Galactica.com - Battlestar Galactica

By Michael Swanberg , dailyindia.com, on 19-12-2006

Favoured : 128

tyrol

I just watched the latest Battlestar Galactica episode, “The Eye of Jupiter” for the second time and wanted to write a brief review. Overall I thought it was a compelling episode, but I have some minor problems with it, which I will talk about as I go.

First, the synopsis (some spoilers here, so if you haven’t seen it, beware). The Humans have found the “algae planet” upon which they are gathering algae to feed the fleet. We’re introduced to Starbuck and Apollo’s affair, which if you couldn’t see that coming, then you just aren’t paying attention.

Chief Tyrol notices something that compels him to wander up into the hills, only to find a huge temple, which he immediately recognizes as the Temple of the Five, which has in the scriptures some references to The Eye of Jupiter.

Okay, here’s my first problem. I hate it when television series get mature to the point that they have to begin introducing things about characters’ pasts that would seem to define who they are fundamentally, but yet we haven’t noticed before. The chief speaks in this episode about how his father was a priest and Tyrol rebelled against it, to the point of dancing naked with pr0n magazines in defiance. But yet, he had such a need to know, he also used to sneak into his father’s study when he wasn’t looking. Does that seem odd? Does it also seem odd that Tyrol is a rebel against religion to the point that he hated it, but yet didn’t seem to have a problem speaking with Brother Cabell when he was having bad dreams and a crisis of conscience?

Anyway, the Cylons jump into the area because they are also looking for The Eye of Jupiter. I get the feeling that they didn’t expect to find the human fleet there and so weren’t looking for a fight. But yet, D’Anna still had the forethought to sneak a heavy raider to the surface filled with centurions, ready for battle. Adama orders the fleet to jump but the Galactica stays behind to safeguard the retrieval the people on the planet surface.

Here’s another problem I had… don’t you think that by now they would have standing procedures on planetside missions? I mean, wouldn’t they make sure to have enough Raptors on hand to get everyone off the surface and jump to the emergency rendezvous if the poop hits the fan? Did they learn nothing from the New Caprica disaster? After all, if the Cylons had been looking for a fight, then they would have been in the same pickle all over again.

As well, why didn’t the Cylons just launch an attack? Well, I guess they thought that maybe the eye was already retrieved and on Galactica. But still, they could easily have overcome the Galactica and then would have the luxury to locate The Eye at leisure.
So, next, some “skin jobs” visit Galactica to try and scare information out of the human leaders and also to prevent The Eye from being transported to Galactica. It doesn’t work and Adama threatens to nuke the planet if the Cylons so much as blink, the thought being that either the humans would get the Eye, or no one would, and the secret location of Earth would remain a secret.

There is some posturing in the meeting that shows that Adama and Laura are very angry with Baltar and do not forgive him. Um, wasn’t there an entire episode devoted to the treatment of collaborators, and didn’t that episode end with the forgiving of all of them? Does that not extend to the duly-elected president of the colonies? Surely Gaida has some things to say on Baltar’s behalf, how he stopped D’Anna from detonating the nuke which would have ruined the exodus off of New Caprica. Surely Gaida can also attest that the death orders that Baltar signed he did with a gun at his temple. I’m not saying that Baltar is a good guy; just that he’s not as bad as they believe, and also that he should get the same treatment as all the other so-called collaborators. It’s called due process, and I am a fan of it.
Here’s my next problem. Is anyone thinking about the humans on Earth? If the 13th Tribe is still there, then surely they are worth protecting from the Cylons. Surely that is why the Cylons are also looking for it, so that they can finish the job of exterminating all of humanity. As well, it is nice to see Adama recognizing that keeping Earth’s location secret is paramount, above their own survival. Indeed, the fleet is not the last remnants of humanity in the universe. Laura Roslin seems to not understand this idea.
Furthermore, how in the great wide galaxy did they get these scriptures that chronicle the exodus of the 13th Tribe? Didn’t they, you know, leave? Who wrote about it? Did someone return with the texts? For instance, if Moses had led the Jews out of Egypt and were never heard from again, I doubt we would have the book of Exodus in The Holy Bible. In any case, there was some flap early in the series about “all of this has happened before, and it will happen again.” Maybe that’s where the explanation lies.

Meanwhile, Boomer tells Sharon (kudos to Grace Park on her fine acting… it must be difficult to have a conversation with yourself and make it believable) that her baby is alive and on one of the base ships, and the baby is sick. Somehow, Adama finds out and confronts Laura. Adama acts like he didn’t know that the baby was still alive, but surely he did, didn’t he?

D’Anna is still on her quest to find the meaning beyond life and death. Somehow she’s convinced herself that Baltar is an integral part of her quest, or maybe Baltar convinced her. Caprica Six seems to be upset that she’s losing Baltar to D’Anna, but didn’t we see her basically dump him several episodes ago? Has she changed her mind? Again?

Going forward, the people on the ground, despite having any knowledge that there are Cylons on the planet surface, are setting up to defend The Temple of the Five, at least until Tyrol can find The Eye of Jupiter.

Problem: so they don’t know that an attack is coming, in fact they should assume there isn’t since early communications with Galactica would have borne out that no Cylons are on the surface (as far as they knew). And then how do they defend the area? They fan out their thin numbers looking for signs of Cylon activity! That makes little sense, tactically.

But against all odds, it seems to work in their favor. Starbuck stumbles on the Cylons while flying recon. But instead of her mowing the Cylons down with the Raptor, as we saw in a previous episode, she takes a SAM to the tailpipe and goes down. But they did locate the Cylons, so they now have an idea where they will come from… that is as long as it is the only Cylon force on the planet surface. In the end, there are too many unknowns and too few humans on the planet to bear out Apollo’s plan of defense.

In the meantime, Gaida notices that the star is about to go supernova soon. In my opinion, they will come to see that the nova itself is The Eye of Jupiter, but that remains to be seen. But I think it’s obvious, which would lead to another issue: if the supernova is The Eye, then how was it mentioned in the scriptures? If it went supernova before and that was the clue to Earth’s location, then how can it go supernova again?

All in all,”The Eye of Jupiter” was a very compelling episode full of action, drama, character, and tension. I really enjoyed it. I just wish some of the explanations were more ready so that I could stop these nagging nits.