Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4
Sorry I never got around to my usual recap for last week. I'm dealing with 12-15 page assignments every week now and I just couldn't get around to it.
Battlestar Galactica 4x02 - "Six of One"
The problem with this episode, like many episodes in the last season and a half, is the lack of any episodic structure. Part of what made the first season so stellar was that every episode had a dramatic "A" plot conflict that was resolved within the episode. Lately, we've just been getting episodes full of "B" plots that neither begin nor end in a given episode. Each plot line tonight was engaging and incredibly interesting, but none of them tied into a cohesive whole. This is even more of a problem now that we have a finite number of episodes left; I don't particularly want to run out of clock with build-up.
That criticism aside, the episode did venture into some interesting areas. I think, for instance, that this episode was the first to venture onto a Cylon vessel without a member of the Galactica crew anchoring the plot line to the Colonials. Cavil was being a prick, which is no surprise since he's always a prick. But it did point out the problems faced after boxing all the Threes: three-three is a dead locked vote. I don't think events would have taken the turn they did if the vote had the legitimacy of ALL the threes behind it. The twos, sixes and eights took the action they did only because they felt betrayed by one of their own. It raises interesting questions about the Cylon species's ability to deal with a heterogeneous society. Arguably, things broke down in that conference room for the same reason they broke down on New Caprica: The Cylons are not equipped to deal outside absolutes. At the root of the conflict, the decision by the ones, sixes and eights is fundamentally the same as the one made by the humans: We are better than you, are we are going to make you less than you are to prove it. It didn't work out well for the humans and it won't work out well for the skin jobs.
Also intriguing: Cavil's reference to their original programmers. I'd always assumed that the Centurions made increasing smarter models until they became smart enough to engineer the skin jobs. But Cavil wouldn't defer such authority to them and still make the decision he made. That hints that there is an intermediary between the Centurions made by man and the skin jobs. A missing link from mechanical to biological. Are the final five in fact the first five? Was the decision the ones, fours, and fives made to lobotomize the raiders mirrored by a decision made by the final five to lobotomize the current seven? In the meantime, the Cylon dysfunction gives the colonial fleet some breathing room.
The four of the final five we know about are undeniably different than the seven. But considering that Boomer voted differently from the other eights, it's entirely possible that complexity comes from their more extensive integration into human affairs. I think it's no accident that their council scene followed the Cylon one. There are now three distinct sides in this conflict, and the Four have become the wild card. I loved that Tigh got in a crack at Starbuck; he both really hates her and absolutely knows her. That said, if a fuck up as big as him can be a Cylon, that doesn't exactly rule Starbuck out.
What's gotten into the Admiral? Yelling at everybody, strangling Starbuck, belting down the booze. Part of what made Adama unique was the way he was most dangerous when he was most calm. He was just acting... irresponsible here. I can buy that Starbuck's jab would rile him up, but I didn't buy him tossing her to the ground like that. Everything after that felt in character, however. I especially loved the scene between him and the President. It's such a domestic, intimate scene and yet Starbuck's words are obviously still ringing in his ears. Even as he treats her like his common law wife, he's realizing that they've grown closer than is probably appropriate given the separation of powers in their government. His solution — sending one ship out to follow Starbuck's lead and thus minimizing risk to the fleet as a whole — was the suggestion I was waiting for all along.
What to make of Baltar seeing Six's hallucination of him instead of his hallucination of Six? It certainly challenges the general wisdom that their were both hallucinating in complementary ways; the doppleganger in Baltar's head is dressed just as Six imagines him. This was probably my favorite plot line of the episode because it not only raised intriguing questions, it provided some much needed levity. Baltar's enjoyment of himself was hilarious. When he was banging Tory, I kept waiting for them to roll over and have her mount him so we could check her spine. If she doesn't glow then it opens back up all of the characters we've seen having steamy naked sex without glowing spines. For instance, Baltar, whose spine definitely doesn't not glow mid-coitus.
I still don't think they know what to do with Apollo. His farewell tour carried on a little too long for me. It was also hard for me to generate much emotion since he's dropped out of the fleet several times before and will probably still find his way back to a viper for the next big battle. The kiss with Starbuck did raise some interesting questions though.
keep us guessing Ron Moore! BTW,
