BSG Re-Watch: The Passage

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#1

It’s week thirty-seven of our planned off-season re-watch of the entire “re-imagined” BSG canon, and after a little time off to watch Razor, it’s time to move on to the season three episode “The Passage.” So why not join us here for the GWC online frak party? There’s room for everyone, though you’ll have to bring your own snacks…

Feel free to jump in at any point with your comments on this week’s episode as the re-watch is by definition spoiler free. We’ll be in and out, but we’ll definitely take a look at your comments before we start next week’s podcast.

Note: Some readers/listeners asked us to leave comments open on the frak party blog post as they enjoy commenting more than forums. So if you have the time, keep an eye on the blog post every now and then, too, so we don’t leave 'em out in the cold.

http://www.galacticawatercooler.com/2008/01/21/bsg-re-watch-the-passage/

#2

Fare thee well, Kat!

#3

One of the most intense, harrowing episodes of the series, imho. And one of the best.

This one grabbed me from the opening setup, and I was completely engaged until the end. To put these characters, who we’ve come to care so much for, in this situation was a stroke of sadism/genius. We’ve been told all along that everyone on this series is pretty much expendable (by Ron, no less), with a very few exceptions, so this ep was a real tough one to get through. And we were told through the grapevine that somebody was going to be toast, a character’s ticket was going to be punched…this ep had my full attention !

Kudos to the actors …Jamie, Katee, Tahmoh, Luciana, and Brendan (Apollo, Starbuck, Helo, Kat, and Hot Dog)…their portrayals of pilots on the edge of endurance was great, especially Jamie’s, an Apollo barely holding on but managing to push his people beyond their own limits through the power of his bond with them…

As I look at Starbuck in this one I can’t help but think (knowing or rather NOT knowing what the hell she really is after seeing the completion of season 3), she almost came off as too strong during this ordeal…is this just an accident, or a harbinger of things to come ? Even Helo seemed to be sicker than Kara…hmmm…

I really liked the back story with Kat (yes, Kat!!), I liked the fact that she reinvented herself to survive on Galactica…Say what you will about the character, she pulled her own weight, was a great pilot, and gave Starbuck a run for her money. I loved the interplay between Starbuck and Kat…fun to watch Katee so intense, and Kat for once on her heels and speechless, bravado gone.

I’ve read elsewhere in the GWC site that Kat’s motivation for giving her life to save her companion civvy ship might be less than honorable. I disagree. I think that after losing the first ship she attempted to guide (the Carina) through the radiation cloud, Kat, after her soul searching run in with Kara, and pretty much knowing she was well past a survivable radiation exposure, decided to push herself as far as she could to save her second ship.

The sickbay scenes were heartwrenching and wonderful, between Kara’s fear of facing Kat’s death, and Adm Adama’s willingness to stay with Kat to the end, and reinstate her as CAG…true class there, Bill. And Kat made her peace with the old man as best she could.

Hats way, way off to the effects crews…the blistering reality of the radiation cloud, turbulence, burning paint, flaking armour, it added so much to the tension and overall atmosphere of the episode.

Jane Espenson wrote this one, oh she of Buffy fame…I can see why the characters came to life in this ep…she is a great addition to the show.

#4

this is an episode i outright hated the first time i saw it, and now it is up there at the top of my list. I don’t even know why i hated it, i sat through it and thought, “this sucks, filler.” then i listened to the rdm podcast and decided to give it another watch and liked it better. it seems every time i watched it i hated it less. now i love it.

i am strange

#5

I like this episode. I like the character work, the action, and it’s hard to beat dramatic and authentic-feeling death scenes. One question, though: the bit about Adama and his wife always wanting a daughter, and the implication (or at least my inferral) being that he regards Kat as a daughter – is he no longer feeling all papa-ish toward Starbuck? Not that he couldn’t theoretically feel that two of his pilots were the daughters he never had… but it seems to come out of nowhere right at the end of the episode.

#6

And because she 1) wrote some of my favorite “fluffy” episodes (Buffy’s “Band Candy” and “Superstar” as well as next week’s FF rewatch “Shindig”) and 2) spent time on Gilmore Girls, I hadn’t thought of her as a dramatic heavy-hitter. In fact, I wondered when I saw her name in the credits what kind of fit she’d be for BSG. But, wow!

#7

Hopefully Adama was just trying to be nice to Kat with the daughter thing. The only thing worse than having
Kat for a daughter would be having Starbuck as her babysitter.:smiley:

#8

It’s hard to believe how bad the rations are for the pilots at the beginning of the episode, considering we usually think that they get special treatment and favorable conditions compared to civilians around the fleet, imagine how bad the food rations system is working out for them.

Frakkin A, again we see how much of a golden child Baltar is, waking up with Caprica and Dianna! He lives a tough life, while his fellow humans have a food rationing problem on their hands.

Seeing the viper pilots after the 4th round of flying, after the radiation damage had already set in was really creepy. Their ashen, sullen features were hard to watch. I second the notion of the great fx and makeup work for this ep!

Adama gives Kat the only award he can, making her CAG again, but when he placed her name on the top of the chart, did anyone else notice the name to the right of Apollo and Starbuck? The pilot handle was Two Times. Have we met pilot Two Times yet, I don’t rememeber anyone being called by that handle?

Now, that wall of pictures has grown into a corridor’s worth of lost souls, a nice but eerie touch.