BSG 1.5 You Can't Go Home Again

The second part of the two-parter that had previously ended with Starbuck crash landing on a strange planet. This half, and episode, was very straightforward. Starbuck was missing, with limited oxygen, and it was a question of how long the Galactica fleet, notably Lee and Adama, would continue to look for her at the risk of the rest of their people.

A lot, was the answer, with Adama sacrificing the ruthlessness of his previous decisions concerning people’s lives over the fate of one. I guess this meant he had forgiven her for all that business concerning the death of his son!

Starbuck’s eventual survival and rescue was, to be fair, rather unlikely. Finding a wrecked Cylon ship, learning how to use its oxygen and then get the thing to fly being a fairly hard concept to buy. But, never-the-less, it did set up that brilliant climax to the show when Apollo read ‘Star Buck’ on the wings of the ship and realised she was alive. Everyone on Galactica cheered, and it was a brilliantly dumb moment to cheer along with.

The Cylon ship being biological and, basically, its own unique lifeform was a very interesting turn-up. Potentially the ship they now have can be examined and new things can be learned about the Cylons that ought to throw up things of interest.

Meanwhile the remainder of the episode concerned Helo and Cylon Boomer on Caprica, but that’s a plot that continues to nudge itself along without adding any real meat to itself. I am sure it will take shape soon, but I am hoping it’s all worth this limping along. Potentially it might have been better to ignore this plot strand and devote more of an episode to it, but since I don’t know where it’s going and how it will feed into the main Galactica and Cylon masterplan I can’t gauge that properly.

The next episode feels like it has something of a clean slate though, so I am interested to see which direction the show is going to take me into next. We’re only at the halfway point of this first season so I feel the seeds have been sown and now I should start to get a feel for where the conclusion is headed.