sleepySpent last night watching and chatting about Stargate and Battlestar Galactica (reviews to follow shortly) and didn't get to bed until 1:30 in the morning. I did sleep in until 10:30, but then had to get up and rush around in a desperate attempt to buy a birthday gift. See, my friend TC's birthday is tomorrow. Normally, not having a gift for her in time would not be a problem, but her sister-in-law e-mailed me yesterday afternoon inviting to a surprise party for her. Well, I failed at finding the gift I was looking for (apparently the last minute party threw a lot of people off - of about twenty people there only about six brought gifts) but had a good time and, yes, she was surpised and not pissed off as we suspected. ;)
Tomorrow I have to get up early to go see Million Dollar Baby which will mean I've seen 4 of the 5 nominees for best picture (I haven't seen Ray). Following that I need to try and get a hold of
writteninstars via phone. I'm sure you've all been wondering about her lack of presence on LJ lately. Good news is she's fine; bad news is her compter is dead. :( I'll try to find out when she'll be back in the online world again.So, back to Firday night television.....
This was the first episode of the series I ever watched not counting the few episodes I've had on previously as background noise. I can't say I was terribly impressed. From what I've heard from people who watch the show regularly, I get the sense this wasn't a typical episode. Not too hard to figure out when only one of the regular cast has a role in the main plot.
I know Claudia is to return next season, so maybe this will make more sense then, but, on it's own, the ep seemed rather pointless. There was some nice interaction between she and MS, though given that her character was a goofy variation on Aeryn and he seemed simliar to John (complete with flattering fitted black tee ;) it was all a bit disconcerting for me. Oh, and for fans of Farscape (it would seem they were counting on us), Claudia's introduction complete with spacesuit, helmut reveal, and violent first meeting was awfully familiar.
Can fans of the show explain to me how every race can speak and understand English? Do they carry universal translaters or are viewers just suppose to not ask too many questions?
I found this to be a very powerful episode. The viper pilots killed were anoymous to me, yet I dreaded what I knew was about to happen. Of course, given recent tragedies in Iraq and California that precariousness of life couldn't come across as strictly fictional.
Though a tragedy for the fleet, we soon see how the ramifications of it effect the extended Adama clan. I found it interesting that as Apollo, Starbuck, and Adama walked to the deck Starbuck was recounting to Apollo a story about his father - one that he seemingly hadn't heard before. This tells us that Adama and Apollo's relationship must have been strained long before Zach's death and that a renarkably close relationship formed between Adama and Starbuck in just two years. While I can understand on some level Adama's gut reaction to essentially tell Starbuck to get the hell out of his sight when she's forced to reveal the truth, at some point he'll have to face his own culpability in ZAch's death. As Apollo pointed out previously, Adama placed a lot of pressure on his sons to follow in his footsteps and it seems that Zack feared being seen as a failure.
I know
danceswithwords disagrees with me (hey, it was bound to happen sometime!), but I was disappointed in the way they chose to handle the president's cancer storyline. Finding out she hadn't had an exam in five years because she was too busy sounded too much like a PSA. And considering that their civilization evolved differently than ours that the two primary forms of treatment are radiation and chemo seemed unrealistic to me. Granted, I don't want to see them waving a wand over her chest and saying "You're cured", but if they didn't have something new to explore I would have prefered the treatment be kept more vague. 