I got a little nervous during the first 10 minutes of tonight's new Battlestar Galactica episode -- it felt like the set-up to a thoroughly average episode of Star Trek. The "away team" boarded the derlict Cylon base star, and stumbled on an entire crew wiped out by an "unknown virus" that had quite likely infected one of the main characters. I was sure we were in for an agonizing hour of watching Doc Cottle struggle to find a cure before time ran out.
I should have kept the faith, because what we actually got was a strong episode. The whole "will Sharon get sick?" thread turned out to be nothing more than a red herring. She was pronounced immune barely halfway into the episode, and so on we went with the real meat of the plot: the topic of genocide.
It's starting to be more than a little chilling that Roslin, in one situation after another, seems to be more and more at ease with making some truly ghastly decisions -- in this case, the decision to attempt to wipe out the entire Cylon race. I suppose, given her recent experiences in the occupation, her attitude is not surprising. I think I'm just saying that it used to be that Adama was more the "hawk" while Roslin was the "dove," but those roles seem to be reversed a lot more often now. Interesting stuff.
The Baltar material aboard the base star was unusual to say the least. As a television viewer now conditioned by 24 to expect a "discretion" warning to be related to violence (usually torture), it was pretty jarring to see this take on torture completely entwined with a rather racy (for television) sexual encounter. Things really are very different aboard the Cylon base star. And more twisted than ever inside Baltar's head.
Ronald Moore's podcast commentaries are always entertaining to listen to, but I'm particularly looking forward to hearing what he has to say about this episode.
2 comments:
Once again, BSG takes a well-worn sci-fi setup and catapults the audience into a harsh, realistic story. Evan, I can't believe that after "33," you'd doubt the writers. They've certainly learned their lessons after hitting rock bottom early in the second half of last season. The writing is consistently good. I have to admit it's consistently better than Lost.
I love how even-handed and direct these morality plays are. I still don't get why Roddenberry is so highly praised when all he really did was meld contemporary mindless technicolor entertainment with allegory.
I was giddy with Apollo's revelation and his reaction to it. as soon as he laughed I kinda figured it out myself, too. it was such a ridiculously evil and clever and brutal thing given the circumstances.
and it was cool how it was very obvious that (Admiral) Adama didn't really want to go through with it but was willing to if he was "ordered"...
and Helo's waiting for them to come for him at the end was a cool thing too. he's like got the morals of a Picard or something. this whole episode reminded me of Hugh and the Borg...
and what was the deal with the torture of Baltar? weird stuff, will Xena start um, "loving" him now or something? when he realizes what he said (he seemed pretty out-of-it) he'll have to play along? I can't wait to see where that goes...
the mole
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