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? ↩

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Thursday, February 5th, 2009. It concerns such pressing issues as Battlestar Galactica, tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.