Battlestar's tit for tat

[GoldCylon]

February 04, 2006
Battlestar's tit for tat

Battlestar Galactica Season 2
"Scar"
Feb. 3, 2006

Like parents afraid to play favorites with their children, executive producers Ron Moore and David Eick follow last week's Apollo episode with one for Starbuck. In "Scar", Starbuck's saddled with a personal backstory filled with trauma -- much like Apollo's in the Black Market episode. As a bonus, Starbuck had one of her own pilots, Kat, riding her tail.

This week also marked the return of the Cylons as main menace, something that was missing the last two weeks. Even during the two-parter "Resurrection," the real fighting was between humans.

Last week we griped that it was time for a good Cylon episode. OK, this week we got it. Sorta. One Cylon anyway, the gunslinging fighter pilot Scar, whose been knotching his wing guns with one Colonial pilot after another. But despite all the talk in the ready room about the Scar menace, we saw just about zip of him/her/it/whatever. Just a Cylon fighter ship seen briefly in one confrontation, which was stretched out in pieces across the entire show. No wonder Scar never developed into an effective menace for viewers.

Instead, one of Starbuck's top pilots, Lt. Louanne "Kat" Katraine, was the real antagonist as she took verbal shots at Starbuck all night. Ok, she was a pain, but guess what, she was right. Starbuck was drinking herself into a stupor most of the show, and not doing her job.

Despite the different focus -- external threat Scar instead of last week's internal problem of the racketeers -- this show was a lot like Black Market. Even the template was similar. The episode started at its climax, teasing us, then jumped back into the past to work forward. (This has become almost standard for BG: They've used this flash-forward opening in three out of last five shows, which, hello, is beginning to water down its effectiveness as a dramatic device.)

Just like Apollo, Starbuck was suffering agonizing personal flashbacks of a love lost. Where Apollo was drifting into morose apathy, Starbuck was drowning herself in booze.

Taking a breather: Also like last week, we didn't see much of the rest of the cast except in brief walk-ons. It's like cast, crew and writers were all taking a couple weeks to catch their breath after the marathon efforts of the previous three shows. Can't help wonder whether they were all off getting a Christmas break or just working hard on other future episodes. With a series as complex as Battlestar Galactica, it must be a relief for everybody to have a few shows that are relatively simple, with narrowly focused stories.

Hot flash: Starbuck coming onto Apollo who responds big time. (Hey, who can blame him, the poor guy's been paying for it lately.) Then, of course, Starbuck bails out in a panic when Apollo wants to inject a little romance. She's not a tease, just screwed up. The whole scene would have been funny if it hadn't been so well written and so well played by Bamber (Apollo) and Backhoff (Starbuck).

Starbuck: "I am hung up on a dead guy and it is pissing me off and I don't know what I'm doing."
Apollo shows concern. Starbuck gets mad: "I don't want your pity."
Apollo: "You haven't got my pity. You're fine with the dead guys, it's the living ones you can't deal with."
Good, Apollo. Starbuck will eat your lunch if you don't stand up to her.

Leadership: Starbuck has always been the gutsiest, best pilot, but her leadership and maturity is always a big question mark. Nice scene at the end this week, showing her holding herself together and letting Kat take unfair credit for the Scar victory. Starbuck managed to turn her own potential embarrassment into a team- and leadership-building moment, toasting their fallen comrades.

Name game: Er, speaking of those fallen comrades, can't these fly jokeys come up with better nicknames?: Bebe, Jojo, Beano, Dipper, Chuckles, Jolly, Dash, Puppet, Fireball. Why not Doopey, Sneezy and Grumpy? Oh, and Sleazy.

OK, let's face it, this was not a great episode, in terms of story, but hats off to everybody for again making it look like something was happening in all those overblown confrontations between Kat and Starbuck, all those flashbacks (BG must be going for the world's record on flashbacks) and all Starbuck's drunk scenes.

New Yorker: Last week's New Yorker magazine had an interesting article on BG in its TV critique section. As usual with New Yorker -- always a pleasure to read -- the column took a round-about way of making its point, but concluded "Battlestar Galactica, refreshingly, is as real as science fiction gets."

On a final note, from the What's New column at the official Battlestar Galactica site: Starting at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, March 6, tune in for a six-episode Battlestar Galactica marathon! It will consist of episodes 214 through 219, to get you ready for the March 10 season finale.