1x21 - "The Hand of God" discussion thread

[Joe Beaudoin Jr.]

This is the official thread for "The Hand of God". Please feel free to discuss your thoughts on this episode here.

[Stairway]

So I saw this episode for the first time yesterday and my expectations were really high.

Even though the ending seemed a bit too unfinished, I kind of liked it, it leaves space for each and everyone to guess what happens next (denying the existence of Galactica 1980).

It is somewhat similar to RDM's The Hand of God, which made me like it more. It annoyed me very much though that Apollo and Starbuck left the room only seconds before the transmission started.

[MHall]

Okay, so in their sweep of the star system, the vipers pass what appears to be Jupiter, Venus, and Mars. The Cylon baseship was hiding behind what appears to be Mars. Meanwhile, the Colonials were receiving what appears to be the transmissions from the first Moon landing, where paradoxically there were already cameras set up on the Moon to show the lander from a distance and in color. One possibility is that the year is 1969 but yet the history is altered a bit from our own to have those preplanted Moon cameras; in this case, we have this huge coincidence of the Colonials arriving at perhaps the most significant instant in the history of mankind. The other possibility is that the transmission was coming from the Cylons. To me, that seems the most plausible answer, but it's ironic that the Cylons were luring the Colonials with Earth transmissions within our own Solar System. And is the Earth on the other side of the Sun?

Could someone please compare and contrast this episode with the new series' episode of the same name?