Not most people’s favourite episode. Not my favourite either. But overall, it’s actually well done and makes a lot of sense in context. Besides, Bill Duke!!! Who doesn’t love Bill Duke?
Another reminder that this isn't the idealized universe of Star Trek, but far closer to reality. Closer to reality than most folks are comfortable acknowledging. The Las Vegas Strip and Bourbon Street in New Orleans are great examples. In both places, tourists are strongly cautioned against venturing off the brightly lit street into the shadows, where it can get very dark, very quickly. Even those are mild examples in the global perspective.
Thankfully, I've never ventured beyond the lights on the strip. I didn't even know spots like that existed in places like the strip and bourbon street. Wouldn't there be heavier footfall of police especially because of tourists (and because of the nature of both places)?
I realized while watching the episode this time, that there were two black markets: one on the Pegasus and one within Galactica's fleet. This episode was about the merger that was taking place between those two black markets. Fisk was killed by Duke's character when he made his move to take control of Pegasus' BM.
It had to happen. Their society has been smashed. Are there banks? Who determines the value of currency? You have ppl who have too much and those that need much. This also is a call back to the original BSG where "socialators" basically prostitutes were completely acceptable and even blessed by the religious authorities.
I actually love this episode. It is a filler but it adds depth to the characters. We learn more about Lee's past and it gives you an opportunity to think about these characters a bit and their unique situation. Their lives is destroyed, their homes are destroyed, everyone they knew before and wasn't on these ships are dead. The weight that must put on them must be immense. It affects most decision they make because of the regret/guilt they carry day after day. We get to see some of the day to day workings of the fleet, the mundane stuff nobody pays attention to but I love these details they add so much to the world. The less than perfect supply distribution is kinda understandable, imagine running a system that wasn't even supposed to exist, using whatever shuttles and small craft survived the attack and was saved by the fleet when they fled the Colonies and doing this between Cylon attacks, always at the ready to jump if they show up. Of course its not perfect but its what they have. As for the cigars, there are several ships in the fleets that were cargo haulers running between planets and Boomer picked them up and brought them to the fleet in the miniseries. I guess they had a lot of stuff onboard. This is not really explained well but I would imagine they are huge. Our large cargo ships (PANAMAX) are about 300 meters long so if you scale that up you can imagine how huge those ships might be. The fleet has less than 50k people left so I would imagine whatever they were carrying would last a while. This is a really dark episode but this is the kind of stuff that made BSG different in tone and I applaud the writers to had the balls and go to these places. Shit like this would no doubt exist and it makes the entire world more believable because places like this are real today. This show explores the very bast and the very worst of humanity and shying away from the bad stuff would make the show dishonest. As for Tigh being promoted to for the CO of Pegasus. He would make a good CO, he knows his stuff and have a good amount of tactical experience. That situation would be entirely different than the last time, he would be in command of a Battlestar not the entire fleet full of civilians. I firmly believe that he would've done much better if he only had the Galactica to look after instead of a fleet of rioting civilians clamoring over something he didn't even do lol. He handled that really poorly but it was a really bad situation to begin with and he was totally unprepared for it.
I liked it too. Fillers give us a break from time to time. That's a good point. The Pegasus isn't full of civilians so he might do better with his "stern" way of doing things.
@@RamblersInc I mean he can't be worse than Cain when it comes to being stern lol But at least he has tactical experience and he would never go against Adama, he loves the old man and they work well together. In my opinion Tigh taking over the Pegasus would've been the best thing that could've happened to that ship and the rest of the fleet. They needed someone to keep their morale up, a solid military leader and their next CO was just not it.
Add my vote to Black Market is the most disliked episode! There are some that believe that Lee's girlfriend's gesture at her stomach was indicating that she was pregnant and since he didn't want the baby, she was going into that building to "have it taken care of." That's way the building loomed so large in Lee's flashbacks. That's only a theory though. As for the supplies of all of those luxuries, some ships may have been moving goods between colonies, not just transporting people when the first attack happened. Now, the thing that I doubt is that people would bring enough things worth trading for those goods. I know there are "jobs" but is there really enough pay to make this work?
Gina is a totally separate Six model from Caprica Six. Gaius had a physical relationship with Caprica Six on Caprica for two years before the attack on the colonies. Head Six is most closely connected to Caprica Six, but still separate from her. Gaius hasn't physically seen Caprica Six since she saved him from the blast in his lake house during the miniseries, but he obviously sees Head Six every day. Gina is the first physical Six model he's been in contact with since Shelley Godfrey tried to accuse him of treason. I think it's safe to say he is projecting his own memories and feelings for HIS Sixes onto Gina, who is nothing like his Sixes and has ZERO of their memories. Make sense? As for the episode, it's collectively one of the least liked bottle episodes amongst the fandom, and for good reasons. The Lee storyline with the escort and her daughter really came out of left field, as did the flashbacks of the woman he was with before the attacks. The writers were clearly trying to figure out what to do with the Pegasus now that Cain is gone and we needed some character-centric bottle episodes to fill in some negative space before the end of the season. We get some genuinely good character development, especially in the next episode after this one. This episode shines an uncomfortable light on the more base and deprived members of the remaining humanity, and Lee has some truly great moments, but somehow the episode still falls a bit flat. Luckily for us, it's a rare occurrence. I don't believe BSG has any truly BAD episodes.
Gotchya 👍 And good point. I never thought about the fact that he sees her every day and is never able to touch her. I liked the whole organised crime (if you can call it that) / mafia-ish elements of it. But that might just be the magic of Bill Duke.
Yes and no. While your world is being destroyed, you still think practically and would keep things that can be traded. As for the woman, she was telling Apollo that she was pregnant, so he dumped her.
Easily the worst episode in all of BSG. This is when the network executives were trying to push the show into individual episode arcs like most other shows.
I don't think it would have worked trying to turn it into arcs, but the rare "filler" episode is good in any show. Plus we got Detective Apollo. Hell, now I'm thinking they should have gone full crazy, put a black and white filter on top, give him a fedora and made it a noir 😂
Not most people’s favourite episode. Not my favourite either. But overall, it’s actually well done and makes a lot of sense in context. Besides, Bill Duke!!! Who doesn’t love Bill Duke?
He's so good at playing the bad guy
@@RamblersInc 100%
Gina is a Six. She is not Baltar's Six who is Caprica Six. As for Head Six...keep watching.
Another reminder that this isn't the idealized universe of Star Trek, but far closer to reality. Closer to reality than most folks are comfortable acknowledging. The Las Vegas Strip and Bourbon Street in New Orleans are great examples. In both places, tourists are strongly cautioned against venturing off the brightly lit street into the shadows, where it can get very dark, very quickly. Even those are mild examples in the global perspective.
Thankfully, I've never ventured beyond the lights on the strip. I didn't even know spots like that existed in places like the strip and bourbon street. Wouldn't there be heavier footfall of police especially because of tourists (and because of the nature of both places)?
This is the reason I could never really get into ST and why BSG is my favourite show.
I realized while watching the episode this time, that there were two black markets: one on the Pegasus and one within Galactica's fleet. This episode was about the merger that was taking place between those two black markets. Fisk was killed by Duke's character when he made his move to take control of Pegasus' BM.
Oh wow. I just missed that entire bit as well.
The infamous black market episode. It tends to get a lot of negative feedback but personally I still enjoy this episode...it has frakin' Bill Duke!!!
It had to happen. Their society has been smashed. Are there banks? Who determines the value of currency? You have ppl who have too much and those that need much. This also is a call back to the original BSG where "socialators" basically prostitutes were completely acceptable and even blessed by the religious authorities.
Yeh it's not your typical BSG episode but we still liked it.
@@RamblersInc Me too, even BSG's lesser episodes are still better than the majority of what's on the tele.☺️💚
Best part of this episode is the musical theme "Black Market" (on the soundtrack)
I actually love this episode. It is a filler but it adds depth to the characters. We learn more about Lee's past and it gives you an opportunity to think about these characters a bit and their unique situation. Their lives is destroyed, their homes are destroyed, everyone they knew before and wasn't on these ships are dead. The weight that must put on them must be immense. It affects most decision they make because of the regret/guilt they carry day after day.
We get to see some of the day to day workings of the fleet, the mundane stuff nobody pays attention to but I love these details they add so much to the world. The less than perfect supply distribution is kinda understandable, imagine running a system that wasn't even supposed to exist, using whatever shuttles and small craft survived the attack and was saved by the fleet when they fled the Colonies and doing this between Cylon attacks, always at the ready to jump if they show up. Of course its not perfect but its what they have.
As for the cigars, there are several ships in the fleets that were cargo haulers running between planets and Boomer picked them up and brought them to the fleet in the miniseries. I guess they had a lot of stuff onboard. This is not really explained well but I would imagine they are huge. Our large cargo ships (PANAMAX) are about 300 meters long so if you scale that up you can imagine how huge those ships might be. The fleet has less than 50k people left so I would imagine whatever they were carrying would last a while.
This is a really dark episode but this is the kind of stuff that made BSG different in tone and I applaud the writers to had the balls and go to these places. Shit like this would no doubt exist and it makes the entire world more believable because places like this are real today. This show explores the very bast and the very worst of humanity and shying away from the bad stuff would make the show dishonest.
As for Tigh being promoted to for the CO of Pegasus. He would make a good CO, he knows his stuff and have a good amount of tactical experience. That situation would be entirely different than the last time, he would be in command of a Battlestar not the entire fleet full of civilians. I firmly believe that he would've done much better if he only had the Galactica to look after instead of a fleet of rioting civilians clamoring over something he didn't even do lol. He handled that really poorly but it was a really bad situation to begin with and he was totally unprepared for it.
I liked it too. Fillers give us a break from time to time.
That's a good point. The Pegasus isn't full of civilians so he might do better with his "stern" way of doing things.
@@RamblersInc
I mean he can't be worse than Cain when it comes to being stern lol
But at least he has tactical experience and he would never go against Adama, he loves the old man and they work well together. In my opinion Tigh taking over the Pegasus would've been the best thing that could've happened to that ship and the rest of the fleet. They needed someone to keep their morale up, a solid military leader and their next CO was just not it.
Another good point. Less chance of a mutiny. I hope the next one in charge doesn't mess it up
Add my vote to Black Market is the most disliked episode! There are some that believe that Lee's girlfriend's gesture at her stomach was indicating that she was pregnant and since he didn't want the baby, she was going into that building to "have it taken care of." That's way the building loomed so large in Lee's flashbacks. That's only a theory though.
As for the supplies of all of those luxuries, some ships may have been moving goods between colonies, not just transporting people when the first attack happened. Now, the thing that I doubt is that people would bring enough things worth trading for those goods. I know there are "jobs" but is there really enough pay to make this work?
That's a sad little story we got told in flashbacks.
Pay turns into goods or even favours real quick.
Gina is a totally separate Six model from Caprica Six. Gaius had a physical relationship with Caprica Six on Caprica for two years before the attack on the colonies. Head Six is most closely connected to Caprica Six, but still separate from her. Gaius hasn't physically seen Caprica Six since she saved him from the blast in his lake house during the miniseries, but he obviously sees Head Six every day. Gina is the first physical Six model he's been in contact with since Shelley Godfrey tried to accuse him of treason. I think it's safe to say he is projecting his own memories and feelings for HIS Sixes onto Gina, who is nothing like his Sixes and has ZERO of their memories. Make sense?
As for the episode, it's collectively one of the least liked bottle episodes amongst the fandom, and for good reasons. The Lee storyline with the escort and her daughter really came out of left field, as did the flashbacks of the woman he was with before the attacks. The writers were clearly trying to figure out what to do with the Pegasus now that Cain is gone and we needed some character-centric bottle episodes to fill in some negative space before the end of the season. We get some genuinely good character development, especially in the next episode after this one. This episode shines an uncomfortable light on the more base and deprived members of the remaining humanity, and Lee has some truly great moments, but somehow the episode still falls a bit flat. Luckily for us, it's a rare occurrence. I don't believe BSG has any truly BAD episodes.
Gotchya 👍
And good point. I never thought about the fact that he sees her every day and is never able to touch her.
I liked the whole organised crime (if you can call it that) / mafia-ish elements of it. But that might just be the magic of Bill Duke.
Yes and no. While your world is being destroyed, you still think practically and would keep things that can be traded. As for the woman, she was telling Apollo that she was pregnant, so he dumped her.
Very true.
Yeh, that's messed up from Apollo.
Easily the worst episode in all of BSG. This is when the network executives were trying to push the show into individual episode arcs like most other shows.
I don't think it would have worked trying to turn it into arcs, but the rare "filler" episode is good in any show. Plus we got Detective Apollo. Hell, now I'm thinking they should have gone full crazy, put a black and white filter on top, give him a fedora and made it a noir 😂
The very definition of filler, redeemed slightly by the presence of the great Bill Duke.
This is my most hated episode of the whole show and even that wasn't to bad
😂