Battlestar Galactica: "Razor"

"Series classic"
Best BSG in a while.

Being hyped as a tele-event on Sci Fi for months, I found "BSG: Razor" to be more of a souped up season 2 two episode parter rather than a feature extravaganza. But by BSG standards, that's really good.

Two storylines were combined here: the first days of Lee Adama in command of the Battlestar Pegasus--with the backstory of Admiral Cain and the Pegasus spoonfed in--and an encounter with the Protectors, a force of active original mechanical cylons, and the hybrid organic cylon they were protecting. Admiral Adama almost stumbled across the cylon organic experiments 40 years earlier on the tail end of the 1st Cylon War in the recent SciFi miniepisode series (November 2007) on a young Bill Adama.

I won't go into too many specific plot spoilers here so much as speak on general story points and character developments.

Personally, I feel that Season 2 was the highlight of the new BSG series with Season 3 (especially the second half) being a disappointment. I want the the producers to prove to me and the rest of the core viewership who're left that Season 4 will be up to snuff. That said, "Razor" fit the tone of Season 2 perfectly and added another magnitude of drama to that chapter in the series.

It was great seeing Admiral Cain again, and awesome to see the events alluded to by Colonel Fisk in "Pegasus." We're tied into Pegasus' past following the Cylon attack that obliterated the Colonies and the "Present" of Season 2 through the character of Kendra Shaw. For those who want to know, the survivor count hints at the time of "Downloaded."

Watching Kendra go from raw aide to ruthless soldier under Cain's guidance is spellbinding to say the least. And watching her butt heads with Starbuck as Lee's new XO is a treat. Being "Cain's legacy," she wouldn't hesitate to do what Tigh only dreamed of in putting Starback in her place. It would've been interesting to see how her and Starbuck would've gotten along is she hadn't been killed off at the end (more on that later).

Seeing Lee command in his own right was a pleasure. I can only imagine what would've happened had the the producers decided to not have the Colonials settle on New Caprica and set in motion the events that led to Lee sacrificing the Pegasus. This "what if" of Lee's development as a battlestar commander tantalizes me.

Cain was what we expected her to be: equal parts hero and villain. Sequences that show us Cain as a girl who was left an orphan by the 1st Cylon War weren't shown with the telemovie. But they're part of the extended version on the upcoming DVD (12-4-07). These sequences help us understand why Cain turned out to be a military die hard who sees herself as an unflinching weapon. A razor (though she was holding a folding knife at one point while imprinting on Kendra in a dramatic speech). Seeing Starbuck holding the knife following Kendra's death hints that she's the current holder of "Cain's legacy" (which doesn't bode well for the remnants of humanity in Season 4). What I don't understand, though, is why Cain didn't have the nerve to go through with her assasination plan of Adama in "Resurrection Ship (RS), Part 2," but she shot her former XO (who she'd served with for years) in the head with his own weapon without a blink. What accounts for Cain's sporadic flashes of humanity (in "RS, part 2") and hesitation? Something that I missed also was why Cain was so inflexible in pursuing an attack on a cylon station against odds of 4 to 1 when she'd assured her command staff in private that she wouldn't waste lives and resources on "a mad quest for revenge." Either this is inconsistent character development or Cain was lying to eveyone--and herself. The fact that Cain was revealed to have a relationship with Gina, a version of organic cylon model number 6, didn't have any impact on the story and could've been omitted completely. Something not dramatized on the telemovie, but I'm sure will be included in the DVD version, is the torture (beatings and gang raping) of Gina. These events will show how a Nazi fascist state comes into being on Pegasus under Cain's aegis in contrast to the morally grey, but still humane family atmosphere that Adama preserved on Galactica.

The Protector cylons were pretty lethal for outdated models. The impression given is that there was one base star's worth of them, but it's mentioned once that a "fleet" attacked the Pegasus at one point. A slip I'm sure. The scene with the three cylon fighter pilots and a "By your command" line was priceless. When Kendra leads Starbuck and on team onto the old base star to rescue some human hostages, I found myself wondering how they could find their way around, how many cylons were guarding the vessel, and why all opposition on the ship had vanished as Kendra got a warning from the hybrid about Starbuck being the "destroyer" of humanity just before Kendra nuked the ship. The warning about Starbuck from the hybrid nicely foreshadows one of Season 4's main issues. I'm still on the fence about that, though. I wondered why the hybrid offered Kendra the heads up? It indicates to me that this particular model wasn't such a bad person. And I wondered why the Protectors didn't seem to be taking orders from the hybrid?

Kendra blowing herself up tells me that she feels remorse about what she did as a soldier under Cain's command, but her taunting the hybrid "You should be afraid" struck me as insensitive and contradictory. But then she's human--and flawed. So where's the line between humans and organic cylons? At the end, Adama tells Lee that without him, Tigh, and President Roslin keeping him honest, he might've done some of the same things as Cain. I can see Adama being darker, but not going quite the same route as Cain. For one thing, Cain ignored and then shot her former XO, Colonel Belzen for not following questionable orders. Belzen was the closest thing to family and a conscience she had. Adama shooting Lee, Starbuck, Tigh, Helo, the Chief, etc is unthinkable.

All in all this is a strong episode, tele-event, what have you. "BSG: Razor" was meant as an entree for Season 4, which was originally scheduled to air on Sci Fi in January 2008, I believe, but was pushed back to at least April 2008 because of the bloody WGA strike. (Hopefully the studios and networks will see reason before too long.) I expect it'll have to hold us over for a while.

Battlestar Galactica Tidbits

Sy Fy Portal recently reported on how actor Michael Hogan is unhappy with the decision of the Galactica producers to turn him and other characters in the Final Five. The Cylon gods.

I share Hogan's view of the direction his character was taken.

I feel that the device of revealing people to be cylons on the show has been over and misused.

That stemmed in part from the writing staff's inability to generate enough dramatic episodes in Season 3 because they had only the humans of the Colonial fleet and the cylons to work with. The ratings in the second half of the third season dropped with the filler episodes.

If aliens were introduced, actor James Olmos (Admiral Adama) would leave.

To work around this, I feel that the Colonial fleet could run into other humans over the course of their quest for Earth. That's a device the original series used with great success in its second season--before it got axed for being too expensive to produce.

I'd love to see what happen if the democratic Colonials, who were searching for another clue to Earth's location, were to wander into a sector of space controlled by an advanced human totalitarian empire that wanted to enslave them.

We'll never know since the fourth season will be the last, and I don't believe that the show's producers will go that route.

Nichevo.

BSG Season 4 Extended to 22 Episodes--and Cancelled?

On March 21, 2007, SyFy Portal reported that SciFi Channel extended its order for BattleStar Galactica's (BSG) 4th season from 13 to 22 episodes.

Normally, this would be a good thing--except a "source" close to SciFi says the extra episodes are for letting Ron Moore and his brain trust wrap up the series.

Can't say I'm surprised. Ratings have been low during BSG's third season even though the show is critically acclaimed and won the Peabody award for an awesome second season.

This season, the main storyline of finding Earth has been sidelined, especially during the second half.

Several weeks have been devoted to filler episodes on secondary characters with Earth still as far away as ever and no contacts with the Cylons.

IMHO, this is due in part to the limited number of story arcs available within the Colonial fleet without outside elements brought in, like the Battlestar Pegasus in the second season (some of the best TV ever produced).

The producers/writers are hampered in part by the fact that they can't bring in bumpy-headed aliens without actor James Olmos (Admiral Adama) leaving the show.

To sidestep this, I feel that the Colonial Fleet can come across settlements of humans left behind by the 13th tribe on its trek to Earth. This is a device used with great success by Glenn Larson on the original series. These humans can possess markers which help point the way to Earth for the Colonials--after putting them through hell, of course.

I for one would like to see what'd happen if the fleet comes across a Class-M world populated by a technologically advanced society, which can hold off the Cylons, only it's not our Earth.

Or what would happen if the democratic Colonials ran into a sector of space controlled by a space-faring totalitarian human society that wanted to enslave them?

It also didn't help that the show became a soap opera rather than a drama when the producers decided to start up a romantic triangle between the characters Apollo, Starbuck, and Dualla. The triangle became increasingly unpopular among fans as Season 3 went on. And Starbuck was taken on a character journey that made her increasingly dysfunctional with no rhyme or reason.

If BSG ends in the fourth season, Moore and company have themselves to blame for running out of ideas and feeding their audience lackluster filler episodes and unsatisfying character developments.

I kinda half-wish I'd asked about intern spots when I attended a writers meeting where BSG writer/producers David Weddle and Bradley Thompson talked about their show. It was fun spitballing with 'em about BSG and DS9.

But I made the decision to focus on fiction and film, and I'm content. Really. I am. :-)