Review Text
The most simplistic yet accurate one-line review for "Exodus, Part 1" that I could possibly write is: "All setup, no payoff." This episode is one hour of setup material, with no release and, surprisingly enough, not much suspense or tension. It's background material. Necessary? Absolutely. Satisfying? Not exactly.
It's a simple fact that any reasonable storytelling must have ebb and flow. This is definitely the ebb part. Let me reiterate that this show contains plenty of useful and necessary storytelling, but after "Occupation/Precipice," this feels like an episode that's spinning its wheels — even when, strictly speaking, it's not. Perhaps it has something to do with the awe factor: Once we've gotten over the initial shock of where all the characters are, we must now follow them around on this rock, and that's not as intriguing here as it might've been.
Let's start with the quasi-cheat structure of the opening act. "Precipice" ended with a cliffhanger where it looked like Roslin and dozens more were about to be executed in a mass machine-gunning. "Exodus, Part 1" begins with the declarative title "one hour earlier," and we see events that are undoubtedly going to retroactively impact the outcome of last week's cliffhanger ending.
Tyrol gets wind of the death order that the Cylons drew up (and Baltar signed), and must now, with a small team of soldiers, do everything he can to stop it — especially since his wife Cally is on the list. Apparently to give the story a more personal angle (as if Roslin, Zarek, and dozens more about toe be shot weren't enough), the episode feels a need to make Tyrol go into a fit of hyperventilating. We must stop the Cylons now, because "They've got Cally!"
Tyrol's rescue is crosscut with Anders' team rendezvousing with Sharon as the first step in Galactica's evacuation plan. The Cylons open fire on Anders' team because their position has been betrayed by Ellen, for reasons that one can understand but not forgive. Did she even realize the stakes involved? No, she did not.
Crosscutting the attack on Anders' team with the rescue of the prisoners by Tyrol's team is a nice try editorial-wise, but ultimately it's a little muddled. The scene, for example, never shows how Tyrol's team took out the half-dozen Cylon Centurions that were about to shoot the prisoners. So far as I can tell, the Centurions simply vanished after the machinegun fire started. Did Tyrol's team have RPGs like Anders' team did? If so, we don't see them.
After the opening action, "Exodus, Part 1" settles into a series of scenes that might best be described as scene-setting for "Exodus, Part 2." Yes, it's all relevant, but a lot of it we already knew. There are scenes where Roslin reiterates the importance of Maya and her mysterious child, which she ominously refers to as "the shape of things to come." And there's the issue of Ellen, whom Anders immediately knows is the one who betrayed them (the Cylons who attacked them had the map she was supposed to burn). The moment Tigh learns of his wife's betrayal is the ultimate in dramatic rubber bands stretched to the max but somehow not permitted to break. The breaking will evidently come next week.
Meanwhile, Cylon D'Anna has a strange dream and/or premonition about a human oracle and a child. She visits the temple from her dream and the oracle tells her, in not so many words, that Sharon's child Hera is still alive. While it's been established before that Cylons can "see patterns" regarding the future, this to me feels like a convenient narrative shortcut that steers clear of potentially more interesting real-world scenarios for this discovery. Rather than coming up with a plot- or character-based situation for how the Cylons learn that Hera still lives, the writers fall back on the more arbitrary spiritual/mystical explanation. Part of me feels like this is a cop-out.
Still, this leads to the episode's single most engaging character dynamic, where Sharon breaks into the Cylon base and is discovered by D'Anna, who tells her that Hera is still very much alive. Sharon's response is the most interesting and foreboding line in the show: "Adama wouldn't lie to me." Sharon carries out the mission successfully and obtains the launch codes, but you just know that this dialog exchange is going to come back to haunt everybody. After all of Adama's talk about trust, this betrayal — regardless of the situation and what was said to whom and when — is going to be a devastating blow to all the understandings that Adama and Sharon have reached in the past year, and who knows what the consequences will ultimately be.
It's the one good payoff in an episode that is otherwise content to provide only setup and atmosphere. This series has a tendency to stand studiously on ceremony, and I often appreciate that tendency. But I also occasionally grow restless about it. This episode has so much emotional/atmospheric pre-battle preparation on Galactica that it comes dangerously close to cliché, no matter how earnest and well performed it is. There's the flight-deck prayer, the salt poured on the floor, the shaking of hands, the well-wishing, and Lee and Adama hugging for what they both expect will be the last time. All of this is done with utter conviction. But it also betrays a certain air of false suspense — because, let's face it, the mission is obviously going to be successful in next week's "Exodus, Part 2," where the title itself is the confirmation to what is already a foregone conclusion.
So when Adama makes his speech just before the Galactica jumps to New Caprica for a mission that (if successful) will be remembered for generations to come, I can appreciate the intention, but it's certainly not a case where drama and suspense are the same thing.
Previous episode: Occupation/Precipice
Next episode: Exodus, Part 2
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27 comments on this post
Rob Miller
I liked your site
Brendan
I like turtles.
Donna
I like this site and turtles.
mark
I like this site and turtles and llamas.
Wilbur
I am a turtle and I love you all.
JP
I am not a turtle and I love you all anyways.
Vylora
I like sites about turtles riding on llamas that like sites about turtles liking this site.
Nic
Yup. The feeling I had watching this episode was "Been there, done that." The first two seasons of this show were fresh and different and full of unexpected (but logical) twists and turns. Now, despite the supposedly big risk that was taken in "Lay Down Your Burdens", they're still telling the same kinds of stories.
Michael
Jammer is right: This show does not offer drama or suspense. We know the eventual outcome. What it does though is pique curiosity as to how it will be done and the cost of doing it. That I AM looking forward to seeing. It also does something else: Lift spirits.
After last show's unshown purported massacre, which plumbed new depths of despair, I was relieved to see that the shooting heard had not come from the cylon executioners but from the Resistance. It is also great to witness the humans getting their own back after so long. Almost makes you cry when you realize there is hope yet! The Chief shaving off his beard goes some way toward solidifying the feeling that the tide may at last be turning after nothing but serbacks.
Last episode (and the few before it) was always going to be extremely difficult to match. I can't remember the last time I just sat through a show without pausing it every few minutes to do something else; with B.S.G. I watch almost every episode from beginning to end with undivided attention.
Vylora
Turtles?
Zane314
Yes Vylora, turtles. Turtle love leads to all love. :)
Justin
I like eggs.
Vylora
Turtle love! :D
My life is now complete and I shall not want.
J
In 2010 I used to like turtles. These days, not so much. Not since the accident.
Teejay
A llama once bit my sister.....
Anti Turtle
I hate turtles; Llamas on the other hand.. meh.
Vylora
I was watching a show about llamas while eating eggs the other day. The turtle didn't survive.
I won't go into details, but I heard that my therapy has been going quite well.
JR
Funny thing about turtles, they're so... 'turtle-y'. Strange that.
Psykopsyke
All this turtle talk. Is this a Voight-Kemp test?
battlestar
I don't get it. I just watched this episode but didn't they show those scenes at the end of Season 2, where it skipped forward a year and showed where everyone was? If so, and if these events are occurring only 4 months after the Occupation started, then we know exactly what's going to happen this season.
We know that the rescue mission will fail. We know that they'll still be on New Caprica after a year. We know that no one important will die. We know that Tigh and Ellen will make up. We know that Kara will somehow escape her prison and be with the rest of them. And we know that Anders will be sick. And that the rest of them will still be on Battlestar and Lee will be with Adama too instead of looking for Earth.
Maybe I'm missing something but skipping forward a year and then telling all these stories before that time period seems like a HUGE oversight. There are no stakes or suspense because I already know where things will end up.
Am I missing something?
Elliott
@battlestar :
They are not retreading the events of the year on New Caprica--although there are some flashbacks. The events of this season just pick up where the story left off, 1 full year having passed.
zzybaloobah
@Psykopskye -
Nice segue. No, it's not a Voight-Kemp (Kampff, according to the web) test.... at least I don't think so. But Rachel would make a great Cylon.
Yeah, the re-telling of the gunfire at the last episode cliffhanger was a bit of a cheat. Tyrol seemed to lack the firepower to stop that many Centurions.
Dba
I like turtles.
Patrick
@battlestar
The occupation takes place AFTER the 1 year time jump. This episode is 4 month after the 1 year jump.
Yes you are missing quite a bit.
Matthew Martin
I think it would have worked better had Occupation and Precipice been two episodes and Exodus been a two hour event. Just flip those two and it works perfectly
Malcolm Coles
Scrolled to the end of the comments and am disappointed there weren't turtles all the way down.
Rahul
Quite interesting but the part about the Lucy Lawless Cylon (#3) having dreams about the baby and finding this human oracle lady strains credulity. And then I'm trying to remind myself of what happens if the Cylons get the hybrid baby. The Cylon braintrust is getting to its wits end -- the Dean Stockwell model is running into headache issues from repeated downloads and they're questioning their whole purpose. Doral suggests nuking all the humans -- wow.
I liked the clarity given on where the rendez-vous point was compared to where Tyrol (now clean shaven) was supposed to go (Cylon execution site) in that 1 hour earlier part. But they should have shown at least 1 or 2 Cylon robots getting killed...
But one aspect is getting tiresome at this point -- and that's the maudlin prior to a mission -- Adama and fat ass Lee have another father-son moment, which didn't have the impact as in prior episodes. And then there's Adama's "proud to serve with you" and "good hunting" messages which fell similarly flat for me -- but these things have to be done. Just don't know if they need to be repeatedly shown. But I suppose it's important from a military sci-fi standpoint.
So far Sharon is holding her word to Adama and disables #3 when confronted about the truth about her baby. But #3's dreams and leap of faith she makes to believe the oracle lady seem out of place with the series. But there has to be some way the Cylons suspect that the hybrid baby is still alive... But is this the right choice?
A few other good parts as well like Ellen being found out for giving up the resistance, Baltar's ongoing decline, and Kara's feelings growing for the baby Kasey. Plenty of ground covered.
2.5 stars for "Exodus, Part 1" -- lots of good setup for what is surely an explosive 2nd part, although a lot felt fortuitous with no major casualties given the big gunfight at the start of the episode - but that's par for the course. A bit hard to envision the massive rescue with starting up all the ships given all the Cylon robots etc. attempting to put a stop to it.
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