Let us start by giving thanks to God, or the Gods, or a mysterious force, or a chick in a red dress, or Starbuck, for the fact that Battlestar Galactica got an end. A proper end. An end that was planned for at least a year in advance. An end that was vaguely satisfying. An end with a robot montage. There are so many shows out there that have deserved something like this and failed to get it. (The ending, that is, not necessarily a robot montage.)

But the downside to getting an ending like this is that people will expect big things. Luckily, from the beginning, it’s clear that ‘Daybreak’ is breaking the mould of the previous episodes a little bit. Once upon a time we used to get flashbacks of the crew’s life on Caprica; now, for one night only, they’re back with a vengeance.¹ Roslyn, Tigh, Adama, Ellen, Boomer, Lee, Kara, Gaius — it’s like being reunited with old friends to see them as they used to be; free of responsibility, of the terrible weight of human history and survival. After quite a while of being continually alienated from our favourite characters, I was pleased that season four, and ‘Daybreak’ in particular, really pay them some attention again.²

But Battlestar isn’t just characters; it’s the epic story of humans and cylons, of history repeating horribly, of apocalypse and rebirth. And if you were watching to find out what happens, and to make sense of the twists and turns of the last four years, you’ll probably be severely pissed off. If there’s something inexplicable that happened in Battlestar Galactica, and it hadn’t been explained to you by the start of ‘Daybreak’, chances are that it turns out that the answer is “God is real and made it happen.” This has annoyed many, many people, either because they don’t like the idea of God very much, or because they don’t like loose ends very much, or both.

Personally, it all made me realise that a while back I stopped thinking of the show as a proper show where interconnected events happen logically, and began thinking of it as a blurry mess where random stuff happens, and good characters occasionally get to be cool. Which is unfortunate, really. I loaned the original miniseries to a friend the other day and as I sat through his interesting speculations on who the Six inside Gaius’ head was, I couldn’t help feeling a little bit betrayed by ‘Daybreak’. The show has altered and evolved since those days, but even if you see the Angels as a consistent conclusion, it still completely kills it for anyone who was interested in what the Angels actually wanted, since the answer is “for everything to happen exactly like you saw it happen, just because.”³ It seems horrifyingly pathetic for two species to realise that they’ve been manipulated by unknowable entities beyond their comprehension, and to meekly accept that they probably know best. As far as attitudes to omniprescent puppet masters go, I prefer “Get the hell out of our galaxy.”

So; it’s best not to think about plot, as we probably all realised a while back. Some of the individual moments, however, are excellent. I’ve spent paragraphs railing against the angels, but the reaction of Gaius and Caprica Six when they realise that they’re both seeing visions is priceless. Similarly, Tori’s awkward last moments as she suddenly realises that her secrets are about to be less secret were hilarious. I like a show that isn’t afraid to play key dramatic moments for comedy. Roslyn’s tragic experience on Caprica and the contrast with her determination to help even on death’s door was quite affecting, especially from a character I couldn’t stand only half a season ago. Perhaps one of the finest characters on television ever, Gaius Baltar, finally comes good; cheesy, perhaps, but oddly satisfying. And poor Admiral Adama’s emotional rollercoaster continues, as he goes from some impressive shouting and decision making in the first part to a somewhat less austere point involving vomit and a gutter in his flashbacks. As ever, Edward James Olmos is nothing short of amazing, and he finishes in fine, tear-jerking form as he finally gets his cabin with Roslyn on new Earth.⁴

Oh yeah, Earth. What can you say, except that it was probably done slightly better by Douglas Adams? It still works pretty well though, and provides some absolutely gorgeous imagery for the show to go out on. Like the plot, some of it is a little wooly, specifically Lee’s rather brave settlement plans. Throughout the series, the main characters have had trouble convincing the fleet to go along with their crazy yet heroic notions; perhaps Zarek really did them a favour, as since the rebellion and the execution of their democratically elected leaders, they really do seem to have fallen into line. Tell them to throw away their ships; they will. Tell them to start new lives relying on skills they most likely never had after living in metal boxes for years; they will. It’s all a cute idea, so I’m not completely against it, but it all seems a little like mass suicide.

I seem to have become critical again. Truly it was said that everything has happened before, and everything will happen again.

So let me say something else nice to round things up. I liked Battlestar Galactica, and even at the end, I don’t feel like it chased the pigeon. Or, if it did, it did it ages ago and I’m over it. It didn’t end as the same show it promised to be, and that makes a big part of me sad, because I really wouldn’t mind seeing the end of that show, too. But at the end I could still enjoy it for the religious space-soap it had become. And I’m not so much of an ingrate that I can’t appreciate actually having a decent show wrapped up after a decent run, with the ending that the writers wanted. That’s not something that happens every day, you know.

1. Well, two nights. But that doesn’t sound as good.
2. Although some of the flashbacks are a bit rubbish. In particular, I don’t see the point of having a flashback to Boomer one day saying “I owe you one” to Adama. Of course she owes him one! She shot him in the frakking chest!
3. Looking at it rationally, if the Angels really wanted to take the fleet to Earth, then they must be the sort of superbeings who have really peculiar rules about how and when they can influence humans, because fuck me, that’s one seriously convoluted way to do it.
4. I was quite glad the series didn’t end here, partly because I kind of like the crazy flash forward with Hallucination Angel Six and Gaius, but mostly because I was gathering some manly tears and didn’t want everyone I was watching with to turn around and notice.

It’s very relieving to sit down and thoroughly enjoy an episode of Battlestar Galactica. Ironically for a show which has focussed so much on religion in recent stories, I have very little faith in it any more. But I’ll save the whinges for later, or earlier, or quite possibly never.¹ This is a day of joy.

And when I say joy, obviously I mean bloody and tragic revolution. Horrible things are happening on the Galactica, but one of the reassuring constants of this show is that at these times, the characters we’ve followed for four years have their finest moments.

Well, except Gaeta, obviously. But I never liked that guy. Suspicious. Weedy. One-legged. Smells like cabbage.

There’s mutiny amongst the fleet, and Gaeta’s running the show. Disturbingly, as communications officer, he’s perfectly placed to mount the perfect coup.² Cutting off CIC from the rest of the ship, Gaeta ensures that by the time Adama realises what’s happening, it’s too late for him to do anything. Even when he unleashes his AWESOME MOVIE TRAILER GRAVEL VOICE, he’s already lost the ship. The last few years have rather done away at the idea of Adama as a perfect leader, which is probably good and healthy. But he’s still got his awesome.

Meanwhile, President Roslyn and Messiah Baltar have decided to try to help, having realised that they’re both phonies. And I say: good on them. A few episodes previously I found myself almost gleeful at Roslyn’s despair. “Hah,” I thought, “you kept boring the crap out of us with your irritating religious dogma, and now you will taste revenge!” I did not, however, lead a bloody coup, because I’m forgiving like that. And, because I’m not a fictional character. Gaius and Laura are both demonstrating a refreshing amount of self-awareness, and I like it.

Lee and Starbuck, meanwhile, continue to straddle shining heroism and general dickishness. And good on them. I’ve almost forgotten their unfortunate soap-opera period, and I’m just about ready to take them back as an awkward love story. Truly, this is a day of redemption.

Speaking of time — and I almost was³ — I have to admit that there’s something incredibly tense about dropping timestamps on every scene. Recently seeing Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie,⁴ I was struck by how perfectly normal scenes of people walking places make you nervous when you’re suddenly presented with the information that it’s all happening exactly 14 minutes since the last time you were told what time it was. I feel manipulated by small numbers and letters.

But the key tension of the episode comes through the several close-ups on Gaeta’s face as the revolution progresses through each ethically dubious step. Will he have a change of heart? Will he see it through? Will he end up getting shunted out of an airlock after all? Will grenades to bad things to our heroes?⁵ At least, for the first time in a long time, I really want to know the answers.

1. I do have some half-started reviews of previous stories, but I make no promises.
2. The perfect coup if you don’t mind killing people, anyhow.
3. I’m a bit rusty on segues, sorry.
4. Mini review: solid but underachieving. Historical movies I think do best if they either get inside the head of the players, or play everything neutral and as it was. Valkyrie couldn’t commit to either.
5. Did Batman so deeply affect my psyche that I’m drawn to end anything I write with a series of rhetorical questions?

Ok, you can do it Andrew. This is the last episode for this short season, thanks to the writer’s strike, and you’re only reviewing every second episode,¹ so once I get through this, then I’ll have done all my BSG reviews for this season. Just three hundred more words and I’ll be done.

So, let’s see what happened. There’s a quick recap involving what happened to the humans on the baseship once it jumped away from the fleet. Apparently they didn’t die. Laura’s having visions during the jumps. Gaius thinks he’s a hybrid-whisperer. Helo’s trying to round up the squabbling Cylons and humans to attack the ressurection hub. Seems fairly normal state of affairs for this show.

It’s good to see Gaius and Roslin in the same scene again. There’s a loathing between them that none of the other characters share. Gaius gets to boss her about and casually reveal daming secrets about himself. They make a great team.

I wonder how Tigh is getting on with the fleet after last time. Let’s hope he gets less than ten thousand people killed. That be a good day for him.

Right, sweet. I’ve got an intro, a quick synopsis, an opinion and a comment on future episodes. Now I just need to finish this conclusion with some kind of witty statement. Um, how about ‘Where are your reviews Jackson?’

1. Jackson said he would write the rest of the reviews, and whenever someone at ATR says they’ll write a review, you know they will.

Well, well, well. It looks like some of the Cylons have finally realised that they actually don’t have a plan and so, sick of the inaction, have decided to team up with the humans against the other Cylons. As both sides are so suspicious that they turn regularly turn against their own kind, it seems unlikely that this pact could hold out longer than an episode. Especially if Saul ‘I killed my wife for betraying me’ Tigh has anything to do with it.

I must say, for a machine race, they don’t seem to be able to work together very well. Even when there’s only three Cylons who have decided to work with the humans, they can’t agree on a plan. Surely one of the advantages of an artificial race would be a greater degree of co-operation and efficiency, rather than intractable arguments.

On the Galactica, plans are being made to destroy the resurrection hub with the rebel baseship. As the plan looks sound and as the Hybrid in the newly acquired Baseship was unplugged to take it back to the fleet, Laura Roslin decides that it would be in the best interests of the plot to plug it back in.

The visions seem to exist only to extend the plot too. Starbuck’s vision only made sense after she had found the baseship. The vision in the opera house has only led to bad things so far. What’s the point of a useless inexplicable vision? I feel like visions should be a good thing.

I don’t think I completely covered the crazies in my previous review. I didn’t want to mention every crazy person — because the fleet is full of nutters — but there are a couple of people who have upped the crazy level this episode.

Leoben Conoy ferverently believes in Kara’s destiny and seems to think that painting is the best way to find Earth. I’ve never thought that predicting the future through paintings was a good idea. It seems so imprecise. There’s very little solid information that can be taken from a painting.[ftn] It’s not a good system. So when Starbuck’s painting away instead of looking at star charts, I start to worry. Is this whole plot going to be wasted by returning to the fleet a little more frazzled than when they left? Aside from the giant dead end of New Caprica, it’s not like BSG to waste episodes going nowhere.

Tory Foster is the craziest of the lot. I thought she’d been calmly accepting her fate and retaining her humanity. ¹ Unfortunately she’s acting like how she believes a Cylon should act. Not the squabbly whiney bunch that they actually are but as cool calculating robots. Now she’s walking around offing people and pretending to be super human. She’s going to come to a sticky end.

There’s this fat bald guy with a skipping rope. I don’t know where he’s come from. Looks a bit like the guy from Hitman, but fatter. Oh wait, it’s Chief Tyrol. I really am not good at recognising faces. Anyway Tyrol’s having trouble. He’s found out he’s a Cylon, lost his wife, and has some repressed feelings to deal with. He’s so crazy that he’s being comforted by Gaius Baltar.

Gaius, for a change, seems like the least mad of everyone. He’s on an up swing at this moment in his bizarre life. He’s continued preaching his generic religious beliefs and expanded his harem, cult of nubile young women. Aside from the occasional beatings, his life is sweet.

I love the continued use of the final five theme music with the sitars in it. I’m glad they kept using it. It was far too good to be just used in the last two episodes of season 3.

1. Ask Noah Bennet in Heroes when he is trying to prevent his own death.

Maybe everyone’s starting to suffer from space sickness, because it seems like there’s a lot of crazy going on in the Cylon and the human fleets. Everyone needs to take a deep breath and calm down. First of all, there’s two cylons getting freaky, which needs to stop, but not because it was robot-on-robot pashing, but because one of them was an old robot. Bleh. It was disgusting. Sure the taboo against violence amongst Cylons has just been broken, but we don’t want to cross too many boundaries at once. Eww.

Cally’s gone crazy. Her husband’s distress and mental anxiety about being a Cylon has affected her. Which is a shame, because she’s cute. She doesn’t deserve an ending like this. I thought that she and Galen had the greatest chance at a normal life but such is the capricious nature of the tv gods that even her semi-happiness was too much for them.

Kara’s trying to find Earth, without much success, although she’s always been crazy so it’s hard to tell if her situation is getting worse. She seems to be getting along with Anders better, which surprises me because Diana Seelix has been making eyes at him.

The Six on the Cylon fleet is making me go crazy. Her hair is almost the same colour as D’Annas, which confused me when they kept talking about the D’Annas being boxed up, when what I thought was a D’Anna sitting there at the table. As it’s a Six, it all makes sense. The rest of the Cylons are still lazing around in deep space wasting time and squabbling amongst themselves. Their entire race should be boxed up.

I blame the music. That continuing haunting wail that started at the end of last season. It gets under your skin. If the producers would turn that fraking music off, we’d be able to sort out this confusion. Look, I got to get out of here, I can’t get no relief.

Hi Battlestar. Please sit down. We’ve asked you to come over because there’s something we want to talk to you about. Look I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to come out with it. This is an intervention to stop your self-destructive behaviour. All last season you’ve been acting crazy and deranged. You’re not the Battlestar that we used to know.

No, let me talk for a minute. I’ve been thinking about this since last season and I made up my mind over the break. We’re very concerned about you. You have a serious problem.

Please don’t take this too personally. We’d just like to discuss your behaviour in an objective manner. For starters, you kill babies, at least once a year, and that sickens us. You’ve sworn off baby-killing? Thank goodness we see eye to eye on that one at least. And you’ll stop claiming the Cylons have a plan? That’s good too.

We love this new long gorgeous space battle you got. It’s got great flashy lighting effects and explosions. This is good healthy action. When the civilian fleet is under attack and lots of people might die, it’s all so very tense. Very nice. One of the things I always liked about you was seeing a Galactica and a basestar going toe to toe. We’re glad to see you’re keeping that up.

You need to stop the soap opera of last year. Seriously, a little romantic tension is good, but Kara and Lee’s affair would be more suited to The Bold and the Beautiful than to someone of your standing. Please could you do something with your plot this season, unlike the start of last season where every one ended up back in space after leaving New Caprica. And if you’re going to finally using the final five, please don’t just waive them about as a mystery. We want to see something done with them this year.

Thank you for being so receptive. We have high hopes for this season, what with Kara returning and the continuing Wacky Misdventures of Gaius Baltar. We believe in you.

This is a story called ‘Razor’. So naturally, it starts with a somewhat cheesy (though well-delivered) monologue set to footage of an actual Razor being dragged along someone’s arms and hands (pictured).

This is not a good start.¹ However, things improve from here. For ‘Razor’ harks back to a simpler time, or rather, to at least three simpler times. In fact, it harks back so much that summarising it may prove difficult without a diagram.

Long ago, before humanity made its brief sojourn on New Caprica, the snooze capital of the universe, Lee Adama was given command of the Pegasus. As he finds his place on the ship, he runs up against the legacy of Admiral Cain, and one of her favourite officers, Kendra Shaw. Cue flashbacks to the time of the Miniseries, and the Cylon attack on the colonies, when Shaw meets Cain for the first time, and when we get shown all the truth behind those nasty rumours we were told about in Season two. Cue even further flashbacks to Young Bill Adama in an exciting adventure with a Cylon Hybrid. I’m sure you followed all that. It should go without saying that if you’re trying to introduce a friend to Battlestar Galactica, this is not the story to use.

I found the multiple time periods a bit disorienting at first, in part because none of them are the actual ‘present day’ which we left the Galactica in at the end of Season Three. Seeing Baltar stand idly in the background, not being punched, tried or having threesomes with hot Cylons was a bit peculiar. But it’s a nice idea, as it gives us peeks at interesting moments in Battlestar Galactica history that we never quite got to see previously.

It also introduces Kendra Shaw (Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen), who seems a worthwhile character. While I do love the slightly touchy-feely way Adama runs his ship, with suspected mutineers and murderers in high ranking positions, it’s nice to have someone with a bit more steel running about the place. Less successful is Nico Cortez in the Adventures of Young Bill Adama. I don’t know if he actually talks in the way he did here, but regardless, it sounded like a man doing a bad impression of Edward James Olmos, which I suspect it was. In fairness though, it made the whole scene unintentionally hilarious, which I did appreciate.

My favourite development in the story, however, was the revelation that the Number Six on Pegasus had actually been Admiral Cain’s lover. I’ve spoken in the past of a dislike of retcons, but this was one that actually made the their interactions in season two even more involving, and added meaning rather than subverting it. Tricia Helfer’s work on the show has always been excellent, but it was particularly good to see her playing a version of six who genuinely felt like a different character.

As someone who has never watched the original Battlestar Galactica TV series, the old-fashioned centurions were somewhat lost on me, as were, to be embarassingly honest, some of the nuances of the hybrid plot in general. Oh dear! The Cylons are working on a human/cylon hybrid! What if they made human cylons who could pass unnoticed amongst us and have our babies? Oh no, they have already! They must have some other terrifying consequence which has yet to be revealed.²

Given that it used to trade so cleverly on the intrigue and mystery of the Cylon threat, Battlestar Galactica was very brave (or possibly, silly) to give us such an insight into the Cylon society as they did at the start of season three. It seems clear that they’ve realised they need to re-infuse the mystery into the show; hence last year’s finale³ and now, ‘Razor’. More prophecies are established, different cylons are introduced, and it must be said, I’m almost at a point where I really do believe that the Cylons “have a plan” again.

1. And it’s made a little worse by having to remind us of the improbably high number of COs the Pegasus went through in season two, before Lee was given command.
2. Or I’m stupid. If so, please tell me.
3. Yikes. I didn’t review it. I should really do that some time. A summary: it was good.

Ah, Helo. Once upon a time you were so boring. Enough with this Caprica rubbish, I would say. Let’s get back to the real action! I mean, it’s obvious this poor schmuck is going to die at the end of the season.

How things have changed. I’m sick of racist whiney-boy Lee, and the new hero of the show, as far as I’m concerned, is Karl Agathon. Idealistic, restrained, in control. Well, usually restrained and in control. In one of the show’s patented “Previously, not on Battlestar Galactica” clips, we discover that he got put in charge of housing all the refugees from new Caprica when Tigh got his job back. Not only does the job suck, but he’s starting to suspect that civilian Dr Robert¹ is killing some of his patients.

I’m not normally a fan of stories where your protagonist is accusing someone upstanding of dastardly deeds. If he’s right, then it feels like the obvious resolution, because he’s been going on about it being the case all episode. If he’s wrong, then he’s a moron. It’s lose/lose. But thanks to the interplay between Tigh and Helo, the story becomes about Helo’s place on Galactica more than whether Dr Robert² is killing people or not.

I always enjoy it when Galactica explores the politics of the fleet, but some of the Sagittaron racism seemed a bit over the top this week. No mention of them for ages and then suddenly everyone’s spitting on them every chance they get. When a character asks another how the old phrase went; “aside from a Cylon, is there anything you hate more than a Sagittaron,” it’s not particularly convincing. I’m reliably informed that the really popular and successful racist phrases are the short, punchy ones. That said, I’ll take a slightly clunky exploration of racism over the Lee and Kara Soapie any day of the week.³

And if Tigh gets to continue his nice line in hilarious, bitter barbs, then that’s good too. And to think, back on New Caprica, I was sick of him. He’s really made an impressive recovery. Clearly killing your own wife is good for fixing character flaws.

Bonus Paragraph!

What the hell are these ‘bonus scenes’? Did they happen? Didn’t they? It was alright when they dropped in an unrelated scene with Roslyn and Caprica Six. This week, it’s a few lines of dialogue that fit in the middle of a scene. That’s just irritating. You only get one shot at making a scene. Deal with it!

1. You’re a new and better man / He helps you to understand.
2. He’s a man you must believe / Helping everyone in need.
3. They made eyes at each other briefly this week, but I yelled at the television and they quickly stopped.

Maybe it’s easier in hindsight, or maybe it’s because I was at a Health and Safety in the Workplace meeting today, but having watched this episode, I think there’s many unnecessary risks that these guys take. It’s like nobody watched the ‘On previous episodes’ bit to get an idea of what could go wrong this week.

Athena starts off the episode still being helpful. I expected her to have found out about her baby by now and become violent. But that’s a mistake for a future episode. She might never get around to it if she gets infected by this virus. Then, as Adama says, they could display more caution when entering a deserted Cylon ship. Something is clearly wrong. Some gas masks maybe, hazard suits could be handy. Especially for Athena, the one in the biggest danger. Athena unknowingly, continues to risk her life. I wouldn’t put my hand into that gunk on the control panel. Cylon ships are icky.

The lack of caution continues too. No one checks that the Cylons in the control room were dead. In _Pan’s Labyrinth_ all the enemy soldiers at the end of the fight were shot in the head, just in case. Athena now touches the sickly looking Cylons. I’m not convinced that the mission protocol is optimal.

From here things are handled more sensibly. The humans on the base ship decide to leave before something goes wrong, and then the crew is put into isolation.

Gaius tells fibs to the Cylons and is found out. Naughty naughty Gaius. A human living on a Cylon ship turns out to be as fun as being a Cylon on the Pegasus.

The humans’ mistake is non-lethal and they get away with it; Gaius’s mistake is also non-lethal but more painful.

And so we get to the big decision of the episode. Not one you want to get wrong. Killing the infected Cylons in range of a Cylon base ship will cause them to be ressurected on the base ship. They’ll also carry the disease with them, which could spread genocidally throughout the Cylon population.

This raises a couple of questions. Do the Cylons have the same rights as humans? And if not, does the extinction of their species count as genocide?

Helo, the wuss, thinks that the humans still have the moral high ground, that committing genocide will cause them to loose a piece of their souls and that everyone can still get along.

Well I say, ‘How much of their souls?’ and ‘Have they met the Cylons lately?’ The Cylons aren’t exactly the brightest of the bunch. They wander, planless. Perhaps they should be put out of their misery.

Although I don’t believe the virus would kill all the Cylons. It is slow spreading. An infected ship would have plenty of time to distance itself from a ressurection ship, and the disease could be contained. I should feel more reluctant to take a side on a decision about attempting genocide, as it is harder to say what is right and wrong, but after the way the Cylons conducted themselves on New Caprica, I don’t have much sympathy for them.