Today, I did manage to catch back up with last night's Battlestar Galactica. I'm gonna pronounce it a mixed bag. I wanted to like it, quite a lot. It started off with revelations in the Billy-Dualla-Lee triangle that made me feel bad for Billy.
Of course, then it ended at a place that should really have made me feel bad for Billy. And I guess there's the problem. This was a pretty significant development in the story of the show, but it just didn't pack the emotional punch for me that the show has managed to pack before. They have made the deaths of many characters feel very "weighty" in past shows. I'm sorry to say I didn't feel it here. Which is a shame, because I'll definitely miss Billy.
Not that this had a direct impact on my feeling about the episode (at least, I don't think it did), but I noticed this was two weeks in a row without Baltar or Six. Their absence seemed rather conspicuous to me.
Other than that, I'm afraid I just don't have any observations to share. I feel like the show is marking time until the season finale, when I presume the "Gina and the nuclear warhead" plot and/or the "Sharon has her baby" plots will come to a head. Calm before the storm.
5 comments:
5 points for the title!
Yeah, I think the writers were trying for "impactful death" and got something close to a dull thud. Billy had the potential to be a major political player in the future. Certainly giving him "nothing to lose" by closing the door on Dee was a bit cheap.
Well, if you listen to the podcast Ron Moore gives for this episode, you find out that Billy's exit from the show was not really planned for, or done for plot reasons.
The actor who plays Billy was getting lots of offers for work elsewhere, with larger roles than his role on Galactica. These sorts of job offers is why Billy "wouldn't go with Roslin" back to Kobol earlier in the season... he was taking two weeks off the show to film something else.
Mutually, the creators and the actor decided to "free Billy" from the show so he could pursue his career.
So yes, he could have been a future player. Probably that was the writers' original plan. But, such is the nature of TV.
I'm glad you said that, I watched it with dad (It was his first episdoe, it's not a problem, the gal that works for him and I are such epic fans that it's not a loss). Dad thought Billy was a redshirt... I had to explain that Billy had been with us since the mini-series...
I thought it was because I watched it with him that I lost the impact of that (Beyond the fact that I loved Billy)
yeah, I also thought the Billy death seemed kinda hollow. [shrug] at least it resolved the mortality issues they have been having lately (i.e. the characters were starting to look trek-ishly immune to harm)
my other complaint about the episode was that nobody seemed to bring up a dialogue/negotiation about how there are less than 50,000 people left and how they don't need to kill eachother or something.
Starbuck shoots Appolo in the chest for the second week in a row? last week without real bullets in the heart of course...
and I loved the Apollo-Mrs.Tigh scene where he was getting her out of harm's way and she thought he was um..., going to do "something else" with her. she was totally ready to go!
the mole
Re: The actor
I assumed this was the reason. Why else kill off a character with potential?
Re: The near Trek-ish immortality
Yeah, but the writers have a fetish with bringing Apollo to the brink of death. Are the writers actively contemplating killing him off entirely?
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