Friday, January 14, 2005

Battlestar Galactica: Hand of God

After weeks of paranoia and character development, we finally get an episode with some Cylon bashing. Hand of God, sees the brave Colonials launch a daring mission against a Cylon base to secure a supply of fuel. In many ways this ep is a classic example of first season TV. One of my big fears about this show was that every ep would have lots of battles with the Cylons (just like early Buffy had monster-of-the-week eps), culminating in lucky, last minute escapes.

Thankfully, this is the first ep in 10, so it's a welcome break from all the politics of recent stories. It's very much a character-driven story with lots of characters having to come to terms with their new roles in the 'rag-tag' fleet. Lee Adama is having to deal with being the new CAG, despite knowing that Starbuck is by far the better pilot; Starbuck is still recovering from injury, so must take up a role in Ops; and Baltar is still coming to terms with his new found religion and role as an apparent instrument of God (or is it the cylons?)!

The ep is reasonably formulaic, but contains enough surprises to interest the viewer. The b-story of Boomer and Helo on Caprica is getting very interesting with Boomer suffering from what appears to be morning sickness.

In many ways this is one of those 'put your brain on hold eps', but don't take that to mean it isn't enjoyable. The ongoing Baltar/Number Six storyline is perhaps the one thing that truly gets to me, but it's predominately in the background.

Hand of God: 7/10

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