Battlestar Galactica is definitely back to form. This week’s episode, “A Measure of Salvation,” proves it. After finding the disabled basestar, a team is sent to investigate and they find the Cylon bodies, but some are still alive. After the freaking out subsides, they decide to take some back for investigation and interrogation. The doctor quickly finds the disease to be some type of encephalitis that humans are now immune to. The Cylons however are not. This leaves Athena in question. But due to her carrying a partially human child to term, she also has been immunized.
The doctor has a vaccine, and Adama and Roslin decide to use the vaccine as collateral to extract information from one of the Simons. Being the closest to “death,” they conclude he would be most willing to give up said information in exchange. And surprisingly, he does. He explains that the other Cylons fearing contagion of the resurrection ship, abandoned them. And he doesn’t fail to inform them that Gaius Baltar provided them with the information. Adama now understands that the Cylons are on their way to Earth as well. As Simon says, to begin again, much like them.
Lee Adama comes up with an idea and it isn’t pretty. His plan is to jump the Galactica to a known passage of space where the Cylons are certain to detect them and bring in a fleet of baseships and of course the resurrection ship. When the ship gets there, they execute the Cylon prisoners who will get uploaded into the resurrection ship, basically causing the extinction of the Cylon race. And this is where it gets really good.
This plan doesn’t sit well with the XO, Agathon, because he’s married to one of the "skinjobs," Athena. He sees it as genocide and rightly so. They may not be born or organic, but they are people, they are a race, a culture. This would constitute of a crime against humanity. He argues that humanity would lose a part of their souls if they proceed with the plan. But president Roslin is quick to remind Agathon that the Cylons were not content with killing billions of humans, that they persist in hunting every last one of them to the ends of the universe. Thus the dilemma: just how far will you go to save humanity?
Article comments
1 - handyguy
I'm not sure BG ever really went off form...the quality and risk-taking have been steady and often phenomenal. The tone has perhaps gotten a bit heavy and solemn this season, but it's still the best show on television.
Now if only Smallville would return to form. It has caught a bad case of the sillies recently.
2 - DAVE
ON BSG: Well thats very true Handy, but the season 3 premiere was a 2 hour snore-fest and everything until ep 5 was very twitchy. I like to be intimidated by the Cylons determination and capabilities. Now I am again.
On Smallville: That show has suffered for a long time. How many cases of amnesia can one show have? Blue T-shirt and red jacket? OK WE GET IT!
3 - handyguy
Interesting. I thought the suicide-bombing and vigilante-justice plotlines were amazing in the first few episodes. The sci-fi setting lets them take on stuff like this far more daringly than any movie about Iraq or Al Qaeda ever would/could. And they come up with ideas like giving Starbuck an illusory child, and committing the same murder over and over [and bizarre throwaways like putting Apollo in a fat suit] that are more imaginative than anything else being done.
4 - DAVE
Like I said, I agree, but the intensity wasn't there for me at the beginning. It felt like it needed a kick start.