It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. That’s what a combination of a writers’ strike, truncated seasons and canceled shows will do. How about a moment of silence for Journeyman and Jericho? They will be missed.
But now on to a show that’s got a whole season left to do its thing. After nearly a year of waiting (if you ignore the mediocre outing that was Razor), we’ve finally got some new Battlestar Galactica to enjoy. The season finale left us with a ton of questions. The season premiere gave us some tidbits, but I imagine it will be quite some time before we get a definitive answer on any of them.
Gauis’ arc is the one that got the most development this week. Gauis has been so broken over the way his life is gone that he was quite willing to die. Granted, when he made that choice he thought he was giving up his life to save the life of a child, but given his state of mind at the time, he would have been just as willing to die if it only meant an end to his own suffering.
Gauis had been so depressed that not even a bevy of women worshiping him as some sort of god was enough to snap him out of his funk. Of course, now that he thinks that he’s an instrument of God, I suspect Baltar’s ego will be back in full force (though channeled in a different way).
On the recently revealed Cylon side of things, we didn’t really get a whole lot of development with Tigh, the Chief or Tory, beyond the fact they’re all freaked out by the fact that they’re Cylons and they are worried about what they might do (which we already knew).
There was quite a bit of development with Anders though. It seems like they are setting him up to be the weak link in loyalty to the fleet. He’s the one who was seemingly recognized by the Cylon raider and his only real attachment to the fleet is through Starbuck. And those two had all kinds of relationship issues even before Starbuck told him she would kill him without hesitation if she found out he was a Cylon.
I somewhat doubt Starbuck actually would follow through with her threat and kill Anders if she found out he were a Cylon. Helo was eventually able to stop her from killing Sharon, and Starbuck does now know that it is at least possible for a Cylon to want to help humans out. But then again, Starbuck was never in a relationship with Sharon. Her reaction may be far more violent because she’s a lot closer to Anders. At the same time, I don’t think she would actually put a bullet in him as she claimed.
That scene with Anders interacting with the Raider raises all kinds of questions. Up until now the Cylons have had no idea who the final five models were. Has that changed now? And if so, why is that? And was Anders really unable to shoot the Raider? Or was it just nerves. We’ve seen Anders (not to mention the Chief and Colonel Tigh) killing Cylons in the past, but that was before the whole Watchtower incident.
Starbuck leaves us with the most questions for the week. The fact that her ship has been replaced with a shiny new ship means that there has to be some sort of outside involvement. The question is who is responsible for that? Is it the Cylons? The Cylons were present both when Starbuck disappeared and when she turned up again. So this could be part of some elaborate trap for the fleet. That wouldn’t require Starbuck being a Cylon; they could just use her as a pawn in their plan.
Another possible option is intervention from a as-yet-unknown third party. The original series had a race of super-advanced aliens who could easily be responsible for Starbuck’s seeming death, mysterious trip and the replacement of her viper. I think aliens would feel kind of out of place in the new series though. I suppose the third party could actually be Earthlings (assuming they are sufficiently advanced).
The third option, which I am quite happy to dismiss out of hand, is that god(s) did it. Part of the reason for this dismissal is that it would be really lame. But also, if it was God’s doing, surely he could have done a better job in recreating Starbuck’s viper.
While I liked most of Starbuck’s interactions with the crew, I thought the ending was lame. Cliffhangers should only be used when there’s actually more than one possible outcome. As much as I would love to see it, there’s no way that Starbuck’s going to be putting a bullet in Roslin’s brain. And it’s not like Starbuck is going to end up stuck in the brig for any significant amount of time over the incident either. The whole thing is something of a non-starter as far as cliffhangers go.
As far as season premieres go, “He That Believeth in Me” was solid. Even though, outside of the Baltar arc, not that much actually happened, we ended up with lots of new questions to ponder and a definite sense of direction for the season. Let’s hope the trend continues on Friday when “Six of One” airs.
