Battlestar Galactica Review - Valley of Darkness
“Valley of Darkness” picks up where the first episode of the second season left off - with the Cylon raiding party on board Galactica causing havoc, while the storylines on Caprica and Kobol continue on their respective paths. The episode ends up feeling something like a reincarnation of “Aliens” rather than a unique look into how Cylons fight once they are on board. But first, a recap of the story:
In the previous episode, we saw a Cylon raiding party crash into Galactica and Cylon Centurions come out of the craft. Well episode two shows more trouble is in store for the crew of the BSG. First, a Cylon computer virus has compromised the computer systems on board the Galactica and it’s causing power outages all over. Second, the Centurion force has split into two groups going after two main objectives on the Galactica. One group is looking to vent the ship’s air into space thereby killing all of the crew on board while the other group is looking to get to the ship’s magazine’s so they can turn the Galactica’s guns on the rest of the fleet. How do we know this? Through Col. Tigh as he has apparently seen this pattern before (through previous experiences? It’s not clear).
The episode starts with Lee Adama and the rest of the Viper squadron having just landed on board the BSG from the previous engagement. They run into a group of Centurions and one of them gets cut up by the sharp hands of a Centurion and promptly bites the dust. We soon learn that normal pistols are useless against Centurions - you need explosive rounds to kill them. Thus - people all over are running away from the Centurions as they go rampaging across the ship killing everything either with their hands or with their guns. Capt. Adama goes to the brig and tells the Marines there guarding President Roslin to bring her to the safest part of the ship - the sickbay disaster shelter. Meanwhile Adama and company go hunting for the rest of the Centurion raiding party.
Back on Caprica, Starbuck and Helo sneak into Starbucks’ old stomping grounds and relax to some music that Starbuck happens to have in a music player of some sort (looks like an old fashioned radio). There they take a moment to relax and talk about really … nothing in particular. Starbucks thinks back to how she never used to care about her possessions.. and yet here she is smoking a cigar and listening to her beloved music.
Meanwhile on Kobol, Balter continues down his road of madness as he foresees the death of his baby at the hands of Commander Adama. These images aided by Number Six’s intepretation of the Human race continues to reinforce the notion that Humans are traveling down a road of destruction. It is all happened before and it will all happen again. Then the scene pans to an area of Kobol where skulls are all over. Hmmm.. Meanwhile, Chief Tyrol returns with the medicine that they went to get in Episode one only to discover that Socinus is going to die anyhow.
Back on BSG, the Cylon raiding party is eventually stopped as Adama manages to hold off the last of the Cylons as they are about to get to the magazines. All is fine for now. Capt. Adama and Col. Tigh have a small confrontation at the end and it’s clear that their dislike for one another will be a continue focus of the show as Tigh sees Lee as being disloyal to his own father while Lee sees Tigh as not being fit for command.
There’s the recap of the show and now for some thoughts.
The episode was a strange blend of fast paced action mixed in with some slow paced drama. The action was primarily centered on the Cylon raiding party while the slower paced drama was occurring light years away on Kobol and Caprica. As much as I liked the notion of a raiding party on BSG, I felt that it could have been handled in a better fashion. First the episode felt like something from “Aliens” the movie. You have people screaming left and right, and bloody dead victims all over. Regular pistols were useless on the Cylons since the bullets didn’t have an effect.. Hmm which made me wonder about what Helo used on the Centurion in Season One on Caprica. If you recall, he killed a Centurion with a pistol but I don’t believe he used explosive rounds since the Cylon didn’t explode. Oh well..
What’s unfortunate is how the Centurions went about a path which was already familiar to older soldiers like Col. Tigh. With 40 years gone by, you would think that the Centurions would try a different tactic while on board the ship. Why not plant charges on the ship and blow up section after section. They’re stronger, faster and better equipped by the humans. Just destroy the ship’s internals and the rest of the fleet is useless. The Centurions certainly don’t look intelligent in this episode but look more like a massive killing machine - a stark contrast from the human looking Cylons such as Number Six or Sharon.
Speaking of the rest of the fleet - they were warned to stay away from BSG because of the raiding party. It would have been great to see how the other ships were dealing with the current problem. Everything is so focused on BSG that we don’t know how the 40,000+ individuals are feeling about this. BSG is their only hope for survival and it’s under direct attack - it would be good to focus in on the human drama of the rest of the fleet and their dilemma. Heck - the ships didn’t even move away from BSG!! What the heck?
Must I talk about Starbuck and Helo? The plot line on Caprica is getting a bit ho hum. Get the arrow back to the fleet already or at least back to Kobol. We spend way too long listening to Starbuck talk about her old pad and her old possessions. At the end, they end up in a Hummer look alike and drive off. Umm.. don’t you think someone is going to see them move around town in a vehicle? To me - the only good thing about this part of the story is the brief talk about how the Cylons were rounding up human bodies and cremating them.
Now on to Kobol which I think is the only really interesting part of the show. We see the continued demise of Balter as he starts to think that Commander Adama is going to kill his baby. Baltar slowly driven mad by Number Six and all the contrived stories that she comes up with for him. The problem is - he is having a harder and harder time discerning truth from fiction as the world around him is no longer the “real” world. Meanwhile, it’s also becoming evident that the remaining survivors on Kobol are soon going to confront a leadership issue.
One other small note - the audience is made to think that Cylons attacked the BSG forces on Kobol.. but you never actually see Cylons in the trees from the first episode. Who could this be actually?
In the end, everything works out of course but there’s death and destruction all over. Oh - another pilot is killed in this episode so the ever limiting supply of Viper pilots continues to plummet. Does anyone see this as a problem?
BSG is still a darn good series but this episode could have covered more ground than it actually did. The Caprica storyline is really wearing thin now so let’s hope that storyline moves a bit quicker in the future episodes. Also - let’s hope Commander Adama wakes up soon!
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