Thursday 25 August 2011

014. Crossroads (Battlestar Galactica)


"My name is Saul Tigh. I'm an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that's the man I want to be. And if I die today, that's the man I'll be"

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: 18th/25th March 2007
EPISODE NUMBER: Season 3, Episode 19
WRITTEN BY: Michael Taylor & Mark Verheiden

Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica stalled in some places and spread the plot thin. However, Crossroads was a great end to the season and unexpectedly delivered some major, gamechanging plot twists.

One of the major mysteries throughout the show was the identity of the final 5 cylons. Knowing it could be anyone on the fleet created a lot of tension and paranoia and became a big talking point for fans, who loved to speculate who. Four of them discover their true nature towards the end of this episode. The machines stand by, stunned, unable to process such important information and unsure of how to proceed from here. The magnitude of the event is very powerful, it's hard to imagine having to deal with finding out everything you thought you knew about yourself was a lie. Michael Hogan is fantastic throughout the episode, as he starts off having a breakdown, and ends up proud of who he is.

One thing that sets Battlestar Galactica apart from other sci-fi shows is that it's a very relateable show at heart. It may have spaceships and robots, but it's about humans, and it deals with issues and problems that we deal with. Baltar's trial is a fantastic musing on the rights and wrongs of war conduct. This is a very important issue in the real world, and the show concludes that there are no easy answers. Mark Sheppard gives an amazing performance as Baltar's Lawyer, Romo Lampkin, and with the help of a great clsoing speech from Apollo about how all humans are flawed, does the seemingly impossible - clears the name of the most hated man in the Universe.

The ending is also great, where a supposedly dead Starbuck rises from the grave, claiming to know the way to Earth for one final shock. And the subtle, gradual implementation of the great song "All Along The Watchtower" (re-used in the series finale) is cool too.

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