Written by Michael Angeli
Directed by Wayne Rose
“I was with them…on the emergency jump…and I saw something in the faces of the delegates. It wasn’t the anxiety of the waiting…we’re beyond that. I was anxious…it was my first time. But they, they…they were empty. The Quorum had given up…and then is struck me, that after going through the same routine so many times, it was the only way they could cope with the uncertainty to presume the worst.”
Intensity doesn’t do this episode enough justice.
Guess What’s Coming to Dinner is full of pay-off…but then it holds back. It holds back just enough to keep us tantalized…to keep us hooked…and then blows the audience out of the water in its final five minutes.
The success of the episode lies in the way events actually (finally!) progress. Everyone has reached some sort of limit - coping with their losses, feverish with anticipation, resigned to a grim end. Everyone experiences either an epiphany or a moment of truth…and it’s a joy to watch the quiet dynamics of all the characters, as they reach out to grasp the final straws life might throw at them.
It’s a constant roller coaster - emotional confrontations, broken up by quiet moments of contemplation and worry. The arrival of the battered Base Star, the face-to-face interrogation of the Natalie/Six Cylon, her unprecedented request for an alliance, her speech to the Quorom, and Kara’s realization that the hybrid’s prophecy could be true…but only regarding the Cylons…all of it makes the heart race faster and faster.
And then, we pause…
…to worry, along with the Tyrol and Tigh, about Natalie possibly revealing their identities…to witness Tory being read a quiet, dismissive riot act by the President…to watch as Lee persuades the President to offer the government hope…to spy on the Cylons suddenly doubting their own plans…and then doubting the double-crossing doubts they were discussing only a moment ago!
All of this is handled beautifully by director Wayne Rose - everything is framed with its own set of angles and tones - impressive, grand, sweeping scenes for the official meetings and statements…key-hole close-ups for the quiet, conspiratorial moments. It’s as if we’re being beamed directly into the brains - and the souls - of everyone involved… It’s all tied together by the beautiful, pain-filled tones of Gaeta, singing from his sick bed, minus one leg.
But, being a typical, top-flight episode of Battlestar Galactica, this isn’t enough. We have to end it with a final five minutes of pure shock-and-awe! Sharon flipping out and SHOOTING NATALIE! Roslin hauling Baltar - and herself - over to the Base Star, determined to hear the words of the Hybrid…
…and then she’s plugged in, screams, and JUMPS!
Which is when I SCREAMED and JUMPED! A swear word or two might have followed…
And, as if karma knew what was to happen, we stop play for a one week, Memorial Day break…just to rub salt into a wound most of us found ridiculously pleasurable! Once again, another wonderful outing from American television’s best program.
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