Battlestar Galactica: Al and Lissa’s Ten Moments Worth Talking About (And Five Where You Can Save Your Breath)

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
AL AND LISSA’S TEN MOMENTS WORTH TALKING ABOUT (AND FIVE WHERE YOU CAN SAVE YOUR BREATH)

DISCLAIMER
There are two kinds of people when it comes to Battlestar Galactica: those who love it and those who will. For anyone in the latter category, please stop reading now. Seriously, I mean it. The following geek session contains discussion about every season of Galactica so far: events, characters, and episodes that will be MAJOR SPOILERS for anyone who isn’t up to date. BSG is the best show on television right now and for us to cheat you out of experiencing it untarnished simply isn’t fair. So, please, go read Justin’s excellent review of seasons one and two or browse Findaflik for something else to occupy your time today. Or better yet, run down to your local video store and grab it for yourself. Anyway, consider yourself warned.

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With the last half of the last season of Battlestar Galactica primed and ready to launch, Lissa and I have decided to get our geek on and create lists of the moments during the past three-and-a-half seasons that really knocked us out. They could be events that shocked us or left us feeling gutpunched, character moments that helped us define or see another side to those who inhabit the rag tag fleet, or scenes that put our hearts in our throat with adrenaline or anger or sadness or fear.

Of course, not everything in the past five years is worth putting on the ‘For Your Consideration’ reel. Boxey. Pregnant Six. And, of course, Lee whining and whining and whining and whining. And what more fun than tearing down the stuff that bugs you? So grab your gun and bring in the cat, as we present our Top Ten Battlestar Moments Worth Talking About (and Five Where You Can Save Your Breath)!

#10

Lissa’s #10 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Laura Roslin kidnaps Hera (Downloaded, Episode 218)

LISSA: Okay, the truth is this moment is highly uncomfortable because I adore Roslin and seeing her do something so dark is very disappointing. But at the same time, it’s real. What I really like is that BSG isn’t afraid to tarnish (most of) its heroes, and that’s why I picked this moment. Plus, while I love Laura, she doesn’t get a lot of the big kick-ass moments that other people do. And it led to the awesome line, “Doctor, if I want to toss a baby out an airlock, I’ll say so.”

AL: That is quite possibly my favorite line in the entire show and I like this choice for the same reason. Roslin is a fascinating character to see change from the miniseries to now, and it’s really the first time she did something that I hated her for. I can understand mistrusting Sharon and everything, but faking the murder of a child is just disgusting, especially coming from a character you love so much.

Al’s #10 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
There’s a Baltar in Six’s head! (Downloaded, Episode 218)

AL: Although there are other moments that I rate higher for other reasons, my money says this is the biggest mindfrak of the whole series. When Caprica Six wakes up in the gooey Cylon placenta stuff only to see the face of purported human Gaius Baltar staring back at her, the director gives us just enough time to suck in our breath and go “OH MY GOD, HE’S A CYLON!” before showing us that it’s way more interesting than that. Six in Baltar’s head has been a staple of Galactica since the miniseries, but finding out that Six has an invisible Baltar following her around too just compounds the weirdness ten times over. I love it.

LISSA: Aside from everything that Al has mentioned here, the Head!Baltar just cracks me up. Granted, it’s even funnier when he’s in his own head, but the smooth, sarcastic, jibing ways of the Head!Baltar are fantastic. James Callis isn’t underrated as an actor, but he really does a great job with this.

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#9

Lissa’s #9 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Tyrol becomes the union head (Dirty Hands, Episode 216)
LISSA: The first time we watched the series, Chief Tyrol was one of my favorite characters. He won me over with his laid back, easy-going attitude and the way he seemed to really care for his crew. Like all the BSG people, he went through a lot of falterings and fumblings, and this was a great moment for me because it seemed like Chief had found his footing. Before they DESTROYED IT! BWAHAHAHAHA!

I also really wish I’d thought to mention Cally’s breakdown at the beginning of The Ties That Bind. Okay, so I watched that episode in the middle of PPD after having T2, but Cally’s desperation as Nicky just refused to sleep was so true to life and so… well, I just sat there crying at that one. It’s nice to see media portray the less glamorous, less-Hallmark side of motherhood.

AL: Chief playing Norma Rae? Really? I like the guy, too, but I would have been happy if they just left it at him throwing his body on the gears and the levers and whatnot from New Caprica. I mentioned in my Babylon 5 article that labor union episodes bore me, and this definitely falls in that category. No thanks.

Al’s #9 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Gaius convinces Boomer to commit suicide (Kobol’s Last Gleaming I, Episode 112)
AL: This, for me, was the first time I really sat up and took notice of Gaius Baltar. He was always the series’ bad guy, but it was almost by default. He wasn’t knowingly complicit in the Cylon attack and he hadn’t done anything terribly villainous since, except lying to save his own skin and acting like a giant sniveling coward. His situations were really often played more for laughs than anything else. But Baltar’s manipulation of Sharon in this episode snapped him right back into focus for me. He has reasons—and, perhaps even more horribly, they are understandable and justifiable ones—but his behavior here is just chilling.

LISSA: Oh my God, YES. Oh, that was so creepy. I love it. I really, really, really did not expect that, and when that gun went off my jaw was on the floor. This scene was amazing, especially since at first I couldn’t get my mind to believe he was truly convincing her to shoot herself.

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#8

Lissa’s #8 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Dee has to rescue Starbuck (Rapture, Episode 312)
LISSA: At the express request of Starbuck’s husband and Dee’s husband, who’s as good as Starbuck’s lover. As much as the Quadrangle of Doom annoys the heck out of me, this was so brilliant and the girls played it out so well… Battlestar Galactica isn’t the same show unless they’re all breaking each other’s hearts, and that’s exactly what they’re doing here.

AL: Dee’s character has been pushed in a direction where she doesn’t get a lot of great moments, so I was definitely glad to see her have this little plot all to herself. Of course, in addition finally watching Kandyse McClure get some screentime, I think it also brings an interesting dimension to the aforementioned Quadrangle. We know Sam has trying like hell to hold onto his marriage and Dee has been increasingly frustrated seeing her predictions come to pass, but getting to watch the two women being forced to deal with each other in close quarters is excellent.

Al’s #8 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
The Galactica finds Earth halfway through Season 4 (Revelations, Episode 412)
AL: Ron Moore had long said that the last season of Galactica would see our Rag Tag Fleet finally make it to Earth. I just don’t think anyone expected that there would still be ten episodes left when they did it! I mean, I’m sure the Cylon civil war and the missing skinjob will keep our crew busy, but I’m super curious where the heck the story goes from here. It was always ‘Find Earth,’ ‘Find Earth,’ ‘Find Earth.’ Now that they’re here and it sucks, I’m absolutely clueless about how it’s going to end. Hopefully not with Galactica 1980.

LISSA: Add me into the cluelessness. But yeah, this was such an amazing midseason finale. The whole celebration, the crew… I mean, I was watching and grinning and I think I might have even been crying when they were all celebrating. And then the flat “Earth” from Laura, and everyone (but Gaeta and Tom Zarek) staring around at a nuclear wasteland. Somebody’s Fleet is gonna be really ticked off….

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#7

Lissa’s #7 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Adama and Cain try to assassinate each other (Resurrection Ship II, Episode 212)
LISSA: The whole return of the Pegasus arc was awesome anyway, and I… well, not liked Cain, but thought she was an excellent character. I always thought she and Adama were interesting foils. But this was great, especially as they each brought their seconds in, and then backed off. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife, and even though I knew they wouldn’t kill Adama (then), I was still on the edge of my seat.

AL: I absolutely love Admiral Cain. Aside from being played by Michelle Forbes, who I think is one of the most underrated actresses in the business; she was a great mirror for Adama, like the Battlestar version of Spock with a goatee. She represents what Adama could have been in different circumstances. And, while I also knew deep down that they weren’t killing off Eddie Olmos anytime soon, BSG is the one show on television where I could ask the question ‘Is our lead character going to shoot another character in the head?’ really believe it might go either way.

Al’s #7 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Galactica faces off against the Pegasus (Pegasus, Episode 210)
AL: My #7 is from the same story arc as yours, and really rests on the same reasoning: seeing what happens when an irresistible force meets an immoveable object. Both Michelle Forbes and Eddie Olmos are dynamite and on no other show would it be plausible to us that our characters might shoot down the only other group of humans left in the galaxy.

LISSA: Yeah, we’re good, aren’t we? I don’t have much to add, so I’ll take a moment to agree that Michelle Forbes did an awesome job with Cain, and that got even more layered in Razor. And that it was really interesting how different they made the Galactica and the Pegasus look.

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#6

Lissa’s #6 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Starbuck captures the Raider and appears over Apollo (You Can’t Go Home Again, Episode 105)
LISSA: Ah, Season 1 Starbuck, how I miss you. Aside from the capture of the Raider leading to some of the better comedy moments in the series, this proved that Starbuck was as smart as she was cocky and brave, and just pure awesome. Although where she got the duct tape will remain a mystery, I’m sure.

AL: Yeah, it is kind of sad that we don’t see more of Starbuck kicking ass like this as the series goes on. I also like the little ‘happy dance’ wing shimmy that Apollo and Starbuck do in tandem as they head back to Galactica; it’s a sweet moment.

Al’s #6 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Gina the Cylon (Pegasus, Episode 210)
AL: Can you tell I’m a little stuck on the whole Admiral Cain arc? This was another instance where my stomach really felt like it dropped into my shoes. When Baltar first encounters the Pegasus’s Cylon prisoner, it’s enough to make you cringe. She is a broken, crippled, nearly catatonic woman, beaten until she has become unrecognizable. The real horror of the scene, though, is the dawning look of recognition of the face of Gaius’s invisible Six. “It’s me,” she says. Six has always been intelligent, sexy, and in control; seeing her so utterly shattered is almost hard to watch.

LISSA: And then add in that Gina and Cain were lovers… ouch. Seriously, I know that there are people who are grumpy about that, but it was a brilliant touch that added so much more pathos and tragedy to that scene. Also, that was the first time I truly liked Baltar, when he saw Gina and obviously felt true, unfaked compassion for her.

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#5

Lissa’s #5 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Boomer shoots Adama (Kobol’s Last Gleaming II, Episode 113)
LISSA: It should be a warning: every time everyone’s riding high, something bad is going to happen. But of course, this was Season 1, so we didn’t know that. And after Boomer got back from her blow-up-the-basestar mission all triumph and smiles, and then pounded two into the Commander’s chest… WOW.

AL: You know, this actually got halfway spoiled for me and I was still left in shock when it happened. I rather foolishly opened my Season 2.0 DVD before finishing Season 1, and the capsule for Episode 201 starts off with something like “With Adama critically wounded…” But even with that knowledge, this whole episode is so jammed full of plot and characters that Adama’s shooting took me completely by surprise.

Al’s #5 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Boomer shoots Adama (Kobol’s Last Gleaming II, Episode 113)
AL: Hey, great minds, huh? I’m not sure I have a whole lot else to say about this moment that you didn’t cover. I think it bears mentioning, though, how much time they took handling all the fallout. Adama didn’t get back on his feet for like another five episodes, which is refreshing. Picard would have been striding around the bridge by the end of the next episode.

LISSA: Hmm. I don’t have much to add here either, so I’ll take a moment to say I’m really impressed with the acting from Tricia Helfer and Grace Park. They both play multiple, physically identical characters, but you can always tell which Cylon they are, if it’s a named one. (However, if we could stop with the Eight romance plots, that would make me REALLY happy, okay? But they can still shoot people. That’s fine.)

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#4
Lissa’s #4 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Gaeta pulls a gun on Baltar (Exodus II, Episode 304)
LISSA: Gaeta is my current favorite character. I say current, because I didn’t really notice him much the first two seasons the first time around. He was always there, but always this fairly happy little do-gooder fanboy of Gaius Baltar. (Incidentally, I have done a complete 180 from my Last Cylon article. I no longer think he’s a Cylon, and I’m now completely convinced he was truly in love with Baltar.) But when he trained that gun on Gaius… aside from the fact he acted the hell out of it, that was the precise moment Gaeta got a third dimension and went from good little military boy to broken idealist. No other character has had that defining of a moment for me.

AL: Gaeta was totally in love with Baltar (though it was something I never considered until you mentioned it) and I think you hit the nail on the head with this moment of his. As much as I liked his double role as Chief of Staff and resistance informant, his pulling the gun on Gaius is such a perfect example of the drastic, life-altering changes that New Caprica has brought on our characters. Becoming suicide bombers and being chained up in freaky dollhouses may make for good television, but it’s a little too dramatic for most of us to relate to. But feeling bitter and lied to by someone who looks like they’re going to get away with it? I can understand that.

Al’s #4 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Tigh kills his wife (Exodus II, Episode 304)
AL: Saul and Ellen Tigh have been my favorite characters for most of the series. Ellen always presents such a fun, funny contrast to the doom and gloom of everyone else on Galactica, and Saul walks this amazing line between being a total disaster of a man and a steadfast, worthy officer of the fleet. They don’t deliver big, important speeches or make cataclysmic decisions each week, but that’s probably why I gravitate towards them more than the others. And that’s also why Saul’s poisoning of Ellen was so much harder for me to watch than Roslin’s death will be or Starbuck or Helo or whoever else they’re going to kill off before the end of the show. No matter how completely messed up and unhealthy their marriage is, her love for him is so strong that she will do literally anything to keep him safe and he clings so desperately to his code of conduct that he is forced to kill her for it, hating himself all the while. This is my favorite scene of the show, hands down. It didn’t make the top of my list here, but I can watch this over and over and it’s a heartpunch every time.

LISSA: Oh yes. And Michael Hogan and Kate Vernon acted this one like crazy. It’s a heartbreaker. But I am optimistic that they will be reunited, because my current (unspoiled) theory is that Ellen Tigh is the final Cylon. (Honestly- I don’t think the identity of the Cylon can be a shocker, because come on. The internet has guessed everyone from Adama to Jake the dog. But the why or the how… how about something like Ellen’s known she’s a Cylon the entire series, and encouraged Tigh’s drinking because she was hoping that would somehow override his circuitry and get him to remember he’s a Cylon, too?) Gotta agree with Al on this one- this is one heck of a moment.

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#3

Lissa’s #3 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Tigh’s balls of steel moment (Revelations, Episode 412)
LISSA: I didn’t really like Tigh a lot in the beginning. It was hard to. He was a drunk, he was a lousy officer, and do we even need to discuss his stint at martial law? And yet, somehow, I think starting on New Caprica (I love New Caprica), he started growing on me. But unlike the above mentioned Gaeta moment, my love for Tigh crept up on me. And I didn’t realize how much I had grown to really like and respect the character until that moment when he walked himself down to the airlock, completely willing to put himself out it if it would save humanity and his best friend Bill.

AL: This is a great moment for Tigh, who, like I said above, is not a character that gets a lot of ‘stand up and cheer’ moments. This isn’t really a situation that elicits a great deal of cheering either, but his willingness to suck it up and devastate his best friend is tremendous. The more I think about it, it actually represents a great deal of growth for Tigh, comparing it to how he struggles to make tough decisions during so much of seasons one and two.

Al’s #3 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Adama gets a moustache (Lay Down Your Burdens II, Episode 220)
AL: Yes, some other stuff happened, too. The timeline jumps forward a year (something that BSG did before every other show on television started to), the cast settles on New Caprica, Starbuck grows her hair, Lee gets fat and married. But a moustache? In space? It just isn’t done, Bill. It just isn’t done.

LISSA: And it was not at all flattering, either. Good thing he shaved it before Laura saw him again, or she would have laughed her butt off at him, and gone off and had a quickie with Tom Zarek.

Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t take cold medicine before writing Mutant articles.

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#2

Lissa’s #2 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
“I love you.” “About time.” (The Hub, Episode 409)
LISSA: There’s a phrase in fandom called “OTP”, meaning “one true pairing.” It means the pairing you love above all others. Roslin/Adama is my OTP. I liked them from the first season, and have been eagerly watching the evolution of their relationship over time. It’s mature, it’s balanced, it’s flawed, it’s honest, and it’s absolutely amazing. It is easily my favorite relationship in media, period. The above exchange was simply the crystallizing moment of what has already been an amazing chemistry.

AL: Roslin/Adama has been a long time coming and I love that, even when it was acknowledged, they would refuse to do much more than dance around it. The show really worked for that scene and the characters earned it.

Al’s #2 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Gaius confesses his sins (The Hub, Episode 409)
AL: If there’s one thing you always thought you could count on in the world of Battlestar Galactica, it’s that Gaius Baltar would always be a self-serving, spineless sneak. So, seeing him at the head of a religious movement in Season 4 is something I simply didn’t buy as legitimate; I assumed he was blowing smoke to stay in the good graces of the only people who would still accept him. But then in The Hub, he goes and does something totally unexpected: he confesses his darkest secret—the one that has driven him since the original miniseries—to Laura Roslin, the woman who has spent the last thirty episodes just looking for an excuse to flush him out an airlock. And once I was able to process what he had done, my mind was changed. I think it’s true, folks. Gaius is reformed. You think you know some people…

LISSA: Yes, yes, and more yes.

I hate Gaius Baltar, and I love to hate him. He gets under my skin, he annoys the heck out of me, and I do not respect his code of ethics at all. He’s a strange little man, and yet still manages to sleep with more women than anyone else on the show. (Seriously, the man is a total sex addict, and I’m not convinced he wouldn’t try to have sex with an electrical socket if he thought it would get him off.) And like Al, I just did not believe he had changed… until he made that confession. And then I believed it wholeheartedly.

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#1

Lissa’s #1 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
The New Caprica rescue (Exodus II, Episode 304)
LISSA: Exodus II is my favorite episode thus far, but the rescue! WOW! From the moment the Cylons look out over New Caprica and see the bombs going off, it’s just the biggest adrenaline rush ever. I love the prison break, and Sam finding Kara. I love the Pegasus taking out two basestars. I love the Galactica holding out, even as she’s dying. I love when Adama is hoisted onto the crowd’s shoulders, and Tigh limps away. But more than anything, I love, love, LOVE that moment when the Galactica breaks atmo and lets out the Vipers. BEST. TV. EVER.

AL: You won’t find a more action-packed episode than Exodus II (plus it’s great for showing off your HDTV). The script, the direction, the acting, the effects; they’re all spot on at every turn. Even characters that don’t get a lot to do in the episode, like Laura, get little moments that will make you smile. The whole thing is a fantastic production that not only looks good, but creates shockwaves that will resonate for the entire season. Really stellar stuff.

Al’s #1 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
All Along the Watchtower (Crossroads II, Episode 320)
AL: The other moments on this list have made me cry, laugh, shout, or left me shocked, but this is the only time where I can say I had my mind blown. Hearing the weird strains of music begin to knit together as our characters starting reciting song lyrics is confusing enough, but then the big reveal of the Final Five, the massive Cylon attack, the return of Kara Thrace, and a long awaited glimpse of Earth, all while the soundtrack blossoms into a psychedelic All Along The Watchtower? Whoa.

LISSA: The problem I had here- and the reason it didn’t make my list- is because I accidentally got spoiled for this. Now, I like me my spoilers, and you better believe that when Amazon accidentally released four of the last five webisodes, I watched #10 first. But, I only like certain spoilers. I could watch webisode #10 because I wanted one question answered: did Gaeta and Hoshi stay together? Now, frankly, who cares? How does that remotely affect the plot? It doesn’t. But I don’t want to know who the Cylons are in advance, or what happened to Earth, or what the heck is going on with Starbuck. And because we were behind, when I happened across the Entertainment Weekly article that SAID WHO THE FOUR WERE, I got spoiled.

But it would have been awesome if I hadn’t been.

MOMENTS WE WOULD RATHER FORGET

#5

Lissa’s #5 Battlestar Moment She’d Rather Forget:
The Quadrangle of Doom (Various, Seasons 2 & 3)
LISSA: This is more something that extends over the whole series. I don’t mind Starbuck and Lee, although frankly, I think they work better as friends. I love Starbuck and Anders, and think she’s an idiot for tossing away the best thing that could have happened to her- I don’t care if he’s a Cylon, the guy gets her. I don’t like Dee and Lee, but I don’t think I’m supposed to. I do think Dee and Anders should just ditch the losers and go hook up and be happy, but even when they try to Starbuck and Lee just can’t get it together. And it drags on and on and on. I get how the relationships are important to each character, but I’m sick of it already.

AL: No arguments here. I will say, however, in between all of the relationship sludge, it does allow for some fantastic moments between Sam and Kara after New Caprica, that heartbreakingly uncomfortable scene where they make out in front of Lee at the end of Season 2, and the entirety of Unfinished Business, which is one of my all time favorites.

Al’s #5 Battlestar Moment He’d Rather Forget:
Lee shoots a gangster (Black Market, Episode 214)
AL:
Dear Battlestar,
When you start an episode with a character telling your emotionally unstable leading man that there’s no way he’s going to shoot him, the fact that he will indeed be shot is not only not a foregone conclusion but makes the entire episode a giant waste of our time. Thanks for listening!

Love, Alan

LISSA: YAWN. Um, totally agree with Al, got nothing new to add since I listed Black Market as my #1 moment.

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#4

Lissa’s #4 Battlestar Moment She’d Rather Forget:
The entirety of Hero (Hero, Episode 308)
LISSA: Retconning the entire mythology and the introduction of a character we never see again… oi. Plus, I like me the ensemble cast, and this was a little too single character centric, especially since it was a character we’d never met. (Well, and Adama. And Tigh.) But this one just fell flat for me.

AL: I really liked seeing Carl Lumbley again (Go M.A.N.T.I.S.!), but, yeah, this episode was a bit of a throwaway. The ‘Adama started the war’ retcon doesn’t bother me as much as the ‘Laura was sleeping with the President’ one from Epiphanies, though, because I think it plays nicely into the Cylon perspective that humanity will never leave them alone if they are left to their own devices.

Al’s #4 Battlestar Moment He’d Rather Forget:
The scrolls of Pythia get a little too specific (Home I & II, Episodes 206, 207)
AL: Battlestar Galactica is a story about a lot of things, but searching for pirate treasure has never been one of them. When Roslin and Elosha dove headfirst into the scrolls of Pythia and started announcing that Caprica Sharon represents the “lower demon” of prophecy and they need to follow “high road through the rocky ridge” and pass over “the gates of Hera” to find the Tomb of Athena, I started getting a serious case of sour milk face. I half expected X to mark the spot. Generally, I really like the whole mystical angle that the show has developed—I think it provides a welcome respite to the gloomy, pervasive atheism of our heroes and helps add an epic, ‘walking in the shadows of giants’ feel to the whole thing—but the prophecies play best when they hover in the background. They ought to be a guideline, not a roadmap.

LISSA: Can’t really argue with your logic, although I have to admit I didn’t mind this so much. Prophecies tend to annoy me in general, so I usually flat out don’t think about them and go along for the ride. This was a middling moment for me. Didn’t love it, but didn’t hate it, either. I will take a moment to note that I find it interesting that my bottom five are more character/relationship moments, and yours are more plot/science moments. See, people? There’s lots in here for both genders.

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#3

Lissa’s #3 Battlestar Moment She’d Rather Forget:
Adama’s wife (A Day in the Life, Episode 315)
LISSA: Now, I will defend romantic relationships on BSG. I don’t think they’re pointless, even the above-mentioned quadrangle of doom, which is just more annoying than pointless. But Bill belongs to Laura, darn it. She may flirt with other men, because all must realize how hot and amazing and purely awesome Laura is and that’s fine, but Bill belongs to Laura. Anyone arguing will promptly be put out the airlock. Yes, it’s a double standard. No, I don’t care. And I REALLY didn’t care about Bill’s failed marriage. Especially when it led into Lee’s whole “Mom abused me and brother” wibble. I mean, how many episodes ago did we find out Starbuck had an abusive mother? (Although that one worked for me.) It made Lee’s Daddy issues make more sense, but it was still a little too much.

AL: Mommy Adama was definitely unnecessary. I know every show that runs long enough has to have a ‘this is a typical day’ episode, but I think the writers got scared and started heaping on conflicts and revelations that weren’t that interesting to begin with just serve to throw more angsty fuel on an already overfed fire.

Al’s #3 Battlestar Moment He’d Rather Forget:
Chief establishes a labor union (Dirty Hands, Episode 316)
AL: Enter the difference between me and Liss. I will begrudgingly award a few brownie points to this episode for presenting a legitimate argument on both sides of the labor issue, but I honestly don’t care. The whole thing just feels like a small distraction given too much attention when there are much more interesting things the show could be dealing with. Add to that the fact that the union is never brought up again and that the writers must have known that Chief’s story was changing drastically just a few episodes later, and it all ends up feeling like they were padding out the season.

LISSA: Okay, that’s a fair point about them never bringing it up again and Chief’s story changing drastically. However, what I did find very interesting about this episode was Adama being willing to shoot Cally. I’m wondering if that trait will come up again in Season 4.5, as previews have indicated that mutiny is pretty likely. But I still like Chief, and so anything that gives him that kind of screen time, I’ll stick to it.

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#2

Lissa’s #2 Battlestar Moment She’d Rather Forget:
The Woman King (The Woman King, Episode 314)
LISSA: Do not get me wrong. I love Helo- I really do. If these people were real, I would want Helo to be my best friend. (Because, y’know, I’m happily married and I’d never dare to cross Athena even if I wasn’t.) But for all that I do like Helo as a moral center, Helo needs to fall. He needs to put his faith wrong for once, or pay the consequences for his decisions rather than be patted on the head. However, he does wander around shirtless a lot in this episode, so I suppose it has some redeeming value.

AL: Agreed. I rewatched this episode recently and, while I had really enjoyed it in the past, it definitely stuck out as another unnecessary notch in Helo’s belt. If he had been wrong, then the show could have added Bruce Davison as a regular cast member, too. A missed opportunity, I guess.

Al’s #2 Battlestar Moment He’d Rather Forget:
The Blackbird is destroyed (Resurrection Ship II, Episode 212)
AL: Flight of the Phoenix is probably my favorite standalone episode in the show. I love watching everybody banding together to build The Little Viper That Could. I love what they do with Chief’s character in the aftermath of Boomer’s betrayal. I love Tigh and Tyrol’s scene in the storeroom at the gin still and the unveiling of the stealth ship in front of the President. It’s an episode with a lot of heart in it. So why, oh why, would they take so much time and devote so much praise to their super-duper whoa-isn’t-this-the-coolest-thing-ever Blackbird, if they were just going to destroy it three episodes later? On its first mission? <i>In a flashback?</i> I know they were setting up Apollo for his big story arc and that, given where the rest of the season was headed from that point, the ship may not have seen a lot of action, but it just seems like a real waste of a good concept.

LISSA: Yeah. I can see that. It didn’t bug me nearly as much as it bugs you, but it really is the epitome of anticlimactic. Plus, did they build any more? I know resources were tight, but it seemed like there were lots of scraps to build from.

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#1

Lissa’s #1 Battlestar Moment She’d Rather Forget:
Black Market (Black Market, Episode 214)
LISSA: UGH. BO-RING. Seriously. The whole frakking episode. It’s still not horrendous, but it was an experiment that just didn’t work for me, and it was heavy on Lee. (I don’t really like Lee. Did you notice that?)

AL: Yeah, this was a misfire from start to finish. I recognize that it was part of a very dark character arc for Apollo, one that I don’t think really resolves itself until the last episode of Season 3, but Black Market just stinks. It’s got big, supposedly important backstory information about Lee that has never been mentioned before and never will be again, laughable character inconsistencies from just about everyone, and the whole thing is done with that irritating flashback/flashforward plot device that BSG insisted on using four episodes in a row during Season 2. It’s a waste of time and waste of the awesome guest star Bill Duke. Interestingly, my friend Mike ranks this as one of his favorites in the whole series. I can’t figure it out, but at least the episode has a fan base <i>somewhere</i>.

Al’s #1 Battlestar Moment He’d Rather Forget:
The Midseason Wasteland (Various, Season 2 & 3)
AL: Battlestar Galactica seems to have developed a formula about itself (and I’m not counting Season 1 because it was only 13 episodes.) Each season starts off with a bang to resolve last season’s cliffhanger, then spends a few episodes dealing with the fallout and building on the mythology of the series. The midpoint is a multipart story about a large, unexpected bump in the road for Galactica and the Rag Tag Fleet, and the final few episodes set up the new cliffhanger for the next go-round. In between the midpoint and the drive to the finale, however, are a handful of episodes I have termed the Midseason Wasteland. Be it through network pressure, a lack of ideas in the writer’s room, or simply a misguided belief that we need calm before the storm, these episodes are standalones that tend to focus heavily on one character, present a problem that almost feels beneath our heroes, and generally don’t build on the series in any meaningful way. This is Black Market, Sacrifice, The Woman King, and The Captain’s Hand. They are stories whose overall relevance can be summed up in two sentences or less. I could tolerate them were they sprinkled throughout the year, but each season instead presents you with three or four weeks where you could skip the show entirely and not miss anything that couldn’t be recouped with ten seconds of ‘Previously on Battlestar Galactica.’ A show this good shouldn’t make me feel this ambivalent for this long. Hopefully Season 4 will break the trend and give us a strong finish.

LISSA: I think Season 4 will, just because there’s way too much that needs resolved and we’ve already had our padding. But I don’t mind the mid-season wastelands as much. Sort of. I guess. I mean, I certainly cited Black Market and The Woman King as my two least favorite episodes. I didn’t really like Sacrifice, especially since that’s when they killed Billy. (I really liked Billy.) And yeah, The Captain’s Hand… I just read the Wiki summary and while I can remember the abortion plotline, I still only have vague memories of the rest of it. And Hero falls into that. And Epiphanies. (Oh, definitely must agree about the Roslin/Adar affair.) Okay, okay. You win. But more for Season 2 than Season 3.

So, yeah. Season 4.5 (Now THERE’S a low point- hiatuses!!!!) is starting very soon, and we’ll be gabbing about it on the Forum, I’m sure. (And by “gabbing” I mean “picking it apart and analyzing all the details that most of the world wouldn’t care about.”) So if you haven’t caught up, do it NOW, and join us. You can’t resist.

So say we all!