Written by Bradley Thompson & David Weddle
Directed by Michael Nankin
“It’s perfect. We traded one nuked civilization for another.”
Sometimes a Great Notion is the most unrelenting, bleak, horrific, depressing hour of television I have ever witnessed…
…and that’s why it’s brilliant. So bear with me…because I honestly don’t know how I’m going to review this utter triumph. Let’s take a stab at it…with SPOILERS (so be warned).
They found Earth…and the Earth is dead. It gets worse. The bones are all Cylon - all over the planet — which makes the old Galactica adage “it has happened before, and it will happen again” ring with more ominous foreboding than at any previous time in the series. The flashbacks to a previous existence, and the discovery of Tyrol’s shadow, burned into the wall, will be enough to make the hairs rise on the back of your neck…and then fall off, and run away screaming!
And what in the name of all that is holy is meant by the discovery of Starbuck’s viper, scattered across fields, in pieces…along with the cockpit containing her body! It’s enough to send Leoben running…and Kara screaming after him, demanding to know what she is.
Mind frakked yet?
But all of these mysteries are, for once, the garnish to the main course. The real meat lies with the terrible, aching sadness and depression that overcomes the entire fleet. Watching all those with strength slowly crumble before our eyes leaves a terrible feeling in the gut. Roslin lying on the ground, burning the book of prophecies…the crew of Galactica falling into undisciplined anarchy and terrible, depressed lethargy…and THEN…
…oh god, I still can’t come to terms with it. The most shocking, soul-shredding death in the Galactica canon — Billy and Cally dying were minor concerns compared to this. It arrives brutally, suddenly, horrifically…and forced me to jackknife into a sitting position, mouth gaping open. Dualla’s suicide is the single greatest statement of defeat in the series to date. It reduces Admiral Adama to drunken helplessness…at which point, I seriously contemplated that the fleet was about to self-immolate.
Where does any hope come from? Where do we look for salvation and survival? From Saul Tigh, of all people: the one man who has resigned himself to what he is, accepted that there isn’t anything he can do to change (whether as a human or a Cylon), and decides to pull the Admiral up by his own boot straps. It’s almost delirious watching TIGH force ADAMA (talk about your frakking Bizarroworld!) to pull himself together, in the midst of a suicide attempt no less…but it’s enough for the Admiral to realize that they are all back to where they started: looking for a new home, struggling to survive…and it’s all on his shoulders.
Ok…I’m going to stop now…because my slowly melting brain has had enough. Hmm…in all honesty…I keep trying to come up with more and more words for this review…and my mind keeps flashing the word INADEQUATE. Everything I’m trying to express is peanuts - there can be no justice done to this episode with mere words. It’s a purely visceral experience…and it’s one of the most stunning works of television I’ve seen in my life. It’s not simply heart-wrenching…it rips the heart out of your chest, stomps on it, kicks it into the trash can…and asks bluntly to be appreciated as art. This is the pinnacle of Battlestar Galactica — by far the greatest episode ever…
…and I’m sure the series finale will manage to TOP it…which means this show is trying to kill me once and for all.
10+
