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Battlestar Galactica: Valley of Darkness

Lee: "Marines, let's go toaster shopping."

So there they were, on a ship in space, in the dark, with monsters. I actually had a memorable nightmare like this a few years ago. (Yeah, I know, the plot of Alien.) When the lights went out, I couldn't help laughing. What more could go wrong?

I'm not saying this episode didn't work, because it certainly did. And I certainly didn't laugh through it. It turned out that Adama was right about networking the computers, huh? The early scene where the viper squadron got ambushed was a chiller. The Cylon centurians are scary. With claws.

The Caprica scenes were so much fun. Starbuck paints. Of course, she does. She's a slob. And she has a pick-up with a very American license plate. I wonder what the plate says. "You have a friend on Caprica"?

Meanwhile back on Kobol with the rest of the cast, Gaius' creepy dream about Adama drowning the baby made me again wonder (sort of a constant thing) which side he's truly on. I don't think even he knows. He cares about his baby with Six, and we don't even know if she exists. The baby, that is, not Six; we know Six exists. Six is manipulating him again, isn't she?

The baby scenes and Sharon's pregnancy made me wonder. Do the humanoid Cylons need human beings in order to reproduce?

Bits and pieces:

— Everyone needs to stop for a moment and wash the blood off their faces before the next episode.

— Jamie Bamber (Lee) was terrific here, both in the action scenes and in his pissing contest with Tigh at the end.

— The piano music throughout was marvelous.

— All that trouble to retrieve the second medkit, and the poor guy died anyway. Chief's farewell to him was lovely.

— Nice little subplot with the Dee and Billy romance.

— There were human sacrifices on Kobol? That can't be good.

— Starbuck's CD player looked like an old-fashioned radio.

— Lee mentioned the phrase, "roll a hard six." We have a character named Six. I'm just saying.

— This week's "way too parallel to Earth" moment: the license plate on Starbuck's truck.

Quotes:

Dee: "If you're going to keep it in your trousers like that, you might want to turn the safety on."

Helo: "... one step away from the Cylons." (Starbuck looks at him.) "With the Cylons, actually."

Gaius: "I'm getting a really bad feeling about this."
A small Star Wars homage?

Lee to Tigh: "When he wakes up, he'll decide what to do with both of us."

Another excellent episode. Four out of four stars? I may revise my ratings at the end of the season, but so far, so good.

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

6 comments:

  1. Great, episode lists actually say this was a two parter with the previous episode. But having seen episode 3 I think that's redundant. The show is now a collection of seemlessly progressing episodes. Which is the best storytelling until it isn't (Heroes i'm looking at you). BSG does it masterfully to this point.

    Losing Socinus was not only hard for the Chief and Cally. He was around in season 1 so it was also sad for us the viewers. It reminded me of a SGU episode. People who watched will know which one.

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  2. But wasnt Socinus in jail or something really bad due to lying for Tyrol in season one ?

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  3. I wonder where Tigh had "seen this before" when talking about the Cylon attack pattern. Didn't the cylon war end 50 years prior to this series? Or did I miss something?

    I worry about Crashdown leading the group on Kobol, definitely doesn't feel like that is going to end well.

    Also - Helo stating he had been alone for months on Caprica made me realize that it has been a while since the series started - for some reason it feels like he should only have been down there a couple of weeks - did anyone else have that feeling?

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  4. For Anonymous: Yes, Socinus had been in jail. In s deleted scene, the Chief gets him out - which makes the young man's death even more poignant and guilt-inducing for the Chief.

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  5. Oh, and great review of a great episode. All the blood on the faces is very distracting.

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  6. I liked the lingering blood on the faces. It made Starbuck's "Bitch stole my ride..." in the first episode genuinely badass in a careless sort of way

    And thanks Victoria I was just about ask about why I didn't see any such scene where Socinus was released because I remembered it from a previous rewatch. It's extra, and something I completely missed from the episode he first appeared in.

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