Yep. I’m the one who’s going to be reviewing the Caprica series. I know, I know, I know, I’ve been pretty damn vocal about the creative crash-and-burn that the RDM Galactica became, the massive disappointment that was its entire final season, and how the finale was ultimately kind of a betrayal of the fans. Obviously, those of you who are aware of my stance on the show are going to be pretty nervous about me reviewing the new spinoff/prequel.
Let me calm your not-entirely-unfounded reservations before we begin:
If you’ve ever wondered why it is that I always end up with the short straw around here, and end up reviewing the RDM Galactica, a show I’ve loved and been betrayed by, well, so have I. It’s not particularly germane to the review itself, but as this is probably my last opportunity to explain, the bottom line is this: As an 11 year old, I was obsessive about the original Galactica. I dreaded the remake, and hated the pilot for reasons that I still think are valid. Our Own Republibot 2.0, however, raved about the series every week during its first season, and cajoled me to watch it.
After several months of cooling our heels in Earth Orbit, not doing anything, and after several weeks of randomly moving the scrabble tiles back and forth along the tabletop, but not actually progressing the story, suddenly we get moving again.
This episode was something of a format-breaker, divided somewhat randomly between the present and the past with an extended series of flashbacks.
And thus ends our Friday-night Science Fiction Triple Feature:
The Galactica and her fleet are still in orbit around Earth. Tyrol and a mostly-Cylon crew are fixing the interior structure of the ship. Anders is still in a coma. Caprica 6 and Tigh are still expecting their baby.
There's a chance that even though many of you may lack the full-on OCD geekery I proudly parade, you might just be geeky enough to appreciate some aspects of this:
As anyone who hasn't filtered the commercials from their DVR is doubtless aware, now that filming on the Galactica series has wrapped, and they've struck the sets and everything, the studio decided to auction all the stuff from the show off, as they've got no further use for it.
…and suddenly, just like that, we know everything!
We start out 18 months ago, with Saul Tigh killing Ellen. Ellen then resurrects in a Base Ship, and is met by Brother Cavil - “John” - who evidently has known who the Final Five were all along, but has kept it from the others for unstated reasons.
On Galactica, Anders has a bullet in his brain that has removed whatever kind of memory blocks were in place, and he starts relating The Story So Far to the final five:
Part of the publicity ramp-up for the final 10 episodes of Galactica was a web series called “The Face of the Enemy.” It was a 36-minute bottle story about Gaeta, casting some more light on his fall from grace which culminated last week. Curiously, though it was set after Episode 11 (“Sometimes a Great Notion”), it aired before it. The episode was divided in to ten chapters more or less randomly, some of the chapters were as barely over two minutes, some were pushing six.
Last week, a Raptor carrying Roslin and Baltar escaped, making it’s way to the Rebel Base Ship. Gaeta ordered the CAP to shoot them down, but Hot Dog deliberately stalls once he finds out Roslin is on the bird. Narcho cuts in front of him (Nice flying there) to take the shot, but misses and whacks the Base Ship a good one. Roslin and Baltar make it to the base ship. Meanwhile, Tigh and Adama are captured by one of Gaeta’s goon squads while covering Roslin’s escape. Starbuck and Apollo are scooting around on their own below decks.
Philip K. Dick once said that "Things show their true nature by how they decay." If that's the case, the people and society of Galactica is shown to have been pretty vile all along, based on what we've seen in these last three episodes. But back to this in a minute. More immediately: Wow!
Now that was a hell of an episode. Fan reaction has seemed pretty weak on the last two episodes, but I liked 'em myself. This one should be more of a crowd-pleaser, though, I think.
If last week’s episode was all about the shock of dealing with the death of hope, this week was about the grieving process. There are stages to these things, and I suspect the show is deliberately following them. Next week, presumably, will be about anger. Then acceptance. Bargaining is probably in there somewhere, I’m not much of a twelve-stepper so I’m not sure about it.
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