Written by Jane Espenson
Directed by Michael Nankin
“Remember…we’re all flying solo on this mission. So that means there’ll be nobody there to bitch slap you if you start to get tired or start seeing little toasters on your wing.”
The Passage showcases the traditional strengths of Battlestar Galactica: spectacle and tragedy. Unfortunately, when it came to plotting out the story, someone or something short circuited somewhere along the line…
Let’s get the good stuff out of the way. The travel sequences through the cluster were loud, disorienting, stressful, fiery…in short, everything you need for a typical action-packed Galactica interlude.
Then there’s our weekly Cylon visitation, which is basic in story structure, but reveals many nice layers: D’Anna’s confused dream-drawings, Baltar touching/communing with the hybrid…and it works because it’s leading to something interesting and foreboding.
Even better is the death of Kat, who shares a final scene with Adama that pulls relentlessly at your heartstrings. The final shot of Starbuck at the memorial wall, silently grieving…with Apollo standing a discreet distance behind her…speaks to the audience in typically powerful-yet-unspoken Galactica fashion…
Glorious visuals and glorious acting…unfortunately, it’s all hanging on a plot frame constructed out of spit and gum.
Where do I begin? The opening teaser, which manages to establish (1) the star cluster, (2) the radiation danger, (3) the breakdown of the food processors, and (4) the discovery of a planet loaded with algae…it was straight out of a mediocre episode of Star Trek TNG! If any more exposition was packed into this single scene, it would have shattered into a million pieces. The X-Files’ Chris Carter was a devotee of this sort of death-by-exposition…a pity it seems to have migrated to Galactica.
Kat’s background…the mysterious Enzo…drug running, stealing identities…all of this comes out of nowhere! Suddenly, after all this time, everything comes out…and in a way that makes the use of the word “sudden” an absolute understatement…to say nothing of the vast coincidence involved! Where was the usual build up of character background? Where was the slow evolution of personality traits? Kat’s background is revealed to us with all the subtlety of slamming into a brick wall at 80kph.
In short, this is as flawed a triumph as Galactica has ever produced. In trying to establish a background for Kat, and a plot device to get to the mid-season cliffhanger, ex-Buffy the Vampire Slayer-vet Jane Espenson stumbles by throwing us a whacking amount of ultra-exposition, and hoping the actors and the direction will carry it off without anyone noticing…which it almost does. But no amount of artistry can distract from the out-of-nowhere story elements…and that’s a great shame.
In another universe, the real title of this episode is fait accompli! This episode is not something I expected from the author of such amazing Buffy and Angel episodes as Storyteller, Earshot, and Room w/a View. Let’s hope she gets a second crack at this…
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