You Know, Gaius, I Had This Wacky Dream ~ Battlestar Friday 01.20.06 Followup.

I have thought long and hard about the Epiphanies episode over the weekend. On Saturday, I talked at length about it with my good friend, Larry. We both agreed that apart from the acting (which is always very good to fracking fantastic) this was the worst written episode of the series. No more word processor for writer Joel Anderson Thompson, the hack! What’s he written before this episode of BSG? Looks like one episode of “House, M.D.” and for a TV show I have never heard of called, “Boomtown”.

Here’s why this episode is bad.

Total spoilers ahead. You have been warned.

Miracle cure!! That really fried me! I guess Ron Moore forgot his earlier statements that he’s breaking away from mold of what TV SciFi has become with all its techno and bio-babble and easy answers. Sorry guys, the miracle cure was a total cop out. How about just a new kind of treatment that no one knows if it’s going to work or not? That would have worked and been believable.

Roslin and President Adar having a secret love affair. Scifi cliché one was the miracle cure, now we get TV drama cliché number one, the love affair with the person in power. Frack that!

Roslin frees the "leader" of peace-nik movement? WTFrack? It’s been shown in the past that the crew of the Galactica doesn’t make deals. They brutally interrogate and even beat up and torture prisoners to try and get what they need. Not only does Roslin just let the guy go, they let his baggage go too without so much as a look see in the bags. Oh come on! And of course we find out that he’s not actually the real leader, but merely the voice/puppet of the bat-shit insane Gina Cylon, or as my friend Steve-o calls her, Osama Bin Cylon. She was only gang raped and tortured by the Pegasus crew. She couldn’t possibly be holding any sort of grudge, could she?

Gina and the peace movement are headquartered on the best luxury liner in the fleet, Cloud 9. Only the best for our terrorists! OH, and what happened to the immediate publication of images of known Cylon models? Recall that the fleet has been saturated with photos of Leoben and Aaron Doral. Has this not been done with Gina? Why not? Is there any reason that images of the Gina model aren’t appearing all over the fleet? Oh wait, if they were, then Gina’s “peace” buddies and anyone else who has seen her would know she was a Cylon. We can’t have that ruining the possible plots.

Good Baltar, Bad Baltar. The guy who was the unwitting pawn – and sex toy - of a Cylon agent decides that he will finally turn himself around and be a “beacon of hope!” He even has the ironic line, ““I will not be responsible for the destruction of human race.”
He’s the new savior and he comes up with the miracle cure! Then he reads the letter containing constructive criticism from President Roslin and he says frack the human race and he’s all bad again. This leads me to the second biggest thing that is so wrong with the writing of Epiphanies. The icing on the cake as it were. Baltar gives away the nukular warhead to the bat shit insane Osama Bin Cylon as a sign of his love, dedication and commitment to her. I recall Baltar making it clear that what he really needed was the nukular material itself to make the Cylon detection test work, and not the actual bomb, but it’s apparent that Cmdr. Adama gives him the whole warhead because Baltar is such a trustworthy, reliable and upstanding citizen. Everyone knows Baltar is a nut. He acts suspicious. He's always defensive. He always talks to himself as he roams the halls of Galactica holding his tie up in the air like a noose. Roslin reveals in her letter that she doesn't really trust him, but hey, let’s give the guy a nuke. And given all of that, they let him have the nuke WITH NO SECURITY ON IT WHAT-SO-EVER! No guards for a warhead? No cameras? No sign out sheet to see who’s checked the nuke out for a walk? No one has ever even asked about the nuke in all this time! It seems as if the crew is saying, “warhead, what warhead? Did we give Baltar a warhead? Really? When did that happen? Ohhhh, we did give the nutty professor a nuke! That’s right! Oh, I’m sure it’s safe.”
Next, I have to ask where in the frack was the security that has always been on the door to the lab? We have seen repeatedly that Baltar’s lab is guarded. We’ve seen guards at the door of the lab every time someone comes to the door. So did Baltar just walk out past the guard cradling the nuke (ohh, taking the nuke for a walk again Doctor?), or did Baltar bring the Peace-nik guy into the lab with the huge ass suitcase and then the guard held the door open for the guy? And where in the hell is the baggage check on the flight deck? Here's a little speculation for you and it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a nukular engineer to piece this together. Gina has nuke. Gina hates the Battlestar Pegasus and her crew. Big Badda BOOM! It's apparent that none of the ships in the fleet do a baggage check, so moving a nuke around should be pretty easy.

I wonder what will happen – if anything – when President Roslin gets back to her desk, opens that file folder of known Cylon agents sitting right on top, sees Gina’s photo and makes the connection between the Cylons and Baltar. Will Baltar finally be forced to come clean, or will Roslin just say, “you know, Gaius, I had this wacky dream and you were in it!”

PS, BSG is still my favorite show on TV right now. I am just pretty livid about the drop in the quality of the writing. LIVID!