At the end of the last season, with Starbuck rushing off in a stolen Cylon ship to get the “Arrow of Apollo”, I had kind of assumed that she’d be back pretty early in the next season. But last episode, Helo’s Sharon stole her ship — not without justification, Starbuck was being rather rude. And now, instead of Helo and Boomer wandering Caprica, it’s Helo and Kara. Apart from my general irritation at the sexual tension between Kara and Lee being interrupted, I’m concerned by some of the looks that the hapless Karl is giving his new Capricompanion.¹ The scenes on Caprica were slow, but the music was pretty, and I always find Starbuck intriguing.

The main plot, however, involves the Cylon invaders that crashed on the Galactica last week getting out and wreaking some havoc. Things go a bit First Contact² but Cylons are slightly more brutal than the Borg and aren’t as happy to let crew members just wander about. In fact they’re quite keen on killing them. This being Galactica, the show that randomly killed umpteen pilots at the start of one episode, just for kicks, it makes one nervous. I find myself easily manipulated by TV cliches, and when two characters are having relationship difficulties at the start of the story, and both find themselves in a tense and violent spot, I just assume that one of them’s going to die. This made for edge of the seat viewing.

On Kobol, the crashed survivors are still getting led by Crashdown. His streak of stupidity last episode is left bubbling under the surface this episode, as we focus on Chief Tyrol’s reaction to Tarn’s death last episode. After coming to terms with this, the Chief then finds out that the bloke they went to save is going to die, too — and that he has to do it. I feel badly about this. Was Tarn in season one? The dying feller was called Socinus apparently, but I don’t remember him either. I’m sure I must have been supposed to recognise one of them. I’m concerned that there’s a whole bunch of grunts wandering around that I’m supposed to like. I’m focussing too much on the grunts, and not enough on the salt-of-the-earth people. I’ll pay attention from now on. In any case, this plotline’s a nice one. Chief Tyrol is a great character but he’s a bit overly reasonable sometimes, it’s nice to push him around a little.

Adama remains stubbornly unconscious, but his presence is still felt strongly — the argument between Tigh and Lee about their respective worthiness was made even better for ocurring next to his motionless body. Whatever their problems, Adama has faith in them both, which makes me inclined to like them, even when they act like idiots.³ There’s been a lot of mention of God in this show; I’d say Adama is God. Every now and then you come across characters who seem unassailably right all the time, and Adama gives me that feeling.

Oh, and he’s killing babies in Gaius’ dreams. That’s the second case of infanticide so far in Battlestar Galactica. Most shows are happy to stick with a number closer to zero.

1. I’m trademarking that name, and predicting that every season or so, a new cast member gets to go to Caprica and shag Karl. Oh, alright, no I’m not. ↩
2. Which is a good start. Best Star Trek film ever. ↩
3. It’s important to point out that Tigh is in fine form this week. He knows what the Cylons are going to try, he doesn’t let his anger get in the way of using Lee’s abilities, and he wins out in the end. Yay for Tigh. I’m sure things will continue to go well with him at the helm. ↩

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Friday, February 17th, 2006. 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.