June 2, 2008
For the last few weeks I've been griping over e-mail about the slow, methodical pacing of the new BSG season. It just dawned on me that with minimal effort they could turn into something kind of like a review. So, spoilers for "Sine Qua Non", which aired 30 May 2008, are below...
Well, that was kinda disappointing. Last week I thought we were all set up for the big downhill run, then this week they realized they needed to drop a couple more pieces into place. And damn did it feel forced. Weird thing is, at the same time it felt like they were padding things out.
All of a sudden Lee's some Machiavellian power-monger? I know they pulled a Chekhov's Gun with it earlier in the episode, but seeing some hint of any ambition at all, besides pissing in Daddy's Wheaties every chance he gets, at any point prior to this would've been nice. Hell, my biggest knock against the guy was that he was aways handed jobs by his father despite not having any ambition at all, over the people who'd been trying to earn it.
Ditto for Adama demoting himself to pilot, though not as much. We already saw him go to great lengths when Starbuck was MIA back in season one (when she came back with her brain-dead raider) so seeing him do the same for Roslyn wasn't as much of a stretch. Interesting that he was willing to go do this himself though; but maybe with half of the fleet's air defense gone he felt he was more useful as a pilot than as a commander. Seeing him and Tigh play Rock 'em Sock 'em Geezers was pretty odd though. Nice touch having him reading the book at the end; he's likely going to be out there for a while.
And now Caprica's knocked up. Man, Sharon's gonna be pissed -- all this time she's been thinking Hera's special, and now there's not only a final-five Pop Tart running around but we've got a super-special original-seven-final-five mixer in the works as well. Maybe it's less "love" and more "whatever Galactica's got in its air supply". Or maybe Galactica just has Air Supply and the ladies like their background music on the cheesy side.
I'm glad they were able to bring Romo back (and since he'd be the first person Lee goes to for legal stuff that made sense once you get past the "line of succession only applies when we want it to" bit). I do kinda wish they'd gone with "eccentricity" rather than "around the bend," though. As it turned out it seems more like he was testing Lee's convictions instead of actually wanting to kill him, and he could've done that without the cat jerky he'd apparently been toting around for a few weeks. So was he already loopy and the cat died of natural causes, or did "they" go all Fatal Attraction on his ass for helping Baltar get acquitted? 'Cause maybe I'm slow but my first thought wasn't "you bastards!" but "y'know, an aircraft carrier probably isn't a very pet-friendly place..."
All the fanboys can rest; Jake did in fact make it off New Caprica. I kinda wish they'd been keeping up with the podcasts; Ron Moore mentioned that he was surprised by the outpouring of "where's Jake" after the escape so I'm sure he was amused at being able to work the dog back in.
There were things I liked about this episode: Adama's confrontation with Sharon was great, even if Grace Park seemed a little wooden to me -- Edward James Olmos is capable of carrying a scene like that on his own. According to the previews we're getting back to the basestar next week and we get to see D'Anna break a Cavil's neck. That alone should be worth the price of admission.
Hm. One thing from the show and one thing from the preview. Not exactly a good sign. Though in fairness I think this episode suffered more from not living up to my expectations than anything else. I think that if they hadn't spent so damn long on the setup (8 episodes now, since "Razor" is officially considered 4-01 and 4-02) that I would have been willing to buy into this ep a bit more.
But to sum up: Bleah. Maybe next week something can actually happen for 44 minutes instead of having 10 minutes being stretched out to an episode and having a random climax tacked onto it.
