March 2, 2009

Another Trip Up Geekback Mountain

You know, with only three episodes left, you'd have thought the writers would come up with something more interesting than the Cylon Angstfest. Seriously, that felt as dull and pointless as the black market episode.

Yeah, I can see where it's going to end up -- they're going to have to sacrifice the Galactica in order to find a new home or get peace with the Cylons, and the question is whether Adama goes down with his ship or not -- but this last episode did not contribute to that building sense of dread or any sort of convergence of events leading to a final resolution of affairs. Instead, we got food riots transforming Baltar into a tinpot theocrat, while Adama agonizes over using Cylon goo to keep his ship together long enough to find a habitable planet. Oh, yes, I got the symmetry of both men grieving over losing a child at the end.

I think maybe it's time for the colonials to dispense with the Articles of Colonization completely. They clearly aren't that kind of society any more; the trappings of a liberal, representative, federal democracy seems to be unsuitable for a society of fewer than 40,000 people and extreme scarcity of survival resources. They also need to decide whether they're going to bite the bullet, swallow their years-old anger, and incorporate Cylons into their society or not; it seems the answer would be "no," and that's entirely understandable. But their chances for continuing survival without an effective military would seem to be squat, and with the Galactica about to break up into scrap metal, what choice do they really have?

No comments: