BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Season 4 Episode 8
“Sine Qua Non”
Written by Michael Taylor
Directed by Rod Hardy
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

Twelve Cylon models
Seven are known
Four live in secret
One will be revealed

“Because I can’t live without her…”
Aww, man, ol’ Rockface just slays me…
By the gods, if the rest of this season continues to get harder and harder to sit through, I’ll end up a quivering, blubbering, whiny puddle of emotional jello by the time the last R&D closer airs.

So the entire episode passes without us knowing what happened to the base ship after its jump, and more to the point, what happened to Roslin, Baltar, and a whole bunch of Galactica pilots, including Helo.
Meanwhile, chaos and panic ripples throughout the Fleet, with Zarek poised to take over the Presidency. A whole lot of other bits take place in this installment, so let’s take ‘em all on, one bit at a time.


Natalie’s rushed to Doc Cottle, but she expires, while having glimpses of some other, forest-y place…
Athena’s arrested, and there’s a really scary scene with Adama, as he fumes and angrily reminds her that she’s betrayed his trust. He then has her thrown in the brig, and later on, mindful of her claim that the Cylons want to take Hera away from her, has Hera sent to the brig as well, so Athena can be with her. (Not sure that thrilled Hera, though; Daddy gets taken away by a jumpy Hybrid, and I get to roost in jail with murderer Mummy. Oh, the joys of childhood.)
What I don’t get though, is why Athena just doesn’t talk to Caprica about her fears regarding Hera. At least that way, she can figure out whether she’s right about that feeling or not.
Of course, it does seem like Caprica may be the very particular Six that wants to take Hera away from her mum, so maybe Athena should just stay as far away from Caprica as Cylon-ly possible. But now that they’re both in the brig…


And speaking of Caprica Six, to try and find out where the base ship jumped to, Adama has Tigh visit her, a subplot that eventually leads to the reveal that, gasp! Caprica’s preggers! With Tigh’s baby!
Okay, I certainly didn’t see that coming. I honestly thought Tigh’s private time with Caprica was largely chatty therapy as he grappled with the whole, “Frak, I’m a toaster!” thing. Turns out Tigh was doing the nasty often enough to put a little, heh, toaster in the oven…
And doesn’t this also present a new evolutionary development as well? Hera (and Nicky) being the half-human/half-Cylon hybrid, and this baby being, what? A new kind of Cylon?
Anyway, Adama’s really ticked off about this development, and the two friends get into some nasty fisticuffs that demolishes (yet again) Adama’s model ship.
The two make peace later on though…


We are treated to some tantalizing hints as to the fates of Roslin and the missing base ship, when a damaged ship jumps back to the Fleet’s coordinates. The pilot (Pike) is dead, but they trace back the ship’s origin point, where they find the debris of a lot of Vipers, and a base ship.
So while some conjecture that, perhaps, this is the debris from the base ship the President was on, Adama would like to think otherwise.
So ol’ Rockface gets fixated on finding the President, putting the entire Fleet in danger as a result.
Adama is made to realize he’s lost his objectivity though, by Romo Lampkin, of all people. (And we’ll get to why he shows up in this installment in a teeny bit…)
And once Adama realizes that he can no longer put the Fleet at risk, but also cannot stop holding out the hope that Laura is still alive, he surrenders command of Galactica (and the Fleet), to… Toaster Tigh!
Not only that, but he also elects to stay behind in a Raptor, to await Roslin’s return to these coordinates, while the Fleet goes off on its merry way!
Both Tigh and Lee try and dissuade him from these actions, but like the man said, he can’t live without her…
And that’s how the episode ends, as Galactica and the Fleet jump off, leaving Adama in his Raptor, the damaged copy of Searider Falcon in his hands.
But there’s still one more important bit…


Even as Zarek attempts to wrest control of the Presidency, Lee sees that his father will never accept Zarek in the seat, and the whole military/government alliance will just crash and burn, taking the Fleet with it.
So Lee aspires to find another interim President, who can shepherd the Colonial government in Roslin’s absence. (You can see where this is going, can’t you?)
Lee gets Lampkin to help him run through possible candidates, and two things were fairly evident in this subplot: a) this was going to end up, however improbably, with Lee taking on the Presidency; and b) there was an undue amount of focus on Lampkin’s cat.


The first did indeed conclude with Lee ending the episode as interim President Leland Joseph Adama, while the second had a curious reveal of Lampkin’s cat actually being dead.
So Lampkin sort’a goes nutzo since the cat’s the only thing he has left of his wife, and though he’s been seeing the cat up and about (and talking to it, mind), it’s actually been dead and rotting in a bag for weeks.
At any rate, once all other candidates have been found wanting, and Lampkin has winnowed out Lee’s “repressed ambition” towards the Presidency, he also determines that Lee needs to die(!), since he would represent something hopeful for the Fleet, and Lampkin firmly believes there can no longer be any hope for the human race.
So Lampkin is holding Lee at gunpoint, but Lee manages to talk his way out of a life and death situation with a possibly certifiable lunatic, and into the office of the President.
Smooth.
Not bad for Mr. Passive-Aggressive Repressed Ambition.
Oh. Sorry. President Passive-Aggressive Repressed Ambition.
And Lee’s apparently first act as President, hand over New Caprica resistance hero Jake, into Lampkin’s possibly certifiable lunatic care.
Sure, let’s let the poor doggy guide Lampkin back towards mental stability…


Now, the bits that really worked for me had to do with Adama and his reactions and decisions in the wake of Laura’s little jaunt to gods-know-where.
The painful clarity of his love for the woman becomes the core of Bill Adama. This is, after all, the woman who taught him of hope, and faith.
So he stays, floating in the middle of nowhere space, her favourite book in his hands, while the Fleet leaves him behind, so he can wait for her to return.


The bits I’m not entirely sold on, were the ones involved in the “let’s make Lee president” subplot. The whole “Lampkin’s cat is dead” thing just seemed a bit too contrived, and like I said, Lee sliding his way into the President’s seat seemed vaguely improbable.
In the wake of it, I just didn’t get the sense that the Old Man was proud of his son’s achievement. (Then again, he was worried about Laura…)
Having said that, it does put a new spin on things, and I am curious to see where the writers take this. Will Lee turn out to be the President the whole Fleet’s been waiting for? Is this his true calling? Or will this—as we’ve seen sometimes happen before where Lee is concerned—all end in tears?
And with Tigh steering the Galactica now, well…

Having mentioned Tigh, I’m also intensely curious where the “Tigh as expectant Toaster father” subplot goes.
And what’s to happen to Hera? I really hope Athena gets to keep her. I certainly don’t condone what she did to poor Natalie, but Athena’s gone through too much to have Hera get taken from her because of some visions.

Crap. Mid-season break’s looming.

COUNTDOWN: 12.

FLASH GORDON
Season 1 Episode 3
“Infestation”

The episode kicks off with Rankol doing his Evil Floaty thing, which is probably the high point of this sad, lonely hour.
A wild rift opens up on Nick‘s brother’s wedding day and Nick gets bitten by a “joybug,” a species native to Mongo whose venom causes the ultimate ecstasy high, killing you as you get happier and happier.
There’s a cure, but it’s only available from the Omadrians of Mongo, so Flash and Baylin open a rift to retrieve the cure, while Dale is left on Earth to try and keep Nick alive by making him miserable.

Again, as with episode 2, the narrative is split into two, but this time, neither plot thread is particularly weighty.
Dale saving Nick‘s life by making it a living Hell is peppered by Panou‘s irritatingly goofball performance, while Flash’s encounter with the rabidly feminist Omadrians (they turn their men into eunuchs!) is standard selfless hero schtick: you can do anything to me but I need to save my friend, and no, I’m not leaving Baylin behind because it’s just so wrong to trade one life for another even if I don’t really know her as well as I know Nick, etcetera, ad nauseum.

There’s also some awkward sexual parrying between Flash and Aura which is kind of a tired, repeat performance of Flash and Baylin’s corridor fight from the previous episode, except it’s on a bed. Yawn.
And for the double yawn, there’s that heavy-handed look from the Omadrian leader woman, the look that says, “This young male stranger shows promise, and understands the tyrannical stranglehold Ming has over our world.” Hurrr. I wonder where that’s going, wink wink.

After the previous passable episode, this one just nosedives into I’ve-got-better-things-to-do-than-commit-myself-to-this-floundering-mess-on-a-weekly-basis territory, so it looks like I’m off the Flash for now.
Maybe I’ll check in on Flash and company at some point in the future and maybe the show would have gotten better by then, but in the meantime, Rankol will just have to float down the halls of Ming’s castle unseen by me.
Which is too bad. Like I said, Rankol is creepy in a really cheesy sort of way, so I’m gonna miss the old floater…

Parting shot: They really need to dump that awful opening credits sequence. And jettison that horrible theme.
I say reinstate that Queen standard! Since there already appears to be a healthy amount of cheese in this show’s recipe, what can an old Queen song hurt? And get Sam Jones for a cameo! (If Smallville’s made it a mission statement to offer gigs to Superman alumni, the least this Flash Gordon incarnation can do is show some respect for those that came before.)

(Image courtesy of ifmagazine.com.)

FLASH GORDON
Season 1 Episode 2
“Pride”

This episode is split neatly into two stories: one set on Earth, as Tyrus (Mark Gibbon) tracks down the “violent Mongo lady” (aka Baylin; Karen Cliché, from Mutant X), who was left stranded on our planet at the end of the Pilot, even as Zarkov tries to come up with a functioning rift blaster so Flash can return to Mongo to search for his father; the other, set on Mongo, as a man is caught ice-smuggling (a capital offense punishable by death), an unlikely event which manages to shed light on both the political milieu on Mongo, and Aura’s relationship with Ming.

Curiously, it’s the latter story that proves to be the more interesting, as the father-daughter relationship is given more complexity, even as the seeds for a revolution are planted.
And while that subplot makes the episode noteworthy, the Earth sequences prove to be distracting with light, sitcom-y humour, and Tyrus, who appears to be a caveman armed with two formidable weapons: a laser whip and too much eye liner.

Parting shot: I really love that name: Karen Cliché.

(Image courtesy of ew.com.)

FLASH GORDON
(Pilot)

I’ve been waiting a long time for the Sci Fi Channel to come up with another show that would kick my a$$ into orbit the way the Battlestar Galactica redux did.
Well, my wait isn’t over.
Which is not to say that their Flash Gordon redux is a total waste, but it’s got some ways to go before it can reach a level where I can actually say it’s a good show.

Steven “Flash” Gordon (Eric Johnson, who played Whitney, Lana Lang’s boyfriend from way back in Smallville’s freshman season) is a star athlete whose father Lawrence is a physicist long believed dead. But it soon turns out that Flash’s father discovered a rift to another world and could still be alive, possibly lost in that other realm.
Meanwhile, incursions from that other world begin to occur just as Flash’s ex, Dale Arden (Gina Holden; Final Destination 3 and TV’s Blood Ties) returns to town, and a mysterious stranger driving an RV (Jody Racicot; incidentally enough, also from Final Destination 3 and Blood Ties) shows an interest in the young man.
All this activity leads to Flash and Dale inadvertently entering a rift and winding up in Mongo, where they meet the local tyrant Ming (John Ralston), who wants something called an “Imex” from Lawrence Gordon’s belongings.

The premise and set-up of this latest incarnation of Flash Gordon are pretty standard, and the writing and performances are passable without being particularly noteworthy. Mind you, I’ve seen far worse, but it’s the sort of show I wish were smarter, so it could be a lot more entertaining than it actually is.
As it is, the characters are agreeable without being overly interesting: Flash is written as the modern, capable hero, schooled in the Joss Whedon Academy of Flippant Heroics, while Dale is the modern, capable heroine who apparently also went to the same alma mater. Meanwhile, “RV Dude” turns out to be Zarkov, of the high-strung, twitchy scientist school, whose inventions aren’t particularly effective.
But while Johnson and Holden submit performances that just pass muster, Racicot comes off as a tad too annoying. Ralston‘s Ming is, thankfully, not overplayed, though at the same time, is not particularly a powerful presence either, and the Floaty Dude (Rankol; Jonathan Walker, from George Romero’s Land of the Dead), who is his right hand flunky, is creepy in a cheesy sort of way.
Some of the series’ other characters include Aura, Ming’s daughter, played by Anna Van Hooft, and Dale’s fiancée, Joe Wylee (Giles Panton): the presence of these two pretty much blares “romantic tension” for the two leads.

The Flash Gordon Pilot, awkward and clunky as it is, is pretty underwhelming. It’s not particularly atrocious—as I’ve said, I’ve seen worse—but it clearly lacks the wit and verve of some of the other new Pilots I’ve taken a look at in the four installments of TV Watch (see Archive: August 2007).
Having said that, I’ll be checking out a couple of its succeeding episodes, if only to see if this gets any better.

(Image courtesy of ew.com.)