just a great monologue of John Cavil's from Battlestar Galactica S4E15 "No Exit"!
him describing the limitations of a human form just hits so close to home, very much therian-coded!
Been thinking about how much I love Battlestar Galactica and yet how much of it was really upsetting to me as a child when I watched it under the supervision of a somewhat irresponsible parent. I've been mentally making a list of potentially triggering content in each episode in order to provide warnings when showing the show to friends, and I thought I might put it here as well in case it is useful. Please chime in with things I’ve forgotten or that might be triggering for someone else but not necessarily for me, and I will add them in!
A note: certain themes (blood, violence, general doom and gloom) are present in nearly every episode and are only listed here if I felt that their presence was especially egregious.
Season 1
The Miniseries (parts 1 and 2)
alcoholism (Colonel Tigh)
cancer diagnosis (Laura Roslin)
murder of baby (just off-screen but evident from the characters’ reactions, there is a sound of a neck being snapped)
explicit sex scene (between Six and Gaius)
blood and burns (Helo is wounded when the missile hits the raptor, victims of the fire in the damage control unit who are sealed off from the rest of the ship, Adama and Leoben fight at Ragnar Station)
E01: 33
coerced use of steroidal stimulants (pilots are ordered to use them to remain awake)
injection (Helo’s anti-radiation meds)
E02: Water
PTSD flashbacks (Lee, over his decision to destroy the Olympic Carrier)
E03: Bastille Day
alcoholism (Colonel Tigh)
corpse being eaten by rats (off-screen, but evident from Sharon and Helo’s reactions)
attempted sexual assault (off-screen, one of the Astral Queen prisoners attempts to rape Cally)
blood (aftermath of Cally biting off the ear of a prisoner who tries to rape her)
E04: Act of Contrition
discussions of advanced breast cancer (Roslin and Cottle)
E05: You Can’t Go Home Again
suffocation (Kara begins to run out of oxygen after her Viper crashes)
blood and guts (the inside of the cylon raider that Kara uses to fly home resembles the internal organs of a living creature)
E06: Litmus
suicide bombing (Doral)
burns (victims from the bombing)
blood (Sharon when Helo finds her after being “abducted” by the cylons)
E07: Six Degrees of Separation
medication overdose (Roslin faints)
explicit sex scene (between Sharon and Helo)
E08: Flesh and Bone
torture (Starbuck uses waterboarding and physical abuse to interrogate Leoben)
dehumanization (Starbuck and others work hard to maintain their belief that Leoben isn’t a person, referring to him as “it”)
references to past child abuse and self-hatred (Leoben revealing prophetic knowledge of Kara’s life)
execution by suffocation (Leoben is airlocked)
E09: Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down
explicit sex scene (between Head Six and Gaius)
alcoholism (Colonel Tigh and Ellen)
sexual harassment (Ellen touches Lee with her foot under the table and later gropes him)
references to possible off-screen sexual assault (Ellen claims Adama assaulted her in order to manipulate Tigh. I think we are meant to assume that this did not actually happen...)
E10: Hand of God
substance-induced hallucinations (Laura sees a vision of snakes on her podium after taking the drug chamalla to treat her cancer)
vomiting (Sharon has morning sickness on Caprica)
E11: Colonial Day
blood and implied off-screen suicide (Valence is found with his wrists cut, but it is possible Zarek had him killed)
E12: Kobol’s Last Gleaming (parts 1 and 2)
suicide attempt (several times Boomer puts her gun into her mouth, and once there is an off-screen gunshot, later she is shown in sick bay with one side of her face bandaged)
explicit sex scene (between Starbuck and Gaius)
discussion of advanced breast cancer (Roslin, Cottle, and Elosha)
slut-shaming (Apollo after discovering Starbuck slept with Gaius)
blood and burns (a raptor is shot down by cylons and crash-lands on Kobol)
injection (Kara takes anti-radiation meds on Caprica)
Season 2
E01: Scattered
heart operation (on Adama, with very limited equipment, the incision is briefly shown on screen)
blood (Tarn is shot by cylons on Kobol)
E02: Valley of Darkness
blood (pilots are killed when cylons board the ship)
drowning a baby (Adama in Gaius’s dream)
euthanasia (Tyrol gives Socinus a morpha overdose to ease his death)
E03: Fragged
general blood and violence on Kobol
heart operation (again, on Adama)
medication withdrawal (Roslin)
alcoholism (Colonel Tigh)
E04: Resistance
blood (Cally shoots Boomer)
injection (Gaius injects Tyrol with poison and then an antidote to manipulate Sharon, under the guise of testing whether he’s a cylon)
intimate partner violence (Tigh kisses Ellen while she slaps at him and tries to push him away)
E05: The Farm
medical horror (Starbuck undergoes coercive surgery on her ovaries and is drugged with a sedative)
discussions of past child abuse (Starbuck and Simon)
blood and gore (Starbuck stabs Simon in the neck with a piece of broken mirror)
non-graphic rape (captured women from the resistance have been forced to participate in a cylon-human breeding program)
assisted suicide (Starbuck turns off Sue-Shaun’s life support at her request)
E07: Final Cut
stimulant drug overdose (Kat)
blood and pregnancy complications (Sharon)
glorification of the military (episode’s conclusion is generally apologist for military violence against civilians without consequence)
E08: Flight of the Phoenix
blood and gore (Sharon inserts a computer cable directly into her arm)
violent dehumanizing language towards woman (Tyrol to Helo about Sharon and her pregnancy)
discussions of advanced breast cancer (Laura and Cottle)
E09: Pegasus
alcoholism (Colonel Tigh and Fisk)
references to past torture and sexual assault (Gina)
rape jokes (made by non-sympathetic characters from the Pegasus crew)
on-screen sexual assault (Thorne attempts to rape Sharon in order to get information from her and break her will)
E10: Resurrection Ship (parts 1 and 2)
mental and physical aftermath of sexual assault (Sharon and Gina)
suicidality (Gina asks Gaius to kill her, Apollo tells Starbuck that he didn’t want to be rescued when his ship blew up)
physical abuse of prisoners (Pegasus crew members beat up Helo and Tyrol)
positive eulogization of a war criminal and abuser (Cain)
E11: Epiphanies
dying of cancer (Roslin in sickbay)
attempted forced abortion (Roslin orders Sharon’s pregnancy terminated against her will)
injections (Sharon’s child’s fetal blood is extracted and given to Roslin to cure her cancer)
sexual harassment (Gaius attempts to force his affections on Gina)
E12: Black Market
mistreatment of sex workers (Shevon by her bosses)
graphic on-screen garrotting and later discussions (Fisk and Apollo)
blood (in the aftermath of Fisk’s murder)
references to child sex trafficking (of Paya by the black marketeers)
E13: Scar
alcoholism (Starbuck)
implied suicidality (Starbuck aims her Viper directly at Scar, saying she has nothing to lose)
E14: Sacrifice
blood (Starbuck shoots Lee accidentally, Billy is killed)
E15: The Captain’s Hand
cultural stigma around abortion (Roslin eventually criminalizes abortion to ensure the survival of the human race)
E16: Downloaded
blood (Caprica Six kills Deanna with a rock)
childbirth (Sharon gives birth to Hera)
infant death (Roslin, Cottle, and Tory conspire to make Sharon and Helo think that their child is dead, placing her with a civilian woman in the fleet)
E17: Lay Down Your Burdens (parts 1 and 2)
blood and violence (Tyrol violently assaults Cally when she wakes him up from a nightmare)
suicidality (Tyrol dreams repeatedly of killing himself by jumping from a high place in the hanger deck)
suicide pact (Kara & Anders agree to kill each other rather than be captured by cylons and taken to the Farm)
suicide bombing (Gina uses a nuclear warhead to blow up Cloud 9)
Season 3
E01: Occupation
references to past torture (Tigh lost an eye in prison)
explicit sex scene (between Cavil and Ellen, dubious consent)
psychological abuse (Leoben has imprisoned Kara with him in a pseudo-marital relationship)
blood (Kara repeatedly kills Leoben by stabbing him with cutlery)
suicide bombing (Duck blows himself up at the police academy graduation)
fatphobia (Lee’s weight gain is portrayed as indicative of his faltering will and moral standing)
E02: Precipice
suicide bombings (by unnamed resistance fighters on New Caprica)
psychological abuse and reference to possible past rape (Leoben tries to persuade Kara that Kacey is their child, telling her that he fertilized the ovary the cylons took from her while she was at the farm)
child endangerment (Kacey falls and hurts herself when Kara ignores her)
fatphobia (Lee’s weight gain is repeatedly mocked)
explicit sex scene (Cavil and Ellen, dubious consent)
E03: Exodus (parts 1 and 2)
assisted suicide/murder (Tigh gives Ellen a poisoned drink, it is unclear whether she knows he is poisoning her or not)
suicidality (Baltar begs Gaeta to shoot him)
fatphobia (Lee’s weight gain is repeatedly mocked)
E04: Collaborators
extrajudicial executions (The Circle judges and airlocks former cylon collaborators)
fatphobia (Adama and Lee imply that Lee needs to lose weight to regain his former position)
E05: Torn
implied suicidality (Starbuck flies recklessly, still traumatized after being imprisoned by Leoben, Lee tells her he will open an airlock for her if she truly wants to die)
alcoholism (Colonel Tigh)
graphic depictions of illness including vomiting (the victims of the cylon virus)
E06: A Measure of Salvation
graphic depictions of illness including vomiting (the victims of the cylon virus)
attempted genocide via biological weapons (Apollo and Roslin try to wipe out the cylons)
dehumanization (debate over whether cylons count as people)
torture (Gaius is tortured for information on the baseship by D'anna and Caprica Six)
explicit sex scene (between Gaius and Head Six)
E07: Hero
graphic depictions of illness (the victims of the cylon virus)
blood (Novacek attacks Adama)
E08: Unfinished Business
blood and violence (in the boxing ring)
explicit sex scene (between Starbuck and Apollo)
E09: The Passage
radiation poisoning (Kat, Athena, most other pilots to some degree)
implied assisted suicide (Starbuck gives Kat sleeping pills in case she wants to take them)
E10: The Eye of Jupiter
dehumanization (projecting her own insecurities, Boomer tells Athena that her friends think of her as a thing and that they tricked her into thinking her baby was dead)
blood and gore (Starbuck’s hands are badly burned when her raptor is shot down)
E11: Rapture
assisted suicide (Athena persuades Helo to shoot her, so she can download into the baseship and rescue Hera)
blood and gore (Starbuck’s hands are badly burned when her raptor is shot down)
child endangerment (Boomer threatens to kill Hera to prevent Athena from taking her to Galactica)
E12: Taking a Break From All Your Worries
attempted suicide (Gaius attempts to hang himself in his cell, thinking he’ll resurrect if he’s a cylon)
gaslighting (Apollo tells Dee that her suspicions about him and Starbuck are just manifestations of her own insecurities)
torture (Adama and Roslin use a hallucinogenic drug to extract information from Baltar)
blood and burns (Gaius hallucinates himself being attacked by Sixes in a resurrection pod then being surrounded by victims from the attacks on the colonies)
religious opposition to modern medicine (the Sagittarons)
alcoholism (Tyrol)
racially-motivated medical abuse (Dr. Roberts administers drugs without consent and purposefully kills Sagittarons, multiple sympathetic characters express the opinion that Sagittarons don’t deserve medication and should be left to die)
E14: A Day in the Life
brief references to stigma around STDs (Helo moves away from Hotdog when Hotdog says he has a rash)
suffocation (Cally and Tyrol begin to run out of oxygen in the airlock)
references to past alcoholism and child neglect (Lee talking to Adama about his life with his mother after Adama left)
E15: Dirty Hands
fatphobia (Cally berates Tyrol for eating too much and implies that he’s supposed to be on a diet)
PTSD and self-harm (in the brig, Cabbott experiences flashbacks to his imprisonment on New Caprica)
child labor (children as young as 11 employed in dangerous jobs on the tylium refinery ship)
blood (Danny Noon’s hand is severely injured as he attempts to repair the refinery conveyor belt)
E16: Maelstrom
explicit sex scene between ppl in a former abusive relationship (Kara and Leoben, in a dream)
flashbacks to past child abuse (Kara and her mother)
cancer diagnosis and death (Kara’s mother)
implied suicide (Kara)
E18 Crossroads (parts 1 and 2)
alcoholism (Tigh)
discussions of cancer and cancer treatment (Lee and Roslin)
Season 4
E01: He That Believeth In Me
blood (Connor tries to kill Baltar)
E02: Six of One
slut-shaming (Tigh suggests Tory sleep with Baltar to get information from him)
alcoholism (Adama)
cancer (Roslin notices her hair beginning to fall out)
explicit sex scene (between Baltar and Tory)
blood (the centurions shoot the humanoid cylons who voted to lobotomize the raiders)
E03: The Ties That Bind
depression (Cally)
cancer treatment (Roslin starts her Doloxan treatments in sick bay)
domestic violence (Tyrol loses his temper with Cally, she tells Cottle that maybe she’s crazy to have married someone who once broke her jaw, Cally knocks Tyrol out with a wrench)
self-destructive behavior (Cally says she wishes Tyrol would hit her and asks Cottle for more sedatives)
assisted suicide/murder (Cally tries to kill herself and her son, but Tory finds them in the airlock and persuades her to change her mind, taking Nicky, but knocking out Cally and airlocking her)
E04: Escape Velocity
violent dehumanizing language towards women (Tyrol to Adama about Cally)
blood (Baltar is beaten trying to reach his cult)
E05: The Road Less Traveled
suicidality (Tyrol contemplates killing himself, holding a gun to his head)
E06: Faith
blood and gore (Gaeta is shot in the leg)
cancer treatment and death (Roslin, Emily Kowalski)
E07: Guess What’s Coming To Dinner?
blood and gore (Gaeta’s leg is amputated while he is awake at his request)
slut-shaming (Roslin tells Tory to sleep with Baltar for information)
E08: Sine Qua Non
references to sex with dubious consent (Adama and Tigh discover that the imprisoned Caprica Six is pregnant with Tigh’s baby)
intimate partner violence (Tigh chokes Caprica and throws her against the wall)
blood and gore (Natalie is operated on after Athena shoots her, Racetrack finds Pike dead in his raptor)
E09: The Hub
dying of cancer (Roslin sees visions of herself dying when the baseship jumps)
blood and gore (D’Anna crushes Cavil’s neck, Baltar is severely injured and Roslin considers letting him bleed out and die)
E10: Revelations
references to suicidality (Tigh tells Adama that he’s a cylon and that he should have killed himself when he found out)
nervous breakdown (Adama destroys his office, drinks heavily)
E11: Sometimes A Great Notion
blood and gore (the burnt skeletal corpse of Kara in her raptor)
widespread depression and hopelessness (Roslin in particular)
on-screen suicide (Dee shoots herself)
alcoholism (Adama drinks heavily, is drunk in the morgue with Dee)
violent dehumanizing language about women (Adama to Tigh about Ellen)
suicidality (Adama tries to goad Tigh into shooting him, then threatens to do it himself)
E12: A Disquiet Follows My Soul
general medical problems (Gaeta, Nicky, Roslin)
ableism (Kara calls Gaeta a slur in reference to his amputated leg)
E13: The Oath
blood and gore (the mutineers beat up many cylon characters)
rape threat (Gage tells Helo he plans to rape Sharon)
E14: Blood on the Scales
blood and gore (the aftermath of Zarek ordering all the Quorum members killed, Anders is shot in the head by mutineers, general mutiny violence)
E15: No Exit
graphic discussions of surgery (Anders suffers aphasia and seizures)
references to semi-coercive sex (Cavil and Ellen, Cavil and Boomer)
E16: Deadlock
discussion of incestuous relationships between creator and cylon (Tigh and Caprica Six)
alcoholism (Adama and Tigh)
miscarriage (Caprica Six)
E17: Someone To Watch Over Me
sexual assault (Boomer has sex with Helo pretending to be Athena)
E18: Islanded in a Stream of Stars
advanced cancer (Roslin)
E19: Daybreak
injections, experimental surgery, child abuse (Hera by Cavil and Simon)
“In all your travels, have you ever seen a star go supernova? No? Well, I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the Universe. Other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself! I was there. I wanted to see it and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air.
I don’t want to be human! I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I-I want to… I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can’t even express these things properly, because I have to… I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me! I’m a machine, and I can know much more! I could experience so much more, but I’m trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way.“
(-John Cavil [Cylon Model 01], Battlestar Galactica s.4:ep.17 "No Exit”)
