Jammersreviews

Note: This review contains significant spoilers.

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Battlestar Galactica: "Valley of Darkness"

The Galactica crew must stop a boarding party of Cylon Centurions, which 
intend to take over the ship and destroy the fleet.

Air date: 7/22/2005 (USA)
Written by Bradley Thompson & David Weddle
Directed by Michael Rymer

Rating out of 4: ***

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
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Cylon Centurions don't seem like the brightest model of Cylon, which is why, 
I suppose, they are reserved for the type of mission that is about 90 
percent brute force and 10 percent effective strategy. In "Valley of 
Darkness," a ship of Centurions -- which had crashed and gotten aboard the 
Galactica during the chaos at the end of "Scattered" -- engage in a battle 
plan that seems pointless if you stop and consider they could've just nuked 
the battlestar, leaving the fleet defenseless. Why go to the trouble of 
trying to take over the battlestar? The answer is simple: because it's much 
more interesting to have Cylons on the ship as opposed to a bomb. Bombs 
don't have any personality.

Cylon Centurions, on the other hand, have a little bit of personality. At 
the very least, they have metallic claws that can fold back and become 
machine guns, a red light for an eye that sweeps back and forth, and that 
vawum-vawum sound. Basically, they're like sleeker versions of ED-209. And 
they're on board the Galactica.

As an episode of BSG, I'm guessing this is about as much hard-core sci-fi 
action as you're likely to see. Granted, little of this is new. To be 
cheeky: All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. 
We've seen shootouts in darkened corridors in sci-fi movies ranging from 
"Aliens" to "Star Trek: First Contact." What's notable about "Valley of 
Darkness" is the high level of technical skill the creators bring to a 
familiar concept. Particularly in the lighting and cinematography 
departments, this episode looks great. It combines murk, gloss, grit, and 
high-tech. (The darkness is justified by a plot device: Power systems are 
being affected by a Cylon computer virus that got through Gaeta's 
firewalls.) Director Michael Rymer has shot and assembled some handsome 
action footage on a finite television budget.

It also helps that the actors believe the danger their characters are in. 
There's bravery and heroism in the action, yes, but also plenty of frayed 
nerves, running from danger, desperation, and yelling. In one scene, Apollo 
chants: "Headshot. Reload. Headshot. Reload." It's a moment of believable 
nerves. Along the way, Apollo's team picks up an isolated crewman named 
Jammer, who is amped up in a frightened frenzy; he's the polar opposite of 
the crewman of the same name from "The Abyss," who typically was dialed down 
almost to sleepiness. Still, for all the conviction the actors convey, I 
can't say that this plot had me all that viscerally involved. Simply put, I 
didn't believe for a minute that the Cylon boarding party could succeed. Of 
course it must fail. I admired the storyline more for the skill of its 
craftsmanship than for its suspense level.

On a character level, this crisis demonstrates how Tigh's long military 
experience is a crucial asset. When the Cylons break into two parties -- one 
heading forward and one heading aft -- Tigh knows what's happening ("I've 
seen this before") and knows what to do. Although, I was a little hazy on 
the plot point of how the Cylons were planning to decompress the ship and 
vent everyone into space; are there people-sized vents everywhere, even in 
the CIC or the center of the ship? (A simpler explanation might've said that 
the Cylons would vent all of the ship's oxygen.)

So Apollo and his assault team must intercept the Cylons before they gain 
control of the two stations that will allow them to vent the crew into 
space. Meanwhile, Roslin is unlocked so as to not be shot "like a rat in a 
cage," and she along with Billy, Dee, and Cpl. Venner, try to avoid being 
shot by the Cylons. The hunting and running through the corridors is an 
entertaining exercise in style, featuring a lot of visible flashlight beams 
cutting through the darkness, a percussive score by Bear McCreary, and the 
tiring overuse of the word "frak." The episode even goes so far as to make 
official the term "motherfrakker," which I admit I laughed at, because the 
notion strikes me as a weird tug-of-war between vulgar and nerdy.

The one who utters "motherfrakker" is Cally, in the subplot on Kobol. The 
word snaps a distraught Tyrol back into reality, and the two make their way 
back to the unit with the medkit. Adding insult to injury, they find that 
they're too late and that their wounded man is going to die. This only 
drives home the point of how war can make a mockery of soldiers' hopes and 
efforts. A healthy man was killed on what now turns out to be a completely 
meaningless mission, because the wounded man is beyond saving anyway. This 
leads to the show's most poignant scene, in which Tyrol injects his wounded 
man with an overdose of morphine (or "morpha," as the episode calls it) to 
ease his suffering into death. This is not an original idea (I think "Saving 
Private Ryan" was the last time I saw it), but the story is sincere and 
earnest about it, and it works well as a somber demonstration of infantry 
camaraderie.

The second most poignant scene is where Starbuck and Helo end up at 
Starbuck's old apartment on Caprica (small world, that), which once was her 
father's. It's a scene that manages characterization without insisting upon 
it (her apartment is filled with paintings she made; she finds a box of 
cigars), and conveys the loss of society without making it the focus of the 
scene. Kara notes that she fights not to get back what was lost in the Cylon 
attack, but because she wouldn't know what else to do regardless. The 
setting evokes loss simply because of the absence of all other people from 
this shattered city. All of society seems to be a ghost town, with Kara and 
Karl wandering helplessly through it. Kara turns on a battery-operated music 
device and the two just sit for a moment and listen. I must say, I really 
like the musical sensibilities of this series, which finds the right 
emotional notes but uses pieces that are dialed down into something 
evocative rather than overt.

Intriguing music can also be found in Baltar's dream sequence on Kobol, 
where he dreams that Adama drowns his baby. The sequence is foreboding, 
although it remains to be seen exactly what it means, since we still don't 
know where this baby will come from, or if it's actually a symbol for 
Sharon's baby (who, by the way, is nowhere to be seen in the episode). In 
terms of baby-killing, I guess payback's a bitch: Six killed a baby in the 
miniseries, and now Adama kills her baby in Baltar's nightmare. It seems the 
writers on this series have no qualms tackling infanticide. Hopefully by 
midseason they will hold a gun to a puppy's head and follow through on it. 
(Joking.)

Naturally, by the end of "Valley of Darkness," the Cylon invasion threat is 
quashed and the crisis is over. But solving one problem only reveals the 
many problems still lying beneath: Adama's life still hangs in the balance. 
Roslin is still in jail. There is no working government. The characters on 
Kobol and Caprica are still stranded. Lee is still at bitter odds with Tigh, 
and reminds Tigh that the ship belongs to his father.

It is indeed Adama's ship. Tigh doesn't dispute that for a moment. When 
Adama wakes up, what will happen then?

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Copyright 2005, Jamahl Epsicokhan. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this article is prohibited.

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