PART 1 of 2
Written by Mark Verheiden
Directed by Michael Rymer
“I have committed…unconscionable crimes…and I have been offered one last chance at redemption, because I chose to accept my fate and not fight it anymore.”
Now I’m becoming irritated.
There’s nothing terrible or offensive about The Road Less Traveled. It features some top-flight acting from everyone in the Galactica ensemble, it has a few moments of visceral shock and excitement, and it shows Tyrol making an unexpected choice in his life, post-Cally…
…and it’s driving me nuts!
It’s Galactica running on the spot…only this time, it runs itself into the ground. It’s a bit of a rehash of Flesh and Bone, a bit of a rehash of last week’s glimpse into life aboard the Demetrius, and it’s mostly good actors, sitting around, looking and acting more and more irritated by their situation. Meanwhile, Baltar’s followers continue to grow…just like last week…and his radio broadcasts are merely replacements for his secret writings from last season. Oh, and Lee uncovers something disturbing in Roslin’s political plans…just has he did two weeks ago!
It’s as close as you can possibly get to a clip show and still have the audacity to claim to be a new, scripted, first-run episode! It’s a hamster wheel of plot and dialogue we’ve already run through, in far more effective episodes.
It’s time to move on. We’ve pushed the envelope of building tension far enough. The elastic won’t stretch anymore, and circumstances demand catharsis. It took ages for me to decide on something to write about this episode…because my initial reaction (which persisted for a long time) was THAT’S IT?!?
Even the cliffhanger is obvious and limp by Galactica standards. It’s frustrating, it’s disappointing, and it’s tiring. Let’s move things along…and move along quickly. With only 20 episodes to work with, now is not the time to sit around and contemplate the collective navel of the rag-tag human fleet, which is EXACTLY what this episode did for a solid hour!
Technically brilliant, but empty of everything I desire from a quality episode of Battlestar Galactica. At best, it only deserves a…
4
I hope (I pray) that part two delivers one HELL of a pay-off.
