Crossroads 2

Crossroads 2, the Battlestar Galactica season finale was – I thought – very nicely done. Here are my kneejerk reactions:

1. The plot (mostly) seemed to go where I expected: 

(a) Gaeta testifies? Check.

(b) Baltar acquitted because it just wasn’t fair to punish him for what the Cylons ultimately imposed on New Caprica? Check.

(c) Adama casts the deciding vote? Check.

(d) Most of the final five revealed? Check. With an additional surprise: Tyrol is the fourth!

(e) Starbuck assumes the spiritual role of leader to Earth? Check.

2. Baltar is about to become a spiritual leader/figurehead among a bunch of fleet chicks? Wonder where that is going? Already, the sci-fi channel forums are filling up with “Cult of Baltar” posts.  They’re hilarious!

3. The stage is now set for Act III. There are more than enough plot points bouncing around, now. They need to be resolved, not further complicated. Season 4 should provide more than enough time to accomplish this. Then, the series should end.

3. Counting Tyrol’s kiddo, we now have TWO human/cylon hybrid children onboard galactica. How freaky is THAT?

4. Baltar’s arrogance after he was acquitted is enough to make me vomit. I think he is now on the journey toward the power-hungry megalomaniac that we knew in the old series. I would love to see him ultimately in command of the “evil” Cylon forces.

5. How much time will be spent parsing the lyrics to All Along the Watchtower during the next eight months? Any early interpretations?

6. And while we’re on the subject…I thought switching to a rock soundtrack when the ships launched at the end of the episode was sheer briliance from a musical standpoint. Again, it signals the ushering in of a new act.

7. The most surprising line in the whole thing: Starbuck, who says of earth, “I’ve been there.” I’m really, truly intrigued to find out how and when and what she found.

8. The thing I liked most was, again, Starbuck’s line: “Everything’s going to be okay.” Could it be that we are now going to turn from a dark, bleak story to one of hope? I think a bold move in this way: shifting the dark tone of the series to something more hopeful, would be great.

So Long, Starbuck. We Hardly Knew Ye.

The character of Kara Thrace was controversial from the beginning. When the creators of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries first announced that the character of Starbuck in would be a woman, fans went balistic.

In the original Galactica from the late 70s, Starbuck (portrayed by Dirk Benedict) had been a guy. Not just a character who happened to be male, mind you. He was testosterone personified: a gifted, but recalcitrant pilot. He was brash, arrogant, a heavy drinker, and a gambler. Virtually every episode included a sub-plot that made light of his reputation as a legendary womanizer.

How, then, could that character be translated into a woman?

Enter Katee Sachoff, the 26 year-old actress from Oregon who, until the miniseries was actually aired, may have been the most reviled woman among hard-core science fiction fans. Sachoff’s Starbuck turned out to be every bit the brash, drunk renegade that Benedict’s character ever was. Indeed, because the new Galactica attempted to portray a more “realistic” human condition, Sachoff had the liberty to take the character to darker places that would not have worked in the campy 1970s series, which looked and felt like a not-so-cheap Star Wars knock-off.

As a result, one always had the impression that Sachoff’s Starbuck was driven by a painful, tortured past. She was a perfect “Starbuck” for a series that is focused – almost every week – on the question of whether there is hope for the human condition.

And it may be that we are about to find out that she was too perfect. Perfect to the point of being indispensable.

For those of you who don’t yet know, in the 2004 reincarnation of Galactica, Starbuck is now dead.

Really, truly dead apparently. All indications, from the producers, from the cast, and from Sachoff herself, is that the character has taken her own life.

She will return in one form or another, that much is certain. However, it is unlikely that she will ever join the cast on a regular basis as a member of the crew. More likely, she will either resurrect or reincarnate, becoming integrated into the larger mythology of the program as a figure of spiritual significance, but making only the occasional appearance.

And therein lies the problem for the producers of Galactica. Starbuck’s death may well serve the mytharc that is being developed by the show’s producers, but it will hardly serve the development of individual episodes. I fear that, as they begin to formulate Starbuck-less episodes, the producers and writers will very quickly learn that they have made a grave mistake by removing this very well-portrayed, complex character from the mix.

The result? I think one of two things will happen:

1. The show will wrap-up fairly quickly – in the fourth, if not a fifth season, playing out in fairly short order the mytharc which has now taken Starbuck out of the mix OR

2. The show will bog down in a seventh or eight season, and lose much of its dramatic momentum, as well as its reputation as one of the best shows on TV.

In short, the final stages of the story now seem to be firmly in play, and the ultimate effectiveness and credibility of the series depends on whether the network and the producers will have the courage to finish the story and pull the plug when there is still a lot of money to be made from the franchise.