Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 2

Part 1 ends with three crises: the crash on Kobol, Starbuck's jump to Caprica, and Adama's realization that Roslin influenced Starbuck's decision to go AWOL with the Cylon raider. Part 2 deals with the outcome of these decisions, as well as translating Boomer's ongoing internal conflicts into an overwhelming trajectory towards violence. By the end of this episode Adama has been "betrayed" by his son, by Starbuck, by Roslin, and by Boomer.

The conversation between Roslin and Adama after Starbuck jumps away is the best (IMHO) dialogue in the episode. There are really two conversations taking place at the same time - the formal conversation between the military commander and the leader of the government, and the informal conversation between two people who had a friendly, respectful relationship but are now at odds. I think this is best captured when Adama says, "I don't want bloodshed" and Roslin immediately replies, "No, of course you don't, neither do I." Her tone of voice drops and she speaks more urgently, in contrast to the measured pace and careful wording of the rest of her lines. The way she says it indicates that she knows Adama enough to speak more personally and and say with confidence what she knows he wants. It's an interesting moment.

It also took me a while (duh) to figure out why, Roslin says "yes" after Adama tells her that the Raider has jumped away. It always sounded sort of odd, because it's as if she is responding to a question instead of the statement Adama actually makes. I finally realized that Roslin didn't know that Starbuck had left for Caprica until this moment. So interpret the "yes" to mean the yes you say after the Buffalo Bills, your favorite team, has scored a touchdown, even though Roslin doesn't say it with that kind of vehemence.

Everything Roslin says after this conversation is couched in very formal terms (notice how she does not use contractions - she says "will not" instead of "won't." She does this in part because she knows this is a historical moment, and in part because she is trying to present a calm demeanor in the face of a dangerous situation. Her body language and facial expressions are clues that she is nervous and frightened, but her tone of voice is forceful.

When it is clear that the standoff is one-sided and that bloodshed will be the inevitable outcome (I don't necessarily think, btw, that Lee's decision to mutiny would necessarily be a determining factor, although it is certainly the final straw), she chooses to end it on her terms. She doesn't say that she surrenders, she says, "I will not permit bloodshed," and then she says to Tigh, "Let's go," leading the way although she is ostensibly the prisoner. In fact, Roslin and Adama have a lot of qualities in common and conduct themselves in very similar ways so that it is obvious they are equals.

Finally, both have followers that are loyal to their leaders, but in disagreement with their decisions. In Part 1 Billy advises Roslin to accept Adama's decision and is skeptical of her religious faith. In Part 2, if you look closely, after Adama orders the marines to proceed through Colonia One, the camera focuses on Gaeta, who shakes his head.

Another strength of this episode is the way the settings and pacing contribute to the sense of impending crisis. I really like the way each setting has its own color (they also do this on New Caprica and the algae planet). Orange/yellow conveys a powerful feeling that Caprica has been irradiated and that it is literally a desert. Kobol is green and lush, giving a sense of virgin forest (I assume parts of British Columbia actually look this way", and the ruins of the opera house (white) in the valley stand in stark contrast. The ships continue to be blue/gray with patches of bright, artificial light (including the green light from the screens in the CIC), emphasizing the unnatural, claustrophobic setting. Each setting has its own story (identified with that color) and the episode switches between these settings at an accelerating rate until, at the end, the camera is spinning around Baltar and Six, and then cutting over to the CIC where Adama's body lies on the light board.

Moving right along..... I'm not going to discuss events on Kobol here. I will save that for the next episode in the interest of not testing my readers' (such as they are) patience. I'm not going to discuss Boomer's experiences on the baseship at all, since I think they pretty much speak for themselves. I'll have some comments on Caprica in the free-for-all section below. I want to go right into the cliffhanger ending in the CIC.

I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when they were filming the scene when Adama is shot, since I think that every actor's movement must have been carefully choreographed to look completely spontaneous. This is right up there with my favorite scene from the mini-series, when the nuke hist Galactica. In both a very complicated set of reactions to a single event is shown from multiple perspectives in a CNN-evening-news format, and yet it is completely clear what is happening. The pace switches between slow motion and real-time, adding to the sense of confusion and shock, although the slow motion makes it easier to see each character's reaction without detracting from the sense of chaos.

The gap between the first bullet and the second one lengthens the dramatic moment. Adama is literally blown off his feet and onto the light board. Lee starts racing across the room. Gaeta, in the background, goes from standing at attention to instinctively ducking. In contrast to everyone's shock, Boomer's face is a blank - she is now on auto pilot. After the second shot, each character is doing something different. Gaeta is calling for help, the marines are tackling Boomer, but the most compelling sight is the trio surrounding Adama. Tigh is literally trying to stop the bleeding with his own hands, Lee is cradling Adama's head, crying out in despair, and Dee has taken Adama's hand and is crying quietly.

Thus ends Season 1. WOW.

Meanwhile, back on Caprica ....

It's kind of interesting (and unexplained) how all three parties manage to run into eachother at the Delphi Museum, but one doesn't question God's will.

I dislike the dialogue between Athena and Helo, even though the information conveyed is critical. While Helo's lines are more naturalistic, Athena's lines strike me as very stilted. As I said in a previous post, Grace Park just gets better and better as the season progresses, so I don't think her delivery is the problem. Considering that her decision to escape with Helo was traumatic and driven by emotion, she uses very unemotional language to describe their relationship (she says, "I genuinely feel something for you," while Helo says, "I don't love you.") I don't know if this is bad writing or if the intention is to make Athena sound more robotic. It may also be setting us up for the shock of the next line, when Athena utters those two words that all men dread hearing, "I'm pregnant."

Let's be honest, the only point of this conversation is to let Helo know he's gonna be a daddy. We know, of course, because we saw Athena throwing up. Chekhov once wrote, "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." To paraphrase that rather freely, if a woman is puking in the first act, then in the next one we should find out she is pregnant.

The hilight of events on Caprica, though, is that amazing fight between Starbuck and one of the Sixes. The traditional fight on screen between women is your basic catfight (the sexist term denoting the scratching and hair pulling stuff that women are supposed to do over some guy who is probably not worth the time of day).

The Starbuck-Six fight is a scary, go-for-broke slugfest. The Six is skinny but powerful (actually, all Sixes are like that), and she is wearing one of her sexy spandex outfits. In contrast, Starbuck is her usual slobbish self, wearing fatigues and combat boots. (Not to imply that Starbuck isn't sexy, quite the contrary.) Starbuck is obviously outmatched, but she manages to keep coming back after each blow. The final moment, when Starbuck throws herself at Six and they both plunge over the edge is just fabulous in the extreme. It is also a very smart way to let Starbuck win the fight against the odds.

Lee loses his shirt & spits in his father's face

Every faithful reader of this blog (both of them) knows that Lee is not my favorite character (gross understatement). However, Lee cannot be blamed for the fact that once again he somehow loses his shirt (the first time was in "Bastille Day"). Lee was wearing it on Colonial One, but it magically disappears when he shows up in the CIC. His hands are also tied in front, which I assume serves to emphasize his bulging muscles, since I can't think of any other reason why that would be necessary. Of course the restraints also add to the sense that Lee is a martyr, which is SO tiresome.

As for the other sin, spitting, I know that actors do this on a regular basis (I happened to find this out when I once had a front-row seat). I did think that Edward James Olmos probably asked for a towel as soon as they were done shooting.

An Aside About Galactica Sex

I bet this post gets more hits than all the rest combined. I was writing this post on the train into NYC, and the guy next to me was definitely reading it.

All inappropriate comments will be deleted immediately.

IMHO the Baltar/Starbuck sex scene from "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1" is the best in the series. (Baltar/Six from the miniseries is a close second.) It helps that James Callis and Katee Sackhoff have a lot of on-screen chemistry. The main reason this is so good, though, is that this is the only one I have come across where the man is on top, which means their bodies are intertwined in a way that appears more intimate than when the woman is on top (I am speaking as a 3rd party watching the action). The way the comera moves from Starbucks feet to her knees, which are wrapped around Baltar's body (sort of), and then her hands moving on Baltar's back, to her face makes the scene explicit without showing them naked. Which just goes to show that the brain is the most important erogenous zone.

In general, it seems to me that if the actors on Galactica are filmed naked (as I suspect may occasionally be the case. It's obvious that sometimes the women are topless), you don't actually see any important body parts. I am quite sure that this is part of the rules when broadcasting on television. This means that sexual activity is conveyed by body position, facial expression, and vocal sounds, which are, frankly, pretty effective.

One other thing that I noticed about Galactica is that it's probably the only time I have seen on screen women put on their underpants after having sex. The camera focuses on the feet stepping into a pair of underpants and sliding up without showing anything above the knees. This prosaic act conveys a lot without showing much. I also like it because in a lot of movies when I am watching lovemaking scenes I find myself wondering, "this is very sexy but HOW did they do it? When did the underpants come off?"

For example, "Atonement" has this great sex scene (the only one in the film) set in a library where both the characters are fully clothed. You can pretty easily figure out that the man is adjusting his pants in preparation for the big moment, but what about the woman? She's still wearing her dress, but they show her feet and trust me, there are no nether garments down around her ankles. Is she not wearing any? That strikes me as a very un-English thing to do. I assume that filmmakers consider this small but critical detail to be a passion-killer.

For Battlestar Galactica, though, it is precisely these details that add to the sexuality of the characters and their actions.

Over time I have often wondered, "How do actors do this? How / why do they appear naked (or almost naked) and engaging in very intimate activities in front of an audience?" I finally concluded that actors are so emotionally naked on stage or screen, that being physically naked is not that big a leap.

Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1

This is an absolutely critical episode because the fleet's goal moves from simple survival to having a specific destination. Faith and reason collide in this episode, reflecting both Roslin's and Baltar's changing "world view." (In German this is called weltenshaaung and in Russian it is mirovozrenie. I don't think there is an English equivalent.) This episode also moves really fast, but without feeling as though any plot thread is cheated to get thing done by the end of 43 minutes. I appreciate this after "Colonial Day," which moved a little too slowly (IMHO).

I am always struck by the cinematic quality of the filming and editing, especially at the beginning of the episode. With the exception of "Act of Contrition," "You Can't Go Home Again," and, of course, "33," most of the episodes in Season 1 are high-quality self-contained television episodes, with relatively straightforward plot lines. ("Colonial Day," "Tigh Me Up Tigh Me Down," and even "Litmus" are good examples.)

I think this quality is obvious in the opening 5 minutes, which signal immediately that this episode is different. The action switches back and forth between multiple scenes, a technique use in many of the best episodes (like "33," for example, and later in "Occupation"). Each scene tells a different story, but also shares high dramatic points with the other scenes, bringing them together thematically. Moreover, there is very little dialogue so that the viewer has to infer each character's psychological state (what they are doing, of course, is not exactly a secret).

In the first scene Adama and Lee are boxing. Lee is younger and faster, but Adama has experience and the patience. Moreover, Adama is clearly enjoying himself, so when Lee punches him in the stomach and asks, "Are you okay?" Adama just smiles.

Meanwhile, in Baltar's quarters .... If you watched the dance at the end of "Colonial Day" carefully, you will have noticed Baltar and Starbuck dancing together while Lee wanders around looking lost. Starback and Baltar always generated some heat, so now, fueled by alcohol, they are making love. When they start to climax Starbuck cries out "Lee!" putting the kibosh on the process. At exactly this moment Adama punches Lee, and Lee's face is pushed in the direction of the camera. What's his expression - shock? This anticipates Lee's expression during the card game when he watches Baltar and Starbuck and puts two and two together. IMHO Adama's remark to Lee - "You don't lose control" - is a metaphor for Lee's relationship with Starbuck. This explains why Starbuck is in bed with Baltar while Lee still hasn't figured out how to ask her to the senior prom. This character trait turns the Starbuck/Lee so-called romance into one of the most infuriating relationships in the history of television.

Interspersed between the Lee-Starbuck snippets, Boomer is in her quarters with a gun in her mouth, and Helo, on Caprica, discovers Athena. Athena puts her gun away and says, "Just do it." Helo shoots, misses, and wounds Athena instead of killing her. Is this deliberate or by accident? As Boomer tries to muster the courage to pull the trigger, her name is called over the PA, as if calling her back to life. When the sequences end both Boomer and Athena are still alive. The call to Boomer keeps her alive and functioning long enough to fulfill her destiny which, I think, is not just to shoot Adama, but also to find Kobol.

Baltar interrupts Boomer during her second suicide attempt and is probably responsible for taking her to the next (ultimately successful) step of pulling the trigger. This is one of those moments when Baltar really rises about himself. Six, who is a stand-in for the viewer, is deeply moved by his behavior and for once doesn't have anything to say. Baltar's compassion and concern for Boomer are especially touching given that he is gently steering her towards suicide. Boomer is completely isolated and fearful, and this is the only scene where she actually connects with someone who understands her state of mind. I am very ambivalent about Boomer in Season 1, and this is one of those moments when she is especially sympathetic because she is trying to do the right thing even though it means death. Boomer's destiny is fixed, and her efforts to control it are futile but nevertheless courageous.

The discovery of Kobol takes Roslin further down the road that she believes has been prepared for her. Unlike Boomer, Roslin embraces her destiny. When she describes what she sees on the surveillance photos to Elosha and Billy, she's looking at them and talking to them, but doesn't glance down to watch the gestures her hands make. My impression is that Roslin is also talking to herself. This experience is the final act that changes Roslin's understanding toward the prophecies. Elosha's (and Roslin's) interpretation of the experience (which is qualitatively different from the other visions), guides them to the next step, which is quite specific and concrete. I think that Roslin is now happy about her place in the story - the cancer that is killing her is also part of her role as a savior.

Roslin's new belief system does not change her underlying behavior, which is straightforward and business-like (pretty ironic, actually). This gives her credibility when she speaks to Starbuck. Based on Roslin's advice Starbuck does ask Adama about their journey to earth, and figures out for herself that Roslin is telling the truth and Adama is lying.

Meanwhile, back on Caprica ... The conversation between Helo and Athena, "You're not Sharon" / "I am Sharon," continues the exploration of the distinctions between Boomer, Sharon, and all the other Sharons. This is an ongoing debate throughout the series, and I have talked about this in previous posts. When does Athena's distinct personality emerge, and how does this affect Helo's love for her? Is he in love with both women? In later seasons it's clear that Helo's love is specifically directed to Athena and not (to paraphrase Roslin in Season 4) the whole line. The question of the 8's identity is extremely complex and interesting, and Gaeta also gets sucked into it in "The Face of the Enemy" webisodes.

By the end of this episode there are several story lines (Kobol, Roslin/Adama conflict, Starbuck's defection, and what will Boomer next). IMHO it is easy to keep them separate which says a lot about the exposition, and yet art has not been compromised along the way. That's a pretty big accomplishment. The tension for most of Season 2.0 is devoted to resolving these conflicting stories.

Some other thoughts

Reason Number 11 why Lee is a jerk

Actually this is Reason Number 12 if you count the the suggestion that wearing a pinstriped suit counts as Reason Number 11.

Anyways, regardless of your numbering convention, here is the next reason:

He is not smart enough to make a pass at Starbuck himself, and he gets pissed off when someone else does. He is just incredibly out of line, on both a personal level and as her commanding officer, when he basically calls her a slut in front of the whole deck crew. Me? I would have reported him for sexual harassment. Instead, Starbuck apologizes later in the episode. Why is she apologizing?

BTW, I don't completely hate Lee. I just hate it when he opens his mouth. Jamie Bamber has a great physical presence, and when he is moving around and not talking, Lee comes across as a more complex person (I feel the same way about the boxing in "The Dance" in Season 3). I also thought the card game was pretty good, Lee figures out what happened between Baltar and Starbuck based on eye contact and things unsaid, and his facial expression tells exactly when he puts two and two together.

Other Stuff

• James Callis does a great drunk. Is this based on personal experience (haha, no offense)? His sentences are coherent and they sound like Baltar, but they are slurred. He sounds exactly like a drunk trying to sound sober. He drops is guard, though, and his emotional twists and turns are there for everyone to see. The transition from arrogant to despairing is just perfect.
• How does Boomer know the planet is Kobol? How does Leoben know that the fleet will find Kobol? Just throwing it out there. I don't care because it adds to the sense that there are unseen forces at work, and I just go with the flow.
• When I first heard the phrase "Lords of Kobol," I had a good laugh. I don't think I have ever seen the word written in the course of the show, but close-captioning always spells Kobol with a "K," making it a homonym for Cobol (Common Business-Oriented Language). It is the first coding language to use English-like statements, making it accessible to ordinary mortals like me. My employer (and this is not unusual) is still maintaining a few COBOL programs developed before the dawn of humans. The history of COBOL is awfully interesting. Grace Hopper, a woman working for the US Navy, wrote the first COBOL compiler, which is the same as saying she wrote the software for the Cylons. In an interesting little aside she won the first "man of the year" award from the Data Processing Management Association.

All Those Cool Buildings in Vancouver

Not too long ago I read an obituary of a Canadian architect named Arthur Erickson. I knew that one of the locations in Battlestar Galactica (the riverwalk in Caprica City) was actually the campus of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. In fact, I am pretty sure that campus was used in some other Sci Fi shows. In any event, I learned that Erickson was the architect.

I am a big architecture fan anyway, so I did a little research, and it turns out that the really cool office where Roslin's doctor tells he she has cancer (you know, the office with the triangle - pyramidish sort of entrance and the slanted glass wall) was also designed by Erickson. It is called "Waterfall House" and is located, not surprisingly, in Vancouver. It has also been used in one of the Viagra commercials, I am not entirely clear why since a pyramid doesn't strike me as an obvious phallic symbol.

I also think but I am not sure that Baltar's house (you know, the fabulous house with overlooking water) is "Graham House" in West Vancouver. I am not really sure because I couldn't find that many photographs on the net, but based on a sketch that I found in a book ("Arthur Erickson - Critical Works" page 21) I would say that this is a reasonable guess.

The building that looks really interesting, IMHO, is the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology. If I ever got to Vancouver I will definitely check it out. The building is quite spectacular.

Colonial Day

Colonial Day is an interesting episode, but it is not the best episode. I like seeing the relationships between Roslin, Baltar, and Zarek develop. I also like seeing how the fleet is struggling to maintain, as Zarek says, the vestiges of the old life (including journalists behaving badly on a copy-cat of "The Capital Gang") even though the fleet is just a remnant of the human race.

Roslin, not having any model for a system of government other than that from the Colonies (which seems reasonable to me, since it is a form of democracy), is struggling to put an administration together. In addition, with Wallace Gray, she is trying to institute programs that are necessary to keep body and soul together. You know, the trivial stuff that makes life bearable (like education, garbage collection, healthcare, access to food and water, etc.).

Roslin's relationship with Zarek is pretty well symbolized by the handshake moment - external niceties masking mutual distrust. Although Zarek seizes the initiative and offers his hand, Roslin beautifully upstages him by taking the action one step further and kissing him on the cheeks (well, kissing the air next to his cheeks). BTW this scene is reminiscent of the handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat at the signing ceremony for the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993, when Arafat held out his hand and Clinton sort of nudged Rabin into shaking it.

This is another episode where James Callis gets to shine as Baltar. He starts out treating his new role in government as a tiresome burden, but as the perks increase so does his enjoyment. The culmination is that fabulous moment when Roslin introduces him and he bounds down the stairs, waving and smiling like any ambitious politician (or movie star, for that matter).

Each politician has a totally different public persona. Roslin comes across as the realist (kinda interesting, considering that she is having drug-induced visions), and she has Gray, the wonk, helping her to present the most specific programs to the electorate.

Zarek has entered mainstream politics. Despite wearing a suit and tie, however, he hasn't really changed. He continues to speak in vague terms of the future without offering anything concrete except that he want to upend existing societal structures and replace them with.... what? Well he doesn't get around to that. Zarek is, of course, a revolutionary, and I think that some of the appeal of the message is that it's more exciting than Roslin's and that the life in the Colonies was so completely decimated that Roslin may seem irrelevant to some of the people in the fleet. In the Quorum, however, Zarek's attraction seems to be based on political favors.

Baltar waxes eloquent speaking about truth, justice and the Colonial way, as well as orating about preserving the future for our children, etc., etc. It sounds nice, but there is no there there. As Samuel Johnson said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels." Or, as Baltar himself says when speaking of Roslin (season 4, "Guess What's Coming to Dinner"), "Co-opting the rhetoric of patriotism..." The final result of all this is that Baltar is vice president, a role for which he is uniquely unqualified, thus fulfilling Six's prediction at the end of "Six Degrees of Separation."

Zarek loses this round to Roslin, but he continues as a threat. His last statement, "I don't know who killed Valance. I wonder who did?" is both menacing and also a lie. (I didn't think, btw, that Zarek had been told Valance is dead.) I know this is going to sound dense, but I could not figure out how Zarek (or anyone else) managed to find Valance. It was only at the 700th viewing of this episode that I had a revelation. Zarek did ask Ellen to help him out, but I couldn't make the connection from Ellen to Valance. I realize now that Tigh must have told Ellen. When Roslin says, "only the people in this room know [where Valance is]" I finally noticed Tigh standing in the background, and therefore knew Valance's location, and that he must have told his wife when they were in bed together (or something like that).

Starbuck and Lee are so utterly unqualified as security guards, and behave so badly that it shows abysmal judgment on Adama's part to assign them to this role. Lee's behavior totally contradicts everything he preaches about during "Bastille Day," when he rambles on forever about what is right, what the law says, blah blah blah. In this episode Lee roughs up a guy showing support for Zarek, expresses open contempt not only for Zarek but also for Zarek's supporters while sucking down martinis, or whatever, tells the bartender to turn off a radio broadcast other people are listening to, and manages to start a highly visible and completely unnecessary fist fight with the same Zarek supporter. So much for keeping a low profile. I can only attribute this to bad writing.

The treatment of Valance, however, seems to echo certain CIA practices in recent years. Valance is locked away in a secret location (sort of like all those people kidnapped by the CIA and squirreled away to other countries to be tortured). He is denied habeas corpus, he is tortured and threatened with summary execution (by the noble Lee, no less), and does not have access to a lawyer. Of course equating Roslin with "W" seems pretty extreme, after all Roslin is a lot smarter than "W." However, Roslin does have a nasty habit of bypassing certain restrictions on her power. I attribute this behavior to the unwholesome experience of running her own classroom.

Meanwhile, back on Caprica

In "The Hand of God," Athena and Helo continue their flight from the Cylons, and Athena starts barfing a sure sign of early pregnancy. (I could write about my experience with so-called morning sickness for pages and pages, but I will spare you.) There relationship continues to develop and it is clear that Helo loves Athena (and not Boomer).

As I said in previous posts, it's a little confusing trying to figure out if Helo loves Athena when she is behaving like Boomer, and then goes along with the ride when Athena's real personality asserts itself. After giving it a lot of thought, I have now decided that Helo SLEPT with Boomer, but fell in love with Athena.

In this episode, Athena realizes that Helo is going to discover her origins, and she is terrified of the prospect. In addition, if Helo kills here, she will lose her baby and the Cylons she betrayed will resurrect her. Her las kiss with Helo is really an acknowledgment that their relationship is about to undergo a drastic change.

In the miniseries and at the beginning of Season 1, I did not think Grace Park was a very good actress. It's been a pleasure to see how much she has improved, and she becomes more and more convincing in her two roles. It's especially impressive because she is playing two characters whose differences are quite subtle.

Some things I noticed and really liked

• The way that Ellen immediately determines that she and Zarek are on the same wavelength. Ellen's not the brightest bulb on the porch, but she's not nice to Zarek because she likes him, and Zarek knows that:

Zarek: "What would that [your agenda] be?

Ellen: "Same as yours Tom. Me. Myself. And I."

• Roslin giving Baltar a dirty look after he seconds Zarek's proposal. Mary McDonnell is just SO good.

• Six's threat, "I have your heart, I can always rip it out of your chest if I need to." (and of course the context of this line is hilarious)

• The party after the election, when Adama says, "Politics, as exciting as war," and Roslin says, "Except in war you only get killed once." Strictly speaking, this is not true - at least it isn't for the Cylons.

One last question

In the scene where the delegates arrive, there is a guy who yells, "Murderer. You don't belong here Zarek. Go back." There are no credits given for the actor playing this character, but if it's not Anthony Edwards, it is someone who looks EXACTLY like him.

The Hand of God

This episode is absolutely critical - from this point on Galactica is as much about finding earth as it is about simple survival. This also marks the point where both Roslin's and Baltar's intellectual and emotional lives undergo a drastic transformation.

For Baltar this experience starts in "33," and "Six Degrees of Separation" expands on the theme. Both of these episodes, however, are restricted to dealing with threats to Baltar. In this episode Baltar's seemingly random choice of target ends up saving the fleet. This has an enormous effect on his world outlook, since he makes an irrevocable decision to move away from his rationalist, materialist mindset to a faith-based understanding of reality. The final scene, where Baltar stands in his robe looking up at the sky (and we are looking down at him) is typical of Baltar's ego and his sense of grandiosity (it's also pretty funny), but it has a core of truth since it appears that divine intervention DID guide his hand to the right target.

I find the fact that Six is the source of religious instruction fascinating. She seems unlikely since she is essentially a seduction machine, very jealous and capable of violence. (In "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I" she says, "I can rip it [Baltar's heart] out whenever I want to.") There's nothing warm and fuzzy about her, but she still mouths pieties like, "God doesn't take sides. Give yourself over to his love." and ".... surrender your ego, remain humble." 

Roslin's evolution starts in "Flesh and Bone," when she has dreams that predict the future. Now, however, she is having visions (or hallucinations, depending on your point of view) that require explanation. Roslin's use of chamallah as an "alternative" treatment for cancer soon becomes the vehicle for her understanding of the Colonials' founding story and her place in that story. 

The episode opens with Roslin's press conference about the latest crisis. She starts out in usual presidential form, but as the vision of the snakes becomes more disturbing she becomes incoherent and distracted. The snakes are a particularly creepy symbol (at least to this writer).

Like Baltar, Roslin's personal experience convinces her that she is playing a role given to her by the gods. Like Baltar, she is a rationalist and is even ignorant of her society's religious belief system, making her "conversion" seem a logical and legitimate change in her sense of self. Mary O'Donnell's expression depicts with stunning verisimilitude Roslin's version of falling down on the road to Damascus. Unlike Baltar, this transformation doesn't seem (much) to inflate her ego. It does however give her a sense of purpose that offers more than just safety, but also hope.

The end of the episode offers a nice touch when Six's interpretation of events matches Elosha's. 

The rest of the episode is a ripping good yarn. The special effects are great and it is a lot of fun watching the battle scenes, especially as Lee & co. destroy the refinery. There are also some nice twists as Lee takes on qualities of Starbuck and Starbuck is forced to step back and assume a role inimical to her personality. This is a rite of passage for Starbuck (as Adama says, "Welcome to the big league.")

Of course we are forced to sit through the usual Lee histrionics when he bitches and moans that everybody likes Starbuck more than they like him, and his daddy has to sit by his side and stroke his ego and prove that he loves Lee more than he loves Starbuck, blah blah blah. In fact, the only Lee moment I liked was at the end, when he looks at his father while he is smoking a cigar. Not surprisingly, Lee doesn't say anything, which is probably why the little scene is a success.

What I really liked

• Elosha, whose personality conveys a magisterial authority. Her deep voice and cynical reaction towards Roslin's initial description of her experiences, as well as her embrace of Roslin's role in bringing the prophecies to fruition lend credence to this important new story line. After Elosha dies, she is replaced briefly by the priest who delivers the oath of office. The guy looks like a typical mainstream Protestant minister, who matches our (or at least mine) experience of traditional religion. By season 4, however, the representative of religion is this wishy-washy new age type that I personally cannot take seriously.
• When Tigh says, "It'll cost us." His tone of voice, which is slightly hoarse, and his serious and even pained facial expression convey the image of a leader embracing a necessary evil (the death of his men) to achieve a larger purpose (the safety of the fleet). I suppose that this is the whole point of war, even though the only "just wars" I can think of are the American Civil War and World War II.
• The depiction of an active, free press during a press conference that resembles U.S. presidential press conferences. Despite the extraordinary circumstances, the structure of colonial society survives, including a legitimate government following rules established before the Cylon attack, and journalists playing their role as conveyers of information as well as devil's advocate. 
• Adama's and Roslin's glasses reflecting the green light from the light board. I also noticed that once the mission completes Adama briefly takes off his glasses, his equivalent of letting his guard down.

One thing I thought was really really stupid

Everyone standing around the light table (which I guess served as a map) while models of ships are pushed around to indicate how the battle is progressing. Come on, CNN can do better than that, why can't Galactica? I realize that this is one of Galactica's deliberate anacronisms and I assume that the intent was to allude to those old RAF / Battle of Britain movies where everyone stands around stiff-upper-lipped, but I thought it was stupid for the following reasons:

• Space is 3-dimensional but the model was 2-dimensional
  
• I couldn't figure out why they weren't in the CIC in the first place
• Gaeta's function seemed to be restricted to repeating everything Adama or Starbuck said. I kept wondering why they couldn't just speak to Dualla directly and eliminate the middleman. It kind of reminded me of the movie "Galaxy Quest," where Lt. Tawny Madison's job was repeating other people's commands to the computer, and then repeating what the computer says to everyone else.

Tigh me up, Tigh me down

This episode is very funny, and I enjoy it a lot. There are many hilarious scenes and the actors' comic timing is superb. My only quibble is whether this makes sense given that it takes place just a few weeks after the Colonies are destroyed and billions of people are murdered, but I don't find it hard to get past that (it is, after all, fiction and not fact) and relax and enjoy the ride.

This episode is obviously meant to provide some comic relief, and it is the only episode I can think of that is primarily humorous. A lot of episodes have a serious premise with funny moments that are usually provided by Gaius Baltar (even "33" manages this). But I can't think of any other episode that has this many laughs. (According to Ron Moore's podcast, "Taking a Break From All Your Worries" in Season 3 was meant to provide comic relief, but by the time they were done it was pretty grim.)

This episode is based on misunderstandings, which is the foundation of a lot of farces ("Twelfth Night" and "The Importance of Being Ernest" are just two examples). In fact, this episode achieves the impossible - it manages to make Baltar look reasonable in comparison to everyone else. ("Ladies and gentlemen, please. We're in a laboratory. There are hazardous chemical compounds everywhere. That's a thermo-nuclear bomb, for frack's sakes.")

One of the first scenes, when Six commiserates with Baltar and offers him a sexual interlude sets the very silly tone for the rest of the episode. Italian opera starts playing, Baltar spins around in his chair, tosses the clipboard, and the camera gradually lowers until we are looking underneath the table and watching the characters' legs. It tells us everything we need to know about what is going on without actually showing it. The episode ends at this same location, with Baltar at the head of a table crowded with blood samples, spinning dreamily in his chair and being caressed by Six.

In this episode Tigh is reunited with his wife, Ellen. I like Kate Vernon a lot, like Mary O'Donnell she is another really attractive over-40 woman. She is very beautiful and radiates sex from the moment she steps onto Galactica. Kate Vernon has a very expressive mouth, and as Ellen steps of the raptor, she uses her mouth to convey vulnerability. This is the only time in the episode where she evokes our sympathy. It's quickly apparent that Ellen's drinking is not characterized by moderation, nor are her relationships with men. In Freudian terms she is all id and no superego. In Adama's terms "... she's nothing but trouble."

We've already seen Tigh's alcoholic behaviors. In "Water" he draws lines on the bottle to mark how much he will drink. In the briefing scene at the beginning of "Bastille Day" the deck crew smirks when they realize he's drunk. In this episode, before he sees Ellen, he tosses a bottle of liquor in the garbage. His relationship with his awful wife is also a form of addiction. In spite of promises to "start over," they quickly fall into the patterns that always characterized their marriage (and Tigh's resolution to stop drinking is quickly tossed aside). One thing that Ellen gets absolutely right, though, is that Adama is "... one of those faces on a totem pole."  I did get a good chuckle out of that. (I wonder if Edward James Olmos made his face grimmer than usual to make this line more accurate.)

In spite of all the laughs, the underlying mood in the fleet is suspicion. During her conversation with Billy, Roslin is wide-eyed with terror and acts paranoid. IMHO she also, for the first time in the series, looks sick, as if her emotional state of mind is affecting her health.

Athena/Boomer

This episode ends with the critical conversation between Doral and Six, which I have already discussed in my post Why Battlestar Galactica. I have watched this episode several times since that post, and I am struck by the fact that it is Doral who says "I can't help wondering what it would be like to feel that intensely. Even in his (i.e. Helo's) anguish he seemed so alive." There is a lot of curiosity and yearning on his face that is very un-Doral-like. This scene is the first to give a glimpse of Cylon interior life. With the exception of Baltar's Six, the Cylons, for the most part, have been cold, psychologically remote, and self-sufficient.

"Flesh and Bone" is the turning point in Athena's relationship to Helo. In that episode she discusses Helo with Six and Doral dispassionately, but she doesn't actually answer Six when Six asks her if she can kill Helo. Athena's loyalties are now unconditionally transferred to Helo and (later) the fleet.

Before she changes sides, Athena had behaved like Boomer, who is insecure and needy. I assume this was a deliberate decision on the part of the Cylons, and done to deceive Helo. At the end of "Flesh and Bone" Athena asks Helo, "Do you trust me?" Until now Helo has been the leader and made the decisions, now Athena is asking Helo to let her share that role. This line signals the point where Athena's true personality asserts itself. She is forceful, decisive, and confident. These changes in personality don't seem to affect Helo's love. Although Athena and Boomer are psychologically completely different, at some level they must share qualities that make them both attractive to Helo. I am also sure that Helo loves the new Boomer (i.e., Athena) even more because of her determination to save him.

IMHO, Boomer's hesitancy and fearfulness are a manifestation of her subconscious knowledge that she is not who she believes she is. Which leads to an interesting question - is Boomer culpable for her actions in later episodes, or is she destined to behave as she does. As I have already pointed out, Galactica repeatedly returns to the question of free will. This is another example of Galactica's relevance to difficult issues in our own society. In the American legal system there is an ongoing debate about whether individuals with serious mental illness can be held accountable when they commit violent crimes. (For a discussion, see  this fascinating article on the subject.)

Some things I noticed

Call me crazy, but if I hadn't seen my husband in weeks and thought he was dead, my first action wouldn't be to uncork a bottle and toss down shots. I would throw him on the floor and ravish him (which is pretty much what Ellen does in "Deadlock" in Season 4.5). Starbuck and Anders also seem to prefer the bottle to bed ("Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2"). After pining for each other for months they suck up huge amounts of alcohol before climbing into the sack. IMHO this is a really bad idea since performance is usually not improved by alcohol consumption, and the happy couple probably won't remember the sex anyway.

Starbuck & Baltar - I've already discussed the scene with Baltar & Six, but there is a also a tiny little moment when Starbuck interrupts them that adds to the fun. Starbuck ever so slightly closes her eyes and shakes her head. It is so subtle and funny, and characteristic of the "early" Starbuck. Katee Sackhoff is great at producing these minute facial expressions that convey Starbuck's thoughts in seconds. In "Flight of the Phoenix," Racetrack calls Athena a Cylon whore while Starbuck is walking away from the card table. Starbuck stops, and there's a short pause and you can see Starbuck silently asking herself, "Should I or shouldn't I?" The she gives a little smile, turns around, and decks Racetrack.

I know I've said it before, but ...

One of Galactica's attractions is its epic scope. A few episodes may be self-contained stories (IMHO they are not the best episodes either). Star Trek Voyager theoretically had a similar premise (return home), but the episodes were typically self-contained, with only occasional references to the ultimate goal.

And finally, an extremely fun piece of trivia

Kate Vernon's dad is John Vernon. In case that name doesn't mean anything to you, then maybe the name Dean Vernon Wormer rings a bell. And if that doesn't trigger any synapses in your brain, then maybe Farber College does. And if you still don't know what I am talking about, it is time for you to netflix "Animal House" (one of the five funniest movies ever made). If you don't like "Animal House," then you are beyond redemption and there is really nothing more I can do to help you.