SMALLVILLE
Season 6
Episode 21
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“Prototype”

Time for another of my semi-regular visits to Smallville. The reason this time out: January’s a ways off, and the TV movie this fall is about the Pegasus, so it’s probably mostly gonna be about that psycho b*tch, Admiral Cain.
I just wanted a Battlestar Galactica fix. Sue me.

Karl “Helo” Agathon himself, Tahmoh Penikett, plays Wes Keenan, an Army brat-turned-war hero, who happens to have been the first boy Lois ever kissed, and is now Ares Mark IV, the prototype for Project Ares, Lex’s little science project to create his own super-soldier.
And wouldn’t you know it, the witness to Wes’ assassination of the crooked Senator Burke (who’s threatening to shut Project Ares down) is one Lois Lane. Of course, plot conveniences and contrivances are nothing new on Smallville, so let’s just roll with the punch, shall we?
At any rate, the episode actually allows some of the cast to shine; Erica Durance, pleading with Penikett (who has been ordered to kill her), “Remember me!”; Tom Welling, telling Annette O’Toole that she should become Kansas senator in the wake of Burke’s death. (Isn’t there a line of succession here? Aren’t there Junior Senators or something?)
Penikett meanwhile, is underutilized, though is at least given something more to do than some other past Smallville guest stars (like WWE’s Batista).

In the end, “Prototype” isn’t a horrible episode, though also isn’t any indication that Smallville is a better show than when I last checked in.

(Image courtesy of supermanhomepage.com.)

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Season 3 Episode 19 (WARNING:SPOILERS)
“Crossroads, Part 1”

As if to waste no time getting to Baltar’s trial, we get no opening credits sequence this time out (missed the Gayatri Mantra), and let me tell you, the trial gets ugly.
I’ve never been a part of the Col. Tigh fan club, but you’d have to be totally unfeeling not to think what went down between Tigh and Ellen back on New Caprica was frakking heartbreaking.
And all that stuff comes out.
On the witness stand.
I mean, to have to admit under oath that you killed your wife because you were the leader of the resistance and she was a collaborator. That’s bad enough. But to know (and further admit) that she did it because she truly loved you and was forced into doing it to keep you out of jail…
I may not really like Tigh, but that’s tough. (And that’s the understatement of the century.)
In a fleet of walking wounded, Tigh is hemorrhaging. He returned from New Caprica not so much a different person, but as a Tigh that was broken somehow (something that he shared with, ironically enough, Starbuck).
And now the poor guy’s deep in his cups and hearing a damned song! It’s a scary, unsettling sight, and seeing him with that mad, sick gleam in his remaining eye at episode’s end was truly disturbing.
And apparently, Sam’s hearing the same song too! And what is up with Tory?
Meanwhile, the Adamas continue to tear into each other like mad dogs, and Apollo has crossed the line from flawed hero to a$$hole.
To cross-examine the President the way he did, to see him hurt her the way he did, all in the name of his beloved system…
A$$hole.
It was one of those Pyrrhic victories to see his face when he gets shafted by hearing Roslin tell him exactly why she was taking the chamalla extract again. Take that, a$$hole!
And power to Dee! It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a real person there, and her packing it in had, again, Pyrrhus written all over it. She needed to do that, not just for herself, but to prove something to Lee too. Of course, something tells me that could very well have been the straw that breaks Lee the Idiot Camel’s back…
And crap. Let’s get back to Roslin.
Crap.
I love Mary McDonnell. She was one of the biggest draws for me to sit down and watch the BSG mini-series. There’s this sensitivity there that’s always a joy to watch onscreen (and she was marvelous in Donnie Darko). So I sat down to watch the mini-series largely because she was in the cast, and I haven’t looked back.
Understandably, when they saved her from the cancer, I was massively relieved. And now it’s…
Crap.
This sucks. (There better be some way to get around that whole prophecy thing about Roslin not living to see the Promised Land…)
And whilst we’re talking religion, Baltar is being treated by some as divinity. He has been looking very Jesus-y lately… Of course, this is also the sleazoid who not only slept with the enemy, but collaborated with them as well, right?
Oh, and have I mentioned? The Cylons have returned! Granted, the fleet is trying to shake the toasters off their tail, but Helo does the whole doomsayer thing and refers not-so-cryptically to “a storm coming.”
We can see where this is going, right?
Season end cliffhanger, people…

(Image courtesy of spacecast.com.)