REVIEW: 'Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep' and miss Sarah Connor uniquely endure what is required of her mission

"Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep" is a cleverly deceptive episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" that forces Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) to tragically face something viewers thought she already did.

Most compelling about the episode are Sarah's nightmares, which feature her talking to the security guard she shot toward the end of "Earthlings Welcome Here." This is because of how its practicality calls into question whether the conversation between Sarah and someone who has since been presumed dead is occurring.

Further adding to this deliberately unclear storytelling formula is the guard's judgmental tone toward Sarah as though her own guilty conscious is manifesting nightmares and a later scene in which fatal gunfire appears to make Judgment Day all but inevitable

Driving home this point for less observant viewers is passing dialogue that suggests nightmares develop when the person having them is avoiding facing something. In other words, do not expect to be able to distinguish reality from nightmarish fantasy from the get-go.

What makes this episode more than just filler is how it forces Sarah to deal with the consequences of her actions even more than she sparingly did in "Desert Cantos." Through the story, viewers learn indirectly that even though Sarah is single-minded in her mission to protect John (Thomas Dekker) and stop Judgement Day, she had not before killed anyone. One would have expected someone so seemingly emotionally absent to have killed many people by now, but this is not the case.

And again, the series exploits Sarah's seeming guilt-ridden conversation with someone she wronged to show how the character looks forward to dying presumably because it is easier than keeping up the fight against SkyNet.

When woven together, the aforementioned story elements serve to reveal in the end that Sarah is forced to live by different ethical standards than most normal people that guide certain actions sure to slowly kill her on the inside over time. Especially hurtful to Sarah is that she inadvertently involves John, the only reason she chooses to keep living, in her misdeeds.

Not working is how Sarah checks herself into a sleep clinic that just happens to be responsible for the red mark she beforehand found on her body. No explanation as to how the clinic's workers managed to sneak into Sarah's house to make the red mark or why it is significant makes this an even more frustrating aspect of the episode that could perhaps be elaborated on later.

A nice, minor touch is how Jesse's previously mentioned mission to keep John away from "her" is complicated when noticeable female tension develops between Sarah, who cannot play overprotective mommy while she is out of commission, and Cameron (Summer Glau), who has seemingly stepped up to be the woman of the house.

Machines apparently have no sense of shame when it comes to how they dress and can cook a decent plate of pancakes.

Though vague and not as exciting as more action-packed episodes, "Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep" is a unique and necessary setup for what is sure to make Sarah an even more interestingly complex character to explore in the future.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 out of 5 pieces)

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REMINDER: Sarah Connor's insomnia to bare fruit in a creepy sleep clinic in 'Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep'

Even though she avoids exposing herself to hospitals, Lena Headey's Sarah Connor checks herself into a sleep clinic in the "Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep," tonight's episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

Sarah must really be on the brink of desperation to do something so risky considering that she is a fugitive and generally does not like being kept in clinics as demonstrated in "Terminator 2: Judgement Day."  

Overviews of the episode on the series' official Web site and TV.com indicate that Sarah goes to the sleep clinic after not napping for two weeks and begins to experience nightmares there that the video promo shows involves being abducted and severely choked by the security guard she seemingly kills at the end of "Earthlings Welcome Here."

It is implied in the video that John (Thomas Dekker) suspects that his mother is making up the nightmares given her vision of the three dots, her obsession with which lead to the discovery of a similar-looking aircraft. This should provide Sarah with enough credibility for her son to go along with what she is saying.

While being studied like a lab rat, Sarah thinks about how her nightmares might be tied to whatever SkyNet is cooking up next, but suspect events conveniently start to take place there, the video promo and the overviews show. 

Clips from the video promo and a photo still imply that the attendants at the sleep clinic are up to something tied to a new red scar on Sarah's body. 

A sneak peek of "Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep" shows that the presumed dead security guard is alive and true to the nightmares ends up kidnapping her.

Also included in the episode is John possibly discovering some kind of massive supercomputer, as shown in one photo still, and explaining to Cameron (Summer Glau) how humans perceive dreams, as shown in the sneak peek below. WATCH THE PROMO!

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REMINDER: Starbuck drinks redrum, Boomer lassos a moon in 'Someone to Watch Over Me'?

Ghostly visions and alternate realities in space appear to be the focus of the 17th, season four "Battlestar Galactica" episode, "Someone to Watch Over Me," promotional multimedia indicates.

No was watching over Captain Samuel Anders (Michael Trucco) when he appears to be waking up from a coma at the end of "Deadlock," and he is not featured in any of the promos for the next episode that airs tonight. But there is enough to explore even if the character is left with no one to attend to his medical care other than Doc Cottle.

Overviews for "Deadlock" from The Sci Fi Channel, TV Guide and TV.com Web sites indicate that Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (Katie Sackhoff) will see ghostly visions while at the same time talking to a "charismatic" man playing on the new piano she took note of in "Deadlock" in a premise very reminiscent to the famed bar from hell scene from "The Shining." 

By the episode's end, Starbuck "may" come to terms with something "shattering" as to why she found a skull wearing her military tags on the nuked remains of Earth, one of the overviews shows.

Rebel Cylons meanwhile want to get revenge on Sharon "Boomer" Valerii (Grace Park) by charging her with treason even though she established her loyalty by helping to rescue Ellen Tigh (Kate Vernon), who is one of the elder Final Five Cylons, from being dissected by John Cavil (Dean Stockwell), the overviews show. 

Promotional photo stills allude to the possibility that this causes either Boomer or Galen Tyrol (Aaron Douglas), who were once lovers, to experience having lived a domestic life together somewhere that is not space. 

Adding to the drama are Tyrol's efforts to ask for intervention in the matter from President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnel), who might be understandably beholden to The Cylons' desire for vengeance in exchange for their assistance in helping the fleet to move forward to gods know where. Boomer's only saving grace, Ellen, might not be so willing to help The Cylon that helped liberate her from Cavil out of some sense of toaster justice. Both points are established in the sneak peek below or watch the official promo.

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REVIEW: Humans and The Final Five Cylons reach a painstakingly faint mutual accord in 'Deadlock'

Meant to convey a deliberately vague sense of camaraderie, "Deadlock," the 16th, season four episode of "Battlestar Galactica," tells a poignant story about how war complicates the identities of both sides that it engages.

Kate Vernon's Ellen Tigh's character is able to point out something that toaster-hating fans of the series might not immediately realize, that is, that The Cylons have been withered down to a few survivors since the destruction of the resurrection ship as opposed to thousands of human survivors. That one remark really drives home the point that The Cylons have also suffered as a result of this war, albeit in a different manner.

Less often suffering is Gaius Baltar (James Callis), who appears to be turning a new leaf, but does not to the writers' credit make a dramatic leap from a weasel to a saint. He returns to his flock of female followers, allowing them to believe that the one true god for which the former fleet president claims to speak abandoned them and that his own absence was meant to test their ability to survive. But not all Baltar's myrmidons instantly swoon past his faulty explanation.

Even how and why Baltar chooses to cement his position as their leader by providing the civilian members of the fleet with food is dubious because it is uncertain if his actions are motivated by a need to show up Paula Schaffer (Lara Gilchrist) or to impress an attractive woman. 

Making the character even more ingeniously complex is that he nonetheless seems to enjoy helping others before gaining more influence by the episode's end.

Ellen herself is shown to be more than just a vindictive temptress in backing off once she has done something horrible.

Questionable about the episode is how quick the suddenly loyal again Galen Tyrol (Aaron Douglas) and Tory Foster (Rekha Sharma) are to jump on the band wagon of abandoning the fleet so as to preserve the 13th tribe in its purest form given that they were once mesmerized to even learn that they were Cylons. Maybe this is meant to show their innate duplicity or tendency to view living among their enemies as unacceptable?

What finally comes into perspective in "Deadlock" is the reality that comes with any kind of warfare in the long run. Soldiers crossing borders mate with enemy women, learn one another's cultures and incidentally become one whole microcosm, subtly shown in Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan) and Tricia Helfer's Caprica's Six's baby, the presence of many of her doubles throughout the Galactica battleship and the Cylon goop holding it all together.

Perhaps this is why it is necessary for there to have been in a death in the episode so that both sides could share a common pain, and the last scene really provides this notion with a sense of heart.

"Deadlock" is a surprisingly well-structured transitional episode that is sure to make whatever it is setting up all the more meaningful.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 out of 5 pieces)

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REVIEW: Exploiting Trudy's death so that Monk can needlessly abuse a pregnant woman in season eight's finale

There are not a lot of great things about "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall" because its feature homicide case is uninspired, impractical, ghoulishly handled and reveals nothing worthy of a series' penultimate season finale.

If anything, the 16th, season eight episode is misleading in that one official overview and promo indicated that something new was sure to develop about Trudy's murder when Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) investigates the disappearance of a city council member (Tamlyn Tomita) key to preserving the site where his wife died. But nothing new comes about from the homicide case once it is solved. It is at best just another run-of-the-mill murder.

Not only does the homicide case in question offer no new clues, but by the 41-minute-long episode's end Monk still does not agree with the prospect of the demolition of the parking garage where Trudy was killed, making it a pointless story to tell given the unfounded behavior he exhibits. He stops the development of a children's playground, only takes on a missing person's case out of self-interest and mistreats an admittedly annoying, but pregnant secretary (Kali Rocha). 

Usually Monk's misbehavior is funny when adversity forces him to grow as a human being by doing something inconvenient other than preserving a decrepit crime scene he himself admits has no further investigate value and that his phobia of germs would otherwise cause him to dislike. 

With that having been established, why does the defective detective spend all his time at Trudy's murder site and not at her grave?

A possible answer is that it is key to a premise that allows Captain Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) to make inappropriate remarks about two dead German tourists who die on a site that conveniently becomes important later on, Lt. Randy Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford) accept a hot dog bribe and Harold Krenshaw (Tim Bagley) to extoll the strangest theory as to who might be behind his former colleague's ill fate. 

Funny about the premise is that it has Monk interact with Harold at city hall over the former's new therapist, but only so long so as to provide time for several misfired jokes. Monk flirting, dirty hot dogs, Traylor Howard's Natalie Teeger's aversion to certain sex toys and the obnoxious secretary, who lands the job because of the most absurd circumstances, only make for a few light-hearted chuckles.

One has to wonder why the series' writers came up with this episode other than that they are saving the best for the last season, having nothing creative left to bring to the table, or simply decided to entirely phone it in for a change.

"Mr. Monk Fights City Hall" is the definition a filler episode if ever there was one that is not necessary to watch if it can be helped. Just know that the season eight finale features a small trinket of "Monk" trivia and move on.

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Popcorn rating:

(2 out of 5 pieces)

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REVIEW: Mournful events of 'Desert Cantos' emphatically weigh in on Sarah Connor's conscience

"Desert Cantos" is a cleverly formulaic way to have the title character of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" smell the roses of tragedy that might transform her from a victim to the cause of suffering.

Also notable about the 15th, season two episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" is that it provides promising opportunities for the development of its lesser utilized main characters. 

Instead of moving on with some other episode, "Desert Cantos" features Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) confronting her actions from tracking down the source of the three dots in her dreams. With John Connor (Thomas Dekker), Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green) and Cameron Phillips (Summer Glau), she visits the town of Charm Acres to track down anyone who knows anything about what was being built at the blown-up factory.

While there, Sarah meets the wife of the security officer who she killed when he attacked her at the end of "Earthlings Welcome Here." Perhaps what works most about this episode's premise is that the title character is not allowed to live by some convenient code of TV morality and allow viewers to assume her homicide was justified. Forcing Sarah to confront her past demons in this instance also provides a setting of grieving suitable for the victims' families to extol a lot of exposition.

A member of one of these families, Zoe McCarthy (Alanna Masterson), noticeably does not grieve so much as she does not seems to care that her father was apparently killed in the explosion. 

Serving the episode well, Zoe provides a sense of uncertainty as to whether she is handling her distress in some frivolously adolescent manner or has reason not to fly off the deep end of depression. As difficult as it to find the character compelling, her annoyingly erratic presence does serve a purpose.

Zoe, and Diana Winston (Cyd Strittmatter), the dead security guard's wife, represent a possible foreshadowing of how anybody seemingly normal can suddenly become a rogue. Who in the main cast this is meant to allude to might be Sarah, who remarks, "Decent people get caught up in things."

Off, but also relevant to the episode is a line suddenly said by Cameron out of nowhere about Native Americans' belief that photos steal people's souls. Her comment alludes to something that has been implied in past episodes about Sarah having died as a person when her picture was taken at the end of 1984's "The Terminator." She thereafter became a soldier solely dedicated to protecting her son John Connor from termination.

One parallel to this aspect of Sarah Connor is the mentioning of the death of Lachlan Weaver, who was a great guy, a genius and funny man along with his wife while alive. 

Attributing this pathetic fallacy to Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson) is a subtle allusion to how Sarah is becoming very much like the machines against which she is fighting.

Another parallel is Sarah and Derek commenting to each other that they should let go of the memory of the late Kyle Reese, hinted as being an important element in the story when Cameron asks Derek whether he would always look at a picture of his brother if he had one.

Cameron's comment about Zoe's feelings about her father, and toward Henry, in this regard cleverly utilizes the character for a change as a dispassionate observer among people who have lost sight of their own priorities in tragedy's wake.

Strange about Sarah and Derek's interaction is this uneasy tension between the two that hopefully is only there because the two characters have become paranoid of trusting anyone. Having them hook up would be very difficult to justify in terms of being suitable for the overall story being told. While they are both battle-hardened, having Sarah and Derek struggle with their ability to dismiss Kyle as a war casualty makes them more than just action stars.

Not too serious of an episode, Derek of all characters in the supporting cast is allowed to do more than just act intense. He is allowed to crack a few subtle jokes at the expense of Cameron and the absurdity of spending time at a funeral chasing what is hitherto considered to be nothing more than Sarah's bad dream.

Though frustrating, only a bit more is known about the three-dot spacecraft by the end of the episode because presumably the series is building toward something worth the wait. Hopefully, patience may pay off in a shocking revelation that any other TV series would diminish in importance via needlessly expositional dialogue.

Only four, season two episodes remain to see if the deeply methodical "Desert Cantos" lays down further the foundations of worthwhile character and overall story development.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 1/2 out of 5 pieces)

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REMINDER: 'Monk' season seven finale might finally address concrete details about Trudy's murder

Tony Shalhoub's Adrian Monk's strange nostalgia for the parking garage where his wife Trudy was killed might lead him to details about her murder.

Overviews from the official "Monk" Web site and TV.com for "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall," the Feb. 20 season seven finale, indicate that in the episode Monk chains himself up to stop its scheduled demolition.

But a case develops for Monk to solve that disrupts everything when a city official sympathetic to his cause goes missing, and finding out what happened might very well lead him to a clue with which to deduce who ordered Trudy's murder, the overviews hint at as well.

One sneak peek shows that Harold Krenshaw (Tim Bagley), who is apparently on the city council, votes to prevent postponing the site's demolition seemingly out of his long-standing hatred for Monk, and that he might only vote in favor of it if the defective detective reveals the name of his therapist, Dr. Neven Bell (Hector Elizondo). 

Maybe Harold just misses their verbal sparing in Dr. Kroger's waiting room.

A compelling reason to watch the episode is that it will likely not lead viewers down another dead-end concerning Trudy's homicide in that the series will conclude next season, and sparing information has thus far been revealed about her bombing. 

If anything, this episode might very well serve as a sort of story launching point for some episodes, if not all, in season eight.

Longtime fans might get a piece of what they have been very patient to see for the last seven seasons of few great murder cases for Monk to solve intertwined with many frivolous themes. 

Monk confronting his fear of confinement means "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall" is more than just a run-of-the-mill episode. Another sneak peek that can be watched below indicates it is enough to get Monk to care about something other than what he does best, that is, solving murders.

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REMINDER: Ellen Tigh rocks the vote, Caprica Six gets feisty, Baltar returns to his stooges in 'Deadlock'

Ellen Tigh (Kate Vernon) is alive. She escaped from John Cavil (Dean Stockwell). And she has a plan.

Her plan is not to leave with The Final Five Cylons to start a new life, but the Sci Fi Channel trailer for "Deadlock" indicates her vote would clinch the decision. TV.com's overview for the Feb. 19 episode further confirms that Ellen will have to make a "momentous choice" regarding her four fellow skin job toasters aboard The Galactica.

Could Cavil and his forces show up and rush Ellen's decision, or limit her options?   

Teasers from the promo indicate that viewers will know "the truth" once "Deadlock" concludes, though it is not as though the episode has to live up to this claim. If anything is revealed, it will presumably be about The 13th Tribe. 

Or will any of The Fine Five Cylons kick their amnesia and remember something key from their pasts? Will the 13th Cylon Daniel surface in any capacity?

Sure to be included in the episode is Ellen dealing with Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan), who will apologize for killing her on New Caprica, though this is should not be anything new given that she forgave him in "No Exit." 

Saul might also have to explain why he knocked up Caprica Six (Tricia Helfer), maybe even having to choose between the two cyborg female fatales.

Speaking of relationships with women, the former lothario Gauis Baltar (James Callis) will return to his loyal flock of followers who believe he speaks for the one true god and Galen Tyrol (Aaron Douglas) will continue his repairs of Adama's old girl, the decrepit Galactica battleship.

What is certain is that Caprica Six is going to use her trademark long legs to kick some bigot colonial tail, the following sneak peek shows. Or WATCH THE PROMO!

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REVIEW: Insightful judgement day arrives for Sarah Connor's parenting skills in 'The Good Wound'

"The Good Wound," the 14th, season two episode of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," manages to remind its title character of her priorities while at the same time telling an incidental love story before Valentine's Day.

Lena Headey's Sarah Connor exemplifies the tremendous extent of her sacrifice to keep her son alive until Judgement Day when the Kyle Reese hallucination (Jonathan Jackson) says to her, "I die for John Connor." She responds, "I die for my son."

Contrasting how Kyle dies for a man who stands for a cause with how Sarah suffers for someone she loves, the latter implies that she has given up her own identity for this one sole mission. Protecting John is all that defines Sarah, and the Kyle hallucination's photo is a reminder of when she discarded her old identity.

Kyle's hallucination continuously stifles her soldier's instinct to hide her identity and trust no one, reminding her in a way that it is her mission to survive. Fighting the war against Skynet is not necessarily her responsibility, after all.

Here "The Good Wound" introduces a few difficult questions to answer, which are whether Sarah as a soldier is being too hard on John, if she is trying too hard out of a mother's instinct to fight a war that fate dictates belongs to him, or both.

All are likely relevant to ponder about because of how Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green) openly questions why John, his future commanding officer, unnecessarily exposes himself to the authorities in choosing to look after a hospitalized Riley. 

Either John is too emotionally erratic, understands something about human compassion that the battle-hardened Derek does not, or both.

A comment made by Summer Glau's Cameron that the future John would have more important things to worry about than the health of one person drives this point home.

Very apropos to introduce this complexity in the development of characters who are less important in the future than John, it implies that he must as a leader learn to think about the bigger picture when it comes to caring for the people in his life, even if that means making sacrifices. Sarah might yet allow her son to learn this lesson through experience.

Two different approaches for the ethical development of the infant-like John Henry by James Ellison (Richard T. Jones) and Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson) are meant to represent a parallel to the parental roles Sarah and Derek play in John Connor's life.

Slightly confusing about the episode is the scene between Sarah and the Kyle hallucination near the scorched apple tree. 

A good guess is that the apple Weaver eats earlier represents the machines destroying the paradise God gave the human race and how the survivors make do with what little they have left. The burned apple tree Kyle and Derek use as a meeting place where they keep their prized possessions indicates that love, Sarah's photo, is buried underneath the collateral damage of the war against the SkyNet.

At least it is reassuring to know that the series' writers are taking a few creative risks.

"The Good Wound" is a complex examination of its title character that might not necessarily make sense to casual viewers looking for a few explosive Terminator moments. While there is a literal explosion in the episode, the story alone provides very combustible plot devices with which to keep "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" burning this season.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 out of 5 pieces)

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REVIEW: Mr. Monk and the nerdy neighbor whom the series' writers make disappear for no practical reason

"Monk" is known for having its share of theme episodes, but "Mr. Monk and the Magician" is one creative rabbit that was needlessly pulled from wherever the idea for the 15th, season seven episode originated.

Too much is required to accept in order to enjoy the mediocre story.

Essential is the first scene in which a magician known as The Great Torini (Steve Valentine) makes a deal with heroine dealers because it establishes a strong homicide motive and that he likes to play around with danger. It could have done without the continuous magic puns that are probably left in to serve as winks to families watching that the episode is more frivolous than serious, though.

Particularly entertaining about this more than 40-minute-long episode is the clumsily neurotic Kevin Dorfman (Jarrad Paul), Tony Shalhoub's Monk's recurring friend who hilariously tries his hand at magic until he metaphorically dies on stage and then literally in a backstage dressing room. His horrible act only serves to make Torini's later magic tricks all the more amazingly bedeviling.

Any charlatan can pull a rabbit out of a hat, after all, and even the slightly compassionate nature of Torini's female assistant Tanya (Peyton List) is developed to make him seem more licentious.

What is less engaging is how callously the writers have begun taking creative liberties with the series' hallmarks for no apparent reason other than that "Monk" will soon be over and no longer need the Kevin Dorfman character. 

This is really a needless death that they would be hard-pressed to justify making into another random case for Monk to solve.

At least Kevin, who was always portrayed as a lonely person without many friends, is shown to have made many while alive with his sweet, albeit eccentric, personality at the wake. In the end, this painstakingly charming attribute is the cleverly ironic reason why he is murdered.

Torini, who was never truly Kevin's friend, is a great villain for Monk on paper, but ends up being no more formidable than his ability to misdirect viewers from the more simple circumstances of the homicide he commits. He is simply a convenient storytelling tool with which to keep anyone from guessing how the magician did it before Monk solves the case.

Therein lies one of the magic-themed episode's saving graces in that nothing is at first as it appears, particularly the custodian in the hallway. 

Then again, it diminishes the importance of Kevin's death in that more time is not invested in developing the Torini character for viewers to care that he is meant to be one of Monk's greatest adversaries.

Monk, who seemingly disliked Kevin before his untimely death, shows his true colors in confronting claustrophobia to learn how Torini was able to murder his friend from 300 miles away. But even this exploration of the character comes about in a breezy manner.

Not helping the episode's fast pace is the questionable and not so obvious reason why Monk does not want kiss the noticeably attractive Tanya when she tries to help him escape from Torini's clutches. One can only assume it is out his loyalty to Trudy, some phobia, or his utter dislike for her as a human being.

Investing too much into what could have been a great case, "Mr. Monk and the Magician" is at best worth watching because it features an entertaining magical theme that astounds the eyes, but ultimately falls short to amaze viewers' sense of a worthwhile story. 

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Popcorn rating:

(3 out of 5 pieces)

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REVIEW: 'No Exit' episode of 'Battlestar Galactica' resurrects prominent Cylons as verbose narrators

"No Exit" is an appropriate title for the 15th, season four "Battlestar Galactica," which offers minimal relief from the considerable amount of story exposition its feature characters extoll for more than 40 minutes.

More than 40 minutes become more than 80 minutes for the non-hardcore viewers who will likely have to watch the episode again to understand the canon that two no longer needlessly dead characters, Samuel Anders (Michael Trucco) and Ellen Tigh (Kate Vernon), provide about The Cylon's past before the nuclear holocaust on Caprica. 

Both excitement and concern sets in while watching because there is a seemingly practical reason why the more often restrained storytellers behind "BSG" reveal so much interesting background information such as who programmed The Cylons, who it is that is responsible for their skin jobs, what The Centurions hold most sacred, and so forth. Either there are a lot of adrenaline-fueled moments coming, not enough time left, or both.

Beyond this, Vernon's often ambiguously amorous character is wisely given logical rhyme to her hitherto erratic reason by being upgraded to a more prominent toaster status as one of The Final Five Cylons. She becomes an almost too loving god-like character when pitted against the more callous John Cavil (Dean Stockwell), whose hatred for humans is ironically fueled by his own physical and clearly emotional limitations as an artificial version of one.

Stockwell's suddenly more Devil-like character would otherwise be a zealous atheist if he did not know for a fact that his creator is real enough to punish for creating such a flawed being in her own image.

After catching up with the bulk of mile-a-minute dialogue between Ellen and John, humans are portrayed as overall superior to The Cylons in that the latter have no apparent reason to exist other than to improve their ability to resort to the basest sentient act, murder. Further exemplifying this point is the antipathy Galen, Saul and Tory show when they are more interested in hearing what Sam, whose development is hopefully not cut short, has to say than allowing him to undergo critical surgery. 

Not to mention the grimly humorous comments made by John Hodgman's character that introduces a questionable balance to the highly charged emotions going on in the scene.

Galen's later motiveless concern for Galactica's precarious structural integrity adds even more moral complexity to The Cylons as a species. 

Even though the aforementioned parallels with what Ellen says about The Cylons' actions work, Saul talking with the others as though he is a college student sitting in a dormitory discussing philosophy is outside of the realm of the battle-hardened character. Analyzed from another perspective, perhaps he was dragged into this scene as an incidental admission by the "BSG" writing staff about what they were doing when they wrote the explicatory episode.

 

More effectively utilized is the Galactica battleship as a pathetic fallacy of how the war against The Cylons has taken its toll on the battleship just as it has on the human race's ability to move on as a species without the help of their hated enemies. 

Moving on from "No Exit" is comparably easier given that the writers crafted a fun, albeit long Cylon history lesson that laid the foundations of many existential conversations for "BSG" fanboys. Any other science fiction series would simply slap together a bunch of special effects-fueled action and empty dialogue.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 out of 5 pieces)

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