SEASON PREMIERE: HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME….

Adama: "What should I believe? Should I believe my heart or my eyes?"

Don’t you love it when something is over and you spend half an hour discussing it afterward? I have really missed this show.

Changes and identity crises. The Four were having a real problem accepting their Cylon-ness. Especially Tigh, who spent forty years in the fleet and killed his own wife because she was a collaborator. These aren’t run-of-the-mill humans, after all: the three guys were the resistance leaders on New Caprica, and Tory is the president’s aide. How can they change the habits and loyalties of a lifetime at the flip of a biological switch?

What are the odds that the Final Five would survive the destruction of the Colonies and end up on the same battlestar by chance? Zillions to one. It had to be intentional. If the Seven can sense the other Five, even if they’re programmed not to think about them as Caprica Six said, that would explain why the Galactica survived. Because Galactica was supposed to survive. Galactica is supposed to find Earth for the Cylons. So why were the Cylons attacking in the first place? I’m so confused.

I’ve been theorizing that the maelstrom Eye of Jupiter thingy that Starbuck fell into was a wormhole to Earth. That would explain her disappearance and the time discrepancy. But what about the bizarre condition of Starbuck’s viper? Could a wormhole explain that? Maybe the Eye of Jupiter is the red Cylon eye. Anders made "eye contact" with the Cylon Raider; his blue eye turning red could have been the Eye of Jupiter, too. Did Anders, without realizing it, instruct the Cylons to break off the battle? It sure looked like he did.

It would make sense for Starbuck to be the fifth Cylon, since she was away when the Four were "activated." But I just have a really hard time with the idea of Starbuck as a Cylon. Dan thinks that the final Cylon might be an older woman, mostly because of balance, since there are seven males and only four females, all of whom are young. Roslin is older. The opera house stuff suggested that Roslin, Athena, Six and Hera (and possibly Gaius, too) were "projecting" together, too. Yes, Roslin has cancer, but didn’t Anders have pneumonia?

Tonight, the role of Jesus Christ was played by Gaius Baltar, who even looked the part. (Except I thought for a moment that he had acquired a harem, not disciples.) Did Gaius heal the child? Actually, it appeared that Harvey Six healed the child because of Gaius’ bout of unselfishness. Maybe the Harveys are manifestations of the final Cylon. Maybe the final Cylon is the Cylon God. We create our own gods, after all. What with the miracle healing and all, it certainly looked as if Gaius had a conversion and will try to bring the Colonials to the One True Cylon God. If Gaius is Jesus, that would probably make Starbuck Moses, leading the Colonials to the promised land.

The episode began with Tigh imagining himself shooting Adama (a deliberate echo of what Boomer did in season one) and ended with Starbuck pulling a gun on Laura Roslin. Although I don’t think Starbuck plans to shoot her. I think Starbuck just wants to get the Fleet to Earth. Each jump is taking Starbuck further away from her certainty that she can find Earth again. But if Starbuck is supposedly going to lead them to their end, not listening to Starbuck is a good thing. I think.

Ah, well. I have no idea what’s going on. But I’m looking forward to *finally* finding out at the end of this season. And it had better make sense, Ron Moore. Do you hear me?

Bits and pieces:

– This week’s survivor number: 39,698. Under 40,000 now. The last number, given in "The Son Also Rises," was 41,399. Which means 1,701 died in the opening battle. Or 1,702, if you count Starbuck’s return.

– The credits and the cast were the same, with Michael Trucco moving from guest star to post-credit cast. The saga sell was totally different, though. "Twelve Cylons. Seven are known. Four live in secret. One will be revealed."

– Terrific opening battle scene that certainly started the season off with a bang. I actually got upset about that fleet ship blowing up.

– Lee got a job offer but we don’t know what yet. It’ll be strange to see him permanently out of uniform.

– Roslin was staying in Adama’s quarters. Because of her treatments. A likely story. Surely they could find the president of the colonies her own guest quarters.

– Starbuck said that she’d kill Anders if she found out he was a Cylon. Well, that marriage was over, anyway.

– One scene showed Adama, Roslin and Lee in an inner circle, talking about Starbuck being a Cylon, with Tory, Tigh and Tyrol in an outer circle surrounding them and watching them. I thought this was interesting symbolism.

– Starbuck’s viper was shiny and new, even white, and its nav was blanked out. Did the viper go back in time to when it was created? Maybe that’s how they could revitalize the fleet: pop the old ships into the maelstrom, and two months later, voila. I’m kidding.

– Gaius was again led by his libido into a new phase of his very strange life. The delightfully tacky Baltar altar looked a bit like a Christmas tree. The storage area they took him to was "3-30-3A Dry Storage." Maybe the threes were a little reference to the trinity.

– In this season’s hair report, Starbuck’s was longer, which jived with her "two month" absence… except it was only six hours for her. And Gaius finally got rid of all of his excess fur, and looked a lot better. He probably acquired a serious scar, too, from his latest assassination attempt.

– No bonus scene. Let’s hope that ship has finally sailed.

– "He That Believeth in Me." He who? Me who?

Quotes:

Tigh: "They had us. Game over. Why the hell did they let us go?"
Tory: "Maybe something’s changed."
You think?

Starbuck: "I remember a giant gas planet with rings. I remember a flashing triple star and a comet. And then I was back with the Fleet." Gas planet with rings? Saturn? Haley’s comet? I don’t have anything for the flashing triple star, though. [I got a few letters suggesting it could be Orion’s belt, Polaris, Alpha Centauri.]

Redhead: "Gaius! Are you all right?"
Gaius: "I cut myself shaving."

Anders: "If you’re a Cylon, then you’ve been one from the beginning." This was said several times. Meaning it’s not recent brainwashing, and they’re not replacements. The Four have always been Cylons.

The reader poll overwhelmingly went for four out of four stars,

SIX OF ONE:

 

Six: "Something extraordinary has happened. Something is calling to us."

This episode was so engrossing and went by so fast that it felt like it was ten minutes long.

Number Six just started a Cylon civil war. Was it really about the Raiders (which felt a bit like animal rights to me) or was it inevitable that Six and Sharon would break away? It made sense that Sharon would back her up, but I also liked that, of the rest of the models, the third revolutionary was Leoben. I think he’s the most interesting of the male Cylons. (Possibly because he’s obsessed with Starbuck.) Are the three of them breaking free of their programming, or fulfilling it? And why did the Sharons split? What next? Will the three males get boxed? Will Six bring back D’Anna? I bet the mystical D’Anna would be on board with all this, so maybe they will.

The title of this episode had my mind going in so many directions. Number Six becoming number one, the leader. The expression "Six of one, half dozen of the other", which was a fun reference to the split of the twelve Cylon models. We finally learned the remaining numbers, so here are all of them: Cavil one, Leoben two, D’Anna three, Simon four, Doral five, Six six, Sharon… eight. Why is Six always called Six? Cavil is always Cavil, Leoben is always Leoben, Sharon is always Sharon when she isn’t Boomer or Athena, but Six is usually referred to by her number. And she’s the only one who changes her hair. Six is different. And why do the numbers skip from six to eight, from Six to Sharon? Which of the Final Five is number seven? Six and Seven are the center. And maybe not just numerically.

Starbuck’s imprisonment upset me, but I still don’t know what to think about her certainty that she knows the way. The stakes are so freaking (frakking) high that I wouldn’t have believed it if Adama had turned the fleet around to follow Starbuck’s lead. Giving her Helo and a garbage scow (okay, a poop ship) and letting them go try to find Earth was pretty much the perfect solution. I wish she’d gone with Lee, instead.

Tory just went undercover to pump Gaius about the identity of the Final Cylon. (Two puns in a single sentence.) Why did she cry? That was just weird. I find Tory the hardest of the Four to read, probably because we’ve known the other three a lot longer and better. Why did Gaius talk about God and music? That was an interesting coincidence, if it was indeed a coincidence. And why did Baltar just get assigned a new Harvey — himself — when he was talking to a Cylon? There *must* be a reason.

Lee’s huge, touching farewell party with practically all of the continuing characters in the series was almost an afterthought. It seemed odd that it followed what looked like a big strip poker tournament. I guess emotionally, everyone was stripped bare. Hey, I can assign symbolism to just about anything.

Bits and pieces:

– This week’s survivor number: 39,676, two less than last week.

– Did Roslin miss Starbuck because Roslin is very sick, or did Starbuck get some divine protection? If Starbuck really does know the way, and Roslin is the Final Cylon, maybe Roslin’s programming kicked in. Sort of a reverse of Sharon and Adama in season one.

– Number Six’s name is a tribute to the lead character in the classic sci-fi series, The Prisoner. Number Six in The Prisoner also revolted against the mysterious Number One. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner

– Starbuck spent time in the brig, just like the rest of the cast. Gold acting stars for Katee Sackhoff again. She was over-the-top desperate, furious and suicidal and I absolutely believed it. What an outstanding actress she is.

– Lots of couple interaction: Adama and Roslin, Tory and Gaius, Lee and Dualla. Dan thought that Lee/Kara love scene in the brig was the two of them saying goodbye forever. I didn’t feel quite as final about it, but it did have a heavy emotional zing.

– Laura Roslin started losing her hair. She has such beautiful hair. Such a shame.

– This week’s Most Obvious Symbolism was again the statue of Athena on the prow of Adama’s model ship representing Starbuck leading the way to Earth. It was also interesting that Roslin’s shot shattered a photo of herself with Adama.

Quotes:

Hybrid: "Transformation is the goal. They will not harm their own." She said a lot of other interesting things about the Final Five that I probably missed because there was no close captioning again.

Six: "The Hybrid is clearly telling us something."
Cavil: "The Hybrid is always telling us something. They’re supposed to maintain operations on each ship, not vomit metaphysics."

Six: "No one has ever voted against their model." Why did the Sharons split? Will Six and Leoben have to take some of them out, too?

Roslin: "Grab your piece of the golden arrow. I want to hear Admiral Atheist say that a miracle happened."

Roslin: "Diloxin fraks up your aim."
Adama: "So does doubt."

Roslin: "You want to believe Kara. You would rather be wrong about her and face your own demise than risk losing her again."
Adama: "You can stay in the room, but get out of my head."
What an outstanding scene this was. They give a whole new twist to the term ‘power couple’.

Outstanding episode. Vote for your rating below!

BY BILLIE DOUX - Billiedoux.com