Battlestar Galactica: Flesh and BoneI may sound like a broken record here, but this show continues to get better and better each week.
In some ways, this episode reminded me of
DS9's first season classic, "Duet." But instead of being a prisoner who was looking to bear some of this people's guilt for the acts of genocide that were took place in the past, the prisoner in "Flesh and Bone" was motivated out of fear for his own life. When a copy of Lebonen is found on one of the ships in the fleet, Adama sends Starbuck to interrogate him. Lenonen reveals he's hidden a nuke on one of the ships that will go off in just under nine hours. Adama and company begin a search and take measures to prevent the fleet from sustaining too much damage. Meanwhile, Starbuck interrogates the prisoner, who does his best Hannibal Lecter impression--trying to get inside Starbuck's mind. And the interesting part is that, on some level, he does. After an entire episode spent brutalized, torturing and trying to break Lebonen of his beliefs, it's Starbuck in the end who prays for his soul.
I'm intrigued as to why Adama sent Starbuck. One of the more interesting plot threads is that Starbuck is able to use the raider and others can't figure out how it works. Was Adama hoping her connection with the ship might help her understand Lebonen and help her get information out of him? Or was it just that Adama likes her? Or could it be that Starbuck has a history of getting information out of prisoners under interrogation procedures like the ones we saw here?
But in the end, it's Roslin who makes the most interesting decision. She dreams about Lebonen and then comes over to visit him being interrogated. She's horrified by Starbuck's tactics and frees him from his shackles--only to have him blown out the airlock a few minutes later. Roslin's reasoning is that Lebonen isn't destroy the fleet by blowing up ships but by sewing distrust and weakening it defensively. With the fleet spread out so, it's harder to protect when the Cylon's attack. And to have her early dream about Lebonen played out in spacing him was a nice little chilling moment in the series. But it's not before Lebonen gets in one or two final seeds of dissent--first up, he promises Starbuck they will find Kobol, home of her people's gods. Then he tells Roslin that Adama is a Cylon.
All I can say is--man, next week cannot come soon enough.
And if that were all that went on, it might be enough. But it's not. Boomer show some weird connection with the Cylon raider captures a few weeks ago, leading her to seek out Baltar as a test subject for his Cylon detector. Baltar runs the test and finds out--Boomer is a Cylon. But he doesn't reveal it to her for fear of setting off her inner Cylon and having it kill him or expose him. So, he keeps her in the dark. And you've got to wonder--will he keep others in the dark about this? Say, for example, Adama. Or any of the other command stuff who have placed their trust in him. Remember that last week, he had pretty much eaten away the trust he'd established with everyone when he was suspected of being a Cylon agent. If this comes out, it aint' gonna help that much.
Meanwhile, the exact nature of what Boomer is doing on Hilo gets more clouded. I've seen some speculation that she will "go native" based on her feelings for Hilo. But are they real feelings or just programmed? Interesting in the light of Starbuck's comments to Lebonen about why make replicas that sweat and have to eat? Can they feel and experience real emotions or are they just "toasters"?
Enterprise: DivergenceGood grief...is there any alien race that Archer hasn't had some type of significant civilization altering encounter with this year? He's carried the katra of Surak and fundamentally changed the society of Vulcan and now he's saved the Klingons from themselves all while giving them non-bumpy heads in the original series. The man has been all over the quadrant, I tell you.
I actually found the wrap-up of this two-parter to not be as satisfying as I'd hoped (honestly, I wish we'd gone for three parts). As entertaining as watching Tripp transfer from one ship to another and re-boot Enterprise's systems, I found myself in the last fifteen or so minutes wishing we'd got more about Phlox and his dilemma in curing the Klingons without making them Augments. Also, I think the solution came too easily--Archer beams in, Phlox uses him and we save the day. It just felt a bit too pat and quick, especially give the care we'd used in the first hour and a half to set all of this up.
Now, I'm not saying it was bad mind you. I just wanted more, which I think has been my major criticism in all the wrap-up episodes of arcs this year on
Enterprise. And you know, that means that I'm enjoying the stories enough to want to see more. So that is not necessarily a bad thing. (OK, I will admit I was ready for "Storm Front" to end quickly but that's just because it was such a stupid cliffhanger from last season.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 2/28/2005 03:09:00 PM |
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