02.12.07
Episode 3.14: “The Woman King”
Written by Michael Angeli
Directed by Michael Rymer
Writing is always an organic process. This is definitely true when dealing with a medium like television. Long-range plans are changed based on external factors and the realization that certain ideas don’t necessarily pan out as one might have hoped. In the case of “Battlestar: Galactica”, we happen to be witness to one such situation.
As Ron Moore and others have already mentioned in podcasts and elsewhere, the original plan was to center the upcoming trial of Gaius Baltar on a messy situation involving a group of Sagittarons on New Caprica. Gaeta, Zarek, and others would be implicated. Scenes had been filmed in earlier episodes to develop and lead into the circumstances of the trial. However, when the time came to work out the details, the writers realized that the Sagittaron subplot wasn’t panned out as intended.
This led to an interesting revision of existing, completed episodes. For example, in “Taking a Break From All Your Worries”, Baltar confronts Gaeta with something in his cell; this was originally supposed to be related to the Sagittaron subplot. Similarly, this episode contains a number of references to Sagittarons that seem out of place, as if the issues had been gathering steam over time.
In fact, many of the scenes in the recap in the teaser related to Helo’s current assignment and the bigotry towards Sagittarons never made it into previous episodes. This tactic is quite annoying, because it doesn’t play fair with the audience. It creates the impression that the issues in this episode were developing over time, when they were purposefully cut out of the story. That starts the audience off on the wrong foot.
All of that said, the episode itself manages to recover from this lack of context. Sure, the negativity towards religious Sagittarons feels like something out of left field, because in essence, that’s what it is. Why there would be an influx of Sagittaron refugees this long after the flight from New Caprica is never explained. More to the point, the most religious colony had previously been Geminon. All we know about Sagittara is that Zarek and Dualla come from that colony. (For that matter, it should be interesting to go back to the first issue of the recent “Zarek” comic mini-series to see if the details are remotely similar.)
The Sagittarons in this episode are similar to extreme versions of Christian Scientists who reject modern medicine. As mentioned already, the venomous bigotry that results is a bit awkward because this detail was never discussed in previous episodes. But this does present Helo with a particularly simple case of right vs. wrong, a situation where his unpopular moral fortitude can be justified. As someone clearly sidelined for violating orders in previous situations, Helo gets a simple opportunity to play the hero and uncover something to restore his standing in the fleet.
Because of all the changes to the overall story arc, the episode seems a bit out of place. Bereft of any real connections with the overall progression of the story, it becomes an isolated character piece for Helo. His character development doesn’t particular go anywhere, either, since the story relies on a fairly conventional plot about exposing hidden prejudices. It’s interesting enough to see that applied along religious or ideological lines rather than simple racial or gender lines, but it does come across as overdone. Ultimately, the episode has some interesting and worthwhile scenes, but the end effect of too many rewrites left it less than satisfying.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10
montereyan said,
February 13, 2007 at 2:56 am
I had a very different take on this, and I did not know anything about the development of the Sagittaron subplot before viewing the episode. I thought the episode did a good job of focusing on the development of Helo as a character. Six’s internal Baltar laid out the key at the beginning: “to act like a human, you must learn to think for yourself.” Helo sets out to prove the opposite, as he has consistently done all season.
The emergence of Helo as a person insistent on overcoming old prejudices in the interest of bringing justice to all humanity - to all sentience, really - goes right to the core of the series. It speaks directly to Adama’s speech at the decommissioning ceremony in the miniseries - “has humanity shown it deserves to live?” Helo is showing this. And ultimately he is positioning himself to be a major bridge between human and cylon. So I disagree, I think this episode is very well connected to other themes in the show. “Black Market” it is not.
I just don’t see the sloppiness you see. I thought that Gaeta’s motivations were rewritten well - he had survived a near-death experience at the hands of the Circle and understandably wanted to prevent Baltar from putting him through anything like that again, and protect his renewed position of trust from Galactica’s command. Zarek’s motivations in his meeting with Roslin are less clear, but Zarek has long been established as a character with few scruples and who will change his positions to maximize his own benefit. We’ve known the Sagittarons to be a rebellious and despised colony before, when Adar sent the marines and made Zarek a political prisoner. And given the religious nature of the colonies (and the show), I think there’s enough room for two colonies of religious fanatics.
I would give this episode an 8/10 rating. Well acted, the writing seemed about average for the show, and not knowing the whole inside scoop about the subplot, I didn’t notice any rough edges.
montereyan said,
February 13, 2007 at 2:57 am
Should edit the first paragraph; obviously Internal Baltar’s advice to Six was that to think like a human, she needed to consider her own interests alone. Helo, obviously, does the exact opposite.
Matthew said,
February 13, 2007 at 8:04 am
Normally I agree wholeheartedly with your reviews, but I feel differently towards this episode as yourself. Montereyan has said most of what I thought, but I just want to reiterate that I felt it was a very strong and interesting Helo character building episode, one that grabbed my attention in a way that previous standalone episodes haven’t managed to do.
I do normally agree with your reviews and enjoy reading them though, so keep up the great work!