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.

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.

33

I saw this episode before I saw the miniseries (Netflix screw up - in fact it was actually more tha a year before I saw the miniseries, after I finally decided to buy Season One myself). I'm bringing this up because I thought I had missed something the first time I saw this episode - that "33" started immediately from where the miniseries left off.

After I saw the miniseries I realized this was a deliberate choice. Viewers are dropped into the middle of a desperate situation and then learn how the main characters behave under extreme stress.

It says a lot about the writing, editing, and directing that you can figure out quickly what is happening. "33" opens with a series of scenes that quickly cut back and forth between Gaius Baltar's thoughts, vipers shooting out the tubes flown by pilots who are obviously having trouble concentrating, the CIC where Tigh is slapping a soldier on the back to keep him awake, and the deck where everyone is watching the clock. This series of scenes take about 2 to 3 minutes. When the Cylons do arrive we see multiple clocks, digital and analog, showing that time is up (This sequence actually reminds me a little of the pendulum clock in "High Noon.").

In other words, I didn't know much less than anyone who had seen the miniseries knew.

"33" is, without question, the best episode of Season 1, precisely because of this tension and the way the characters' reactions reveal their nature.

OK, to quote Callie, "Why 33?" My first instinct (which reveals my advanced age) is that it is referencing LPs that play at 33-1/3 RPM. Beyond that 33 is divisible by only 2 numbers, 3 and 11 (1 and 33 don't count). 3 and 11 are very cool prime numbers and I am not a geek for thinking this. I remember hearing George Burns say in an interview that 7 is a very funny number. So there.

My only quibble with the episode is that it is simply not possible for the crew to go 5 days running without sleep - they must have had some down time or else they would be incapable of functioning. As Baltar said, "there are limits...." Trust me, I know what I am talking about. When our twin sons were infants they did not sleep at the same time, and I went for about 3 months getting 3-4 hours of sleep at night but only about 45 minutes at one time, which meant that I got little or no REM sleep. Going without sleep is pure torture (although not, apparently, if you are working for the Bush administration interrogating suspected terrorists).

There are two scenes that stand out in my mind. Tigh falling asleep sitting on a sofa in the middle of a conversation with Adama is probably my favorite, but there is also, as usual, a lot of background detail. I especially like one scene in the CIC, while Adama is talking to Tigh, you can see right behind Adama a guy wearing a headset, slumped over fast asleep.

This episode has one of my all-time favorite scenes - Starbuck refusing to take stims. Lee tries to wheedle her into obeying and she bursts out with this speech telling Lee in no uncertain terms how she thinks he should be handling her insubordination. They stand glaring at each other for a short pause that goes just a millisecond longer than is comfortable, ratcheting up the tension a little bit, before they burst out laughing. This dialogue reveals a lot about Kara. The scene also gets a little more texture when Kara glares at the Chief, who has witnessed the exchange, and says "What" and he just rolls his eyes and walks away. The whole exchange is pitch perfect. 

I watched this episode again after Season 4.0 ended, and I was struck by the tentative nature of Roslin's and Adama's relationship in the beginning. At this point they are strangers who have been thrown together by circumstance and now share the burden of protecting what is left of the human race. In this episode they are on separate ships and all their conversations are by radio. In the middle of a discussion about the tactical situation (bad) there's a surprisingly intimate moment. After a pause in the conversation Roslin tentatively asks, "Are you there?" and Adama says, "Yeah."

Galactica has a special resonance in the post-9/11 world. Even in the midst of this exhausting crisis people are trying to find loved ones, and Roslin is trying to get an accurate count of the number of survivors. When Dualla tries to hand over photos of her family to track them down, she is instructed to post them on a wall. As she walks down the long corridor to post the photos she (and by extension we) is overwhelmed by the number of pictures posted, the makeshift memorials, and the messages to the dead. The photos include pictures of babies and children, as well as adults, and convey the remorseless nature of the losses. The camera holds still as she walks further down the corridor, until she is a small figure turning around in confusion, stunned by the magnitude of the catastrophe as expressed in the pictures of lost family members. These types of memorials and photo montages sprang up all over New York within hours of the collapse of the World Trade Center, and became synonymous with the event. Galactic is deliberately recreating these to provide a symbol we can recognize and use to provide a context for the apocolyptic events the characters have survived.

Galactica returns to this corridor periodically so that the viewer never forgets why the ship is wandering in space with no place to go home to. In the last episode of Season 4, when they do find earth, the scene cuts to Starbuck in that same corridor, looking at the photo of a lost pilot, and behind her is a woman standing in a different part of the corridor, crying while she presumably looks at pictures of lost loved ones.