Battlestar Galactica - Scar

This review will be short and sweet. I LOVED it. It is quite a rebound from the previous, “Black Market”, giving Starbuck and in consequence to her, Kat (the “stim junkie”, needing uppers in order to stay sharp due to a lack of Viper pilots at that point in time). Kat serves as a rival to Starbuck, questioning her ethics and command skills as Captain when pilots are lost due to perhaps her tactical advice. Starbuck is hung on Anders, back at Caprica. Admiral Adama and Pres Roslin will not consider returning to Caprica, still forwarding ahead on their mission to Earth. Katee Sackhoff became a sci-fi icon for this series, and episodes like this are the reason why. With her dalliance with alcoholism, guilt over not being able to return as promised to Anders (the memory over and over again in her head as a painful reminder of this), the loss of pilots, the Cylon pilot, Scar, that just keeps returning time and again hiding within cluster of asteroids (the purpose of the episode is that there is great ore available to build Vipers lost in the Cylon war). Scar is a menace to pilots, preying upon them, surprising them, catching them off-guard, and giving them little-to-no time to respond with counterattack. Kat and Starbuck vow to kill Scar first, recognizing that maybe since the Resurrection Ship was destroyed, once Scar is killed in space this time, there will be no return to cause them a headache…and loss of more pilots. Kat continues to needle Starbuck about her drinking, while Starbuck reminds her of her stim addiction and reasons behind taking the drug (fear is her Achilles’ Heel). The episode seems to indicate that Starbuck just brushes aside those lost, particularly in one scene where a locker is being cleared out after a great pilot was killed by Scar during a space fight…maybe a mechanism in order to get through the day without wanting to commit suicide. But I really dug the final scene (well, before she spars light-heartedly with Helo) where Starbuck holds up her bottle and rounds off from memory each and every pilot they have lost during the Cylon war, with Tigh especially moved by this. Adama being there, pride in his face and eyes, is also a very emotionally potent moment in the episode. I like that the series addressed the sexual tension between Starbuck and Apollo and now can move past it as Anders remains her “reason to live”. Great “game of chicken” where Starbuck flies right at Scar, eventually breaking so that Kat could take the shot and put away this Cylon nuisance for good. If I had a beef with the show—and it isn’t that big of a deal really—is that the “toasters” don’t quite have the fun personality as they did in the old series. As a child, I just thought the Cylons were neat, but I had a conversation with a friend of mine who thinks they were lame. So I guess the newer generations consider anything from the original too cheesy to take interest at all. My heart still has a warm place for that show, even though this series is easily superior. Giving the episode an isolated adversary to overcome, both physically and symbolically, won me over...but without Sackhoff, this wouldn't have been nearly as impactful. Luciana Carro deserves special mention as Starbuck's "push", as Kat, a thorn in her side, challenging her to climb out of her gutter.

4/5