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primeidealI think I'm about to give up on this but this one ended on a cliffhanger so maybe I'll be tempted back/just very very bored due to lockdown.
I'm pretty sure some of the stuff on the "previously on..." was not on previously. I know there's a miniseries prequel that I didn't see, but they first start talking about Zak there and I don't think he was mentioned in any of the previous episodes?
The beginning stuff is the kind of worldbuilding I'm here for. Pilots still have their "I don't know but I been told" chants in outer space. There are rituals to mark a pilot's 1000th launch. And then because we can't have nice things, there's an accident and a bunch of people die including the guest of honor (who Starbuck was teasing last time). Hints of religious worldbuilding (the cleric in the flashback funeral mentions an afterlife.)
Then the bulk of the episode is just...not interesting. Back in the day, Starbuck and Zak Adama (Apollo's brother, Adama senior's son) were instructor and student, and they were also romantically involved. Starbuck passed Zak even though he was underqualified, leading to his death in an accident. She's told this to Apollo, but not Adama senior, because dramatic irony only works if characters refuse to communicate to each other dontcha know. Now she feels bad and won't train new rookies.
To some extent, I feel like Adama and Apollo being father/son wasn't even necessary for the first three episodes? Like, "I'm the boss and I give you orders, you carry them out and don't worry about morality" stuff doesn't need the extra "oh and by the way they are related" drama. For this one, it's kind of necessary, but just...ugh, I'm not into this.
Meanwhile, not only Baltar but also the medical doctor smokes. Roslin asks "can you not" and he's like "no, I must." But he criticizes her for not having regular cancer screenings even though her mother died of cancer. Does no one know about the dangers of smoking in this galaxy?!
I hope there's fanfic where Kara and Gaius spend a lot of time gazing into space together and everybody thinks they're dating but no, they're just hallucinating/flashbacking on their dead/robot exes together.
Anyway, Adama makes Starbuck go back and do her job. Starbuck hunts down the baby pilots (who look about twelve years old in their "locker room" scene, maybe that's the point), monologues about "I must do my job and not let my emotions get in the way," which means nothing to them, and then they can be pilots again. Yay.
The last few minutes almost feel like they belong to a different episode. Starbuck is out teaching the baby pilots, but then oh no! The Cylons are on them! So she makes them head back to the ship and tries to take out eight Cylon fighters herself--from what we've seen of her so far I think we're supposed to imagine she's good enough to do this if she had to and/or didn't care about coming back, because drama. Anyway, one of the babies follows her because she just said to stick with the leader and wasn't really thinking, she manages to get him back to the ship and take out at least seven of the eight Cylons before evacuating, apparently that nightmare scene we saw repeatedly was not flashbacks to imagining Zak's death but rather her bailing out over a Saturn-like world. Cliffhanger.
IDK. I think I just want to like it more than I actually do like it.
I'm pretty sure some of the stuff on the "previously on..." was not on previously. I know there's a miniseries prequel that I didn't see, but they first start talking about Zak there and I don't think he was mentioned in any of the previous episodes?
The beginning stuff is the kind of worldbuilding I'm here for. Pilots still have their "I don't know but I been told" chants in outer space. There are rituals to mark a pilot's 1000th launch. And then because we can't have nice things, there's an accident and a bunch of people die including the guest of honor (who Starbuck was teasing last time). Hints of religious worldbuilding (the cleric in the flashback funeral mentions an afterlife.)
Then the bulk of the episode is just...not interesting. Back in the day, Starbuck and Zak Adama (Apollo's brother, Adama senior's son) were instructor and student, and they were also romantically involved. Starbuck passed Zak even though he was underqualified, leading to his death in an accident. She's told this to Apollo, but not Adama senior, because dramatic irony only works if characters refuse to communicate to each other dontcha know. Now she feels bad and won't train new rookies.
To some extent, I feel like Adama and Apollo being father/son wasn't even necessary for the first three episodes? Like, "I'm the boss and I give you orders, you carry them out and don't worry about morality" stuff doesn't need the extra "oh and by the way they are related" drama. For this one, it's kind of necessary, but just...ugh, I'm not into this.
Meanwhile, not only Baltar but also the medical doctor smokes. Roslin asks "can you not" and he's like "no, I must." But he criticizes her for not having regular cancer screenings even though her mother died of cancer. Does no one know about the dangers of smoking in this galaxy?!
I hope there's fanfic where Kara and Gaius spend a lot of time gazing into space together and everybody thinks they're dating but no, they're just hallucinating/flashbacking on their dead/robot exes together.
Anyway, Adama makes Starbuck go back and do her job. Starbuck hunts down the baby pilots (who look about twelve years old in their "locker room" scene, maybe that's the point), monologues about "I must do my job and not let my emotions get in the way," which means nothing to them, and then they can be pilots again. Yay.
The last few minutes almost feel like they belong to a different episode. Starbuck is out teaching the baby pilots, but then oh no! The Cylons are on them! So she makes them head back to the ship and tries to take out eight Cylon fighters herself--from what we've seen of her so far I think we're supposed to imagine she's good enough to do this if she had to and/or didn't care about coming back, because drama. Anyway, one of the babies follows her because she just said to stick with the leader and wasn't really thinking, she manages to get him back to the ship and take out at least seven of the eight Cylons before evacuating, apparently that nightmare scene we saw repeatedly was not flashbacks to imagining Zak's death but rather her bailing out over a Saturn-like world. Cliffhanger.
IDK. I think I just want to like it more than I actually do like it.
