Aaaaaaahhh. There's the Galactica I love so well. I've been wondering where you've been these past few weeks.
I really have only one complaint about tonight's installment of Battlestar Galactica, and I'll get it off my chest right now. I wish they hadn't resorted to the tired cliche of the "inept captain who makes our heroes look more heroic by comparison" as a means to... well... make our heroes look more heroic by comparison. Not nearly as worn a cliche as "XX hours earlier," not by a long shot, but still almost certainly "standard sci-fi premise #62."
But I'll forgive that one flaw amidst the rest of an episode that really clicked. We now have a "Commander Adama" once again, and how very neat is that? (Although if I were Lee, I'd be seriously wondering if I should turn that particular promotion down. The life expectancy of a Pegasus commander seems to be about that of a chocolate cake at a fat camp.) And his final scene with Starbuck had the strong emotion I've been missing on the show for a few weeks.
Damn. Taking a hot button issue straight on by throwing the issue of abortion into the politics of the show. And they really played with a lot of expectations, as far as how the battle lines were drawn. A woman is the one who enacts a ban against abortion. The argument citing moral convictions for support is the one in favor of allowing abortion, not outlawing it.
I can imagine some out there won't like the show being so direct in its take on these issues. Lots of people (for the sake of argument, let's call them "Trekkers") tend to like their sci-fi social commentary to be cloaked in metaphor. But BSG is a show about stark, often harsh reality. And that is the perspective they're bringing to this issue.
I do wonder just how much the show will put the election and poltitical storylines front and center in the episodes ahead. After all, Galactica is fundamentally an action-adventure show. It's not really The West Wing in space, and so they probably can't go too far down that road, even just temporarily, without alienating a portion of their fan base.
This fan would go happily right along with them if they did, though.
4 comments:
I agree... I thought the episode was dragged down with the commander of the Pegasus... he was so 2 dimensional that if he turned sideways he'd vanish... as it was, he was so 2 dimensional I saw right through him to the plot in seconds...
Other than him, I loved the entire thing... Though that had some interesting moments of military weakness in it (Where the military wouldn't act like that), but I'm willing to overlook it in favor of the superior statement made about abortion! :D
I'm just really thrilled that I saw your post and remembered to catch the 1 a.m. showing. :)
"Cmdr. Adama" screws up our attribution for quotes in the CCG, but we can fix that on Monday. I was worried about that anyway.
Yeah, good episode, except for PCOTW (Pegasus Captain of the Week), agreed. It's like being the drummer in Spinal Tap. Too bad, I was just getting to like Lee too.
strange; when Apollo was promoted, I was thinking that the Pegasus is going to be toasted soon for sure now. but my bro thinks that now Apollo is in command it's "solid" and not going anywhere. now that's great stuff when two cylons would come up with two different expectations :-)
they could make a whole spin-off show about Apollo on the Pegasus. how many new characters will they have to develop? I like how the camera zoomed out when he was put in (temp) command, really emphasized the overwelming resonsibility of being in charge.
the mole
I anticipated that this was going to be the week that the Pegasus disappears. That happened in the original series and we only later learned that Count Iblis (who was really the devil) crashed her on a planet.
But I digress.
A good episode. I rolled my eyes over the "right to life in space" formula but it completely redeemed itself with the beautiful press-conference stealing performance by Baltar. I especially liked the indignation that Six showed as Baltar was running down the attributes of humanity turning Cylon. Six doesn't have the understanding of Baltar that she thinks she does.
The big hole I saw here was wondering how Adama could have chosen "Scotty" to be the commander. Surely, there must have been someone between the engineer and Lee to take this over.
Still, this was good. I would have enjoyed seeing a little more conflict between Lee and Kara though. There's a lot of dramatic play there and they don't have to spend it all in once episode.
Post a Comment