Battlestar Galactica: Maelstrom

Just catching up with the show, which is why this is late.

My 2 cents? Even if she's completely 100% dead, we haven't seen the last of her storyline. There were just too many subtle things at the end, hinting at more to come.

Things like Leoben saying he's not Leoben, the whole "space between life and death" thing, seeing both the raptor and raider from Apollo's perspective, Kara saying "I'll see you on the other side" and "They're waiting for me".

Why add things like that unless they're of some use?

I've gotta think the writers are pretty smart, and all this "preparing Starbuck for her destiny" thing is more than preparing her for a suicide.

I'm of two minds on this. My first reaction was like the rest I see. Surprise and disbelief.

After a bit though, this season I'm sick as shit about the starbuck/apollo thing.

I agree, they went too far tearing the hotshot down and leaving a husk of a human being in it's wake.

I also refuse the believe the character with a will to live strong enough to gut the inside of a cylon warship which is in itself a cylon and part living thing just to get home, take a dive down a hole.

I also listened to the podcast, and "me thinks thou doth protest too much" was what came to mind. I think there's a bill of goods being sold.

All that said, season three has largely sucked by comparison to season 1 and even 2. Season one was edge of your seat fraking intense from minute one to minute 59. The drums in the battle scenes were perfect for tempo. Lately, it's been Battlestar Galactica 90210.

Where does one start?

First the Starbuck character had short term been over played. This ep brought some seriousnss back to her character which was important long term. The key is that time was given to showing her hand on the eject control. No point to this unless it was going to be used and I suspect it WAS used.

The Cylons put a put a lot of time and effort into Kara. Her intended Cylon "partner" allowed jhimself to be routinely killed off and to return. We know this is increasingly difficult and painful for a Cylon. So the whole Kara and Cylon relationship looks to be long term. Just don't expect anything for a few eps as thew writers deliberately hold off on this.

Bad Bad command decision to put such a nut case back into a cockpit and the inevitable resulted.
Bad Bad command decision to call off any search just because her ship exploded. They know there are survival/eject protocols.
While the humans cared the cylons acted!

Long term character of importance:
The Chief
Kara
Baltar
Number 6
Kara's Cylon "partner"
All of these have visions involving the other race.

Ok, so I've watched the episode, and commented, and now that I've heard the commentary, I think I'm really beginning to get what I think is a final opinion of what happened in the episode.

I don't like Kara's death. I mean, its obvious, I'm a huge Starbuck fan, and you know, that sucks. But beyond that, it sounds like there was a lot of thought and effort put into crafting this storyline, to let Starbuck realize and reach her destiny. If that's the case, then I think it was all in vain. For the record, I will also state that I know that 'Starbuck's story isn't over' and all, but I end up feeling empty after Malestorm. And not the kind of empty Moore and crew were going for, but more the kind of empty of saying, "Well, that was another pointless death." To steal a turn of phrase from Moore, I don't think we 'earned' Starbuck's death the way that he intended us to.

I thought that the episode, as written/filmed/directed/performed, was phenomenal. I liked the editing, the cutting between the scene with the mom and the storm, I liked all of it. But, I don't think they built the story nearly as well as they think they did. Maybe when the story is told, I'll be able to appreciate the meat of the plot a lot more.

Oops. Thank you for the correction Akbar.

Tim-1,

Mrs. Tigh was named "Ellen" not "Helen"

As for Starbuck being gone 100%. I don't believe it at all.

If we accept at face value that "sixinthehead" is an angel of god as she says she is, then making the jump that the Seraphs* saved Starbuck is easy. No stretch to the credibility or would it cause Olmos to leave the show for "aliens"

*see here for a wiki entry on the original Seraphs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seraphs_(Battlestar_Galactica)

Clarifying my "And Apollo was with them physically." I meant that he was physically on their ship/land/space or wherever they were.

Keith -

I believe the white light beings looked human but were not actually human. And Apollo was with them physically. They came off as being angelic more or less. It has been a while since I saw that episode or the episode they appeared in later in that series.

And yes I know that Olmos would bail if they started doing alien story lines. But if like in the first series they were angelic..that writers might try and tie it into the religious aspect of the show. And this could be the place that is between life and death that Leoben character was referring too.

@Lee:

I'd be very surprised if some mysterious white lights saved Starbuck in this episode, as Olmos has said that if the show starts doing the alien thing, he's outta here. Then again, I didn't see the original series, so were the lights man/Cylon made or alien?