Most of the recent offerings have kept Number Six in the background, and as such have made her character tolerable. The blonde hottie (not my personal opinion I might add) who's most interesting feature is how little clothing she is wears from one episode to the next is perhaps the result of a brief relapse by Ron Moore into Star Trek mode.
In this episode the likeable, but somewhat melodramatic Baltar has a hissy fit over his dream lovers obsession with religion. As a result, she disappears from his delusions only to reappear for real as a girl on a mission to reveal Baltar as a traitor.
Now on the surface, I haven't minded the religious undertones. I think it illustrates how the cylons have come to resemble the humans more than they realise themselves. However, the direction of this episode which forces Baltar to address his faith once more, was covered in the first episode ('33') and just feels totally unnecessary now.
However, the biggest let-down is in the characterisation of Baltar. The increasingly delusional state he is suffering made for some amusing scenes early on, and while I don't argue that his particular brand of crazy is at times refreshing, this time it is perhaps the most melodramatic piece of acting I've seen since William Shatner collapsed in tears at the death of his on-screen son.
The episode moves from increasingly camp circumstances, including one rather ill-advise toilet cubicle scene between Baltar and his one remaining friend Lt. Gaeta. By the time Baltar started re-enacting the 'files are in the computer' scene from Zoolander I was ready for packing it in. I stuck with it, perhaps mainly because I had friends round!
In summary, my perseverance didn't exactly pay off, although the new fate of Baltar was quite a nice touch. The camp Carry On moments were either the result of bad acting, poor direction, poor scripting or a combination of all three. The few highlights included Adama, who clearly didn't trust Number Six from the start and Boomers brief stint at flirting with a Cylon raider... don't ask!
3/10
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