411: 'Sometimes A Great Notion'
Wrs: Bradley Thompson & David Weddle
Dr: Michael Nankin
Synopsis: Both the humans of the Colonial fleet and their Cylon allies fight against the emotion of overwhelming despair as they try to understand what happened to the 13th Tribe. Dee reconciles with her husband Lee Adama despite being devastated about the discovery of Earth. Kara finds a puzzling and disturbing clue regarding her identity.
Review: And so finally, the Sci-Fi Channel quits playing ceaseless, self-obsessed ratings games with their most ardent viewers and delivers the second half of Battlestar Galactica's final season, a year since it was actually made. The wait has been absolutely perilous: between the end of the third season and the start of part one of the fourth, there was an agonising ten month gap and then, ten episodes in, the bastards cut our viewing enjoyment short for another ten months. The wait has been so great that, arguably, the weight of expectation on these final instalments is too much to bear. Can the production staff deliver the goods? Will they answer all the outstanding questions they've left dangling for the past four years? Will we get a regrettable happy ever after or a more satisfying, and realistic, emotional and physical bloodbath? From the trajectory that the narrative begins to take in 'Sometimes A Great Notion', it looks like the latter is far likelier. No question about it folks, this is damn tough viewing. If you like your characters to be one dimensional black and white ciphers, turn away now. If you want to see everyone picking up the pieces, holding hands and 'getting on', I really don't think the remainder of this season is going to be for you. You see, things have gone completely and utterly tits up. The Universe is fracked. There's no hope. We're all going to Hell in a hand basket and the best we can do to blot out the pain is give in to the illnesses already ravaging us (Roslin), drink ourselves into oblivion (Adama) or shoot ourselves in the head and have done with it (Dee). Jesus Christ, this is depressing stuff. The rock that the Galactica crew's hopes have been pinned on since she first uttered the word 'Earth' in the pilot is now burning the prophecies that formed the backbone of her beliefs and ain't taking anyone's calls. When your President's given up the ghost, you know you're in trouble. Kudos to Mary McDonnell for giving a superb performance throughtout: she's particularly excellent when she confronts the Galactica crew (and the fleet) immediately upon her return from the nuked Earth. All it takes is a stuttered sigh and a whispered 'get me out of here' and the emotional effect is magnified twentyfold. Then there's the other major authority figure, the Old Man, who goes completely off the rails after one of his crew tops herself and has an alcohol-fuelled 'heart to heart' with Sol, which ends with him getting the XO to point a gun to his head, goading him on to pulling the trigger. Not easy stuff to watch but it's effortlessly brilliant all the same. You feel every nuance of these characters' pain and that's no small feat. The successful combination of superb dialogue and out-of-this-world performance really cannot be understated: someone give Bradley Thompson, David Weddle, Edward James Almos and Michael Hogan all the awards the world can muster. Now. And spare a thought for Kandyse McClure who manages to pull the wool over the eyes of every single one of us in depicting Dee's final moments. Granted, this is as much to do with the scripting as anything else but she's magnificent anyway. The fateful moment where she pulls the trigger is among the best, and most shocking, in the show's history. I'm still not sure I've quite recovered.
Some have accused 'Sometimes A Great Notion' of being slow to start; I couldn't disagree more. The narrative movement certainly isn't fast paced but that's hardly the point. This episode is about the repercussions of having all of your hopes and beliefs completely and utterly obliterated in an instant. Time is therefore needed to take stock of the situation (the opening ten minutes), work through the pain (the next thirty) and come to some form of conclusion (last five). The considered narratalogical structure, to this writer, is exactly what is needed. And in any case, amongst all of the emotional trauma, we discover that the 13th tribe were all Cylons (didn't see that one coming), that the final five lived on Earth in its last days, that Starbuck's Viper is on Earth with Starbuck's body in it (how is THAT one possible?) and, possibly, the identity of the final Cylon. If it is Tiegh's ex-wife, I'm happy. It could be a red herring, of course, but time will tell. So yeah, a pretty darn packed hour, all things considered. And when you combine these revelations with the unquestionable strength of the character-led material, you have an absolute corker of an episode. As if any further evidence were needed that Battlestar Galactica is the best science fiction show on TV, here it is in one bitter, twisted, difficult package. Watch and weep. 9.6
412: 'A Disquiet Follows My Soul'
Wr: Ronald D. Moore
Dr: Ronald D. Moore
Synopsis: Admiral Adama wants to outfit Colonial ships with superior Cylon jump drives to help the fleet find a new permanent home. As part of the deal, the Cylons ask for complete acceptance by the humans. Not everyone agrees with the plan. Tyrol uncovers some family secrets when he brings his ailing son to Doc Cottle for medical treatment. Meanwhile, Baltar rails against his God and stirs up his followers in the wake of their tragic disappointment over Earth.
Review: Curiously, there seems to be rather a substantial amount of negative feeling towards this episode in the immediate aftermath of its initial airing. The general consensus of these criticisms is that 'A Disquiet Follows My Soul' is a 'filler' episode, barely moving the narrative forward in any 'satisfying' way and sidestepping the myriad questions that are still dangling, as well as the new developments that occurred in 'Sometimes A Great Notion'. To be fair, the absence of any reference to Ellen being the final Cylon (aside from Lee Adama's slip up when he addresses the Quorum) does rankle a little, given the gravitas of the repercussions of this discovery. However, this bitter, cynical, twisted critic loved this episode. Yes, the big action sequences are put to bed. Yes, the show's mythology is fairly unaffected by its events... but give it time. In order for the big dramatic developments to be satisfying and believable, we need build, establishment, background. Major events always have a context and, in case you hadn't noticed, Battlestar Galactica is giving you exactly that, right now, right before your eyes. Emotionally, the mood hasn't improved much since the cast collectively banged their knuckles off the airlock doors in last week's episode; everyone's still very much on edge, although Roslin's had a disturbing 360 and is now ludicrously chipper, doing her exercises and running the length of the ship. Not healthy. Adama's battle-torn and war-weary, tired of the knocks his people continue to receive and, really, just wants to get down to the dirty with the President. And then there's the Quorum. The fleet. This is an absolutely crucial piece of plot development as it begins to sow the seeds of anarchic discontent... and you just know it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. The resentment against the Cylons and, through this, against the Adama/Roslin administration is superbly handled as, really, it's all down to the subtle nuances in the dialogue. Ronald D. Moore does an absolutely stellar job of depicting exactly how that horrible worm in human nature begins to twist and turn when it is filled with fear... and that's exactly how the fleet is, and it's what Tom Zarek and, later, Gaeta are feeding off. As the lines between good and evil, friend and enemy begin to blur, so the 'understanding, compassionate' human race abandons its moral code and listens to its most base instincts: resentment, bigotry, hatred. It is these ugly creatures that we see being born in 'A Disquiet Follows My Soul' and, like last week's instalment, it's hard to watch as a result of how damn believable it is. This is largely a result of Moore's superlative writing and direction but credit must also go to Alessandro Juliani for a thoroughly believable portrayal of the embittered Felix; he almost outshines Katee Sackhoff in his confrontation scene with Starbuck. Almost. (By the way, in case you didn't realise, the events of 'The Face of the Enemy' take place between 'Sometimes A Great Notion' and this episode). Personally, I see absolutely nothing wrong with the current trajectory of Battlestar Galactica's narrative; in fact, I'm savouring every deliciously complex, harrowing moment of it. If there's one single compliment I can give 'A Disquiet Follows My Soul' it would be the following (paraphrased) quote by J.G. Ballard: '[the episode] rub[s] the human face in its own vomit... and forces it to look in the mirror.' 9.2
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