'Galactica' Loses Sight Of The Bigger Picture

Very aptly named, “Taking A Break From All Your Worries” not only takes a break from the run from the Cylons, but also seems to take a short sabbatical from everything else that has made “Battlestar Galactica” great.

All of the intensity of the season is worryingly absent from the episode, and instead the not-too-complex relationship between Apollo (Jamie Bamber) and Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) takes center stage. The series survived for two years without the need for the love triangle, so why the writers feel the need to include it now is anyone’s guess. “Galactica” was considered a hard-hitting drama, but now, just as Katee Sackhoff herself says, it is in danger of becoming a soap opera.

It is of course more than a little amusing that in the same episode of all the marital problems a bar just happens to open up on the Galactica. Thus far, the story hasn’t really led anywhere and now seems more disconnected from the bigger picture than ever before. Is it just something to keep a few characters busy, or is its purpose to make the hinted death at the end of the season just a little bit more powerful?

Interspersed throughout the soap-style melodrama is the dark reaches of Gaius Baltar’s (James Callis) mind, which unfortunately is nowhere near as interesting as his Cylon-loving antics on the baseship earlier this year. Is Baltar a Cylon? Alas, no … he is but a man. It is more than a tad disappointing that the answer to this riddle has been revealed so soon, as Baltar’s existential crisis has been a constant source of entertainment this year and it is a genuine shame to see it go.

Despite this, however, there are a few nice intimate moments during the episode: It’s good to see Tricia Helfer back as the ‘imaginary’ Number Six, secretly aiding Baltar’s mental-resistance and Gaeta’s (Alessandro Juliani) decision to try and kill the former president was a fine play for the character.

But it’s not all bad – we’ve still got the trial of Gaius Baltar to look forward to and Caprica Six is still in a Galactica jail cell. That alone should provide some interesting storytelling to carry us into the fourth season.

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