Okay, Let’s Talk Galactica Finale (Part 2)

 Yesterday I said I'd continue this series by talking first about the things I liked and then the things I didn't, but after further thought I decided to go hour-by-hour and talk about both. So here are my thoughts on the first hour of Daybreak.

The episode started with flashbacks to the main characters lives before the fall of the Twelve Colonies.

Fine. Good move. Nice to tie back to the beginning now that we're arriving at the end. Nice to have a little extra insight on where these characters came from.

In principle.

Of course, it's the execution that counts. 

I like the flashback with Baltar's dad the most. Roslin's family members' deaths was also interesting. The Starbuck/Lee/Zak thread that starts in this hour is much less interesting (and finishes poorly in later), and the William Adama "I don't want to do some unspecified thing" eventually pays off okay kinda but isn't that interesting here.

Meanwhile, back in the future, Roslin is dying and Lee is stripping Galactica of spare parts, and everyone is getting ready to ship things over to the rebel base star to serve as the new capitol ship after Galactica (which I think is a really cool idea).

Back at the Colony, though, Cavil is preparing to do horrible medical experiments on Hera to find out how she was created so that the cylons can replicate the process now that the resurrection system is shot. Nice creepy stuff, here.

And after a chance encounter with Hotdog, Adama decides to conduct a rescue mission to get Hera back.

This is a point where I think the writing stumbles. I don't mind them rescuing Hera. They need to do that to make the overall arc of the series pay off (the Opera House scenes, the commercials from season 2 indicating that Hera would "change everything"). That's fine. But I don't think they set it up right.

As the balance of the episode reveals, this is a high-risk mission. Adama bluntly says that it is likely one-way, and that it's volunteer-only, with even the former conspirators from the recent mutiny/coup getting a pardon for their participation (nice touch! and a good way to get Racetrack and Skulls back in the action). All this is fine, too. 

But there's a mismatch: They didn't do enough to establish Adama's motive for undertaking such a risky mission (that could wipe out a significant chunk of surviving humanity) to save Hera.

Perhaps Roslin should have made an impassioned plea based on her visions of the Opera House. Or perhaps someone should have pointed out that if the cylons kept Hera then they might find out how to reproduce and overrun humanity.

Or something.

But it should have been something.

 A moment of sentiment looking at a picture of Hera is not enough to risk a large portion of humanity on a likely one-way rescue mission.

Let's do the math: How many lives are they trying to save? One. How many lives are likely to be lost in an assault on the cylon stronghold? Waaaay more than one. This mission is a Guaranteed Net Loss to the human race in terms of number of lives, and at a point where there are fewer humans alive now than at any point in the series. Therefore, there needs to be something powerfully important about Hera to justify the mission.

But eventually we get the dramatic "Will you go on the mission?" scene on the hangar deck. The build up to this was quite nice, and Admiral Eddie was definitely emoting the heck out of his part, but I think he failed to adequately sell the case for going on the rescue. 

It's interesting that less than half the people agree to go. On the podcast, Ron Moore says that's deliberate: That everyone would want to think they'd sign up for this kind of mission, but in reality many people will think, in essence, "I've got a wife, a kid, my own life to think about, so I'm staying."

I think that's true, and I like having many people stay. That's a realistic dramatic choice. Too often we see unanimous "Lock and load; we're all with you, Captain!" scenes, and having more realism to people's choices is good. But I think that in this case Admiral Adama completely fails to make the case why anybody should go on this mission.

I don't have a problem with the idea of likely one-way missions, but a sacrifice of that nature requires a clear and compelling motive, and the most Adama gives us is "This is a decision I have made for myself."

To my mind, "It's a personal choice" + "This is likely a one-way mission" = "Good luck to you, buddy!"

But then we're not dealing with reality here but the final act of an opera–a space opera–and there can be some operatic license here.

So even though I thought the big dramatic volunteering scene needed a more clear and compelling motive, we finally get to the mission itself, which we the viewers know is important.

So. Racetrack and Skulls jump to the Colony to scout things over, we've got battle plans drawn up and explained to us, and everybody cowboys up for what's about to happen in . . . Hour 2.