The “
Beings of Light” from the episode
War of the Gods
are back, and they continue to be intergalactic busybodies with their
lame apparent “non-interference” methods. Originally this was supposed
to be another Starbuck centered episode but Richard Hatch pointed out
that too many episodes had been focusing on fan favorite Starbuck, so
the producers just swapped characters around, and thus this it became an
Apollo story.
The episodes begin with a squadron of Vipers, led by Apollo (
Richard Hatch) and Starbuck (
Dirk Benedict),
in hot pursuit of the Eastern Alliance destroyer that escaped during
the end of the last episode. Their plan is to follow the destroyer to
its destination and find out more about the planet Terra, and what the
Eastern Alliance is up to. Unfortunately for our heroes before that has a
chance to happen
The Ship of Lights appears behind Apollo’s Viper, he is abducted by these apparent “superior beings” and then is given an assignment by John (
Edward Mulhare), one of the
Beings of Light.
“Am I on a mission from God?”
Apollo
is told that he will be sent to Terra to stop the war between the
Eastern Alliance and the Nationalists, now one guy being sent to stop a
war would seem to be a difficult task so John uses some space magic so
that the Terrans will see Apollo as one of their own, a pilot by the
name of Charlie Watts whose been missing in action on one of the
satellite planets destroyed by the Eastern Alliance.
Note: Donald P. Bellisario, one of the show’s writers, would later use this idea for his show
Quantum Leap.
In Experiment in Terra Apollo is in the role of Scott Bakula’s Sam
Beckett, while John appears as a type of hologram to give Apollo advice
much in the same way Dean Stockwell gave Sam advice as Al.
“I could help you more if I had my palm pilot to access Ziggy.”
The
Beings of Light make a phone call to Charlie's ex-girlfriend, Brenda (
Melody Anderson)
to get her out into the desert to pick up Apollo, and things don’t go
so well as poor Apollo has no knowledge of who she is, what’s going on
with the war, and even who in the hell this Charlie person is that he’s
supposed to be impersonating. At least in
Quantum Leap
Al was able to provide Sam with tons of background information, but here
John leaves Apollo hanging out to dry, so he ends up coming across as a
person whose elevator no longer goes all the way to the top. This
results in Brenda calling security and having “Charlie” taken to a
hospital for his own good.
“I must be crazy to be in a loony bin like this.”
Meanwhile, Starbuck has left Jolly (
Tony Swartz)
in charge of the squadron and took off to find Apollo, because screw
responsibilities, his best friend is missing. He arrives on Terra and is
almost immediately found by forces belonging to the Nationalists. Not
one for diplomacy Starbuck takes out the nine soldiers by firing three
times…wait what? Before firing Starbuck made a recording on his
communicator, to inform whoever may hear this report, that he was
setting his gun for stun, this clearly for our benefit so we don't think
Starbuck just murdered those dudes, but it does not explain how firing
three times can take out nine people unless the stun setting is
strangely way more effective than the kill setting.
I’m betting the remaining six were just playing dead.
Starbuck
blows up the two helicopters the soldiers arrived in, he then hoofs it
into town to find Apollo using a tracking device, but just as he’s about
to storm the facility he knows is holding his friend, John shows up to
provide absolutely no help. Seriously, he stops Starbuck from going in
guns blazing, talks with him for a bit, and then Starbuck goes in
guns blazing.
These supposedly advanced beings take the non-interference thing a bit
far; they have no physical form so cannot interact with anyone
physically (though they constantly forget that as we see John often
touching Apollo and Starbuck), they are not allowed to give our heroes
any real useful information, and basically they just hang around like
useless ghosts. Hell, Casper the Friendly Ghost would have been more
help on this mission.
“Tell me the truth, your only ability is in bleaching our uniforms, right?”
In
the previous two episodes we learned a little about the Eastern
Alliance, the Space Nazis bent on complete conquest and the imposing of
their doctrine on all worlds, but now in this episode we finally meet
the Nationalists, and they aren’t all that great either. The President (
Peter MacLean)
is trying to cover up all the death and destruction perpetrated by the
Eastern Alliance on the satellite worlds so that he can push his Peace
Treaty that he’s managed to get the head of the Eastern Alliance to
sign. When he heard that “Charlie Watts” has returned, from a place he
knows was destroyed by the Eastern Alliance, he had Charlie/Apollo
locked up so none of his people could hear of it and spoil the treaty
with valid protests.
He’s kind of like Neville Chamberlain but with less charisma.
Back on the Galactica Commander Adama (
Lorne Greene)
has ordered Colonel to prepare to put the ship to light speed so they
can get to Terra fast enough to rescue his son, That this means
abandoning the rest of the fleet, with but a squadron of Vipers as
protection, does not seem to bother him. Meanwhile his son has at no
point tried to pretend he is Charlie Watts, as he was instructed to do,
but constantly tries to explain to the Terrans that he is from a distant
galaxy. He gives an impassioned speech about how his people use to
believe that the opposite of war was peace, but quickly learned that
strength and strength alone can ensure freedom. His brilliant rhetoric
is of course ignored as the ravings of a madman, but before he can be
tossed back in the nut factory they are all informed that the Eastern
Alliance has launched all their nukes, and the Nationalist nukes have
automatically launched in retaliation.
Battlestar Galactica or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.
During all this Brenda and Starbuck had been driving around the desert in the hopes of finding his Viper.
Question: Earlier
we saw that he had a tracking device to locate Apollo, but he doesn't
have one that can locate his own ship? Eventually they stumble across
his Viper and launches in the hopes of getting to the Galactica and
using its superior technology to prove to the Nationalist that Apollo
isn’t nuts. John then pulls a Ben Kenobi and starts talking to Starbuck
as he flies, informing him that Armageddon is about six minutes away.
Starbuck radios the Galactica and fills them in on the situation; Adama
orders battle stations which in this case mean putting some kind of
laser shield over the entire planet so the missiles all explode
harmlessly on space.
You’d think this kind of technology would have been damn useful against the Cylons.
With
all their nukes destroyed by some advanced weapons the Eastern Alliance
sues for peace on the terms set by the Nationalists, all the people and
colonies that were wiped out by the Eastern Alliance’s war machine
apparently forgotten. The episode ends with Apollo demanding that John
tell him if Terra is the Earth they’ve been searching for and is told, "
I'm sorry, Apollo... your journey is not over."
“Your princess is in another castle.”
The most painful element of this episode has to be John, the supposed
Being of Light,
who wants Apollo to save Terra because its destruction will cause
repercussions that will affect even them. Strange that Apollo never asks
where in the hell the
Beings of Light were when the Cylons
were unleashing genocide on the Twelve Colonies. And once again this
show hammers the message that only the military can solve problems
because politicians are all lying cowards who will roll over at the
first sign of danger.
“We should shoot ourselves now; it will save them having to impeach us later.”
No comments:
Post a Comment