“Taking a Break” Critique Answered: A True Fan’s Perspective

The following was my ‘read’ on a critique posted to a popular sci-fi fad website concerning the most recent episode of a personal favourite: Battlestar Galactica:

I have a different view.

But let’s start on a note of concordance.  The Starbuck-Apollo love triangle (or is it a square?) is growing a little tiresome.  And it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that the actress who plays Starbuck (Katee Shakcoff) finds the role trying.  She’s being asked to play someone who, after all, is having very adolescent attitudes about romance and responsibility, yet supposedly playing an adult upon whom the hopes of humanity frequently rest.  What is that?  You’d expect such a character to be capable of experiencing emotional conflict while dealing with that conflict in a mature way.  And trying to corral Apollo into having some kind of ongoing silly (giggle, giggle) little affair isn’t very adult.

However, I think I have an answer for why we’re seeing this element in the script at all: drawing in women.  I think it might be a bit of a classic maneuver to see writers toss in a romance to heat things up for the girls.  Of course, guys would tend to be more drawn to the steamy interactions between Baltar and Number Six, but Galactica is trying to draw in main stream elements to stay on top of those ratings.  And, to be honest, I love it when I meet a girl who’s into sci-fi like me, so I don’t mind the idea in principle.  But I wished it would be undertaken in a way that was a little less obvious and, frankly, potentially insulting to the intelligence of that prospective female audience.

As for the rest, I thought the peek inside Baltar’s drugged up mind was sorta interesting.  Blair’s critique doesn’t address one intriguing aspect of this part of the story – what did Baltar whisper in Gaeda’s ear?  What is Gaeda’s secret, presumably an untold story lingering from the New Caprican arc?  While Baltar may be human after all and that’s indeed one mystery solved, there’s still another mystery to replace it.

And that’s how Galactica should go!  The way you get around the Gilligan’s Island phenomenon which can occur so easily in a story like Battlestar Galactica is to answer at least some of the questions as time goes on.  Nevermind Baltar’s status as human or cylon – eventually I want to know what exactly the phantom Number Six Balatar keeps seeing is!  Hopefully, that question comes before Galactica finally arrives at Earth….although, I’m not holding my breath.

                      — above posted to: "SciFyPortal Forums", February 8, 2007

 

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