Galactica.com - BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: "COLLABORATORS" REVIEW

By Patrick Sauriol, Ugo.com, on 28-10-2006

Favoured : 120

After last week's rescue of the New Capricans, the Galactica and her Fleet are back in space where they belong. Still, the echoes of what happened down on the planet are still reverberating, and judging from what's seen in "Collaborators, will still be felt for some time to come.

Perhaps the most shocking thing in "Collaborators" that I saw wasn't in a scene but in the return of the survivor count in the show's opening credits. Absent for the past three weeks, we haven't had hard evidence as to what the death count was when Gina blew up Cloud 9 in "Lay Down Your Burdens Part II" and how many people died on New Caprica. Tonight you find out just how many survivors are left. I don't know about you, but being reminded each week as to just how close humanity is to the precipice of extinction adds to the show's atmosphere. It's also an ideal place to illustrate just how much resentment must be felt by those resistance survivors against the collaborators of the Cylons if they're that committed to seeking final justice when a substantial percentage of the population is gone.

"Collaborators" is a tight stand-alone episode that gets us back into the groove of life aboard the Galactica. It doesn't have time to address some of the dangling plot threads left over from the New Caprica and Pegasus storylines, such as where Starbuck and Apollo now fit into the command structure, if the Chief is back to working in the hanger deck and how the crew is dealing with Boomer as a commissioned officer again. Those answers are coming, but it's a reflection of human nature that the very next episode after getting off New Caprica deals with the winners deciding what to do with their traitors. During the show I was reminded of stories I had heard about what soldiers did in the aftermath of World War II; soldiers don't lose their emotions the moment that a ceasefire goes into effect, and what can happen in the days following war can be equally as horrifying as what happened during the war. BSG has always been a show that traverses the gulf between the darkness and the light and "Collaborators" is one of the stronger examples of the human conflict between what's right and what's necessary. Alessandro Juliani's Gaeta gets another great chance to shine and the actor rises to the occasion brilliantly, showing us again that he's not going to go out of this universe being labeled as Baltar's former bitch.

Little stuff that's great: seeing Tigh back in action and it looks like his switch is permanently affixed in "bad-ass mode"; minor characters getting time to be developed, like Anders' redheaded Pyramid team member Jean Barcalow; seeing how cramped the Chief and Cally's home life must be; the return of the self-destruction of Starbuck; learning who is the new President; and seeing what Baltar's new home is like. It doesn't look like the Cylons are anywhere close to a space Ikea.

Don't be hating the episode because it's not "Exodus Part II", a hard act to follow. Dig it 'cuz it's good BSG.

Source Link: http://www.ugo.com/channels/FilmTv/article.asp?articleID=20579

Submitted by: Zipper

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