Tory, clearly psyched about an affair with Baltar.Photo: Courtesy of Sci Fi
‘Battlestar Galactica’: An Episode Only George Lucas Could Love
Remember that brilliant Simpsons episode from a few years back that spoofed The Phantom Menace and its soul-killingly dull story about taxation and trade routes? We would’ve preferred a rerun of that over Friday night’s Battlestar, a Menace-like jumble of plot machinations (power grabs, backroom scheming) good for little more than setting up twists and drama to come.
They Have a Plan
What did we learn? Everybody’s planning to do stuff in the near future! Psycho Starbuck is off to find Earth, Tory is seducing Baltar to find out if he knows who the last of the Final Five is, and Lee is gonna work with Zarek which means — oh, gods, no! — Richard Hatch will be involved in the final season.
Back at the Basestar, the Cylon skin jobs are pissed that Cavil wants to lobotomize the Raiders, who refuse to attack the humans lest they accidentally harm the Final Five. So the usually unified Cylons were a-fussin’ and a-feudin’, building to a violent coup d’état that was the episode’s most exciting moment. Up until then, the endless boardroom scenes resembled something like The Cylon Apprentice, only with more machine-gun fire.
As for the identity of the Fifth Cylon, it’s so Lee Adama. The more the show draws his halo, the more suspicious we become.
Love Boat Galactica
Our favorite couple? The strictly platonic Bill Adama and Laura Roslin. Unlike the kids with all their hormonal One Tree Hill drama, these two have a deep romantic affection for one another that’s all the more touching because they’re not flailing around about it. With Laura (again) dying of cancer and convalescing in Adama’s quarters, they’ve unwittingly become a tragic old married couple. They were always too responsible, too duty-bound, too concerned about protecting the fleet to engage in silly romantic entanglements, and now it looks like they never will — whether they make it to Earth or not, she’s fraked. It’s a bitterly ironic counterpoint to the petty on-again/off-again torment of Lee and Starbuck: Those two squabbling fools don’t realize how lucky they are. —Tim Grierson
