Review

Rebirth delivers a strong continuation of the pilot. The most important question of what exactly will become of Cylon Zoe is given the full attention of the plot and paints a very compelling story. Zoe's artistic creation, as Nestor puts it, has been reborn and exists in the real world for the first time, complete with free will and a relatively fully formed consciousness, capable of fine motor control over her monstrously obtuse body. And she wants her freedom.

The question of how Cylon Zoe could possibly ever obtain her freedom is a difficult one and she seems well aware of the challenges posed by the problem. To her father's corporation, she's nothing more than an incredibly valuable prototype to be studied and reproduced 100,000 times. She withholds both her true identity and her capability of even possessing an identity and consciousness ostensibly out of fear that were this to be discovered, she may lose her freedom forever.

The dichotomy between man (or in this case teenage girl) and machine represented holistically by a single, sentient being is illustrated brilliantly by the abrupt but evenly distributed cuts between Cylon Zoe and the stylized not-really-there humanized Zoe; interlaced delightfully with the differing perspectives of the two technicians assigned to work on her. One technician anthropomorphizes her constantly while the other sees such sentiment as both ludicrous and disturbing. Neither technician is quite right of course, but there's certainly a rewarding sense of poetic justice when the meaner one loses part of his finger.

Unfortunately the episode's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. It boggles the mind to continue to have to swallow the idea that Daniel can figure out neither what happened to the Zoe avatar program nor why his singular prototype is so successful. You'd think the connection between these two problems would be obvious. The only explanation is that Zoe built in some sort of copy protection to her avatar software which Daniel was only able to partially bypass when taking Zoe from the V club and placing her in a Cylon body that effectively rendered the program movable, but not copyable. In effect, some sort of Caprican DRM.

This explanation would seem consistent with Zoe not wanting her avatar program spreading all over the place without her authorization, but it does little to plausibly explain how Daniel was able to make a Tamara avatar. What's worse is Daniel seems to indicate that Tamara has been lost to him as well, claiming that, "it makes sense that Zoe and Tamara would disappear at the same time." No, actually, it doesn't make much sense at all. I fear the writers are letting computer technology be wizardly magic and I hope we get a coherent explanation to this DRM (or whatever it is) nonsense sooner than later.

Still worse, as I alluded to before, is the fact that Daniel hasn't realized that his daughter is still in there in the original prototype. He had all episode to figure it out, but couldn't seem to put two and two together. The "why can't we copy you?" line and the fact that reproducing the MCP by itself isn't enough to create non-moronic Cylons should be enough evidence right there to convince Daniel that his daughter or at the very least the essence of his daughter's original avatar software is very much still alive and kicking in that robotic brain. And yet he doesn't seem to realize that.

Other wrinkles in the plot concern Lacy's curious ability to gain access to the Graystone household after having her clearance revoked by Daniel in the pilot. Did Cylon Zoe order Serge to let her in? Why would Serge take orders from Cylon Zoe? There should have been an establishing scene showing how Zoe did this. Instead, it just comes across as if Lacy just waltzed right into the house without issue. (Update: a deleted scene included on the DVDs indicates that Serge recognizes Zoe in the robot body and follows her commands. It is not clear why Serge failed to communicate this to Daniel.)

The biggest disappointment of this otherwise spectacular episode though is the continuation of Clarice Willow's inexplicable motives. We get to see much more of her life in this episode. She likes unconventional marriages and hookah bars. But these details do little to shed any light on exactly what motivates her involvement with Soldiers of the One, nor does any of her plotting and scheming with regards to Lacy. For that matter, the same can be said of what originally motivated Zoe's, Ben's, and Lacy's interest in Soldiers of the One as well. We get no further clarification on any of that.

Overall, with tighter attention placed on clarifying Clarice Willow's motives and the technical details surrounding Daniel's perceived loss of the Zoe avatar program and its apparent inability to be copied this episode could have knocked the drama out of the park. Amanda's public televised media confession was a fantastic close to the story and its immediate consequences marvelously highlight the perils of public life. Ultimately, this episode is a slight step up in quality from the pilot.