Battlestar Galactica “Scar”

Cool: We learn here that Vipers all come equipped with on-board cameras that allow pilots to later study dogfights. It’s chilling here to watch Starbuck analyze footage broadcast by a Viper moments before it was destroyed and the pilot lost. This dovetails nicely with the episode’s overall theme of “death becomes a learning experience.” Just as reincarnated Cylon Raiders learn from each successive death, so, too, do the Colonial pilots learn from each other’s dogfight deaths. This is great stuff.
Cooler: Another melancholic moment comes when Kat adds to the 9/11-style wall of the dead a picture of the dead Viper pilot’s girlfriend (whose name sadly no one can remember) who herself died on the 12 colonies. Her picture had been in the pilot’s bunk, but with him dead, there’s no one left to remember her. And so she’s added to the nameless masses lost in the war against the Cylons. It's grim moments like this that remind one how far this reimagined series is from the toothless, disco action-adventure of the original 1970s series.
Huh?: This episode’s flashback-heavy, non-linear structure is too confusing to add to the drama as seems intended. It’s tough to figure out when we’re in the past and when we’re in the present.
Best Line: “To BB, Jo-Jo, Reilly, Beano, Dipper, Flat Top, Chuckles, Jolly, Crashdown, Sheppard, Dash, Flyboy, Stepchild, Puppet, Fireball...” – Starbuck’s poignant toast to fallen Viper pilots, contradicting her earlier tough-guy assertion that she never remembers the names of the dead.
Rising: Kat, who’s a great foil to Starbuck, perhaps because she’s just as cocky, insubordinate, and talented in a cockpit as Starbuck.

Tweet