Solar Flare: Science Fiction News

The Sci Fi Channels new Battlestar Galactica series continues its strong showing with maybe the best episode yet. This is an intensely personal story centered firmly on Starbuck. Other characters play their parts, but the story is about, and carried by Starbuck.

Once again the storyline picks up from details dropped in the mini-series and I’m starting to view this more as a serial than a series, because everything just seems to flow together so well. Here we are dealing with Starbuck’s guilt over the death of Zak Adama, Lee’s brother. Something she is forced to face up to when she is put in charge of training new pilots.

In truth there is really very little action in this episode, but with a combination of tight editing, sharp scripting and great acting I was kept completely focused for the entire length of the show. It’s a testament to how well crafted this show is that an episode which is a good 90% character driven feels like its all action.

For their part, both Apollo and Commander Adama react in a fashion which is both credible and consistent with their characters so far. We also get to see for a moment another side of why Adama is such a good commander when he addresses the pilots near the beginning of the episode.

A part of me does have to wonder how they are going to address the high rate of attrition for the survivors. At some point they need to stabilize things at least a bit or death becomes inevitable. They are after all few enough as it is.

On the other hand, this is a carefully paced tale. Its obvious that these are still very early days, that its not long at all since the original Cylon attack. I hope that we get a chance to see things develop over a period of years.

I have to mention the ending too. What an awesome cliffhanger. Even though I think I know how it must eventually turn out given the character involved. The intensity was just perfectly pitched.