BSG 2x01 - Scattered

[television]

Okay, so here's my first post about BSG: season 2, episode 1. I think the "A story" for Scattered (which takes place on Galactica) was well crafted. And it's really interesting to see a man like Tigh - an unwilling commander - being thrust into the top post.

Note, in the flashback where Adama tells Tigh he intends to get back in the fleet, Tigh has blood on his hands. I believe this is from an extended flashback they had shot, but didn't use, in which Adama extricates Tigh from a nasty bar fight.

Ron Moore admits one occasion in this episode when he had to resort to "technobabble," when Gaeta is explaining his idea of networking the computers to speed the jump calculations. I'd say it's more than excusable because it's vital for the plot, and it was pretty minimal, as well as being infused with character, when Kelley insists that Adama would never go for it, and it's still "his ship."

But I tell ya, if that's what we're going to be calling "technobabble," then I don't think Star Trek has ever had a minute of character development in its entire history. Which, you know, perhaps it hasn't.

As for the "B story" on Kobol, I'm not sure I like how Crashdown was being portrayed as being so incompetent. I think it would have been more interesting to validate his decision to bug out ASAP (without checking their supplies) when they initially left the crash site. I would have preferred it if Tyrol's team ran into cylons at the crash site, not on the way back.

In fact, I understand that a sequence that was cut from this episode contained just such an encounter; it's a shame they couldn't incorporate it.

Galactica is a world in which I no longer expect simplistic stories. I now expect it to have shades of grey everywhere. So, one-sided portrayals of characters is not something I suffer easily, when it comes to this show.