Battlestar Galactica season 4 episode 11 review

The Colonial Fleet has found Earth, but not all is what it seems. Upon reaching the surface they find that the planet has suffered from a massive holocaust more than 2000 years previously. In addition, they make another startling discovery – the thirteenth tribe were Cylons. This is all found out within the first half of the first episode of the 5 th series of Battlestar Galactica, or is it the 11th episode of the 4 th series.

This is a time of reckoning. A time when the characters are forced to come to terms with what they are and what they might become. A president, no longer able to hold on to the belief that she is leading her race to salvation, is shocked to the core and falls to pieces. Even Admiral Adama is unable to bring her to her senses.

Starbuck follows the signal she has discovered and traces it to her downed fighter. There she discovers what appears to be her own burnt out body, and her own dog tags. She is forced to face the fact that she may herself be a Cylon or something more. She covers up the discovery, but she has to talk to someone about it, so she approaches Apollo but is sidetracked by the discovery of the suicide of a good colleague.

That colleague is Dee, who has been devastated by the discovery that Earth is a barren wasteland, and after a final date with her ex-husband, kills herself. This rocks many people, Lee Adama especially, but it is his father that takes it harder still. Forced to face what they have all had to go through and the decisions that he has made, he has a moment of crisis – but he comes through it with the help of Saul.

Lastly there is the revelation in the last few moments of the episode – where Saul discovers that somehow his ex-wife, a wife that he murdered, is in fact the fifth Cylon. This leaves us with the question that is still unanswered about Starbuck. In the end we are left with a race of Humans and Cylons, working together to find a new world – brought together by the ashes of an old one.

This episode is a fantastic start to the final run of Battlestar. In answering so many questions it poses many more and sets the scene for what will no doubt be an explosive last series. In some respects I am extremely sad that this series is no more, but I think now that they are right to bring it to a head. I only hope that the writing standards do not drop and that the remaining episodes offer as much interest. In conclusion, this is an explosive first / eleventh episode and rates in my top 3.

19 January 2009