Written by David Weddle & Bradley Thompson
Directed by Michael Nankin
“See there’s nothing terrible about death, when you finally face it, it’s beautiful. You’re free now, to become who you really are.”
“You’re not Leoben.”
“I never said I was. I’m here to prepare you to pass through the next door, to discover what lies in the space between life and death.”
What the hell was that?
I watched a teaser that included the most erotic & passionate love scene I’ve ever witnessed on television. It was primal…wrapped in swaths of white paint and harsh white light, it was a stunning combination of metaphor colliding with superb cinematography.
It didn’t stop there…
Kara’s visit to the oracle: a dark and terrifying experience, compounded by bag loads of creepiness…
Kara’s breakdown in the planet’s atmosphere…is she seeing things, or is she finally coming apart at the seams…?
The heart-to-heart talks…first between Adama senior & junior…and then, between Lee and Kara…in what could very well be their finest scene together…
Kara’s return to the planet…and a visceral trip to her terrible past, via a nightmare version of A Christmas Carol, with Leoben playing the part of a very twisted angel…
…only to reveal that he’s NOT Leoben…and it actually…what? An angel? A being of light? A Lord of Kobol…?
WHAT THE HELL? Closure? New mysteries? Is she actually dead?
Maelstrom is…well, I’m not sure WHAT it is. Kara’s nightmare life journey come full circle? The fleet’s biggest single loss to date? A story happy to let’s it meaning seep out through incredible imagery and cathartic acting?
I honestly don’t know what else to say. A week later, two viewings later…and it still hasn’t quite sunk in. So I’ll end this review (or should I say, reaction!) with two points: (1) it’s not perfect – it hurtles at the viewer with the power of an uncontrolled machine, and I’m not sure even the producers realized the effect of Maelstrom’s blunt force trauma…but (2) it’s also a work of STAGGERING beauty.
Executive Producer Ron Moore is on record as saying that Maelstrom is Act 3, page one of Battlestar Galactica’s four-act saga. Things can’t possibly be the same after this…
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