| By Patrick Sauriol, ugo.com,
on 26-01-2007
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Favoured : 112 |
"'Rapture' resumes the action and does a fair job of keeping it going through the full hour." And here we go! After a month of no new Galactica we're now into the second half of the third season. The writers have thrown a bunch of balls into the air and now we should get to see where they land, right? Who are the final five Cylon models? Is Baltar a Cylon? In which direction does Earth lie? Will Hera be reunited with her parents? What will happen with the love square between Starbuck-Apollo-Anders-Dualla? And finally, will Saul Tigh ever get that bear hug he so desperately needs from the Admiral?
"Rapture" resumes the action and does a fair job of keeping it going through the full hour. The mid-season cliffhanger (Adama is about to launch six nuclear missiles at the Cylon landing force) gets resolved quickly and then the storyline splits into three facets: in the Temple the Chief is trying to figure out what the Eye of Jupiter is supposed to be; Lee and Anders are trying to keep the chromeheads away from the Temple's entrance; and Dualla is sent to rescue Starbuck and bring her back home. Oh, yeah: Baltar and the Cylons are sniffing around too.
Kandyse McClure hasn't gotten a lot of screen time to show us Dualla outside of CIC; thankfully with "Rapture" we get to see her character getting to play soldier on the ground. A nod should also go to the episode's writers for giving Dualla a little more to work with apart from being Apollo's soon-to-be-ex-wife or relaying orders from the Admiral. It was great to see Dualla maintain her cool and stay in charge when she's all alone with such a dynamic character like Starbuck - plus you gotta just love that slap Dee gave ol' Kara. It's on.
To no one's surprise, the algae planet's sun decides to go nova and that's when everyone figures out that it's supposed to be the Eye of Jupiter. The special effects of the show have been amazing all year and the nova burst is of similar high quality. There have been hundreds of hours of science fiction television programming since the original Star Trek and one of the great things about BSG is that they're showing us different space environments that Trek and its many different incarnations haven't shown us. Whether it was watching the nova shockwave break apart the planet's debris ring, the subsequent meteor shower or Galactica's last-minute escape from the system, Atmosphere's FX team have been hitting dingers out of the park.
But now we come to the big reveal of the episode:
"'Rapture' resumes the action and does a fair job of keeping it going through the full hour." D'anna comes face-to-face with the final five, and she recognizes one of them. That revelation and her subsequent apology to the unseen Cylon (that if she knew they were Cylons she would have been nicer to them? Holy frak!) will leave us guessing who it is for probably the rest of the season. A nice conclusion to D'anna's story arc and a perfect set-up for yet another mystery for us to mull over.
While "Rapture" had some great moments there was never the sense of true dread hanging over our characters' heads. The first BSG episode, "33," had that in spades, and last year's Mexican standoff between the Galactica and the Pegasus had more tension to it than this cliffhanger. There's so much going on between Baltar and his Cylon pals, the three different groups on the ground and what's happening onboard Galactica that there's hardly enough time to let the tension hang for a beat or two. The end result is that you get a solid episode of Galactica but it's not going to be remembered as one of the classics. Also, I'm a little worried about where the writers are taking the "Final Five" storyline, especially now that it seems the Cylon five are connected to the Colonists' Temple of Five - even though that supposedly happened four thousand years ago. Maybe it's like Leoben told Kara: "All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again."
Next week: Cheers comes to Galactica. UGO Rating
Direction: B
Writing: B-
Performances: B
Visual Appeal : A-
Overall: B
Vitals Source Link: http://www.ugo.com/ugo/html/article/?id=16542§ionId=7&page=1 Submitted by Zipper Talk about this article on our forum: http://galacticabbs.com/index.php?showtopic=1087
Last update : 26-01-2007
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