded the 12 worlds, then of course this group created the Cylons rebelled, evolved to become like humans wiped out most of the colonists, now they in turn have a civil war. If you stop and look at it its machines replacing machines. Nasty if it turns out to be true

# 16 Thats a pretty good theory and would explain alot.

Did anyone else notice Pres Roslins deceased mother looked exactly like Barbara Bush?

did anyone notice michelle forbes on lost last night? Who was also obviously commander Caine of the Pegasus on last nights episode of lost? Sorry if it has been mentioned already. She played her role last well.

#16 I like that theory.

If almost as if they are looked an eternal programing loop, and maybe this means that there is not hope for any of them. I also keep thinking of Adama speech on the Galatica Miniseries when he referred to the Colonials not the Cylons as the Flawed creation, Curious choice of words if you go back throughout the series Ron Moore has probable put other clue that this might all be the case

EnsignR was on my knee for last week’s ep. I’m hoping he’s up to it again tonight… that is, that he’s up.
I don’t know if he’s following all the backstory, cause he was only born three months ago, but he likes the lights and colors.
It’s a start.

There’s a lot of focus on Hera. What about Chief and Cally’s baby?

Maybe the 5th Cylon is … everybody else :)

I’m sure this has been mentioned before, but I can see a couple of different ways to go: 1. What if when they do get to earth, they become the Greek gods that we know from our mythology? or, 2. What if they get to only to find Arik Soong (or somebody like him) building the original model of Centurions? As long as they don’t land in the middle of WWII wearing white uniforms and riding motorcycles.

Wow! Flashback!

That picture of the old vs. new Cylons reminds me of something…

Can you say Maximillian and V.I.N.CENT from the Black Hole?

http://www.podster.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/fotos/maximillian.gif

#16- great post. I would be happy if that were the ending. I thought, though, RM said that the 5th is in the fleet, but not one of the leads.

#21- Nice memory! At the time, I took that as a religious statement. But since this show is intertwining religious themes along with everything else, maybe we’re both right.

#25- Interesting theories. I’m kind of hoping for option #1. I’ve heard some rumors that they find a post-apocalyptic Earth. If so, that will be a dark turn. Then again, didn’t Katie Sackoff say that they wrote the mid-season cliff-hanger as a possible series ender and that it would be dark? So maybe a nuked-out, desolate Earth is in the cards after all.

Or KITT vs. KARR….

Dr.

V.I.N.C.E.N.T. and Maximillian remind me of R2-D2 and a Elite Battle droid.

BTW fun factoid: Did you know R2D2 got his name from a film can from American Grafitti? It stands for Reel 2- Dialog 2.

It’s truly amazing how different Michael Hogan is from Col. Tigh. I have no idea how they looked at him and thought “Saul.” But, I’m sure glad they did.

“CEO: What are we doing for the 500 million people who live in the 27 member states of the EU (plus Norway)? etc.”

Not Sci-Fi Channel’s problem. They only have the rights to show BSG in the US – why should they pay to promote it in other countries where they don’t make any ad revenues?.

Last weeks BSG was amazing, Nana is a wonderful actress and she was very convincing. Its too easy to fall into parody when playing the part of a dying person, but she was brilliant.
Mary was as amazing as ever too.

#18
Yes Yes!!!
I totaly thought that too.

Hail Nana! Hail Nana! (yes, and Hail Mary but that was too obvious of a pun). Mary and Nana were great.

One question I have is this….if the fifth cylon is with the fleet. Let’s say on the Galactica (big assumptions I know). Would that model had heard the music like the other four? My guess would be yes. Has anyone notice anyone missing since then (not always but not outgoing)? I do not remember seeing Dualla one-on-one for a while. I know James Barber might have leaked that she may not be human? I am just looking someone who might be internally anguished (wait, that could be anybody).

Too cool all the allusives in BSG to Star Trek:

– This time “Guess what’s coming to dinner”,
– last time “the undiscovered country”
– some time ago weapons Locker 1701D :D
– In the miniseries the TOS Enterprise flies in the background as one ship of the fleet.

And I bet there are a lot more, let’s search them

By killing Six Sharon may have assured that she will loose Hera to something greater, The scenein the vision of the Opera house with Baltar, Hera and Six looked like wedding, and Hera is a sybol of unity between Colonial and Cylon, a coming together, of both, What do opera house do, They stage drams, mostly, and mostly Tragedies, Like the one between the Colonials and the Cylons, Baltar, Six and Hera like a symbolic family are going to heal that divide, which their actions caused. Need one or two more pieces of information, to be sure on this. The scene in the Last Supper where Tigh Is looking threatingly at Sharon and Helo is to warn them off about harming Caprica Six whom he seems to care about if next weeks episode is any indication. The clues and meanings of the Last Supper are falling into place. Gaeta’s singing also ties into the opera house because in Opera there is music and sing which also have meaning in opera drama and story.

The last supper was followedd by a crucifixion and 3 days later a resurrection,Baltar(John the Baptist), Six( Messiah Redeamer), Hera(Rebirth), 3 days Ressurection, Baltar, Six and Hera, the number 3 symbolism ? Need more info on this one.

The last supper is interesting in that the cast in the portrait may correspond with the figures in Divinci’s last suppe. Complicating trying to figure it all out is the fact that the series storylines are Retro arked.

Each of the cast member in the last supper could correspond with those in Divinci’s last supper, all the clues are there, but complicating things is the fact that the storylines are retro arked.

Then again Opera seems to always portend tragedy for both sides maybe Baltar,Six and Hera are the only ones to make it to through the gates of heaven and redeption. Just a thought thats all.

Garovorkin, I’m not convinced that the #6 she shot is dead. Really, badly wounded, but maybe not dead.

#42 sean i still think that Sharon and Helo are going to lose Hera, that she Baltar and Six have some higher purpose in all of this maybe they represent the beginning of a new and tragic cycle or maybe hope this time, the only troubling thing is the Opera house symbolism, Operas seem to involve a large share of tragic dramas, but who knows. It is possible that six might be alive, but it doesn’t look good.

I am totally frakked now between all that happens on BSG, in the Lost season finale, part 2, and watching indy 4 on monday… May was always my favorite month ;))

Its a shame the next episode won’t air for two weeks. FRAK!

#44

How are you lucky enough to see Indy 4 on Monday??

#43

I think you’re on the right track, though it seems to me that the 6 in the vision is the Caprica 6, since she shares the dream with the President & Sharon-Athena (and Hera as well).

Also, did anyone else think the lawyer from Baltar’s trial could be a Cylon? I thought about it at the time, but hadn’t had much time to consider him this season. Given they flashed his face for next week’s episode (er, the week after that I guess), it sort of reminded me of that suspicion.

hey sean, you noticed ;))
Its a press preview following the Cannes premiere tonight…

Hey Trek Movie peoples…I cannot thank you enough for your constant links over to Galactica Sitrep…

(also: mind your spelling *g*)

I think I know how Sharron looses Hera, simple Both Sharron amd Helo are doomed to die. And Hera gets raised by six and Baltar.

#47

Nice! You’ll have to give us an opinion (without spoilers, of course).