After sleeping on it, I still award this episode a hearty “meh”. It may be a story the somebody wanted to tell, but it ain’t a story that needed to be told. Did very little to advance the storyline. The only redeeming bit I saw was the idea of Baltar’s Mein Kampf. Guy figures odds are he’s going out an airlock sooner or later, so he trys to persuade the rabble to storm the Bastille. Worth a shot.
No nudity. Baltar smoking something–and getting a bit glassy eyed from it. OK, Ron, we get it. You’re weed friendly. Good for you. Now stop beating us over the head with it. Enough with the whole “who’s frakin who” musical bedmates deal. Yeah, Adama and Rosilyn sitting in a tree. So help me, if they do a frakkin wedding show, I shall hunt RDM down and fart loudly in his general direction.
The last scene with Starbuck calling out Seelix for flight training was acceptable, I guess. Fits with a military tradition. Coulda still done that after an episode worth watching though.
Hopefully, things will get better soon. Next week is the much anticipated “Maelstrom” episode, with Starbuck’s fate hanging in the balance. From spoiler sites,
We know Starbuck is done for the season after next week. We don’t know what happens to her, and whether she’ll be coming back for season 4. The outtake comedy clip thingy that was linked weeks ago had her saying she dies and is revealed as a cylon. Hoping that was just Katee pulling our chain…
Not necessarily a rewrite; maybe just a writing shortcut. A while back, Lost had an episode about Jin and Sun (the Korean couple) wherein the dramatic tension was created by Jin being an asshole. At the end of the episode, the conflict was resolved by Jin stopping being an asshole. Cheap, easy, and totally unsatisfying.
This episode had a bit of that, too. Midway through, Tyrol is trying to get Roslin to pay attention, and she cuts him off with an “Ah ah ah! none of that” type line, abrupt and abrasive. (Sure, she’s distracted by the whole Baltar thing, and may be overreacting on that basis, but if so, that could have been made clearer.) Then at the end, not only is she willing to give Tyrol the time of day, but she accepts several of his requirements. Note, of course, that this is after the strike, which means the original organizer was correct: the fuel flows, and nobody returns his calls, but the fuel stops, and he gets face time with the Admiral and the President.
In other words, despite Roslin’s assertions to the contrary, extortion absolutely works.
I’m not sure if that was the conclusion we’re supposed to have drawn, but it certainly does establish interesting long-term implications. (Sewage crew: “We’re sick of everyone eating algae! Makes people’s shit stink like you wouldn’t believe! Sewage is on strike until we find The Planet Of Yogurt And Immodium!”)
No, that was farm-boy architect that got hurt… the one that wanted an exception… Boxie was introduced earlier to the Chief when the vent gasket thingies went missing.
It was the best of the 3 stand-alone episodes of the past 3 weeks, but then again, that’s not a very high bar. The part I really couldn’t get past was that anyone in the fleet would believe Baltar is a champion of the people after he lived so high on the hog while everyone else was in hardscrabble conditions on New Caprica. Any members of the union then wouldn’t be looking to him for inspiration now.
I do agree with Lightray that the episode would have been better if they hadn’t been quite so hamhanded in making Roslin (in particular) such a heavy. Adama I don’t mind quite as much – I don’t expect a military commander to go easy on civil disobedience, although I must admit past history has shown him to be more deft in handling situations like that. Adama and Roslyn seemed to react more like Tigh did when he was in command, rather than their normal more thoughtful selves.
No, Boxy was introduced way back in the miniseries, the Caprican boy rescued by Boomer when Helo stayed behind. He showed up in a couple episodes first season as apparently the pilots’ mascot or something, then disappeared, never to be seen again. IIRC Ron Moore mentioned in a podcast that the character concept annoyed them so much that they just assumed he’d gotten cholera and died or been airlocked or something.
I think we’re safe from seeing Machine Moppet ever again.
(1) Shouldn’t Baltar’s planet of origin and general biography be publically available and widely known? After all, he was a celebrity both before and after the attack.
(2) Everyone (the populace, not the main characters) has suddenly forgotten how much they hate Baltar. Who cares if he’s writing a subversive political tome? He was a massive traitor. No way people forget that so quickly. (And in addition to collaborating while the cylons ruled New Caprica, he also caused the settlement of NC to begin with… even if one could argue that he was well-meaning at the time, people will certainly hold that as a grudge against him.)
(3) The thing that bugged me about the strike storyline, aside from criticisms others have made (Adama is so totally ruthless that his immediate response is to make someone cave by threatening to kill that person’s WIFE? As a FIRST RESORT?) is that the whole class division issue comes almost completely out of nowhere. Something as fundamental to every aspect of life on the fleet ought to have been built up with little hints and moments and scenes over many episodes. Rather, until two weeks ago I would have said there was no such issue at all. Then last week, I would have said that the class issue was that lots of people were racist against sagitarrons. And then this. WAY too sudden.
(And isn’t there public education on the fleet? Roslin was a schoolteacher on NC, and I’d have said that there were schools on the fleet itself. If so, why would 12-year-old kids be working in the (hilariously 19th-century-looking) refining ship? Oh, and who designs machinery so shitty that when a conveyor belt jams, you can’t just turn everything off?)
I’ve a better question: Why, when drawing up the list of people to send to the space gulag ship of forced labor, didn’t somebody put down the names of all those damn journalists on Colonial One?
Seelix is too valuable delivering laundry to transfer to pilot training, but the 50+ journalists fawning over Roslyn can’t be spared?
Of course your correct that we had a charector named “Boxy” early on (that was summarily lost)… I was calling this 12yo moppet a “boxie charector” – meaning he fit the mold that was truly a “boxie” (although maybe this one should’ve been called “Wesley”).
I thought the plot was excellent, but I agree that Roslyn was being a little inconsistent. They could have easily thrown a scene in there that shows her realizing her mistake, at least.
There was one ridiculous plot hole, though - when the conveyor belt is having problems, Tyrol wants to stop it, and the other guys tell him “NO! The <widget> will overheat, and you’ll blow us all to bits!” So the kid has to fidget with the running machinery, and hurts his arm.
So, Tyrol gets upset, and…stops the machinery. No explosion is forthcoming. That was just sloppy.
I got the impression that they couldn’t stop it while it was jammed, but once it was safely running, it could be stopped without issue. Not sure, though.
Mostly, I was thinking: “Okay. There are three levers. Chief’s gonna grab and pull two of them. There’s one remaining. Hey, there’s a job for that one-armed kid after all.”
I don’t think it was a [widget] that would overheat – I think it was the Tyllium ore that would go boom if it overheated. And I’m not going to even try to fanwank the logic of that; the goofy conveyor belt grabbed hold of my disbelief suspenders and stretched 'em so out of shape that they’re barely holding my pants up enough to keep my Viper in its bay.
Okay, I’m only 2/3 through, but augh; it’s entering 24 territory here. “Hey, we’ve got an entire ship full of what are basically slaves (who have never been mentioned), but giving them better conditions would be ‘giving in to extortion’. Let’s keep going! Work those bastards!”
Retarded.
Gah, I hope this series picks up soon. I’ve already had to abandon Jack Bauer because I was sick of autism-as-plot-device. And what? Now Adama’s going to shoot Callie? What!? What!?
This is a load of crap. Easily as stupid as the “let’s stop all foreign-looking agents in our intelligence agencies from working properly, but don’t tell any of their co-workers” plot line from 24. Absolute bobbins. Fricking space drama already! I’ve been re-watching series 1, and the difference is just enormous. More than night and day; it’s like night and a really crappy night where you’ve got a hangover already, been mugged and had your foot run over by the night bus, which didn’t stop to pick you up. And then exploded because its tyllium was crappy.
Okay, that happens all the time with London Transport, but that’s the point. I watch TV for escapism. None of this sex, violence and exploding mass transport; I can get all that at home. Okay, except for the violence, I want more of that. And the sex, I s’pose. Yeah, I’m not sure where I’m going with this. More plot, dammit, is the key. Actual plot.
Just what accent was Callis doing ? Whatever it was it was very jarring to have him switch back and forth. And do all the Colonials actually speak the same language (descended from Kobolian)? That would mean they have been in constant contact since they were settled millenia ago (otherwise Kobolian would drift into seperate languages like Latin did).
Jane, Jane, Jane (Espenson, the writer of this ep). We get it. You like Jane Austen. A lot. Class wars, ya did 'em in *Shindig *and it was cute. But it did seem a little out of nowhere here. A few shows ago, the same “aristocrats” were entering the Boxing Ring of Equality with the mechanics, weren’t they?
Still, a better episode than the last few. At least I cared about the characters (even the Dickensian waifs) and the moral dilemma had a few shades of grey in it.
No because Lee already outranked Gaeta. Then there’s the fact that Lee is Adama’s son. And even though Lee was demoted and Tigh outranks him again Tigh will never be allowed to command the Fleet.
So, when Zarek said work, labor, and everyday routine in this fleet would come to a halt and Baltar’s trial would bring down the fleet he wasn’t just talking about everyone in the fleet being unanimous about wanting Baltar dead. This week, everyone was reading his book. He doesn’t sound like “most hated man in the fleet” after all. Of course, this could change next week, as the character driven plot requires.
Back on New Caprica it didn’t seem like there was much of a class divide. Roslyn herself seemed to be a simple school teacher. Tyrol’s union speeches notwithstanding, I didn’t get who was being exploited, except everyone by Baltar. But he was the president, and most everyone in the colonies wanted to settle on NC anyway.
Was there an upper class on NC? I mean Starbuck is one of the stuck up Capricans, but she looked like a commoner to me on NC before the occupation.
Ooh, sorry she’s a highly educated, experienced and skilled pilot keeping you all alive and all that. Yeah, on her off duty hours she sits around eating peeled grapes.
Okay, in fairness the crew of Galactica have an ersatz Ten Forward set up on the hangar deck, but it’s patronized by knuckle draggers and officers alike. There’s nothing stopping the crew of the tylium refinery setting up one of their own.
? Whatever it was it was very jarring to have him switch back and forth. And do all the Colonials actually speak the same language (descended from Kobolian)? That would mean they have been in constant contact since they were settled millenia ago (otherwise Kobolian would drift into seperate languages like Latin did).