"The glory of the universe is intelligence. Never be afraid of discovery."
SO SAY WE ALL: To save the sick Galactican children, Dr. Zee and Adama take their new flying saucer out for its maiden voyage.
REVIEW: One of the big problems with bringing the Galactica to contemporary Earth is that we're no match for the Colonials. Or rather, we might have been, but BS80 keeps giving them new tricks they can use against us. We've had time travel, invisibility, freeze rays, flying bikes and super-powered kids (here, Dillon shows off his own super-strength, finally), but wait, there's more! Yes, fearing for the lives of the children who drank polluted water - indeed, one of them is brain dead but Galactica can fix that! - Dr. Zee unveils his anti-gravity ship, a flying saucer right out of Spielberg, anathema to Galactica's admittedly-slapdash design aesthetic both inside and out. And he's gonna fly it himself because NO ONE KNOWS HOW IT WORKS BUT HIM! That seems like a strategic problem. This crustached kid, who sits in a large empty room thinking all day, is their only hope. And when he gets to Earth, he uses his magical prediction machine (seen in the first episode) to Scrooge the chemical plant manager into maybe adopting safer regulations. Because this thing is capable of extrapolating and SHOWING the funeral of his son 10 years down the line, like it's really seeing into the future. It's completely ridiculous.
The saucer is only really alien-looking for his benefit. We're decades late to suggest that the Galactica is responsible for UFO sightings (especially now that they've abandoned the idea of making this a time travel show). It's nonsense, but that's what they're doing, with the saucer disrupting car engines and the like. And what the HELL is that disclaimer at the end debunking UFOs? It will appear on the next few episodes as well. Was this a big problem in 1980 America? More than the environmental problems the episode preaches about? Wouldn't THAT merit a disclaimer of its own? Or is it all fixed now that one plant manager has seen the error of his ways? Not that he was a bad guy, necessarily. He cared about his own kids. He allowed his van to be used as an ambulance for the sick Galacticans. Oh yeah, and it took him all of these extreme events to see the light despite the soil around time melting tires and catching fire at the drop of a match. I mean, sheesh. Not that the show understand science very much, given that the Galactican kids apparently have NO BLOOD CELLS IN COMMON WITH EARTH PEOPLE! How are we the Lost Tribe again?
At least Adama finally sets foot on Earth and it's a big deal. Um... no it isn't. I feel for Lorne Green, man. He went from big boss to a teenager's second banana, so neutered he can't imagine running the fleet without Zee. He's the ship's resident chowder head who defaults to everything his boy genius says. He has no arc of his own. His only function when he gets to Earth is to tell Troy he and Dillon must stay to integrate the children into Earth society, which is immediately undercut in the final scene where the boys get another mission (one that's never told) and Jamie is left to clean up the mess. Cue Dillon getting corn syrup thrown at his face, laughs, freeze frame. Awful. Dillon, who forgets he's dealing with children several times during this episode, who is presented as the dumb bro of the series, but who nevertheless starts talking like a zen master when he's with the plant manager. It's stupid and doesn't make sense.
But let's throw it into the same bin as the Dukes of Hazzard cops, and the comically sped-up voice transmissions just as the show achieves some gravitas around the dying kids, and everyone BUT EVERYONE having a CB radio/police scanner in their cars in that town... It's all pretty remedial.
HUMAN DEATH TOLL: One kid achieves brain death, but he gets better.
VERSIONS: In the script, the mission Troy and Dillon run to at the end concerns Xaviar popping up in New York City.
REWATCHABILITY: Low - I want to say it almost achieves a sort of camp grandeur, but every time Super Scouts aims at something interesting, it misses the mark.
REVIEW: One of the big problems with bringing the Galactica to contemporary Earth is that we're no match for the Colonials. Or rather, we might have been, but BS80 keeps giving them new tricks they can use against us. We've had time travel, invisibility, freeze rays, flying bikes and super-powered kids (here, Dillon shows off his own super-strength, finally), but wait, there's more! Yes, fearing for the lives of the children who drank polluted water - indeed, one of them is brain dead but Galactica can fix that! - Dr. Zee unveils his anti-gravity ship, a flying saucer right out of Spielberg, anathema to Galactica's admittedly-slapdash design aesthetic both inside and out. And he's gonna fly it himself because NO ONE KNOWS HOW IT WORKS BUT HIM! That seems like a strategic problem. This crustached kid, who sits in a large empty room thinking all day, is their only hope. And when he gets to Earth, he uses his magical prediction machine (seen in the first episode) to Scrooge the chemical plant manager into maybe adopting safer regulations. Because this thing is capable of extrapolating and SHOWING the funeral of his son 10 years down the line, like it's really seeing into the future. It's completely ridiculous.
The saucer is only really alien-looking for his benefit. We're decades late to suggest that the Galactica is responsible for UFO sightings (especially now that they've abandoned the idea of making this a time travel show). It's nonsense, but that's what they're doing, with the saucer disrupting car engines and the like. And what the HELL is that disclaimer at the end debunking UFOs? It will appear on the next few episodes as well. Was this a big problem in 1980 America? More than the environmental problems the episode preaches about? Wouldn't THAT merit a disclaimer of its own? Or is it all fixed now that one plant manager has seen the error of his ways? Not that he was a bad guy, necessarily. He cared about his own kids. He allowed his van to be used as an ambulance for the sick Galacticans. Oh yeah, and it took him all of these extreme events to see the light despite the soil around time melting tires and catching fire at the drop of a match. I mean, sheesh. Not that the show understand science very much, given that the Galactican kids apparently have NO BLOOD CELLS IN COMMON WITH EARTH PEOPLE! How are we the Lost Tribe again?
At least Adama finally sets foot on Earth and it's a big deal. Um... no it isn't. I feel for Lorne Green, man. He went from big boss to a teenager's second banana, so neutered he can't imagine running the fleet without Zee. He's the ship's resident chowder head who defaults to everything his boy genius says. He has no arc of his own. His only function when he gets to Earth is to tell Troy he and Dillon must stay to integrate the children into Earth society, which is immediately undercut in the final scene where the boys get another mission (one that's never told) and Jamie is left to clean up the mess. Cue Dillon getting corn syrup thrown at his face, laughs, freeze frame. Awful. Dillon, who forgets he's dealing with children several times during this episode, who is presented as the dumb bro of the series, but who nevertheless starts talking like a zen master when he's with the plant manager. It's stupid and doesn't make sense.
But let's throw it into the same bin as the Dukes of Hazzard cops, and the comically sped-up voice transmissions just as the show achieves some gravitas around the dying kids, and everyone BUT EVERYONE having a CB radio/police scanner in their cars in that town... It's all pretty remedial.
HUMAN DEATH TOLL: One kid achieves brain death, but he gets better.
VERSIONS: In the script, the mission Troy and Dillon run to at the end concerns Xaviar popping up in New York City.
REWATCHABILITY: Low - I want to say it almost achieves a sort of camp grandeur, but every time Super Scouts aims at something interesting, it misses the mark.
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