Nightmare Galactica

I'm sure that Big Orange Michael will be over shortly to post his official recap. Those recaps top anything I could ever do in terms of letting an audience know the intricacies of what happened in a show.

This post is solely about my reactions to the show. So expect SPOILERS throughout.


This Battlestar Galactica season finale episode has stayed with me for 12 hours now. I'm sure I'll be thinking about it a lot over the next few days, and I know I'll be watching it at least one more time this weekend to allow me to process it all.

The first major change is that instead of being a microtime episode, where they deal with a few hours or days this was a hugely macrotime episode, covering more than a year's worth of events. Major revelations that would, on any other show, take weeks to play out were tossed off in a matter of minutes. I was envisioning an entire hour of Kara's team pinned down on Caprica. Instead, they were back within 20 minutes. The Dean Stockwell Stowaway was identified as a Cylon instantly and put out the airlock after he delivered his "don't bug us, and we won't bug you" message.

The election was a tour de force of principles and how the morality of a few characters shapes the outcome of the entire fleet. And this outcome was not good. They decide to permanently settle in the parking lot of a Dead show outside of Seattle. Rain, mud and tacky-ass tents are everywhere. Baltar, our fearless leader, is a modern-day Nero. He's replaced the Dry Erase Board Of Life with a picture of himself (no, he still hasn't cut his hair....) and spends all day popping pills and whores. So, basically, it's the Kennedy era in space. (Oh come on, it's a joke. No, Kennedy was not a traitor like Baltar...) And of course we have the saddest thing. What happens to an army when there is no enemy? They become fat , pregnant, nagging and, in the case of Adama Sr., Juan Valdez. Seriously, did they put all the barbers out the airlock when they settled "New Caprica"?

All that is beside the point, because in a 10-minute tour de force we see the fleet desert the settlers, Baltar surrender to the occupying Cylon force and a phalanx of toasters marching past the Vegan Puppeteers stalls on the main mudway. It freaked me out. To put it mildly.

Random thoughts:

--I hope Gaeta's happy with himself. He did get out of uniform and into the new Prince 2006 designer wear. It's flattering but he looks pompous.

--How exactly did they misspell Baltar's first name? I can see some prankster printing up ballots that read "Gayest" Baltar. Those punks on the Zephyr....

--Seriously. I mean, SERIOUSLY. If they start off the new season in October with some "Eight Months Earlier" crap, I'm gonna be majorly pissed. I know we still have to find out what happened between Kara & Lee, but I don't wanna see it, I don't think.

--I'm looking forward to the overlay text "Cylon-Occupied New Caprica. Karl C. Agathon. Call Sign Helo." I miss that.