So Say We All

Finally got around to watching the last couple of Battlestar Galacticas over the last couple of nights.

The episode "Sine Qua Non" seemed to me to be rushed... too many things happening at once, none really given its due. Spoiler: I understand the whole, men fight then bond thing, but would Adama really leave the fleet in Tigh's hands after learning that he had impregnated Six? If this happened over the course of a couple of episodes, then I'd buy it more readily... but this just seemed too quick, too easy, too tidy. It started me to wonder if the producers had started to realize, "oh crap... we need to wrap this up... let's shoehorn this stuff in." Especially given the fact that tomorrow night's episode "Revelations" is the half-season finale (with the second-half-season and series finale given no public date for broadcast [though the series finale--according to Ain't It Cool News--is shooting this week in Vancouver]).

This feeling of the writers letting the show run away from them disappeared completely after watching the latest episode "The Hub." Wow. Very powerful, especially in regard to President Roslin's visions of her own passing. This is the first death on tv or film that got it right. On her deathbed, she had the death-rattle. I actually gasped when I heard it. Lisa even asked if I was OK with this. How could I be? How could I not be? It hurt to see, but it was powerful, very true. I've always respected the show for its ability to use this fictional world as a metaphor for what's going on in the world today (terrorism, suspicion of terrorists amongst us, Iraq, provisional governments, presidents without public mandates, just to name a few)... and just as BSG has gotten it right about life, it seems to have nailed down death pretty well as well. And then the final image of her own demise, the slow shallow no longer rasping breaths fading to nothing. If I hadn't been so locked into the episode and story, I probably would have weeped. And I did get a little misty-eyed at the end when [spoiler alert] Rosin and Adama were reunited. Her "I love you" and his "It's about damn time" fit so well together... sure it had a bit of the Princess Leia and Han Solo thing working, but that's OK, it fit the characters. Did Adama have to say the words to her? No. He's a man of action... the fact he would out there, alone, without his fleet, drifting in space in hope of being reunited with her... those ACTIONS said it all. Great ending.

Then the trailer for this week's half-season finale had that same rushed feel from the previous week's episode... but it's only a trailer, so I guess it could just be the editing. But any fears or misgivings about it disappeared quickly this morning when I read this preview of the show on Ain't It Cool, which called it the biggest episode yet (bigger than the end of season one, when Boomer put two into the chest of Adama, bigger than end of two, when the show jumped forward a year, bigger than the end of three, and the revelation of the "Watchtower" Four)... and if that's true (especially the part about "handprints will be permanently squeezed into sofa arms across America"), then this is going to be VERY VERY cool indeed.



I may have to watch it earlier than live on SciFi.com...it streams every hour tomorrow. I know it's a slight betrayal of Lisa and my never-spoken but always-assumed pact to watch the episodes together... but man, that will be hard to pass up.

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Some quick notes:

Josh Shipp is coming back for his senior season! With he and Collison returning, and the addition of Morgan and the talented band of freshmen... well, let's just say I'm thinking four Final Fours in a row... and could the fourth be the charm? The one that puts us at One Hundred and FOUR National Championships?

Football looks to be a struggle this season... but at least we're moving in the right direction.

Kyle turns fourteen tomorrow.