jj79

People, this is why BSG is one of the five best programs on television. But first, a recap.

Last season, the regular crew were split around the universe. Helo, Caprica Boomer, a version of Six and Starbuck were on Caprica, duking it out for the Arrow of Kobol. Adama had tried to put Roslin under arrest, sending Tigh to Colonial One with Apollo. Apollo pulls his gun on the colonel and finds himself in the brig (with the Pres). Baltar, Tyrol, Callie and others find themselves crashed on Kobol. And at the end, Galactica Boomer shot Adama, leaving him in a pool of blood.

Let's start with a non-major spoiler: Adama does not die. Edward James Olmos is not going to pull a Richard Dean Anderson and leave the show. He gets laid up in the Infirmiry through the show as Tigh and the crew try to figure out how they lost the fleet. See, after the Old Man was shot, the Cylon's were coming. Galactica ordered a FTL jump...but to a different set of coordinates that the rest of the fleet had. Blame can be put on Gaeta (the ambiguously gay one) because it was his job to make sure everyone had the right coordinates. So he feels it's his job to find the fleet.

Which he does in some remarkably un-technobabble ways. Firewalls and networks come up and this is a far cry from anything on Trek. BSG uses real terms to help us understand what's going on, as opposed to isolinear chips, matter/anti-matter chambers and dilithium crystals. It helps not only in grounding the show in some kind of reality, but also to work around the long techno-explanations. When the Cylon's find their way through the fourth firewall, we know that's not a good thing. And when Tigh gives the order to pull the network, we know what that means too.

Getting to the good colonel...he is one incompetant second in command. He thinks way too hard and too much about every single one of his commands, he's a drunk, a loose cannon and doesn't want the job. Throughout the show, we're treated to flashbacks with Adams and how the "Old Man" got him back into the fleet. (Minor question: Tigh's room number in the flashbacks is 3. The first episode of season 1 was called "33"--the number of minutes between Cylon attacks. There were three Raptors sent out to Kobol. Maybe I'm crazy, but the number 3 is going to mean something, somewhere.) In the end, he even tells Adama (in the present) he doesn't want the command so he'd better not die. I've never been a fan of Tigh and I like him even less because he doesn't want the command. He whines and bitches about it at least twice; frankly, pal, you knew this was a possibility. With only 49,000+ humans left, you were next in command. Fucking deal with it.

Which brings us to Apollo and Roslin, who share the same brig room. The President tells Apollo he has to denounce her--anything, really--to get out of the brig. They both know Tigh is unfit for command and someone needs to be there looking for Starbuck and the Arrow and to find the Kobol survivors. So, in the end, as the Galactica decides to rejump to Cylon coordinates to find the fleet, Lee is let go with the understanding that when he's not on duty, he is to be in the brig. With Starbuck AWOL, he is still their best pilot. All of which I agree with. After all, he already pulled a gun on Tigh once...what's to say he won't do it again? I wonder, especially considering no one is liking Tigh very much (since the beginning of S1), what would happen if Lee staged a mini-coup? When Starbuck returned, she'd be with him. I'm sure the Viper pilots would have no problem with that. The rest of the fleet, who would almost assuredly blame Tigh for leaving them alone, would back the decision. How many people would stand with the colonel?

The Kobolians...or the survivors on Kobol are on the run without one crucial thing: a medkit. Someone left it behind and its up to Callie, Tyrol and another survivor to go get it. Suffice to say, the other survivor bites the dust in a firefight, though we're never sure who they are in a fight with. We don't see the Cylons over the ridge line, but that's the assumption. It's an interesting choice, since after that, we never do see the rest of the survivors again either. One of my first thought was that the attackers were the survivors who thought Tyrol, et al. were Cylons. I'm still not sure on this count.

Slighty beforehand, Baltar wakes from a dream with Six, who shows him their child. This brings to mind some interesting questions. Six does not exist in reality, so how did "she" actually have the child? Could this be another Cylon-human mix? Could the child have Baltar's DNA? Is this child even real? And a lot of those answers will go to the Helo-Caprica Boomer "baby". Which reminds me: Starbuck wants to kill CB only to start fighting with Helo over it. When they look around, CB is gone...with the Raider Starbuck brought with her. I assume she intends to go back to Galactica, claim to be the "real" Boomer and wreck more havoc. Which is going to invariably lead to Staruck and Helo being stuck on Caprica--just like Boomer and Helo were--fighting off Cylons. I'm not very fond of that idea, since Starbuck's place is on Galactica, in a Viper. And poor Helo does need a break.

And then the conclusion. After the big battle, a new kind of Cylon ship crashed into Galactica. It didn't blow it, it didn't start fires...nothing. So the ENTIRE CREW LEAVES THIS SHIP SITTING IN ONE OF THE LANDING PODS. Excuse me, folks, but my first thought was INVASION!!!!!!!! Evidently, no one on the ship thought of that. Not Lee, not Tigh, not Dee, not Gaeta...none of the pilots in Vipers. Not a single person, which again brings a question about Tigh's command abilities. Suffice to say, the last shot is Cylons coming out of the ship, ready to overtake Galactica. TO BE CONTINUED.

One very minor nitpick is the TBC at the end. I don't like TBC's, never have and never will. I would rather the show just end, like Lost does every week. TBC implies the storyline will be wrapped up in the next episode. This one won't be, clearly, since this is a very serialized show. Minor point: I like the new credits with no "preview" of this week's episode. It's shorter, more to the point and a better fit for the series about survivors. The long credits sequence never did sit right with me...too theatrical, too Trek.