I’m not happy about this one. Somehow, all of the latest and greatest episodes of my favorite shows are not what they used to be.
So, what do we have here? Mutiny on the way? Civil war? Who is the father of the child? The prophet speaking again? A love story between the commander and the president? OK. That’s it.There was no one scene which caught my attention in any way (suspense,tension, anything…). Not good…
Spoilers ahead!
What a dark episode. First Dualla, then Thrace, and finally, the fifth!
- The Cloud 9's lounge is under attack by terrorists who are convinced that Sharon Valerii is playing the military. The leader of this quartet, Sesha Abinell, demands that the invaluable Valerii be brought to her -- otherwise Ellen Tigh, Anastasia Dualla, Lee Adama, Billy Keikeya and others will be executed.
Ah, what can I say about this one? It looks like the main purpose of this episode was to provide a glorified way out of the show to Paul Campbell (Billy). Other than that we see again how Lee / Kara (this time Kara) are used as SWAT team leaders, which to me looks kind of silly, as the skills of SWAT personal and fighter pilots are quite different. The episode itself could have happened anywhere in the world (i.e. not in space), in our own 21st century, but BSG has always had this current, down to earth feeling around it, which is great most of the time.
An ace Cylon Raider, nicknamed "Scar" by the Viper pilots, has been causing problems for the Fleet. Starbuck and Kat compete to hunt it down while Starbuck pines for "a dead guy".
Watched this episode last night. First DVD set I'm actually watching, and not just buying (hint Babylon 5 hint). It's one of those episodes where you don't get a lot of action. The action is mostly one fight scene, broken up throughout the episode. There is however some good acting, especially on Katee Sackhoff side, although I think Luciana Carro's (Kat) acting is a bit overdone. Anyway, it's one of those things that I like a about BSG, that it's more then just your standard "sci-fi" show, it has more "real" people, and very good acting by most of the cast. So that "lack" of action is not really something you miss here. You just enjoy looking at the characters go at it.
This week I've watched episodes 3 and 4 of season 1. I won't go into them in detail, you can read the details in battlestarwiki, but the highlight of episode 3 was Tom Zarek vs. Apollo. Zarek is played by Richard Hatch, who was playing Apollo on the Original Series. We now also have a very interesting election to wait for... Other than that, a very standard prison riot episode, with some political drama (freedom fighter vs terrorist).
Cally was shot in the in the stomach on the prison ship, but it didn't take her long, and she is back up for the next one, although Lee Adama still looks pretty banged up from his prison ordeal. In this one Bill Adama finds out that Starbuck is responsible for Zack's death. That scene is one of the strong ones in this episode, as it looks like he is really holding himself from hitting her (...walk out of this cabin...while you still can... ). So we learn more about Zack's death, we get new cadets (with one, Bodie Olmos, son of Edward James Olmos, a.k.a. Bill Adama), and we get one Starbuck, ejecting to a foreign planet.
The first episode takes us from the miniseries straight to a crisis. The Cylons are finding the fleet every 33 minutes, and the fleet have to make a jump each time they are found. It has been going on for 5 days, so the characters have a serious sleep deprivation. The acting is superb - it really feels like they are not sleeping, and I know the feeling (raising babies, although not with this 33 minutes...).
The cause for this is that a civilian ship, the Olympic Carrier has some sort of tracking device, or Cylon agents. It disappeared after one of the jumps, and the Cylons did not arrive. When it returned, the Cylons returned 33 minutes later. Apollo is forced to blow up the ship, which also had Nukes on it. After he does this, it keeps bugging him at least in the next episode as well. Frankly, I don't understand why. It was the ship or the fleet. It was also not clear if the ship contained any humans on it when it returned.
We also get to see Helo on Caprica, reunited with "Sharon", as Sharon is actually a Cylon (the BSG Sharon - "Boomer", is a sleeper agent. She doesn't know she is a Cylon).
The next episode deals with Boomer. Boomer doesn't know she is a Cylon. She probably suspects it, as her sleeper side is awaken from time to time. In this episode she plants bombs and blows up part of Galactica's water supply. Boomer isn't aware she did it, but finds one explosive in her bag. Tyrol helps her, as he too doesn't think she did it (oh, and he loves her).
As the fleet looses a lot of water, the Raptors are sent to find water. Boomer finds water, but her Cylon side doesn't let her say that she found the water. After her human sides fights with the Cylon one (metaphorically speaking), the human side wins and she declares that she found water.
Grace Park plays the wonderful part of 3 characters: Caprica Sharon, Galactica Boomer (human) and Boomer (Cylon). The latter is only hinted a bit at the end. She does a great job at playing someone who knows something is wrong with her, but can't be sure of what it is.
After completing Lost S1-3, and since all the good stuff on TV is currently blocked, I need another project, and that is re-watching BSG. I've completed the miniseries today, and looking forward to the rest.
So, what do I like about BSG? It's not just another sci-fi series. This one is about the people, and it has a real feel to it. I'll start with the latter: Although it is set in the future, and in space, the technology looks familiar and non futuristic. They don't have fancy flat screens, no fancy phones, and no fancy computer graphics. Heck, CSI looks more futuristic than they do, which is another way of saying the technology in CSI looks unreal.
Second, the people - they have a real feel to them, and the actors are good, and non-plastic. The relationship between father and son, military commander and civilian commander, and so on.
And the surprise in the end, that Sharon it a sleeper Cylon is very nice. Of course, once you've seen it already, you're no longer surprised, but I'm seeing it with someone who hasn't seen it yet, so it was nice to see him surprised.
Looking forward to 33. I'm already tired :-)
MS have a new feature for their Live Search, which is currently in Beta. It's called Celebrity xRank - they rank celebrities based on the amount of searches. You can search for your favorite celebrity, compare them to others, see trend charts, and so on.
So, I've done a little research, both in the music and TV areas. First we have a showdown between some of my favorite musicians. (drum-roll) And here are the charts:
| Musician | xRank |
| Beatles | |
| Paul McCartney | 97 |
| John Lennon | 113 |
| George Harrison | 437 |
| Ringo Starr | 1027 |
| Neil Young | 119 |
| Elvis Costello | 934 |
So, the biggest looser here is Ringo, while the winner is Paul McCartney. But surprisingly and sadly, Costello is so near the bottom of the list.
And now, the TV showdown - tonight we have Battlestar Galactica against Lost. I searched the xRank of the main characters, but in both shows, not all of them had an xRank. Both are not running right now, so expect low results:
| Actor | Character | xRank |
| Tricia Helfer | Number Six | 1252 |
| Katee Sackhoff | Starbuck | 2157 |
| Jamie Bamber | Apollo | 2467 |
| Edward James Olmos | Admiral Adama | 2550 |
| Mary McDonnell | President Roslin | 5222 |
| Battlestar Galactica | Average | 2730 |
| Elizabeth Mitchell | Juliet | 1253 |
| Matthew Fox | Jack | 2706 |
| Dominic Monaghan | Charlie | 4121 |
| Daniel Dae Kim | Jin | 4553 |
| Terry O'Quinn | John | 5517 |
| Naveen Andrews | Sayid | 5884 |
| Lost | Average | 4006 |
The winner of the two is BSG (no doubt about it!). The rating of BSGs stars is pretty clear. What is strange are the Lost results, where Juliet (sad puppy look) was ranked higher than anyone by far, followed by Jack, 1500 points away. However, the big mystery is how Juliet is only one point below BSGs favorite Cylon! Coincidence, or not...
Just saw Razor. What can I say? Some BSG is better than non. Overall it was as good as any standard episode. We got to see what happened to Pegasus since the attack. We got some disturbing information (or misinformation) on Starbuck. We got to hear the phrase "By your command". Overall it was nice, but it's a shame we are still so far from the last season.
