Josh's Weblog

Seems straightforward. Four different people are tortured in the first act, with varying results. We are shown why they are being tortured (the bombing). All of them (Tigh, Adama, Kara, Ellen) are being tortured mentally, not physically. Adama's torture is his feeling of leaving people behind (why else would they recap that?).

I think they are showing the difference between the way humans fight and love (visceral, physical, raw) with the way Cylons fight (mental, calculating, a little OCD). When the Cylons were reduced to fighting *our* way they slaughtered almost everyone, but they are fascinated with humans. They feel they are missing something humans have. Is it passion? The only passionate players in Act 1 were humans. The happiest were destroying things. The saddest were toys of love.

For a steak knife it sure looked like a tactical folder. Nice trick. They made us focus on the knife (it looked like a fighting knife) when the innocuous fork became the murder weapon. I'm glad for the payoff of using that knife to eat her steak.

Another nice trick was giving the viewers the impression that a suicide bombing was coming up. Vaguely middle eastern music. Preparations and scene jumping that made us feel like there were flashbacks. Was Ellen sending a soldier off to battle? Were we going to lose Tigh? Ellen? Tyrol?

I look forward to this season.