For the most part, I wasn't really liking tonight's Battlestar Galactica. It was an entirely character-driven episode, which ordinarily would make it a big plus in my book. But it was covering so many characters that I felt like we were being given only the most superficial treatment of all of them.
We saw Lee Adama's first days on his new job, and Zarek trying to sink teeth into him, but the few minutes of screen time this was given didn't truly tell us much.
There was the touching moment of Admiral Adama reading a story to a bed-ridden Roslin... but then he vanished entirely for the rest of the episode.
There was such a cursory look aboard the Demetrius that we might as well not have seen anything at all. It almost amounted to telling us as much as showing us that tempers are fraying there and Starbuck is basically lost.
Baltar wasn't even in the episode, and he'd been the highlight of the season's first two.
But then there was that final act, and it was quite compelling indeed. I've never really been a Cally fan (nor disliked her either, exactly), but I know there are such fans out there. Having her die was a rather important development, especially in what it says about "the final four."
Tory didn't seem to have any problems with killing Cally to keep the secret safe. And earlier in the episode, she'd been talking about how different things were now feeling to her, and how she was actually liking that. In short, it seems she's really "embracing" her Cylon nature. Or at least her idea of what that must mean. She's either being compelled to do things of a darker character, or has decided that's to be expected of her now.
Will this happen to the other three?
More likely, I expect this could cause a fracture among the four of them, to mirror the fracturing occuring between the "normal seven" Cylons. Put simply, Chief Tyrol isn't going to take kindly to the murder of his wife. (He may not know now that Tory was responsible, but you can bet he'll find out at some point before the series is over.) And then so what if they're all in the same boat together? That can't just be ignored.
The bottom line is that this episode really just seemed to be setting things up for future episodes. And the last act landed a lot more powerfully in my mind than the bulk of the episode.
But at least the stage being set seems an interesting one.
6 comments:
I think perhaps that the title of the episode related to the ugly ties worn by Lee and Zarek. They had ugly knots, too.
I'm enjoying the ride, even though each episode is just adding to the setup for the whole conclusion.
Not to excuse Tory's cold-blooded murder of Cally, but it can't be ignored that Cally was on the verge of flushing herself and the baby into space anyway. Tyrol was going to lose Cally (who had just made a concerted effort to kill him) either way, but at least he still has his son. (Though arguably, Tory probably didn't save the child out of compassion so much as because it was another Cylon-human hybrid like Hera. Hmm, two hybrid children, a boy and a girl... wonder what that might be setting up.)
this is probably completely off the wall, and purely speculation, but on the subject of Cally/Chief's baby, I always thought it would be a clever thing to have Chief not be the actual father of the baby and it would have been something that Cally was keeping secret from him. I had that theory even before we found out the Chief was a cylon, but it made even more sense after we found out. that way it would maintain the uniqueness of Hera being the only hybrid baby? but it looks like that's not going to be case... (?)
the only real problem I had with the episode is WHY didn't Cally run right up to somebody and snitch about the "skin-jobs"?? sure she was all hopped up on drugs, but you think she would have told um... at least ONE person before killing herself?? (maybe it was because ALL of the other main-character friends were lost on the Demetrius and she didn't have anyone to confide in...)
oh, and no mention of the meeting in weapons locker 1701D? we were laughing hard at the blatant reference :)
the mole
mole: Yeah, weapons locker 1701D was definitely good for a laugh. (But doesn't the number somehow imply that Galactica has a heckuva lot of weapons lockers??)
Personally I really like the events unfolding with the original 7 cylons.
I love that the "perfect society" the Cylons have built is falling apart.
Major -- No question, Cally had gone off the deep end. And perhaps that does make Tory's actions less "evil." (Though I don't think the Chief would see it that way.)
As to what Cally actually threatened to do, that's an entirely separate matter quite possibly worthy of discussion. I can recall conversations with people before, regarding television shows in which a mother imperils or threatens to kill her own child, and some women take a very vehement and angry position that "no mother would ever do that to her child." Highly unusual context for that in this particular hour of television, but same kind of debate.
Mole -- I'm figuring on some moment down the road covering whether Nicky is as "special" as Hera, and if there's anything different about him compared to her. I figure that's second only to "how has Tigh aged for a couple decades and had all this history with Adama" on the list of questions really needing to be answered about these four new Cylons.
Oh yes... I totally neglected to mention the 1701D. Sorry, I was sleepy. :-)
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