Sometimes a Great Notion (Battlestar Galactica)

Both the Human fleet and the rebel Cylons are disillusioned after finding Earth devastated by a nuclear holocaust, which occurred at least 2,000 years before the events of the episode. The Cylons and Dr. Baltar (James Callis) conclude that bodies they exhume are not human, but Cylon. The rebel Cylons say the mechanical Cylon remains resemble older Centurions of theirs, but are of a kind unknown to them, and postulate that the thirteenth tribe consisted of Cylons that moved to Earth from Kobol. Admiral Adama (Edward James Olmos) withholds this theory when he addresses the fleet, leaving them to believe that the thirteenth tribe was human. Meanwhile, Samuel Anders (Michael Trucco), Galen Tyrol (Aaron Douglas) and Tory Foster (Rekha Sharma) receive memories showing they had lived and died on Earth 2,000 years ago. Kara Thrace (Katee Sackhoff) has Leoben (Callum Keith Rennie) help track the origins of the beacon. They find a crashed Colonial Viper containing a corpse with Starbuck's dog tags. After Kara recites what the Hybrid has told her, a shaken Leoben 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, feeling discouraged she led the fleet to their doom, believing the prophecy a false lost cause. Lee Adama (Jamie Bamber) and Anastasia Dualla (Kandyse McClure) revisit their relationship, and after their nostalgic evening together, Dualla returns to her quarters feeling more joyful than she had in months, then with a smile promptly dies by suicide with a shot to the head. Devastated, Admiral Adama acquires a handgun from a marine and attempts to goad Tigh (Michael Hogan) into killing him. After Tigh refuses, a dejected Adama reminisces about past memories. Tigh reminds Adama of his duties as commander of the fleet. Adama eventually steps back into the CIC, and announces that he will find a home for the fleet, orders a search for nearby habitable star systems, and invites their new Cylon allies to join them. As the fleet prepares to leave Earth, which is determined to be uninhabitable, D'Anna (Lucy Lawless), devastated by the knowledge that history repeats itself, decides to "get off the merry-go-round" and remain on Earth to die, rather than being hunted by Cavil. Tigh walks into the sea and receives a flashback of his life on Earth. In the vision, Tigh sees his wife Ellen (Kate Vernon) during the destruction of the planet. Ellen reassures him that "everything is in place" and they will be "reborn, again, together." Shocked, Tigh realizes that Ellen is the final member of the Final Five. ==Production==

Writing This episode was written back-to-back with the Season 4.0 episode, "Revelations." 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, a favorite of Weddle's. 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 said 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? 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 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." ==Reception==

"Sometimes a Great Notion" was seen by 2.1 million total viewers in the U.S, earning the episode a 1.6 household rating. 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). 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." ==References==