Inside the stranded raptor, Finn sends out a distress call. Esrin attempts to fire up the FTL drive, but it's unresponsive as their last jump has taken them over the red line. Gaeta theorises that a high energy discharged subatomic particle has corrupted the jump data, causing them to jump into the middle of nowhere. Amidst the panic, Sweet Eight looks at Gaeta and smiles softly. She asks him if he recognises her.
Aboard the Galactica, Hoshi reveals that the Cylon alert was a false alarm and requests a raptor and pilot to search for the missing ship. Saul seems unresponsive to the idea at first, but eventually agrees to run it by Adama.
Back aboard the raptor, Finn informs the crew they have twenty hours of air left. Esrin points out that once the oxygen levels become low the crew will start to experience dizziness, memory loss, depression and irrational behaviour.
Thoughts
On the whole, I think this series of webisodes works better than the first. According to Jane Espenson, this series was written as ten mini episodes, so each episode was scripted to have a beginning, a middle and an end. By way of contrast, the first series was written as one long episode, which was then chopped up into ten convenient segments, so the webisode endings were often arbitrary and rarely ended in a cliffhanger. I much prefer the newer style.
The big question of this episode is, how does Gaeta know Sweet Eight? I'm guessing it's from his stay on New Caprica. Is it possible she was one of his sources there? Whatever the answer, it seems abundantly clear that the two of them have a history that we're currently unaware of. Last week we found out that Gaeta was gay. This week it's looking suspiciously like he's been knocking boots with Sweet Eight, which would make him, what... bisexual now? In seven minutes of television Gaeta's gone from nonsexual to homosexual to bisexual. That must be some kind of new record. Look out, aliens (if they ever find any)... a new Captain Kirk's in town... and he's feeling frisky.
I think it's now safe to speculate that oxygen deprivation is going to cause a major meltdown on board the raptor. Will the Cylons fare better in an oxygen-starved environment? I half expect them to, but why were there no Eights in the flashback sequence last episode? In fact, where were the rest of the crew? Gone? Dead? Unconscious?
In an early draft of the miniseries the “red line” was described as follows: "There are computational errors in every jump. The further out you jump, the greater the error. Jump past the Red Line and it may be almost impossible to find your way back." So now we know what that little piece of tech talk means.
Quotes
Sweet Eight: “Don't you recognise me, Felix? It's me.”
Esrin: “Sixty Eight? At that level you're talking memory loss, irrational behaviour, depression, dizziness.”
Finn: “Better dizzy than dead.”
I think they were saying that they set the O2 levels VERY low so that they could hold out as long as possible and that setting them so low (68% of normal) was dangerous, but not fatal. So I think they'll get symptoms right away, not in 20 hours.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm still not interested in Gaeta's sexuality. I don't think they were implying that with the Sharon, but still, not interested.
Also, little continuity problem. They have 20 hours of O2 left, but they also have 2 flight suits. Those things hold a lot of air (see: Starbuck stranded on the planet where she found the Cylon raider.)
Hi Sloth,
ReplyDeleteGood catch with the flight suits. Maybe the oversight is strictly Finn's and the writers intend to bring the suits up again later in the series.
With regards Gaeta's sexuality, Grace Park has been quoted in TV guide as saying that Gaeta "swings both ways". Of course she may be referring to his proficiency with a cricket bat...we'll see I guess ;-)