BATTLESTAR 4.13 - "Sometimes A Great Nation"

The best Frakin show on television has returned!

When trying to describe Battlestar Galactica to someone who has never seen an episode, I usually compare it to films like "Schindler's list" or "Hotel Rawanda". I know comparing a tv show chock full of killer robots and people traveling in spaceships, looking for earth, to a Holocaust film or the massacres in Rawanda seems a bit trite, but the gritty realism of this show makes you completely forget that you are watching sci-fi/fantasy.

Battlestar Galactica is nerve tissue pulled out of the human experience, and scraped in front of us over and over again by a cybernetic hand. I compare it to those films about human atrocity, because each episode is filled with just that- human atrocity.

Last night's episode, the first of the final ten episode was no exception. If you are planning on watching this show from the beginning, or you haven't caught up to this episode yet, please don't read any further. There are spoilers hidden throughout this review, like Cylon infiltrators!

The humans and Cylons have finally made a truce with each other, realizing that they are about to discover Earth. Well, last night's episode proved just how big of a shit hole earth actually is. Show creator, David Eicke said that he wanted to have the main characters of Battlestar always grasping for that list bit of hope, that was embodied in the idea of Earth, and then he wanted to show what happens after that hope is taken away.

It is a collective gut punch for the human fleet, the Cylons and the viewer as well. As you would guess, Morale drops to almost non-existence. We see this embodied in the (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT) random suicide of main character, Dee. The scene where she killed herself was so unexpected and disturbing that I literally had to stop the tape I was watching the episode on, and take a break for a few minutes.

After sitting vigil over Dee's body in the morgue, Commander Adama heads to Colonel Tigh's bunk and proceeds to insult the memory of Tigh's dead wife, causing Tigh to pull a gun on him. This was the drunken Adama's plan after all- get Tigh so riled up, that he ends up killing him.

Fun show, right?

Tigh doesn't follow through, but helps Adam regain his composure. It is now up to the Commander to lead the fleet to another possible homeworld.

Other major reveals include the fact that the sacred 13th tribe (The humans that were supposed to have colonized Earth) were actually Cylons and that the final Five Cylons actually came from Earth originally.

For most viewers who say that Battlestar "jumped the shark", they cite the end of season 3 as the, er, shark jumping moment. In that finale, we learned who four of the final five Cylons were. Most viewers found it hard to swallow that two of the final five were two of the most important main characters, the most human acting of all characters- Chief Teryl and Colonel Tigh. Last night's episode ended with yet another "really?" somersault-back-to-the-shark's-mouth type moment, where Tigh realized that his dead wife, Helen, was the fifth Cylon.

This isn't completely confirmed yet, and it is more likely that it is a red haring to throw viewers off. I think it is possible that the Planet Earth has some sort of delusional effect, and that it caused Tigh to believe his wife was a Cylon. That would also explain Dee's very random suicide and Adama's death wish. Who knows? I might just be grasping at straws made up of sci-fi mysticism. We will have to catch next week's episode to see if more of "The truth will be revealed!"