Written by Ryan Mottesheard
Directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton
“I DON’T WANT TO BE HUMAN! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays…and I…I want to…I want to smell dark matter!”
OK…so I’ve decided…
(1) No Exit is a breathtaking episode that not only reveals everything we wanted to know about the Cylons, the final five, Earth, and the endless cycle of violence…it reveals it ALL AT ONCE! If that wasn’t enough, it reveals everything in two parallel plot strands AND manages to throw in a flashback structure just to add icing to the cake.
Its glory is enhanced by the beautiful & amazing performance of Kate Vernon…and the evil-to-end-all-evil of Dean Stockwell. I always hated his smug, sadistic Cylon…and now I have REAL reason to hate him!
In short, No Exit is a stunning, bulldozer of an episode, that slams itself into the heart of Battlestar Galactica mythology, and dares you to look away at your peril.
THAT SAID…
(2) No Exit is an episode that beggars belief: a crass, unbelievably heavy info-dump beyond all proportions, taking answers we have been drooling & dreaming about for five years and dumping them unceremoniously into our laps, with all the subtlely of a wino with dysentery, squatting in a dark alley. It’s the Battlestar Galactica equivalent of a deadly-dull academic in garish 1970s fashions, walking on screen and giving us a LECTURE about ALL the secrets the series has been hiding up to this point.
Its ONLY saving grace is the acting. The beautiful & amazing performance of Kate Vernon…and the evil-to-end-all-evil of Dean Stockwell. I always hated his smug, sadistic Cylon…and now I have REAL reason to hate him!
No Exit is the most disappointing episode EVER. Five years of build up…and THIS is was we get for our patience? Unmitigated GARBAGE!
There you go…my schizophrenic feelings on the matter. At any given moment, I can adore this episode. At other times, it makes me feel like Anders at the climax: brain dead!
5
