Journal Shadow Wrought's Journal: [BSG] Season 2, Episodes 18 - 22 2
18 The Farm Adama reassumes command. Part of the fleet jumps with Roslin back to Kobol. Starbuck, Helo, and the Cylon Boomer leave Caprica.
Even though you know that Adama is going to ahve to make it back eventually, they still manage to surprise you when he walks in the door. Then, instead of any high-handed ordering, he lets the fleet choose as they would. A difficult, but necessary decision to ease tensions. Adama definitely gets the politics of his job far more so than Tigh, who is far better at seeing orders carried out than creating them himself.
On Caprica, Starbuck's time in the hospital has been more akin to a Twighlight Zone episode. The lonely room, the odd answers, and then the twist, he calls her, "Starbuck." I loved how they showed her mirror broken before she rams the chard into the Cylon Doctor's neck, and how they managed to pull of the room of women with tubes as being creepy, instead of campy. It really was something out of a Borg episode of Star Trek, but it felt far more real.
19 Home: Part 1 With Starbuck's return, Roslin begins her quest to find the Tomb of Athena, while Adama struggles to replace crewmen lost to Roslin's mutiny.
Turns out you need more than trust to make a CAG good. I think the appointing of a "faithful," but junior, officer, to be CAG did quite a bit to help establish Apollo's character. Every time there's a Cylon attack all the Vipers fly out and fight, and you don't see that much difference between them. Now you have a new CAG in Apollo's role, and through his mistakes you see just how good Apollo is. For any aspiring writer or storyteller or anything, that there's a very solid lesson here.
I also liked what they did with Adama's character in that he looked to D for her thoughts. Even better, when he didn't like what he was hearing, she told him what she truly thought. That's the kind of trust that builds a strong crew and shows tremendous confidence in a leader.
On a side note, I'm just embarking on the Patrick O'Brien Master and Commander series so I thought it awesome that Adama was building a model sailing ship! With one simple prop they were able to establish that he understands the history of his role, the similarity between the Colonials and Earth, and that his hobby is one of quiet introspection. He is a thinker. That it corresponded with my own reading was golden, that I watched ST:TNG after this on WGN and LaForge had also made a model sailing ship made a Tall Ship Trifecta!
20 Home: Part 2 Roslin and her followers continue their search for the Tomb of Athena on Kobol as Adama travels there to reunite the fleet.
Family. When you only have 50 odd thousand humans left, you just can't afford to split. Adama, despite his misgivings, finally understands that and jumps back to Kobol, and joins in the search for the tomb. Needless to say, he has hisself some issues with Boomer Mark II;-)
The Cylons started off as a bit of an Enigma. Sure you know they are Monotheistic, and that they fear humans, but what they are doing at any given time is always a bit of a mystery. Sharon/ Boomer does a tremendous job of keeping her actions and decisions close to her chest. I was expecting A or B, but not C which is what was served up. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I love her acting in the various guises of Boomer, and this was one of her better ones.
There is a great deleted scene in which Adama is talking with Roslin and he says that he felt like a "wuss." Classic!
21 Final Cut An ambitious journalist in the fleet is given unlimited access to Galactica and her crew.
So you bring Xena onboard to be a reporter to do an entire episode which is basically character building. You learn more about the characters, you're reminded about the "massacre," which is easy to forget with everything else going on, and to keep it interesting they put in some tension by having her accidentally videotape Boomer.
I was impressed by how much tension they were able to build by basically giving their character's depth on the cheap. Then it turns out Xena is Cylon. And they are keeping tabs on the baby. Brilliantly done, and I totally didn't see it coming.
22 Flight of the Phoenix Galactica's crew fights to contain a Cylon computer virus spreading throughout the ship while Tyrol launches a project to build a new fighter.
As long as we are talking Stealth Fighters, does anyone else ahve the Draedel song go through their head whenever they say DRADIS? "DRADIS, DRADIS, DRADIS, I made you out of clay..." Yeah, didn't think so.
Burned out, at the end of their fuse, how perfect an idea to build a new fighter. Something to do that requires a team, is creative, and is something to do, a goal beyond just surviving another day. I am surprised that they hadn't used carbon-fiber before, but, it really does require very little in terms of suspension of disbelief to accept it. Since I'm behind on these, I can cheat and know how useful this will be, but at the time, I honestly just saw it as a unifying project, not as a secret weapon. I figured its stealth capabilities would come in handy, just not quite that soon.
This is probably as good of a time as any to talk about the love triangle between an Officer, a Chief, and an artificial Bio-Mechanical form known as Sharon. Every show tends to have some type of romantic tension, this is convuleted on so many levels, it doesn't fall into the normal trap that most of these do. Watching Tyrol and Helo having to come to terms with their own feelings and the reality of Sharon is incredibly powerful, far more so than any of the other shows which supposedly specialize in this sort of thing.
I also like how she is now rarely, if ever, referred to as Boomer. She's Sharon. It both humanizes her more and simultaneously illustrates that she is no longer part of the combat team. Her call sign died when she was shot. This new(er) Sharon is different, and this subtlely reinforces that.
One more of these updates and I'm caught up!
Even though you know that Adama is going to ahve to make it back eventually, they still manage to surprise you when he walks in the door. Then, instead of any high-handed ordering, he lets the fleet choose as they would. A difficult, but necessary decision to ease tensions. Adama definitely gets the politics of his job far more so than Tigh, who is far better at seeing orders carried out than creating them himself.
On Caprica, Starbuck's time in the hospital has been more akin to a Twighlight Zone episode. The lonely room, the odd answers, and then the twist, he calls her, "Starbuck." I loved how they showed her mirror broken before she rams the chard into the Cylon Doctor's neck, and how they managed to pull of the room of women with tubes as being creepy, instead of campy. It really was something out of a Borg episode of Star Trek, but it felt far more real.
19 Home: Part 1 With Starbuck's return, Roslin begins her quest to find the Tomb of Athena, while Adama struggles to replace crewmen lost to Roslin's mutiny.
Turns out you need more than trust to make a CAG good. I think the appointing of a "faithful," but junior, officer, to be CAG did quite a bit to help establish Apollo's character. Every time there's a Cylon attack all the Vipers fly out and fight, and you don't see that much difference between them. Now you have a new CAG in Apollo's role, and through his mistakes you see just how good Apollo is. For any aspiring writer or storyteller or anything, that there's a very solid lesson here.
I also liked what they did with Adama's character in that he looked to D for her thoughts. Even better, when he didn't like what he was hearing, she told him what she truly thought. That's the kind of trust that builds a strong crew and shows tremendous confidence in a leader.
On a side note, I'm just embarking on the Patrick O'Brien Master and Commander series so I thought it awesome that Adama was building a model sailing ship! With one simple prop they were able to establish that he understands the history of his role, the similarity between the Colonials and Earth, and that his hobby is one of quiet introspection. He is a thinker. That it corresponded with my own reading was golden, that I watched ST:TNG after this on WGN and LaForge had also made a model sailing ship made a Tall Ship Trifecta!
20 Home: Part 2 Roslin and her followers continue their search for the Tomb of Athena on Kobol as Adama travels there to reunite the fleet.
Family. When you only have 50 odd thousand humans left, you just can't afford to split. Adama, despite his misgivings, finally understands that and jumps back to Kobol, and joins in the search for the tomb. Needless to say, he has hisself some issues with Boomer Mark II;-)
The Cylons started off as a bit of an Enigma. Sure you know they are Monotheistic, and that they fear humans, but what they are doing at any given time is always a bit of a mystery. Sharon/ Boomer does a tremendous job of keeping her actions and decisions close to her chest. I was expecting A or B, but not C which is what was served up. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I love her acting in the various guises of Boomer, and this was one of her better ones.
There is a great deleted scene in which Adama is talking with Roslin and he says that he felt like a "wuss." Classic!
21 Final Cut An ambitious journalist in the fleet is given unlimited access to Galactica and her crew.
So you bring Xena onboard to be a reporter to do an entire episode which is basically character building. You learn more about the characters, you're reminded about the "massacre," which is easy to forget with everything else going on, and to keep it interesting they put in some tension by having her accidentally videotape Boomer.
I was impressed by how much tension they were able to build by basically giving their character's depth on the cheap. Then it turns out Xena is Cylon. And they are keeping tabs on the baby. Brilliantly done, and I totally didn't see it coming.
22 Flight of the Phoenix Galactica's crew fights to contain a Cylon computer virus spreading throughout the ship while Tyrol launches a project to build a new fighter.
As long as we are talking Stealth Fighters, does anyone else ahve the Draedel song go through their head whenever they say DRADIS? "DRADIS, DRADIS, DRADIS, I made you out of clay..." Yeah, didn't think so.
Burned out, at the end of their fuse, how perfect an idea to build a new fighter. Something to do that requires a team, is creative, and is something to do, a goal beyond just surviving another day. I am surprised that they hadn't used carbon-fiber before, but, it really does require very little in terms of suspension of disbelief to accept it. Since I'm behind on these, I can cheat and know how useful this will be, but at the time, I honestly just saw it as a unifying project, not as a secret weapon. I figured its stealth capabilities would come in handy, just not quite that soon.
This is probably as good of a time as any to talk about the love triangle between an Officer, a Chief, and an artificial Bio-Mechanical form known as Sharon. Every show tends to have some type of romantic tension, this is convuleted on so many levels, it doesn't fall into the normal trap that most of these do. Watching Tyrol and Helo having to come to terms with their own feelings and the reality of Sharon is incredibly powerful, far more so than any of the other shows which supposedly specialize in this sort of thing.
I also like how she is now rarely, if ever, referred to as Boomer. She's Sharon. It both humanizes her more and simultaneously illustrates that she is no longer part of the combat team. Her call sign died when she was shot. This new(er) Sharon is different, and this subtlely reinforces that.
One more of these updates and I'm caught up!
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