"BG - Exodus Pt 2" thoughts

[tagryn]

Well, that was a damn fine episode.

But then, I'm admittedly a sucker for the shoot-em-up "space opera" episodes. Now that the Americans...errr, the Cylons have been forced to release the Iraqis...errr, the Humans, we can get back to the original aim of the series, the search for Earth (or is that the Caliphate?)

One thing that may show up over the next few episodes, assuming the writers haven't hit the reset button really hard, is that while the euphoria of the moment is high, at some point depression would naturally set in when they realize what a disaster the rescue from New Caprica really was:
* Pegasus destroyed. It died well, taking out two baseships on its kamikaze run, but the Cylons can build more, and they regenerate as individuals. The Colonials can't build more battlestars.
* Galactica seriously crippled, probably not able to do more than send out Viper patrols to defend the fleet for a good 2-3 episodes, at least.
* A good part of the human population lost to either the occupation or the evacuation, and a lot of the survivors traumatized to the point of being "walking dead" like Tigh and Gaeta(sp). And as Tom Derrick's character said during the presidential race, the Colonists really haven't come to terms yet with the fact that their old lives on the Colonies are gone forever. The New Caprica disaster was probably part and parcel of having much of the populace being unable to adjust to extraterrestrial lives, hence the election of Baltar.
* All the resources used to build New Caprica city lost permanently. Some of that was likely mined from the planet, but probably a good part of that was stored on the Fleet & now exhausted.

I will miss Tigh, I don't see there being much left for his character except going back to the bottle hard & suicide, after killing Ellen.

Comments

[erikred.livejournal.com]

There's also the intense grief that's going to well up when it hits them that a lot of their friends and family are gone. The mechanic chief, for instance, has lost his wife and baby, and war or no war, he's going to crash hard at some point when that creeps into his brain.

There will also be plenty of recriminations over who did what to whom in order to make it through the occupation. While the suicide bombing killed an entire class of collaborators, you know that there will be accusations of snitchery down the line as well.

Most interesting, though, will be watching the crew come back to the military life. The mechanic chief, for instance, spent most of the settlement year and occupation as a union organizer and rabble rouser; will he be satsfied to go back to taking orders, or will he want more of a say in how things are run? It's hard to let go of power and leadership once you've had it, especially in a precarious times.

In other words, yes, I thought it was a superb return. Very well done, very exciting, lots of open-ended questions.

[tagryn]

Erik - am pretty sure Tyrol's wife, Cally, and their kid made it out OK. Remember, last episode she was the one who ran away from the execution squad. It was the guardian of Boomer and Helo's baby (Hera) who got killed.

Agreed it sets up quite a few different possibilities. I'm currently much happier with BG than "Lost," which spent the first few episodes of this season spinning its wheels for the most part.

[erikred.livejournal.com]

Ah! Missed that in the confusion. Okay, very good to know.

[donnafair.livejournal.com]

Tigh's going to survive, but he's going to be worse than ever. He is also going to hate Anders, Starbuck's husband, for forcing him into the position to kill Ellen, whose situation aroused a great deal of sympathy for me. It was really untenable: save the man you love or let him die. She was never supposed to be a very smart woman (as evidenced by that episode where Apollo was in a bar that was taken over by the Cylon sympathizers). It was a tragic end, but also I'm kind of glad the character was gone because she was a total drag on Tigh while aboard ship.

Richard Hatch's character is Tom Zarek, not Derrick, btw.

One of my major complaints about "Lost" is that the characters act like plot points, not humans. The humans in BG act and react like humans. How is it that a story set on a FTL ship in space being pursued by religious zealot cyborgs is infinitely more believable than plane crash survivors on a deserted island? It's respect shown by the writers for their characters in the consistent and evolutionary behaviors of those characters. BG is on a natural progression, not the spinning wheels or pile-on mysteries of "Lost".

[donnafair.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot to add: I've got Anders in the deathpool.