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November 03, 2006

BSG Blogging: Torn, Part I

An uneven episode, but I think this one set a lot of balls in motion without resolving many of them, setting up some interesting questions for next week and beyond.

Number Six in a bikini, a great way to start. God bless cable television. Naturally, it's Baltar's subconscious, but it comes as no surprise he would envision Six in as few clothes as possible. The room with the big Cylon eye is certainly an interesting prison. Presumably it serves as a means of watching the prisoner, but is it a Cylon watching him, or just a camera of some kind?

The Cylons want Baltar to tell them how to get to Earth. Interesting. I'm not sure if that makes much sense for the Cylons, but it does guarantee that Galactica will continue to face off with the Cylons, which is vital to the plot.

Back aboard Galactica, it looks like Apollo is back to serving as CAG. Adama has them training, naturally. That is one of the more realistic aspects of the show; military units train a lot, and BSG is the only military show I've ever seen that really examines that. And Starbuck is off the flight rotation after nearly crashing her Viper.

Tigh is hearing Ellen's voice. He's doubtless drunk, but the voice is more likely his conscience than the drink. He's in deep trouble.

Starbuck runs into Casey. Let's hear it for coincidences. Apparently the child remembers Starbuck and wants to be with her, but Starbuck wants no part of the child. Between her and Tigh, there's enough anger to blow up Galactica.

Gaeta is working through Baltar's notes to try and point them in the direction of Earth. He is also using holy texts to determine where the 13th tribe might have gone.

Baltar is working along a parallel track to help the Cylons. As Six points out to him, he was more than happy to help the Cylons find Earth when it appeared he would die if he did not. An interesting bit of news: Cylons can create images when they daydream, so when they visualize something, they actually see it, feel it, and so on. When Baltar hears this, he wonders if he is a Cylon, since his daydreams with Six are so vivid.

And Apollo is back in shape again. Good for him. Would that it really was that easy.

Galactica-Sharon doesn't want to be known as Boomer, so she gets a new call sign: Athena, therefore closing a loop with the old BSG. Ah, and Colonel Tigh's rage appears as he tries to separate those who fought on New Caprica against those who stayed with the fleet. I suspect that, if Adama does not settle him down, Tigh will tear the fleet apart.

Baltar asks about the remaining five skinjob models as part of his paranoia he is a Cylon. Six tells him that they do not speak of those five models. And the Cylons have apparently lost a base ship to a virus. If they make any contact with it, the virus will jump to the general Cylon population. Six wants Baltar to volunteer to check on the ship, since if he's human, the virus probably will not affect him. Suddenly Baltar's stock with the Cylons surges, since he may be the only way they can discover just what happened to the base ship.

Starbuck has joined Tigh in trying to split the fleet. Apparently my observation about their anger was accurate. Interestingly, Helo is still Galactica's XO, which doubtless is contributing to Tigh's anger.

Baltar is aboad the infected base ship, which is controlled by a human-appearing woman who is apparently insane. Correction: he was checking out an uninfected base ship for comparison. The woman controller still sounds insane, but apparently her words all have meaning. On board the infected base ship, the Cylons are all dead or dying, apparently in great pain. Baltar finds a Six who begs him to kill her, despite the fact she will not download. They found some artifact that infected the ship, and Six accuses Baltar of intentionally sending them there to find the artifact so they would be destroyed. Her accusations are so fierce, Baltar strangles her to death, then tells the uninfected Cylons he has found nothing of consequence.

The Cylons are debating whether or not to cut off that base ship. There is much disagreement among the Cylons now...perhaps there always was, but this will make things much more interesting. Many of them think Baltar intentionally sent the base ship to be infected, leading Baltar into one of his traditional self-preservation whinefests.

Adama finally confronts Tigh and Starbuck. He takes Starbuck's pistol, chambers a round, and throws it on the table, challenging one of them to shoot him. They won't do it, unsurprisingly, and Adama confronts them about their poisoning the crew. He tosses Starbuck to the floor and tells her that she can either become a human being, or get off Galactica. She flees, and Adama tells Tigh that he needs to either shoot Adama or get in his quarters and stay there until he can become the man Adama once knew. Tigh tells Adama that man doesn't exist any more and walks away.

Starbuck heads to the pilots' quarters and cuts her hair, donning her uniform, implicitly agreeing to Adama's terms. She also allows Casey into her life, embracing the humanity she tried to force away from her. Tigh returns to his quarters to drink in great quantity.

Naturally, the Raptor sent to find the sign to Earth is piloted by Athena, and they jump into the midst of floating Raiders and the base ship. As her copilot prepares to jump back to Galactica, it appears the virus has gotten Sharon as well, and someone is going to have to find a cure for the Cylon virus.

While not much was resolved in this episode, I see that as a strength, not a weakness. Rather than wrapping everything up in a neat package, this episode throws plot points in the air and promises that they may not be resolved for some time to come. If they follow through with that, I will have great hopes for season three.

Posted at November 3, 2006 10:00 PM

Andrew Olmsted

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Comments

There's not many solid plot points to discuss at the moment, but what really stood out for me was the huge shift in tone and mood between the start of this season and this episode. New Caprica was grounded in dirt and the day-to-day realities of the occupation; this was disjointed and surreal. To the extent that the creators were trying to have that kind of drastic shift in mood and style, my hat's off to them.

That said, it does seem a bit jarring that we've gone from the Cylons having almost all of humanity under their control to the humans possibly having a weapon that can destroy all Cylons (based on the preview for next time). I want to see the rest of this arc, but it may have been a leap too far.

Posted by: Chris [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 3, 2006 10:48 PM

I think the 'get back to Earth' was a bit quick, but then again, I don't want things to be dragged out too much either. I had thought they were essentially breaking the season in half, airing some now and the rest next year, so I can see the sense of jumping the gun a little bit with the 'go to Earth' plot and the sudden reversal of fortunes with the Cylons.

After the dark moral stuff that was in the prior eps, this was almost a refreshing break.

I did like the rift between Adama and Tigh, something that would have been almost unthinkable before. I'm not sure how it we be resolved, though.

Posted by: Elais [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 3, 2006 11:33 PM

I actually thought this was one of the strongest episodes of the series. No, nothing much happened "action-wise", but the in terms of character development, Starbuck, Tigh, and Baltar continue to command one's eyes to the screen. Tigh turning to the mess room and explaining how some on N. Caprica strapped bombs to themselves in order to "take a few of them out", and Baltar strangling the diseased No. 6 were standout character moments.

There were a few false notes. Why the Galactica crew would be not be willing to concede the sacrifice of those left behind on New Caprica was one.

Posted by: spartikus [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 4, 2006 08:17 PM

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