BSG: Flight of the Phoenix

After weeks of poor shows, they finally got back to what was missing. It’s spooky. It’s almost as if they read the comments I had on the last show. It’s not a great episode, but it addressed many questions that have been dangling, and some I didn’t think to ask.

What I Liked

• Helo is a complete pariah. When he enters a room, everyone gets hostile. Again, this makes total sense. Even if he wasn’t a proven “Cylon lover,” he’s been separated from them too long. Most of the pilots who knew him are dead.

• Chief Tyrol is a pariah too. As he should be. It was his Sharon that shot Adama. Like Helo, no one can trust him. The goodwill he enjoyed with his staff is gone and he can barely get anyone to do any work for him.

• Helo and Tyrol get in a fistfight over Sharon. I’m glad the obvious tension that would exist between them over was addressed.

• Belief in Earth still isn’t for everyone. When one of the female pilots gripes that they’re going nowhere and Kara insists that Earth is out there, the pilot retorts that she doesn’t buy some “half-assed planetarium light show.”

• Kara gets dissed by the same female pilot when she says she’s going to go look for Helo: “Good idea. Maybe that Cylon whore taught him a few new tricks.” Everybody knows Kara is a ho.

• Callie is released from the brig and is given a big welcome back party, complete with moonshine. This makes total sense. Callie is a hero to pretty much everyone for shooting Sharon. Not only was Sharon a Cylon, she wasn’t well-liked by the enlisted people in her department even when they thought she was human.

• Gaeta blows up at Tigh when Tigh orders him to go through the Galactica’s programming line by line to find and eradicate the Cylon virus. As if that’s trivial! Dick.

• Lee’s target in the shooting range has a picture of Sharon on it. ROFL!

• When Helo showed Sharon the lines of code from the Cylon virus, her disoriented reaction made me think for a second that it had reprogrammed her. Good red herring.

• Tigh helps Tyrol with his project by supplying an engine. He takes a jar of moonshine in return, of course.

• Everyone freaks out when Laura goes to smash the bottle of champagne to christen the new stealth ship. Can’t waste good liquor!

• Good tension at the end when Starbuck tests Tyrol’s hybrid stealth fighter and she disappears from screen. Tyrol’s face when he thought that he had killed the fleet’s best pilot was special.

• No Number Six! Baltar actually acted sane in this episode.

What I Didn’t Like

• It looks like there’s some sexual tension building between Dualla and Lee. Where did that come from, and how does that make the story better?

• Despite the fact that the writers did a good job of showing that everyone is bored, tense and needs something to believe in, I think people pitched in to help with Tyrol’s project too readily. They’re all working like dogs. Who would have the time and energy for that?

• What are the odds of creating a space-worthy craft that is welded together? I bitched before when Starbuck flew the Cylon Raider that had a freaking hole in it into space in last season’s Act of Contrition, and I’m bitching again. I hate bad science. In real life we’ve seen two space shuttles blow up because of compromised heat shielding. You just can’t weld shit together with hand tools and expect it to withstand space travel!

• Adama seemed pleased that Sharon came through and sent out a virus that disabled the Cylon ships. Dude, she still can’t be trusted.