Recap: I skipped the Oscars® for this?

Enamored by the beautiful faces and skeletor frames of Hollywood, I almost missed the 10 pm start-time of BSG. Close one. In the spirit of things, here are my nominees for Best Performance by a Cylon in a Supporting Role:

• Six’s steamy seduction of Gauis Baltar on Caprica, her mission: to get secret defense information and destroy humanity.

• Leoben imprisoning Starbuck on New Caprica with delusional hopes of making her his Stepford Wife

• Brother Cavil, the Quantum Leap cylon, duping the fleet and counseling Tryol after he beats the frack out of Cally

• Athena convincing Helo to kill her, sending her to download onto the Resurrection Ship in order to rescue her baby, Hera

• D’Anna infiltrating BSG as a reporter from the Fleet News Service, gaining access to the pilots and officers and seeing the impregnated Sharon

And. The. Envelope, PLEASE… see end of the recap… oh, the suspense, I know, I know…brutal

The previous scenes are all about Chief. He’s getting lots and lots of camera time lately… maybe he’ll turn out to be one of the sleeper cylon models. There has to be some shocking cylon-revelations in episodes to come, and you know an important Galactica fixture has got to be one. Starbuck, you say? Perhaps, but I hope not. She’s too good at being the disturbed bad-ass pilot, so bad, yet sooo good… I guess we’ll just wait and see, it’s anyone’s guess.

BSG opens with all the knuckle-draggers hard at work, pumping Tylium and doing all the things that deckhands do. Seelix is back on duty and pissed because she got bounced from flight-training, thus infuriating all the other busy bees. They just can’t get ahead — no matter what. Am I sensing discord on Galactica? No… it can’t be… Pamphlets! Strikes! Mutiny! It’s all here on the latest BSG installment…

A Raptor takes off and soon tailspins through space towards… gulp… Colonial One! Is our fearless leader in jeopardy? Nah, she’s probably doing Adama on Galactica… no, just kidding. It cuts to commercial and we are left wondering the fate of our President.

President Roslin was aboard Colonial One, but the collision didn’t even merit a scene. Instead, we see Roslin and Adama moving loads of paperwork to another part of the ship and we’re told that there were no casualties…phew. But we didn’t even get to see the crash scene?? BSG, what is happening to you?? Where is the show full of space fights, explosions, phallic jets, and hot cylons? Yes, I know this show is much more than that, but I’ve missed those things in the past weeks. I’ve grown weary of the social messages and love triangles. Yes, I like that element of the show, especially when they’re interwoven with the greater plot, but everything has seemed so packaged in tidy episodes lately…. Or maybe I’m just one picky bitch. Maybe that’s it, ok, I know it’s true, but you spoil me with a frackin awesome show and my standards sky-rocket…not my fault.

The fuel on the Raptor was contaminated, thus causing its malfunction in space. Uh, oh…someone’s in big trouble. Let’s head to the Tylium ship to find out whose ass is grass. The workers are complaining about their atrocious conditions: long hours, no respect, dirty workspace, no AC… damn, I thought my cube was bad.

Here, we are introduced to the Great Social Divide of the fleet. How do the vipers get fuel? We don’t see the little guys working their butts off to refine the tylium. Where did all that algae go after it was hauled off of the Algae Planet? To all the minions on the Algae Ship who work day and night to send the bland substance to the people, horay! Finally, we are seeing the plight of the overworked civilians.

Adama and Roslin visit the workers’ leader, Zenu. Through some failed diplomatic negotiations, he gets thrown in the clink for quoting, get this, Gauis Baltar’s new book, “My Triumphs, My Mistakes” that’s circulating. The little rascal is back! Though I think the book’s title should have been, “Maybe one Triumph? Lots of Mistakes”. Do the people already forget about his selfishness and tyranny on New Caprica? Yeah, so he said he had to comply with the cylons so humanity would survive, etc, etc, but we all remember him banging cylon after cylon, drinking the good stuff, and kissing cylon-leadership butt. Oh, how I love to hate Baltar.

Finally Adama was making sense by saying that they “should get back on the road to Earth”. Amen brother. That’s what I’m talking about… now, can you do that?

I’m finding it hard to muster sympathy for the workers since everyone seems to be doing what they can to survive, find Earth, and start a new great society, free of cylon threats. But, yeah, I’d be pissed if I didn’t get a break for months on end and if I had the same chance of losing an appendage as I did of finding a working toilet. BUT, at the same time, from the viewer’s perspective, we’ve seen their asses saved time-after-time by the Admiral & crew.

Also, I just watched a documentary on working conditions and industrialization at the turn of the century. Talk about “I had a bad day at work” – and most of them were ten years old with four fingers left. Good thing I didn’t just read Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”… because actually, what do I know, I’ve never read it. It’s on my continually evolving, endless list of important-books-I-should-read-but-probably-never-will because of the ever prolific Stephen King and the awesomeness of television.

I am happy that Baltar is back in the picture, trying to stir up trouble and be his usual a-hole self. Over at the (un)happy Tyrol household, Cally whipped up some algae meatloaf… hmmmmm, D-lish. No wonder they’re so grumpy. Cally’s upset that Seelix got booted from flight training – she’s apparently a member of Baltar’s book club and is drinking the Kool-Aid at the meetings. She explains the Great Social Divide among the ships. All the officers and pilots were from rich colonies; the deckhands and “knuckle-draggers” were from the poor ones. Except for Dualla, who hails from Sagitarron. She’s an officer because she married Lee… way to sleep your way to the top, D! See, there are ways to get ahead… think outside of the (your) box, Cally!

But wait, the colonies have been obliterated and this new human race is just trying to survive and not get exterminated by cylons. So why get your panties in a bunch now, Cally? Oh, it’s that instigator Baltar…

President Roslin pays Baltar a visit in his cell to find the rest of his book. Uh, oh, open up Gauis, cavity search time. The President knows that Baltar’s lawyer has been smuggling his book out for him and distributing it, and calling him the “man of the people” and “son of a farmer”. I guess other people have had successful, drastic PR makeovers, so it could work, i.e. Angelina Jolie…

Baltar seems indifferent. He goes to his happy cylon place and Six slips her hand down his pants. She tells him to keep his dignity and to not cave into Roslin’s demands. With that, he pulls something out of his pants… tadooow…not what you’re thinking pervs!

Just the end of his manuscript — he hands it over and says, “perhaps you will consider writing a blurb for the back cover.” HA. Baltar made a funny. Oh, he gets me every time. The joke is on Roslin however, because I’m sure that manuscript smelled funky. I mean, you think that Baltar’s showered since he’s been in captivity?

Chief is sent to the fuel refinery ship to check out the conditions after Zeno was arrested. There we get a montage of dirty workers, sparks, and buttloads of safety and labor violations, including a 12 year-old kid named Milo working. The workers are sabotaging the ship by removing pressure seals until their leader is released from prison and their conditions improve. We find out that they haven’t had a day off since the original cylon attack. Waaaaaah, frackin, waaaaaaaah.

Roslin doesn’t except extortion for better working conditions. Chief can’t sleep. Cally still has atrocious hair. The fuel workers are still pissed, Zeno is in jail and this episode is going NOWHERE fast.

Chief and President Roslin sit and discuss this lame-O situation at hand. Roslin decides that a lottery will determine everyone’s fate. Shift rotation will be implemented and the people will get the time off that they deserve. Sounds like an okay (though not perfect) plan, until Chief gets a farmer’s son who WANTS TO BE AN ENGINEER!! Well, I wanted to be a Solid Gold Dancer, but you know what? Things don’t always work out the way you want them to (so my mom tells me).

Since I don’t think there’ll be any need for engineers soon, kid, you’re stuck with deck duty. Has anyone heard of a TEAM PLAYER on Galactica? Cue Admiral Adama’s speech on team work… okay, maybe later…

Chief spots Baltar’s book and we all know that he’ll be a convert soon. He pays a visit to Baltar’s cell; it turns out that maybe he isn’t bullshitting on one thing: Baltar is from a poor colony and his dad was a farmer, as he proves by doing some accent thingie. Good for him. It proved another thing to me: Baltar’s been an enormous a-hole his whole life – first, by turning his back on his family and heritage and now, just by being himself.

The last question in Baltar’s book, we learn, is “Do you honestly believe the fleet will be ruled by anyone other than an Adama?” Ummmm, no. Who could fill that role, some lowly minion?

Back on the fuel refinery, there’s a little jam that will “blow them all to hell”. Part of me wanted that to happen just so this storyline would end, but then I realized that we’d have to endure another episode of fixing the fuel shortage from the refinery explosion, so I quickly rescinded that thought. Some guy fixes it, but mangles his arm big time. Ouch. This incident clearly proves to the Chief that Something. Must. Be. Done! And what does he do? Yup, STRIKE time. Great frackin idea Chief. Frackin great. Cheers abound… woohooooo, “we’re extra vulnerable to cylon attacks now!! Yay!”

Dumbasses.

Adama quickly visits the Chief and says that all the talk about work stoppage is mutiny and the punishment is death. But no, he’s not going to shot the Chief, that’s too easy – he takes it one step further… he’s going to shoot Cally for conspiring. Wow. This is a bad year for the Tyrol family. Adama’s such a badass, a little bit of a prick, yet very effective.

He says he’d “put ten Callys up against the wall to make sure this ship and this fleet are not destroyed”. Tough love. Chief does NOT call Adama’s bluff and the situation is diffused… or is it?

President Roslin and the Chief meet and all is momentarily well amongst the fleet. They decide on shift rotation, unions, collective bargaining, and gold stars and kisses for everyone …. do you think there will be a bigger revolt later? Will Baltar retain supporters? And drum roll puh-leeeease… from this academy of one, the award for Best Performance by a Cylon in a Supporting Role goes to…. Six, of course!

Could a cylon award go to anyone else? What do you think? The scenes for next week look promising. Are you ready for more action?