Cylon Paranoia

<<---See also: “Sci-Fi Got More Boring”
After a long year of waiting, Battlestar Galactica is back. I’m still frakking pissed that I had to wait this long and I probably would have gone homicidal if the writer’s strike had killed off the show. Okay, maybe I wouldn’t go that far but it sure would have been close.

So we left off last year with the conclusion of Baltar’s trial. But let’s glide over the other story arcs and jump to the very end where the fleet jumps to a nebula that is supposed to be a signpost to Earth. When they arrive, the power goes out for some unexplained reason. As soon as they get their bearings, the Cylons show up but because of the power outage, the fleet can’t make a getaway. Apparently, FTL drives in this show require a significant time to “spool up.” With the Cylons bearing down on them, Galactica throws out the pilots in hopes to hold off the toasters long enough for the fleet to jump away. While Apollo is out in his Viper, he runs into Starbuck who had presumably died episodes (months) ago. She tells a startled Lee that she has been to Earth and that she will take them there. And then the very last thing the viewers see is a shot pulling out from the human and cylon fleets to the outside of the Milky Way and then it goes back in and closes in onto a shot of Earth. Also important to note is that four of the final five cylons were revealed to be Col. Tight, Chief Tyrol, Anders and Tory Foster. With the return of Starbuck, we are left to wonder if she is the fifth and final cylon.

Watch this video up to 04:12. The rest are clips from other parts of the series.

The opening episode of this season shows the fleet getting bloodied by the cylons. Moore sure doesn’t hesitate about killing off large numbers of humans. Like I’ve joked before, at this rate, the cylons will have the humans finished off inside five years.

Although Tigh and the rest find out that they are cylons, they decide to keep it secret but resolve that they will not betray the humans. They assume that they can control whatever programming they have. While Anders is dog fighting with the cylons, he and a cylon fighter have a “moment.” The two look at each other and Anders’s eye briefly turns a shade of red. At that point, the cylons retreat. The question is why? Did Anders give an order? Did the cylon merely recognize another cylon and not wish to kill him?

After the battle is over and the fleet jumps, Starbuck is met with joy by some members of Galacitica and suspicion by almost everyone else. She again claims that she had been to Earth and wonders why everyone is acting weird. They tell her that she’s been gone for two months while she thinks she’s only been gone for six hours. Adding more suspicion is the fact that they have video evidence that she died, the viper that she came back in was not an original, and that her instruments could not corroborate her story—except for some photos of Earth.

Starbuck has an intuition of where Earth is located but she can not simply give them a course. All she knows is that the fleet is going in the wrong direction. President Roslin is not willing to follow Starbuck’s “feelings.” Admiral Adama is not willing to back up Starbuck although you can tell that he wants to.

Baltar, after being practically thrown to the wolves, has found haven with some cultish group. I don’t have much to comment on this other than he really must be losing it.

Lee (Apollo) sticks with his decision to leave Galactica. He says that he believes that he can do more good working inside the government. I’m interested in seeing just how the writers can keep a good story going with him.

The last moments of the night’s episode is Kara losing control when she realizes that as long as President Roslin is around, the fleet will continue going the wrong way. So she gets a gun, makes her way to the Admiral’s quarters where Roslin is resting and appears to be ready to assassinate the President.

It’s going to be a long week.

There was one goof in the episode that immediately jumped out at me and will probably bug me for a long time to come. That is, when Starbuck says that she went to Earth she said that she saw the “yellow moon and star” that were described by Pythia. Clearly it should have been “moon and yellow star.”

Go to the Sci-Fi Channel site to view this and past BSG episodes.