Scar By Luke Hung
This episode starts at the end and has a number of flashbacks. This episode starts at the end and has a number of flashbacks. Opps sorry, this flashback thing is catching. I better take my anti-flashback pills. Two are in the mail to you to Mr. Moore and Eicks please take them. It’s Starbuck’s turn to regret the life and the boyfriend she left behind. Ok, I get it, you left someone back on Caprica, but you knew the guy (Anders) for like a week and its not like he was your first. Hell he might not have been your 31st. Quick question, what is the definition of a slut? Answer: anyone who has slept with one more person than you have. For me, that is almost everyone, for Starbuck, Heidi Fleiss.
Starbuck and Kat are flying CAP, combat air patrol for those without a military background, over a mining ship in an asteroid field. It seems that Moore has decided maintain continuity and replace the material that has been slowly depleted from the fleet. Kat and Starbuck are flying Mark 7 vipers. I know some people are surprised that the Mark 7s are still in service given their susceptibility to Cylon jamming, but the show already clarified that the virus was in the navigation program and if that program was purged the Mark 7s should work just fine. For me what I found intriguing was the NOSTEP printed in bold letters at the front of each cockpit. For about half the episode I was wondering what or who the hell Nostep was, but it’s actually a common warning on aircraft and machinery, No Step. I have watched way too many war movies to forget that. Hmm, they say the memory is the first to go.
Kat and Starbuck share some unpleasant banter, as they don’t particularly like each other much and we cut back 94 hours. Ah, temporal distortions and flashbacks, wonderful. Maybe if they got Starbuck, Apollo, and Roslin together, and made them really, really sad at the same moment they could transport the entire fleet back in time and save the colonies. Anyways enough of my musings, many members of the squadron are cleaning up the bunks of two viper pilots that found themselves dead, courtesy of the super Cylon, Scar or Baron Von Richthofen. Two new pilots, fresh from training on the Pegasus arrive to replace the dead and become the target of the squadron’s aggression. I’m giving you their names here Bebe and JoJo (stupid names by the way) as a courtesy to the actors, but we all know that they are just a pair of redshirts. We will call them Redshirt One and Redshirt Two from now on - Dead Men Walking.
We jump back to Kat and Starbuck’s patrol and Kat seemingly gets the drop on Scar all the while busting on Starbuck about how she picked up the target first and how Starbuck is getting old and slow. Oh, my God did they just jump back in time again? Oh no you didn’t. Oh yes they did, by 88 hours. Many pilots are in, what I presume, is an Officer’s Club, Redshirt number one is ruminating on how Scar is such an efficient killing machine. Maybe ruminating is the wrong word; he’s more like wetting his pants, thinking about it. Starbuck and Kat try to get him up to speed; they have a lot of little details about Scar’s tactics, which I guess is a product of having lost many pilots to it. Again Kat and Starbuck exchange niceties. Kat’s a druggie and Stabuck’s a drunk… blah, blah, blah. It culminates with Kat betting 200 somethings against Starbuck’s top gun cup. Kat walks out, Helo and Apollo caution restraint, and Starbuck drunkenly dives onto a table. She falls and hits her head… cue the Anders flashback montage.
We return to Kat taking some pot shots at the Cylon Raider that she identified as Scar, but oops she’s wrong and the real Scar moves out of his camouflaged position on/near an asteroid and begins its attack run. Kat continues her pursuit of Not Scar, but she can’t seem to get a clear shot. Kat is clearly in control of the situation despite the fact she can’t get a kill shot off and Starbuck smells a rat. Too easy, she hypothesizes. She wheels about, and in a nice bit of realism, when partially blinded by the light of a nearby star closes one eye to maintain her “night” vision. Using a thumb she blocks out the rest of the light and picks up Scar just in time. It shoots, but only wings her and the real fight is on. Starbuck’s control panel starts blinking like a Christmas tree and her warning claxons sound.
Now we are 81 hours back in time, Kat is giving a combat briefing on Scar. She arrogantly states she is going to do what so many have failed and make Scar a memory. How she has become any kind of expert is beyond me? Perhaps she is talented, but she can’t be experienced. In the first season she was a raw recruit who couldn’t land. Six episodes ago, she was whacked out on drugs and couldn’t land. Frankly if I were a Cylon I’d never fight her. I just keep letting her take off and land; she’s bound to kill herself eventually. Cut to the Roslin, Adama, and Tigh, they get a few lines to set up the episode. They found rare ore deposits invaluable to the fleet as it is sufficient to build 2 squadrons of Vipers, but it will take time to mine it. Tigh does some minor grumbling about losing pilots. Not because he cares so much about the pilots, but because he can’t ever say anything remotely positive. He has Angry Old Man Tourettes.
Back to the briefing and Starbuck explains that the fleet and Pegasus are hiding while the Galactica covers the mining operation. The asteroids and dust make dradis (radar) useless and the Vipers have to patrol looking for targets visually. Kat jumps all over Starbuck’s briefing as Starbuck misinforms the pilots about the size of the patrols. There are some murmurings about Starbuck’s mistake but nothing particularly audible. Adama, Tigh, and Roslin speculate that the destruction of the Resurrection ship has made the Cylons tentative. Starbuck meets with Boomer to discuss this possibility. Boomer, who appears to be wearing makeup and have a new hairstyle, confirms this. Looking good Boomer, prison suits you. She states that Raiders reincarnate similarly to the other models. She and Starbuck have a moment and start making out in the cell.
Okay, they didn’t make out on the couch, but they did have a moment. Boomer reaches out to touch Starbuck’s knee and the jumpy marines point machine guns at Boomer’s head. And with that, my dreams of hot lesbian action (HLA) dissipate. Damn you jumpy marines, Damn you to hell. In an unrelated training exercise, Kat breaks one of Starbuck’s records… Woo Hoo that was just as good as HLA… not. Returning to the space battle, Scar has the drop on Starbuck but she is twisting a turning impressively. Nice special effects, kudos. Kat breaks off the Cylon she’s on and starts looking for Starbuck. Instead of informing Kat where she is, Starbuck tries to go one on one with Scar.
Commercials, Now 42 hours into the past, Starbuck is working out with Helo. He channels Buddha and sums up Kat, by stating that “she is trying to make her bones by” challenging Starbuck. Then he channels Dr. Phil and brings up Anders and the rescue party Starbuck never returned with. Sure, thanks Helo, you think you are helping, but all you are doing is reopening old wounds and then saying, “Get over it.” Plus you now gave Starbuck permission for more Anders flashbacks, which I have to suffer through. Welcome to my shit list, Helo. We return from flashback central to the pilot’s locker room. Starbuck has little energy for a pep talk, but a Redshirt One wants one anyway. She tells him when in doubt, turn and fight. Kat gives different information and states listen to his more experienced flight leader. You know this is going to bite one of them in the ass, but no matter who turns out to be wrong Redshirt One is dead meat. Kat and Starbuck impolitely debate leadership styles. Kat states that Starbuck needs to be more supportive. Kat may be right here, but she still bitchy and I wouldn’t follow her into a pizza parlor much less combat.
In the very next scene Apollo listens to the CAP on the radio. According to audio reports Scar has jumped the Redshirt’s patrol. They are out of fuel so the flight leader chooses to disengage, but no, Redshirt One has the Starbuck anti-Cylon playbook and decides to run it play-by-play. He disobeys his commander, first citing Starbuck so everyone knows who is to blame, and promptly buys it. We hardly knew you Redshirt One. Permission for Starbuck and Kat to argue some more, granted.
Apollo and Starbuck throw some back, and commiserate about their lost friends and the fact they are probably going to die long before they find Earth. This thought apparently is some sort of aphrodisiac to Starbuck and she jumps Apollo. He’s confused but willing, but Starbuck drops the ball. She acts like a horny high school boy (all hands) and Apollo acts like a girl. “I’m not ready, slow down, I need more foreplay.” Starbuck quickly gets frustrated with Apollo and bails, but before she can go Apollo drops the Anders bomb. I guess it’s her own fault cause she brought him up first, but that still earns him a slap. Later, Starbuck drowns her sorrows in more booze. I’m not sure I’d sleep with Starbuck. First she said Lee’s name when she was doing the naughty, naughty with Baltar, then she tells Lee she was thinking about Anders when they were playing grab ass. The only one she didn’t tell that she was thinking about something else was Anders and he’s probably dead, so all in all that’s still bad. She should know better with all her experience. I think about Halle Berry sometimes when I’m with my wife, but I sure as hell know better than to tell her when that happens.
Returning to the present, Kat informs Starbuck that she now has a visual on her and Scar and she is “15 out.” 15 seconds? A distance measurement? I counted it off and it turned out that Kat took over 40 seconds to get there, even excluding all the flashbacks. I’m not going to go nuts over it and assume time dilation during the combat sequence. Plus if it ended in 15 seconds I would have felt jipped. Starbuck takes her own advice stops running away and turns into the Cylon. She announces to the audience that she has decided to play chicken with Scar. She speculates that without the ability to reincarnate that Scar will break off. I’m not sure about that, but it’s a Starbuck thing to do.
Back 3 hours, Starbuck is recovering from her night of drinking. She felt incapable of flying so she assigned Redshirt Two to another leader. Guess what? Redshirt Two is toast. We knew you even less than we knew Redshirt One, but you lived longer so I guess it’s a wash. Kat blames Starbuck in front of the squadron, not so much for the fact that anyone could have saved Redshirt Two (as he was a redshirt), but because she shirked her duty. Starbuck has finally had enough and clears the room. Chick fight. The pair bickers a little and Kat blinks first slugging Starbuck. Starbuck makes no effort to swing back as Apollo comes into the room. Huh? First no hot lesbian action, then no chick fight, I want my twenty dollars back. More importantly to the plot, no retaliation from Starbuck? Is this proof of maturity or growing self-doubt? My money is on self-doubt.
Apollo assigns the ladies to a sector that he has a “hunch” the Cylons will try to slip through. Following the fight, Kat hangs a picture of one of the dead pilot’s girlfriend on the Wailing Wall. A technical point here, on the patrol both Kat and Starbuck are flying Mark 7s, but in the launch bay Kat is standing in front of a Mark 2 and the launch sequence is of a Mark 2. Hello, anyone from editing watching? Too big of a mistake to miss and too easy of fix to just let go. It’s not like the scene where Kat and Starbuck are arguing in the Officer’s Club and Starbuck’s mug lid goes from open to closed and back to open between cuts. I know that this kind of mistake can be impossible to fix in post-production, because you can’t afford to get the whole scene re-filmed for a silly cup. So I never mentioned that mistake. Although, I guess by telling you that I never mentioned it I kind of mentioned it.
Back to scene one finally, and again, Starbuck has multiple flashbacks, which I’m now ignoring. She gives in at her game of chicken, good decision because Scar did not flinch. Scar is now behind her again, but this time Kat is nearby and Starbuck leads it right to her. Kat blasts Scar to kingdom come and celebrates her victory with a banshee yell. Cut to a celebration in the officer’s club and Kat is carrying the top gun cup. She announces to the room that her cup is empty and indicates that Starbuck should fill it. Now that’s showing class in victory. I know what I’d fill that cup with. Starbuck looks almost as displeased as I was. Starbuck picks up a champagne-like bottle with a backhand grip. The kind of hold you would use if you were going to smack someone upside the head with the bottle, but at the last moment she flips it back to normal and pours a liquid into Kat’s cup. Starbuck steals Kat’s thunder and proposes a toast to all the pilots they lost, Apollo joins in, and Adama tops it off with a “so say we all.” We end with Starbuck and Helo working out again. She believes she could have taken Scar without Kat, and speculates the old Starbuck would have tried. Helo says she did the right thing using her wingman and Starbuck said she did it because she can’t forget Anders.
Overall the episode was a C+
Acting: C, Katee Sackhoff was not consistent. Much of her acting was in her monologues and facial expressions and she was about 50/50. Her inconsistency is somewhat understandable because of the difficulty of acting off nothing. Plus many of her lines were weak, particularly when she was fighting Scar and didn’t ring true. Luciana Carro (Kat) wasn’t that impressive either, but as much as I want to blame her, I think it was because they wrote the character as very unlikable. Frankly, I wanted her to shut up, get smacked up, or get shot up all episode. None of the other characters had enough screen time to affect the show.
Plot: C-, The enemy ace is common device in shows with fighter combat, so no points there. In fact, Space Above and Beyond had a similar episode with a similar ship that was knocking off fighters in a “magnetic” field that blocked their radar. Starbuck crisis of confidence was interesting and could have been a great for character development. However I feel equating her difficulties to her affection for Anders seems too banal and specious. It further weakens the Starbuck character, even more than inexplicable self-doubt would. It would have been more effective if this were made into two separate issues.
Action/Episode Energy: B, Energy was good. Tempo was good for the majority of the episode. There was a feeling of tension even though there was no doubt about who was dying and who was living. This was probably due to the spectacular fighter combat scenes. Please no more flashbacks.
