User Reviews

The key to a successful series is pacing.

The key to a really successful series is really great pacing.

In the final season of this astonishing show, in the earlier episodes, the writers took their time building and positioning their characters.

For a payoff. Or possibly a series of payoffs.

I will say this -- having seen the entire series and movie spinoffs end to end, the most nail-biting sequence to date was the first 10 minutes of this episode, when there is a problem syncing the two ships that are returning to Fleet at the same time.

That sequence alone makes this episode a 10.

But the fun does not stop there. That is just the teaser. Next up we get the issue of whether "the final five" really want to be found...? More fun.

Then, before the audience can get bored, we have major surgery with the patient awake done in way that viewer can feel each cut.

Then we have the all too human power struggle between the civilian and military governments.(Love that the civilian government was called "12 perpetually unhappy representatives" -- sharp writing here!) Michael Hogan gives his best performance ever even though he is mostly off camera.

Note to reviewers of the future -- there are more closeups in this episode than possibly any other in the series, Consider that.

The strange singing between cuts by Alessandro Juliani as Felix Gata, the unwilling amputee, only adds power to a series already acknowledged for its superb use of music to develop mood.

The episode ends with a half-dozen cliffhangers and mysteries, metaphysics, unexpected violence, and puzzles.

Possibly the busiest episode in the series.

Finally, and I say this for the historical record since, as I have said before, I expect IMDb reviews to still be in circulation literally hundreds of years after this is written and digitized, if any spaceman were to accidentally stumble on a ship chock full of Tricia Helfers and Grace Parks, I suspect the very last thing they would be want to do is blow it out of the sky.

This final season continues to go from strength to strength; they episode starts in dramatic fashion when the damaged base star jumps into the middle of the fleet alone after the Demetrius suffered an FTL failure; naturally everybody aboard the fleet expects the worst; Adama scrambles the vipers and is just about to give the command to open fire when Col. Tigh countermands the order. At this point the Demetrius jumps in and it is explained that several Colonial personnel are aboard the base star. Once they have established that the Cylons aren't attacking they still have to decide whether they can trust each other enough to forge an alliance. As a sign of trust the Cylons give Adama the coordinates of their 'Resurrection Hub', which if destroyed would prevent all Cylon resurrection rendering them mortal. In return they want to un-box model Number Three so that they can identify the Final Five. Meanwhile Baltar has let it be known that President Roslin has been sharing visions with Athena and Caprica Six; something that the Quorum were shocked to hear and Lt. Gaeta has to try to come to terms with losing his leg. As the episode approaches its conclusion it looks as if things might be going well for once... then two shocking incidences occur which will almost certainly raise tensions once more.

This was an exciting episode where the tension was high from start to finish with neither side really trusting the other while knowing they couldn't afford not to. As mentioned above the episode contains two good shocks that I won't spoil here. While the whole cast is good as always I feel the standout performance came from Alessandro Juliani; who did a brilliant job portraying Lt. Gaeta as he had to try to come to terms with losing a leg; during the operation he looked emotionally pained and his singing afterwards was haunting. There were no conclusions to and plot thread here; this episode was all about advancing the main plot arc and raising tensions so its not an episode for casual viewers but people who have been following the series should love it.

The best BSG episode of the season. The acting is not forced and the action is packed. The cylons make a deal with the humans. This is a huge moment in the series. Finally, the cylons and the humans negotiating.

The Dratitus mission scene is awesome. It brings more depth to the series. It just feels like more is going on than just the lonely Galactica. Finally, we get closer to the truth of the lost cyclon. But it's still unclear, if it's not Starbuck they have a lot of explaining to do.

The highlights of this episode is when the cylon Starbase jumps above the Galactica. I loved it when everyone was like "frack it's(cylon starship) on top of us." I give this episode 8/10. Some bad highlights were the sappy scenes with Roselin and Arabic cylon and Baltar.