In a surprising twist, Battlestar Galactica gave us an episode that was juuuust about one hundred percent flashback free! And no DeeLee or Anders! With just a smattering of Starbuck to remind us that she doesn’t die for a couple weeks the episode revolves around Chief Tyrol uniting the workers of the fleet and rallying them into a strike. You’d think with such a promising premise there would be no way the Captain had wiggle room to complain but like xmas ham on easter morning, this episode stunk and scared all the children away.

I don’t have a problem with character-centric storylines, per se. It’s when these storylines are the entirety of an episode without any forward movement of the actual plot that I speak up. Take the Helo and Sharon storyline from season one for example. The two of them are slowly, madly falling in love with one another despite the inherent differences of ideology and physiology, to only name two. It was done over several episodes and mixed with ass kicking amounts of shooting, running, screaming and without sole attention being paid to it. The writers just let it happen and didn’t sit and devote an entire episode to it chock full of flashbacks and dramatic pauses. Instead we got to sit around and watch the Galactica getting beat the fuck up, Starbuck struggle with her inner demons and Baltar slowly go insane. And we watched Helo and Sharon fall in love and get all preggers.

I have a sinking feeling that this season would treat that storyline differently. The feel of the show has changed and not for the better. Instead of weaving storylines together into an enticing mesh the writers are separating the plot into ala carte entrees with other storylines serving as appetizers, perhaps to be made into entrees of their own but not at this meal. Good television just doesn’t work this way. I’m not intrigued when they haven’t dealt with Colonel Tigh in almost a month. His ab sense has been noticeable and isn’t causing me to craft alibis for him in my mind, wondering what wacky hijinks he’s been up to. Instead I picture him sitting in his quarters, drinking and wondering when he’ll be called to appear on camera next and why he killed his wife on New Caprica when all it would get him was co-billing in what was essentially an Adama-centric episode near the start of the season. The same can be said for Starbuck being Starbuck. We’ve seen Starbuck-Anders all over the place but what about the brash, rebellious pilot of last season? Did faux motherhood take the edge off? I’d be interested to know, the writers are going to address that next week it appears but why has it taken this long and what did we gain from leaving her character development on hold?

And let’s address Baltar, he’s been an afterthought since the end of last season. He serves to pull plot out of others, he’s a crutch and nothing more. Maybe in the coming weeks as the season grinds to a close we’ll get somewhere with him but in the meanwhile I’ve almost forgotten this is the same Baltar that forged Sharon’s Cylon test results and smuggled a nuclear warhead onto Cloud Nine. Or even the Baltar and fiddled while New Caprica burned. He’s just been Baltar that Walks With Cylons or Baltar, Threesome Toy with optional talking head. He could have stayed with the Cylons and at least had more robot nookie but the show deemed that to be Not Boring Enough so we get Baltar, Inmate and pseudo political entity (with optional talking head).

Caprica Six? Almost did something with her last week, huh. Oh well, could’ve followed up on that but we’ll just not bother. Hey! More Tyrol time for everyone! He’s so blue collar, so hard working. Gosh it was awesome to see him organize a strike for the mining workers only to cave like Mammoth when Admiral Adama threatens to put Cally against a bulkhead and shoot her for treason. A real activist would’ve dared him to do it and then ripped out his own eyes, tossed ‘em at Adama and set himself on fire. But Tyrol just makes some silly faces and calls the strike off. Way to go, Chief. Show ‘em what you’re made of - gelatin.

So we’re down to the last few episodes. I’ll go ahead and spoil things for you because this season has treated us fans with disdain and annoyance, more of a bother than anything. Starbuck supposedly dies but really makes a break for Earth after realizing she’s known the location all along (see the whole Eye of Jupiter painted on her wall back on Caprica for evidence). Dee turns out to be a Cylon, big surprise there. Not sure of what else but I’m sure it will lead to some sort of climactic cliffhanger of a season finale with webisodes to tide us over until the inevitably disappointing season four begins. Battlestar Galactica? More like Boringstar Galactica.

The Captain upgraded to a 53″ HDTV this weekend so from now on you’ll get high definition scathing criticism of shows. No more general complaints and small nitpicks, no no no. Big complains, huge nitpicks! So with that out of the way, we gots space bullshit to cover!

Last week on Battlestar Galactica we wasted a shitload of time with Helo and his craptacular quest to save the retarded Sagimatronianers. Well fuck them, no one cares about that anymore. We’ve got other fish to fry. This week we concentrate on Adama being a pussy and Tyrol with wife Cally in tow getting their asses stuck in a command pod that’s slowly venting atmosphere out into space. Intermittently we also discover that they’re still planning Baltar’s trial, there hasn’t been a Cylon sighting in 49 days and this show is really starting to test my last fucking nerve.

It’s Battlestar Galactica, right? I’m not hallucinating, am I? This is the show on SciFi that is about the humans running from the evil Cylons and trying to find their new home, Earth. I’m fairly certain up until they discovered the planet known as New Caprica that they were trying damn hard to accomplish exactly that. But since? Inane fucking bullshit. Love stories, food stories, human interest nonsense and character back stories that could be explained in one or two sweeping expositions instead of entire episodes.

Now we know that Adama and his wife didn’t get along so hot. Well whooptie-fucking-licious that sure means a whole lot to me seeing as his ex-wife was vaporized back when this show still tried. Ooh and it caused friction between Lee and his father? Well gee, that couldn’t have been explained in a few lines of dialogue, nah. Seeing as the colonists are short on medical supplies, food and other necessities I support pointless flashbacks are all they have left to spare. It’s imagining the audience actually tunes into this garbage and finds it captivating that scares the ever-loving shit out of me. I know for a fact there are fanboys and fangirls Tivoing this crap and eating it with a fraking spoon, begging for seconds. But not the Captain. I’m just watching in the vague hope something interesting happens.

So what else happened this week? Well Tyrol and Cally get saved by getting jettisoned out into space to a waiting Raptor piloted by Athena. Tyrol is alright by the end, Cally is still fucked up. Adama’s anniversary comes and goes with everyone walking on eggshells around him. He himself walks on eggshells around Roslin concerning the telegraphed old-person-sex that we all know is coming. In other words - nothing. Where are the Cylons? Fuck if we know. Where’s Earth? Not in fucking sight. How about Hera? I’m sure she’s around, who gives a shit?

I miss fat Lee. I miss Xena killing herself over and over again. I miss Quantum Leap Al being all creepy having sex with Tigh’s wife. I wish the fucking smoke monster from Lost would come and kill everyone and let this show die before they even get a chance to continue this gigantic shark jump they call season three. I’m starting to hope I’m one of the last Cylon models just so I stand a chance at resurrecting once this show inevitably kills me with bullshit.

Helo paces around his room at night, haunted by two really decent seasons that stand only to remind him that this latest season has devolved a once proud franchise into Melrose Place In Space. So this week on As That One Ship That Looks Like A Vague Allusion For Sex Turns we get see the fleet exposed first hand to racism as the Sagittarons are treated like second hand citizens. Get it? They’re Muslims! Only in space. Space Muslims.

On The Love Boat Colonial One we get reaquiainted with Tom Zarek, formally of Battlestar Galactica (a show on SciFi that didn’t suck eggs). Apparently he’s there as an advovate for Baltar in his trial. He says that a trial will tear the fleet apart and is interested into in the safety of everyone and that perhaps martial law should be imposed. Meanwhile sickness is ravaging the newly arrived Sagittarons who blame Doctor Robert for killing their people. This sets Helo off on another one of his annoying Helopian quests to solve the mystery and save the day.

If there’s one thing that’s killed this show for me it’s been that love quadrangle between Starbuck, Lee, Dee and Anders. If there’s something else that does it for me it’s people growing moralistic backbones for no discernable reason or in direct contridiction with their prior actions. Helo is one of those. He’s gone from love-lorn soldier to posessed pussy-whipee. He has sympathy for everything and anything, seemingly without discern. It’s almost as if the writers don’t know what to do with him, so he just does a little bit of this and a little bit of that. In this episode he plays some square-jawed Inspector Clouseau, sneaking around trying to discover what really won’t amount to anything in an episode or two. Just more stalling while the show refuses to address anything the previous two seasons were building toward. Earth? Eh. Cylon war? Oh well. Hell, even the five unseen Cylon models? Well now that Xena is on ice it seems that’s also on hold. We’re just floating through space, wasting time.

So instead of wasting more time, I’ll sum up the episode. Athena meets with Caprica Six and tells her to cooperate to gain favor with the humans. Six then hallucinates her own Baltar and kisses him. He exposes her for her true reason for being on the Galactica and that’s because she secretly wants to be human. This is overseen by Roslin who wonders who the hell Six was talking to and who the hell is still watching this dreck. Helo snoops around and discovers Dr. Robert has a history of killing Sagittarons and it’s still the same here but nothing comes of it. Robert gets arrested, Adama thanks Helo and we’re one more wasted episode toward an inevitable third season letdown of a finale.

So Captain Obvious and company settled in for our favorite Friday night activity - Battlestar! After last week’s sharkjump-worthy Oprah fest we were happy to see things getting back on track for Adama and company. Namely the potential for explosions, death or at the very least some actual space travel and Cylon activity.

Now sure, it’s not like we’re counting but we haven’t seen a Cylon raider in weeks. We haven’t seen anyone threaten the fleet with a stolen nuke in even longer. Episodes nowadays are all about emotions and shit, something that was blessedly absent from a lot of the first two seasons. But this is the new Battlestar where interpersonal relationships are far more important than, oh, actually trying to get to Earth so we’ll take what we can get.Imagine the smiles across our faces when in the first 10 minutes we see more Cylon plot than the previous week in entirety! And it keeps getting better, too. Turns out the humans are running out of food and finding algae from some planet on the other side of a radiation-plagued star cluster is their only hope to a good meal. Problem is navigating through, as they can’t do it in one jump so they decide to have the pilots lead the ships with raptors, first having them jump into the life-threatening cloud, finding the next jump coordinates and then jumping back out. Unfortunately they’ll be blind in the cloud, not to mention the whole ‘dying from radiation poisoning’ thing so time is of the essence.

The subplot this week is discovering Kat is actually a drug runner named Sacha. Her dealer Enzo recognizes her which tips off Kara who busts her on it. Turns out she stole the Louanne Katraine name during the Cylon attack to escape. She begs Kara not to go to Adama with the news.

So Tigh returns to the bridge to keep an eye on things. In the end they only lose a couplefew ships and Kat, torn between her old life and the new one she’s fabricated decides her true identity is the viper pilot and sacrifices her health to ensure the civilian ship’s safety. She emerges from the star cluster all flavors of fucked up and collapses on the flight deck after returning to raucous applause from the crew.

In Cylon news, Baltar has figured out Xena’s plan of killing herself over and over to gain insight of what exists beyond death. Turns out she sees the other 5 Cylon models in that gray area so Baltar encourages her to keep doin it so he can find out if he’s a Cylon afterall and not a traitorous piece of shit with neither morals or a conscience. Captain Obvious thinks he can be both without issue. It’s a lot like playing Grand Theft Auto and trying to launch yourself into orbit on a motorcycle. You keep dying but you gotta keep at it, just to see if it can be done. In the meanwhile Baltar and Xena accost the hybrid stealing a scene from Minority Report in discovering a clue to finding Earth, Jupiter’s pasties in a cow’s eye or some shit. However brief, those were the Cylon developments for the week.

Back on the Galactica Kat is in sickbay the medical unit dying. Kara swings by for a second to tell her she’s all brave and to give her a bunch of sleeping pills to kill herself with. Then Adama swings by and tells her she was like a daughter to him, something he’s also told Kara. Makes you wonder if that’s just some line he whips out when he has nothing better to say. He makes her honorary CAG and she croaks, bringing to a close another retarded conflict for Kara. Now she only has personal fights with Lee, Anders, Tigh, possibly Dee and Adama to resolve.

But that can wait for next week, when we see a return of Al Brother Cavil and the first actual Cylon/Human conflict in weeks!