The 3 hour miniseries set the scene very nicely. This was total war, and total losing, the cylons won this one outright. 3 very clear and outright awesome characters were established in this series: Commander Adama, Starbuck and Roslin. There’s also a ton of potential in the ambiguous character and situation of Baltar, with the promise of him getting up to the same level as the others, and some possibility that Tigh may reach the same heights.
Two scenes in particular stood out for me, and defined the spirit of the show: Roslin, who we’ve seen as very human and compassionate being forced to make a snap-decision about leaving a lot of ships behind vs staying and risking all of civilian humanity to the cylons, and she makes it without histrionics or any show of weakness. And near the end, when Tigh is trying to make amends with Starbuck, and Starbuck flat refuses to compromise.
We know we’re not in glossy, emotionally-vacuous territory here.
Episode 1 of Season 1, “33”, was just excellent. Opening right in the middle of it, we don’t get time to familiarise or warm to the characters, but instead feel their disorientation, confusion, and sense of being completely strung out. I still don’t know if 33 was a cylon ploy, like an extended water torture, or it was their time to recalc the jump. They set the bar very high with this.
Episode 2, “Water” opened really well, again in disorientation and confusion, this time with the character of Sharon being absolutely soaked and obviously not knowing where she was and how she got there. It did settle into something more ordinary after that though. I too didn’t feel the Chief acted properly or realistically. Hell, they are fighting for survival, he’s in a absolutely key position, he cannot hide stuff like that, even though it’s his girlfriend. That peeved me some. I really like the Baltar/6 interactions though, and the building relationship of Adama and Roslin.
Episode 3 – Bastille Day: I think Richard Hatch was just excellent as Zarek, with authority, power and still confidence conveyed in all scenes except the last one. Lee was also much better as a character. This was a great return for Hatch, not some cheesy cameo that often happens in these old->new handovers. It all worked pretty well imo, except there was a couple of slips. Making Starbuck head of a anti-terrorist squad was really stupid jump from reality (I don’t care if she’s an awesome shot), and the relenting of her character on Tigh (which he rejected, thankfully).
Episode 4 – Act of Contrition: Yeah not bad, but too unfocussed for me for the first half. Sharpened up well when Starbuck finally revealed to Adama she passed his son even though he wasn’t ready. What fury was shown without moving a muscle! I also liked Starbuck training the nuggets, and wish there was less of the flashback stuff and more of that. I did dig Starbuck going back to face-off 8 cyclons though – very exciting prospect, and I wish we saw more of that, and her in real peril. I really liked the character of Hotdog a lot.
Episode 5 – You Can’t Go Home Again: Okay, lots of plot contrivances, and I just didn’t buy that Adama would so jettison his responsibilities because of, admittedly serious, unresolved issues, but the last 5 minutes made up for it. Roslin giving the guys a serious talking-to to remind them of how they need to be, the relief at finding Starbuck, and the final scene between Adama and Starbuck. It moved me greatly, that final scene, and made the reservations about the rest of the episode vaporise.
An okay episode with some really great final few scenes.
The remaining episodes were more patchy, but overall it lead to a terrific conclusion – particularly the final 2-parter episodes, and raised a number of question marks about what the hell was going on.
Thoroughly recommended.
