Greetings from Earth

[LucianG]

There was a very uneven quality of writing in the episodes during Battlestar Galactica, and I believe this, in addition to the production cost, contributed to the show's cancellation. After a long delay between epidodes, I finally watched Greetings from Earth over the weekend. Despite having Johnny Gage and the Tic-Tac Girl, it was always one of my least favorite episodes because I thought it was just bad. Everyone seemed as stiff as a board (okay, the Eastern Alliance/Nazis-in-space guys and the androids were supposed to be), it had in V&H the two dumbest characters on the show, and the basic science was so flawed (airtank, anyone?). The whole episode was just bad, bad, bad. Therefore, I have avoided it for years. However, when I watched it this weekend, I realized that the writing quality variation struck again, as I believed, but it was also evident even within the two hour episode. The first half had some pretty silly moments (watch when the open the cargo bay on the ship and the chamber appears behind it, among others!), but the discussion on interfering with the ship and its people was actually pretty compelling, on a Prime Directive-kind of level. With only a tiny bit of effort and some sharp scissors, this episode could have been significantly improved.

Discussion is welcome!

[Col. Charybdis]

Hey, Lucian, nice to see you again! I have always been a fan of the first hour of this episode. The dilemma of whether or not to take the ship and then open their containers is pretty good. Once they get to the planet, however, not so good..

It has never been one of my favorite episodes though..

[lightning]

I must say, the first time I saw this episode, I wasn't impressed much. The first half is the better half. Didn't like V&H either, thought they were too dumb to be real. The fact that it had Gage in it was the only reason I kept watching. Although it had some good points, like what you call the Prime Directive part, that was captivating, and I really liked the general theme of Michael and Sarah trying to start over on that rock. It had good points like that. The scene with Starbuck down in the vault was pretty lame too, I mean, they must have known about the low oxygen levels, but those androids dropped the ball on that too. In my opinion, for what it's worth, lose Hector and Vector and it'd be great.

[LucianG]

Hi Colonel, good to be back, to see you, and to actually writing again, for the first time in a long time.

lightning, it had been so long since I'd seen this one (see inherent dislike, above) that I actually didn't remember Sarah trying to entice Apollo so she could dump Michael, and was pretty taken aback by it. The ending, with the sense of cooperation between the families and the hope for the couple, offered a sense of hope that seemed to be missing throughout the second part of the episode, so I was glad to see that (even if no one bothered to short circuit V&H!).