Review

True to the season one finale, none of the momentum of the cliffhanger is lost. Immediately we're thrown into the chaos that is the aftermath of Adama being shot. The Cylons jump in and attack Galactica and an emergency jump is made. In the midst of the chaos, Gaeta makes a mistake and Galactica jumps to the wrong place. This forces Tigh to start making hard decisions regarding tactics, ultimately culminating in Galactica being forced to go toe to toe with that Cylon Basestar for several minutes while Gaeta plots the correct jump to find the fleet. Special mention goes to the visual effects during the battle; it was absolutely breathtaking to watch Apollo stray into Galactica's engagement zone.

This story is told to the backdrop of Tigh's own insecurities. Through his flashbacks and his own declaration, we know that Tigh never wanted a command. He never even wanted back into the military, but Adama was a proud military man, Tigh and Adama were friends, and that was just the way it was going to be. Sometimes you make hard life decisions and/or sacrifices to be with someone you care about.

Speaking of people caring for each other, Helo does an about face now that he's learned Boomer is pregnant, which I find fascinating. Starbuck tries to kill Boomer in a most wonderfully powerful emotional scene and Helo stops her. "I'm not going to let you kill her. She's carrying my child." That's all it takes for Helo to lose his hatred for the Cylon who manipulated him for weeks. I think that speaks volumes about the character. It's also interesting to note that Baltar is being groomed by Six to care for the Cylon baby just as much as Helo has been.

Adama's surgery scenes were definitely tense to watch, especially given the fact that a lowly medic was forced to perform the surgery. I can only imagine how disgusted Dr. Cottle will be when he sees the amateurish work. Speaking of amateurish work, it seems Six was right about Boomer being weak. She assassinates people about as well as she attempts suicide. I'm glad they're keeping this theme with Boomer being a weak Cylon model, and I hope it is explored further.

The deleted scenes are of unusually high importance to this episode as well. Tigh's flashbacks give us some vague information about how Adama and Tigh met. We know they served aboard a freighter and became friends. But one deleted scene in particular gets very specific about how they met. Whether or not this scene has remained canon is uncertain, but this is my favorite deleted scene so far, and I think it speaks volumes about both characters. Essentially what happens is some guys in a bar start picking on Tigh for being a washed up war veteran, and Tigh gets in a fight with them. Tigh is one step away from breaking one of their necks when Adama shows up with a gun. Adama diffuses the situation by protecting Tigh from getting picked off from behind and convincing Tigh to let the man he's got in the headlock go. This is a scene I really wish could have been incorporated into the episode. And this is just one deleted scene. All the deleted scenes for this episode about Tigh and Adama are marvelous. I highly recommend you go watch them. I hope this stuff makes it into a future episode at some point.

In any case, I spoke in Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down about how Adama keeps Tigh around because he knows Tigh is a good officer. Adama sees this in him while probably nobody else does. Never is Adama's faith in Tigh better validated than in Tigh's actions in this episode, for Tigh really does know how to handle a combat situation, and the Galactica fares well under Tigh's leadership here.

Finally, there's no reset button. Other shows like to clean up situations left by a prior cliffhanger in a single episode and I'm glad they're not doing that here. The discovery of Kobol, the deposition of the president, and the assassination attempt on Adama are all very major events which it appears are going to play out over a longer period of time than just a few episodes. This is a very good thing.

While Scattered is not as pointed a piece as its season opener counterpart 33, it's every bit as entertaining and really, it doesn't need as large a central theme as 33 did. The episode is titled Scattered after all, so you expect a certain amount of chaos. But in the end, Scattered is presented in an extraordinarily captivating way that makes it special and among Galactica's top episodes.

Review

Valley of Darkness is a very special episode of Battlestar Galactica as it manages to be spectacular and impressive without actually moving the plot forward much at all. Adama is still out of commission, the people on Kobol are still getting killed by the Cylons, the Galactica is still dealing with the aftermath of the prior episode's battle, and in the end it sounds like a tedious setup. But what Valley of Darkness lacks in plot advancement, it makes up for in style.

There are two details about this episode which make it an absolute pleasure to watch. The first is of course being able to see Starbuck's apartment. The scenes where her and Helo take a break there are just wonderful, and the music played in the scene which is supposed to be a recording of Starbuck's father playing the piano is wonderfully suited for the episode as well as a marvelous change of pace. Indeed, as I've stated in my review of Kobol's Last Gleaming, this series is as much a musical masterpiece as it is visual and story spectacle.

But the crowning scene of this episode is the vision of prophecy Six gives to Baltar about Adama killing the human-Cylon child. You could jokingly argue that this series has a fetish for killing kids, but I think the horrifying events involving the death of children and babies in this series are a cold, hard measure of realism; one of the many facets in which this show is just plain honest. After all, isn't it realistic that should Adama be made aware of the Cylons' plan to create human-Cylon hybrids that he would do all he can to put a stop to it?

I talked in my review of Scattered about how Tigh is a capable military leader and this is why Adama keeps him around. Once again Tigh proves his value with his handling of the Cylon boarding party. He's an experienced war veteran who has seen this tactic by the Cylons before. When they board a battlestar, they don't go after the obvious, and well defended targets. They have a more clever plan, and this was certainly a very clever attempt made by the Cylons to take out the fleet.

Finally, special mention goes to the scene in which the last Cylon charges Apollo's unit. The visual effects were of Galactica's usual spectacular caliber. You really believe when watching that scene that this big, giant, metal Cylon Centurion is diving at Apollo. Indeed, the Cylon Centurions were a marvelous spectacle throughout the whole episode.

The only thing that bothered me throughout the whole episode is the question of why the Cylons Centurions were resistant to regular rounds. Helo didn't need explosive rounds on Caprica. So are these Centurions special because they were aboard the heavy raider? A specially armored boarding party perhaps?

Overall though, this is a marvelous episode that mixes brutal violence on Galactica, chilling prophecy on Kobol, and raw beauty on Caprica into a moving, flowing, impressive piece of television.

Review

This is another wonderfully multifaceted episode both on Kobol and on Galactica. Now that all the major crises on Galactica have been dealt with, the civilian population is going nuts over the deposition of the president. I love the wonderful twist in which Ellen Tigh visits Roslin and comes to believe that she's gone completely crazy, so she convinces Tigh to let the Quorum of Twelve see the president when they ask to. But by the time they get around to seeing her, Billy has convinced the guard holding Roslin in the brig to procure some chamalla extract for her, rendering her no longer crazy.

Roslin very clearly outlines her plan to the Quorum; Ellen Tigh's plan to discredit the president which would leave Tigh in unchallenged command of the fleet effectively fails. This pisses off Tigh, however, who believes that he must maintain control over the fleet and not allow Roslin to pursue her crazy religious plan, so he does the unthinkable and declares martial law. And to top it all off, he's drinking again. I can't imagine that this is leading to anything good.

In addition to having time to deal with the civilians, Galactica had time to send a search and rescue party to recover those who crashed down on Kobol. As hinted at previously, Crashdown's leadership is sketchy at best. He may be a good pilot, but he has no experience commanding a ground unit. So it's no surprise that his plan to attack the Cylons to prevent them from destroying the search and rescue raptors ends up being a colossal failure. I loved how he gradually lost his cool throughout the episode culminating to the point when he pulls a weapon of Cally for her cowardice. I also love how Baltar is the one who saves her life. Finally, there's something of a bitter irony to a character named Crashdown crashing down onto a planet and dying there shortly thereafter.

The Cylon Centurions themselves make another set of marvelous appearances as well. Hot off the heels of Valley of Darkness, the Cylon Centurions are depicted as very frightening and very real enemies despite the fact that they're done entirely by visual effects. There's something very different about this show's Cylon Centurions when compared to something else very visual effects heavy like the Star Wars prequels. The Star Wars prequels are virtually all spectacle, yet they don't look at all as realistic as this. I think that says a lot about BSG's visual effects artists and their skill.

The biggest weakness of the story is the issue of why the Cylons didn't send another basestar to Kobol. If they had, such as perhaps the one(s) that attacked Galactica in the prior episode, it would have likely prevented their military defeat in this episode. In particular it certainly would have made it so the Centurions didn't need to dismantle their ship. There are any number of reasons why the Cylons may not have been able to get a basestar there in time, but I would have preferred such a reason having been made explicit. Overall though, Fragged is another very successful action piece with some fantastic character moments.

Review

Resistance is a decent episode, but the first of the season to not be utterly spectacular. It is at the very least engaging, however, and it serves as a nice, well rounded character piece.

First and foremost to discuss is Tigh. He may have proven himself in battle, but at the end of the day it's pretty clear he's not the man you want leading the fleet itself. His drinking and the negative influences from his wife are ultimately what led to the massacre aboard the Gideon.

Adama returns to us in this episode, and I liked how the first thing Tigh says to him is "I frakked things up good," he admits his mistakes to Adama without sugar coating. Not only that, but Adama just accepts it and moves on, declaring that he and Tigh will pick up the pieces together. It's great how Adama just understands that Tigh had to make hard decisions and that he's human and can't always make the right decisions.

Ultimately, true to the title of the episode, the story is all about resistance. Resistance to Tigh's military dictatorship and resistance to the Cylon occupation of Caprica. However, I felt that the latter story was somewhat weak. It's cute and amusing that a professional pyramid playing team survived, and their survival excuse is valid, but I just kind of felt that introducing an organized group of survivors on Caprica resisting the Cylons was kind of lame. I mean, if they wanted to exploit that idea, why didn't they do it in season one with the group that Helo was with?

Instead, they just vanished and Helo had a solitary story with Sharon. Now the writers are trying to have it both ways and I just don't find it tasteful at all. Additionally, I felt that it is completely unnecessary to set Starbuck up to fall in love with Anders; it comes off almost as if finding the the survivors was an excuse to give Kara somebody to frak. While I'm not fond of that plot point on Caprica, I'm at least happy that it's made pretty clear that at least Helo and Starbuck have not forgotten that their mission is to get off Caprica. One can only wonder why the resistance group hasn't done so already.

The Tyrol and Sharon stuff is the best material in the episode in my opinion. There's so little of it, yet it says so much. Even after Tyrol disowns Sharon and treats her terribly all throughout the episode, when Cally's rage finally forces her to take Sharon out, she dies in Tyrol's arms. No matter how much he tries to hate her, he can't let go of the love.

So this episode comes off as a pretty mixed bag. There's some great stuff, some okay stuff, and some downright lame stuff. But in the end it's still a pretty engaging, nicely done episode.

Review

The Farm is the second major weak episode. Picking up on the resistance movement on Caprica in full force which was already a fairly annoyingly presented plot thread, it degenerates even further when Kara is shot and captured by the Cylons. It's all too obvious from the beginning the Simon is a Cylon, though this seems intentional, so the question becomes what's his plan? In the end, we get the great revelation that the Cylons have farms of humans where they are trying to create human-Cylon hybrids, but the details leave much to be desired.

The whole "love theory" idea is absolute rubbish. This episode leaves us with the distinct connotation that the human-Cylon breeding farms have been unsuccessful exclusively because there's no love involved, and that the only reason Helo's and Sharon's experiment was a success was because they were manipulated into falling in love. This is an extreme disappointment of a revelation, because it makes the Cylons look like idiots. Prior to this episode, we could speculate that it was a psychological experiment, but nope, it's all about biology. And biologically in the BSG universe apparently love is necessary for conception. It's as if the writers have never heard of a raped woman becoming pregnant.

Boomer did say that the Cylons were interested in various different ways of attempting to create hybrids. Some couplings are by choice and some not by choice. So it's possible the episode wasn't really trying to imply that love plays a physical, biological role in human-Cylon conception. I sure hope this is the case, but official statements from the writers are not encouraging, nor is the prevailing aesthetic of this episode. Thus my problem with this episode is much like my problem with Six Degrees of Separation. This episode has an enormous, show stopping technical problem which gets in the way of the drama. It's hard to take it seriously when they get the science wrong.

A similarly annoying detail but not necessarily a show stopping problem was Anders and his resistance group deciding to stay on Caprica. They could have easily crammed everyone aboard the heavy raider and taken them back to the fleet, but they all decided to stay. Why? To continue a hopeless fight against the Cylons in which surely most of them will die? I mean, I get the idea that they want to take out as many farms as possible, but choosing to stay on Caprica is ludicrously stupid. As Starbuck said, they're on the losing end of this fight.

Aside from that, however, this was an excellent character piece for Adama and Starbuck. Katee Sackhoff did an extraordinary job playing Kara and Edward James Olmos did an equally extraordinary job playing Adama. In particular, seeing Adama wrestling with the various betrayals that he has had to deal with was quite compelling; going everywhere from angrily throwing a clipboard in CIC to crying over Boomer's corpse.

Review

This episode is the natural evolution of the plot arc that was introduced in the season one finale. Roslin has now embarked on her quest to find the Tomb of Athena on her own, and Starbuck has returned to Roslin with the Arrow of Apollo as planned. Well, not entirely according to plan, but the end result is the same.

The episode opens with a great teaser. Showing us what's going on with Roslin's fleet, Starbuck appearing, and the confrontation regarding Boomer. The way it plays out is also wonderful. I love how Roslin betrays her word to Helo by ordering Sharon thrown out the airlock, then reconsiders when Boomer starts talking about knowing where the Tomb of Athena is. My favorite line is when Roslin says, "tell them to wait a minute." The callous, nonchalant way she says that is just perfect.

Unfortunately the episode seems to run out of steam a bit after this. We get to spend a lot of time watching Birch screw up routine operations over and over. Then there's the immature pyramid ball scene. These details were nice, especially the visual effects regarding Birch's screw ups, but many of the character conflicts felt redundant to me. We didn't really need them, not really.

Originally, this episode was slated to not be a two parter. So that can explain why some of it seems to drag in places. But overall the episode is still fairly remarkable. The Cylon firefight was its usual spectacle to watch, the visual effects depicted in Birch's screw up missions were utterly fantastic, especially Kat's brush with death, and it was interesting to watch Adama slowly come to terms with what he needs to do.

Review

The exposition in this episode allows us to draw several interesting conclusions about BSG's setting. Incontrovertible evidence now says that Earth is real, not a myth as Adama and Roslin once believed. Since the map to Earth on Kobol is from the perspective of Earth and depicts our Earth, the one we're all living on now, we can conclude that the Colonials are mistaken about having evolved on Kobol since we all know humanity evolved on Earth.

Thus, the BSG universe must be set far into the future. Humanity left Earth at some point for Kobol. When the thirteen tribes left Kobol, twelve founded the Twelve Colonies and the thirteenth tribe returned to Earth, but created the map to Earth before they left. Over many years, all of this history was lost; only fragmentary religious scriptures document any of it. This raises some interesting possibilities indeed of what they will find when they reach Earth! Are there people still there? If so, is there society more advanced than the Twelve Colonies, or more primitive?

Unfortunately though, this episode only further complicates the Six in Baltar's head. We now know that she is neither a chip, nor is Baltar crazy. So what is she? An undetectable chip made from organic Cylon technology? Or did she simply upload her personality into Baltar somehow using Cylon technology on Caprica prior to the attack? The information in this episode is too vague to draw a conclusion. One interesting bit of dialog concerning Six however is her line about how Boomer is undeserving of the honor of bearing the first of the next generation of god's children. It's been made clear since early in season one that Six just plain doesn't like Boomer. Is it possibly because Boomer has been established as a "weak" Cylon model?

Also, it remains unclear why the Cylons didn't bother to send more reinforcements or another basestar to Kobol. Again, there could be any number of reasons why this is the case, but once again more reinforcements from the Cylons would have prevented their military defeat in the prior episode. Moreover, in this episode they seem to just let the Colonials merrily explore Kobol without interference in the slightest. Why?

Aside from exposition, this episode sports a teaser that's just as good as the one in Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1 featuring another beautiful string piece by Bear McCreary. It's wonderful how simple visuals allows you to draw connections between the search party preparing for their mission to Kobol on Galactica and Roslin's party searching for the Tomb of Athena in the rain on Kobol. Much about this episode but especially the teaser is just stylistically spot on which make the episode a great pleasure to watch, despite the less than thorough exposition.

In the end, this is a fairly satisfying episode which turns the show's premise upside down somewhat. Now we're certain there is an Earth. Adama may have lied about it in the miniseries, but it seems there's more truth to the scriptures than the atheists thought. However, this episode would have been far better if the exposition were not so incomplete.

Review

This episode has some nice details here and there but is largely a flop. Simply stated, the idea of doing a documentary of the Galactica crew on a show that's already executed in a documentary style seemed redundant. Thus, much of the episode felt like filler and the upbeat feel of the documentary felt more obtuse than true to Galactica's style.

The nice bits surround the minor characters. Also, it's nice that Tigh is dealing with the ramifications of the Gideon massacre, and given the premise on which the episode was built it was well executed. I especially loved the deliberate decision to not show the battle between the vipers and the two Cylon raiders in this episode to further the documentary feel; we've never seen this perspective before which makes it fresh and interesting while at the same time a clever money saving move. ;)

However, it was fairly obvious from the beginning that D'Anna was a Cylon. She was a character that came out of nowhere and was immediately up to no good which sparks immediate such suspicion.

Moreover I'm at a loss to understand why she wasn't tested by Baltar to see if she is a Cylon. In Resistance, Tyrol was tested by Baltar and passed which exonerated him of his suspected Cylon nature and of any wrongdoing. Yet it seems after that episode no Cylon tests were ever administered again, even after Boomer told Baltar there are eight remaining Cylons in the fleet. This to me seems like a gross oversight.

I'm at least pleased with the unusual nature of D'Anna's mission. The events of the episode aren't complete filler because the Cylons deliberately wasted two raiders and used a Cylon agent to get a status report on Boomer. This brings up some interesting questions; now that Galactica is harboring the pregnant Boomer, will the Cylons stop trying to destroy the fleet? They want Boomer's baby to live as much as she does. Also, it would have been nice to know why Boomer's baby was in danger. Overall though, Final Cut is an episode that has some nice details, but in the end comes off rather weak.

Review

This episode would seem to contradict the idea that the Cylons want to keep the fleet around so that Sharon's baby can survive, unless, of course, the whole crisis of the episode was orchestrated by the Cylons to get the Galactica crew to trust Sharon more. Also, was it really wise to destroy all those Cylon fighters? Why not take them, blow the brains, and salvage them? Finally, they really fudged the viper count in this episode.

Those annoyances aside, one great thing about the episode was Roslin's scenes. First, she finds out she's got weeks to live. Then she returns Adama's gift (the book Dark Day) that he gave her way back in Water. This is true to the axiom that the dying (or the suicidal) always give away their possessions before they meet their end. Also, the dedication ceremony at the end was absolutely fantastic. Finally, there's some nice continuity with Scattered in this episode regarding the Cylon virus.

The best part of the episode though is of course the construction of a new type of viper, a stealth ship, and Kara test flying it. There was a short, but very awesome scene depicting Kara bouncing the Blackbird all over the place which I loved. Watching Tyrol build the thing was also very cool; I love the way the characters are all moody in this episode and kind of come together and find common ground, building the Blackbird.

Review

And Galactica delivers us its finest offering so far. Pegasus is based on BSG 1978's The Living Legend which was the best episode of BSG TOS, so people were expecting a lot when this show set out to do a Pegasus episode and this episode delivers on every level.

In this new take on the story Cain is a woman and outranks Adama. I can hear the BSG 1978 purists now whining and complaining about the "castration" of Cain, much like they did with Starbuck, but the Michelle Forbes' Cain in this episode is every bit a hardass that Loyd Bridges' Cain was and more. Michelle brings a certain dark viciousness to the character without coming off as necessarily evil, which is fantastic. Cain completely steals the show in this episode and I'm all for that.

Because you know, when you get right down to it, Cain is absolutely right about Adama and his command. She runs a very tight ship and she's a very by the book admiral. A very young admiral, in fact, which speaks volumes about her personality. She's a career officer. She means business. She rises through the ranks like an athlete jumps hurdles. And while Adama has some of that in him, he's not like Cain. He runs a runs a loose ship. And Cain makes no apologies for pointing that out to him.

RDM said in the commentary: "Ultimately, Cain comes over here, she gets those logs, and she starts saying you guys are a bunch of fuck ups. You got your son as the CAG, you got Kara smackin' people around, you got a guy who's fraternizing with the enemy, you got two of'm fraternizing with the enemy for that sake, and the secretary of education, and... what? Your XO?" Exactly. Nothing Cain takes issue with throughout the whole episode is really all that unfair. But you still hate her for it. She's still wrong, somehow, even though she's right. And that's fantastic. That's how you write an antagonist.

Having no defense; no answers for Cain, Adama just gives up command. Doesn't question it. I love this detail, because Cain is a megalomaniac, and eventually she escalates her abuse of power to a point at which Adama can no longer let her get away with it. She summarily judges Helo and Tyrol as treasonous murderers for the aggravated, accidental killing of Thorne, who was in the midst of raping a prisoner, and sentences them to death. That's stepping over the line and Adama won't have it, so he launches a strike against the Pegasus in one of the most marvelous cliffhangers ever shown on TV scored to some of the best music ever played on TV.

And that's only the beginning of this episode's greatness. Besides the fantastic character dynamics between Cain and Adama, there's a message about human(oid) rights in this episode. Is it right to use torture as an interrogation method on Cylons? This was an issue hinted at in Flesh and Bone but never really explored in much depth. That episode instead focused on the (false) immediate danger posed to the fleet by Leoben. In the end Roslin apologized for the way Leoben was treated, then simply threw him out of an airlock. But now Boomer is here and they're not getting rid of her because she's proven to be a valuable intelligence resource and a valuable ally, at least on a temporary basis.

The Pegasus crew kept Gina around for essentially the same reasons that the Galactica crew is keeping Boomer around; they wanted to obtain intelligence from her. But the Pegasus crew has employed much different methods. They don't believe Gina has any human rights because she isn't human. As a result she's been put through extensive torture. The scenes she has in this episode are extremely moving as a result. You can only imagine what she's been through, but you can clearly see the result. And putting Baltar into the situation of having to deal with seeing a version of the woman he loves in this condition is fascinating.

So essentially the basic conflict in the episode has to do with whether or not you believe Boomer and Gina deserve basic human(oid) rights. After all, the Cylons did massacre billions of people. But then, is it right to treat anybody like Gina's been treated, no matter what their crimes are? The Pegasus crew and the Galactica crew disagree on this issue and it erupts into a tense military conflict and makes for one of the most utterly fantastic episodes of television I've seen in years. Because you truly can sympathize with either side of the debate, even after you've picked a side. It's a complex issue and its complexity is sufficiently explored in this truly remarkable episode.

Review

Hot off the heels of Pegasus, Resurrection Ship, Part 1 opens with a marvelously tense teaser with wonderfully complimentary music. The game of chicken the vipers were playing with each other was just fascinating to watch, and very original. I like how neither Cain nor Adama could quite bring themselves to fire on the other and that the situation was eventually diffused when Starbuck returned from her against-orders recon mission.

Gina has a few more touching scenes. I loved Cain's hostility toward her, then later Gina asking Baltar to kill her to end the pain. Finally, the scene when Baltar gives her some clean clothes and we get to see the terrible injuries she's sustained on her back (as well as the side of her left breast ;)) almost makes your own back kind of sting. I like how she was backed up all the way to the wall, keeping as much physical distance from Baltar as possible. It makes sense; someone who's been through that much abuse doesn't want to touch anybody for any reason.

Then of course, there's the nice plot point that Gina, being suicidal, does not want to be resurrected into a brand new body with her painful, horrible memories of her experiences aboard the Pegasus identifies for Baltar the function of the resurrection ship, hoping that Cain will be successful in destroying it so she can die and these bad memories will be gone forever. Finally, there's something delicious about how Roslin is the one who convinces Adama to kill Cain, and that Adama dismisses it completely until he learns the full extent of her megalomania. Also, it's worth noting that both Cain's and Adama's assassination plans take advantage of the lax security after a major military victory, which is exactly what Boomer did in Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 2. I find something fascinating about that.

Resurrection Ship, Part 1 naturally loses a little bit of momentum being the middle part of a three part story. It has to pick up on a cliffhanger then ends with another one. This lack of a definitive beginning and end to the episode makes it slightly weaker than Pegasus, but not by much. The episode manages to retain its profound origins while taking the drama further into a fascinating direction.

Review

Resurrection Ship, Part 2 is the most visually spectacular episode so far, beating even The Hand of God and the miniseries. I think it goes without saying that the space battle in this episode was the most amazing space battle ever shown on TV. Aside from raving about how awesome it was of course, it also establishes something important about the capabilities of colonial and Cylon technology. It would seem that colonial battlestars are vastly superior to Cylon basestars in direct combat, when there are few, or no vipers and raiders involved because the Cylon basestars' primary strategy appears to involve missiles and raiders; they lack the heavy gun batteries that battlestars have. As a result, Galactica and Pegasus mopped up those two Cylon basestars with ease which was most impressive to watch. This episode goes a long way toward explaining why the Cylons had to rely on sabotage to carry out their attack on the colonies successfully.

Much of this episode was all about Lee Adama, who's having a hard time dealing with his demotion and then makes a critical mistake during the attack. I thought it was great that he was looking behind him, watching the damage he did to the resurrection ship, not watching where he was going, then he accidentally collides with a downed raptor. This scene is sort of symbolic of Apollo's character in general. He's always looking back into the past instead of paying attention to what's going on right now.

As a result of not being able to back up Kara when he said he would, he gets downright suicidal, which I have mixed feelings about. I thought Apollo's suicidal behavior came out of nowhere and was slightly over the top. This isn't necessarily unrealistic; sometimes people become suicidal for pretty shoddy reasons. But more substantiation in the episode would have been appreciated. Another thing I didn't like about the episode was the "48 hours earlier" opening scene. Disjointed storytelling is a pet peeve of mine, especially when it's done for no particularly good reason. These weaknesses are not severe, however.

Special mention goes to Baltar's scenes with Gina, particularly the one when Six says: "Tens of thousands of Cylons are about to die. Tens of thousands, Gaius, god will not forgive this sin!" Baltar then asks Gina: "Do you think god will forgive us?" Gina responds: "God forgives all." Then Baltar proceeds to tell Gina the story Six told him in the prior episode. There's something twisted about this scene. Baltar knew that Gina would find the story beautiful, because her counterpart in his head thought it was beautiful. So he's cruelly stealing from one version of her; using her in an attempt to reach out and bond with another version of her. I love how Six disappears in the cut when Baltar finishes telling the story.

Another great detail about the episode is how both Adama and Cain back out of their assassination plans. This, to me, is wonderful, because when Cain meets her end at the end of the episode, you really feel something for her. She's not a heartless evil villain, she's just a little megalomaniacal. There's humanity in Cain and she is capable of mercy. I get the impression that after the battle of the resurrection ship, Cain was going to be true to Roslin's request that they meet on Colonial One and resolve the issue of Tyrol and Helo and that she'd start to lighten up a bit. Because now, she's gotten to know Adama in a special way. They've served in combat together. They've shared a "significant victory" together. That can really change your perspective on a person. But Cain's change of heart is too little, too late, however, for her sins in allowing Gina to be raped and tortured caught up with her.

And true to Cain's personality, she goes out defiant. A soldier. And in the end, not only do you feel sorry for Cain, but you realize that Cain was successful in everything she set out to do. Her ship and her crew are safe and she accomplished her mission destroying the Cylon fleet she'd been tracking. It's a shame Cain couldn't have been made a permanent character in the series, but at the same time I kind of understand it. It would have changed the dynamics of the show too much to have Adama and Galactica taking orders from Cain all the time. It's hard to justify the title "Battlestar Galactica" when the flagship is the Pegasus. ;)

Which brings us to the next subject of course and that being the permanence of the Pegasus. All too often in science fiction, a new ship is introduced to the show for one episode, or a just a few episodes, then it meets its end at the end of the episode. Not this time. RDM sternly wanted to avoid this cliche and I am wholly grateful for that. Because it sucked when BSG 1978 got rid of the Pegasus and it sucked when Star Trek Voyager got rid of the Equinox. And there are numerous other examples of this cliche. It also adds a fascinating new dynamic to the show. Exploring the trauma that the crew of the Pegasus has gone through will be fascinating, and exploring how Admiral Adama manages to command two battlestars will also be fascinating.

Review

Roslin's cancer is at the very heart of the show's premise and Epiphanies simply hand waves it away deus ex machina style. However, if you accept the fact that that's just how it's going to be, then the episode itself is pretty likable.

Roslin's flashbacks back to Caprica were fascinating to watch. It was great to get a chance to see President Adar and the fact that Roslin is now remembering having seen Baltar with Six on Caprica and realizing the significance of that is a fascinating plot point.

Baltar himself puts on a marvelous show as well. It's great to watch him cure Roslin because you don't quite understand the motivations behind it. Does he want to avoid becoming president? Does he want to use the cure as a reason to save Sharon's child? The ambiguity behind his motives adds a lot to the story.

Unfortunately, blowing away the cancer deus ex machina style isn't the only gaffe in this episode. Another annoying detail is Gina and her role in the Cylon peace movement. It's a shame they had to create dialog stating that nobody in the peace movement knows what she is, because it is perfectly believable that they would harbor a Cylon, given their motives.

Sadly, however, that's not how it was written. Instead, we're asked to swallow the idea that her half-assed excuse for a disguise is somehow effective. Even harder to understand is why Baltar would give Gina a nuclear weapon after reading Roslin's letter to him. The dots just don't connect; it doesn't make sense.

In the end we get kind of a mixed bag. Without a doubt, watching Roslin struggle with her cancer was fantastically executed, in particular the scoring. But the last minute cure brings the plot thread to a rather anticlimactic close. It would have been a much more touching and satisfying story had Roslin died in this episode. I love her character, but it's a cop out to wipe her cancer clean just because we want to keep her around. This episode should have been true to her character's premise.

I can only hope that all those signs that her cancer is gone forever are some sort of misdirection and that her cancer is merely in remission and will return again some day. But if magic Cylon blood can send it back into remission any time we want, my hopes for this are more like grasping at straws.

Review

Black Market is an episode which largely comes off as incoherent, a collection of attempts at making a point, but none which really get driven home and succeed by and large. While the episode does have a few things going for it such as nice assortment of good scenes, an unusually refreshing tone to the the scoring (dubbed Standing In The Mud on the soundtrack), and a few other interesting tidbits, there's a larger set of little problems with the episode spread throughout as well.

Firstly, this episode is quite an abuse of flashback storytelling. It was kind of annoying in Act of Contrition and it was tolerable in Resurrection Ship, Part 2 but here it's over the top. We've got the ending shown in the teaser, then all these flashbacks into Lee's life on Caprica, and none of it makes any sense until the end of the episode, at which point none of it means as much as you'd hope it would. That, and certain details just don't make sense. Why didn't Phelan's thugs kill Apollo when he went for the gun, or after he shot Phelan? Why did Zarek have to tell Apollo about the Prometheus when everybody else seems to know about it? For that matter, why would Zarek bother to assist Apollo in the first place? And even then, wouldn't Apollo as someone who's already participated in the black market already know about that ship? So much just doesn't make any sense.

Next in the line of problems is the whole business with Apollo being depressed after having ejected from the Blackbird. I never really liked this plot point to begin with when it was introduced in Resurrection Ship, Part 2 and it wasn't sufficiently explored and further substantiated in this episode. Kara even directly confronts Lee in Epiphanies about the Blackbird ejection possibly causing his depression which he outright ignores and it's used as a sort of excuse for Lee's moodiness in this episode. It's also revealed that his regrets over a woman he lost on Caprica is a major contributing factor to his moodiness. It's just too much a jumble.

Another annoying plot point is how callously the Pegasus is handled. Fisk was an absolutely fantastic character that was killed off for no good reason. And his death was definitely far too close in the timeline to Cain's death. There should be repercussions for losing two commanders of the Pegasus in a matter of weeks, but it's not explored at all. Moreover, now we don't even know who's in command of the Pegasus at all. We're never told who succeeded Fisk. A gross oversight.

However, there's a certain realism to the whole concept of the black market on Galactica, and it's something I was hoping the series would explore. Phelan's character was particularly fascinating. I like how he just casually justifies child prostitution to Lee, like it's okay simply because there's a demand. I also like how Lee just summarily executes him without necessarily being provoked. Bold move, even if the consequences for it were grossly unrealistic. Overall though this episode is the biggest dud of the series so far.

Review

Scar is another episode which makes heavy use of flashback storytelling, which is kind of annoying, but I let it slide here somewhat because the visual effects depicting the battle with Scar really were fantastic and watching them again and again is definitely not something to complain a great deal about. I did feel there were some pacing issues toward the end; some of the battle scenes felt redundant. Especially the one when Starbuck plays her game of chicken with Scar. We saw the setup for that at least, what, three times? That's pushing it. But whatever. It was still a fantastic episode that was amazingly visually spectacular.

This episode is all about Starbuck dealing with her personal demons. She's feeling profound guilt over breaking her word to Anders, being unable to convince Adama and Roslin to plan a mission back to Caprica to rescue him and his resistance group. It would have been nice to have seen more scenes depicting Starbuck actually approaching Roslin and Adama about this, but the implication is nevertheless clear.

Another demon Kara is dealing with is Kat. Kara trained another Starbuck, for Kat's starting to rival her skill. This is both a good and a bad thing; it's nice to have another amazing pilot, but Starbuck's got an ego to protect which breeds an immature but fun to watch conflict. Kara being as pissed off as she is in this episode also leads to a long awaited sexual encounter with Lee, for all the wrong reasons, which doesn't really go anywhere. I really liked that scene. There was a certain vulnerable honesty to it that was interesting.

Finally, there's a certain conventional fun to this episode. It's a story we've seen many times before. The ace enemy fighter steps into the ring, slaughters good guys, and we get to see him blow up in a bloody confrontation in the end. There's something satisfying about episodes like this and there's also something great about being able to immerse yourself in fighter pilot culture during an episode like this. Overall, Scar is not very deep but it's still a very successful and entertaining episode.

Review

This episode is sad and kind of annoying. The big thing here is the departure of the character Billy. I understand why the writers offed him, the actor wanted out. But it should have been handled better than this. In the end, this entire episode's plot feels like an excuse to kill Billy which doesn't do much justice to the character. Manufactured danger.

Only small details redeem the episode. The best part of the whole episode was the scene in which Apollo is accidentally shot by Starbuck. Also, it was fascinating to see Boomer refuse to tell Adama who the other Cylons in the fleet are. But beyond that, what is there in this episode? A canned hostage plot based on rather trite motives. I can see the realism behind what Sesha was trying to do, but her point of view just wasn't explored deeply enough.

The whole episode boils down to threats and fighting. And really, it just feels too common. How many times have we really seen this story played out in other TV shows? This episode is just unusually unoriginal for Galactica.

Review

The Captain's Hand is a fantastic episode which shakes up the show quite a bit in a very good way. While granted it seems a legitimate criticism one could make of the show by now is that BSG offs Pegasus commanders faster than Star Trek offs redshirts, I think after the events of this episode, that isn't going to be happening anymore. And really, it kind of makes sense that Pegasus commanders would be dropping like flies until somebody level-headed gets the position and as much as I wanted to see Fisk stick around, having Apollo command the Pegasus is an utterly fantastic twist.

In addition to the Pegasus story, we've got Roslin going and banning abortion, which is a fascinating plot point. I mean, think about it. Adama's right. That population number doesn't go up very often. In the real world, we enjoy our rights to birth control, but we have billions of people on this planet. And indeed an overpopulation problem in many parts of the world. Now, Galactica may have overcrowding issues on some ships as well, though perhaps less now with the introduction of the Pegasus which seemed to only have fraction of the crew compliment that it could have, but the core idea is that in order for the species to survive, you've got to start having babies. This was an idea that was prominent in the miniseries, and I'm glad it's been tackled here so directly.

Special mention as usual goes to the visual effects in this episode. While the Pegasus battling three Cylon Basestars may have been a short sequence, it was a spectacular one. The sight of the Pegasus firing off her forward batteries was just incredible and watching Lee Adama command the Pegasus was an unexpected treat. I hope we get much more of this in the future. Finally, Baltar betraying Roslin and running for president was a fantastic twist at the end. So overall, The Captain's Hand is an exciting ride which shakes up the show quite a bit and certainly doesn't lose its spectacle with repeated viewings.

Continuity note: the next episode chronologically is the two part special Razor, Part 1 and Razor, Part 2. Razor was actually produced, shot, and aired at the beginning of season 4. However, Razor can and arguably should be watched directly after The Captain's Hand as it contains no real spoilers. If you are using my site as an episode guide and you're watching the episodes in sequence, I suggest you go watch Razor now, then come back to season 2 and and pick up on where you left off with the next episode as aired: Downloaded.

Review

Continuity note: this episode takes place chronologically after the two part special Razor, Part 1 and Razor, Part 2. Razor was actually produced, shot, and aired at the beginning of season 4. However, Razor can and arguably should be watched directly after The Captain's Hand and before this episode (Downloaded) as it contains no real spoilers. If you are using my site as an episode guide and you're watching the episodes in sequence, I suggest you watch Razor just before you watch this episode.

This episode is most definitely an odd one and I have some mixed feelings about it. Ultimately, it comes off as a strong piece, telling us a lot about Cylon culture. But it also has some pretty sweeping and contradictory implications about what exactly Baltar's Six is which could possibly lead to a series of technical problems if we don't get some real answers soon.

In Home, Part 2 we learned for a fact that Baltar's Six is definitely not a chip in Baltar's head. At least not one that can be detected. But we're also given a very clear impression that she's not just a hallucination either. She's revealed things to Baltar over the course of the last two seasons that Baltar simply could not have deduced on his own. I fear the writers are letting the hallucination Six run away from them; that they're forgetting that she absolutely has to be something more and are simply writing her off as a hallucination because they don't want to go down that complicated road of explaining just what she is.

That said, I hope I'm just being paranoid. For all we know, nuclear radiation when the shockwave hit Baltar's house and killed Six forced Six's personality to bleed into Baltar's mind and Baltar's personality to bleed into Six's mind as she was transmitted away to be resurrected. Or maybe there's a chip in Baltar's head after all based on organic Cylon technology, rendering it undetectable, and Caprica Six in this episode was just plain crazy; that there is no real symmetry between the two hallucinatory characters.

The point is, it pisses me off that the writers keep making the issue of just what the Six hallucination is more and more complicated and are not giving us any answers. I feel this becoming a severe weakness for the show. Having gotten all that off my chest, let's talk about why I think this episode was otherwise fantastic.

It's very clear that there's no room in Cylon society for celebrities. D'Anna in this episode worked very hard to get a good reason to go ahead and have Caprica Six and Original Boomer boxed. But ultimately she failed, and these Cylon celebrities not only continued on, but united for a greater cause. What is their cause? What are they going to do to Cylon society? Are they going to convince the Cylons that the holocaust was wrong; that murdering humans was sin? Is there going to be some kind of Cylon civil war? The episode doesn't get into that, but it sets up some possible future Cylon dissension intrigue. Again, though, like my paranoia regarding Baltar's Six, this can only work if it is done right.

Boomer's baby is born in this episode, whom she's named Hera. Roslin had Hera's death faked, forcing Boomer and Helo to believe Hera had died, then gave up the baby to someone else. This is reminiscent of the story of Moses; indeed this sort of adoption story is pretty common throughout many works of literature and film. It's possible that Hera may parallel some of these similar characters in other works of fiction and history. Another interesting point is how Six reacted to Baltar after she believed Hera had died. She claimed that all of humanity will suffer god's vengeance for Hera's death.

Given the events of this episode, will there be a Cylon civil war? Some Cylons intent on wiping out the rest of humanity for apparently killing Hera while others are dedicated to changing their ways? I suppose we'll find out. But in the end, this episode stands very well on its own as an unusually unique and interesting piece.

Review

This episode is kind of a mixed bag which tries to be profound but comes off as somewhat underwhelming. This episode does do a lot, however, and parallels Kobol's Last Gleaming quite well in a number of ways. There's the discovery of an inhabitable planet again, Starbuck using stolen Cylon technology to return to Caprica again, a character contemplating suicide out of fear of being a Cylon again, and difficulties between Helo and Sharon again. Nice parallelism.

Cavil certainly brightened up the episode with his presence. There's something marvelous about a priest who doesn't believe in god. It's also fascinating to watch how Cavil slowly breaks down Tyrol's barriers, forcing him to confront his problems. He gets him to admit he's having recurring dreams, he gets him to admit his secret desire to kill himself, and finally he gets him to admit he's afraid he's a Cylon.

The Caprica storyline is a little ambiguous. I don't really get what role the computer from the Cylon heavy raider is playing. Supposedly, the heavy raider can jump all the way back to Caprica in a single jump, which is why using it was appealing. But the colonials instead rip the navigational computer out of it, install it on one raptor, and then do ten jumps back to Caprica.

Why did they need the heavy raider's navigational computer if they were just going to do ten jumps back to Caprica? Does the heavy raider's navigational computer make their jumps more efficient or something? Without it would it have been 50 jumps? There's nothing particularly wrong with this plot thread, but in my opinion it's left far too vague. I would have much rather seen the Cylon heavy raider than 19 raptors anyway. Why didn't they use that instead to perform the rescue? It would have been one jump back to Caprica and with the additional benefit of letting them blend in as Cylons.

The multiple raptors does, however, allow for the discovery of that habitable planet, which becomes a central campaign issue. It also allows for the cute little notion that one of the raptors jumped into a mountain on Caprica, destroying it. This is a nifty science fiction detail which is reminiscent of Star Trek transporter accidents.

The notion of permanent settlement on that planet is however ridiculous. Not because there's a chance of the Cylons finding it but because there are multiple Cylon agents in the fleet and all it takes is one agent to devise a way to alert the Cylons to the location and it's all over. The way this episode plays out it is looking like Baltar's going to win the election and that planet will be permanently settled. Gee, what do you think's going to happen next? You think the Cylons might just, oh, I don't know, find it somehow? This is all so insultingly obvious to the audience.

Review

Boomer had an interesting line of foreshadowing in the prior episode. She speculated that "a dark time" was coming, and she was right. Certainly a dark time for the colonials, but what's going on with the Cylons? After the events of Downloaded, and given the events of this episode, could possibly a civil war have erupted within the ranks of the Cylons? What is their plan? Has their plan changed?

We get some mixed messages from Cavil. He said that the occupation of the colonies was an error, that the war heroes have managed to swing opinion over to their side, that the Cylons made mistakes, had become corrupt, and needed a new beginning. He said pursuit of the fleet was another error, that Cylon and man will now go their separate ways, and that the Cylons have other plans.

But then of course, as soon as the Cylons get lucky enough to stumble on the fleet and their new planet, they take over the place. Was Cavil simply lying to Roslin and Adama, or were the plans and ideologies that he outlined simply overruled eventually? Notably, the Cavil Cylon model claims to be an atheist. Purportedly, the Cavils have been telling the others that there is no god for years. But if the Cavil models and the heroes of the Cylons were responsible for the change in ideology, why does it appear that the war heroes were the ones who greeted Baltar on New Caprica in the ending? We're getting way too many mixed messages from the Cylons in this episode.

The election itself was interesting. Do you steal the results of a democratic election to prevent someone who is clearly the wrong choice from becoming president? The moral dilemma was nicely explored. There was great scoring during the election ballot counting scenes as well. Equally great was the scoring when Baltar was inaugurated president and Gina blows up Cloud 9. (Dubbed Something Dark Is Coming on the soundtrack.) Finally, the music played when the one year jump ahead ensued (dubbed One Year Later on the soundtrack) and at the end of the episode was also quite impressive.

Gina blowing up Cloud 9 was a bit of a confusing plot point as well. I understand why she did it. Certainly the root cause was her suicidal nature. Maybe there was also a secondary intention to provide the Cylons with a possible way to find New Caprica eventually. But what gets me is why Baltar gave her the damn nuke in the first place. It was a loose thread left over from Epiphanies and now we have our answer. And that answer still doesn't make sense. We have no idea what Baltar thought he was getting out of giving a Cylon a nuclear warhead, but whatever advantage he thought it would bring him, he was clearly wrong. For such an important plot point, it sure wasn't explored very well. That, and it's vaguely ridiculous that nobody thought the Cylons would find that planet, especially after the nuclear explosion. That's just unforgivable.

Moreover, why did Adama not attempt to depose Baltar when Cloud 9 was destroyed? He knew the nuke was stolen from Baltar's lab, so the logical thing for Adama to wonder at this point is why the nuke was detonated aboard Cloud 9 instead of Galactica. The only answer is that Baltar gave it away to somebody, since he's the only one who had authorization to do anything with it, and that it didn't fall into Cylon hands until after it was already transported off Galactica. If I were Adama, I'd be very suspicious of Baltar, especially given Roslin's recent admission of having seen Baltar in collusion with Six on Caprica. The last time the President of the Colonies did something fishy (Roslin ordering Starbuck to find the arrow), Adama outright declared martial law. Baltar being responsible for a Cylon setting a nuke off on a ship in the fleet isn't a comparable offense?

On top of that, why have no Cylon agents apparently been activated during the one year gap, such as the D'Anna model from Final Cut? Was she inadvertently killed when Gina blew up Cloud 9? Also one year later, Dee is mentioned as a lieutenant, yet is apparently the XO of Pegasus. Not a major problem here, but it seems Apollo ran a pretty loose ship. Is the ship full of nothing but ensigns now?

So it's pretty clear by now that as a season finale this episode was rampantly careless, but you'll notice my rating is pretty generous for a remarkably carelessly written episode, so what's so good about it? Well, the Cylon invasion of New Caprica is a fairly obvious but nice parallel the Nazi invasion of France and the fleet's escape is a nice parallel to the Allied evacuation of Dunkirk. Finally, Baltar's surrender a nice parallel to French Marshal Philippe Pétain's surrender to the Nazis. If this trend continues, New Caprica will become a Vichy France and a resistance movement will begin to take shape. This is kind of an enormous cliche, but I like it.

More importantly, the jump ahead one year and the Cylon occupation open up all kinds of fun possibilities for how season 3 stories will play out. I have an enormous respect for RDM and David Eick for having the bravery to shake up the premise of the show like this and I hope season 3 pans out as well as I imagine it will. But I must also certainly hope that the stories in season 3 are treated with more care than they were in season 2. There were a lot of technical and continuity goofs in season 2, along with some plot holes and some very important unanswered questions. Most of this stuff was of little importance, but it adds up. And at this point, I think the audience has gotten tired of all these little things that have added up.

So while Lay Down Your Burdens is a successful and entertaining pair of episodes, it doesn't compare at all to Kobol's Last Gleaming which just came off as a far more coherent, solid, and moving season finale.