I suggested recently that Tyrol will soon be revealed to be one of the final five Cylons. I believe this has been the plan since day one; plenty of clues have been steering the series to that point. This is why I believe it.

It started back in January when several people reported that Sci Fi Channel was running Galactica promos, claiming that by the end of S3, “One will die, One will find Earth, One will find out that they are a Cylon”. That kicked up lots of speculation over Starbuck possibly being a Cylon.

Shortly after that, my good friend and fellow Galactica nut Jen called to talk shop one afternoon (she’s a graphic designer, I’m a writer, and we commonly work together). The conversation drifted soon to Galactica, and we spent a good hour or two speculating over which major cast member the Cylon will turn out to be. She’d heard all the Starbuck rumors, but I wasn’t sold. So we hashed it out.

The conclusions we reached at the time were:

1. It had to be a character who played a prominent dramatic role this season, a central character who we currently care about, someone who would leave an impact. It couldn’t be Hotdog or Racetrack; seriously, if Hotdog vanished tomorrow, would you notice? Helo wasn’t a good bet (Cylon Helo + Cylon Athena = No Conflict.. not to mention no hybrid baby); neither was Kelly or Doc Cottle or Zarek or anyone like that. Dee The Slender Lass Of Wallpaper Personality hasn’t been interesting since early in the series, so she’s out. (No, scratch that. Dee’s never been interesting.)

2. It couldn’t be a character too central to the Galactica group; the revelation has to put our new Cylon in direct conflict with the Galactica crew, which means he/she couldn’t be too close to the human center of gravity. Adama and Roslin are definitely out. Tigh’s possible but unlikely (and would be problematic, considering how he started the season - he’s finally over Ellen, it wouldn’t work). Lee is also far too central; besides, we know who his biological father is.

3. Starbuck is too obvious, and also too essential to the central story conflict. She may switch sides for a while, but she’ll always remain the wild card - revealing her to be a Cylon would completely ruin that. On the flip side, it’s not Baltar - that’s also far too obvious. The writers have been consciously playing with that option since day one, and revealing him now to be a Cylon would have no dramatic punch at all. It’d be a lame joke.

4. Anders is possible, but he’s too far removed from the operational center of power on Galactica - Anders as a Cylon wouldn’t pose a gigantic threat. We’re looking for someone in a position of responsibility but not in the command circle, someone used to being trusted but who now isn’t sure even if he/she can trust themselves. That’s not Anders.

5. Whoever it is, everyone is currently unaware of the fact. However, Number Three had met him/her before, immediately recognizing the face in the Temple of Five and asking forgiveness. By extension, we’d met this person before. She saw a face she recognized from Galactica.

6. Only one would turn out to be a Cylon. Better for drama than multiple instant toasters - also, Number Three’s moment in the Temple sort of suggests that it’s just one. The SFC promotion likewise says it’s one.

So a whole lot of people can’t be the Cylon (without ruining the series, anyway), and a whole lot of people simply aren’t interesting enough to be the Cylon. Who is the logical remaining alternative?

Galen Tyrol.

At the start of every episode, we get the “seen previously” crawl - that sequence of scenes demonstrating how the current episode stems directly from past ones. Looking back, I could easily imagine how the “Cylon Tyrol” crawl would look. Tyrol and Brother Cavil, back when Tyrol actually thought he was a Cylon (after he assaulted Cally in his sleep); Tyrol asking, “How do you know I’m NOT a Cylon?” and Cavil replying in pure sarcasm, “Well, maybe because *I’m* a Cylon and I haven’t seen you at any of the Cylon parties!” (The irony being, of course, that Cavil actually was a Cylon and we didn’t know it then.)

More dead giveaways arrived when they came to the Temple of Five. First, Tyrol obviously had some sort of psychic connection thing going with the Temple - that episode made clear that he and it were connected. Later, despite wanting to, despite TRYING to, Tyrol couldn’t blow the thing up - he had a reaction very similar to the ones Boomer had in S1, as she struggled to fight against her hidden programming (a reaction that was promptly never mentioned again). Everything about Tyrol and the Temple suggested that Tyrol had some sort of relationship to the Five that the other humans (and likely, other Cylons) didn’t have. Little things have been showing up like that with Tyrol all season.

The other odd thing about Tyrol in S3 is how the writers have continued to trot him out for no damned good reason, almost as though they just wanted to remind us that he was there. My favorite example is the bar episode, where Tyrol shows up long enough to toast marriage (”the reason we build bars”); the writers have been developing a conflict between him and Cally all season, showing that the strains of marriage and fatherhood are catching up to him. Cally, meanwhile, has been showing a predilection towards going off on anti-Cylon rants in his presence. If/when it turns out that Tyrol is a Cylon, she’s not going to react well and their marriage conflict will come to a head.

Tyrol and Cally have also been prominently nonprominent during this season’s Starbuck-Lee-Dee-Anders soap opera - which I maintain has been pure misdirection. Galactica has been following a basic pattern all season: keep the focus on Starbuck/Lee, develop Tyrol/Cally in the background. They’re obviously going somewhere here.

So again, I have to conclude that Tyrol is the most logical choice for one of the Final Five. There aren’t too many workable alternatives, the heavy conflict potential is certainly there, and the writers are obviously planning something for him in the finale. Again, the pieces have been coming into place all season.

Jen then made things more interesting by sending this photo my way. We know that there are twelve humanoid Cylon models, that seven of them are known, leaving five in hiding for some reason (apparently, unknown even to the other seven models). The identities - and natures - of the remaining five Cylons is a major question in the series right now. The photo Jen sent was an unofficial image, apparently from a scene that never made it into an aired episode; the blonde in the middle is obviously Number Three, played by Lucy Lawless, most likely coming from episode 3×12 (”Rapture”). This is the episode where Three finally enters the Temple of Five and instantly recognizes one of the final five Cylons, exclaiming “You! Forgive me, I had no idea”, before dying and then promptly getting boxed.

Assuming that this photo is for real and not itself a hoax or intentional misinformation, we’re back to the great Starbuck question. Is Katee Sackhoff in this photo?

Looking carefully at the photo, we see what appears to be two women and three men (the women are the third and fourth from the left). So is one of the two women Starbuck? The question lingered until a high resolution image of the same photo still bubbled up.

Numbering them 1-5, left to right, #4 is obviously a woman that we haven’t seen before. #5 doesn’t have a jawline I recognize; it could possibly be Kelly, but (even with his role in “Son Also Rises”) he’s such a minor character I doubt it. We haven’t seen this person before.

#3 could conceivably be Katee Sackhoff, but I doubt that as well - something about her facial structure doesn’t make me think of Katee. She’s a little too cute, know what I mean? Katee is an attractive woman - don’t get me wrong - but she has a very distinct smile/jawline that this woman doesn’t have. Also, #3’s frame seems too slight for Katee, but that may just be because half the time when we see Starbuck, she’s wearing armor or a flightsuit. It bulks her up. At any rate, #3 looks to me more like Katee’s cute younger sister than Starbuck.

#2 is obviously male, relatively young, medium build. Could conceivably be Anders - certainly isn’t Apollo or Helo, and he has the wrong facial structure for Hotdog. Anders is indeed a possibility, but again my feeling is that not enough has been done with Anders for a “he’s a Cylon!” revelation to carry much dramatic kick.

Which leaves us with #1, a male. Take a close look at the jawline, nose and eyes. And now take a good look at some pictures of Aaron Douglas. Try to tell me that’s not him.

[ Ed. note: I see one gaping hole in the “Cylon Tyrol” theory: Nicholas. If Tyrol is a Cylon, that makes Nicholas a hybrid, and we know that Cylon/human hybrid blood is “damned odd” (to quote Doc Cottle). Wouldn’t someone have noticed that?

I’m not sure that I have a good answer to that. Perhaps not every hybrid shares those pecularities. Maybe there’s something different about the Final Five that makes their offspring harder to identify. Or maybe it makes a difference that Nicholas’ mother was human and father Cylon, rather than the other way around (like with Hera). I think the latter is the most plausible - after all, a baby draws all its biological resources from its mother, but only half of its DNA from its father - but again it’s a bit of a reach. We’ll just have to see how things shake out. Any thoughts, anyone?]

Posted by Rob on Monday, March 12th, 2007 at 6:33 pm.