DAYBREAK, PT. I - REVIEW

I told someone if this episode were just another 42 minutes of set-up I'd scream. I would but, since the ep nearly put me to sleep I just don't have the energy to bother. Yes, it was all set-up again.

How lame was the ep? Let me put it this way, I'm up very late and watched Daybreak, Pt. I around 2am and now at 3am that cheesy low-budget sci-fi movie The Flesheaters is on for like the tenth time in the last 2 months and it's much more compelling.

Daybreak, Pt. I opens with some artsy camera shots: a beautiful colorful small galaxy; a silhouette of a bird trapped under a roof trying to get out [more on that later]; and real Earth [I immediately thought of that Babylon 5 dream sequence with the bird and Girabaldi]

In a nutshell, Ron Moore decided to go backwards to go forward - as in Flaaaaashback City:

Lee, with flowers shows up at Kara's New Caprica cell - oops I mean her apartment in Caprica City on the real Caprica pre-Cylon attack [pCA] (same set - I got so confuuused).

We see Zak Adama for like a second and rough, sweaty Kara is all Martha Stewart with the cooking and dinner table. Is this our Kara?

Adama, in civilian clothes, is told he has to do something for an hour in a meeting in an office on New Caprica [pCA]

Anders soaks in a rehabilitation bath in a sports locker room and tells a sports reporter its the math and physics and doing the perfect move - seeking perfection that motivates him [ooh, deep ... of course pCA]

Roslin has a baby shower for her younger sister and wears a dress that did not flatter her. Later people in uniform show up to tell her both her sisters and father were killed by a drunk in a car accident. Stunned she goes out to the park and walks in the fountain and under the spray of water [pCA]

Our last pCA Caprica City character study is Baltar riding in a limo with Caprica Six before he got to know her better and they go by his cranky old retired farmer father's place and he mistreats the old guy and is embarrased and ashamed of his past. Cap6 seems intrigued and compassionate (or something) and later she breaks into Baltar's house for the first time which scares him and then tells him she had his father moved to a primo old folks home where he can garden.

All of these were ridiculous and lent nothing to the story and just ate up minutes that we could have learned something about the fleet, where they're going, where the hell is Leoben? Ad nauseam

It is truly a cruel torture watching this show now. It was punishment, pure and simple. There was no joy watching any part of this episode [okay, the 2 seconds of CGI of the Colony at the singularity]. This episode was a husk of a dead insect, an empty shell, an echo of a voice which once spoke.

Poor, sick, doddering Roslin shuffling over to the suicide mission side of the red line after Adama's shouting, er inspirational speech, caught the mood perfectly.

Hairy Human Specialist was brought back for a bit of foreshadowing - they're gonna leave one active launch tube in the Galactica (be sure not to miss that next week).

Helo visits Tyrol in the brig (that's where he was if you were wondering since they didn't manage to even fit in a toss-off line about it last ep ... podcasts don't count, put it onscreen)
Athena is convinced they are too late and Hera has been cut apart and she just cries a river of tears and seems to have hate in her heart for her husband now, consumed with feelings of betrayal for his innocent sexcapade with Boomer-in-disguise. Helo now shows flashes of second thoughts after Tyrol said none of the 8s can be trusted, none.

We saw Adama packing up (with brand new labels someone made that said Base Ship Deck 74 ... wow, big place! ... is that an upper arm or lower arm? In space no one can hear your confusion over up-and-down)

In the Baltarsubplotzone they are rolling up their rugs and moving the silk pillows for the last time and annoying Number #2 groupiegirl and Head-Six pitch to him that he should seek political power now among the fleet. How many times can you beat a dead horse? Baltar seeks out Lee and pitches that he should share power on the new council and Lee rebukes him utterly, calling him out for his untrustworthiness and Baltar admits, "I wouldn't trust me either." ???? Then a weird, out-of-sequence flashback with Lee coming home drunk and using a broom to try to shoo the lost, trapped pidgeon seen earlier in the artsy opening out of his house (the Dove of Peace came to Lee and he didn't recognize it the first time?)

*Man-in-rubber-suit! No, just a Hot Dog sighting. He's still alive! Damn it. He got a scene with Dad, since Adama and Bodie (playing the wiener) bump into each other and he drops some pictures in the Memorial Hallway and mentions that some pictures are left behind. Adama is touched for some reason by a picture on the wall-of-the-dead of two live people who's joint pic is for some reason up there: Athena and Hera. He marches off then has an overly-dramatic moment with a too-long pause in a hallway junction then turns on his heel and retrieves the photo. [Was trying not to doze off here] Adama goes to visit Sam the Hybrid and Kara is there with her music sheet and some square root notations and tells Pappa (since, hey, "you're my daughter" dead girl) what she's been working on and he says "Plug him in," but then has Kara ask him his question (offscreen). And that's when we get the shouting in the Hangar Deck and volunteers for the Hera rescue mission with no explanation as to why he came around to thinking it was a good idea.

The Colony: Last time - from a lower perspective, it had a purple background. This time it had giant insect-like arms and was enshrouded in a yellow-green nebulosity filled with asteroids and debris. We learn later - via Racetrack's recon mission - that it sits at the one stable spot around a singularity (I can't wait for Michael Hall's analysis of that over on his Galactica-Science site). Of course this positioning means there is only one "point-blank" avenue of assault. Meanwhile, inside the Colony, meanie Cavil rebukes Boomer's protestations that Hera's childhood fears should be listened to and she should not be cut open and tells a gloved-up Simon and a can't-be-bothered-to-stick-around Doral to get to the job of cutting the information he wants out of her, since it's in her DNA and the colored dots are wasting his time. What's the rush? As machines, don't they have all the time they need - Hera can grow up with them and eventually come around.

Now, to the conceit of this plot device to set in motion the grand battle for the 2-hour finale: if Hera is the key to unlocking resurrection technology then why did Cavil leave the Hub so poorly defended? They wouldn't be in this pickle if they had done a decent job with their "millions" to guard the place. And what about the rebel Hybrid - why did she betray Cylon resurrection in taking the attack to the Hub? It bears comment.

The focus on the characters with all the flashbacks really made you feel that Moore had indeed completely run out of ideas. He didn't know what to do with the myraid of story threads he needed to weave together to finish this tale. Now the story is about resurrection technology and who has it. Since Ellen is coming to save Hera Cavil can capture her too and have two sources.

The preview for the 2-hour finale looks like a lot of people shooting guns at each other on the dying Galactica. I wish I could say I can't wait.