For those “Battlestar Galactica” fans that weren’t paying attention, the Sci-Fi channel premiered the two-hour event, “Razor,” last Saturday night. If you missed it, you can check it out on DVD when it hits the shelves on December 4th.
With Christmas approaching and the writers’ strike just now starting to affect new programming, there’s never been a better time for newbies interested in getting into “Battlestar Galactica” to finally make the plunge. The first three seasons are out on DVD and the fourth season (starting in March) will be the show’s last, so you know the creators are going to have the freedom to end the series properly.
**SPOILER ALERT**
When I first heard about “Razor,” I thought it was going to focus completely on the Pegasus crew under Admiral Cain. This provided plenty of story potential, but the creators decided to weave in two other timelines as well. The story jumped back and forth frequently between the Cain’s Pegasus and the time when Lee was in command of the ship and its crew (before the fleet settled on New Caprica). There was also a brief scene where a young William Adama made a gruesome discovery forty years earlier during the First Cylon War.
I figured that Kendra Shaw wasn’t long for the BG world considering we haven’t seen her in any subsequent episodes, so her little sacrifice at the end wasn’t all that surprising. Besides, it was a lot more effective the first time Bruce Willis did it in “Armageddon.” Regardless, her interaction with the old man (was that the hybrid?) on the ship revealed something big. He said:
“Cara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. She is the herald of the Apocalypse and the harbinger of death. They must not follow her.”
Considering Cara returned at the end of season three and promised to lead the fleet to Earth, his words are especially forboding. Of course, he’s the one that kept saying, “This has all happened before and will happen again,” so I don’t know what the point is of trying to dissuade the humans from following Cara. Kendra tried to warn Lee, but of course the Cylons scrambled the signal.
It was interesting to see the old school Cylons again. Apparently, they are only used in minor duty, and they aren’t as effective as their newer counterparts. It was also fascinating to see Gina’s backstory on the Pegasus. She went from being Cain’s lover to a rape and torture victim. It makes a little more sense now why Cain was so harsh with Gina. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
“Razor” certainly isn’t for the newbies, but it serves as a nice fix for those of us who can’t wait for the final season to begin.
John
As I remember Athena (or was she still known as Boomer in this timeline?) explained the old-style Cylons as a group that broke off from the main Cylon Empire before they perfected the hybrids like herself, D’Anna and Six. She called their (old styles) quest an “evolutionary dead-end.”
I actually laughed out loud at the “By your command” line one of the old-school Cylons used.
I really was expecting this to be nothing more than a place keeper in the BG universe, something to keep people aware of the show between the long gap until the final season starts. I was more than pleasantly surprised by Razor.
I dug “Razor” in a big way, and being someone who didn’t see most of S3, it was a great way to spend a couple hours. Some of the best new BSG they’ve done yet.
Thanks, Mike, for the reminder. I zoned out a little when Boomer/Athena was explaining the history of the hybrid.
So was the old man the hybrid? He claimed he could see the future, which would have made him pretty valuable (also making it odd that he was left mostly unguarded).
…is does this mean that Starbuck is the 12th sleeper cylon? Too bad they couldn’t dress up the young Adama in the retro 70′s uniform with the cape.
I don’t think Starbuck is the 12th. Her time in the baby factory on Caprica implies that she was a human that the Cylons were trying to use as breeder of hybrids. I have to assume that, even if the Cylons there didn’t know she was one of them, then they would have seen something in their medical scans of her.
And the old man, as I see it, is a hybrid that was created by the old-style Cylons. Partially successful, but still not what the race was shooting for with that program.
I don’t think Starbuck is the 12th, either. Mike’s point about the baby factory is a good one, but I also think that the creators are implying that she’s the 12th, which means she probably isn’t. The big question is – how did she survive the Raptor explosion?
Needless to say, I can’t wait for Season 4!
I just remembered that young Adama heard the same line – “This has all happened before and will happen again” – while he was at the cylon base, so the old man was probably there. (Though that doesn’t explain how they got away with all of their research, unless the hybrid is able to communicate telepathically or something.)
Both of the hybrids (main story arc and Razor) are able to see into the past and future. Young Adama didn’t just hear those words, he saw what was going on in that place and even caught some glimpses of the future when he stuck his hand in the bathtub.
The Cylons had left by then (remember that their basestar was taking off, and it felt like an earthquake when Adama was trying to break into the room holding the crew of the Diana) and more likely than not took their hybrid with them. So call it some kind of psychic resonance, or maybe just form of time reverberations.