Battlestar Galactica: Galactica 1980 — 1x03 — Galactica Discovers Earth, Part 3
Synopsis
Troy, Dillon, and Jaime attempt to capture Xavier, who has returned to modern-day Earth to reclaim his Viper.
Remarkable scenes
- Dillon shooting down the rocket.
- The little boy finding the Vipers again and this time getting the authorities to see it in time.
- The little boy pulling pranks on his rival.
- Colonial officer gives rank insignia to someone count 4. Troy gives rank insignia to Willie.
- Xavier walking into the street almost getting hit by car, then mistaking a police car for a cab.
- Xavier meeting with Mortinson.
Review
And BSG 1980 begins to run out of steam right here as plot devices introduced in the first two parts are exploited beyond capacity. There's nothing too fundamentally different in this episode from the previous two, except that it accomplished nothing short of wrapping up the cliffhangers of the previous two episodes. It even largely fails to do that, seeing as how Xavier has escaped. The episode then leaves us with yet another cliffhanger, of the pseudo sense, showing our brave new heroes ready to take on yet another time travel adventure, except this one takes place offscreen. I suppose even the writers were tired of time travel by this point.
What's most annoying about this episode, besides of course the all kids' show padding the network enforced, is the sheer pointlessness of it. It completely fails as a conclusion the grandiose things presented in the first part. Adama et al don't appear to have a clear, well defined plan by the end of the episode. They've only barely (and arguably not completely) recovered from an initial blunder. What way is this to start a series that's supposed to be about one culture artificially enhancing another? In place of philosophical exploration of that concept, we learn instead more varying gradeschool facts about Earth. How disappointing.