Razor

I understand that this one-off, feature length special aired in between Season 3 and 4. I didn’t even know it existed until I took to browsing around certain websites looking to see if I could buy BSG on DVD cheap and noticed this curiosity amongst the regular seasons. I believed that it was purely going to be about Battlestar Pegasus – about Cain and her crew and the story of what had happened to them during and after the first Cylon attack. I got that story, and a little more besides. . .

The story of Pegasus was told in flashback alongside a story that slotted, chronologically, not too long after Apollo had been granted Commander status of the ship. He made the decision to make the tough, hardline Cain-enthusiast Kendra his X-O and it was through her eyes did we see the history play out.

In truth, I was a little disappointed by watching the story of Cain’s decisions and the plight of Pegasus before it encountered Galactica. We had already been given the ‘beats’ of the story by hearing about the X-O who got shot, and the shooting of civilians when ships were looted of their assets. What I wanted was to really get inside the mind of Cain and understand how it was she had made those decisions in good conscience. Really, I didn’t get much past the idea I had of her previously: that she was a bitch with a single intent and will to get it done no matter what.

The biggest surprise regarding her was that she was a lesbian, and one that was getting it on with the Cylon that would come to be known as Caprica Six. Six’s treatment once she was discovered as Cylon, and the torture and rape that was no doubt encouraged by Cain, were no doubt fuelled by her own hurt and self-loathing about how she had been taken in and perhaps fallen in love with Six. (It also makes the fact that Six would be the one to shoot Cain dead a more salient, poetic act.)

Otherwise the events we had heard about worked out pretty much how they had been said they did, which left little sense of surprise and no real understanding of the motivation. The closest to rationalisation was when Cain was of the belief that Pegasus and her crew were completely alone and the only thing they had left was vengeance and anger to deliver some payback. That was fair enough when they thought they were alone, but why the shut off and murder of civilians once they were discovered?

The title ‘Razor’ was the justification, with Cain’s viewpoint being that they had to become like a blade that cuts, coldly, to survive. I understood what was being said, I just couldn’t believe in it from Cain and see where her head state was at. That was a shame really, because the story of Pegasus was one I was willing to get along for the ride with. Perhaps it was the fact that the story was told in flashback, and so drained of dramatic impetus, that prevented me from fully engaging in it.

There were two other notable elements which, perhaps, justified this being a special episode that was aired between Season 3 and 4 (otherwise there was no real point in the story of Apollo’s command and the mission Starbuck and co made, and how Kendra eventually sacrificed herself as repentance for what she had done).

The first notable element was a young Adama’s story during the first Cylon war, how he had come across a Cylon base that was conducting experiments on humans. It was there he found the first prototype hybrids that were being created. Some of the detail on all of that was kind of lost on me, in truth, but I got the impression that the Hybrids were the Cylons first attempts at what would eventually become the likes of Six and Boomer and the other moulds. These hybrids, however, appeared to have some special sense of the patterns of the universe, and how things that had gone before would happen again. . .

Which brings me to the second notable element, and easily the most juicy in light of the end of Season 3and what Kendra heard about Starbuck. The hybrid delivered some form of prophecy warning of how Starbuck would bring about the end of humanity and that she must not be followed. Quite what the meaning was all about was, naturally, kept kind of oblique.

My own personal take on it, and the direction I think that Season 4 is going to take, is that Starbuck will indeed bring about the end of humanity. And I also think she will bring about the end of Cylons. And what will happen is that the perfection of a Cylon-Human hybrid will be complete, and that will be the new race. . .

On saying that, it sounds like kind of too much of a bleak ending for all the various people we have come to know over the course of the Seasons of BSG, so maybe that’s something of a longshot!

So, in short, not a bad feature length piece that served as a diversion and a mild curiosity – but there was never any danger of it generating the immediacy and excitement of Battlestar Galactica’s regular episodes when firing on all cylinders. The story of Pegasus was mildly interesting, but there’s a better story we want to see play out!

3.20 Crossroads - Part 2

If it wasn’t for the last ten minutes, this would have been the most disappointing of Season finales. Thankfully, it had the last ten minutes. I think they’ve always known about the last ten minutes quite a few episodes ago, which kind of explains why the show feels like it’s been cooling its heels waiting around to smack the viewers around the face with it.

But I’ll get to that. First, the preceding 30 minutes of the show. . .

Yeah, yeah, it was all about Gaius and his trial. The thing is, the longer it went on the more certain I was that he was never going to be found guilty. The evidence supporting it all was just too weak, and then Apollo was cajoled into taking the stand against his father and speaking on Gaius’ behalf. It was a good speech, actually, addressing some of the issues of hypocrisy and warped justice that have peppered the show since the start. Battlestar Galactica has enjoyed those moments of moral dubiousness, and it was only right that they came back here to be picked apart and held up to the light.

So Gaius was free and, not soon after, apparently spirited away to his “new life” amongst some kind of cult people that considered him a form of God. The threads of that, no doubt, will be picked up in the next Season and potentially serve as a kind of bridge between human and Cylon.

As for the Cylons we know, not much happened with them. There was that bizarre shared dream between Laura, Athena and Caprica – but though the phenomena was presented it was never explored or explained. It was indicative of this finale as a whole: present a whole lot of crazy, inexplicable stuff and then leave it hanging in the balance.

Which brings me to that final ten minutes. Right around the time Caprica had her vision in the opera house of being with Gaius and the child and seeing the Final Five staring down at them, it occurred to me to count how many people were hearing the music on Galactica. There were four, I quickly realised, just before THAT scene.

It turns out the four of them – Tigh, Tyrol, Anders and Tori – were channelling a sitar version of All Along The Watchtower (I’ll come to that). Apparently it was intended to be that way, a trigger that would cause them to gather and awaken themselves to the truth: they were Cylons!

It was quite a moment. Coupled with the constant music, the Cylon attack and the power running out, it was pretty intense. I had previously earmarked Tigh as a potential Cylon after Deanna made her apology upon seeing the Final Five (I am guessing it was him she apologised too!), but I didn’t fully believe it, and I really didn’t figure the likes of Anders or Tyrol to be one (Tori, when she started behaving weirdly, I figured her as a potential, also).

Again, quite what it all means for the four of them and what they are supposed to do next hangs completely (and tantalisingly) in the balance. Tigh wants to go back to being the man he knows of himself, but I am fairly sure that all of them are going to be irresistibly drawn to their true selves and their true purpose. Earth, no doubt, figures heavily in this.

What I suppose is unique to this four is that they have been allowed to grow up, be born, in fact, as humans. Tigh, after all, has grown up with Adama. I was of the understanding that the Cylon ‘moulds’ don’t change and so could never have been children. But these other five are perhaps more ethereal, and exist in a spiritual sense at a fundamental level and only exist in humans. (Perhaps that’s the key to the Cylon’s eventual goal – to marry a Cylon spiritual form housed in the body of man. It’s the best explanation I’ve got up to now.)

And so we had the final reveal (as Apollo decided to ditch the lawyer life and get back in the Viper) of Starbuck piloting her ship. She looked the same. The ship looked the same. Except she was happy, and calming, and claimed she had been to Earth and everything was going to be all right.

And that’s all the explanation we got. The quickest conclusion to reach is that Starbuck must be the fifth and final Cylon, who realised the truth about herself upon death and has since seen ‘the light’ and knows how to lead the humans and the Cylon in that unification goal I spoke of earlier. That’s the quick and obvious – which makes me certain it’s not right.

The final shot was, as was almost expected at that moment, of Earth itself. Given that the song All Along The Watchtower existed, I have to figure that it must be a future Earth. That is if it is our Earth, and this set of us that existed in the 20th/21st century are a part of the BSG universe, I think we’re long gone now – but that song, in a sitar version – remains!

Ultimately then that last ten minutes were cracking stuff. I do feel like it also ran an extreme risk of being rather silly. I can imagine many people watching and throwing their hands up in the air, figuring that the show had finally just gone too daft all at once. The reveal of the four Cylons and a freshly-alive Starbuck and then the reveal of Earth coupled with familiar music was a mass crash of incongruous, surprising revelation not to be easily swallowed in one gulp.

I guess when this originally aired the fans of the show had a whole long wait between Season 3 and 4; time to absorb and analyse and get used to this explosion of new information. I don’t have that cushion. I’ve got the first half of Season 4 ready and waiting so I can get to see pretty soon how well all these balls that are hanging in the air get juggled around and managed to see if the show really has lost its marbles or if I’m in good hands for what, I believe, is the final Season.

3.19 Crossroads - Part 1

The trial of Baltar finally begins, and what would seem like a watertight prosecution against is turning out to be a flimsy story perpetrated by witnesses that are falling apart at the seams. “A storm is coming,” Helo gloomily stated as he heard they were just three jumps away from the nebula, and I’ve heard similar statements of doom before – and they always carry through to reveal something grim.

I’m expecting grim things.

For one thing we’ve got people seemingly cracking up out of nowhere. Tigh has started hearing music that he believes is coming from within the ship – but he’s not the only one who heard it as Anders apparently also did. And then there was Tori, the president's aide, who out of nowhere has started unravelling and shared that odd exchange with Anders.

I have absolutely no idea what she is all about, but it feels like something to be dreaded. Indeed, the whole business with Tigh and the weird music is an odd one. Is it a psychological metaphor, or is there some deeper significance to it? The closer to the nebulae they get, the more the music plays? Signs of civilisation? Was Tigh picking up music playing from Earth!?

And then there’s the president, whose cancer has come back and she has taken to the kamala again to ease her suffering (which explain the hallucinogenic dream that opened the episode featuring Laura and Athena pursuing Hera only to see Caprica scoop her up – I am sure that’s symbolic but I don’t quite know what of). What does it mean that the cancer came back? Another symptom of something going inherently wrong?

And then there’s Apollo, now turned fully against his father and against the military to pursue a life as a lawyer for Gaius. What the hell is that all about? If people weren’t behaving strangely and cracking up I would have found Adama’s dismissal of his son hard to believe – but at present it could simply be interpreted as another example of this angry malaise that appears to have descended on the people.

It was a good thing that all of this was happening amidst the trial, because the trial itself was rather dull, and continues to be rather dull. Try as they might it’s simply never going to be as exciting as they’d want it to be. The moment the raptor stayed behind and encountered a sudden appearance of Cylon base ships was far more exhilarating than any trial could be. Caprica Six said the base ships were tracking the fleet due to the tylium ship – and this has created a plan to use the tylium ship as a diversion. Perhaps it’s just the sense of unease getting to me, but that seems like a bad idea. What if the Cylons get to the fuel ship and destroy it? That leaves the fleet without fuel, stuck out there, and in a bad spot. . .

Potentially it could mean the Cylons get the jump on them on the journey to Earth and take the next step ahead of them. That’s if the Cylons don’t just blast the fleet to pieces. There’s a whole lot of things could go wrong, and this first-part episode did a good job in selling the potential that it very probably will. I’m expecting grim things indeed. . .

3.18 The Son Also Rises

The instant Laura announced that Gaius was going to be given a trial it had an air of importance about it. There was the sense that this trial was going to be made into a big deal. And ever since it was, I’ve been deeply not bothered about it. And here, on this episode that is the penultimate one before Season 3 goes into a two-part finish, I have seen nothing that convinces me this trial was a good idea.

This episode was all about Gaius being given a lawyer prepared to defend him. After one was assassinated, up stepped this odd, gravel-voice, shade-wearing, kleptomaniac Irishman and completely dragged the episode, and Battlestar Galactica, into one of the dullest places I’ve ever seen it.

An episode like this would be bad enough mid-season, but right towards the end as I am poised now it just seems like a dreadful mis-step. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe there is such a killer payoff going to result from this trial to make it worthwhile. . . But so far I am dubious. Aside from Starbuck’s end in the previous episode, the instalments lately have felt inert and lacking in purpose – as though the Season doesn’t know where to end and is so serving up episode after episode tackling different ideas just to fill in time before the finish.

Potentially, as this episode hinted, Apollo is going to be the driver to some scheme at the heart of Lampkin’s plans. The letter he sent to Gaius at the end, linked into the episode title, suggests that managing to convert Apollo against his father’s will is going to prove incredibly useful and powerful. But to what end, I don’t know. Perhaps my dislike of it is because the episode was dominated by this Lampkin guy who I just out and out didn’t believe in at all. Carrying a cat he didn’t like (that served only one purpose: to help Tyrol spot a bomb) and talking of deep-love between Caprica Six and Gaius, he just struck me as someone that was supposed to be all-knowing and profound about the human condition, but to me he sounded like he was full of shit.

If he turns out to be something to do with Final Five I am going to be very disappointed.

So the only reason I am now looking forward to the last two remaining episodes of the season is really because they are the last two remaining episodes, and Season Finales are generally good on any show, and on Battlestar Galactica they have been particularly good. Can I hope for a curveball, dramatic tone shift like Season 2? Do I dare hope for that much?

3.17 Maelstrom

Well well well. An odd episode in the sense that it probably delivered the most shocking surprise Battlestar Galactica has ever produced, and yet the way it was all set-up meant the apparent demise of Starbuck had an inevitability about it that emptied the eventual ‘surprise’ of any shock value.

Although, for sure, despite Starbuck flying headlong into a cloud storm and exploding I think it’s certain she isn’t gone for good. Quite where she has gone to is another matter, of course. Like that Aurora figurine she came across, Starbuck has potentially been reborn into the next phase of her destiny. And though that’s all very well and good in a poetic, metaphorical sense it doesn’t answer very much in the way of hard and fast reality.

Metaphor played a heavy part here, though. From the ‘maelstrom’ image that Starbuck had been drawing, it was appearing in her dreams, in melted candles and in the storm cloud that eventually consumed her. It wasn’t difficult to surmise that the darkness at the centre of the storm could also be portrayed as the darkness at the centre of Starbuck herself; her destructive nature and guilt over her mother being a swarming blackness at the heart of her that had been pulling her inside out like a black hole.

She faced her inner demons, made her peace with her mother and flew into the eye of the storm. That all works well, metaphorically.

What’s not so clear is what the hell was going on! Leoben had been in her dreams, constantly, and appeared in her extended flight of fantasy as her ship plunged into the eye of the storm. Yet at the end Starbuck knew that he wasn’t even really Leoben, so who the hell was he? And was there ever really a Cylon raider anywhere? It seemed like there wasn’t until close to the end when Apollo apparently got a glimpse of the raider that Starbuck had been pursuing.

That’s deeply confusing.

I have to try and corroborate some level of Cylon involvement in all that transpired, but I get the feeling this part of Starbuck, and the Cylon's destiny, goes back further than either of them. There was mention of that space between life and death, which is crucially what Deanna was in pursuit of when looking for the ‘final five’. Again, I get the impression the ‘final five Cylons’ and the five members of the 13th tribe are perhaps one and the same, and are a link between man and Cylon.

And, naturally, this leads to the idea that Starbuck may be one of these five. That’s perhaps where she has gone. . . How all that works, how a member of the Cylon five could have been a little girl that grew into Starbuck and had no real understanding of herself, well, that’s deeply involved stuff that I can’t really fathom out. I just have to have faith with Battlestar Galactica that it knows what it is doing.

I think it must do. I can’t imagine ‘killing off’ a character like Starbuck was one that was done lightly and without careful consideration. And I liked the way this episode tied in her first encounter with Leoben, and the details of her flat from Season 2, and made it feel like this episode, this fate, had always been coming. I have a feeling that I probably won’t get much of an answer about all of this in the remainder of this season, but perhaps the season will end with some glimpse as to where Starbuck went to next. . . Exciting stuff.

Although if she turns up in the next episode having miraculously survived somehow then I want my frakking money back!

3.16 Dirty Hands

This episode was, I think, another standalone edition in many senses, concerning itself with the working class and the ruling class as it exists in the fleet, and the sense that this status quo looks never to be broken. It was certainly an interesting one, I thought, but then this subject of underclasses and ruling classes is one that I am fascinated by anyway.

Gaius, from his prison cell, had been busy writing a book – a subterfuge piece about how the likes of Adama and other Capricans were set to forever rule, even in this new fleet society, and the peoples from other colonies would be forever bound into the roles and functions they were doing. Or, as Tyrol put it, his son would only ever be able to be an engineer because that’s what Tyrol would teach him and there would be no chance of him becoming anything else.

Tyrol was very much the focus here, harkening back to his role of union leader on New Caprica. Visiting the tylium processing ship, and the harsh conditions there, he instigated a strike that lead to his imprisonment. Adama was particularly harsh in his treatment of Tyrol, I thought. He threatened to take his wife, Callie, and have her shot first if Tyrol did not relent.

I know Adama has turned over a new leaf for himself to be a meaner chief, but that just seemed a step too far. Mind, it wasn’t clear if he was bluffing or not – but it didn’t seem like he was! (Odd that a man like Gaius is being allowed to have a trial, yet someone like Callie could be stood against a wall and shot without hesitation! I don’t think I buy it.)

Gaius and his impending trial looks as though it’s going to be at least one of the features of the season finale. Again, there seems to be a lack of impetus for the season at the moment, with another episode rolling by with little indication of forward momentum. I wonder if Gaius will get his trial. I wonder if he will be executed. I wonder if, after he is executed, he will wake up in a Cylon downloading tank. . . Maybe that’s the season finale!

It would seem that Gaius certainly struck a chord with people in the fleet, though, as his book got circulated and read in secret. This perhaps leads towards Zarek’s words about Gaius having a trial opening the door to a riot; but again I struggle to believe that people would have real sympathy for the man that lead them to New Caprica and was in apparent collaboration with the Cylons during their occupation.

So it was a good episode for Tyrol, but in the sense of progression and credulity I thought it struggled along more than it had to. But the sub-plot story of Celix, being turned down for pilot training only to be then awarded the status at the episode’s end was a delightful payoff. Until I know where this season is going, though, it’s hard to know if this was an episode that was more filler than anything else.

3.15 A Day In The Life

It feels like this season is taking a little bit of an introspective turn for a while, which seems kind of odd in terms of pacing and impetus. There’s now about five episodes to go before the thing finishes so I would have thought that whatever plot angles the season has been arching towards would be in position by now. . . Maybe they are and I just can’t see the alignment, but it sure doesn’t feel like there’s much in the way of momentum towards anything at this point.

Still, with this show anything can turn up at any time and produce a rapid acceleration of plot and excitement so it’s no big worry.

This episode focused on two aspects; Adama the man and Tyrol and Callie. The Tyrol and Callie situation was, I guess, a kind of metaphorical event for Adama in some respects. There they were doing a routine repair on the hull when there was a slight breach and they were locked into a room rapidly venting air. What started as a mild inconvenience escalated into a crisis.

During this time, Tyrol and Callie got the chance to re-evaluate their relationship that had been strained with work and their baby. Tyrol, in particular, got to realise exactly what was truly important to him in respect to raising his family and progressing from his old life to the new one.

The sequence where Tyrol and Callie had the doors blasted open and were ejected out into space to be caught by Apollo, Starbuck and Athena in a Raptor was a totally “Holy shit!” moment. I loved it. Although I was reasonably sure the two would survive, there was always the off-chance that Callie, perhaps, might not have made it. But they both did. Both live on, to live and learn.

Metaphorically, for Adama, the idea of venting out old ideas and blasting them out to be reinvigorated by a new awareness was kind of what his daydreams regarding his ex-wife on the day of their anniversary was all about. Tellingly, at the end, it seemed he hadn’t moved on much and knew he would do the same thing again next year. Still, he had at least recognised the need to show Apollo that he respected and loved him as a son and not just a member of his military.

Interesting that Adama’s imaginary conversations with his wife echoed the way Gaius and Caprica Six have both conjured ‘imaginary people’ to interact with exclusively. I think enough was done to try and ensure that it was clearly a flight of fancy, a daydream for him, rather than any hint that he might be some kind of Cylon.

Indeed, is it right that the Cylons do not age? That is their mould does not change? So for the likes of Cylon Boomer she was implanted with false memories before she knew she was a Cylon to ensure she believed she really was human? Which, therefore, suggests that anyone who has grown up with anyone else – and seen them grow up – cannot be a Cylon.

We’ve seen photographic evidence of a young Adama, and he watched Apollo grow up. So we know those two are fine. How long have Apollo and Starbuck known each other? Or Adama and Starbuck? Or Adama and Tigh? How long were Tigh and Ellen together? I only wonder all of this when considering who may yet be awaiting the reveal of being a Cylon all along – I am sure at least one major cast member will be!

3.14 The Woman King

Odd title for an episode, I thought, and it turned out to be something of a play on words, featuring as it did a pivotal character, a woman, named King! This episode focused on Helo for once, which made a welcome and interesting change. As became clear towards the end, Helo’s function has been very much as a lone voice crying out in opposition to what is usually viewpoints that don’t agree.

Usually he’s a bit of a bleeding heart for Cylons, and even in this episode, when he is left defending the fate of the curious people of Sagittarion (who don’t believe in medicine or technology so much, so I guess they’re kind of Mormonic, or Luddite!?) when he believes they are being bumped off by the doctor.

As it turned out he was right, but he had to go through a lot of self-examination and cross-examination from the likes of Adama and Tigh, amongst others. In the end, Adama bestowed an apology and Helo saluted him so I guess that sort of puts them back where they started. The only thing we had gained was more of an insight into Helo’s character, which was worthwhile though probably not wholly consequential in the grand scheme of this Season.

What was pivotal, it would seem, is the brief scene with Laura and Zarek discussing whether to hold the trial of Gaius. Zarek was adamant, and apparently scared, that holding such a trial would open up a “hurricane” of trouble that even the provision of marshall law might not be able to contain.

I’m not quite sure where Zarek’s conviction comes from. I got the impression that, basically, since Gaius was so clearly guilty in the eyes of the people for their sufferings on New Caprica that the idea of even giving him a chance of being proven innocent would create anger and rioting. At least, if this trial goes ahead, it’s been granted an extra layer of interest!

Meanwhile Caprica Six was in her cell, being watched as she talked to herself and kissed the imaginary Gaius that had turned up for her. Again, I am forced to ask myself what the deal is with these two and each having an imaginary version of one another serving as their conscience of sorts. There’s hopefully some form of rationale behind this, but beyond mad thoughts about them both being Cylons that died and, on their way to being downloaded somehow got entangled en route, I can’t really fathom it out.

So that was that. A bit of a standalone, character study of an episode that Battlestar Galactica occasionally chucks out there – biding time until the next set of ‘to be continued’ episodes rear their heads! (They’re always the best ones!)

3.13 Taking A Break From All Your Worries

Bit of an odd episode this. I could kind of see what it was doing, exploring the character points that had been revealed over the previous episodes – the trouble was that by the end there had been very little in terms of progression. It was like an examination before the whole thing reverted back over to its previous state.

The main thrust of the plot concerned Gaius, now in captivity on Galactica. Tigh had the viewpoint that he should just be executed, whereas Laura and Adama were more inclined to try and get whatever information out of him they could. Gaius, himself, tried to commit suicide at the start of the episode and had a weird hallucination that he woke up in a download tank – but I was never fooled. I knew he wasn’t going to be revealed as a Cylon; I have become certain of that much now.

Probably I’ll turn out wrong later down the line!

But anyway, Gaius was eventually injected with some bizarre serum that Adama only saw fit to mention now, where the subject was placed in a situation of jeopardy and only his interrogators had the power to aid him. This was apparently going to make him speak the truth. (The end, intriguingly, hinted that there was a secret in him so deep even he wasn’t prepared to admit it. . .)

What he did admit was pretty much what we already knew concerning his part in the Cylon attack on Caprica and what he knew about the Cylon race in general. It was good in the sense that it allowed him to clarify for us exactly where his state of mind was at; but at the same time it didn’t really feel like I was learning anything new.

What was worse was the inertia of the episode since, by the end, Adama nor Laura were at all convinced by his story. The only forward movement was that they had decided to give him a trial (whatever that means) rather than outright kill him. It was not an ending to the episode that made me excited about the next episode, really. Hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

And the inertia of the episode carried through with Apollo and Starbuck. Both pretty much broke apart from Dualla and Anders respectively, and then met up. Starbuck hit Apollo with it: that he could leave Dualla and she would be there. But then he worried that he could not rely on her after the way she had treated him (understandable) and so ended up going back to Dualla and breaking down in front of her, begging she take him back.

Personally speaking, I’d rather be with Dualla than Starbuck any day!

Anyway, Dualla took Apollo back and Starbuck was back with Anders and the pair just shared some looks across the bar towards the end (the bar being where the episode got its title, from the Cheers theme song!). Again, back to square one with the sense that there was still plenty more of this love square to come.

So the episode ended in pretty much the same place where it had begun. That’s not really a great mark of anything, though I guess with this foreplay out of the way the season can march on and properly get into whatever it wants to sink its teeth into next.

3.12 Rapture

I suspect for fans of Battlestar Galactica that are as nuts about the show as I am about Lost, for example, then this episode is one that would have prompted discussion and debate in a frenzy. That debate would have been fuelled by Deanna’s experience in the temple, when she confronted the final five and learned their identities. I’ll come back to that scene.

In the meantime the cliffhangers from the previous episode were all resolved rather amicably and quickly! The Cylon ships headed to the planet all backed off, barring Deanna’s ship (a decision that had the startling prompt amongst the other Cylons that her dissension was not one they could tolerate any longer). Apollo instructed Dualla to go and get Starbuck, so he and Anders could get on with defending the temple for as long as they could.

Uneasy alliances all around then, but it made for a tense and enjoyable episode. Plenty of action and tension. Battlestar always handles this stuff well – in fact its battles and skirmishes and high-stakes situations are something of a trademark of the show for me. The only downside, for me, was the escape when the whole planet went supernova. Given there were people on the ground when it was all going off, and Tigh’s priceless remark about how it was going to be “photo finish” I was anticipating every bead of tension to be wrung out of the escape. Not so. It was all rather easy and over quickly. Probably as a result of time allowance on the episode in general rather than any artistic or dramatic decision.

Elsewhere Athena elected to have Helo kill her so she could download back on the Cylon base ship and get to her daughter again. The scenes with Athena and Cylon Boomer were bizarre; Cylon Boomer has become such a cold character! That seemed totally at odds with the character that existed on New Caprica. Still, it allowed Caprica Six justification to snap her neck, so no sooner had Athena arrived when she was back on Galactica, with her baby, and with Caprica Six in tow!

Add in Gaius managing to end up back on Galactica, also, and pretty much every major player is now back together in the same place for the first time since Season 2. The ramifications to all of that are mightily interesting. Galactica has a new signpost to follow with the supernova (in truth this seems like an event so preposterously unlikely I’ll need more justification for how that event just happened to occur at the moment in time) and plenty of interesting reactions from the people onboard to follow up on.

Meanwhile, back on the Cylon base star, Deanna’s model and the knowledge contained within has been maddeningly ‘boxed’ indefinitely, and so what, or more specifically who, she had learned about was left unknown to all but her. Which brings me to the beginning, and where the debate would have raged amongst the fanboys about who the final five could be.

There wasn’t much in the way of clues, save for the fact that Deanna seemed to only react to one of the figures she saw. When she saw this one figure she apologised for her ignorance. And, just before dying, she told Gaius he was right without defining what he was right about.

Gaius thought it might have been about whether he was a Cylon. The longer this idea has dangled the less I believe it. If he was, why would he have been the brilliant mind on Earth that needed to be infiltrated by Six to allow access to the defence systems? It just doesn’t seem right. (And yet there is that bizarre telepathy he shares with Six and the projection aspect to his flights of fantasy, so I’m not dismissing him out of hand!)

There was Starbuck’s revelation at the end, where she was shown the picture she had drawn all her life that resembled the 4,000 year old image found in the temple. On being shown this Starbuck recalled the prophetic words of the Leoben Cylon who told her she had a destiny to fulfil. This either marks her out as one of the final five, or maybe just a pivotal figure in the eventual destinies of the humans and the Cylons.

Does Deanna have reason to apologise to Starbuck as she did? That’s what I ask myself. I don’t recall them having all that much to do with each other. (Indeed, Gaius aside, Deanna hasn’t hurt very many non-Cylon people!) But then I’ve not seen everything she ever did whilst on New Caprica, for example, and maybe her apology was a more general one for whatever was perpetrated to the individual in question.

Point is, I don’t know. And I’ve rapidly watched the show from beginning to this point in isolation of any discussion, so it’s hard to retain all the facts and scenes and pointers that I could build towards any specific case. My out of the box suggestion? Colonel Tigh. Irony of ironies that the one-eyed hater of all things Cylon turns out to be one of the final five! But given that he had an eyeball gouged out, that seems to me to be something that Deanna would want to apologise for!

3.11 The Eye Of Jupiter

So I had been a little previous with the last episode and assumed that the mission to get algae had been done and dusted and now the fleet had got food for themselves. I was wrong. This episode started with the information that the harvest of the algae had been going on for two weeks and was in full flow. So whilst I didn’t understand how the ‘radioactive passage of light’ incident from the previous episode had been necessary nor traversed, I quickly got to grips with the current situation.

It was a situation that was going to get massively intense. And it started with Tyrol getting a hunch about something in the mountains so he went for a wander and inadvertently stumbled upon some massive temple – potentially the temple of the five from the 13th colony.

Right. OK. So here we bring in the Cylons, who also appeared four base ships strong at the planet on their own quest to find ‘the eye of Jupiter’ that apparently pointed the way to Earth and would be found in this temple. So all that business from the previous episode, again that I had mistaken and/or got confused by, with Baltar and Deanna going on about shadows in light had also brought them to this point.

I have to say they could have done a better job of making that a little clearer. I mean, maybe I was a bit sleepy when I watched the previous episode but I don’t think I totally missed the signpost on this thing.

So what’s the deal with the Cylons and the humans then? Because there are the Cylons going on about these five weird Cylon moulds that exist in the point between life and death. And now there’s this temple of ‘the five’. . . It seems to me that the history between the two races may have more common ancestry, or roots, than has been outlined so far. Or maybe it’s to do with the statement from the ancient book about how all of this has happened before and will happen again.

It’s intriguing stuff, but I am going down the line of thinking that there’s a serious link between humans and Cylons that is yet to be introduced. Perhaps they were once all like Hera, and then there was a split? Who knows?

In the meantime it was time for a whopper of a cliffhanger to end this episode on a ‘to be continued’ note. We had Baltar and Deanna journeying to the planet. Adama was priming nuclear weapons with a poker faced intent on whether he was going to use them or not. Starbuck had been shot down by Centurions already on the planet and set to wage war with the makeshift army of civilians down there. Apollo and Anders were facing off over whether to rescue Starbuck, with Anders held at gunpoint. And there was Tyrol, alone, trying to unlock the mystery of the temple. To cap it all, there’s only a bloody great supernova due to go off at any moment.

It’s a heck of set of plot strands all left in the balance! I can’t wait to see how they pick up the threads and move on from this!

3.10 The Passage

It had been discussed before, about how much food was available to the fleet and how it might run out. I guess the stay and quick escape from New Caprica meant that supplies for the fleet were in short supply, and so when this episode started everyone was suffering from extreme rationing.

The 'passage' of the title was a route through an extremely radioactive star cluster and extremely bright planet to collect some form of food - algae - to feed the fleet. By the sounds of it the food wasn’t going to be particularly tasty or exciting, but it would keep everyone alive. Perhaps that issue is yet to arise; with the fleet perhaps resenting the food they are given and becoming mutinous or something. Maybe.

But things have changed in Season 3. The survivors have known harsh life on New Caprica already, which has perhaps made them more hardy. Also, in the previous season, this may have been a more political issue with Laura having to negotiate some tricky decisions to get people onside. But the political wrangling was more of a Season 2 thing and that presence has been (happily) muted more this season.

The episode also focused more on one of the more peripheral characters: Kat. It was revealed she got her flying skills being a trafficker back in the day, and also an ex-junkie, who had faked her identity to get on Galactica. This certainly shed light on the character we had seen in previous episodes (particularly Scar) and yet despite her grubby past she finished the episode a heroine.

There was an interesting diversion going on with Deanna and Baltar, where he was asking her about her experiences between life and death. She discussed how she saw five shapes, potentially the five other Cylon moulds. That’s an intriguing development. How do they come to exist in the space between life and death? It’s certainly a strange one, and probably not one that’s going to be easily answered.

There was an unlikely set of deductions made when Baltar and Deanna listened to the Hybrid. Baltar let the Hybrid touch him and then she blathered out some apparent nonsense that suggested seeing shadows in the light or something. I guess she was talking about the light in that space between life and death, but for a while I did wonder if The Passage, with its blinding light, might have held some weird revelation from within.

For a moment I wondered if Kat herself wasn’t going to see something incredible when she stayed longer to find her ship. . . but no such revelation came. So probably I was just joining two separate ideas together that were merely being paralleled rather than linked. But there’s no doubt this sub-plot with Baltar and Deanna is the driving narrative going on from this episode, whilst back on Galactica it’s more about waiting for the next discovery or crisis to propel Season 3 onward.

3.9 Unfinished Business

Like much of the boxing that took place in this episode, this one came with a sucker punch. The ‘unfinished business’ of the title referred to the various motivations and frustrations that had arisen on New Caprica before the Cylon occupation. Chief of these was the relationship between Starbuck and Apollo, but that’s one I will come to.

The reason for the free-for-all boxing match was, as Adama explained, a regular event as a means for the crew to release their pent up frustration and grievances that military protocol dictated that they keep bottled up. It also served as a pretty handy means by which character plots could be explored.

So as various fighters took to the ring we were treated to brief flashbacks to their time on New Caprica and the story explaining whatever grievances existed. Adama had issue with Tyrell for allowing him to take Callie to the planet and abandon Galactica to raise his kid. As he pretty much goaded Tyrell into beating him to a bloody pulp the message was an admittance that he had gotten soft, as had his crew, and they had let their guard down and been beaten as a consequence.

In real terms, this suggests a more harder, tougher Adama may come to the fore. One, perhaps, taking a cue from Admiral Kane. . .? Though hopefully not as extreme!

I also believe Adama allowed himself to be battered by Tyrell as a form of penance for his own guilt at allowing Tyrell to go, and urging to Tigh to depart as well – given the dire consequences that decision created.

However, this episode was really all about Starbuck and Apollo, and the extraordinary story of what had taken place between them. Drunk at a party on New Caprica, they had taken themselves away from their respective partners and had sex, and then both had declared that they loved one another. It would have been a climactic moment, except this was all revealed whilst the two of them were pummelling the living shit out of one another in the ring.

We witnessed them finally getting together at a point when it had all fallen apart. I rather liked that.

That the morning after Starbuck disappeared and quickly got married to Anders explains why it was Apollo was so embittered towards her that time she requested drugs for Anders when he was extremely sick. As a consequence, in his own disgust, Apollo had jumped straight into the arms of Duala. Both of them, then, had hooked themselves up to someone else as a means of blocking the other off.

Refreshingly complicated stuff, I thought. But the real sucker punch came at the end of the episode. Exhausted, battered and spent, Starbuck and Apollo embraced one another and admitted that they missed one another. The demon between them had been exorcised. And with Anders and Duala both seeing what was going on, and no doubt realising what it signalled, the future between Apollo and Starbuck now is rather intriguing.

I don’t expect a happy romance to ensue, not with these two. But a will they/won’t they relationship hanging in the balance for a while has potential, I think!

So, good episode in all. It could have flopped over without delicate handling; but some nice editing (the shock reactions were displayed long before we understood their meaning) and just enough exposition without overkill meant the episode pulled the intent off with aplomb. Classy, actually, was the word that most sprang to mind immediately afterward. This was a classy episode.

3.8 Hero

A turn up out of the blue presented an episode here that left a lot to mull over. The appearance of Bulldog in a Cylon raider, pursued by other Cylon raiders, put the veritable cat amongst the pigeons for Adama.

The backstory for Bulldog was that he was part of Adama’s crew when he was the commander of the Valkryie. Adama had been sent out to the border line between human and Cylon to see if there was any Cylon activity. Bulldog went over enemy lines, was spotted, and so Adama had him shot down and then rushed away from there to avoid detection.

As far as Adama was concerned, hearing that Bulldog had apparently survived and then been captured by the Cylons indicated that he had been exposed, and therefore he had broke the truce between human and Cylon and therefore been a catalyst for the holocaust on the colonies.

Crikey. That’s a tough pill to swallow.

It turned out that Bulldog had not escaped after all, rather he had been set free precisely so he could get to Galactica, and Adama, and either kill him once he knew the truth or perhaps in the very least de-stabilise Adama’s command. (In the eyes of Apollo that plan probably worked a tad.)

Handily Tigh was there to break free of his stupor and come to Adama’s aid; swallowing down his bile and see his role as one of an expendable soldier in a grand war. For Tigh to come around it needed a short, sharp shock like this to make me believe his ‘road back’ could occur, so in this sense the episode won me over.

But what of the idea that Adama could have started the war? It doesn’t quite ring true. In the vast expanse of space how did the Cylons so quickly detect Bulldog? Suggests to me they either knew he was coming or they were hanging around the borderline already. And how long had Six’s scheming with Balthar been in place? Before the Bulldog capture? After? I tend to think it was before - but I could be flat wrong about that.

A funny question would be: Why did the Cylons choose to cast themselves in the mould of humans? Was it to serve the God they believe in, or to better infiltrate and attack the human race? Or both?

And what Laura said rings true. For one thing Adama was ordered there, so what else was he supposed to do? And for another thing he is totally unaware of what else his superiors were up to in relation to potentially provoking the Cylons. What’s interesting is that we have now been given the idea of provocation. Before this point it was basically the case that the Cylons showed up out of nowhere and nuked the human race for no reason.

Now we are presented with the idea that humanity might not be blameless at all. That, perhaps, it was us that cast the first stone?

And meantime Cylon Xena – who I suppose I should start calling Deanna since she appears to have become a serious featured character! – was having her own weird sub-plot thrown in. She ordered a centurion to kill her so she could re-experience this bizarre place between her death and reincarnation. (Apparently her three-way sessions with Balthar and Caprica Six have opened her mind!?) This looks to me like an intriguing introduction to a new level of awareness for the Cylons, perhaps one that’s linked with those other five Cylon moulds that they don’t like to talk of?

Slowly some layers about the Cylons are being peeled away, opening up some fascinating possibilities. Pretty much that’s what this episode was about in general, I think; I just don’t know if it’s planting seeds here that will really blossom throughout the season, or just sprinkling a little spice to prickle things up a little bit.

3.7 A Measure Of Salvation

So this second part to the previous episode followed on from where the other ended, with the discovery of the dead Cylon base ship in the nebula after it had picked up a beacon that had infected the ship and the raiders and the Cylons on it – where they had been left to die.

Once Apollo and Athena and other members of Galactica were onboard the biggest concern, for me, was whether Cylon Athena was going to get infected, too. It was certainly her concern the moment they realised there was an infection at play and got off the ship into quarantine.

As it turned out they found out the disease was not communicable to humans, and not long afterwards Athena was given the all clear. I was glad they didn’t drag that issue out, really. Instead the focus, on Galactica, was whether they could use the dying Cylons they had captured to wipe out the Cylon race.

The plan, of Apollo’s, was to jump to where the Cylons would find them. Then, when the base ships arrived en masse, with a resurrection ship nearby, they would execute the prisoners who would then be downloaded to the ship and infect the whole lot of them. (Are we saying there is only one resurrection ship now? Because they destroyed one, once! Was that it? There’s just one left? I struggle with that, but maybe it’s the way of it. And how does a biological disease get downloaded, exactly? Hmm.)

Laura was all for it. Adama was willing to go along with it. There was only Helo that was prepared to perform the ‘measure of salvation’ to prevent the mass extermination. It was certainly a dilemma for the viewer. I could see both sides; of how the Cylons had managed to create a consciousness that understood life, and therefore had moved beyond the role of ‘toasters’. But then in the same breath I could concede the view that humans created the Cylons, a mistake they made that they alone could remove and correct.

Both compelling. Ultimately I think I came down on the point of view that extermination was an acceptable proposition – given the mass genocide the Cylons performed first of all and have been chasing ever since. However, Helo intervened and killed the prisoners before they were in range of the resurrection ship so the chance was taken away.

Now Galactica have the hope that they are on the right route to Earth, but with the bitter knowledge that the Cylons are also on the same path. . .

Meanwhile, Gaius was undergoing a bizarre torture experience at the hands of Cylon Xena, whilst in his head Cylon Six was having sex with him to take his mind off things. It was all rather odd. But the net result was that Gaius wonld up crying out that he loved Cylon Xena, which appeared to have a marked effect on her. Where that’s going I don’t know.

The only other point I should note was that Starbuck was in a Viper and part of the squad out defending Galactica. From this I guess the gloomy, anxt-ridden Starbuck from the previous episode has put her issues aside enough to be allowed to continue in her military role. That all seemed brushed over way too quickly for me – but maybe it’s something that will be picked up later on and explained further. Either that or it really is over and done with, and that just leaves Tigh as the rotten soul festering away.

3.6 Torn

As anticipated, the experiences Starbuck and Tigh had on New Caprica have had marked changes to their character. And in this episode they got together, sitting in the mess room, spouting negativity and bile to anyone who would listen. Ostensibly their point was that they had been through worse than other people, and so other people had no right being positive.

Self-pity turned outward, made destructive.

This idea, thematically, made Starbuck and Tigh contaminants on Galactica that were polluting morale. By the episode’s end Adama stepped up to try and nip it in the bud; telling them both to either sort themselves out or get off the ship. Starbuck, as a result, went to Casey and hugged her, suggesting that she has taken the route to swallowing her bitterness and trying to pull ahead.

Tigh, on the other hand, told Adama that his old self was gone and never coming back and he hit the bottle in a big way. His may be a character that is really going to hit bottom before ever getting a chance at returning to the fold – I just wonder if he will ever come back from the brink at all.

The view of a contaminant theme was continued with Gaius and the Cylons. He had plotted a course towards the next stage of the journey to Earth. The Cylons, unsurprisingly, have decided that they want to make that their next place to stop. (They have all the universe and decide Earth is the spot? Bastards!) However, a base ship was sent into the next marker and hit upon a problem: a Cylon-killing disease vessel, most probably left by the thirteenth colony en route to Earth.

Fundamentally a hurdle on the path to Earth; a barrier to prevent the Cylons from passing. Gaius went onboard the base ship and found this all out, and then chose to not mention it to the Cylons. But they saw it anyway!

There was a lot of interesting information about Cylons and Gaius, though, which was welcome. It was precisely the function I hoped Gaius would be used for during his time with the Cylons. Six spoke of ‘projection’, of how the Cylons alter their environment easily, to suit their own well-being. Like vivid daydreaming. Naturally, we have seen from the start that Gaius is also particularly adept at this skill, which inevitably made him raise the same question I was thinking:

Is Gaius a Cylon?

Crucially this question was not answered. Right now, it’s the possibility that makes the most sense. He asked about the five other moulds of Cylon he has not yet seen, asking why it was only seven of the twelve appeared to be the ones making all the decisions. These were good questions, ones I had been wondering about as well. And though there was no answer, it was good that the question was posed and was obviously a part of the bigger picture yet to be revealed. As long as the show’s creators have the matter in hand then I am happy to wait.

I have to figure that the Hybrid isn’t one of the Cylon moulds. I don’t quite know what the hell she was, mind. Talk of her being the voice of God, whilst controlling the ship, existing on a plane of experience completely different to everyone else. . . Yeah, OK. They’ll either go somewhere with that, or they’ll drop it like a hot brick.

So the episode ended with newly-named Cylon Sharan, a.k.a. Athena, discovering the blinking lion in space, and seeing the dead base Cylon base ship next to it. Is such fleeting exposure enough to contaminate Cylon Athena? Does that little machine have to be onboard a ship to give Cylons the disease, or is just travelling through that region of space enough? Are there lots of those disease-spreading space mines scattered all over that area? I guess the second part will let me know, but this was a very intriguing episode. It felt like the show was making big strides to the ‘next level’ of revelation regarding Cylons, and the journey to Earth, both of which are, I think, the next natural progression for the show to take.

3.5 Collaborators

After the occupation, recriminations. The stark opening scene with the ‘prosecution’ of Jammer in the airlock was hardline stuff. Despite him being a baby-faced young man, who had aided Callie in her escape from the firing squad, the ‘circle’ of judges and jury still considered him guilty and culpable – and punishment meant death.

And so Jammer was blasted out of the airlock. And he wasn’t the first, as rumours of other people that had gone missing were filtering up the chain of command.

Tigh and Starbuck figured heavily here, with both of them exhibiting a new-found bitter side to their characters as a result of their respective experiences on New Caprica. Starbuck, it seems to me, is the one who is least likely to bounce back quickly. Her statement about wanting to just scratch out Anders’ eyes spoke volumes about her state of mind. I am not sure what it’s going to take to bring her back from the dark place she is currently in. Likelihood is she’ll get worse before, if ever, she gets better.

Tigh may have a better chance. He had a long pause after the near-killing of Gaeta. It was this scene that was crucial for me. I can honestly say that if Gaeta had been blasted out of the airlock it might just have been a blow too cruel for me to take too well. Thankfully Starbuck was there to drop the point that he had been the guy feeding the resistance movement information and without him there would never have been a rescue mission at all.

I felt pleased for Gaeta, getting nods of respect and the company of the always-likable Tyrell at the end as he ate a meal. They didn’t speak, but just seeing the two of them – one vindicated, one humbled – sitting together trying to reclaim a bond given what they had experienced encapsulated pretty much where many of the survivors of New Caprica are coming from.

This is a crew and people that have been much-changed and had the boundaries of their lives shifted. How else could it explain Skarek being permitted the role of vice-President? Suddenly he’s Mr. Nice Guy? Suddenly the anarchist is gone? Maybe for the moment, but I think there’s a viper in him still ready to strike given the right motivation and opportunity.

Gaius, meanwhile, is now in the custody of the Cylons. This is potentially an excellent avenue for the show to take, as we can see the Cylon’s point of view through his eyes. The trouble I have found so far is that the Cylons were at their best when their rationale and motivation was unknown; so far whenever reason is revealed for what they do it sometimes feels contradictory and flawed. The show kind of negotiates its way around this problem by showing the Cylons themselves as disagreeing amongst themselves, but there was a sense of unity and purpose about the Cylons when they were less understood that feels betrayed by every new revelation.

By the end of the episode a pardon had been issued so the matter of who is guilty following New Capica has been dispensed with. Another slate wiped clean, leaving the way clear for the series to start burrowing into whatever plot machinations and character complications are going to be explored and developed. The way the show is balanced now, darker and more mature, I have little doubt that there’s dark times and turmoil ahead.

Bring it on.