Tag: TV Dramas (Page 1 of 2)

Battlestar Galactica: What the frak happened in the series finale?

March 21, 2009 /

I thought about posting last night, but I’ve gotten into a rhythm this season with letting the episode marinate in my brain overnight and then posting on Saturday morning. I know a lot of people TiVo shows nowadays (myself included) and end up watching the episode later that night, the next day or the next week, so there isn’t a huge rush to get something up.

Was it a great finale? Absolutely. Was I blown away? Not entirely.

Let’s start at the beginning (which is always a good place to start) — more flashbacks of life on Caprica. Bill is thinking about retiring and entering the private sector, Roslin has a blind date with a former student, Lee gets to know Kara. Great, let’s move on.

Back in the future, Baltar’s vision tells him that he will “take mankind’s remnants and guide them to their end.” Last week, after watching him struggle with the decision in the hanger, I wondered whether or not Gaius would in fact volunteer to go along with the rescue mission. The truth is that it should have been obvious that he would. Creator Ronald D. Moore wasn’t about to take one of the main players out of the game in crunch time.

After an emotional scene between Roslin and Doc Coddle, Laura had a great line:

“Don’t spoil your image. Just light a cigarette and go and grumble.”

Then the planning began for the assault on the colony — that’s when the episode really got going. The final four move Sam to the CIC (more on this later) and Galactica prepares to jump.

Like just about every battle scene in the entire series, this one rocked. Galactica jumps in and immediately starts to get pummeled by the colony’s weapons. After the terrific rescue mission on New Caprica, the show had a lot to live up to, and once the birds were away and Bill ordered his crew to ram the colony, Moore and Co. had cleared the bar. It was very cool to see Lee leading a group of Centurions into the colony. Even when they’re on “our” side, they still scare the ever-loving crap out of me.

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Battlestar Galactica: Daybreak

March 14, 2009 /

The name of this episode was “Daybreak,” so it’s not surprising that the fleet turned a corner of sorts this week. Specifically, Bill finished mourning for the Galactica and made a major decision — that he would lead a rescue mission for Hera. This started when he saw that picture of Hera and Athena was left on the Galactica bulletin board, and I think he took it as a sign that he had to do something. We didn’t see Sam provide the location of the colony, but that’s the assumption.

I’m not clear on why we spent much of the episode back in Caprica City before the attack. The first scene was with Bill talking to someone about something that he did not want to do. After just meeting Gaius, Caprica Six met his elderly dad. She set him up in a nursing home, so maybe that’s how she earned Gaius’s trust, eventually leading to his betrayal of his fellow humans. We saw Kara and Lee’s first meeting, though she was his brother’s girlfriend at the time. And then there was Roslin — after losing her entire family in a car accident, she had a bit of a mental breakdown.

One of the last flashbacks was of a drunk Lee having an encounter with a pigeon.

What’s the point?

I have no idea.

Back in the present, Kara continues to work on the meaning of her song, even trying to turn it into some mathematical formula, but she’s not having much luck. Gaius pleads with Lee to give his “people” representation in the government and Lee asks him if he’s ever made a single selfless act in his life. Later on, when Bill asks for volunteers, it looks for a moment that Gaius is conflicted and may join them, but when we cut to the final shot of the hanger, I didn’t see where he was. My guess is that he’s ultimately going to stick with the fleet.

That’s about it. Not a whole hell of a lot happened this week, save for Bill’s decision to go after Hera. Based on the reconnaissance, it’s going to be tough to get close to the colony…

Next week should be interesting.

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Battlestar Galactica: Islanded in a Stream of Stars

March 7, 2009 /

What did we learn this week?

Well, a while back, when Cavil mentioned that the humans hadn’t found the “colony” yet, he wasn’t referring to Earth. The Cylons do have a colony and that’s where Boomer took Hera. It appears that the final two (or is it three, as TV.com indicates?) episodes are going to involve some sort of a rescue attempt. It’s all about Hera. (And Kara.)

Speaking of Kara, Baltar tested the DNA from the dog tags and apparently discovered that she did in fact crash and burn on Earth. After the funeral, Baltar used this information about Kara to advance his own agenda. He announced that Starbuck is walking proof that there is an afterlife. (Of course, if that was the case, why don’t we see more “dead” people walking around?) Anyway, we learned once again that Baltar is a giant ass. For whatever reason, Kara took him into her confidence and he betrayed her. But really, what did she expect he’d do? (On a side note, Baltar did in fact try to make a move on Caprica Six, but he was shot down. I wonder if that’s the end of that storyline or if it will continue through the end of the series. I’m betting on the latter considering how the two are always together in the opera house dream.)

What else did we learn? It took a lot of liquor and a weird Jackson Pollock moment with the white paint, but Bill is finally able to give up on Galactica. He’s cynical about the fleet’s destiny and whatnot, but what else is there to do? If the more spiritual folks say that they need to go after Hera, why not do it? Isn’t that better than aimlessly drifting around space until you run out of resources?

Hera can project! I don’t know what this really means, but she and Boomer bonded over it. By the time they got to the colony, Boomer had grown attached to Hera and those crocodile tears at the end proved that she had a tough time handing the girl over to Cavil. By the way, did you hear Cavil say to Hera that she would soon have a lot of little playmates? How does he plan do accomplish that? Cavil also confirmed that Boomer sneaking Ellen off to the fleet was indeed just a ploy to kidnap Hera. It will be interesting to see if Boomer steps in and saves Hera from whatever Cavil has planned for her.

With Galactica being stripped for parts, the military personnel are going to move over to the Cylon basestar. The humans are justifiably skeptical of this, but do they really have a choice?

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Battlestar Galactica: Someone to Watch Over Me

February 28, 2009 /

When this episode started, and Kara got into a conversation with some random dude in the bar, I was thinking — why are they introducing a new character at this point in the series?

My “twist-dar” went off when they failed to show her dad’s face in her flashbacks, and it really went off when he lit up a cigarette (after she reminisced about the “smell of tobacco” earlier in the episode). Then the meaning of Hera’s drawing was revealed and suddenly Kara and her “dad” were playing the “Battlestar Galactica” version of “All Along the Watchtower.”

Kara’s trip plodded along, but it was still quite intense, because the nature of her existence is still one of the big questions yet to be answered. This mellowness provided a nice balance to what was going on elsewhere on the ship, as the Chief made a bad, bad decision by trusting Boomer again. Roslin’s demeanor towards Tyrol was unnecessarily harsh, and she bears some responsibility for his actions. Boomer is (mostly) evil, a fact confirmed by her sexual encounter with Helo right in front of Athena. That has to be a tough pill for the Chief to swallow — he breaks her out of the brig and the first guy she screws is Helo? Ouch.

The scene where Boomer made her escape was one of the most nail-biting of the entire series. It was clear that the Chief didn’t know Hera was in the trunk because Boomer had to tell him to “be careful” with it. Still, he’s a dope for falling for her act again. Way to go, Chief.

So now Galactica has a hole in the side of the ship, and after weeks of intimating that the old girl was on her last legs, the ship is truly falling apart. Cavil has (or will have) Hera, and there are only three episodes left. We still need to find out the truth about Kara and the fleet needs to find some sort of home. They wouldn’t end the series with the fleet just drifting aimlessly in space…would they?

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Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock

February 21, 2009 /

After last week’s jam-packed episode, the series downshifted a bit, delving into the minutiae (i.e. the food shortage) that played such a prominent role in the first two seasons. While Baltar and Paula were arguing about food, I was wondering if this was really how we were going to spend the last five episodes. This detail-oriented stuff was interesting when the show was finding its feet, but with all that has happened, it just feels trivial. The major plot points to come out of Baltar’s storyline is that Caprica Six is back in his head (yay!) and that he managed to convince Bill to give him a trunk load of guns to defend their food stock. (I’ll admit that it was funny to see how Baltar picked the prettiest mom to help, resulting in a major eye-roll from Paula. Some things never change.)

It was nice of Boomer to bring Ellen back to the fleet, but their arrival has all sorts of consequences. First and foremost, Ellen is still an annoying bitch. When she finds out that Tigh and Caprica Six are expecting, it throws her into a jealous rage and she tries to manipulate the situation to get back into Saul’s arms. The plan may have worked too, as it could have been the stress of Ellen’s return that sent Caprica’s pregnancy off the rails. Now that the baby is out of the picture, I’d expect Tigh and Ellen to pick up where they left off. (Baltar and Caprica Six may too, for that matter.)

Tory, Tyrol and some of the numbered Cylons suddenly want to leave the fleet, and given what Sam said before his surgery — “Don’t leave the fleet!” — Tigh is more than a little reluctant. Since Caprica lost the baby, the whole Cylons-can-procreate argument doesn’t really hold much water, so they may decide to stick around for a while. Bill’s worried about Galactica’s dependence on Cylon technology, but the lesson (probably) is that humans and Cylons need each other to survive.

Boomer’s return creates another issue — what does Bill do with her? She tried to assassinate him and then defected from the other 8’s to join Cavil in the Cylon civil war. As one of our readers suggested last week, she may have come back to rejoin Tyrol. He’s single and obviously still has feelings for her. This could drive a wedge between Bill and Tyrol, and that’s not good.

Finally, I have to mention a subtle yet hilarious exchange in Bill’s quarters when Baltar was pleading for help…

Bill: The two of you can listen to this.
Lee: Where are you going?
Bill: To the head, to do something constructive. A little project I’ve been working on.

The term “head” of course means the toilet, so Bill is saying that taking a dump is more constructive than listening to Baltar speak. That’s some dry humor there. Great stuff.

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