Which never actually describes anyone's
wits during the dense but diverse second-season opener.
All the plot arcs move forward to greater or lesser
degree, and we even manage to wedge in some background
information and a little character development.
We start with a new opening sequence and
opening credits, and I think slightly new background
music. Now the text is focused equally on Cylons' plan
and the humans' search -- I'll have to pull out my DVDs
to check, but I think the galaxy in the first few seconds
looks like footage from Classic BSG's opening.
Six tells Baltar that the baby in the
cradle is his and hers, not Caprica Sharon and Helo's
as I'd assumed. Baltar finds this as hard to digest
as the audience does. We know that there are physical
iterations of Six, so it's not inconceivable (heh) that
she could have his child, but that either has to happen
on Kobol or a Six (whom the Galactica staff saw
already saw as "Shelley Godfrey") has to get
onto the battlestar. If they Cylons are patrolling Kobol,
the downed away team will be there for a while, so there's
more than enough time for Six to spirit Baltar off for
a tumble in the hay. (Which reminds me: what does Baltar
call Six? Clearly he's never addressed her as
Six. Did he address her as anything in the mini? I can't
remember.) Also, Six says in KLG that Baltar is the
"guardian and protector of the new generation of
God's children" (and apparently also the father).
It's quite interesting that "Gaius" is the
male form of "Gaia," the Greek
über-mother of all creation with Ouranous (Uranus)
before Rhea and Cronos begat Zeus (Jupiter) and his
siblings. Wonder how far back that was planned.
Tigh has flashbacks throughout
the episode, which seem to add up to the sequence
that Tigh and Adama
met and became friends on a freighter, Adama was clearly
on the way up, Tigh was canned from the fleet (drinking?
mistake? incompetence?), I think Adama was too, and
Adama got back in and pulled some strings to get Tigh
reinstated. Tigh owes him life, career, self-esteem,
nearly everything. Adama's injury is a deeply personal
insult. He's too much in spiritual debt to Adama to
let him die. (Here's a question: in the flashbacks,
he kept seeing a door
with "3" on
it opening. But that door was his, and the viewpoint
was that of
the
soldiers coming to give him the good news that he was
reinstated. Why would he keep seeing a vision from
someone else's perspective? Separately, when he's changing
uniforms, there's a picture or something on the wall
of a shuttle/ship outline...with a big 3 over it. Coincidence
or connection to be explained later?)
Tigh also reveals that while he's a decent
XO, he is entirely uncomfortable in the metaphorical
Big Chair. He doesn't want the credit to stop with
him. He doesn't want the immense responsibility,
he doesn't want to have to come up with the ideas and
do the thinking and the plotting. He can carry out
and enforce Adama's orders, but that's where he wants
it to stop. He panics for a moment over every decision.
As it happened, things went well this time, but we'd
have to see it two or three more times before I could
judge whether Tigh actually is a good officer who has
no self-esteem, or if he's just one of those people
who really isn't cut out to be on top of a command
chain.
Galactica Sharon "comes to" without
realizing at first what's happened. When it hits her,
she howls and protests the entire way out of the command
center. In the brig, though, it looks like she's come
to brutal terms with what she is, at least in the short
term. Was it her human self or her Cylon core which
growled to Tigh to shoot her already?
Bearing 487 mark 015? They must not be using a 360-degree
measurement system.
Correction: I thought Billy was actually
in the brig, but it appears he's hanging out in Just
Visiting because he doesn't have a ride back to Colonial
One. It seemed sort of strange that her assistant was
imprisoned but not the rest of her staff.
The flickering of expressions across Tricia
Helfer's face as Six prods and leads and manipulates
Baltar is really impressive. She's practically vibrating
between pleasure and angry sadness, waiting to see what
he'll do and working out her next moves to counter him.
Cally is one tough cookie. She's out of her element,
she's overwhelmed, she's terrified, her superior officers
are going to pieces on her, and she cries and grits
her teeth and gets the job done.
Doesn't the forest on Kobol look familiar?
It's the same forest which we saw frequently on The
X-Files. Apparently that particular chunk of Vancouver
is very photogenic.
As in KLG1, we're starting to see some too-obvious
cause-effect loops. Chief Tyrol makes a big stink about
double-checking their gear, Crashdown says they don't
have time, and it turns out they're missing a critical
medkit and have to return for it. C'mon, I saw that
one coming over the hill a mile off.
Compare Crashdown's command style to Tigh's. It takes
Crashdown a few minutes to pull himself together in
KLG, but when he does, he's confident to the point
of arrogance...and makes mistakes. Tigh can react immediately,
but when he has to think about his actions, he pauses
and dithers, and ultimately gambles. If he had made
a mistake, it would have been on the calculated advice
of others, not born of the military-issue desperation
to keep moving at all costs. Crashdown, as a new soldier,
was probably taught a certain expediency, while Tigh
was trained as an officer who is supposed to see the
larger tactical view.
I liked how Ellen was helping Tigh change
his uniform and going ew silently as he kept
handing her things with blood all over them -- ick,
my hands, what
am I supposed to do with this thing, did I get blood
on my elbow?
Tyrol is a really sweet and big-hearted
guy. I can understand why Galactica Sharon fell
for him. He cares a lot about his people, whoever "his
people" are at any given moment. He fusses over
the injured. He's willing to risk his life to return
for the medkit as well as to watch the redshirt's back. "Expediency" isn't
in his vocabulary. I bet he and Trip would have been
good buddies. However, I'm thinking this is the beginning
of a problem between him and Crashdown. This is twice
now that Tyrol has had a better grasp of what the group
should be doing or than the ranking officer. Is there
a leadership battle in the offing?
Either Helo wasn't really as angry as
he appeared to be, or he took a worse blow to the head
than we
suspected, because he's back to protecting Caprica
Sharon as though she weren't a Cylon. I'm with Kara
on this one -- Sharon is a machine, she's a toaster
with a face, and should be removed for tactical and
defensive reasons. If she actually is carrying Helo's
child, that should have made him even angrier -- she
is an abomination; the Cylons aren't satisfied with
destroying the humans, now they want to breed out the
last of the survivors? Are Cylon men going to start
sowing wild oats among unsuspecting human women now?
(and that's a real problem. The humans need to breed
early and often, so they'll be more willing to be pregnant.)
I'm not entirely sure it was Caprica Sharon who stole
the Raider, but if she did, and it was a betrayal and
not one of these involuted rescues, that should finally
convince Helo. (What's Tahmoh Penikett's accent, Canadian?
It's officially grating to my ears.)
Oops! Set blooper! When Kara goes into
the museum in KLG2, you can see the canopy
over the entrance reads "Delphi Museum of the
Colonies." In "Scattered," when she
and Helo run back outside -- the same exit, because
that's where
the Raider was parked -- it's broken, and reads "--seum
of the Colonies."
If Adama's blood pressure is "way down," what's
the 128 on the monitor mean?
I hope that Tigh, or someone, will come back and finish
interrogating Galactica Sharon soon. Seems rather
dumb to leave her alive but not question the hell out
of her. They assume she's an agent and has secrets
to tell. (Of course, they have no way of realizing
that she probably knows a bit less than they do.)
So who was firing at Tyrol and Cally and Redshirt
in the woods? They didn't seem to be close enough to
be near the away team, and the team wouldn't start
shooting unless they were being fired on anyway. The
shots were too good and too close to be strays from
a firefight with the Cylons. Did the Cylons steal leftover
weapons from the Raptor, or have other human weapons,
and use them to cause confusion? (That was a very disturbing
scene. I had to turn away more than once.)
The blood on Lee's hands would not have stayed that
red and glistening for several hours. Blood oxidizes
-- the iron in it actually rusts. Old dried blood is
brown, and would be flaking and smearing. Lee's arms
and hands were covered in red glaze icing.
I was having flashbacks to Classic
BSG's "Fire
in Space" during that Sickbay scene where the
medic yells for something and the nurse tells her they
only have the battery-operated ones...
So the guard believes Roslin is a prophet, but Lee
got himself into prison defending said prophet and
the guard said he wasn't authorized to take off Lee's
cuffs. You wouldn't see that on Star Trek.
I forgot that the Cylons had used a virus in the mini
to cripple the humans' networks. Must go back and rewatch
one of these days. I love how Gaeta unhooks the networks:
he yanks the wires right out of the wall! (Jerky second
officer never did apologize...)
Don't the Colonial IFF symbols
on the display look like the critters from "Space Invaders"?
The red-eye Cylon soldiers return! Let's see if their
aim is better in this series.
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