The Woman King (314)

[Oreo]

This virus was worse than cancer, but the whole reason the baby is back is because it was sick in the Cylon control.

[lethalfang]

iv been wondering this for a little while...

how could Hera get sick when she has that magicle cylon baby blood that can cure cancer?

maybe its just me but I find it odd her blood can cure cancer and that cylon sickness yet it cant cure what ever the sagitarans had

Your immune system can only fight diseases that it is familiar with.
When your immune system meets a virus it has never seen before, it takes time for the immune system to figure out how to kill it. Sometimes it's too late before too many damage has been done. Sometimes it never manages to figure out how.

[apollo123]

I did not enjoy this episode AT ALL. First of all, Helo annoys the hell out of me. He's so self-righteous, pig-headed and is always sitting on his high horse. Yeah, his suspicions proved (very conveniently) correct at the end, but he had no real evidence and again was ignoring the orders of all his superiors because his own personal morals and ethics. The fact he gets vindicated at the end is so predictable and convenient. There was so suspense or surprise at all. It was like a typical Star Trek episode, neat and self-contained, but ultimately pointless. And I HATED that Adama apologized to him at the end and basically grovels at his feet. Helo's instincts might've been right THIS time, but that doesn't erase all the other times Helo disobeyed Adama's direct orders and put the fleet in danger. Helo should be the one groveling at Adama's feet. But not once have we seen him express remorse or regret about anything he's done. Oh yeah, because Helo is always right and everyone else is wrong. LAME.

[Mefusta]

Well, I liked it. The overall story was pretty average, but what was really awesome was how it brought so many secondary characters to the forefront: Helo, Cottle, Dee and the like. It would have been nice to see a more complicated "moral to the story" than just 'prejudice/racism = bad', but given the overarching plotline changes that took place after the episode was finished, it could have turned out a lot worse.

Good story, good acting, and more of Racetrack, which is always a good thing. Pretty damn good, IMO.

[Huginn]

I liked this episode. It wasn't thrilling, but it had several "on" moments. Yeah, it was cliche. I found that disappointing. At the same time, it did what Galactica does best: bring it stuff from the past and continue to work it into the future (with the exception of the random "oh, Saggittarons are fundies too" thing). Good development for Helo (though I too wanted to see him be wrong--not because I dislike him, but because though his fears were genuine and not borne of malice, it simply would have been more interesting in the future and would have left more options open).

Anyway, that brings me to my vision of this episode:

It would have been better if there had been another doctor known to us. Much ado had been made of Cottle being the only doctor left, more or less, and while you can presume that the bigger ships will have on-board medical personnel, to bring in someone random, whom we'd never seen before, didn't bode well and didn't feel right.

In addition, the redubbing of the open: never liked it. Especially dislike it when it's something that is completely new to us (condensing dialog I can understand, but bringing in something new...not so much).

Anyway, there needed to be something to mix this episode up, to bring it away from cliche, so that it would have some lasting consequences:

1) Helo being dead wrong: as likable as I personally find Helo, having him slip up and make a mistake would have been absolute gold in this episode. We saw a lot of him in this episode, but the last thing you want is to see characters fall into an equilibrium. They need to be dynamic. Helo got to show some of his stuff in this episode, but there's not much more to explore in the situation he's in. Had he been wrong, his position on the ship would have been further undermined, putting the character in position to fall into place in the future in a pivotal role.

2) Dualla being dead...well, dead: alternatively, if we leave in the racist evil doctor (which I actually thought fit rather well, despite my suggestion above), then we can kill off Dualla. I like Kandyse McClure and how she performs, even if her character has been in odd positions that never had the right vibe (not since the hookup with Lee, anyway), but taking her out of the picture would do wonders towards bashing the love quadrangle and actually having some progress on that front instead of the fast stagnation that plagued so many episodes since Unfinished Business. For that matter, having Dee die now (rather than in Rapture, for example) is a perfect example of a clever feint.

3) Having the virus be a cylon plot: not entirely inconceivable, and would certainly have addressed the concerns about lack of progress on the cylon front. In this case, we could trace the epidemic back to a patient zero and realize that it's a cylon (either one of the 7 we know, or better yet one of the 5 we don't).

Those are the three ideas I manged to come up with. Overall, I just think this episode was too small-minded and so suffered for it, despite having some good elements.

[P-90_177]

I don't know about you but I was really glad to see an episode centred around helo. And not only that but we got to see some of Sharons and Helos home life with Hera. Helo is one of my favorite characters in season 3 but he's really underused. If there is something about helo it's usually more to do with sharons problems but this time it was all about helo. In fact we got to see more of a number of characters that we havn't seen much of in a while. We saw six and her imaginary Baltar, Dee (without the apollo/ sam/ kara craziness) and even doc coddle. A mate of mine said that he wass really bored by this ep (he is someone who wants to see a dog fight in every ep though) but personally I thought it was quite interesting. It wasn't edge of your seat stuff but it was still a good solid ep. Does anyone agree with me?

Oh and GO HELO!!!!!!!!!!

[Oreo]

http://forum.gateworld.net/showthrea...24#post6320224

[STLbullet]

Hey thanks to you all for not even humoring me with a response to my post (and re-post).

[Uber]

Okay.

I HAVE to know.

Usually I can figure it out on my own...but this time? I'm at a loss.

What the heck does the title have to do with this episode?!??

I mean were it called, "Doctor of Death", or "Plague of Sorrows" or something that, you know, actually made sense given the plot, I wouldn't be in this spot right now.

I guess they were going for either vague or obscure here; so they named it, "The Woman King."

Does anyone get it and can share with the clueless one here???

[Agent_Dark]

Okay.

I HAVE to know.

Usually I can figure it out on my own...but this time? I'm at a loss.

What the heck does the title have to do with this episode?!??

I mean were it called, "Doctor of Death", or "Plague of Sorrows" or something that, you know, actually made sense given the plot, I wouldn't be in this spot right now.

I guess they were going for either vague or obscure here; so they named it, "The Woman King."

Does anyone get it and can share with the clueless one here???

The surname of that sagitarian woman was King. I think that's how she was referred to at one stage in the ep too, ie 'the woman, King'.

[KatsDead]

This was the second show (the last was "Hero"--yuck!) since the miniseries that I won't bother to watch a second time. I can't believe I found myself HOPING for some of that love quadrangle crap between Kara/Apollo et. al. just to pass some time-- the Helo/Sharon home life stuff stunk.

When it comes to Helo and his personal life-- I JUST DON'T CARE. His TV presence has always been less than stimulating, and this ep just dragged. The new doctor came out of nowhere, and his sniveling just wasn't believable.

I guess I have an extra hour left on my DVR-- this episode's not worth saving.

And what a trite title...who dreamed this up?

My turn to be trite...I hope it's not the "shape of things to come".

Very disappointing episode.

[maneth]

It was an interesting episode. I rather like it when we see some civilian life. And it was really refreshing to see Dualla without Lee in the picture. Lee tends to dominate any scene they're in together, it's good to know she can stand on her own two feet.

It would have been nice to know about a civilian doctor on Galactica (I always assumed there were others aboard the other vessels in the fleet).

One point that puzzles me, though. Why did the Sagittarons have to come to the Galactica in the first place? Was there a throwaway line I missed, or what?

Having Sharon take the baby to Dr. Robert rather than Cottle was a believable detail, but I don't understand what gripe Dee has with him.

How many times has Tigh been knocked about by a fellow officer? He's one tough SoB.

I like that it's not all about chasing the cylons and trying to find Earth. That story's told in one season, as happened with BSG TOS.

I rather like Helo, so it was great to see him given an entire episode, and a relief to only catch a glimpse of the queasy quadrangle. Even though I could've lived without that as well.

As a Gaeta fan it was lovely to see him get the opportunity to relax for once, especially after the harrowing incindents in the previous episode, even if it was just being high from smoking fleet weed...

[Apollux]

Did anybody noticed that this episode was written by Michael Angeli, the same one who wrote "Six Degrees of Separation" and "A Measure of Salvation".

So it doesn´t comes as a surprize that virtual personnas and genocide are the main subject (or at least the most interesting subjects) of the episode.

On that train of thought, the final/bonus escene could be considered an author's inside joke to link (if the link wasn´t obvious already) this episode with his previous one.

BTW, this is my first post on GateWorld

[Skydiver]

not that i want her dead, cause i don't, but it would have been interesting had dee died.

ok, so apparantly adama, tigh, cottle and the rest are perfectly fine with bigotry and genocide as long as it's those evil saggitarians dying....but think of the emotional fallout of adama's daughter in law dying because seh's one of that hated group, could have been interesting dynamic between lee and adama.

I think that's about the only thing that coulda saved the show.

because adama, tigh, cottle and even roslyn were so horribly out of character in what was either bigotry or nonchalance that it just all rang wrong to me. It's like they were forced to be uncaring simply to facilitate teh plot moving along

[apotheion]

One thing that stuck with me after the episode was how ghost-baltar told Six that if she wanted to be human, what it meant to be human was that you only have to think of yourself. And the entire episode is about how Helo thinks of everyone other than himself almost all the time. Maybe he's one of the final five, and part of the distinction between the two cylon groups is the whole inability to love or whatever it is that rpevents them from having children.

also, really liked the episode (and helo), but does the actor who played Roberts ALWAYS have to play an evil character in everything he does? The dude's totally typecast.