(That's the last time I go for a Galactica beauty treatment!)


SkyHD - 20th May 2008 - 9.00pm

Probably the best episode so far this season with a healthy mix of full-on CGI space action, character development, twists and turns and a stonkingly good cliffhanger. It's building nicely to a big pay-off.

The 'captured' base star jumps on top of the fleet, Adama and Tigh virtually crap themselves and go to battle alert. The fleet starts to jump, Vipers are launched...it's all getting tense with frantic cross-cutting between stern faces and dazzling visual effects sequences. Then Tigh goes all mystical with a far away look in his good eye. If that eye gets any wider it'll pop out of its socket! He persuades Adama not to fire and then the Demetrius jumps in...just in the proverbial, if slightly predictable, nick of time.

As an uneasy truce develops, Natalie is brought before the head of the fleet and Roslin to explain herself and her rebels. The alliance rests now on a plan to blow up the resurrection hub, unbox D'Anna (told you they'd go back for her and all), reveal the Final Five and find Earth. So far so good. But then both sides get very twitchy and if you can keep abreast of all the double-crosses each side plans against each other without your head hurting...well...you're a better man than I. Still, it's all hushed conversations in little rooms, raising the tension to breaking point as the episode rumbles on.

Meanwhile, Gaeta breaks into song after having that leg off. I told you he would lose his leg, didn't I? But does he have to break into a range of miserable show tunes as a result? There's a scene where Roslin, undergoing her chemo, is trying to talk to Lee Apollo about the shared dreams, and all you can hear is bloody Gaeta moaning on in the background! For half a mo, I thought Roslin was about to shout, 'Shut yer fuckin' Gaeta!'. Well, it was either her or me. But, if you can bear to listen to the songs, doesn't the melody sound familiar? Is it the same tune that switched on four of the Final Five? Is Gaeta the 'Jake The Peg' of the Final Five? Something's up.

Roslin is on super form this week. She bitch-slaps Tory good and proper in a brilliant exchange of oneup(wo)manship were she sucker punches the nasty Cylon slut by revealing that she knows she's been shagging Baltar and gossing to him about her 'visions'. Tory's gonna getcha Roslin, and a stand-off in an airlock can't be that far away now. And the Roslin wig and scarf quotient goes up again this week as she sports several variations of head gear to support her 'bulldog chewing a wasp' expression. She finally calls the shots on both Baltar and cocky Apollo by addressing the quorum and telling them the plan to cooperate with the Cylons and then, later, getting Baltar in a Viper and dragging him to the base star. She's been having visions again - the opera house, Hera, Caprica Six and...dun...dun...der...Baltar.

As this lean, powerfully directed episode, races to its conclusion we have a double whammy in store for us. As Roslin, Athena and Six share a dream in which they see the opera house where Six and Baltar take Hera away, Hera wakes her mummy up and says 'Goodbye'. Well, that's enough to freak out Athena, especially after discovering that Hera, Jack Torrance like, has been drawing Six over and over again in her colouring book. All work and no play makes Hera a dull girl. Suffice it to say, Athena has to run after Hera, bumps into Natalie who is craddling her in the corridor...'goodbye' Natalie. Oh, dear.

Meanwhile, Roslin hauls Baltar to the base star to go and wake up the hybrid (or Bathing Beauty as we know and love her) to finally get some answers! Baltar is shocked by Roslin's awareness of his role in the dreams because, afterall, he'd only just accused her of the sharing visions with the Cylons malarkey based on Tory's gossip. Anyway, the Bathing Beauty, wearing another shower cap (bought from the same shop that Roslin must buy her wigs and scarves), is plugged in. And she screams 'Jump'. Oh, dear. The base star vanishes. Dun...den...der! One of those great 'Battlestar' conclusions that leave you screaming at the screen for more. Great fun.

Previous reviews:
Faith
The Road Less Traveled
Escape Velocity
The Ties That Bind
He That Believeth In Me & Six Of One

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