I was a little behind in my BSG watching and finally watched my TiVo’d edition of the latest episode (Dirty Hands) last night.

The recent spate of stand-alone episodes raises the question of whether the show wouldn’t be better off having a lower episode count per season and just sticking to the main arc. The stand-alones have the chance to highlight specific characters or issues, which is theory is a good idea, but it is hard to say that in practice that the stand-alone episodes have ever been as good, or as compelling, as the stories which specifically forward the overall arc (which we return to this week).

Some thoughts on Dirty Hands:

• The problems of keeping the fleet working and the conditions that that might create was a very, very interesting topic that raised a series of interesting questions that deserved more than one episode, to be honest. This should have been a mini-arc rather than a one-off story. The episode had a certain Trek-ness to it insofar as it was all wrapped up too easily at the end.
• Speaking of it all being wrapped up too easily, Adama and Laura both were too-hard in the beginning and too soft at the end, making the whole narrative have a too-contrived feel to it. Ditto with the whole thing about Selix (sp?) and her quest to become pilot. First it is presented as impossible, but all of a sudden at the end we have the whole silly scene with Starbuck.

• Laura seems far too authoritarian for her character when she had the guy from the refinery ship arrested just for quoting Baltar’s book in a defiant manner.
• Speaking of contrived, it came across as too neat, and too out-of-nowhere, that there was as much inter-colony differences and resentments as was presented in the episodes. It was established that there was something odd about the Sagitarons, and it was reasonable to cast Caprica as the “Golden Colony” but the idea that each of the other colonies somehow represented different elements of the under-class seem to come from nowhere. Earlier I had had the impression that the colonies were relatively co-equal, even if some where more important, wealthier or whatever than the others (like US states), rather than a system of associated dependent development in which Caprica was the wealthier uber-state that was keeping all the others in its thrall.
• I know that colonial society is paranoid about automation and that Ron Moore wants a more realistic view of technology, but sometimes I think that they have gone too far in making things more low tech than they ought to be (such as the tyllium refinery). Somehow hauling ore in small wheelbarrows and being dumped onto the conveyor-belts in little buckets seemed a bit too-1930s for me.
• How many mutinies/mutinous behavior can we have where essentially saying you are sorry is enough? In addition to Tyrol’s behavior in this episode we have had:
  

  -Lee pulled a gun on Tighe in direct contravention of Adama’s orders at the end of Season 1, and while he did spend some time in the brig, he eventually was not only fully restored to duty, but promoted.

  -Helo has done a number of questionable acts, not the least of which was thwarting Adama’s plan to use the biological weapon against the Cylons.

  -Starbuck ignored orders when she went to Caprica to get the Arrow of Apollo–although I suppose she technically was working for the President on that one.

• I like the idea of Baltar trying to manipulate the situation, but don’t like the implication that he is somehow deep down motivated by his background on some backwater farming planet. It just doesn’t track, and like a lot of issues in the episode, feel like they came out of nowhere.
• On balance I find the attempt at asking political, social and economic questions within the context of the fleet to be fascinating, but I think the execution fell short.
• I don’t buy the idea that the colonial military was, as a general principle, stratified by colonial background.
• Also, where is the fleet’s resident radical, Tom Zarek, on these issues?
  

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