Jammer's Reviews

Perhaps the lesson to be learned in "Litmus" is that now is an especially bad time to be breaking military protocol. Sort of like saying "it's tha bomb" audibly at an airport. What might seem innocuous can get you into big trouble. I speak from experience: One time, I got caught making out at Schindler's List.

Sharon and Tyrol are still sleeping together. She's his superior officer, and that's against protocol. Tigh ordered her to stop in "Bastille Day," but they haven't, and now it's going to bite them — and more than just them — in the ass.

A Cylon agent — a copy of Doral (Matthew Bennett, himself a copy of Kevin Spacey, but I jest), who was put off the ship in the miniseries — blows himself up in a suicide bombing that kills three people and does some damage to the Galactica but was intended to do a whole lot more. An independent investigation (i.e., tribunal) into how Doral breached security is immediately opened, and Adama, Tigh, and Roslin reluctantly decide that now is the time to make known to the fleet that Cylons look like humans (thus uncorking the paranoia bottle).

Roslin makes this announcement from Colonial One in a room full of reporters, who are abuzz over this new revelation. Once again I found myself amused at the fact that roughly 1/1,000 of all civilization is made up of news reporters. Outside of military personnel and pilots, they might be the luckiest profession to have survived the fall of civilization.

Roslin's announcement brings us to the other lesson for the characters to learn in this episode: that of the dangers of the witch hunt — a more obvious and frequently dramatized cautionary tale to be found in TV and film stories. "Litmus" employs this tale reasonably well, in what is an appropriate storyline for this series' subject matter, but does not represent thrilling originality.

Adama appoints Sgt. Hadrian (Jill Teed) to head up the tribunal. Meanwhile, Roslin warns Adama that tribunals have a weird way of running off the rails of what they were originally intended for and searching not simply for true accountability, but for scapegoats. Her prediction is nothing short of prophetic.

Hadrian's investigation centers on someone's failure to close a crucial security hatch just before the bombing occurred (the bomber slipped through the opened hatch to gain access he should not have had). Hadrian quickly zeroes in on Chief Tyrol, simply because (1) he lies and (2) his lie is not ironclad enough to bear real scrutiny. Her follow-up interviews with Tyrol's staff reveals a number of young crewmen loyal to their chief, but who have conflicting stories that make Hadrian's job of uncovering lies that much easier. These scenes employ a quick-moving Law & Order style of progress that makes the show an efficiently entertaining story about fact finding.

Before long Hadrian detects the scent of Tyrol's counter-protocol affair with Lt. Valerii, and has hauled them before the tribunal board for trial-like questioning (providing the scenes for the indispensable "courtroom episode"), where neither one is willing to admit to the affair. It's at this point we begin wondering what this tribunal is really about — finding the security leak or embarrassing the military for other indiscretions. (Sort of reminds me of the Kenneth Starr investigation.) The painfully wry irony of this situation is that Sharon is a Cylon (which even she, of course, does not know) and that in her process of a sexual rendezvous with Tyrol, might have gone through the very hatch in question and left it open deliberately but — again ironically — unaware that what she did was a deliberate act. Ultimately, one of Tyrol's young deck crewmen takes the fall to protect the chief out of an arguably misguided sense of loyalty.

For Tyrol, this mess again raises an interesting question of responsibility. What is his responsibility in carrying on this affair? Certainly he's not responsible for the security breach, since that would require him to suspect any and all of his fellow shipmates, not to mention his lover, of being possible Cylon agents. But he is responsible for the lie that ultimately leads his crewman to fall on his own sword, and I liked the scene where Adama tells Tyrol that. Edward James Olmos is masterful at conveying quiet yet forceful sternness.

What the episode perhaps fails to consider is that Sharon, as a commissioned officer, might be the one who should be asking these questions. It might have made for a more interesting dynamic had the Cylon — who already has the unknown internal conflict — had to face a known conflict in making the tough decision. As it plays out, Tyrol breaks off the relationship — explaining that its cost is too great and compromises too many people — which leads to an icy scene that makes one wonder if it could push Sharon's subconscious further into the clutches of her Cylon self.

Meanwhile, with Hadrian asking questions that do no good but to embarrass the military, Adama must shut down the very tribunal he gave power to. The concept of the witch hunt is always worth a look (I was reminded of TNG's "The Drumhead"), but given the state of society and the fleet, Hadrian's attempts to forge ahead seem somewhat petty and ill-motivated, and her attempt to arrest Adama when he shuts down the tribunal strikes me as unlikely. Fortunately, she's taken none too seriously by anyone else in the room. But one has to wonder what Hadrian honestly hoped to accomplish, other than holding onto the power she had been granted.

Caprica update: Boomer talks with her fellow Cylons about the plan involving Helo as a guinea pig. After vanishing at the end of last week's episode, the Cylons want to see if Helo will move on without her or go back to find her. When he elects to go back to find her, the Cylons beat Boomer up to enhance the illusion of her "capture." Boomer then allows herself to be "rescued" by Helo. It's at this point I begin to see the Caprica arc as a lot of effort for some very slow progress.

And, once again, I ask: Where are all the people? Like Helo, somewhere on a Cylon chessboard, I suppose.

Previous episode: You Can't Go Home Again
Next episode: Six Degrees of Separation

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