Sometimes a Great Notion

At long last, Battlestar Galactica is back. And back for the last time, as tonight began the final run of episodes leading up to the series finale. Seven months is a long time to lose narrative momentum, but tonight was certainly an episode worthy of the wait.

The theme of the night was hitting rock bottom. It was an emotionally draining episode to watch as character after character seemed to sink as low as they could in the aftermath of finding the ruined Earth. If each moment seemed like you were seeing the worst thing that could happen, the next moment seemed to prove you wrong. This is the sort of brutal, non-glamorous truth that has been the hallmark of the best moments of the show from day one -- from abandoning a ship full of defenseless civilians in the pilot, to the horrid implication of gang rape of prisoners by their captors in "Pegasus," to the grief after Starbuck was thought dead...

And is she? Why not start there? The discovery of the destroyed Viper on Earth's surface was a great moment, expanding the mystery surrounding Starbuck's return. "What am I?" Great question. And a wonderful performance from Katee Sackhoff.

Of course, great as it was, it was outshone almost immediately by the crushing scene of Laura Roslin, having abandoned her cancer treatments, methodically burning out the pages of her holy book. Everything had been stripped from the character, and Mary McDonnell's performance was painful to watch.

Then another slap in the face, as Dualla just shoots herself in a shockingly unceremonious moment. Which in turn left Lee -- who had apparently been finding a way to struggle through things perhaps better than anyone -- completely adrift. And it pushed the elder Adama even farther down.

It had seemed in the last new episode we saw, so many months ago, that that was Admiral Adama at his lowest, when we saw him completely unravel at the revelation of Tigh's true nature. And at the time, I praised the performance of Edward James Olmos. In tonight's episode, he found still more layers deeper down, and left me stunned.

I focus on all these character moments both because they have always been the strongest element of this series, and because they were all just so well done tonight. But you could also easily focus on the interesting progressions and discoveries in the plot. The "thirteenth tribe," the people of Earth, were Cylons? The Final Five lived there among them? The last Cylon was Ellen Tigh? (Explaining why the last of the Five didn't answer the "Watchtower" call at the end of season three.)

All this in just this first of this last run of episodes? Holy frak! If Battlestar Galactica can achieve even a fraction of this quality in the episodes that still await, then it's going to soar out on a high I'm hard-pressed to compare with the ending of any other show I've watched.

I wonder if my hopes are getting too high when I think that, but then I just have to think about how amazed I was watching this episode tonight. I want to go watch it again immediately.

Wow.