The blurb makes me picture Starbuck greeting her recruits by saying, "I'm here to train you. Oh, and I killed the last guy I trained." That would inspire confidence.

The time-lock continues to vex us. Unless I hear that it's working again today, my plan is to lock this manually and reopen it shortly before 11 PM EST. Please do not post until the episode is over, even if the topic is open before the credits roll. If it's not open by 11, someone can start a new episode thread and I'll delete this one when I get here. Thanks!

ARGH!!! I wanna know what happens next!!

Very good episode. I wanted to cray along with Starbuck when Adama called her on the carpet.

Gods. Damn.

That was a fucking FABULOUS episode. The scene between Adama and Starbuck was freakin'...damn, there are no words.

"Now walk out of my cabin while you still can." My jaw dropped.

Just call me CRACK WHORE, cause this show? Is my new fix.

To Be Continued ?!?!?!!?!?

Oh, Frack Me!

I am so in love with this show. Some thoughts as they occur.

Oh Frak Me. Well, they’re dead. I totally saw it coming a mile a way, but that was still shocking. Why the Hell didn’t someone on the hangar crew notice that before. I don’t care if everyone else was celebrating. Someone should have been paying attention. When you don’t pay attention to what you are doing, accidents happen and people die especially in space.

This PSA is brought to you from your local safety council member.

Ok old equipment failure. That type of accident can be forgiven, considering how old Galactica is.

“To the ground; from which we were all made.”
Sounds like the Colonials have a creation story too. Interesting

Oh. When Adama finds out what Starbuck did with Zach, it is really going to hit the fan.

Ewww… I could have lived my whole life without seeing Starbuck’s OOHH face.

Wow. Looks like GalBoomer and Helo found the mother load of supplies. That is not a coincidence.

Yea the doctor should really lecture the Prez about her health, as he puffs on a smoke.

Starbuck is definitely feeling the guilt over Zach and she is taking it out on the flight candidates. Nuggets…Hee

“Guilt over what?” “What did she do for Zach?” Lee you really stepped in it now.

You could literally see Adama’s heart breaking when Starbuck told him what she had done. Damn that is some powerful acting.

“Do your job and walk out of this cabin while you still can!” WOW. See, EJO plus quality writing shows how amazing television can be.

Fifty minutes in and we finally see Tigh and Dualla. I was starting to wonder when they were going to make an appearance.

You have to love that cliffhanger. I can’t wait until next week.

AAAAAAAA. How much do I fracking love her? *stretches arms out at sides* Thiiiiiiiis much. Everybody had their A game. Poor Starbuck. When she grabbed her head leaving after Adama found out about Zak. And the flight scenes were cool as shit. I felt like I was in a video game, in a really good way. I love my flippy little spaceships.

Not bad. Of course, if she finds a Cylon (like the one that preceded her into the atmosphere) and reprograms it so that it's her new bestest bud, I might have to re-think it, but the first half of the cliffhanger was pretty solid.

Is that a flight school term? I thought it would be maggots or something.

When Helo asked what happened to the guy who did all this, I could only think the Cylons took him (her) out so Boomer and Helo could, um, you know...

This may be a genre show but the whole episode (aside from the Top Gun similarities, It's wingman. Never leave your wingman.) especially with Starbuck and Adama talking really got to me. I think after this I can really appreciate what Starbuck brings to the show.

EJO is an acting master. Just the expression on his face that changed millimeters when Starbuck was telling him the truth, but how much that showed.

And you could tell how much it hurt Starbuck to tell Adama the truth. She looked up to him so much and especially when they hugged and he held her hand at Zak's funeral.

The rest of the episode was just ancillary (well, except for the whole To Be Continued thing). The nuggets were kind of ok. And it was sad to see the 1,000th landing celebration with what you could tell was coming. I liked Apollo's face when he realized that SB hadn't told Adama yet. That was a little Fraiser-iffic, but I could live with it.

But Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff completely owned this episode.

Oh, I also liked that Apollo still had battle scars from last week's episode. Damn right, no reset buttons.

Three Things You Do Not Want To Endure

1. The combined heat of a thousand suns concentrated upon the center of your brain

2. The rampaging force of a thundering herd of rampaging Critellian slargbeasts, on a frigid day on Rigel III

3. The steely, cratered gaze of Edward James Olmos after you've just admitted you caused his son's death.


Frankly, I'll take the slargs.

I'm so glad I recorded this episode because I missed nearly all of Starbuck's confession.

"When God speaks to you Hotdog, you listen"

Hee! I loved Starbuck with the Nuggets

Hotdog is probably going to be Pureed for disobeying his commanding officer's order.

Holy frak!!!

Nice cliffhanger at the end of a very excellent show. Commander Adama's heart breaking as he realized that Zak died as result of what Starbuck (the daughter he never had) did. Edward James Olmos completely rocked that scene.

Normally I am not a fan of the flashback, but in this episode I loved how well edited the show the flashbacks, with future backs, and the present stuff to all tie in.

Also nice continuity, in seeing Apollo's cut on his forehead from last week's prison revolt.

ITA.

I liked seeing Starbuck be more human. Completely cowed by Adama, realistically humanly flawed and aware of the fact... I had been finding her character a bit flat and unfathomably perfect. I think she's finally getting some of the dimension that I thought was missing. And it came more from her actions in the "here and now" of the show than from anything revealed in the flashbacks, which is impressive. Good direction and good performance.

Wow.

One nitpick....there is a group of crazed robots hunting you down and being pretty damn successful at it and yet no one is watching the long range radar (or whatever it's called). Starbuck sees them, tells the Galatica, who when they check can see them too. Good thing Starbuck was out there or they might not have noticed until they rang the doorbell. I can see it now.....

ding dong
Galactica: Who is it?
Cylons: It's the cylons, we've come to kill you.
Galactica: Hold on a sec while I put something on.

Other than that I really enjoyed the episode. Only show currently on that I make sure I don't miss.

And has anyone else noticed how long it is between Fridays?

Wow. Just when I didn't think I could get any more psyched about this show, they lay this episode on us. I cannot get over how tense and uncompromising this series is turning out to be.

I love that there was no easy resolution here. Starbuck screwed up big time and she's paying and paying, and paying. Others have mentioned it, and ITA -- that scene with Adama where she confessed that she'd passed Zak was just a brilliant bit of subtle acting from both EJO and KH. Bravo.

My first crack at this got swallowed when my browser crashed, but I'm trying again because that's how much I dig this show.

If I did not love Olmos as Adama before this ep, that scene with Starbuck woulda clinched the deal. The exchange with Apollo was darn good too, and I'm really starting to like the guy. Bamber's doing a nice job with a character who keeps getting caught in between people he cares about and respects.

But have you noticed Apollo's had a lot easier time forgiving Starbuck for what he thought Adama had done, in terms of greasing Zak's path through flight school?

The Helo scene makes me realize that I really like the way this 13-episode season is paced, with each ep taking place a few days after the last. No time for filler, but room to give attention to detail.

The opening celebration - I can't really find fault with it, but there's a big part of me that wishes it had just been an ordinary day when the accident happened. Those little moments of ceremony and tradition are one of the things that can keep people going in bleak times, and to see one of them become such a total disaster was a real stomach punch, even for this show.

As for the cliffhanger - I'm kinda interested in why there was only a relatively small patrol of fighters, rather than a Basestar. A scouting party, I suppose.

Once again, can't wait til next week.

Seriously! My weeks have gotten so much longer now. And Friday is just a slow trudge until about 8 p.m. I sit in class thinking "Ok, keep on lecturing. One down, two to go...and then, Battlestar Galactica! Ok, keep lecturing...yeah, they're brain-dead, but BSG! Ice cream! Cookies and Cylons!"

So Helo and Boomer find a fully stocked Radiation Mini-Bar. I wonder if that's gonna show up on the bill from the Cylons.

Hell, I forgot all about Dr. Philip Morris. Geez, he makes Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy look positively sunny! I would surmise that Prez Roz ignored getting breast exams even though she saw her mom die from the same illness because she figured, like a lot of people would, that "out of sight, out of mind." It's stupid, but it's human.

My first thought at the end of the ep: ah, it's the first "Starbuck crash lands on a planet" episode. You gotta appreciate the classics.

This ep had so many moments of breath-holding intensity that I nearly passed out. The intercutting between Zak's funeral and the pilots' was particularly affecting.

I don't know what else to say at the moment. Except that I also love the flippy little spaceships. I always wished I could do that while playing X-Wing.

Liked it, liked it, liked it. I love how this show looks, even. Loved the Adama/Thrace stuff, and agree with those who dig the "Now get out of this cabin while you still can" moment. I heart you big time, Craterface, you sexy bitch!

I am most annoyed, however, that someone who watched her mother die, presumably from breast cancer, would neglect her own breast exams for five whole years. WHY? Don't answer that, Dr. Phillip Morris. (Who, by the way, has a shitty bedside manner. Did he work for Caprica's worst HMO or something?)

Even liked the goofy Top Gun celebrating/accident.

I love you, Ron Moore.

Good character driven episode, even with all the action. It looks like Adama and Caroline got divorced before Zak died, and it must have been bitter. For the two of them to stand on opposite sides of the casket at their son’s funeral speaks to a pretty deep animosity. And it’s pretty clear Zak looks a lot more like Adama than Lee does. Whether or not Lee looks like their mother must remain a mystery since she was completely hidden by her veil. I thought it was interesting that Adama and Starbuck hadn’t met before Zak’s death. It lends credence to the thought that Adama was a rather absentee father.

Adama scared the crap out of me when he ordered Starbuck to get out of his cabin. He absolutely seethed with rage.

I kind of expected Lee to have a busted lip in the next scene because Adama pretty much hung him out to dry with Starbuck.

Good character continuity with Lee and his lame speech to the pilots versus Adama getting them to rally. It once again highlights that he’s too inexperienced for his position. But he’s learning, so that’s cool. I like that they’re not making him Mr. Perfect.

Wow. I enjoyed this episode. Bang up job by EJO; hell, I wanted to leave the room too, after he said that.

There just one thing that I'm not quite getting.

So, Zak, during the celebration of his 1000th landing, is killed because of a rather "rare" hangar accident, right? Okay. But, up until then, he had successfully landed a spacecraft 1000 times. If Zak failed "basic flight", wouldn't it have been more likely that would've died because he screwed up a routine flight maneuver? Was there some landing protocol that Zak didn't follow, during his 1000th landing, that led to the accident?

I mean, what if Starbuck didn't pass Zak, would that have still kept him off the Galactica hangar? I kind assume it would. But what if he became a tech or some other low-level officer? He might've ended up in the hangar anyway, and something like that could've still happened to another pilot.

Like I said, I enjoyed this episode. But I feel that the writers could've devised a way for Zak to have been killed and have it be because of his flight training. Or maybe I'm just completely missing something here.

EDIT (Mea Culpa): Thanks, Wildog27. For some reason, the flashback with Starbuck in the cockpit, between the sheets, with Zak, and the training the "nuggets" just threw my shit off. I couldn't tell who the pilot was and thought it was Zak. So, my bad.

bossu,

Zak was killed in an accident before the miniseries. The guy who died on the hanger was some random guy we hadn't met yet (to the best of my knowledge).

Flattop died at the top of the ep--he was the pilot Kara and Boxey busted on last ep.

I think the hangar accident was something happening in the present, and all of the stuff having to do with Zak was a flashback. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think we know exactly how Zak died yet.

And yes, "get out of my cabin while you still can"? I haven't marked out for a Scary Old Guy moment like that since Giles pointed the business end of a crossbow at Angel.

I think it's a testiment to this show that I actually found the premise of this episode kind of cheesy, but was still engrossed throughout the whole damn thing. It was just put together ridiculously well. Even the opening shots, which totally confused me with the chaotic quick cuts, didn't have me worried because I had complete faith that things would become clear by the end of the show.

Don't feel bad, bossu. I knew that wasn't Zak but the scene with Apollo, Starbuck and Adama all acting real chummy and like everything was fine and dandy made me think they were flashing back to Zak's graduation or something as a parallel event to something that was about to happen.

I completely forgot about the Cylons showing up at the end. With all the great acting and TBC'd, I forgot about wondering how the Cylons found them.

Wow. Love, love, LOVE. The acting tonight was incredibly well-done, and how cool were those effects?! Flippy starships! Awesome!

I'm just relieved that I actually feel sympathy for Starbuck. Until now she irked me with her over-the-top personality. Thank god, I don't have to hate anyone on the show. And poor Lee, he stepped right in it. I love that we saw him happy and goofy in the beginning, but that he totally brought out the steely-ness when Starbuck was getting in his face. That "Step. Back." was pretty great. Shades of Adama!

And this?


Had me rolling for minutes. MINUTES.

Goodbye Flattop. Hope you have a better date than your right hand in heaven.

Hmmm, so Starbuck and Commander Adama didn't start to become friends til after Zak's death?

Yeah, Apollo really sided with his mother at the funereal... then again he was pissed at Dad for pushing Zak into flight school.

Real time vs. show time- Wow, I think this is the fastest paced show since 24. I mean it's been 4 episodes now and its been 14 days? At that rate they will hit their 100th episode a year from the Cylon invasion of the 12 colonies.

Not only friends, but quite close. Moreso that he is with Apollo. He called her the daughter he never had. I do believe that they bonded after Zak's death which in part had to do with their individual grief and guilt.

And next week...YEAH, Adama tell Apollo to go get back their girl.

Very good episode. I loved the little snap push-in on Apollo's face when he realized he'd said too much to Adama.

I appreciate getting to watch Starbuck and Apollo learning (hard) how to be adults/leaders.

Another thing...I really like how even after I knew what was going to happen after Lee inadvertently let "it" slip, it was still gripping and interesting, and I wanted to see how it happened. Incredibly well-done. My god, this show is a tense ride.

Everyone's talking about the acting and the plot. I can't even comment on that, much though I loved it, because my jaw is *still* dropped over the fight scene. Did I miss this in the miniseries? Was I not watching properly? They actually fly in three dimensions! OMIGAWD! I honestly cannae say how much this awed me.

Yes, it's a silly little detail, but... wow. I think I'm going to watch that scene again in 15 minutes or so.

Ulyyf, I think they did take that approach to the combat in the miniseries. But ironically, it may not have been as noticeable because the fights were larger scale. You didn't spend as much time focusing on one fighter to see what kind of maneuvers it would do. (Some nifty dodging of the missile targeting Colonial One from Apollo got cut for time, but the pre-visualization sequence is among the deleted scenes on the mini DVD.)

That makes sense. I think I'm going to just have to get the DVD and watch it all in slow motion. I loved this. I was just.... I can't talk anymore, I'll turn into a geeky squeeing fangirl. I mean, more so than I already am.

Well, at least we know why they didn't bother with making a new Athena :)

Seriously, this was kick ass. I'm thinking that Adama was having some momentary rage and would have gotten over it even without his girl disappearing.

Oh wow...I frakin' loved this ep. It was awesome even without the cool-arse fight scene at the end. The Thrace/Adama scene had me teared up--just the way Olmos slowly let the realization show *wow* . I so wanted to give Starbuck a hug after that. I've usually found sci-fi shows lag in their less action-oriented episodes, but not so here...the acting is just *that* good that you actually care about the characters.

And chuckles ? seriously the best callsign ever.

Can't.wait.for.Friday....

Wow, I mean just Wow. Thats gets an A+ from me. Mostly because of the masterful acting by EJO and KS. That scene was just riveting to watch. Just as good however was the tense opening scene and the amazing amazing battle scenes at the end. I love the way they handle the fights in such a realistic way (well it seems more realistic).

And To Be Continued too. ARGH!

I just love this show.



This has become a real problem for me but I finally realized its best to watch Monk then catch the rerun of the scifi stuff. I'm glad I did that because this was one of the best episodes of Monk as well.

Dude. Duuuuude. That was sweet. I'm glad I decided to watch this instead of Monk today.

Did anyone think Adama would start shouting, "You killed my son, Thrace! I'll never forgive you! You're a dead woman!" But seriously, that was a great scene - you could see Adama just fuming, about to explode, and then he quietly says, "Walk out of here while you still can."

It was kind of confusing, having flashbacks within flashbacks - at first, I thought Flattop was Zak, but then I realized my mistake with the funerals scene.

I hope Strega reuses the term "playing chess" with the Starbuck/Zak sex scene.

Correction of nit: modern aircraft carriers have a much longer radar range than that of the fighters they carry. It's not unreasonable to think that the cadets were flying at the edge of the radar range of the Galactica, and Starbuck et al picked up the bogeys around the same time that the LR radar did. It looked like from the scans that the cylons didn't exactly sneak around - they were picked up right on the edge of their cool radar-thingys.

I don't think I dug this quite as much as the last ep throughout the thing - the flashbacks were somewhat annoying in how they were formatted - but some of the scenes, such as Adama and Starbuck made up for it in spades. The final sequence of combat once again made me drool for more FX shots. I appreciated that they didn't really shoehorn in every single person into the plot and give them all stuff that was out of character or otherwise pointless; as someone else pointed out on another board, Baltar didn't do a flashback because he didn't really need to this time. Even when this show doesn't fire on all cylinders, it's still engrossing enough that I want to see it again.

It's still astounding to me how much these people 'get it'. This is not a sci-fi show; it's a very good drama set in a space setting with a great couple of hooks, but the hooks aren't nearly as important to the show as the character interaction.

Yeah, count me in on the addiction train. This is definitely the show I'm consistenly most excited to see each week.

ETA:alliterator, hee! That would be worth it if later Thrace got to threaten Baltar by taking away his bucket.

Word, Mnemosyne!

Man, Katee Sackhoff acted the shit out of this episode. I stopped loathing Starbuck; instead, I finally found her kind of intriguing. Kudos to her for doing so much to redeem the character for me. And I loved Lee's moment of sternness (no really, I don't get turned on by the potential for violence...really, I promise!)--and of course the scene between Starbuck and Adama. I'd always kind of imagined that he already knew, so that reveal made for some excellent tension.

I'm totally fascinated by the pacing of this show. Sometimes I feel like it's moving soooo slowly--then suddenly I'm totally tense and invested. I guess that means they're doing an excellent job building and easing dramatic tension?

After all that excellence, I have to admit that the last 6 minutes were kind of a letdown, what with the 10% dialing up of the cheese as Hotdog (and nice with the Top Gun shot of him playing with his pen at the briefing) came to help out... I'm not sure where else the episode might have gone, but I would have liked a less well-worn scenario.

Finally, I noticed the tradition of tapping that photo in the briefing room again. Have we narrowed it down any further from "something symbolic"?

My poor head could've done without that rain of anvils when Adama asked Starbuck to train the nuggets.

"Zak's death couldn't have been your fault! After all, he passed all of his filght exams! You did your duty and have no reason to feel guilty!"

"Gosh, I'm sure you'll do just fine! After all, you've never gotten too attached and let someone pass when they weren't ready!"

Ouch.

It felt like they had written too much for the episode and made it a two-parter, stretching this out with repeated bits rather than cutting it down to fit one show. At least the dogfight kicked ass. Even when I don't like the episode , the Viper battles will keep me in my seat.

Holy frak. I was almost crying less than 15 minutes in. Even EJO taps the photo! Sniffle. They did such a spectacular job of showing that the minute they let their guard down, something terrible can happen, and they can't afford to be losing warm pilot-capable bodies. It creates great ongoing tension.

As sad as it is to say goodbye to Flat Top and his right hand that never gets a headache, it was a canny choice to make him one of the ones who get taken out, since we've been introduced, had a few chuckles (heh) at his expense, and started to develop some interest in exploring his character further.

The inevitable confrontation between Adama and Starbuck exceeded expectations, and I think it cemented my like of the preview-blipverts in the opening credits. Rather than being spoiled (I'd already seen Starbuck crying, EJO telling her to get out while she still can, etc.), it in no way diminished the impact of that scene for me. Partly, it was the stellar buildup of emotion, and the way the cameras allowed us to watch Starbuck crumble and Adama grow his righteous fury in close-up, but from the second she walked in, I was hugging my knees and cringing, and it still made my heart ache.

ETA: The credits listed Hotdog as being played by Eddie Olmos-- EJO's son? Aw. Neat.

Ooh, another bit of appreciation that I've not been able to do since, well, B5. I loved that Apollo still had bruises and scrapes from the prison riot. I loved that Flattop was the one that bought it. I loved the scene of empty chairs in the ready room, without any sad music playing - just the shot. I loved that they were still savoring water as 'celebratory drinks'.

I love the little bits of continuity here and there. Nothing huge, nothing in your face. It didn't even need to be there, and a new viewer would have been reasonably okay without 'em. They weren't required, since we had no idea how much time had elapsed between this ep and the last one and it wasn't 'immediately afterwards'. It was just a bone thrown to the fans, and I really love that.

This is the first episode of the series that I've been truely been able to watch and I thought it was top-notch from opening to end credits.

This episode hit emotional highs and lows. I really liked the celebration scene for Flattop's 1,000th landing only to see him and his comrades brought down.

Some things on the back of my mind -- was it really a wore buckle responsible for decimating the surviving Viper crew? Especially after Tyrol says that he's never had a fatality on his flight deck before. I haven't seen futher episodes or been spoiled, but I think something's afoot given the mischief that the Cylons have reeked on the BSG crew so far.

Although this isn't an SFX heavy series, the ones on tonight's episode were really top-notch. I especially liked the battle sequence at the end of the episode.

Another high and low were Starbuck's interaction with Cmdr. Adama. Wow. From their comraderie and common sorrow over the loss of Zak to the bitter coldness from Adama when he realizes that Starbuck played a role in his death. The actors were at the top of their game in the scenes and I sympathized with both characters.

At the same time, I thought the sub-plot with Starbuck's interaction with the nuggets seemed paint-by-numbers. We knew she would be overly strict with them because of her regret over Zak's death.

BTW, I think they're called nuggets because they're not yet golden or haven't been pressed into diamonds. Either that or they're nuggets one might find in a baby's diaper. I don't know. I did like the nuggets brief on-screen appearance. There was enough material there without going totally overboard.

Other plots. The brief scene we had on Caprica seemed like it was only a reminder that they were still there. I think the doctor was being short with "Madam President" because he's military -- he doesn't believe in the hollistic hooey.

Notice we didn't see Baltar or his Six in this episode. I hate to say it, but I think their absence helped.

Still great episode. Although I think a "To be continued" is a little silly in a series so serialized, next week looks to be another kick-ass time aboard the Battlestar Galactica.

I couldn't believe this episode went so fast. Wow. The first time I looked to check the time, it was 44 minutes into the hour. Time flies when you're watching good television.

Kalbear, another possibility is that the Cylons were still outside of BSG's sensor range (is it really radar?) but BSG and her Viper/Raptor squadrons can pass targeting information to each other, like modern day military aircraft can.

Did it seem odd to anyone else that for a human society that's discovered FTL travel and created sentient AI, the only two treatments for metastasized cancer are still radiation and chemo? You'd think that they could specifically target cancer treatments to specific genetic markers of the cancer cells, at least. Or maybe something about the Lords of Kobol religion forbids highly advanced medicine/biomedical research. *cough*stem cells*cough*

Starbuck, Adama, and Apollo all need a big group hug. And a few rounds of Kumbaiyah. And maybe a few years of therapy.

Poor Helo. If only he could look up, and see that he's just a human trapped in a laboratory maze run by Cylons.

For advanced AI, the Cylon Raiders sure seem to suck at combat maneuvers. Their favorite and only tactic seems to be flying straight at the enemy while filling as much space with fire as possible.

I can't remember where I read it, but somewhere around here the cancer question came up recently. Somebody remarked that, even given everything we know today about how cells work, cancer is still a complete mystery. We know exactly how cancer works, down to the level of proteins and whatnot, but we have no idea why it happens.

There are two possible suspensions of disbelief. If the character had had some mysterious space disease nobody had ever heard of, we'd all have to suspend disbelief in order to accept that. Every time the question came up, we'd think, "Oh, yeah, the mysterious space disease that nobody's ever heard of." So that would be one thing. On the other hand, if she has cancer, then if you're into the science-fiction thing and you kinda squint, you can definitely raise the question of whether it's plausible that cancer would be a death sentence in a culture like that one. Either way, there's a suspension of disbelief involved. Reasonable people can differ. I think that the path Moore chose is a lesser suspension of disbelief than the other thing.

Finally, writers often like to think of words as being kind of like bombs. They carry an emotional payload. If I were to say "Porellian space fever," there'd probably be no emotional reaction at all. Maybe a little off of "fever," but hardly a big thing. But when somebody says "cancer" … well, who doesn't know someone who's either survived or succumbed to cancer? No exposition is necessary. We all know what cancer means, what the treatment is like, what the prognosis is. And we all have a built-in emotional response just to the word itself.

On that level, I really respect Moore's choice to give Roslin cancer instead of some random, made-up disease. It shows a real economy of language. He communicates a lot with just one word. I dig that very much.

Yowza. As the episode carried on, I found myself thinking 'this one's a little slow.' Then before I knew it, Adama metaphorically pistol-whips his virtual daughter and I just lost it. I had to take out my contacts. Then there's a big space battle--the "hand-held cameras" in space are totally cool, love that effect. Then a TBC... as Starbuck falls. Man, this show rocks. I just give it major props.

Tyrol being all cranky at the beginning was great--more subtle continuity because the boy's not getting any. And I hate to say it, but I don't miss Boomer when she's not around much, because Grace Park is the acting weak link on this show. She's not horrible, she's just not up to par.

And compared to EJ Olmos, no one can act. That craggy face is an awesome instrument of barely discernible changes of emotion. Without moving more than a tiny muscle, he can radiate emotion. He's stunning. That scene with Thrace--just stunning.

My only quibble is just, I dunno, I wish Starbuck being troubled had manifested itself more slowy, in more subtle ways. I really thought she was going to start acting self-destructive for awhile, like with too much drinking, gambling, random sex. To have her freak out only while training the recruits was a bit blunt. But hey. Minor quibble. What they did do was just... bravo!

I was not thrilled with the doctor--character that's been done to death. But Pres. Roslyn might have a miracle cure. I hope so--she needs to stick around. Mary McDonnell can hold her own with Bamber and Olmos, and that's not easy.

They repeat Monk on USA also, but even if not, I would have no conflict whatsoever. BG is my new favorite show.

I liked the irony that the reason Starbuck mentioned passing Zak to Apollo in the first place was because he was blaming his father for Zak's death by pushing him to be a pilot; she was trying to mend fences and well, Apollo's just a tad behind the power curve in doing the same for her.

I was so affected by this episode I had to watch it twice. I'm totally in love with this show now.

Hotdog was EJO's son? Interesting. He did pretty good. Wonder if his father pushed him to be an actor and his Acting Coach passed him while knowing he didn't have a feel for it...okay, nevermind. I just thought it was cool that they had two latinos, along with the asian guy, as minor characters. Two = not a token, IMO.

Dualla, however, needs to stop being so redundant. "Starbuck's wireless went out." Yes, we all heard that just 15 seconds ago.

I take back my earlier criticism of Starbuck's characterization. All is forgiven.

I don't think I've said "Aw CRAP!" so many times in one sitting, at least while watching a television show. I had both hands to the sides of my face during the final Thrace/Adama scene, watching the wailing rant build behind his face, waiting for tears to breach his stoicism. Damn near cried myself. I did have a small case of hysterical titters when Lee let the cat out of the bag in the earlier scene; I half expected him to have a John Cleese moment: "Hmm? What?"

Adama: "Captain..." Lee: "Dad! You'll have to ask her yourself!" I thought this was quite a powerful way for Lee to illustrate that the matter in question was a personal one, not one between soldiers. Great stuff.

And yeah, those flippy ships!