Battlestar Galactica: Unfinished BusinessUpon learning the premise for this one--
Galactica holds a big boxing tournament to let off steam--I thought maybe we'd be in for this year's version of "Black Market." But leave it to Ron Moore and company to take what could have been a forgetable and throw-away concept for an episode and instead actually make it into something interesting, compelling and character driven.
The last new episode, we saw that Adama blamed himself for the start of the war. Here we see it goes deeper--he blames himself for going soft, for allowing his family and crew's happiness to take priority over survival. It's one reason when the Cylons showed up at New Caprica, the crew had to leave in order to be able to come back and save everyone. You can feel the weight of the deaths of every person on New Caprica hang heavily across Adama in this one. He feels he's become too lax, too friendly with the troops and he has to do something to get back there. I'm not sure letting Tyrol beat him up was the best way to do it, but it did get everyone's attention. It also made me wonder--way back in "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1" we saw Adama sparring with Lee. And he seemed a more able fighter then. I realize it's been over a year in terms of the passage of time on the show, but did Adama go that soft? Or did he take our some of his anger at the Chief in the fight and then allow himself to be beat up to make a point?
And did he earn the respect of the crew as much as he thinks? Will there now be some who doubt him because of his appearing weak?
Meanwhile, we finally get some filling in the blanks of what happened with Apollo and Starbuck. You have to feel sorry for both Dee and Anders, since they're the second choice for both parties. We've seen Starbuck has a predilection for taking anything good and trying to screw it up. It's interesting that real feelings scare her so--to the point she disconnects enough from Anders to only use him for sex and then move on. I wonder how much of that stems from her love for the younger Adama, who she was engaged to. Is she afraid of being hurt again, by allowing herself to be vulnerable? In many ways, she has the upper hand in the relationship with Anders. She is the one who can and does hurt him, but in a relationship with Lee, she stand a good chance of being hurt. And that seems to scare her. Also, Lee doesn't need resucing as Anders did. And maybe Starbuck likes being needed in that way. She doesn't know what to do without a war to fight, as we found out last season.
And then there's Lee. He allowed himself to go soft, literally after Kara married Sam. Now we see why Lee might have gained all that weight and it's interesting to see how this could be a motivation for him to take the weight off. And where does this leave things with Dualla? Will she play second fiddle to Starbuck? The two obviously reached a new place in their friendship/relationship, so where does this leave their current romantic partners? After all, they are both still married to other people, though how long that lasts we have yet to see. Will Dee actually put up a fight to keep Lee? And will they be happy to be together should the obstacles between them fall?
So, while the episode itself wasn't exactly new ground or wonderful, character wise it really worked. And it's interesting that while there's not one Cylon attack or space battle, the storyline is still just as rivetting and edge of your seat. I loved the way we worked the flashbacks and how the whole picture was slowly revealed.
Could have been a bad episode, but instead turned out to be pretty darn good. I should know by now to trust the genius that is Ron Moore.
Heroes: FalloutI kept hearing how this one was supposed to resolve the "Save the cheerleader, save the world" plotline. But yet, coming away from "Fallout" I'm not sure we got the closure to this plotline we were promised. Nor do I feel like we know if or how they saved the right cheerleader. How do we know? Will we ever know? Or has the show now moved on to Peter's vision of the future, in which he explodes?
Now, this brings up an interesting question...so, earlier in the episode, we saw Sylar enter Peter's nightmare and speak to him. Does this mean becuase the two had such close contact and can absorb powers from other such gifted individuals that they are now connected in some way? Or is it a one-way street where Sylar can come inside Peter's mind only? I can see how this connection might be useful if, down the road, Peter is able to use this ability to track down Sylar.
Which brings me back to my point. So, was Peter seeing his future or Sylar's? Can we assume Sylar might find the radiation guy, take his power and then self-destruct, thus bringing about the future that now both Hiro and Peter have seen?
It's a lot to sit back and contemplate until January, isn't it?
But that's not all there was to consider. We've also got the plotline of HRG and how far he'll go to protect and hide Claire. It makes me wonder why he's going to such lengths. Is he under orders to do so and who is giving these orders? And why? Also, it's interesting that Claire's mom gets mind-wiped every few weeks and now her brother is in on it. Do you wonder if Claire has been mind-wiped a few times before? Could it be she's been discovering and re-discovering her powers several times over for the past couple of years? And why does the Haitian now decide that Claire should remember, if that is true?
And we see how committed HRG is to whoever is giving the orders agenda. He won't allow Eden to suggest Sylar kill himself--but why not? Seems to me that having Sylar around is a pretty bad idea. And I do wonder--did the Haitian allow Sylar to escape? Why would Eden go into the room without knowing Sylar's powers could be negated? And how did Sylar work up to smashing the glass to get her? Did he do like Matt and push hard to be allowed to use one part of his power?
But now Eden is gone....at least we're supposed to assume she's dead. Or will Sylar be able to use remnants of her brain to gain some of her power? And with her power of suggestion, just how much more unstoppable does this make him?
A lot of good things happening here. But there was one negative--the whole Niki/Jessica plotline. Every time we cut back to it, I got bored. I just didn't care and never could work up much enthusiasm for this plotline. It really went no where very slowly.
But I guess one bad plotline in a show with at least three other great ones can't be that bad. And give
Heroes credit--it's got me curious to see what comes next. And not just becuase Christopher Eccleston will start a run on the show when it returns.
Not that it hurts things, mind you.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 12/05/2006 09:16:00 PM |
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