Do Not Erase: Definitely Do See

Well, this one's indeed short - nine minutes - being the short film equivalent of the short-short in short stories - but it packs a punch, and would be worth your time even if it was longer.

Some of the time-travel shorts and feature-length movies I've been reviewing here of late pit love against time travel, or time travel on behalf of love, or even has both love and time travel in the title.  Do Not Erase aka D.N.E is a satisfying little take on all of that.  Brian our hero is at a blackboard, finishing up his time-travel equations.  His love, Sophie, regrets the time he's been giving to the equations and not to her, but she's waiting for him to finish, which will be soon, so they can spend some time together.  While they're talking, a maintenance guy enters the room and erases a crucial part of Brian's math.  He wants to finish his work.  Sophie leaves in a huff.  And then the action starts.

Let me first say, as a college professor, that I've long worried that a maintenance person or clean-up worker would one day come into my office when I wasn't there and accidentally throw out a crucial piece of writing.  Actually, I haven't worried about that since I started writing on computers now decades ago, but you get what I mean.

I should also say that I guessed the very ending, about two minutes into the nine-minute film, but that's ok.  It was still enjoyable and well rendered.  Good job by Brian Otting (who co-wrote) as Brian, Michele Boyd (who's been in NCIS-LA) as Sophie, and (the sadly late) Richard Hatch (yep, from Battlestar Galactica - the original) as the clean-up worker.  And Matthew Campagna did a good job directing.

Hey, I just realized it took me about nine minutes to write this.   Should I post not erase?  If you're reading this, you know the answer - at least, in this timeline.  (Where you might also want to see the excellent but unrelated time-travel series on Netflix from Japan, Erased.)

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Battlestar Galactica 4.2: Mysteries and Satisfactions

Some sweet mysteries and deep satisfactions in the second episode of the final season of Battlestar Galactica tonight ...

Minor mystery, though maybe not so minor: Why is Baltar talking to Baltar rather than Six? Baltar asks his conjured vision of himself if "he" is not really Six, and "he" doesn't really answer, but ... This gets us to focus, once again, on exactly what the palpable vision of Six that only Baltar can see has been all along. Somehow, not just something arising totally from Baltar's brain, since the vision gives him information that (presumably) Baltar couldn't know ... Unless, Baltar is a Cylon ... Nah, too obvious ... But, whatever's going on, it could be that this Baltar seeing Baltar rather than Six offers some clue to something profound....


Big mystery/big satisfaction: What exactly is going on with the seven minus one (who is boxed). We see Six changing the Centurions' programming so that they riddle One (played by the always convincing Dean Stockwell) and his two nasty Cylon colleagues with bullets - this after One got a majority of the six (by One or someone getting Sharon's model to vote against herself) to agree to "lobotomize" the raiders - because One et al are understandably concerned that the raiders showed independent judgment in pulling back from the attack last week. Ok, makes sense, and it's indeed satisfying to see arch, smug One get what he deserves, especially after he told us last year how painful he finds the Cylon reincarnation. But ... seeing as how the bullet-riddled Cylons will come back, what was the point in killing them? Nonetheless, it was very satisfying to finally see Six acting totally on her more humane impulses ...

Biggest satisfaction: Lee and Kara kissing, and Lee telling Kara, "I believe you".

Just sayin'...

But, we all believe Kara, don't we?

And why is that? After all the tricks we've seen, including Cylons who don't even know they're Cylons, why do we believe Kara?

That may be the biggest mystery of all.

Well, not bigger, of course, than who is the final Cylon. My two current guesses are: Admiral Helena Cain (hey, she was pretty brutal, she was killed ... but if she's a Cylon, she can come back ... and it makes sense that the Cylons would put a skinjob on the Pegassus) or Tom Zarek (Richard Hatch of course was in the original BSG, and it would be cool if he wound up being a Cylon now) ...

And, as a fallback, I'd say President Roslin. When she said she couldn't be sure, tonight, in response to Starbuck's insistence that Starbuck was no more a Cylon than Roslin, well ... Roslin saying she couldn't be sure, could have been Roslin talking about herself.

See also ...

Battlestar Galactica's Back and Bristling! ... 4.3 Deaths, Lessons, Questions ... 4.4: A Little More about Cylons ... 4.5 Mutiny on the Demetrius ... ... 4.6 Cylon on Cylon ... 4.9: Finally, Bill and Laura ... 4.10: Earth

and So Say We All: The Battlestar Galactica Blog Carnival, vol. 2

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"jumping with ideas" - Denver Post