"The Ties That Bind"
Three episodes into the last season of Battlestar Galactica and how're we doing? Well, by all accounts, pretty good. Three episodes and we've moved forward. Starbuck is on a grody-ship, commanding a crew that doesn't trust her, lost among the stars, trying to find Earth. Oh, and having angry sex with Anders, who thinks that she very well might be the last of the Final Five. Great. It's good.
Roslin is still dying of cancer, and Adama reads to her from the pulpiest Caprica City-based noir-detective-story ever. Will they reach Earth before she dies? Up in the air. Great. It's good.
Lee has been seated on the Quorum of Twelve, and already is being played by Zarek for reasons he doesn't understand. You've got good intentions Lee, but you should have learned (and way back in Season 1, for the record) that Zarek is going to play you for a fool to get what he wants. But it's great. It's good.
Oh, and that whole Cylon civil-war? Let's just say shit gets real. Also, basestar v. basestar. Which, of course, I can't get enough of ever.
The main story this episode involves Chief's wife, the always inconsistent Cally. I have to give it up to Nicki Clyne, who plays the aforementioned spouse. She has never been particularly great on the show, with lots of lip-quivering and eye-brow raising. But this episode, space-drugged out of her mind, and finding out her hubby's deepest, darkest secret, she pulls it together. Her fear is tangible, her confusion believable, her desperation appropriate. She tries really hard to brain Chief with an inexplicably HUGE wrench.
As she walked out the airlock, her child in her arms, RoboGirlfriend began to talk to the TV. When you get RoboGF talking to the TV, you know you have scored a victory, TV writers, because the TV cannot hear her. "No no no no nonononono!" RoboGirlfriend shouted at the TV. "Why is she in the airlock with the baby? What is she doing? She can't do that! No! Stop it!"
Needless to say, Ron Moore & Co. do NOT shoot a baby out the airlock. But the close-up on the frozen eyeballs of Cally, floating through space, drifting past the other ships in the fleet, is one of the more bad-ass moments from the season. Especially considering how Cally already had a little zero-atmosphere experience last season.
So all in all a good episode. I know I'm not the only one who felt it was a little-short. Probably due to the many, many story-lines they're trying to progress this episode. But hey, any episode that has Doc Cottle smoking a cigarette in a lab, cylons blowing shit up, and people getting clubbed has to be pretty good.
As a sidenote, if any of you readers (that's right -- I'm talking to all three of you) have opinions on the show, please write them in the comments. I know that BZ over at The Atlantis Myth thought this episode was lame. I think he actually said that I would "want to throw things at the TV," to which I replied I would be watching the ep. w/RoboGirlfriend, and how she would not appreciate being flung at said television. Clearly, I disagree -- I threw nothing at the TV. But if you did hate, I'd love to hear why. Comment away.
-RoboNixon
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1 comment:
Can't say I disagree, though maybe on a question of scale. I deeply enjoyed the episode, and--frankly--feel that each episode this season has simply gotten better and better. I was extremely impressed by the fact that I knew exactly where the Cally storyline was going (in part due to the obnoxiously revealing previews for next time), but I still felt captivated. That's fine film/tv-making right there.
I streamed it early at my job in a campus center (as I also had to work when it was being broadcasted) and when Natalie jumped and they cut to the other basestars surrounding her basestar, I just started cackling. Everyone in the campus center paused and looked at the loud, possibly insane boy sitting at the information desk laughing at his computer.
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