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Battlestar Galactica: Scar

Lee: "Bright, shiny futures are overrated, anyway."

Any episode that features Starbuck is a Good Thing.

Starbuck is exhausted, stressed out, and drinking too much. She believes that she and Lee and the other pilots will all die before they reach Earth, and she's not just being fatalistic; she may very well be right. They may have started replacing vipers, but the pilots are not replaceable. And her pilots have noticed that she's no longer on the ball, hence the whole protracted Starbuck/Kat pissing contest.

Why is Starbuck so fixated on Anders? She knew him for, like, ten minutes, most of which they spent in bed or playing Pyramid. What made him unforgettable? I think it was just that she broke her promise to him. Anders is a stand-in for Caprica, for everyone and everything that Kara has lost. And then she turned around and used Lee as a stand-in for Anders, too. And Lee knew it. (Lee and Kara's violent, aborted sexual encounter was very interesting, the highlight of the episode for me.)

If Anders represented Caprica, then Scar was pretty much an anthropomorphized personification of the Cylons. The raiders are mechanized non-entities; giving one of them a name and personality made them more real, and made Kat's victory over Scar more significant. I liked that Starbuck let Kat take Scar. That was a mature, intelligent thing for her to do.

I actually got a little bored with the dogfights and Scar as the Red Baron. And let's face it, they already did some of this in "Act of Contrition," with Starbuck's ship spiraling down while we went back to see how it happened. But that final scene where Starbuck toasted the dead viper pilots was just exceptional, and made it all work.

Bits and pieces:

— This week's survivor count: 49,593, which meant four dead. I may need help figuring this one out. There was Phelan, the nasty black market guy that Lee killed last week. Would the other three be pilots? I need to pay better attention to who died, but I kind of just get caught up in the story. Bad Billie, no biscuit.

— I liked the situation with the mining operation and the first new viper being built on Pegasus.

— More symbolism. The photograph of Reilly's girlfriend whose name Kat kept trying to remember was symbolic of all of the pilots who died, whose names they had forgotten. "BB. JoJo. Reilly. Beano. Dipper. Flattop. Chuckles. Jolly. Crashdown. Sheppard. Dash. Flyboy. Stepchild. Puppet. Fireball." Starbuck hadn't really forgotten them at all.

— Roslin explained the dogfight situation to us. "Why'd they stop coming at us en masse? Is it because we destroyed the resurrection ship?" Raiders reincarnate and use their deaths as learning experiences. Sort of makes sense.

— Starbuck: "This isn't dueling pistols at dawn. This is war. You never want to fight fair." In other words, all's fair in love and war.

— Lee: "You are fine with the dead guys. It's the living ones you can't deal with." He may have a point.

Good, but not great. Three out of four stars,

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

7 comments:

  1. No news who's commanding the Pegasus. also it's surprising that the ship survived six episodes now. Back in 2x10 I assumed it will be destroyed quickly. Now i'm not so sure.

    I like episodes sbout starfighter pilots. There were shades of Space Above and Beyond. There the chig fighter was actually called the red baron. But what is a bit tiring is the constant timeshifts, this episode worked but the last didn't. But it's the 4th in a row without linear action. It may tire a viewer.

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  2. As much as I would love Lee and Kara to get together, as of this episode I am 99% sure they never will. Over the past two episodes, we have seen Lee hung up over his dead (?) girlfriend, Kara hung up over her dead (?) boyfriend, not to mention the fact that Kara was once engaged to Zak.

    Every time they try to advance the relationship, it falls apart. They had the huge fight after that first kiss, and this 'violent, aborted sexual encounter' (great choice of words!) was, I believe the final nail in the coffin.

    Lee is right about live guys vs. dead guys, but he could also be talking about himself. Shame -- I think they would have made a great couple.

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  3. Minor...but since you were trying to figure out the body count...I think people did die from the tylium explosion a couple eps ago - as I recall, i noticed bodies were floating out of the opening. Maybe at the time someone missed it and they caught up in this ep.

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  4. Kara didnt toast to Tarn and Sosinos both who died on Kobel :(

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  5. Another OK episode, somewhat filler maybe? I like the fact that the destruction of the resurrection ship continues to have implications - the fact that raiders also re-spawn is new and interesting!

    I also like Kat and think she made some good points about Starbuck - especially following the poor advice given to JoJo / BB I forget which one which pretty much led directly to his death.

    Forgettable, but still good.

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  6. This episode frustrated me. It was basically Kat being a jerk to Starbuck as if Kat can hold it together better when she's already proven she can't. It's impossible to give advice that works 100% of the time. That's what experience is for so it's stupid to blame Starbuck. When Kat killed Scar it was only because Starbuck set him up for her, which was the hard part. Basically Starbuck did 90% of the work and took on 90% of the danger and Kat took all the credit. I don't think I got what I was supposed to get from this episode.

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  7. >>"I actually got a little bored with the dogfights and Scar as the Red Baron."
    Well I loved a bit in the beginning of it, the way Starbuck's viper was leaving those smoke trails was aesthetic but also it was a clip where you saw the real maneuverability in zero g with the way the viper could spin and twirl around. Most of the other shots of viper action never show them dance quite like that.

    @Marianna: "Basically Starbuck did 90% of the work and took on 90% of the danger and Kat took all the credit. I don't think I got what I was supposed to get from this episode."
    Hey man don't worry, you just missed the reason the toast is such a success: it robbed Kat of her celebration and made everyone quiet and contemplative instead.

    Wow what the hell, next episode is Sacrifice?? Right away? Oh dear

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