Galactica, season 4

FOUR-STAR EPISODES: 2
AVERAGE EPISODE RATING: 2.7
-He That Believeth in Me ***
Baltar's cult of nubile supplicants is a nice touch. The starbuck resurrection almost works, as does lee's resignation as a pilot...but "almost" is a bit painful in this context. She returns in a factory-showroom viper, looking pristine herself...am i the only one who thinks to check for her old surgery scars? Gripping action sequences. They dropped the ball in editing, taking out an athena/kara and kara/anders scene that would have restored some coherence.
-Six of One ***
Why is a naked boomer so much...fun? Roslin's aide tory (rekha sharma - DARK ANGEL, ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM) cries when she has sex, and it's the first time i've been genuinely glad to have her around. Laura attempts to kill the starbuck-ghost...why is no one else acting so sanely? Lee's military send-off feels overdone, and his farewell to dee underdone. Boomer's breaking of the cylon council deadlock feels contrived; it might have been more realistic to go against the 8s in the other direction. The beginnings of a cylon civil war are fantastic.
-The Ties That Bind ****
Galactica is back! Galactica is BACK!!! Or that's what i was saying to myself, as cally walks her baby into the airlock. For most of season three, the show felt lost, but suddenly...i was shouting "No! No! NO! Yes! NO!!!". Cally had just found out that the father of her child is a cylon. Does she get sentimental and uncertain? Yup...then she clubs him insensate with a WRENCH! Thank you, cal. There are more off moments than one might expect from a four-star episode, but boomer snogging cavill plus base star fleets tearing into one another, put this one over the top. Starbuck-ghost's Demetrius mission is tedious, but it's been a long time since you had me on the edge of my seat, BSG. And can someone please order a cylon test on laura and cally, because their teeth look INHUMANLY WHITE this season?
-Escape Velocity ***
In a season in which the chief finds out he's not human, he gives the most rawly human speech of anyone, on how life is about not ending up with the people we most want to be with. Olmos and mcdonnell could make an ingredient list great goddamned drama.
-The Road Less Traveled **
The Demetrius mission still holds no water, and the mystical babble back at the fleet threatens to swallow the show (again). There's a deleted helo/athena scene that ought not have been.
-Faith **
A gripping, albeit convoluted mutiny on the Demetrius! Plus nana visitor (STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, TED 2)! A fine turn (the only BSG ever by a TREK regular) swallowed up by a tedious character in a mawkish, mumbo jumbo plot. They find the remains of the cylon renegade fleet, with the 6s, sharons, and leobens who want to form an alliance with the humans. Anders has an unprecedented great moment, when he tries to slide his hand into the cylon water data stream, his cylon identity unknown to all.
-Guess What's Coming to Dinner **
Gaeta loses a leg, apollo's elected to the Quorum, humans and cylons in a tenuous truce plot betrayal...zzzzzzzzzzz. Perhaps the most inoffensive two-star effort of the series, but are we to applaud a lack of anything patently wrong? The writers, time and again, put the characters in situations where their responses don't quite ring true. A nice 1.29-second appearance by dee. Oh yeah, athena kills a 6, but i'm giving up the ghost, because i'm not entirely sure which 6. If athena can kill one character per episode, by the finale we'll be left with a buddy comedy starring her and her trusty centurion, entitled "Naked Boomer and Sparky Ride a Tandem Bike"...which, frankly, would be fine.
-Sine Qua Non **
Adama abandons his post to wait for laura, and lee agonizes over whom to pick as the replacement President. Let's bring lawyer lampkin back. Why? Who knows. What's your poison, a plotline that's contrived, or foregone? When romo threatens to kill lee, we get both. Ah well, at least caprica 6, in the brig, is pregnant. And the father is...tigh?
-The Hub **
Aaaaaah! Elosha's back! Nooooooooooooo! She's faffing on a ferry of folderol. Adama and laura finally declare their love...zzzzzzzz. Baltar is shot...will laura save or kill him? Can she kill us instead? This one is so vapid, it's only by a miracle of high-octane action (in the form of a battle in which the cylon resurrection "hub" is destroyed) that one-star land is skirted.
-Revelations **
Gonna be a standoff! They find Earth! Four of the five final cylons are outed (tigh, tory, anders, and the chief), and the renegade cylons threaten a nuke strike unless they are handed over. Adama is incapacitated with grief (?). Lee plays hardball as president...but everybody makes nice, and they all go to Earth. The fleet-wide scenes of joy and relief are one whopper of a masturbatory montage. Why is this turd a floater, not a sinker? The revelation that Earth is a nuclear wasteland. Damn right, ronald moore. In a season of crap, you found the chewy golden center. If the entire series had built to this point, without the mumbo jumbo that doomed it, this could have been one of the most powerful series finales ever.
-Sometimes a Great Notion ***
Starbuck-ghost finds starbuck's remains in a cockpit on Earth...zzzzzz. The two-thousand year old remains of the earthlings turn out to be...cylon! Never mind that they weren't invented before the current century. It's time to cowboy up, so...adama gets weepy-wooey and suicidal. Roslin burns the scriptures ('bout fucking time!). What elevates this one is a huge helping of dee-light. She and apollo have a date. They kiss. She returns to her quarters, still glowing...as she kills herself. *&^%ing *&^%ity *&^%ers! There had better be some high-level justification coming, or someone's getting a *&^%ing letter. The fifth cylon is the long-dead ellen..zzzz.
-A Disquiet Follows My Soul (extended) ***
An appropriate title for season four. Roslin can't face her job, nor her cancer treatments. The fleet is offered advanced FTL technology from the renegade cylons, in exchange for citizenship. The chief finds out that cally's baby isn't his. An anti-cylon movement is founded by zarek and gaeta. An otherwise average episode is elevated by not even one hint of mumbo jumbo.
-The Oath ***
Early-season worthy...if the human touches had rung just a bit more true, four stars was reachable. With roslin in seclusion and adama telling the Quorum to stick their reservations about a cylon alliance up their collective ass, full-scale mutiny erupts, spearheaded by zarek and gaeta (as much as i love our heroes, i might find myself on the anti-cylon side). Ex-Pegasus chief laird is the first victim, and the body count is on. Gaeta takes over the CIC. Apollo and starbuck-ghost fight side by side. Adama and tigh are taken, then escape, then get grenaded. Nasty. The idea of a civil war fought over an uncomfortable alliance with a bitter enemy is another gem that gets lost in a failed season.
-Blood on the Scales ***
Adama is alive, and put through a kangaroo trial. Zarek massacres the Quorum. The mutiny fractures, as roslin stands firm aboard the base ship. Zarek and gaeta are killed by firing squad.
-No Exit **
A stirring recap of the entire series mythology gets this one going, and anders' brain death ends it (don't celebrate, it probably won't stick). There's mumbo jumbo, and a curious drama between cavil, boomer, and ellen. Adama reinstates the chief, who tells him that cylon organic metal is the only thing that can save Galactica's bulwarks. Adama says never. Then yes.
-Deadlock **
Sigh. Put the Galactica-is-back vuvuzelas away. Boomer brings ellen back to the fleet, who then gets into pissyfights with the other cylons. Caprica 6 miscarries sol's baby.
-Someone to Watch Over Me ***
This episode makes me almost care about starbuck-ghost. More compelling is the reuniting of boomer and the chief. She's never stopped living in the projection of their dream home, and he's never let go of the greatest love of his life. A wonderful episode falls apart when he frees her...but passes on a chance to go with her. In order to escape, she pretends to be athena. Helo interrupts her while she's dressing, offering a quickie. Not wanting to alarm him, she accepts. Athena, bound and gagged in a closet, views the fucking. It's upsetting, it's sexy, it's what BSG should be. Do NOT miss the deleted post-coital scene.
-Islanded in a Stream of Stars **
Baltar reveals that the original starbuck died. Boomer brings a kidnapped hera back to cavill. Adama gives the order to abandon the beyond-repair Galactica. It's not soporific, but praise doesn't get much feebler than that. I can't even muster much giddiness over getting to see starbuck crap.
-Daybreak (extended) ***
A weary franchise gamely brings it home. Considering the mumbo jumbo and contrivance of the last two seasons, that's no tiny feat. Pre-holocaust flashbacks meld with Galactica's final mission, a rescue of hera in the heart of the cylon empire - it's so grand and adrenalized (a defending force of classic centurions!), that it almost rises above. The chief kills tory when he discovers that she killed cally. Caprica 6 reconciles in love with baltar, when he finally makes a selfless gesture. The visuals are great, they don't give in entirely to sentimentality, and it very nearly works. At the end, they destroy their fleet, to disperse onto a planet with pre-industrial humans (a pristine "alter Earth"...just go with it). There's a great deleted kara/zack scene. They bring back cally too, but no dee?? Adama (dying laura) and lee (disappearing starbuck-ghost) are both going to be alone, but say sayonara to each other anyway? Really? Okay, i guess.
-THE PLAN ****
It took a post-series telemovie to crystallize how the mysticism of the final seasons crippled this series. This is NOT my anti-divine bias having a tantrum because someone might have a differing point of view. This movie, about the handful of cylons living within the fleet, ironically brings back what BSG had lost: its humanity. The cylons struggle with love, self-doubt, betrayal and a million other human conditions. When one of the series' main characters is a resurrected ghost, and everyone is a pawn in some divine hybrid revelation, you've dehumanized the affair. But here, humanity (in all its glory and stupidity) is restored. The poignance might make your chest tight. Not enough? It's also pulse-pounding, literally. The visuals are the most ambitious and awe-inspiring of any BSG, and the way the story interweaves with events and footage from the entire series, illuminating many of the more inscrutable moments, is meticulously stunning. And in one way, it even tops BSG's best: for all the previous grittiness, we never before saw literal human nakedness. It also benefits from a pounding, darker version of the theme music, which had long since become faintly annoying due to its resemblance to a rather unfortunate sting tune. The actions of the cylons, who never could have imagined they'd be trapped within a human fleet, are given depth and resonance. Cavil is megalomaniacally relentless...boomer's tortured conflict shines...a simon commits suicide over love for his human wife...and more. Worthy, helfer, stockwell, and lymari nadal (AMERICAN GANGSTER, AMERICA) shine. Edward james olmos directed, giving BSG the finale it richly deserved.