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Battlestar Galactica: Bastille Day

Roslin: "He's your son."
Adama: "He's your adviser."

Yes, we have dueling Apollos.

The character of terrorist and prisoner Tom Zarek is an interesting choice to give to Richard Hatch. He's totally unsympathetic, despite their little nod to heroes like Malcolm X. I could tell that all Zarek wanted was to provoke violence and that he didn't give a crap about free elections. Anyway, Hatch did fine here, and so did Jamie Bamber. Lee was so out of his league at first, dealing with the prisoners. I kept getting the feeling during the early scenes that they were going to just eat him up, like a cookie.

The prison story didn't do much for me, frankly; my favorite scenes here were all Starbuck-related. My favorite was her flip briefing of the pilots. I also liked the Starbuck/Tigh scenes, mostly related to his return to the bottle. They snipe at each other, but he respects her, despite what he says. She sure doesn't respect him, though. (Starbuck: "I have my flaws, too." Tigh: "The difference is, my flaws are personal. Yours are professional.")

Zarek may be a terrorist, but he did have a point about free and open elections. And Roslin is indeed serving out Adar's term. Plus there's her illness, after all. I understood why she bristled about it, but hey, let's think things through.

Bits and pieces:

— Meanwhile, back on Caprica, it has finally stopped raining. Unfortunately, the rats were out. Both Sharons have men taking care of them. Nice work if you can get it.

— I really liked Zarek referring to Adama as Zeus. Apt.

— Adama was indeed peeved at Lee for taking Roslin's "side." And now Lee and Roslin have bonded even more, since she told him about her cancer.

— Cally bit her attacker's ear off. Good for her. "He's lucky that's all I bit off."

— Why weren't there any female prisoners on the Astral Queen?

— If there are shortages of everything, where is Tigh going to get his booze?

— Zarek is from Sagittaron, which appears to be a planet of underdogs. And the description of his crime from twenty years before sounded a little like the Oklahoma City bombing.

— Number Six wanted Gaius to build that Cylon detector. And she's protecting him. I'm confused; what is he going to do with that nuke?

— Laura Roslin has a bedroom of her own on "Colonial One." Not as nice as Adama's.

Quotes:

Tigh: "Ever see a man die of dehydration, Chief?"
(I don't know why, but when he said it, I kept hearing that famous line from Airplane. The one about the Turkish prison.)

Gaius: (re: Starbuck) "I wonder if she's a real blonde."

Tigh: "Where's your mommy?"
Boxey: "Dead. Where's yours?"

Two out of four stars,

Billie
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

9 comments:

  1. Apollo versus Apollo. I wonder of they get more original actros in the future episodes.

    It was probably the weakest from the 8 episodes i have watched to this day but it wasn't weak. It's a testament to the quality of the show.

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  2. I hate the character of Number Six. So much so, that is turning me off the show all together. I can't decide if it's the character (for whom I have no respect at all), the actress (who can't seem to hold up to the quality of the rest of the cast) or the writing (all she does is seduce and shout -- boring).

    I find myself wanting to fast forward through the scenes with her and Gaius. It's also getting on my nerves that he's having these wildly vivid hallucinations, yet no one seems to have picked up on the fact that he's barking.

    The rest of the episode I enjoyed. I was pleasantly surprised by Sharon being told to stop the relationship with the Chief. I was waiting for it to happen as it is so taboo in a military environment and too many people knew about it.

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  3. Based on your comments, I would put the hatred on the character, Chris B. Or this version of the character. Please don't fault Tricia Helfer. I know you haven't gotten to see her do much yet, but --- and I hope this isn't considered a spoiler --- since Six is one of many copies, you'll eventually get to see some different variations on the 'Six' character. And in my opinion Tricia Helfer does an amazing job bringing something different to each iteration.

    Please don't give up on the series over this one character and dynamic. There's so much to appreciate and enjoy in the series aside from Baltar and his Six visions. And there's great stuff yet to come. Give it another few before deciding if it just isn't for you.

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  4. Jess -- fair enough. My reaction to this character is completely visceral. As soon as she comes on the screen, my hackles go up and I get irritated. Perhaps because, to date, she is so one note. She, as an hallucination, appears to Gaius in front of other people causing him to (a) change his mind or (b) go against the grain.

    We're at episode three and this is getting old already. i will, however, look forward to seeing another side of this character.

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  5. My problem so far with the show is the way it's filmed. The constant wandering around of the camera, like the camera person was completely drunk at the time of filming. Is it supposed to add realism? When I'm standing 2 feet away watching other people talk, I don't wiggle and shake my head all over, so that's not very realistic. Is it supposed to be dramatic? It's not - it's distracting, and it takes away your attention from the actors. The weird little super fast zoom-ins they do whenever there's a space scene are less irritating, but still strike me as gimmicky. I'm liking the story so far, and I'm liking the actors, so far, but the person who came up with the idea of "jerky-cam" should be put on the deck of a ship going through 20 foot waves, on a chair with wheels, while drunk, and see how much they enjoy it.

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  6. I like the Tom Zarek character - nice bit of internal menace for the fleet. He is quite far up his own arse though and I'm glad Lee called him out on it.

    ChrisB - I realize I'm replying to a 2 year old comment so you probably won't get this - did you continue watching the show? Did #6 ever grow on you?

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  7. Hi, Baz. I did stick with the show and got through to the end. It did not, however, become a favorite.

    Six never grew on me. Nor, for that matter, did Gaius. But, my extreme annoyance with both characters did diminish with time.

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  8. When Zarek was making his demands, I was shouting at the screen that it made no sense for her to resign and then schedule elections. It's called an interim government! But then he didn't actually want it to happen so it didn't have to make sense.

    Starbuck doesn't seem the type to bother to dye her hair. I would be disappointed if it turned out she weren't a real blonde.

    "Why weren't there any female prisoners on the Astral Queen?" I assume in there are prisons for men and prisons for women and the Astral Queen was transporting prisoners from a prison for men.

    "If there are shortages of everything, where is Tigh going to get his booze?" He's not. Hence the measuring to save what he has left.

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  9. There's a moment after the halfway point where Roslin's telling Adama about Adar offering a full pardon to Zarek in return for an apology and a promise to cease with the violence but he refused. Right after that, I really liked the way she looked off to the side to ponder before saying "No commitments; no deals." She's really pretty there.

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