Battlestar Galactica & Caprica Reviews

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BSG TOS 1978 - Season 1 - Episode 04

My Rating - 4

Fan Rating Average - 4.56

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Synopsis
Female pilots step into the breach when an unknown virus strikes down the Viper Corps, leaving only Starbuck and Apollo untouched. [DVD]

Problems
None

Factoids
- A line from Adama implies that he is at least 100 yahrens old.
- This episode establishes that many but not all ships in the fleet (including vipers) are capable of light speed or perhaps faster.

Remarkable Scenes
- Boxey: "Come on, Muffet, they're going to argue." Serina: "We're not going to argue." Boxey to Muffet: "Yes they are." Apollo: "Yes we are."
- Starbuck: "Remember, these controls are as sensitive as a schoolgirl's... uh... lips."
- The dogfight.

My Review
Here's an improvement. We're shown some material tackling relevant issues facing the RTF. The fleet must travel at the speed of its slowest member; vipers are used to scout about and do patrol. It is also implied that the colonials and the Cylons have the ability to travel at at least light speed which complicates the issue of the fleet's escape if they're unable to make full use of their speed potential.

Baltar is on their tails and has a plan to take out the fleet. Surprisingly, his plan seems competent enough; though you've got to wonder just what the hell he does all day in that throne room. It would have been far less cheesy to just depict him overseeing operational details on the bridge or control room or whatever of the Cylon Basestar. It's only the 4th episode, and it's already a cliche to always depict the Imperious Leader or Baltar as having to plot and scheme in an evil imperial throne room.

Another annoying detail: this episode is highly sexist. All viper pilots are men? All women are shuttle pilots at best? Beyond sexism, there's unprofessionalism. It is becoming evident that the Galactica is decidedly nonmilitary in its operations. But despite all this I still enjoyed the episode quite a bit. It wasn't filler and a waste of time like the latter half of Saga was. The cliffhanger wasn't too exciting though. It's pretty clear that beyond that "magnetic void" will lie the planet Kobol. But that's a small deficiency.

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