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Sometimes a Great Notion (Battlestar Galactica)
Encyclopedia
"Sometimes a Great Notion" is the thirteenth episode in the fourth season of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica
. It aired on television on SCI FI
and Space in the United States
and Canada
respectively on January 16, 2009 and on Sky One
in the United Kingdom
on January 20, 2009. This episode is the first after the mid-season finale of the fourth season ("Revelations
"), which aired on June 2008. The episode title is a reference to the novel of the same name
, written by Ken Kesey
. The episode was also the last to be written before the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike
. It received a Nielsen rating
of 1.6 and was received positively throughout.
The episode continues from "Revelations", where both the colonial fleet and the rebel Cylons finally found Earth, only to find it devastated by a nuclear holocaust at least 2,000 years ago from the series' perspective, and the discovery leads to despair all across the fleet. The episode was not given an opening title sequence, but the survivor count for the episode was 39,651.
devastated by a nuclear holocaust, which occurred at least 2,000 years prior to the events of the episode. After research on the bodies found in the soil, the Cylons
and Dr. Baltar
(James Callis
) conclude that the remains are not Human, but Cylon in origin. The rebel Cylons further state that the mechanical Cylon remains resemble older Centurions of theirs but are of a kind unknown to them. Following this, they speculate that the Thirteenth Tribe consisted of a different kind of Cylon which existed over 2,000 years ago and moved out from Kobol to populate Earth. When addressing the fleet, Admiral Adama (Edward James Olmos
) never states this fact, leaving the fleet in the belief that the Thirteenth Tribe was human. Meanwhile, Samuel Anders
(Michael Trucco
), Galen Tyrol
(Aaron Douglas
) and Tory Foster
(Rekha Sharma
) receive short memories of their lives on Earth 2,000 years ago. Kara Thrace
(Katie Sackhoff) has Leoben
(Callum Keith Rennie
) help track the origins of the beacon. However, what they find is a crashed viper, with a corpse with Starbuck's dog tags
. After Kara recites what the Hybrid has told her, Leoben becomes scared and retreats, with Thrace wondering what she is. In shock, Thrace takes the body and burns it on a pyre, and decides to not tell anyone about what she found, making people believe she lost the signal.
In the fleet, President Roslin
(Mary McDonnell
) burns her book of Pythia, and is unable to address the fleet because of feeling that she led the fleet nowhere, and believing the prophecy is a lost cause. Lee Adama
(Jamie Bamber
) and Anastasia Dualla
(Kandyse McClure
) revisit their relationship, and after their evening together, Dualla returns to her quarters, and commits suicide
. Devastated by this, Admiral Adama acquires a handgun from a Marine and attempts to coerce Tigh
(Michael Hogan) into killing him, which fails. Adama breaks down relieved and converses with Tigh about past memories, and Tigh reminding Adama of his duties as commander of the fleet. Adama eventually steps back into the CIC, and makes an announcement that he will find a home for the fleet, gives instructions to search for any nearby habitable star systems, and invites their new Cylon allies to join them. As the fleet prepares to leave Earth, D'Anna (Lucy Lawless
), devastated by the knowledge that history repeats itself endlessly, decides to remain on Earth to die, rather than being hunted by Cavil. Tigh walks into the sea and receives a flashback of his Earth life, and after he realizes that his wife, Ellen
(Kate Vernon
) is the last of the Final Five Cylons, when a dying Ellen tells Tigh that "everything is in place", and that they will be "reborn, again, together" before they are destroyed by a nuclear blast.
." According to co-writer David Weddle, the title of episode was chosen as co-writers David Weddle and Bradley Thompson outlined their story for the producers. The title is taken from the Ken Kesey
novel, Sometimes a Great Notion
. While writing the novel, Kesey made notes in which he urged himself to make the novel's protagonist quit living, and this became the theme of this episode as well. Weddle stated that he and the other writers were inspired by the idea of taking a strong, heroic character and piling misfortunes on him or her until finally the character breaks:
The "fox in the river" story told by Admiral Adama comes from the novel, but also from real-life incidents with wildlife swimming out to sea near Weddle's home in Malibu, California.
The decision to have Lt. Dualla
commit suicide in this episode was made after the writing staff felt there had to be fallout from discovering that Earth was a nuclear ruin. Moore explained:
Dualla fit this best because she had lost two men whom she loved, and all she had left was the hope of finding Earth. Moore also came up with the idea that Dualla's suicide was actually an act of hope and control, not despair.
Although the network had concerns that the script was too depressing, Moore successfully defended the writing by saying that it might be the last episode of the series and that viewers who had stuck with the show for three and a half seasons would not be put off by yet another "dark" episode. Writers Weddle and Thompson considered giving the characters some leeway in interpreting what they had found. Among the options debated were giving the fleet some hope that Earth might be some other planet, allowing a character to discover a new part of the Prophecy of Pythia, giving one of the characters a vision of an Earth-like planet, and placing a clue in the ruins that would direct the fleet to yet another planet. All were rejected.
Weddle and Thompson also worked extensively on the scene in which Admiral Adama tries to provoke Col. Tigh into killing him. Moore encouraged Weddle and Thompson to give the Adama character progressively crueler lines. The writers were the ones who inserted the line in the script in which Adama mentions Ellen Tigh's sexual infidelity. On the set, however, actor Edward James Olmos changed the line from Adama saying Ellen wanted a man with "real blood in his veins" to "main vein," then ad-libbed the line in which the character said, "I could smell her." The scenes where Dualla finds the set of jacks
and where Laura Roslin holds the plant cutting were added by director Michael Nankin. Weddle notes that although Nankin usually peppers his writers with script notes, he did not do so for this script.
Cost estimates indicated that the script, as originally written, would be $300,000 over budget (about two-and-a-half times what the studio would have permitted) and a number of scenes were cut. An extensive opening segment which would have depicted the destruction of Earth was changed to the filmed segment in which Tyrol sees a flash of light and his shadow is left on a wall. However, Nankin restored the scene in which Helo, Dualla, Adama and Roslin ride back to Galactica in the Raptor.
, the concept that Ellen and Saul Tigh's relationship was more than an average husband-and-wife relationship went back to the pilot mini-series for Battlestar Galactica but was not made part of the story arc for the two characters until the middle of Season 3. As writing progressed on the episode "Torn
," the writing staff needed to explain why Baltar would not see all 12 Cylon models aboard the base star. Moore came up with the concept of five Cylon models that had yet to be revealed. Later, during writing sessions for the episode "Rapture
," D'Anna Biers has a vision in which she confronts the Final Five Cylons in the opera house on Kobol
and apologizes to one of them. Although Moore and the writing team had yet to formally settle on Ellen Tigh as one of the Final Five, Moore says it was his intention for the Cylon to be Ellen. When one of the final four Cylons was revealed to be Saul Tigh in the episode "Crossroads
," Moore finally decided to make Ellen the fifth Cylon because "Tigh being revealed as a Cylon was such a profound shift in that character, such a big leap for the show, that it felt really natural that she was also a Cylon."
A clue to the final Cylon's identity was inserted into the episode when Col. Tigh sees his wife's face on the Number Six
model. Moore's decision was revealed to the writing team at series writers' conference which occurred between Season 3 and Season 4. Other characters were considered as the final Cylon model, but the writing staff agreed none had the same resonance as Ellen Tigh. The decision to reveal Ellen Tigh's true identity in "Sometimes A Great Notion" was made because Moore did not want Season 4.5 to devolve into a guessing game about who the final Cylon might be, and because he wanted the final episode of the series to be about issues other than who the final Cylon was.
began. Revised script pages were turned in the day before the strike. Moore decided that the crew should proceed as if shooting would be green-lit, and flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, to speak to the cast and crew before the strike began. The strike proved so vexatious that the studio did not give approval for shooting to occur until the night before it was to begin.
The cast and crew were very emotional during filming, as they were concerned that this might be the last episode ever filmed and the series cancelled if the strike was a lengthy one. Olmos helped to work up the cast's emotions for the shoot by telling everyone that the show was ending. According to co-writer Weddle, Olmos repeatedly told the cast, "This is the end, I think we all feel that. They're not going to bring the show back. They'll pull the sets down. We'll never shoot another episode." Actress Kandyse McClure improvised the lullaby her character hums before committing suicide, and series composer Bear McCreary
used the melody for part of the episode's musical soundtrack.
, who portrayed Number Three. They only had Lawless for one day during the filming of the episode. Most of the Earth scenes were shot on and around Centennial Beach, in Tsawwassen, British Columbia
. Two days before the shoot much of the location set was destroyed by a rain storm with 90 km/hour winds, but the art department crew repaired it in time for the shoot to occur on schedule.
The final shots for the episode "Revelations" were filmed in the three hours immediately preceding the shooting of the beach scenes for "Sometimes A Great Notion." Director Michael Rymer, who helmed "Revelations," and Nankin agreed that all Earth sequences should be reminiscent of the work of film director Ingmar Bergman
, so wide camera lenses were used, the color was desaturated, and long rather than short takes were used.
The scene in which Adama goads Tigh was scheduled to last a day. Originally the segment was to be shot in small bits and flashbacks edited between each line, but the scene was instead shot as one long take. Actors Olmos and Michael Hogan struggled for several hours to find the right emotional tone. Moore said that the audience should accept the irradiated planet as Earth. "They have found Earth. This is the Earth that the 13th Colony discovered, they christened it Earth. They found Earth."
. This included 1.3 million adults age 18-to-49 (the show's target demographic), and 1.4 million adults age 25-to-54. The episode was the top cable program in the 10 p.m. slot among men age 18-to-49 and men age 25-to-54 the night it premiered. The ratings for the episode increased 23 percent over the Season 4.0 average in household ratings and total viewers, increased 21 percent over the same period for adults age 18-to-49, and increased 15 percent over the same period for adults age 25-to-54. According to Nielsen live-plus-seven-day ratings data, an additional 0.7 million viewers watched the episode via time-shifted digital video recorder
, a 32 percent increase over the day-of-delivery airing. Time-shifted viewing added 540,000 adults aged 18-to-49 (a 38 percent increase over same-day numbers) and 500,000 viewers aged 25-to-54 (a 35 percent rise).
Eric Goldman of IGN
gave "Sometimes a Great Notion" an "incredible" rating of 9.5 out of 10. The reviewer quoted the episode as "stronger and sadder than ever," and was executed "extremely well." Goldman felt that the episode did not back down from the deeply powerful storylines from the past, and praised the emotions of the fleet after finding Earth in ruins. The Guardian
received the episode positively, stating how many events happened during the course of the episode, and felt that the episode played fair with its audience, despite the number of new questions being addressed. It was anticipated that Dualla would play a big part in the episode after her appearance from the cold open
. Her suicide was compared with Boomer shooting Adama
in the closing scene of season 1 in a dramatical sense. The Guardian also praised the performance between Edward James Olmos
and Mary McDonnell
's characters, as well as the standoff between Adama and Tigh.
Matt Norris of Cinema Blend
stated that most of the events portrayed in the episode were unexpected, including Dualla's suicide, Starbuck finding her own supposed body, discovering the thirteenth tribe were Cylons
, and that Ellen Tigh
is the final model, but still thought the episode was among the top five Battlestar Galactica episodes in its run. Marc Bernardin of Entertainment Weekly
stated that a lot had been going on in the episode, but criticised the writers' decision of having Ellen as the fifth Cylon. While Dualla's suicide was surprising for Bernardin, he was critical about the Adama scene after her suicide, stating it as "some of Olmos' worst acting in the series", and that the answered questions for the episode raised more questions, but felt the episode was good overall. Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger
commented: "What really grabs me about the show (as I discussed in today's column) is its humanity, the way its characters react to situations the way you imagine real, contemporary people might" and felt that "as the stakes for the characters has risen, so has the intensity of [the actors'] performances," with even the extras in character. Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune
praised Nankin's directing, particularly "the moment in which we see Kara Thrace, silhouetted in black against a dark blue sky, preparing to burn “her” body—that’s sent a shiver down my spine. That was just such a beautifully operatic image, spot-on in tone and perfectly executed."
Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American military science fiction television series, and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson...
. It aired on television on SCI FI
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
and Space in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
respectively on January 16, 2009 and on Sky One
Sky One
Sky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One , ITV and BBC Two...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on January 20, 2009. This episode is the first after the mid-season finale of the fourth season ("Revelations
Revelations (Battlestar Galactica)
"Revelations" is the tenth episode in the fourth season of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. It first aired on television in the United States on June 13, 2008. The episode serves as the mid-season finale of the fourth season, with the concluding episodes of the series airing after a hiatus...
"), which aired on June 2008. The episode title is a reference to the novel of the same name
Sometimes a Great Notion
Sometimes a Great Notion is a 1964 novel by the American author Ken Kesey.Sometimes a Great Notion may also refer to:* Sometimes a Great Notion , a 1970 film adaptation of the novel...
, written by Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
. The episode was also the last to be written before the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike
2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike
The 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, more commonly referred to as simply the Writers' Strike, was a strike by the Writers Guild of America, East and the Writers Guild of America, West ....
. It received a Nielsen rating
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of 1.6 and was received positively throughout.
The episode continues from "Revelations", where both the colonial fleet and the rebel Cylons finally found Earth, only to find it devastated by a nuclear holocaust at least 2,000 years ago from the series' perspective, and the discovery leads to despair all across the fleet. The episode was not given an opening title sequence, but the survivor count for the episode was 39,651.
Plot
Both the Human fleet and the rebel Cylons are disillusioned after finding EarthEarth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
devastated by a nuclear holocaust, which occurred at least 2,000 years prior to the events of the episode. After research on the bodies found in the soil, the Cylons
Cylon (reimagining)
Cylons are a race which appear in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series and its prequel Caprica. They have several forms, some of which resemble and even mimic the behavior of humans, while others are mechanical in appearance and function.In the first DVD, one of the show's creators...
and Dr. Baltar
Gaius Baltar
Gaius Baltar is a fictional character in the TV series Battlestar Galactica played by James Callis, a reimagining of Count Baltar from the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series...
(James Callis
James Callis
James Callis is a British actor. He is best known for playing Dr. Gaius Baltar in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, and Bridget Jones' best friend in Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason...
) conclude that the remains are not Human, but Cylon in origin. The rebel Cylons further state that the mechanical Cylon remains resemble older Centurions of theirs but are of a kind unknown to them. Following this, they speculate that the Thirteenth Tribe consisted of a different kind of Cylon which existed over 2,000 years ago and moved out from Kobol to populate Earth. When addressing the fleet, Admiral Adama (Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt...
) never states this fact, leaving the fleet in the belief that the Thirteenth Tribe was human. Meanwhile, Samuel Anders
Samuel Anders
Samuel T. Anders is a fictional character from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series, played by Michael Trucco...
(Michael Trucco
Michael Trucco
Edward Michael Trucco is an American actor with Italian roots. He is best known for his role as Samuel T. Anders on the reimagined Battlestar Galactica and currently appears as a series regular on the USA Network television series Fairly Legal.-Biography:A native of San Mateo, California, he...
), Galen Tyrol
Galen Tyrol
Galen Tyrol is a character on the television series Battlestar Galactica. Tyrol is responsible for the maintenance of the Vipers and Raptors aboard Battlestar Galactica...
(Aaron Douglas
Aaron Douglas (actor)
Aaron Douglas is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his role as Galen Tyrol on the Sci Fi Channel's television program Battlestar Galactica....
) and Tory Foster
Tory Foster
Tory Foster is a fictional character from the 2004 TV series Battlestar Galactica, portrayed by Rekha Sharma.-Character biography:Tory, like the other members of the Final Five, was originally from a planet called Earth...
(Rekha Sharma
Rekha Sharma
Rekha Shanti Sharma is a Canadian actress best known for her portrayal of Tory Foster on Battlestar Galactica.Her ancestors are from the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, which they left during the British period. Her family resettled in the Fiji Islands and her parents moved to Canada...
) receive short memories of their lives on Earth 2,000 years ago. Kara Thrace
Kara Thrace
Kara Thrace is a fictional character in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica franchise. Played by Katee Sackhoff, she is a revised version of Lieutenant Starbuck from the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series...
(Katie Sackhoff) has Leoben
Leoben Conoy
Leoben Conoy is a fictional character portrayed by Callum Keith Rennie appearing in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series....
(Callum Keith Rennie
Callum Keith Rennie
Callum Keith Rennie is a British-born Canadian television and film actor. He started his career in Canadian film and television projects, where his portrayal of Stanley Raymond Kowalski in the TV series Due South was his first international success...
) help track the origins of the beacon. However, what they find is a crashed viper, with a corpse with Starbuck's dog tags
Dog tag (identifier)
A dog tag is the informal name for the identification tags worn by military personnel, named such as it bears resemblance to actual dog tags. The tag is primarily used for the identification of dead and wounded and essential basic medical information for the treatment of the latter, such as blood...
. After Kara recites what the Hybrid has told her, Leoben becomes scared and retreats, with Thrace wondering what she is. In shock, Thrace takes the body and burns it on a pyre, and decides to not tell anyone about what she found, making people believe she lost the signal.
In the fleet, President Roslin
Laura Roslin
Her first actions include organizing all FTL-capable ships together and convincing Commander William Adama to abandon a retaliatory attack on the Cylons. President Roslin and Billy Keikeya, her aide/press secretary/chief of staff, establish a working office space aboard her transport, renamed...
(Mary McDonnell
Mary McDonnell
Mary Eileen McDonnell is an American film, stage, and television actress. She received an Academy Award nomination for her role as Stands With A Fist in Dances with Wolves, and she is also very well known for her performance as President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, the President's wife...
) burns her book of Pythia, and is unable to address the fleet because of feeling that she led the fleet nowhere, and believing the prophecy is a lost cause. Lee Adama
Lee Adama
Leland Joseph "Lee" Adama is a fictional character in the television series Battlestar Galactica. He is portrayed by actor Jamie Bamber. He is one of the main characters in the series.-Early life:...
(Jamie Bamber
Jamie Bamber
Jamie Bamber is the stage name of Jamie St. John Bamber Griffith , a British actor known most widely for his roles as Lee Adama on Battlestar Galactica and Detective Sergeant Matt Devlin on the ITV series Law & Order: UK...
) and Anastasia Dualla
Anastasia Dualla
Anastasia "Dee" Dualla, portrayed by Kandyse McClure, is a fictional character in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica.-Character history:...
(Kandyse McClure
Kandyse McClure
Kandyse McClure is an actress, best known for playing Anastasia Dualla on the Sci Fi Channel's television program Battlestar Galactica.- Biography :...
) revisit their relationship, and after their evening together, Dualla returns to her quarters, and commits suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. Devastated by this, Admiral Adama acquires a handgun from a Marine and attempts to coerce Tigh
Saul Tigh
Saul Tigh is a fictional character on Battlestar Galactica played by Michael Hogan. The character was named Paul Tigh in early scripts, and was renamed due to legal issues, according to producer Ronald D. Moore. He is one of the main characters of the show.-Overview and personality:Saul Tigh is a...
(Michael Hogan) into killing him, which fails. Adama breaks down relieved and converses with Tigh about past memories, and Tigh reminding Adama of his duties as commander of the fleet. Adama eventually steps back into the CIC, and makes an announcement that he will find a home for the fleet, gives instructions to search for any nearby habitable star systems, and invites their new Cylon allies to join them. As the fleet prepares to leave Earth, D'Anna (Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless, MNZM is a New Zealander actress and singer best known for playing the title character of the internationally successful television series Xena: Warrior Princess....
), devastated by the knowledge that history repeats itself endlessly, decides to remain on Earth to die, rather than being hunted by Cavil. Tigh walks into the sea and receives a flashback of his Earth life, and after he realizes that his wife, Ellen
Ellen Tigh
After she is killed for treason against the resistance on New Caprica, Ellen resurrects aboard a Cylon ship, where John Cavil holds her prisoner. However, by downloading into a new body, she regains the memories that Cavil had blocked decades earlier...
(Kate Vernon
Kate Vernon
Kate Vernon is a Canadian-born film and television actress. She is best known for her roles as Lorraine Prescott on the CBS soap opera Falcon Crest from , the stuck-up and popular Benny Hanson in the comedy film Pretty in Pink , Mary-John Lovejoy in The Lost Colony Feature of Lovejoy and...
) is the last of the Final Five Cylons, when a dying Ellen tells Tigh that "everything is in place", and that they will be "reborn, again, together" before they are destroyed by a nuclear blast.
Writing
This episode was written back-to-back with the Season 4.0 episode, "RevelationsRevelations (Battlestar Galactica)
"Revelations" is the tenth episode in the fourth season of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. It first aired on television in the United States on June 13, 2008. The episode serves as the mid-season finale of the fourth season, with the concluding episodes of the series airing after a hiatus...
." According to co-writer David Weddle, the title of episode was chosen as co-writers David Weddle and Bradley Thompson outlined their story for the producers. The title is taken from the Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
novel, Sometimes a Great Notion
Sometimes a Great Notion
Sometimes a Great Notion is a 1964 novel by the American author Ken Kesey.Sometimes a Great Notion may also refer to:* Sometimes a Great Notion , a 1970 film adaptation of the novel...
. While writing the novel, Kesey made notes in which he urged himself to make the novel's protagonist quit living, and this became the theme of this episode as well. Weddle stated that he and the other writers were inspired by the idea of taking a strong, heroic character and piling misfortunes on him or her until finally the character breaks:
What happens in that moment? Does he despair? Does he get up and go on? For me, there is no more defining moment for a character. We tried to do this with almost all the characters in this episode: [Adama], Laura, Kara, Lee. We ripped everything out from under them then sat back to see what they would do. What were their individual breaking points? And if they did break, would they stay broken or grope toward a recovery?
The "fox in the river" story told by Admiral Adama comes from the novel, but also from real-life incidents with wildlife swimming out to sea near Weddle's home in Malibu, California.
Anastasia Dualla
Anastasia "Dee" Dualla, portrayed by Kandyse McClure, is a fictional character in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica.-Character history:...
commit suicide in this episode was made after the writing staff felt there had to be fallout from discovering that Earth was a nuclear ruin. Moore explained:
There had to be a cost. There had to be a price somebody paid for that discovery. Not everybody could take that. Not everyone could just say, "OK, that didn't work out, let's go on to next week's episode." It felt like somebody would just say, "No, I'm done. I just want to find a little moment of time where I can feel good about myself one last time, then I'm finished with this long nightmare." And that seemed like that would be Dualla.
Dualla fit this best because she had lost two men whom she loved, and all she had left was the hope of finding Earth. Moore also came up with the idea that Dualla's suicide was actually an act of hope and control, not despair.
Although the network had concerns that the script was too depressing, Moore successfully defended the writing by saying that it might be the last episode of the series and that viewers who had stuck with the show for three and a half seasons would not be put off by yet another "dark" episode. Writers Weddle and Thompson considered giving the characters some leeway in interpreting what they had found. Among the options debated were giving the fleet some hope that Earth might be some other planet, allowing a character to discover a new part of the Prophecy of Pythia, giving one of the characters a vision of an Earth-like planet, and placing a clue in the ruins that would direct the fleet to yet another planet. All were rejected.
Weddle and Thompson also worked extensively on the scene in which Admiral Adama tries to provoke Col. Tigh into killing him. Moore encouraged Weddle and Thompson to give the Adama character progressively crueler lines. The writers were the ones who inserted the line in the script in which Adama mentions Ellen Tigh's sexual infidelity. On the set, however, actor Edward James Olmos changed the line from Adama saying Ellen wanted a man with "real blood in his veins" to "main vein," then ad-libbed the line in which the character said, "I could smell her." The scenes where Dualla finds the set of jacks
Jacks
Jacks is a playground game for children....
and where Laura Roslin holds the plant cutting were added by director Michael Nankin. Weddle notes that although Nankin usually peppers his writers with script notes, he did not do so for this script.
Cost estimates indicated that the script, as originally written, would be $300,000 over budget (about two-and-a-half times what the studio would have permitted) and a number of scenes were cut. An extensive opening segment which would have depicted the destruction of Earth was changed to the filmed segment in which Tyrol sees a flash of light and his shadow is left on a wall. However, Nankin restored the scene in which Helo, Dualla, Adama and Roslin ride back to Galactica in the Raptor.
The Fifth Cylon
According to showrunner Ronald D. MooreRonald D. Moore
Ronald Dowl Moore is an American screenwriter and television producer best known for his work on Star Trek and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, for which he won a Peabody Award for creative excellence in 2005 and an Emmy Award in 2008.-Early life and...
, the concept that Ellen and Saul Tigh's relationship was more than an average husband-and-wife relationship went back to the pilot mini-series for Battlestar Galactica but was not made part of the story arc for the two characters until the middle of Season 3. As writing progressed on the episode "Torn
Torn (Battlestar Galactica)
"Torn" is the sixth episode of the third season from the science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica. This episode introduces the concept of a "hybrid", a semi-organic computer which operates the Basestar and is believed by some Cylon models to "be" the Basestar.-Galactica:After...
," the writing staff needed to explain why Baltar would not see all 12 Cylon models aboard the base star. Moore came up with the concept of five Cylon models that had yet to be revealed. Later, during writing sessions for the episode "Rapture
Rapture (Battlestar Galactica)
"Rapture" is the twelfth episode of the third season from the science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica. Aired on January 21, 2007, this episode marks the return of regular broadcasting after the Christmas mid-season hiatus.-Plot:...
," D'Anna Biers has a vision in which she confronts the Final Five Cylons in the opera house on Kobol
Kobol
Kobol is the name of a planet in the fictional Battlestar Galactica universe.Within the context of both Battlestar Galactica stories, Kobol is the birthplace and original home of humanity, from which the civilization departed and formed the Twelve Colonies on other worlds...
and apologizes to one of them. Although Moore and the writing team had yet to formally settle on Ellen Tigh as one of the Final Five, Moore says it was his intention for the Cylon to be Ellen. When one of the final four Cylons was revealed to be Saul Tigh in the episode "Crossroads
Crossroads (Battlestar Galactica)
"Crossroads" are the nineteenth and twentieth episodes of the third season and season finale from the science fiction television series, Battlestar Galactica...
," Moore finally decided to make Ellen the fifth Cylon because "Tigh being revealed as a Cylon was such a profound shift in that character, such a big leap for the show, that it felt really natural that she was also a Cylon."
A clue to the final Cylon's identity was inserted into the episode when Col. Tigh sees his wife's face on the Number Six
Number Six (Battlestar Galactica)
Number Six is a family of fictional characters from the reimagined science fiction television series, Battlestar Galactica. She is portrayed by Canadian actress and model Tricia Helfer. Of the twelve known Cylon models, she is the sixth of the "Significant Seven"...
model. Moore's decision was revealed to the writing team at series writers' conference which occurred between Season 3 and Season 4. Other characters were considered as the final Cylon model, but the writing staff agreed none had the same resonance as Ellen Tigh. The decision to reveal Ellen Tigh's true identity in "Sometimes A Great Notion" was made because Moore did not want Season 4.5 to devolve into a guessing game about who the final Cylon might be, and because he wanted the final episode of the series to be about issues other than who the final Cylon was.
Writers' strike
The script for "Sometimes A Great Notion" was the only script finished by the time the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike
The 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, more commonly referred to as simply the Writers' Strike, was a strike by the Writers Guild of America, East and the Writers Guild of America, West ....
began. Revised script pages were turned in the day before the strike. Moore decided that the crew should proceed as if shooting would be green-lit, and flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, to speak to the cast and crew before the strike began. The strike proved so vexatious that the studio did not give approval for shooting to occur until the night before it was to begin.
The cast and crew were very emotional during filming, as they were concerned that this might be the last episode ever filmed and the series cancelled if the strike was a lengthy one. Olmos helped to work up the cast's emotions for the shoot by telling everyone that the show was ending. According to co-writer Weddle, Olmos repeatedly told the cast, "This is the end, I think we all feel that. They're not going to bring the show back. They'll pull the sets down. We'll never shoot another episode." Actress Kandyse McClure improvised the lullaby her character hums before committing suicide, and series composer Bear McCreary
Bear McCreary
Bear McCreary is an American composer and musician living in Los Angeles, California. He is known for his work on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series.-Biography:...
used the melody for part of the episode's musical soundtrack.
Filming
The producers intended for this episode to be the last to star Lucy LawlessLucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless, MNZM is a New Zealander actress and singer best known for playing the title character of the internationally successful television series Xena: Warrior Princess....
, who portrayed Number Three. They only had Lawless for one day during the filming of the episode. Most of the Earth scenes were shot on and around Centennial Beach, in Tsawwassen, British Columbia
Tsawwassen, British Columbia
Tsawwassen is a suburban, mostly residential community located on a peninsula in the southwestern corner of the Corporation of Delta, British Columbia, Canada. Tsawwassen provides the only road access to the community of Point Roberts, Washington via 56th Street...
. Two days before the shoot much of the location set was destroyed by a rain storm with 90 km/hour winds, but the art department crew repaired it in time for the shoot to occur on schedule.
The final shots for the episode "Revelations" were filmed in the three hours immediately preceding the shooting of the beach scenes for "Sometimes A Great Notion." Director Michael Rymer, who helmed "Revelations," and Nankin agreed that all Earth sequences should be reminiscent of the work of film director Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
, so wide camera lenses were used, the color was desaturated, and long rather than short takes were used.
The scene in which Adama goads Tigh was scheduled to last a day. Originally the segment was to be shot in small bits and flashbacks edited between each line, but the scene was instead shot as one long take. Actors Olmos and Michael Hogan struggled for several hours to find the right emotional tone. Moore said that the audience should accept the irradiated planet as Earth. "They have found Earth. This is the Earth that the 13th Colony discovered, they christened it Earth. They found Earth."
Reception
"Sometimes a Great Notion" was seen by 2.1 million total viewers in the U.S, earning the episode a 1.6 household ratingNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
. This included 1.3 million adults age 18-to-49 (the show's target demographic), and 1.4 million adults age 25-to-54. The episode was the top cable program in the 10 p.m. slot among men age 18-to-49 and men age 25-to-54 the night it premiered. The ratings for the episode increased 23 percent over the Season 4.0 average in household ratings and total viewers, increased 21 percent over the same period for adults age 18-to-49, and increased 15 percent over the same period for adults age 25-to-54. According to Nielsen live-plus-seven-day ratings data, an additional 0.7 million viewers watched the episode via time-shifted digital video recorder
Digital video recorder
A digital video recorder , sometimes referred to by the merchandising term personal video recorder , is a consumer electronics device or application software that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card or other local or networked mass storage device...
, a 32 percent increase over the day-of-delivery airing. Time-shifted viewing added 540,000 adults aged 18-to-49 (a 38 percent increase over same-day numbers) and 500,000 viewers aged 25-to-54 (a 35 percent rise).
Eric Goldman of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
gave "Sometimes a Great Notion" an "incredible" rating of 9.5 out of 10. The reviewer quoted the episode as "stronger and sadder than ever," and was executed "extremely well." Goldman felt that the episode did not back down from the deeply powerful storylines from the past, and praised the emotions of the fleet after finding Earth in ruins. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
received the episode positively, stating how many events happened during the course of the episode, and felt that the episode played fair with its audience, despite the number of new questions being addressed. It was anticipated that Dualla would play a big part in the episode after her appearance from the cold open
Cold open
A cold open in a television program or movie is the technique of jumping directly into a story at the beginning or opening of the show, before the title sequence or opening credits are shown...
. Her suicide was compared with Boomer shooting Adama
William Adama
William "Bill" Adama is a fictional character portrayed by Edward James Olmos in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series...
in the closing scene of season 1 in a dramatical sense. The Guardian also praised the performance between Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt...
and Mary McDonnell
Mary McDonnell
Mary Eileen McDonnell is an American film, stage, and television actress. She received an Academy Award nomination for her role as Stands With A Fist in Dances with Wolves, and she is also very well known for her performance as President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, the President's wife...
's characters, as well as the standoff between Adama and Tigh.
Matt Norris of Cinema Blend
Cinema Blend
Cinema Blend is a website founded and run by Josh Tyler dedicated to news and reviews of upcoming and currently playing films, movie projects, Television Shows, and a newly founded Music section which covers album reviews, band interviews and daily news from the industry. It combines gossip from...
stated that most of the events portrayed in the episode were unexpected, including Dualla's suicide, Starbuck finding her own supposed body, discovering the thirteenth tribe were Cylons
Cylon (reimagining)
Cylons are a race which appear in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series and its prequel Caprica. They have several forms, some of which resemble and even mimic the behavior of humans, while others are mechanical in appearance and function.In the first DVD, one of the show's creators...
, and that Ellen Tigh
Ellen Tigh
After she is killed for treason against the resistance on New Caprica, Ellen resurrects aboard a Cylon ship, where John Cavil holds her prisoner. However, by downloading into a new body, she regains the memories that Cavil had blocked decades earlier...
is the final model, but still thought the episode was among the top five Battlestar Galactica episodes in its run. Marc Bernardin of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
stated that a lot had been going on in the episode, but criticised the writers' decision of having Ellen as the fifth Cylon. While Dualla's suicide was surprising for Bernardin, he was critical about the Adama scene after her suicide, stating it as "some of Olmos' worst acting in the series", and that the answered questions for the episode raised more questions, but felt the episode was good overall. Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to The Jersey Journal of Jersey City, The Times of Trenton and the Staten Island Advance, all of which are owned by Advance Publications.The Newark Star-Ledgers daily...
commented: "What really grabs me about the show (as I discussed in today's column) is its humanity, the way its characters react to situations the way you imagine real, contemporary people might" and felt that "as the stakes for the characters has risen, so has the intensity of [the actors'] performances," with even the extras in character. Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
praised Nankin's directing, particularly "the moment in which we see Kara Thrace, silhouetted in black against a dark blue sky, preparing to burn “her” body—that’s sent a shiver down my spine. That was just such a beautifully operatic image, spot-on in tone and perfectly executed."
External links
- "Sometimes a Great Notion" at Battlestar Wiki
- "Sometimes a Great Notion" at SyfySyfySyfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...